Culture of Western Europe in the XVIII century. European culture of the 18th century in the culture of Western Europe of the 19th century
No, you will not be oblivious, the century is insane and wise! ..
A.N. Radishchev
In a series of centuries of European history, the 18th century occupies a special place. There were times of more grandiose accomplishments, but there was no era more complete in style, more, so to speak, "whole." The well-known art critic N. Dmitrieva calls it the last century of the domination of aristocratic culture. Hence its refinement and this very “stylishness”, sometimes to the detriment of depth. And at the same time, this is the era of establishing new values in the life of Europeans, values that are still alive today and which, in fact, determine the current face of European civilization.
Under the melodious chimes of harpsichords and harps, several revolutions took place simultaneously in the life, heads and hearts of Europeans, of which only two we usually call proper “revolutions”: the Great French Revolution and the War of Independence of the United States of America. Meanwhile, they only put full stops in the sentences that smelled of blood and gunpowder, which Europe diligently wrote throughout the 18th century.
So, first a little about the revolutions.
Revolution on the tables
The main achievement of the "eighteenth century" is that it basically ended the famine in the main countries of Europe. Let the “bread riots” in Paris not really bother us: more often they rebelled because of the lack or high cost of the already familiar white bread. So the frivolous phrase of Marie Antoinette (“If the people have no bread, let them eat cakes”) is somewhat not so frivolous. Yes, there were interruptions in the supply of bread to large cities, but in terms of absolutely starvation, Europe shot back in full at the very beginning of the 18th century, when, during a crop failure, black bread was even served at the table of Madame Maintenon.
In the 18th century, the European menu changed dramatically. The old triad (bread - meat - wine) is complemented by new products: potatoes, corn, spinach, green peas, tea, coffee and chocolate (which are becoming more and more popular delicacies). Yes, and the former three "whales" of the European diet are significantly changing their "face". Since the middle of the 18th century in France, rye bread has been replaced by wheat bread in milk (the famous "French booths" were brought to Europe on their bayonets by Napoleon's soldiers).
With the improvement of animal husbandry, the market for meat is gradually saturated, extremely constrained by the powerful increase in population in the previous three centuries. Of course, for most Europeans, meat is still not available in the most useful form: in the form of corned beef and all sorts of smoked meats. However, with fish it was still more difficult: they said that the poor could only enjoy the aroma of fresh fish.
Finally, the climate and taste preferences also determined the characteristics of the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The south and southwest of Europe chose wine, the north and northwest - beer, and the most dashing and cold northeast - of course, vodka.
The influx of sugar (generally speaking, while very expensive) made it possible to harvest fruits and berries (and vitamins for the winter) for the future. True, at the beginning of the 18th century, jam was still such a rare and valuable product that, for example, the Parisians presented it as a gift to Peter the Great.
All these seemingly purely culinary innovations have made a real revolution. Suffice it to say that Britain, which did not know the shortage of meat products, owes much to this powerful population growth in the 18th century - without which, in fact, the British Empire would not have happened. And the love of American colonists for tea led to their indignation at the rise in duties on tea introduced by English officials (the so-called "Boston Tea Party"). Figuratively speaking, the United States of America was born from a cup of spilled tea.
The revolution on the tables moved forward the development of society. Without it, Europe and North America would not have become the hegemon of the rest of the world in the 19th century.
(By the way, the 18th century came to grips with the laying of the European table, which was greatly facilitated by the production of porcelain, gourmetism instead of gluttony and an increase in hygiene standards. The rules of conduct at the table, dishes and cutlery came to us (at least at the level of embassy and restaurant banquets) from there - from the "eighteenth century").
Revolution in the mind
The 18th century is usually called the Age of Enlightenment, although this word itself is too sluggish and approximately defines the processes that went on in the minds of Europeans between 1700 and 1804 (I indicate the year of I. Kant's death).
European thinkers break with theology and delimit the realm of philosophy proper from natural science. According to the Newtonian mechanistic picture of the world, God is needed only as the one who gave the first impetus to the development of nature, and then the world rolled away from him quite separately.
The 18th century is the century of practitioners, which is why thinkers are not satisfied with empty scholastic speculations. The criterion of truth is experience. Any pathos and rhetoric seem out of place under any circumstances. Dying of cancer, the marquise, whom Rousseau served, emits gases, declares that a woman capable of such a thing will still live, and gives her soul to God, one might say, with a boldly careless smile.
Philosophers admire the perfection of the world (Leibniz) and mercilessly criticize it (encyclopedists), sing praises to reason and the progress of civilization (Voltaire) and declare progress and reason to be enemies of the natural rights of man (Rousseau). But all these theories now, at a distance of years, do not seem mutually exclusive. All of them revolve around a person, his ability to understand the world around him and transform it in accordance with his needs and ideas about the “best”.
At the same time, for a very long time, philosophers are convinced that a person is reasonable and good by nature, that only “circumstances” are to blame for his misfortunes. Literacy and potatoes are planted by the monarchs themselves. The general mood of European philosophy of the 18th century can be called "cautious optimism", and its slogan is Voltaire's call to everyone "cultivate their own garden."
Alas, the bloody horrors of the French Revolution will force the benevolent delusion of philosophers to be radically reconsidered - but this will be done already by the next century. However, the purely European idea of individual rights will be established then, in the 18th century, as the most basic value.
Revolution in the hearts
The "Age of Reason" would not have taken place in all its splendor without a revolution in the hearts. The person gradually emancipates, realizes his inner world as important and valuable. The emotional life of Europeans is becoming richer and more refined.
Immortal evidence of this was the great music of the 18th century, perhaps one of the highest achievements in the history of mankind.
The remarkable French composer of the early 18th century, J.F. Rameau was the first to formulate the inherently valuable role of music, which was previously considered only an aid to the word. He wrote: “In order to truly enjoy music, we must completely dissolve in it” (quoted from: G. Koenigsberger, p. 248).
The music expressed the emotions of the time much more accurately and more subtly than the censored word, clamped down by conventions. For the educated European, it has become an urgent need. In the libraries of Czech and Austrian castles, musical folders are crowded on the shelves along with books: musical novelties were read here from the leaf, like newspapers - and just as eagerly!
The music of the 18th century is still full of a mass of conventions and given formulas. It was the presence of these common places that allowed composers to be so prolific (over 40 operas by G.F. Handel, more than 200 violin concertos by A. Vivaldi, more than 100 symphonies by I. Haydn!) At the same time, it is still so democratic that it even gives a chance and amateurs: Zh.Zh. Rousseau composes an opera, which is a success at court, and the king himself, terribly out of tune, sings his favorite arietta from there.
The music of the 18th century was closely connected with life and everyday life. Bach hoped that his sacred music could be performed by the choir of parishioners in the church, and the most beloved household dance, the minuet, became an integral part of any symphony until the era of Beethoven.
Every country in the 18th century realized its identity through music. German G.F. Handel brought the magnificent Italian opera seria to foggy London. But the ancient stories seemed to the British public too abstract and lifeless. Practically without changing the musical form, Handel proceeds to create oratorios - which, as it were, are the same operas, but only in concert performance, while they are written to stories from the Bible that the listeners have experienced passionately. And the widest public responds with enthusiasm to this - Handel's spiritual oratorios become a national treasure, their performance translates into patriotic demonstrations.
The result of the musical development of the 18th century is the work of V.A. Mozart. The brilliant Austrian introduces a new theme into music - the theme of the fate of his creator, that is, he introduces the personality of a contemporary with his simple and urgent desires, joys and fears. “In general, Man is a creature of God” thanks to this, in music, it turns into a person of a particular era, acquires the features of a real personality and destiny
Revolution in manners
A strictly hierarchical feudal society always pays special attention to etiquette. It is a means of emphasizing the status (ordered inequality) of social position.
Of course, etiquette continues to dominate relations between people in the 18th century. Ambassadors delay presentation of credentials if papers do not arrive in time to confirm that their nobility dates back to at least the 14th century. Otherwise, during the presentation ceremony in Versailles, the king will not be able to hug and kiss the ambassador's wife, but only greet her! Etiquette dominates the minds of the courtiers to such an extent that some of them quite seriously assure that the French Revolution broke out because Necker, the controller general of finances, appeared to the king in shoes with bows, and not with buckles!
However, the monarchs themselves are already quite tired of all these conventions. Louis the Fifteenth hides from the bonds of etiquette in the boudoirs of his beloved, Catherine the Great in her Hermitage, and Marie Antoinette cannot swallow even a piece at the traditional public royal meal and is sated after, already alone.
The court is opposed by the salon, aristocratic and bourgeois, where the owners and guests communicate briefly. The tone is set by the most august persons. The regent of France, Philippe d'Orléans Jr., proclaims at his orgies: "Everything is forbidden here except pleasure!"
But the ice floe of feudal etiquette is melting slowly and unevenly. Back in 1726, the lackeys of a noble lord can beat with sticks the fashionable author de Voltaire for a daring answer to their master. Back in 1730, the church could refuse to bury the famous actress Adrienne Lecouvreur (despite the fact that she was the mistress of the marshal of France), because during her lifetime she was engaged in the “shameful craft of a hypocrite.”
But twenty years later, in the same France, the status of the artist is changing - the artist will literally force the king to respect his human dignity. And it was like that. Offended by Louis the Fifteenth, the famous master of pastel portrait Latour for a long time refused to perpetuate the Marquise de Pompadour. When she managed to persuade the capricious, the artist undressed in front of her almost to the shirt. During the session, the king entered. “How, madam, you swore to me that we would not be disturbed!” Latour yelled and rushed to collect the crayons. The king and his master barely persuaded the pastel virtuoso to continue the session.
Of course, in a feudal society, everything is determined by rank, not by talent. Mozart writes that at the table of the Salzburg archbishop his place is higher than a lackey, but lower than a cook. But at about this time, already bourgeois England was burying the "actor", the great actor D. Garrick, in Westminster Abbey!
The crisis of feudal society gives rise to a new idea of man. Now the ideal is not a feudal lord or a court noble, but a private person, a "good man" in France, a gentleman in England. By the end of the century in these countries, not nobility, but success, talent and wealth determine the status of an individual in society.
Here is a typical anecdote on the subject. Napoleon hated the composer Cherubini. Once, at a reception in the palace, after the introduction of all those present, the emperor again defiantly inquired about the name of "this gentleman." "Still Cherubini, sir!" - the maestro answered him sharply.
In other countries, the emancipation of the individual will take almost half of the next century.
Peter discovers Europe
In the 18th century, another great power, Russia, entered the European political scene. The "presentation" of the new political giant took place in the spring and summer of 1717, when the embassy of the still mysterious, but already slightly Europeanized "Muscovites" visited a number of European capitals.
Alas, neither in Paris nor in Berlin were they fascinated by the Russian heroes, led by Tsar Peter.
And now the details.
At the end of April of that year, the Russians appeared on the French border. Versailles sent one of his most elegant courtiers, the Marquis de Mailly-Nesle, to meet them. The marquis found the Russians... naturally, in a tavern, snoring and throwing up. Only Peter spoke with his tongue.
Lecture number 18.
Topic: European culture of the XVI-XVIII centuries.
1. Culture of the Renaissance.
2. Literature of the Enlightenment.
3. Art of the XVII-XVIII centuries.
1.
The new period in the cultural development of Western and Central Europe was called the Renaissance, or Renaissance.
Renaissance (in French, Renaissance) is a humanistic movement in the history of European culture during the period of the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. The Renaissance originated in Italy in the 14th century, spread to Western countries (Northern Renaissance) and reached its peak in the middle of the 16th century. Late 16th - early 17th century: decline - mannerism.
The phenomenon of the Renaissance was determined by the fact that the ancient heritage turned into a weapon for the overthrow of church canons and prohibitions. Some culturologists, defining its significance, compare it with the grandiose cultural revolution, which lasted two and a half centuries and ended with the creation of a new type of worldview and a new type of culture. A revolution took place in art, comparable to the discovery of Copernicus. At the center of the new worldview was man, and not God as the highest measure of all that exists. The new view of the world was called humanism.
Anthropocentrism is the main idea of the Renaissance worldview. The birth of a new worldview is associated with the writer Francesco Petrarch. Scholasticism, based on the formal terminological method, he opposes scientific knowledge; happiness in the "City of God" - earthly human happiness; spiritual love for God - sublime love for an earthly woman.
The ideas of humanism were expressed in the fact that in a person his personal qualities are important - mind, creative energy, enterprise, self-esteem, will and education, and not social status and origin.
In the Renaissance, the ideal of a harmonious, liberated, creative personality, beauty and harmony is affirmed, a person is turned to as the highest principle of being, a sense of the integrity and harmonious laws of the universe.
The Renaissance gave rise to geniuses and titans:
Italy - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, politician Machiavelli, philosophers Alberti, Bruni, Val, Ficino, Nicholas of Cusa, architects Brunelleschi and Bramante;
France - Rabelais and Montaigne;
England - More, Bacon, Sydney, Shakespeare;
Spain - Cervantes;
Poland - Copernicus;
Germany - Boehme, Müntzer, Kepler.
Renaissance masterpieces:
Leonardo da Vinci "La Gioconda", "The Last Supper";
Raphael "Sistine Madonna" and "Sleeping Venus", "Madonna Conestabile" and "Judith";
Titian "Danae" (Hermitage Museum).
The main feature of the art and culture of the Renaissance is the affirmation of the beauty and talent of a person, the triumph of thought and high feelings, creative activity. Baroque and classicism styles are developing in fine arts, academicism and caravagism are developing in painting. New genres appear - landscape, still life, paintings of everyday life, hunts and holidays.
Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa
Raphael Sistine Madonna
Renaissance architecture is based on the revival of classical, mainly Roman architecture. The main requirements are balance and clarity of proportions, the use of an order system, a sensitive attitude to the building material, its texture, and beauty.
The revival arose and most clearly manifested itself in Italy.
The period from the last decade of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century (High Renaissance) becomes the "golden age" of Italian art. The solemn and majestic architecture of Bramante and Palladio remains in the memory of his descendants, he gives the world the immortal masterpieces of Raphael and Michelangelo. The entire 16th century continues, and only at the beginning of the 17th century does the flowering of the Renaissance culture born under the sky of Italy fade away.
The late Renaissance is characterized by the rapid development of such a synthetic art form as theater, the most prominent representatives of which were Lope de Vega, Calderon, Tirso de Molina (Spain), William Shakespeare (England).
Thus, the culture of the Renaissance reflects the synthesis of the features of antiquity and medieval Christianity, and humanism is the ideological basis of the secularization of culture.
The Renaissance replaced the religious ritual with a secular one, elevated a person to a heroic pedestal.
2.
People of the 17th-18th centuries called their time centuries of reason and enlightenment. Medieval ideas, consecrated by the authorities of the church and the all-powerful tradition, were criticized. In the 18th century, the desire for knowledge based on reason, and not on faith, took possession of an entire generation. The consciousness that everything is subject to discussion, that everything must be clarified by the means of reason, was a distinctive feature of the people of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Enlightenment marked the end of the transition to modern culture. A new way of life and thinking was taking shape, which means that the artistic self-awareness of a new type of culture was also changing. Enlightenment saw in ignorance, prejudice and superstition the main cause of human disasters and social evils, and in education, philosophical and scientific activity, in freedom of thought - the path of cultural and social progress.
The ideas of social equality and personal freedom took possession, first of all, of the third estate, from whose midst most of the humanists emerged. The middle class consisted of the prosperous bourgeoisie and people of liberal professions, it possessed capital, professional and scientific knowledge, common ideas, and spiritual aspirations. The worldview of the third estate was most clearly expressed in the enlightenment movement - anti-feudal in content and revolutionary in spirit.
Radical changes also took place at the level of aesthetic consciousness. The main creative principles of the 17th century - classicism and baroque - acquired new qualities during the Enlightenment, because the art of the 17th century turned to the image of the real world. Artists, sculptors, writers recreated it in paintings and sculptures, stories and novels, in plays and performances. The realistic orientation of art prompted the creation of a new creative method.
Literature relied on public opinion, which was formed in circles and salons. The courtyard ceased to be the only center to which everyone aspired. The philosophical salons of Paris came into fashion, where Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Helvetius, Hume, Smith visited. From 1717 to 1724 more than one and a half million volumes of Voltaire and about a million volumes of Rousseau were printed. Voltaire was a truly great writer - he knew how to comprehend and explain simply and in a beautiful, elegant language the most serious topic that attracted the attention of his contemporaries. He had a tremendous influence on the minds of all enlightened Europe. His evil laughter, capable of destroying age-old traditions, was feared more than anyone's accusations. He strongly emphasized the value of culture. He portrayed the history of society as the history of the development of culture and human education. Voltaire preached the same ideas in his dramatic works and philosophical stories (“Candide, or Optimism”, “Innocent”, “Brutus”, “Tancred”, etc.).
The direction of enlightenment realism was successfully developed in England. The whole group of ideas and dreams of a better natural order received artistic expression in the famous novel by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) Robinson Crusoe. He wrote more than 200 works of various genres: poems, novels, political essays, historical and ethnographic works. The book about Robinson is nothing but the story of an isolated individual, given to the educational and corrective work of nature, a return to the state of nature. Less well known is the second part of the novel, which tells of a spiritual rebirth on an island far from civilization.
German writers, remaining on the positions of enlightenment, were looking for non-revolutionary methods of combating evil. They considered aesthetic education to be the main force of progress, and art as the main means. German writers and poets moved from the ideals of public freedom to the ideals of moral and aesthetic freedom. Such a transition is characteristic of the work of the German poet, playwright and Enlightenment art theorist Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). In his early plays, which were a huge success, the author protested against despotism and class prejudice. "Against Tyrants" - the epigraph to his famous drama "Robbers" - directly speaks of its social orientation.
In addition to the styles of baroque and classicism generally accepted in Europe, new ones appeared in the 17th-18th centuries: rococo, sentimentalism, pre-romanticism. Unlike previous centuries, there is no single style of the era, the unity of the artistic language. The art of the 18th century became a kind of encyclopedia of various stylistic forms, which were widely used by artists, architects, and musicians of this era. In France, artistic culture was closely connected with the court environment. The Rococo style originated among the French aristocracy. The words of Louis XV (1715-1754) "After us - even a flood" can be considered a characteristic of the mood that prevailed in court circles. Strict etiquette was replaced by a frivolous atmosphere, a thirst for pleasure and fun. The aristocracy was in a hurry to have fun before the flood in the atmosphere of gallant festivities, the soul of which was Madame Pompadour. The court environment partly itself formed the Rococo style with its capricious, whimsical forms. Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), a court painter, can be considered the founder of Rococo in painting. The heroes of Watteau are actresses in wide silk dresses, dandies with languid movements, cupids frolicking in the air. Even the titles of his works speak for themselves: "The Capricious", "The Feast of Love", "Society in the Park", "The Predicament". 
Watteau "The Predicament".
As a painter, Watteau was much deeper and more complex than his numerous followers. He diligently studied nature, wrote a lot from nature. After the death of Watteau, Francois Boucher (1704-1770) took his place at court. A very skilled craftsman, he worked a lot in the field of decorative painting, made sketches for tapestries, for painting on porcelain. Typical plots are The Triumph of Venus, The Toilet of Venus, The Bathing of Diana. In the works of Boucher, the mannerisms and eroticism of the Rococo era were expressed with particular force, for which he was constantly accused by moralist educators.
In the era of the French Revolution, a new classicism triumphed in art. The classicism of the 18th century is not a development of the classicism of the previous century - it is a fundamentally new historical and artistic phenomenon. Common features: an appeal to antiquity as a norm and an artistic model, assertion of the superiority of duty over feeling, increased abstraction of style, pathos of reason, order and harmony. The exponent of classicism in painting was Jacques Louis David (years of life: 1748-1825). His painting "The Oath of the Horatii" became the battle banner of new aesthetic views. A plot from the history of Rome (the Horace brothers swear an oath of fidelity to duty and readiness to fight enemies) became an expression of republican views in revolutionary France.
J.S. Bach
The 18th century brought a lot of new things to musical creativity. In the 18th century, music rose to the level of other arts that had flourished since the Renaissance. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel, Christoph Gluck, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stand at the pinnacle of musical art in the 18th century. The flourishing of music as an independent art form at that time is explained by the need for a poetic, emotional expression of the human spiritual world. In the work of Bach and Handel, the continuity of musical traditions was still preserved, but they began a new stage in the history of music. Johann Sebastian Bach (life: 1685-1750) is considered an unsurpassed master of polyphony. Working in all genres, he wrote about 200 cantatas, instrumental concertos, compositions for organ, clavier, etc. Bach was especially close to the democratic line of the German artistic tradition, associated with poetry and music of the Protestant chorale, with folk melody. Through the spiritual experience of his people, he felt the tragic beginning in human life and, at the same time, faith in ultimate harmony. Bach is a musical thinker who professes the same humanistic principle as the Enlighteners. 
Mozart
Everything new that was characteristic of progressive trends in music was embodied in the work of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (life: 1756-1791). Together with Franz Joseph Haydn, he represented the Vienna Classical School. Haydn's main genre was the symphony, Mozart's opera. He changed the traditional opera forms, introduced psychological individuality into the genre types of symphonies. He owns about 20 operas: (“The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni”, “The Magic Flute”); 50 symphonic concertos, numerous sonatas, variations, masses, the famous "Requiem", choral compositions. 
Profound changes in the socio-political and spiritual life of Europe, associated with the emergence and development of bourgeois economic relations, determined the main dominants of the culture of the 18th century. The special place of this historical era was also reflected in the epithets it received: “the age of reason”, “the Age of Enlightenment”. The secularization of public consciousness, the spread of the ideals of Protestantism, the rapid development of natural science, the growing interest in scientific and philosophical knowledge outside the offices and laboratories of scientists - these are just some of the most significant signs of the times. The 18th century loudly declares itself, putting forward a new understanding of the main dominants of human existence: the attitude towards God, society, the state, other people and, in the end, a new understanding of Man himself.
The Age of Enlightenment can rightly be called the "golden age of utopia". Enlightenment primarily included a belief in the ability to change a person for the better, "rationally" transforming political and social foundations. Attributing all the properties of human nature to the influence of surrounding circumstances or the environment (political institutions, educational systems, laws), the philosophy of this era prompted reflection on such conditions of existence that would contribute to the triumph of virtue and universal happiness. Never before has European culture produced so many novels and treatises describing ideal societies, the ways of their construction and establishment. Even in the most pragmatic writings of that time, the features of utopia are visible. For example, the famous "Declaration of Independence" included the following statement: "All people are created equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness."
The guideline for the creators of utopias of the 18th century was the “natural” or “natural” state of a society that did not know private property and oppression, division into estates, not drowning in luxury and not burdened with poverty, not affected by vices, living in accordance with reason, and not “artificial” laws. It was an exclusively fictional, speculative type of society, which, according to the prominent philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment, Jean Jacques Rousseau, may never have existed and which, most likely, will never exist in reality. The ideal of social structure proposed by thinkers of the 18th century was used to crush the existing order of things.
The visible embodiment of the "better worlds" for the people of the Enlightenment were gardens and parks. As in utopias, they constructed a world that was alternative to the existing one, corresponding to the ideas of the time about ethical ideals, a happy life, the harmony of nature and man, people among themselves, the freedom and self-sufficiency of the human person. The special place of nature in the cultural paradigm of the 18th century is associated with the proclamation of it as the source of truth and the main teacher of society and every person. Like nature in general, a garden or park became a place of philosophical conversations and reflections, cultivating faith in the power of reason and the upbringing of lofty feelings. The park of the Enlightenment was created for the lofty and noble purpose - to create a perfect environment for a perfect person. “Having inspired love for the fields, we inspire virtue” (Delil J. Sady. -L., 1987. P. 6). Often, utilitarian buildings (for example, dairy farms) were included as an addition to the park, which, however, performed completely different functions. The most important moral and ethical postulate of the Enlightenment - the obligation to work - found a visible and real embodiment here, since representatives of the ruling houses, the aristocracy, and the intellectual elite indulge in caring for gardens in Europe.
Enlightenment parks were not identical with nature. Their designers selected and assembled the elements of the real landscape that seemed to them the most perfect, in many cases changing it entirely in accordance with their plan. At the same time, one of the main tasks was to preserve the "impression of naturalness", the feeling of "wild nature". The composition of parks and gardens included libraries, art galleries, museums, theaters, temples dedicated not only to the gods, but also to human feelings - love, friendship, melancholy. All this ensured the implementation of enlightenment ideas about happiness as a “natural state” of a “natural person”, the main condition of which was a return to nature.
In general, one can consider the artistic culture of the 18th century as a period of breaking up the grandiose artistic system that had been erected over the centuries, in accordance with which art created a special ideal environment, a model of life more significant than the real, earthly life of a person. This model turned a person into a part of a higher world of solemn heroism and higher religious, ideological and ethical values. The Renaissance replaced the religious ritual with a secular one, elevated a person to a heroic pedestal, but all the same, art dictated its own standards to him. In the 18th century, this whole system was revised. An ironic and skeptical attitude towards everything that was considered chosen and sublime before, the transformation of sublime categories into academic models removed the halo of the exclusivity of phenomena that were revered as examples for centuries. For the first time, the possibility of unprecedented freedom of observation and creativity opened up before the artist. The art of the Enlightenment used the old stylistic forms of classicism, reflecting with their help a completely different content.
European art of the 18th century combined two different antagonistic principles. Classicism meant the subordination of man to the social system, developing romanticism sought to maximize the strengthening of the individual, personal principle. However, the classicism of the 18th century changed significantly compared to the classicism of the 17th century, discarding in some cases one of the most characteristic features of style - ancient classical forms. In addition, the "new" classicism of the Enlightenment, at its very core, was not alien to romanticism. In the art of different countries and peoples, classicism and romanticism sometimes form a kind of synthesis, sometimes they exist in all sorts of combinations and mixtures.
An important new beginning in the art of the 18th century was the emergence of trends that did not have their own stylistic form and did not feel the need to develop it. Such a major culturological trend was, first of all, sentimentalism, which fully reflected the enlightenment ideas about the original purity and kindness of human nature, lost along with the original "natural state" of society, its distance from nature. Sentimentalism was addressed primarily to the inner, personal, intimate world of human feelings and thoughts, and therefore did not require special stylistic design. Sentimentalism is extremely close to romanticism, the “natural” person sung by it inevitably experiences the tragedy of a collision with natural and social elements, with life itself, which is preparing great upheavals, the premonition of which fills the entire culture of the 18th century.
One of the most important characteristics of the culture of the Enlightenment is the process of displacement of the religious principles of art by secular ones. Secular architecture in the 18th century for the first time takes precedence over church architecture in almost all of Europe. Obviously, the invasion of the secular principle into the religious painting of those countries where it previously played a major role - Italy, Austria, Germany. Genre painting, reflecting the artist's everyday observation of the real life of real people, is becoming widespread in almost all European countries, sometimes striving to take the main place in art. The ceremonial portrait, so popular in the past, is giving way to an intimate portrait, and in landscape painting the so-called “mood landscape” (Watto, Gainsborough, Guardi) appears and spreads in different countries.
A characteristic feature of the painting of the XVIII century is the increased attention to the sketch, not only among the artists themselves, but also among connoisseurs of works of art. Personal, individual perception, mood, reflected in the sketch, sometimes turn out to be more interesting and cause a greater emotional and aesthetic impact than the finished work. Drawing and engraving are valued more than paintings because they establish a more direct connection between viewers and the artist. The tastes and requirements of the era changed the requirements for the color of paintings. In the works of artists of the 18th century, the decorative understanding of color is enhanced, the picture should not only express and reflect something, but also decorate the place where it is located. Therefore, along with the subtlety of halftones and the delicacy of the color scheme, artists strive for multicolor and even variegation.
The product of a purely secular culture of the Enlightenment was the Rococo style, which received the most perfect embodiment in the field of applied art. It also manifested itself in other areas where the artist has to solve decorative and design tasks: in architecture - in planning and decorating the interior, in painting - in decorative panels, murals, screens, etc. Rococo architecture and painting are primarily focused on creating comfort and grace for the person who will contemplate and enjoy their creations. Small rooms do not seem cramped thanks to the illusion of “playing space” created by architects and artists who skillfully use various artistic means for this: ornament, mirrors, panels, special colors, etc. The new style has become, first of all, the style of poor houses, in which, with a few tricks, he introduced the spirit of coziness and comfort without underlined luxury and pomposity. The eighteenth century introduced many household items that bring comfort and peace to a person, warning his desires, making them at the same time objects of genuine art.
The attraction of visual arts to entertaining, narrative and literary explains its rapprochement with the theater. The 18th century is often referred to as the "golden age of the theatre". The names of Marivo, Beaumarchais, Sheridan, Fielding, Gozzi, Goldoni constitute one of the brightest pages in the history of world drama. The theater turned out to be close to the very spirit of the era. Life itself went to meet him, suggesting interesting plots and conflicts, filling old forms with new content. The secularization of public life, the deprivation of the church and court ritual of its former holiness and pomposity led to their kind of "theatricalization". It is no coincidence that it was during the Enlightenment that the famous Venetian carnival became not just a holiday, but precisely a way of life, a form of life.
The concept of "theater", "theatricality" is also associated with the concept of "publicity". During the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, the first public exhibitions were organized - salons, which represented a new kind of connection between art and society. In France, salons play an unusually important role not only in the life of the intellectual elite, artists and spectators, connoisseurs of works of art, but also become a place for disputes on the most serious issues of the state system. Denis Diderot - an outstanding thinker of the XVIII century - practically introduces a new genre of literature - critical reviews of salons. In them, he not only describes certain works of art, styles and trends, but also, expressing his own opinion, comes to interesting aesthetic and philosophical discoveries. Such a talented, uncompromising critic, who plays the role of an “active spectator”, an intermediary between the artist and society, sometimes even dictating a certain “social order” to art, is a product of the time and a reflection of the very essence of enlightenment ideas.
Music occupies an important place in the hierarchy of spiritual values in the 18th century. If the fine arts of the rococo strive primarily to decorate life, the theater - to denounce and entertain, then the music of the Enlightenment strikes a person with the scale and depth of analysis of the most hidden corners of the human soul. The attitude towards music is also changing, which in the 17th century was just an applied instrument of influence both in the secular and in the religious spheres of culture. In France and Italy in the second half of the century, a new secular type of music, opera, flourished. In Germany and Austria, the most "serious" forms of musical works developed - the oratorio and mass (in church culture) and the concert (in secular culture). The pinnacle of the musical culture of the Enlightenment, no doubt, is the work of Bach and Mozart.
18th century - the last historical stage of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The development of culture during this period in all countries Europe passed under the sign ideas of the Enlightenment.
In this century, Germany has developed school of classical German idealist philosophy. In France, the largest detachment of enlighteners was formed, from there the ideas of the Enlightenment spread throughout Europe. In his works (-Persian Letters" and "On the Spirit of Laws") Charles Louis Montesquieu spoke out against unlimited monarchy and feudalism. Voltaire was an outstanding leader of the French Enlightenment. He wrote beautiful literary, philosophical and historical works that expressed hatred of religious fanaticism and the feudal state. The activities of Jean Jacques Rousseau became a new stage in the development of the French Enlightenment. His works contained hatred for the oppressors, criticism of the state system, social inequality.
The fate of French materialism is connected with the names of Denis Diderot, Etienne Bonnot Condillac, Paul Holbach. 50-60s 18th century - flourishing activity of the French materialists. This period is characterized by the simultaneous development of science and technology. Thanks to Adam Smith, political economy becomes a scientific discipline. Science developed rapidly, it was directly related to technology and production. In the XVIII century, literature and music become more significant, gradually they come to the fore among all kinds of arts. Prose is developing as a genre that shows the fate of an individual in the social environment of that time. The genre of the novel, which describes the universal picture of the world, is developing especially fruitfully. At the end of the XVII-XVIII centuries. that musical language begins to take shape, in which all of Europe will then speak. The first were J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel. J. Haydn, W. Mozart, L. van Beethoven had a huge influence on the art of music. Great results were achieved by theatrical art, dramaturgy, which was of a realistic and pre-romantic nature.
A distinctive feature of this time is the study of the main issues of the aesthetics of the theater, the nature of acting. The 18th century is often called the "golden age of the theatre". The greatest playwright P. O. Beaumarchais considered him "a giant who mortally wounds everyone he directs his blows at." The largest playwrights were: R. Sheridan (England), K, Goldoni (Venice ], P. Beaumarchais (France), G. Lessing, I. Goethe (Germany), F. Schiller.
The leading genre of painting of the XVIII century. was a portrait.
Among the artists of this time, Gainsborough, Latour, Houdon, Chardin, Watteau, Guardi can be distinguished. Painting does not reflect the universal fullness of the scope of the spiritual life of a person, as it was before. In different countries, the formation of a new art is uneven. Painting and sculpture in the Rococo style were decorative in nature.
Art of the 18th century ends with the magnificent work of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Cultural heritage of the XVIII century. still amazes with its extraordinary diversity, the richness of genres and styles, the depth of understanding of human passions, the greatest optimism and faith in man and his mind. The Age of Enlightenment is the age of great discoveries and great delusions. It is no coincidence that the end of this era falls on the beginning of the French Revolution. She destroyed the faith of the enlighteners in the "golden age" of non-violent progress. It strengthened the position of critics of his goals and ideals.
The European culture of the XVIII century not only continues the cultural development of the previous (XVII) century, but also differs from it in style, color, tone.
17th century - the age of the formation of rationalism. XVIII - century of Enlightenment, when the rationalistic paradigms of culture received their more concrete social address: they became the mainstay of "third estate" in his first ideological and then political struggle against the feudal, absolutist system.
Voltaire and Rousseau in France, Goethe and Schiller in Germany, Hume in England, Lomonosov and Radishchev in Russia - all the great humanist enlighteners of the 18th century acted as convinced supporters and defenders of human freedom, broad and universal development of the individual, implacable opponents of slavery and despotism. In France, where the contradictions of public life were experienced most acutely, the ideology of the Enlightenment, predominantly materialistic and atheistic, became the theoretical, spiritual prerequisite for the great revolution of 1789-1793, and then the broad reformist movement that began on the continent. A decade earlier, on the ideas of the Enlightenment, the state of the North American United States was created.
The American War of Independence, the French political revolution, and the industrial revolution in England summed up the "summary" of a long, intense pan-European development since the Reformation. This result was the formation of a modern type of society - an industrial civilization. Not only the feudal, subsistence system of economy was violated. The consciousness inherent in him “broke” - the servility of the vassal to the “signor” and “suzerain”, although in this breakdown not only “high”, but also “low” (the terms are borrowed from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit) consciousness of the era was born - cynicism and nihilism those social strata and classes that perceived what was happening only as a crisis and decay and were themselves not capable of social creativity.
Understand the 18th century means to comprehend its contrasts and paradoxes. Refinement, the elegance of classicism, the splendor of the Louvre and Versailles, the grandeur of the Prado and Westminster Abbey coexisted with superstition, the darkness and illiteracy of the masses, with the lack of rights and poverty of the peasantry, with the degradation and savagery of the urban lumpen. Brilliance and poverty further strengthened and set off each other.
The moral crisis also engulfed the "educated" strata of society. A classic monument of the magnificent and pompous era of Louis XV was the hero of Diderot's famous dialogue "Ramo's Nephew" - the forerunner of future nihilists and Nietzscheans (The dialogue was written in 1762. His character is a real person, the nephew of the famous French composer). In the image of an outstanding, but immoral cynic and adventurer, the author of the dialogue brought out a type of person who did not find himself in his time, and therefore socially dangerous.
The “low”, “torn” consciousness of timelessness, its destructive and corrupting power was opposed by the power of creation and creativity – culture. The main vector of its development was the gradual but steady overcoming of the one-sided, "monochromatic" vision of man and the world, the transition from mechanical to organic, i.e. holistic, multi-qualitative perception of reality.
In production in the basic structure of society, there was a transition from manufactory to more developed and complex technologies, to the development of new types of raw materials and energy sources - to the use of natural forces not in their original form, but in a qualitatively altered, transformed form.
In science the monopoly of mechanical and mathematical knowledge gave way to the promotion - along with them - of experimental and descriptive disciplines: physics, geography, biology. Naturalists - naturalists (D.Getton, K.Linney etc.) collected, systematized a great variety of phenomena and formations of nature. Quality and quantity have now taken an equal, comparable place in the logic, language and thinking of the theoretician.
Not only scientific but also mass consciousness 18th century acquired features that were not characteristic of the rational and rational XVII century, when there was only “black and white”, a one-dimensional distinction of opposites into “yes” and “no”, truth and falsehood, good and evil, right and wrong. 18th century already began to notice halftones, recognizing a person's right to change, improve his nature, i.e. the right to "enlightenment" and education as processes that require and involve time. Belief in the possibility of transforming the world on a reasonable basis and the moral perfection of the individual already assumed elements of historicism in the consciousness and self-awareness of the era.
This theme - the constancy and variability of human Nature, its dependence and independence on external conditions or "environment", - born in the mass experience of people who are waiting for changes and practically preparing with their activities an unprecedented renewal of life, has become one of the central themes. philosophical reflection. That which was only anticipated and foreseen among the masses, philosophy raised to the level of criticism. Both the social (state) system and the ideology of this system - religion - became its object.
In France, where social contradictions have reached the most acute and open forms of class confrontation. Religion (Catholicism) was criticized from radical, atheistic positions. According to Holbach, religion is a lie and delirium, a "sacred infection", without putting an end to which it is impossible to deal with the violence and despotism of the feudal lords. Englishman Hume and German Kant were far from such rationalism. But their criticism of feudal ideology also aimed at its epicenter: contrary to the Old and New Testaments human personality and public morality were declared autonomous in relation to religion, which itself was now derived from the requirements and interests of morality, instead of becoming its support and source. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant rejected all possible evidence for the existence of God and personal immortality, and this, according to Heinrich Heine, was then a real "storming of heaven."
But even in the homeland of the revolution - in France - the ideas of the Enlightenment were not homogeneous, having undergone a significant evolution - from reformism (in the first half of the century) to openly revolutionary programs of action (in the 60-80s of the XVIII century). So, if the representatives of the older generation of enlighteners - Montesquieu and Voltaire, expressing the interests and mindsets of the upper strata of the pre-revolutionary French bourgeoisie, the idea of gradually bourgeoisizing feudal society along the lines of neighboring England, which had long ago established a constitutional monarchy, prevailed, then the ideologists of the next generation of anti-feudal thinkers - La Mettrie, Diderot, Helvetia, Holbach- a different mood was already traced: a resolute denial of landlord property and estate privileges, an open call for the overthrow of despotic power.
In the largest countries of Europe by the middle of the XVIII century. the royal power no longer needed to flirt with the "third estate", no longer looked for an ally in it in the fight against the feudal freemen. More important now for her was the strengthening of the alliance with the church and the higher nobility. In the face of the main threat, to suppress peasant unrest and hungry riots of the townspeople, all the forces of the old society united, forgetting the previous strife. Having declared war on its own people, the absolutist regime also transferred it to the sphere of culture: "impious" and "rebellious" books were publicly burned, and their authors were awaited by the Château de Vincennes or the Bastille. However, all this did not put off, but brought closer the people's explosion, the revolution.
The spirit, the attitude of the era in the most vivid and expressive way imprinted itself in art. The Greatest Artists of the Century: Bach, Goethe, Mozart, Swift spoke with contemporaries and future generations of people in the language of eternity, without constraining and not fettering themselves with any conventions and artificial rules of "style".
But this does not mean that the XVIII century. did not know his own, characteristic artistic styles. The main one was Baroque - a style that combined old traditions (Gothic) with new trends - the ideas of democratic freethinking. Combining the aristocracy of form with an appeal to the "folk", i.e. bourgeois taste, painting, sculpture, and especially baroque architecture, is an imperishable monument to the dualism of the era, a symbol of the continuity of European culture, but also the uniqueness of historical time (an example of which is Bernini's sculpture, Rastrelli's architecture, Giordano's painting, Calderon's poetry, Lully's music and others).
During the first three quarters of the 18th century along with the baroque in Western European art, another style has spread quite widely - rococo: he received such a name for pretentiousness, mannerism, deliberate "dissimilarity" of works of art made in this style with a rough, unvarnished nature. Decorative theatricality, fragility and conventionality of images are the complete opposite of the “frivolous” Rococo to the heavy solemnity of the Baroque. The slogan of Rococo aesthetics - “art for enjoyment” - expressed quite accurately and eloquently the worldview of the pre-revolutionary aristocracy, who lived “one day”, according to the famous motto of Louis XV: "After us - even a flood."
But the majority of the nation did not expect a flood, but a cleansing storm. By the middle of the century, all educated, thinking France, then the rest of Europe (up to Russia) lived on the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment. Voltaire and Rousseau became the flag of the struggle. But Voltairianism and Rousseauism are still different, in many respects dissimilar programs and goals, two rather distant poles of intense social life, two centers of concentration of anti-feudal, anti-serfdom forces. During their lifetime (both thinkers died in the same year - 1778), Voltaire and Rousseau treated each other sharply critically, even hostilely. Voltaire was disgusted by the plebeian democracy of the Genevan philosopher, his calls to abandon the benefits and achievements of civilization in the name of the mythical "return" of man to primitive and primordial nature. Rousseau, for his part, could not share the aristocratic arrogance of his older contemporary towards the common people, as well as the deistic free-thinking of the Voltairians, their excessive, as he believed, and even dangerous rationalism.
Historical time softened and smoothed out these contradictions. In the eyes of posterity, the great figures of the Enlightenment, from whatever position they criticized the ideology and practice of the obsolete system, did one thing, a common thing. But in the actual experience of contemporaries aristocratic and democratic the paths of struggle for the reorganization of society were more than two equivalent and equivalent, equally possible variants of progress. Each of them not only expressed the historical experience of the past in its own way (due to the long-standing and continuing divergence in the culture of material and spiritual, moral and mental development), but was also continued in its own way in the future - in the European history of the next, XIX century.
The path of Voltaire is the path of spiritual and social revolutions “from above”: from the freethinking of the Voltairians to the romanticism and freedom-loving “Storm and Onslaught”, to the rebellious restlessness of Byronism, and then to the Russian Decembrism of 1825. European and our domestic literature captured the heroes of the aristocratic rebellion: Childe Harold and Karl Moor, Chatsky and Dubrovsky. Their intellectual and moral superiority in relation to their contemporaries was undeniable. But just as obvious was the doom of these people to loneliness, to a great, difficult to overcome distance from the people.
The fate of Rousseau's ideas and teachings is even more complex and unusual. The slogans of the French Revolution were born from them: freedom, equality, fraternity, and in the name of freedom appeared contrary to logic - the imperatives and programs of the Jacobin dictatorship, justifying not only the theory, but also the practice of mass, exterminating terror (which the philosopher himself, who died 10 years before the revolution, of course, and did not think).
This was the first major metamorphosis of humanism in the culture of modern times. "Absolute freedom and horror" - so in the Hegelian "Phenomenology of Spirit" a paragraph is named where revolution and dictatorship are derived as a practical result of the theoretical ideas and principles of the Enlightenment, and political terror is evaluated as an absolute point of alienation. The great dialectician not only turned out to be deeply right in comprehending his own modernity based on the experience of the French Revolution, but he also looked far-sightedly into our twentieth century when he pointed out the one-sidedness of the Jacobin (thus any left-radical) principle of “absolute equality”. Calling such equality “abstract”, Hegel wrote that its only result can only be “the coldest, most vulgar death, which is no more important than if you cut a head of cabbage or swallow a sip of water” (Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 12. S. 736).
But Rousseau was not only (and not so much) the forerunner of Robespierre and Marat. The name of the Genevan sage stands at the origins of another spiritual trend, which in general can be characterized as romantic-patriarchal and anti-technocratic. (100 years after him, these same ideas were defended in Russia by Leo Tolstoy.) Rousseau, Tolstoy, their like-minded people and followers protested the broad masses (Rousseau - the urban lower classes, Tolstoy - the peasantry) against the heavy tread of civilization, which was carried out not for but at the expense of the people. At the dawn of the first industrial revolution, Rousseau did not let himself be seduced by the ripe fruits of material progress, warning about the danger of uncontrolled human impact on nature, loudly declaring the responsibility of scientists and politicians not only for the immediate, but also for the long-term consequences of their decisions.
But nothing could then dissuade a European from the fact that it was on his land in his age that great, turning points in world history were taking place or were about to take place. The rest of the world was still “unpromised” for Europe, and foreigners were “natives”. European expansion no longer assumed an accidental (as in the 16th-17th centuries), but a systematic, organized character. On the other side of the Atlantic (in the East of America), European settlers developed new territories for themselves, pushing the indigenous population of the continent to the center of the mainland. Africa, Asia, Oceania continued to be plundered predatorily. "The Fifth Continent"(Australia) has been identified by the British government as the most remote, and therefore the most brutal exile of the most important, incorrigible criminals.
Europeans, even if they fought among themselves (Austrians and Italians, Germans and French), recognized each other as equals and observed unwritten rules of conduct even in the most acute and bitter disputes (the winners could not turn the defeated into slaves, armies fought, but not peacefully population, etc.). But in non-European, "non-Christian" countries, there were no longer any norms and prohibitions for the British and French, Spaniards and Portuguese. It was supposed not to trade with the "natives" and not even to fight; them had to be conquered and destroyed. (Even if it was a country of such high and ancient culture as India.)
The European Enlightenment entered the history of culture as an era of proud and arrogant consciousness. Its contemporaries were proud of themselves and their time. Poet of the century – Goethe – with Olympian grandeur and deep satisfaction, he looked at the course of world events, which - it seemed then - fully confirmed the reasonableness and moral justification of reality.
"Everything that is reasonable is real." This is not a random phrase dropped by a philosopher. This is the self-consciousness of the era. But the following centuries made people doubt this.
