Culture of the Enlightenment: features

At the end of the 17th century, the Enlightenment began, which embraced the entire subsequent 18th century. The key features of this time were free thinking and rationalism. There was a culture of the Enlightenment that gave the world new art.

Philosophy

The whole culture of the Enlightenment era was based on new philosophical ideas formulated by thinkers of the time. The main masters of the Duma were John Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Goethe, Kant and several others. It was they who determined the spiritual shape of the eighteenth century (which is also called the Age of Reason).

The adepts of the Enlightenment believed in several key ideas. One of them is that all people are by nature equal, each person has his own interests and needs. To meet them, it is necessary to create a comfortable hostel for all. Personality does not appear in the light itself - it is formed over time due to the fact that people have physical and spiritual strength, as well as reason. Equality should first and foremost consist in the equality of all before the law.

The culture of the Enlightenment is a culture of knowledge accessible to all. Leading thinkers believed that only through the spread of education can end social upheaval. This is rationalism - the recognition of reason as the basis of behavior and knowledge of people.

In the era of the Enlightenment, disputes about religion continued. The dissociation of society from the stagnant and conservative church (primarily Catholic) has grown. Among the educated believers, the notion of God spread as an absolute mechanics that brought order to the world that existed from the beginning. Thanks to numerous scientific discoveries, the view has spread that mankind can reveal all the secrets of the universe, and riddles and miracles are left in the past.

Directions of art

In addition to philosophy, there was also the artistic culture of the Enlightenment. At this time, the art of the Old World included two main directions. The first was classicism. He embodied in literature, music, fine arts. This direction implied adherence to the ancient Roman and Greek principles. Such art was distinguished by symmetry, rationality, purposefulness and strict conformity to form.

Within the framework of romanticism, the artistic culture of the Enlightenment era responded to other requests: emotionality, imagination, creative improvisation of the artist. Often there was also such that in one work these two opposite approaches were combined. For example, the form could correspond to classicism, and the content - to romanticism.

There were also experimental styles. Sentimentalism has become an important phenomenon. He did not have his own stylistic form, but it was with his help that the ideas about human kindness and purity that people gave to nature were reflected. Russian art culture in the era of the Enlightenment, as well as the European, had its own vivid works that belonged to the flow of sentimentalism. This was the story of Nikolai Karamzin "Poor Liza."

The cult of nature

It was the sentimentalists who created the cult of nature characteristic of the Enlightenment. Thinkers of the XVIII century sought in it an example of that beautiful and kind, which humanity should strive for. The embodiment of a better world turned out to be actively developed in Europe at that time parks and gardens. They were created as a perfect environment for the perfect people. Their composition included art galleries, libraries, museums, temples, theaters.

Enlighteners believed that the new "natural man" should return to his natural state - that is, nature. According to this idea, Russian art culture in the Age of Enlightenment (or rather, architecture) gave contemporaries Peterhof. The famous architects Leblon, Zemtsov, Usov, and Quarenghi worked on its construction. Thanks to their efforts, a unique ensemble appeared on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, which included a unique park, magnificent palaces and fountains.

Painting

In painting, the artistic culture of the Enlightenment Europe developed in the direction of greater secularism. The religious principle took positions even in those countries where it had previously felt quite confident: Austria, Italy, Germany. Landscape painting was replaced by a landscape of mood, and an intimate portrait replaced a ceremonial portrait.

In the first half of the 18th century, the French culture of the Age of Enlightenment gave birth to the Rococo style. Such art was built on asymmetry, was mocking, playful and artsy. Favorite characters in this direction were Bacchante, Nymph, Venus, Diana and other figures of ancient mythology, and the main subjects - love.

A striking example of French rococo is the work of François Boucher, who was also called the "first artist of the king". He painted theatrical scenery, illustrations for books, paintings for rich houses and palaces. His most famous canvases are: "Toilet of Venus", "Triumph of Venus", etc.

Antoine Watteau, on the contrary, appealed more to modern life. Under his influence, the style of the largest English portraitist Thomas Gainsborough. His images were distinguished by spirituality, spiritual sophistication and poetry.

The main Italian painter of the XVIII century was Giovanni Tiepolo. This master of engravings and frescoes is considered art by the last great representative of the Venetian school. In the capital of the famous trading republic, there also appeared a leading - an everyday urban landscape. The most famous creators in this genre were Francesco Guardi and Antonio Canaletto. These cultural figures of the Enlightenment left behind a huge number of impressive paintings.

Theater

The eighteenth century is the golden age of the theater. In the Age of Enlightenment, this art form has reached the peak of its popularity and prevalence. In England, the greatest playwright was Richard Sheridan. His most famous works, "A Trip to Scarborough", "The School of Slander" and "Opponents" ridiculed the immorality of the bourgeoisie.

Most dynamically theatrical culture of Europe of the Enlightenment developed in Venice, where 7 theaters worked at once. The traditional annual city carnival attracted visitors from all over the Old World. In Venice, the author of the famous "Tavern" Carlo Goldoni created. This playwright, who wrote a total of 267 works, was respected and appreciated by Voltaire.

The most famous comedy of the XVIII century was the "Marriage of Figaro", written by the great Frenchman Beaumarchais. In this play embodied the mood of society, negatively related to the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons. A few years after the publication and the first productions of the comedy in France, a revolution took place that overthrew the old regime.

European culture of the Enlightenment was not homogeneous. In some countries, art has its own national characteristics. For example, German playwrights (Schiller, Goethe, Lessing) wrote their most outstanding works in the genre of tragedy. At the same time, the Enlightenment Theater in Germany appeared several decades later than in France or England.

Johann Goethe was not only a wonderful poet and playwright. It is not for nothing that it is called the "universal genius" - an expert and theoretician of art, a scientist, novelist and specialist in many other fields. His key works are the tragedy Faust and the play Egmont. Another outstanding figure of the German Enlightenment, Friedrich Schiller, not only wrote "Deceit and Love" and "The Robbers", but also left behind scientific and historical works.

Fiction

The main literary genre of the XVIII century was a novel. It was thanks to the new books that the triumph of bourgeois culture came to replace the old feudal old ideology. Actually published works of not only literary writers, but also sociologists, philosophers, economists.

The novel, as a genre, grew out of enlightening publicism. With his help, thinkers of the eighteenth century found a new form for expressing their social and philosophical ideas. Wrote the "Gulliver's Travel" Jonathan Swift put in his work a lot of allusions to the vices of modern society. His pen also belonged to The Tale of the Butterfly. In this pamphlet, Swift ridiculed the then church orders and strife.

The development of culture in the Age of Enlightenment can be traced to the emergence of new literary genres. At that time, an epistolary novel arose (a novel in letters). This was, for example, the sentimental work of Johann Goethe "The Suffering of a Young Werther", in which the protagonist committed suicide, as well as "Persian Letters" by Montesquieu. There were documentary novels in the genre of travel notes or travel descriptions ("Travels through France and Italy" Tobias Smollett).

In literature, the culture of the Enlightenment in Russia followed the precepts of classicism. In the XVIII century, the poet Alexander Sumarokov, Vasily Trediakovsky, Antioch Cantemir created. The first sprouts of sentimentalism appeared (Karamzin, already mentioned, with "Poor Lisa" and "Natalya, Boyar's Daughter"). The culture of the Enlightenment in Russia created all the prerequisites for the Russian literature, led by Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, to survive its golden age already at the beginning of the new 19th century.

Music

It was during the Enlightenment that a modern musical language developed. Its founder is Johann Bach. This great composer wrote works in all genres (the exception was opera). Bach today is considered an unsurpassed master of polyphony. Another German composer Georg Händel wrote more than 40 operas, as well as numerous sonatas and suites. Inspiration, like Bach, he drew in biblical subjects (the names of the works are "Israel in Egypt", "Saul", "Messiah").

Another important musical phenomenon of that time was the Viennese school. Works of its representatives continue to be performed by academic orchestras and today, thanks to which modern people can touch the legacy left by the culture of the era of enlightenment. The 18th century is associated with the names of such geniuses as Wolfgang Mozart, Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven. It was these Viennese composers who re-thought the old musical forms and genres.

Haydn is considered the father of the classical symphony (he wrote them more than a hundred). Many of these works were based on folk dances and songs. The peak of Haydn's creative work is the cycle of London symphonies, written by him during his trips to England. The culture of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and any other period of human history rarely produced so prolific masters. In addition to symphonies, Haydn owns 83 quartets, 13 masses, 20 operas and 52 clavier sonatas.

Mozart not only wrote music. He unrivaled playing the harpsichord and violin, mastering these tools in the earliest childhood. His operas and concerts are very different moods (from poetic lyrics to fun). The main works of Mozart are his three symphonies, written in the same year 1788 (number 39, 40, 41).

Another great classic Beethoven was fond of heroic plots, which affected the overtures of Egmont, Coriolanus and the opera Fidelio. As a performer, he amazed contemporaries by playing the piano. For this instrument 32 sonatas were written by Beethoven. The composer created most of his works in Vienna. He also owns 10 sonatas for violin and pianoforte (Kreutzer's Sonata was most famous).

Beethoven experienced a serious creative crisis, caused by the loss of their hearing. The composer inclined to suicide and wrote his legendary "Lunar" sonata in despair. However, even a terrible illness did not break the will of the artist. Picking his own apathy, Beethoven wrote many more symphonic works.

English Enlightenment

England was the birthplace of the European Enlightenment. In this country, before the others, in the XVII century, there was a bourgeois revolution, which gave impetus to cultural development. England was a clear example of social progress. The philosopher John Locke was one of the first and main theorists of the liberal idea. Under the influence of his writings was written the most important political document of the Enlightenment - the American Declaration of Independence. Locke believed that human knowledge is determined by sense perception and experience, rather than refuting the popular philosophy of Descartes.

Another important British thinker of the eighteenth century was David Hume. This philosopher, economist, historian, diplomat and publicist renewed the science of morality. His contemporary Adam Smith became the founder of modern economic theory. The culture of the epoch of enlightenment, briefly, prefaced many modern concepts and ideas. Smith's work was just like that. He was the first to equate the importance of the market with the importance of the state.

Thinkers of France

French philosophers of the eighteenth century created under the conditions of opposition to the then existing social and political order. Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu - all of them protested against domestic order. Criticism could take many forms: atheism, the idealization of the past (the republican traditions of antiquity were lauded), and so on.

A unique phenomenon of the culture of the Enlightenment was the 35-volume Encyclopedia. It was composed of the main thinkers of the "Age of Reason". The inspirer and editor-in-chief of this epoch-making edition was Denis Diderot. Paul Holbach, Julien Lamenteti, Claude Helvetius and other prominent intellectuals of the 18th century contributed to the individual volumes.

Montesquieu sharply criticized the tyranny and despotism of the authorities. Today, he is justly considered the founder of bourgeois liberalism. Voltaire was an example of outstanding wit and talent. He was the author of satirical poems, philosophical novels, political treatises. Twice the thinker got into prison, even more times he had to hide in hiding. It was Voltaire who created the fashion for freethinking and skepticism.

German Enlightenment

German culture of the XVIII century existed in the conditions of political fragmentation of the country. Advanced minds advocated the rejection of feudal remnants and national unity. Unlike the French philosophers, German thinkers cautiously treated issues related to the church.

Like the Russian culture of the Enlightenment, Prussian culture was formed with the direct participation of an autocratic monarch (in Russia it was Catherine II, in Prussia - Frederick the Great). The head of state strongly supported the progressive ideals of his time, although he did not give up his unlimited power. Such a system was called "enlightened absolutism."

The main Enlightener of Germany in the 18th century was Immanuel Kant. In 1781 he published the fundamental work "Critique of Pure Reason". The philosopher developed a new theory of knowledge, studied the possibilities of the human intellect. It was he who justified the methods of struggle and the legal forms of changing the social and state system, excluding brute violence. Kant made a significant contribution to the creation of the theory of the rule of law.