Cultural figures of the 18th century Western Europe. Culture of the Enlightenment of Western Europe in the 18th century

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XVIII century was the last historical stage of a long transition from feudalism to capitalism. The content of the historical process was the assertion of the dominance of the classical forms of developed bourgeois-capitalist society and its culture. This process took place differently in different countries.

In England - the industrial revolution, the transition to machine capitalist industry. In France - preparation for the classical bourgeois revolution, liberated from the religious shell in the expression of its political and social ideals. But, despite the national specificity of the political and cultural revolution of individual countries, the main features of their commonality were the crisis of feudalism and its ideology and the formation of the progressive ideology of the Enlightenment. XVIII century - the age of reason, the age of enlightenment, the age of philosophers, sociologists, economists. A new era is coming, a new culture is being formed. Reason and Enlightenment became the main slogans of the era. Even absolutism, yielding to the needs of the time, becomes enlightened. In Austria and Prussia, monarchs used Enlightenment ideas to strengthen the centralized system of government. The creation of a unified education system is practiced, and the development of sciences and arts is encouraged - within certain limits.

PHILOSOPHY

In all European countries, the development of culture in the 18th century. to one degree or another took place under the sign of the ideas of the Enlightenment. In Germany, a school of classical German idealistic philosophy was emerging (Kant, Fichte). In Italy, Giambattista Vico carried out the dialectization of the philosophy of modern times. In England, Berkeley's philosophy provides a theoretical justification for the religious worldview, and Hume's skepticism plays the role of a theoretical justification for the utilitarian and rational worldview of the bourgeoisie. But the most numerous group of enlighteners, sparkling with bright talents, was formed in France: it was from here, bearing the stamp of the French genius, that the ideas of the Enlightenment spread throughout Europe.

Charles Louis Montesquieu (1689-- 1755) in his works “Persian Letters” (1721), “On the Spirit of Laws” (1748) opposes feudalism and unlimited monarchy.

Montesquieu distinguishes three forms of state power: despotism, the basis of which is fear; a monarchy based on the “principle of honor” and a republic where the population is inspired by the highest civic virtue - patriotism. Montesquieu's political views, in particular his doctrine of the division of legislative, executive and judicial powers between independent but mutually controlling authorities, were not only progressive in the 18th century, but also extremely relevant for the modern political situation in Russia.

The most outstanding leader of the moderate wing of the French Enlightenment was Voltaire (1694-1778). His enormous talent was expressed in a variety of brilliantly shaped literary, philosophical, and historical works, saturated with hatred of the feudal state and religious fanaticism. Of his philosophical works, the most significant are “Philosophical Letters”, “Fundamentals of Newton’s Philosophy” and “Philosophical Dictionary”. The influence of Voltaire's ideas outside France, including in Russia, was extremely great. Voltaire's anti-clerical works played a significant role in the development of Russian free-thinking in the 18th century.

A new stage in the development of the French Enlightenment of the 18th century. was the activity of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), the ideologist of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie. His ideas, expressed in the works “On the Causes of Inequality”, “On the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law”, etc., subsequently had an impact during the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794. significant influence on the Jacobins, who proclaimed Rousseau as their ideological predecessor. His works are imbued with hatred of the oppressors, passionate criticism of the contemporary social and state system, social inequality, and ugly education. He denounces hypocritical morality, hostile to the interests of the people, false art and official science.

The most important direction in educational philosophy is represented by the materialist school. Its founder was the doctor Julien Aufrait La Mettrie (1709-- 1751), author of medical and philosophical works. La Mettrie's bold atheism aroused the ire of church and secular reactionaries. The philosopher was forced to flee France and died in exile.

The further development of French materialism is associated with the activities of Denis Diderot (1713-1784), Etienne Bonn Condillac (1710-1780) and Paul Holbach (1723-1789). The heyday of the activities of French materialists dates back to the 50-60s. XVIII century and is closely connected with the publication of the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts in 33 volumes, which became the ideological focus of the entire Enlightenment camp.

XVIII century characterized by the simultaneous development of science and technology. Political economy became a scientific discipline thanks to Adam Smith and the French physiocrats. Science is increasingly connected with production and technology, and is developing rapidly. Lavoisier, like Lomonosov in Russia, laid the foundations of chemistry as a modern science. New machines are being created to prepare the transition to the industrial age.

In the 18th century New branches of physics are being intensively developed - the study of heat, electricity, magnetism. Chemical research is being carried out widely. Biological sciences are progressing - anatomy, physiology, embryology. The successes of C. Linnaeus (1707-1778) in the classification of new factual material accumulated by botany and zoology, the development of paleontology inevitably raised the question of the evolution of the organic world. The largest representative of evolutionism of the 18th century, the French scientist J.L. Buffon (1707 - 1788) created the grandiose “Natural History”. Advances in geology have provided abundant materials on the development of the earth's crust. This was of great importance for the development of cosmogonic hypotheses put forward in the middle of the century by Buffon and Kant (1724 - 1804), and at the end of the century by P.S. Laplace (1749 - 1827).

Suffice it to say that in France there were many scientific and educational institutions - the Academy of Sciences, the Royal College, the school of military engineers, the Paris Observatory, etc. Academies and universities appeared in many provinces. Scientific works, journals, scientific notes are published, and there is an active exchange of research results. But not all was well here. Rejecting the “revealed” picture of nature as absurdity, many naturalists became involved in the creation of an unorthodox “theory of nature.” At this time, such books as “The Theology of Water” by Fabricius, “The Creator of Nature” by Boissy, “Astronomical Theology” by Dergel and others, which continued to attempt to strengthen theism through natural scientific discoveries against the backdrop of the crisis of orthodox religion, were widely popular at this time.

Western European social thought continues to develop under the sign of educational ideas. The power of reason is asserted, and criticism of class prejudices and church obscurantism becomes widespread. The exchange of philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic ideas between countries is gaining great importance. French becomes the language of international communication among the enlightened sections of society. In most countries, an intelligentsia is emerging that represents the interests of the unprivileged classes, which contributes to the formation of a broader idea of the unity of the culture of human society.

LITERATURE AND MUSIC

In the 18th century begins the process of a decisive change in the relationship between types and genres of art, which was completed in the next century. The proportion of literature and music is increasing, reaching the level of artistic maturity that painting acquired already in the 16th-17th centuries. Literature and music are gradually beginning to acquire the importance of leading forms of art. Complementing each other, they satisfy the needs of the time for an aesthetic awareness of life, its movement and formation.

Prose is developing as a genre that seeks to show the fate of an individual in its complex development over time, in intricate relationships with the social environment, or that paints a broad picture of the life and customs of the era, resolving fundamental questions about the place and role of man in the life of society. Such, despite the difference in handwriting and style, are “The Lame Demon” by Lesage, “Manon Lescaut” by Prevost, “Candide” by Voltaire, the picaresque novels of Fielding, “Sentimental Journey” by Stern, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and “Wilhelm Meister” by Goethe. The genre of the novel, which provides a universal picture of the world, is developing especially fruitfully.

The need for a poetic, emotionally holistic expression of a person’s spiritual world, the disclosure of his immediate worldview and worldview in development, contradictions and integrity predetermined the flourishing of music as an independent art form. Creation in the 18th century. Bach, Mozart, Gluck, Haydn of such musical forms as fugue, symphony, sonata, revealed the ability of music to convey the subtlest nuances and the process of formation of human experiences.

Significant in the 18th century. successes of theatrical art, dramaturgy, closely related to literature. It is characterized by a departure from the traditions of classicism to realistic and pre-romantic creative directions. A characteristic feature of the culture of this time is a close study of the main issues of theater aesthetics, the nature of acting, and coverage of the social and educational role of theatrical art.

FINE ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE

XVIII century - the century of the portrait, but already at a new stage in the development of culture. 18th century masters created a refined, differentiated art that analyzes the subtlest nuances of feelings and moods. Graceful intimacy, restrained lyricism, politely merciless analytical observation - these are the artistic features of the portraits of Latour, Gainsborough, Houdon. The ability to convey the subtlest shades of mood, to notice the characteristic is distinguished by the gallant celebrations and genre scenes of Watteau, Fragonard, modest everyday motifs of Chardin, and the city landscapes of Guardi. These qualities of artistic perception of life were first asserted with such consistency in art, but at the cost of partial loss of the artistic achievements of the past.

Painting is losing the universal fullness of coverage of human spiritual life, which was the case with Rubens, Poussin, Rembrandt, Velazquez.

The range of aesthetic needs of the 18th century. most fully revealed in the fine arts, architecture, literature and music. The problem of the relative importance of fine arts and architecture in the artistic culture of mankind will be raised with all its severity only in the era of the heyday of capitalism.

The formation of a new culture occurs very unevenly in different countries. For example, in Italy, deprived of national unity, the development of the traditions of the 17th century continues. In France in the 18th century. begins with the sad and dreamy fine art of Watteau and ends with the revolutionary pathos of David's paintings, acquiring a conscious civic orientation.

In Spain, the work of the young Goya opposed classicism with a passionate interest in the bright, characteristically expressive aspects of life and preceded the transition of fine art to the realistic romanticism of the 19th century.

In the 18th century Church architecture is decreasing and the volume of civil construction is increasing. The architecture is characterized by the late Baroque style - even more dynamically complicated, decoratively overloaded, less stately and monumental. The classicist direction is also undergoing further development. In France, a number of brilliant ensemble solutions were created (Place de la Concorde in Paris), representing a rethinking of the principles of urban ensemble planning in the spirit of classicism. Interest is emerging in a more intimate interpretation of the architectural image of a separate mansion, more comfortable and elegant. This leads to the formation of the principles of Rococo art, which is more intimate than Baroque. Rococo in architecture manifested itself mainly in the field of decoration, flat, light, capricious, whimsical, and refined.

Painting and sculpture in the Rococo style were purely decorative in nature and served, together with decorative and applied art, for interior decoration. Rococo art, more intimate, designed to decorate the leisure time of a private person who is sensitive to the “elegant” and has an exquisite taste, determined the creation of a painting style differentiated in shades of mood, in the subtleties of plot, composition, coloristic and rhythmic solutions. Rococo art avoided turning to dramatic subjects, to knowledge of reality and was openly hedonistic in nature, very soon degenerating into the thoughtless and superficial art of representatives of that part of society that professed the motto of Louis XV: “After us, even a flood.”

18th century art ends with a grandiose epic - the work of the great Spaniard Francis Goya. It is fused with the Spanish pictorial tradition, with the life of the nation, but at the same time, in Goya’s work everything is turned to humanity and history, everything lives in an atmosphere of universal tragedy and universal joy. Goya became a great artist already in the 18th century, when he painted folk scenes splashing with the joy of life and proud, temperamental portraits. At the very turn of the 19th century. Goya created a series of etchings “Caprichos”, where he, with a fearless hand, revealed to the world those abysses into which they did not dare to look, which sounded with the subtext of the culture of the 18th century, which were spoken of in whispers. But this cycle was also a farewell to the 18th century. The work of Goya, like the painting of David, opens the history of art of the 19th and 20th centuries.

CONCLUSION

Western European culture art education

Let's summarize. Art of the 53th century Compared to other eras, it is characterized by greater stylistic integrity: unifying features can be found in various national schools and artistic styles. This art makes a transition from rationalism to sensualism, from the sublime to the immediately given, human.

The most important result of human creativity itself is the world of culture. In it, a particularly important place belongs to the state and systems of laws, industry, science, morality and the educational system, art. And although sometimes the results of human creativity are assessed negatively (Rousseau), in general, the culture of the 18th century. Optimistic. It is dominated by the belief that the emergence of society and culture is a favorable factor for humanity. Moreover, it is culture that is a kind of criterion for determining the stages of progressive development of human society (Herder).

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Introduction

Chapter I The main values of the Enlightenment

Chapter II Development of science in the Age of Enlightenment

Chapter III Style and genre features of art of the 18th century

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The relevance of studying this topic is directly related to the significance of the period under consideration for the development of cultural studies.

European culture of the 17th-19th centuries. It is customary to unite the general concept of culture of the New Age, which is characterized by the formation and development of the capitalist mode of production.

For European countries, the beginning of the 17th century. largely marked by the political reaction that occurred as a result of the events of the late 16th century. The Peasants' War in Germany (1524-1525), which was largely a continuation of the popular movement against the Catholic Church, ended in the defeat of the rebels.

The consequence of this was the triumph of feudal power, with its fragmentation and low level of socio-economic and cultural development. In fact, the first bourgeois revolution in Europe was defeated. France is engulfed in religious and civil wars.

The subject of the study is the process of cultural development in Western Europe in the 18th century.

The object of the study is the main achievements of cultural development in Western Europe.

The purpose of this work is the need to characterize the process of cultural development in Western Europe in the 18th century.

Achieving this goal involves solving a number of the following tasks:

1. Identify the main values of the Enlightenment.

2. Characterize the development of science during the Enlightenment.

3. Highlight the main stylistic and genre features of art in the 18th century.

The following methods were used in the work: descriptive, synthesis, analysis, induction, deduction, statistics.

In this work, we mainly used monographic and educational literature. The use of this type of literature allows us to characterize the main achievements in the development of culture in the 18th century.

ChapterI. The main values of the Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a necessary step in the cultural development of any country that is parting with the feudal way of life. Education is fundamentally democratic; it is a culture for the people.

It sees its main task in upbringing and education, in introducing knowledge to everyone.

Like any significant cultural and historical era, the Enlightenment formed its ideal and sought to compare it with reality, to implement it as quickly as possible and as fully as possible in practice.

Having put forward the idea of personality formation, enlighteners showed that a person has intelligence, spiritual and physical strength. People come into the world equal, with their own needs and interests, the satisfaction of which lies in the establishment of reasonable and fair forms of human coexistence. The minds of educators are concerned with the idea of equality: not only before God, but also before the laws, before other people.

The idea of equality of all people before the law, before humanity is the first characteristic feature of the Age of Enlightenment.

It is not surprising that religion in the form in which the church presented it seemed to the atheist enlighteners in the heat of the struggle of extremes as the enemy of man. In the eyes of the Enlightenment deists, God turned into a force that only brought a certain order to the eternally existing matter. During the Enlightenment, the idea of God as a great mechanic and of the world as a huge mechanism became especially popular.

Thanks to the achievements of natural sciences, the idea arose that the time of miracles and mysteries was over, that all the secrets of the universe had been revealed, and that the Universe and society obeyed logical laws accessible to the human mind. The victory of reason is the second characteristic feature of the era.

The third characteristic feature of the Enlightenment is historical optimism.

The Age of Enlightenment can rightly be called the “golden age of utopia.” The Enlightenment, first of all, included the belief in the possibility of changing a person for the better, “rationally” transforming political and social foundations.

A reference point for the creators of utopias in the 18th century. served as the “natural” or “natural” state of society, not aware of private property and oppression, division into classes, not drowning in luxury and not burdened with poverty, not affected by vices, living in accordance with reason, and not according to “artificial” laws. It was a purely fictitious, speculative type of society, which, as Rousseau noted, may never have existed and which, most likely, will never exist in reality.

The Renaissance ideal of a free personality acquires the attribute of universality. And responsibility: a person of Enlightenment thinks not only about himself, but also about others, about his place in society. The focus of educators is the problem of the best social order. The Enlighteners believed in the possibility of building a harmonious society.

The main centers of the Enlightenment were England, France, and Germany.

In 1689, the year of the last revolution in England, the Age of Enlightenment began. It was a glorious era, begun with one revolution and ended with three: industrial - in England, political - in France, philosophical and aesthetic - in Germany. For a hundred years - from 1689 to 1789. - the world has changed. The remnants of feudalism were eroding more and more, bourgeois relations, finally established after the Great French Revolution, were making themselves known more and more loudly.

The 18th century also prepared the way for the dominance of bourgeois culture. The old, feudal ideology was replaced by the time of philosophers, sociologists, economists, and writers of the new age of Enlightenment.

In philosophy, the Enlightenment opposed all metaphysics (the science of supersensible principles and principles of being). It contributed to the development of any kind of rationalism (recognizing reason as the basis of human cognition and behavior), in science - the development of natural science, the achievement of which it often uses to justify the scientific legitimacy of views and faith in progress. It is no coincidence that the period of Enlightenment itself in some countries was called after philosophers. In France, for example, this period was called the century of Voltaire, in Germany - the century of Kant.

In the history of mankind, educators were concerned with global problems:

How did the state appear? When and why did inequality arise? What is progress? And these questions were answered just as rationally as in those cases when it came to the “mechanism” of the universe.

In the field of morality and pedagogy, the Enlightenment preached the ideals of humanity and placed great hopes on the magical power of education.

In the field of politics, jurisprudence and socio-economic life - the liberation of man from unjust bonds, the equality of all people before the law, before humanity. For the first time, the era had to resolve in such acute forms the long-known question of human dignity. It was transformed in different ways in different fields of activity, but inevitably led to fundamentally new, inherently innovative discoveries.

If we talk about art, for example, it is no coincidence that this era was so unexpectedly, but so effectively forced to respond not only to the problem of “art and revolution,” but also to the problem of artistic discovery, born in the depths of the emerging new type of consciousness.

The Enlighteners were materialists and idealists, supporters of rationalism, sensationalism (they considered sensations to be the basis of knowledge and behavior) and even divine providence (they trusted in the will of God). Some of them believed in the inevitable progress of mankind, while others viewed history as social regression. Hence the uniqueness of the conflict between the historical consciousness of the era and the historical knowledge it developed - a conflict that became all the more aggravated the more thoroughly the era itself determined its historical preferences, its special role in the current and future development of mankind. As a movement of social thought, the Enlightenment represented a certain unity. It consisted in a special state of mind, intellectual inclinations and preferences. These are, first of all, the goals and ideals of the Enlightenment, such as freedom, welfare and happiness of people, peace, non-violence, religious tolerance, etc., as well as the famous freethinking, a critical attitude towards authorities of all kinds, and rejection of dogmas, including church ones.

The Age of Enlightenment was a major turning point in the spiritual development of Europe, influencing almost all spheres of socio-political and cultural life. Having debunked the political and legal norms, aesthetic and ethical codes of the old class society, the enlighteners did titanic work to create a positive system of values, addressed primarily to man, regardless of his social affiliation, which organically became part of the blood and flesh of Western civilization.

Enlighteners came from different classes and estates: aristocracy, nobles, clergy, employees, representatives of commercial and industrial circles. The conditions in which they lived were also varied. In each country, the educational movement bore the imprint of national identity.

ChapterII. Development of science during the Enlightenment

France at the beginning of the century was characterized by a significant development of anti-religious tendencies, which became one of the most important aspects of the Enlightenment.

If in the 17th century. Mathematics played the main role in science, but in the 18th century biology, physics, and geography “caught up” with it.

Science is becoming systematic. Rationalism of the 17th century. is gradually changing. It gives way to conviction in the possibility and necessity of developing the mind and enlightening the human personality.

Second half of the 40s. XVIII century characterized by the emergence of materialistic views.

At the end of the 40s. materialistic views are substantiated in the works of D. Diderot and P. Holbach, who considered atheism necessary and accessible to everyone.

Diderot initiated the creation of the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts, the publication of which lasted from 1751 to 1780.

It became a center that united educators. The book contained information on mathematics, astronomy, geography, and described the technology of manufacturing industrial products.

Manufacture is gradually giving way to a more complex organization of labor.

The first working steam locomotive was created by self-taught engineer George Stephenson in 1814.

Massive construction of railways began in the 20s. XIX century New materials and energy sources are used.

Thus, the development of science during the Enlightenment developed in line with the methodology of rationalism.

ChapterIII. Style and genre featuresartXVIIIcenturies

Nature was the model of all that was good and beautiful for the enlighteners. Her real cult would be created by sentimentalists in the 60s. XVIII century, but the fascination with naturalness, enthusiastic contemplation of it begins with the Enlightenment itself.

The visible embodiment of “better worlds” for people of the Enlightenment were gardens and parks.

The Enlightenment park was created for a sublime and noble purpose - as a perfect environment for a perfect person.

The parks of the Enlightenment were not identical to natural environment. The composition of parks and gardens included libraries, art galleries, museums, theaters, and temples dedicated not only to gods, but also to human feelings - love, friendship, melancholy. All this ensured the implementation of enlightenment ideas about happiness as a “natural state”, about a “natural person”, the main condition of which was a return to nature. Among them, Peterhof (Petrodvorets) stands out, created on the shore of the Gulf of Finland by architects J. Leblon, M. Zemtsov, T. Usov, G. Quarenghi. This magnificent park with its unique palaces and grandiose fountains played an exceptional role in the development of Russian architecture and landscape art and in general in the history of Russian culture.

European art of the 18th century combined two different movements: classicism and romanticism.

Classicism in fine arts, music, literature is a style based on following the principles of ancient Greek and Roman art: rationalism, symmetry, purposefulness, restraint and strict compliance of content with its form.

Romanticism places emphasis on the imagination, emotionality and creative spirituality of the artist.

The art of the Enlightenment used the old stylistic forms of classicism, reflecting with their help a completely different content. In the art of different countries and peoples, classicism and romanticism sometimes form some 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 movements that did not have their own stylistic form and did not feel the need to develop it. Such a cultural movement was, first of all, sentimentalism (from the French feeling), which fully reflected the Enlightenment ideas about the original purity and kindness of human nature, which are lost along with the distance of society from nature.

In almost all of Europe, there is an invasion of the secular principle into the religious painting of those countries where it previously played a major role - Italy, Austria, Germany. Genre painting sometimes strives to take center stage. Instead of a ceremonial portrait - an intimate portrait, in landscape painting - a mood landscape.

In the first half of the 18th century, Rococo became the leading direction in French art. All Rococo art is built on asymmetry, creating a feeling of unease - a playful, mocking, pretentious, teasing feeling. It is no coincidence that the term “rococo” comes from the French “rocaille” - literally diamond and shell jewelry. The plots are only love, erotic, beloved heroines - nymphs, bacchantes, Dianas, Venuses, performing their endless “triumphs” and “toilets”.

A prominent representative of French Rococo was Francois Boucher (1703-1770). “The King’s First Artist,” as he was officially called, director of the Academy, Boucher was a true son of his age, who knew how to do everything himself: panels for hotels, paintings for rich houses and palaces, cardboards for tapestry manufacture, theatrical scenery, book illustrations, drawings of fans , wallpaper, mantel clocks, carriages, costume sketches, etc. Typical subjects of his paintings are “The Triumph of Venus” or “Toilet of Venus”, “Venus with Cupid”, “Diana’s Bath”.

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) - French painter, turned to images of contemporary life. Watteau's deep thoughts about the essence of truly high art were reflected in his canvases. The decor and sophistication of Watteau's works served as the basis for Rococo as a style movement, and his poetic discoveries were continued by painters of the realistic movement of the mid-18th century.

In line with new aesthetic ideas in art, the work of Jean Baptiste Simon Chardin (1699-1779), an artist who created essentially a new pictorial system, developed. Chardin began with still life, painted kitchen items: cauldrons, pots, tanks, then moved on to genre painting: “Prayer before dinner”, “Laundress”, and from there to portraits.

French sculpture of the 18th century. goes through the same stages as painting. These are predominantly rocaille forms in the first half of the century and an increase in classical features in the second. Features of lightness, freedom, and dynamics are visible in the sculpture of Jean Baptiste Pigal (1714-1785), in its full of charm, light swift movement, and spontaneity of grace of “Mercury Tying His Sandal.”

Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), a true historiographer of French society, conveyed the spiritual atmosphere of the era in his sculptural portrait gallery. Houdon's "Voltaire" is evidence of the high level of French art.

English art of the 18th century. - the flourishing of the national school of painting in England - begins with William Hogarth (1697-1764), painter, graphic artist, art theorist, author of a series of paintings « Career of a prostitute", "Career of Mota".

Hogarth was the first Enlightenment painter in Europe.

The largest representative of the English school of portraiture, Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1888). The artist's mature style developed under the influence of Watteau. His portrait images are characterized by spiritual sophistication, spirituality, and poetry. Deep humanity is inherent in his images of peasant children.

Italian painting of the 18th century. reached its peak only in Venice. The exponent of the spirit of Venice was Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), the last representative of the Baroque in European art, painter, draftsman, and engraver. Tiepolo owns monumental fresco cycles, both church and secular.

Venice gave the world wonderful masters of the vedata - the urban architectural landscape: Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768), famous for his solemn pictures of the life of Venice against the backdrop of its fabulous theatrical architecture; Francesco Guardi (1712-1793), who found inspiration in the simple motifs of everyday life in the city, its sun-drenched courtyards, canals, lagoons, and crowded embankments. Guardi created a new type of landscape, marked by poetry and spontaneity of the viewer's impressions.

The 18th century also prepared the way for the dominance of bourgeois culture. The time of philosophers, sociologists, economists, and writers has replaced the old, feudal ideology.

The main literary genre of the Enlightenment was the novel.

The success of the novel, especially significant in England, was prepared by the success of educational journalism.

Enlightenment writers were well aware of how imperfect their contemporary society was and how flawed man was, and, nevertheless, they hoped that, like Robinson from the first part of the novel by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), humanity, relying on its intelligence and hard work, would rise to the heights of civilization . But perhaps this hope is illusory, as Jonathan Swift (1667-1754) so unequivocally testifies in the novel of the allegory “Gulliver’s Travels”, when he sends his hero to the island of intelligent horses. In the pamphlet he created, “The Tale of the Barrel,” he laughed heartily at church feuds.

Deploying a positive program in their books, educators widely presented how a person lives, deceiving and being deceived. The moral ideal invariably coexists with satire. In the novel by G. Fielding (1707-1754) “The History of Tom Jones, Foundling,” a parallel plot structure is used, reminiscent of a fairy tale: about good and evil brothers, each of whom, in the end, is given what he deserves.

It was a time of new philosophical convictions, a time when ideas were not only presented in treatises, but easily migrated into novels, inspired poets and were sung by them.

A wide range of educational thought is represented in the works of the English poet and satirist Alexander Pope (1688-1744). His philosophical and didactic poem “Essay on Man” became a textbook of new philosophy for Europe. The publication of its first Russian edition in 1757 was actually the beginning of the Russian Enlightenment.

In the last decade of the century, along with classicism, a new movement emerged in fiction - sentimentalism, most fully expressed in the stories of N.M. Karamzin (1766-1826) “Poor Liza” and “Natalia, the boyar’s daughter.”

At the end of the XVII-XVIII centuries. The musical language that the whole of Europe will then speak begins to take shape.

The first were Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and George Frideric Handel (1685-1759).

Bach is a great German composer and organist who worked in all musical genres except opera. To this day he is an unsurpassed master of polyphony. Handel, like Bach, used biblical scenes for his works. The most famous are “Saul”, “Israel in Egypt”, “Messiah”. Handel wrote more than 40 operas, he owns organ orchestras, sonatas, and suites.

The Viennese classical school and its most prominent masters Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) had a huge influence on the musical art of Europe. Viennese classics rethought and made all musical genres and forms sound in a new way. Their music represents the highest achievement of the era of classicism in the perfection of melodies and forms.

Franz Joseph Haydn, the teacher of Mozart and Beethoven, is called the “Father of the Symphony.” He created more than 100 symphonies. Many of them are based on the theme of folk songs and dances, which the composer developed with amazing skill. The pinnacle of his work was the “12 London Symphonies,” written during the composer’s triumphant trips to England in the 90s.

In the 18th century, Haydn wrote many wonderful quartets and keyboard sonatas.

He owns over 20 operas, 13 masses, a large number of songs and other compositions. At the end of his career, he created two monumental oratorios - “The Creation of the World” (1798) and “The Seasons” (1801), which express the idea of the greatness of the universe and human life. Haydn brought the symphony, quartet, and sonata to classical perfection.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote music and played the violin and harpsichord at an age when other children did not yet know how to add letters. Wolfgang's extraordinary abilities developed under the guidance of his father, the violinist and composer Leopold Mozart. In the operas “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni”, “The Magic Flute”, Mozart with amazing skill creates diverse and lively human characters, shows life in its contrasts, moving from jokes to deep seriousness, from fun to subtlety poetic lyrics.

The same qualities are inherent in his symphonies, sonatas, concerts, and quartets, in which he creates the highest classical examples of genres. The pinnacles of classical symphonism were three symphonies written in 1788 (Mozart wrote about 50 in total). The symphony “E flat major” (number 39) shows a person’s life full of joy, play, and cheerful dance movements. The symphony “G minor” (number 40) reveals the deep lyrical poetry of the movement of the human soul. The Symphony “C major” (number 41), called “Jupiter” by contemporaries, embraces the whole world with its contrasts and contradictions, affirms the rationality and harmony of its structure.

CONCLUSION

The 18th century is characterized by an unprecedented centralization of production, capital, sales markets, the emergence of powerful monopolies, their expansion through existing and newly forcibly created colonies, and the redistribution of spheres of influence between states and monopolies.

The consequence of these circumstances was a sharp aggravation of contradictions between various directions of philosophy, ethics, history, and art.

Since the 18th century The power of the bourgeoisie is spreading in Europe to an increasing number of countries, which are expanding and strengthening their colonies. In the 19th century the severity of socio-economic and political problems increases, which become the subject of consideration of philosophy and are reflected in the theory of art.

A. Schweitzer wrote that the ethical ideals outlined by the Enlightenment and rationalism, when interacting with the real life of society, transformed it. However, from the middle of the 19th century. their influence gradually ceased because it did not find support in the existing worldview.

Philosophy, which ignored the problems of culture, showed its complete inconsistency, since it did not take into account that the basis of a worldview cannot be only history and natural science.

In the field of art in the second half of the 18th century. There was a flourishing of the Baroque style, which was closely associated with the church and aristocratic culture of that time. It showed tendencies towards glorifying life, all the richness of real existence. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and baroque music glorified and exalted monarchs, the church, and the nobility. The pomp, allegorical intricacy, pathos and theatricality of the Baroque artistic style, its combination of illusion and reality, were developed in many cultural monuments, and above all in Italy (the work of the sculptor and architect Bernini, the architect Borromini, etc.). Baroque also spread to Flanders, Spain, Austria, some regions of Germany, and Poland. This style manifested itself less noticeably in England and Holland, whose art was closer to genre and everyday realism than the sublimity, excess and conventionality of the Baroque.

A different kind of aesthetics, opposite to the artistic means of the Baroque, was canonized in European art and literature by classicism. Closely associated with the culture of the Renaissance, classicism turned to ancient norms of art as perfect examples; it was characterized by rationalistic clarity and rigor. Classicism legitimized the principles of “ennobled nature”, artificial division into genres - “high” (tragedy, ode, epic, historical, mythological and religious painting) and “low” (comedy, satire, fable, genre painting), the introduction of the law of three into dramaturgy unities - place, time, action.

LISTUSEDLITERATURES

1. Kravchenko A.I., Culturology. - 4th ed. - M.: Academic project, Trixta, 2003.- 496 p.

2. Cultural studies. History of world culture. Textbook/Ed. T. F. Kuznetsova.- M.: “Academy”, 2003.- 607 p.

3. Cultural studies. History of world culture/Ed. A. N. Markova. - 2nd ed. reworked and additional - M.: UNITY, 2000.- 600 p.

4. Polishchuk V.I., Culturology. - M.: Gardariki, 1999. - 446 p.

5. Radugin A. A., Culturology. - M.: Center, 2001. - 304 p.

6. Chekalov D. A., Kondratov V. A., History of world culture. Lecture notes. - Rostov - on - Don: Phoenix, 2005. - 352 p.

7. Shishova N.V., Akulich T.V., Boyko M.I., History and cultural studies. - 2nd ed. reworked and additional - M.: Logos, 2000.- 456 p.

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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 is reflected in the epithets it received: “age of reason”, “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 time. 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, ultimately, a new understanding of Man himself.

The Age of Enlightenment can rightly be called the “golden age of utopia.” The Enlightenment primarily included the belief in the possibility of changing people for the better by “rationally” transforming political and social foundations. Attributing all the properties of human nature to the influence of surrounding circumstances or environment (political institutions, educational systems, laws), the philosophy of this era encouraged reflection on such conditions of existence that would contribute to the triumph of virtue and universal happiness. Never before has European culture given birth to so many novels and treatises describing ideal societies, the ways of their construction and establishment. Even in the most pragmatic writings of that time, features of utopia are visible. For example, the famous “Declaration of Independence” included the following statement: “all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The guideline for the creators of utopias of the 18th century was the “natural” or “natural” state of society, not aware of private property and oppression, division into classes, not drowning in luxury and not burdened with poverty, not affected by vices, living in accordance with reason, and not “artificial” laws It was a purely fictitious, speculative type of society, which, as the outstanding philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment, Jean Jacques Rousseau, noted, may never have existed and which, most likely, will never exist in reality. The ideal of social order proposed by thinkers of the 18th century was used to devastatingly criticize the existing order of things.

The visible embodiment of “better worlds” for people of the Enlightenment were gardens and parks. As in utopias, they constructed an alternative world to the existing one, which corresponded to the ideas of the time about ethical ideals, a happy life, harmony of nature and man, people among themselves, freedom and self-sufficiency of the human personality. The special place of nature in the cultural paradigm of the 18th century is associated with its proclamation 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 reflection, cultivating faith in the power of reason and the cultivation of sublime feelings. The Enlightenment park was created for a sublime and noble goal - creating a perfect environment for a perfect person. “Having instilled love for the fields, we instill virtue” (Delil J. Gardens. -L., 1987. P. 6). Often, utilitarian buildings (for example, dairy farms) were included in the park as an addition, which, however, performed completely different functions. The most important moral and ethical postulate of the Enlightenment - the duty to work - found a visible and real embodiment here, since representatives of the ruling houses, aristocracy, and intellectual elite took care of gardens in Europe.

The parks of the Enlightenment were not identical to natural environment. Their designers selected and arranged elements of the real landscape that seemed to them to be 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, and temples dedicated not only to gods, but also to human feelings - love, friendship, melancholy. All this ensured the implementation of enlightenment ideas about happiness as the “natural state” of the “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 the grandiose artistic system that had been erected over the centuries, according to which art created a special ideal environment, a model of life more significant than the real, earthly life of a person. This model turned man into a part of a higher world of solemn heroism and higher religious, ideological and ethical values. The Renaissance replaced religious ritual with secular ritual and elevated man to a heroic pedestal, but still art dictated its own standards to him. In the 18th century, this entire system was revised. An ironic and skeptical attitude towards everything that was previously considered select and sublime, the transformation of sublime categories into academic models removed the aura of exclusivity of phenomena that had been revered as models for centuries. For the first time, the artist had the opportunity to experience unprecedented freedom of observation and creativity. 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, while developing romanticism sought to maximize the individual, personal beginning. 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 the 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 some 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 movements that did not have their own stylistic form and did not feel the need to develop it. This largest cultural movement was, first of all, sentimentalism, which fully reflected the Enlightenment ideas about the original purity and kindness of human nature, which were 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 it glorifies 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 replacing the religious principles of art with secular ones. In the 18th century, secular architecture for the first time took precedence over church architecture throughout almost all of Europe. The invasion of secularism into religious painting in those countries where it previously played a major role is also obvious - Italy, Austria, Germany. Genre painting, reflecting the artist’s everyday observation of the real lives 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, gives way to the intimate portrait, and in landscape painting the so-called “mood landscape” appears and spreads in different countries (Watteau, Gainsborough, Guardi).

A characteristic feature of 18th-century painting is the increased attention to the sketch not only among the artists themselves, but also among connoisseurs of works of art. Personal, individual perception and mood reflected in a sketch sometimes turn out to be more interesting and cause a greater emotional and aesthetic impact than the finished work. Drawings and engravings are valued more than paintings because they establish a more direct connection between the viewer and the artist. The tastes and requirements of the era also changed the requirements for the color of paintings. In the works of 18th-century artists, the decorative understanding of color is enhanced; a painting 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 colors, artists strive for multicolor and even variegation.

The product of the purely secular culture of the Enlightenment was the Rococo style, which received its 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 problems: in architecture - in planning and interior design, in painting - in decorative panels, paintings, 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 primarily the style of poor houses, into which, with a few techniques, he introduced a spirit of coziness and comfort without emphasized luxury and pomp. The eighteenth century introduced many household items that give a person comfort and peace, preventing his desires, making them at the same time objects of true art.

The tendency of fine art to be entertaining, narrative and literary explains its rapprochement with the theater. The 18th century is often called the “golden age of theatre”. The names of Marivaux, 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 moved towards him, suggesting interesting plots and collisions, filling old forms with new content. The secularization of public life, the deprivation of church and court ritual of their former holiness and pomposity led to their peculiar “theatricalization.” It is no coincidence that it was during the Age of Enlightenment that the famous Venetian carnival became not just a holiday, but precisely a way of life, a form of everyday life.

The concept of “theater”, “theatricality” is also associated with the concept of “publicity”. During the Age of Enlightenment, the first public exhibitions were organized in Europe - salons, which represented a new type of connection between art and society. In France, salons play an extremely 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 debates on the most serious issues of government. Denis Diderot, an outstanding thinker of the 18th century, practically introduced a new genre of literature - critical reviews of salons. In them, he not only describes certain works of art, styles and movements, but also, expressing his own opinion, comes to interesting aesthetic and philosophical discoveries. Such a talented, uncompromising critic, playing the role of an “active spectator”, a mediator between the artist and society, sometimes even dictating a certain “social order” to art, is a product of the times and a reflection of the very essence of educational ideas.

Music occupied an important place in the hierarchy of spiritual values in the 18th century. If the fine art of Rococo strives, first of all, to decorate life, theater - to expose and entertain, then the music of the Enlightenment amazes 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 back in the 17th century was just an applied instrument of influence in both the secular and 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 - oratorio and mass (in church culture) and concert (in secular culture). The pinnacle of the musical culture of the Enlightenment is undoubtedly the work of Bach and Mozart.

No, you will not be forgotten, a century of madness and wisdom!..
A.N. Radishchev

In the series of centuries of European history, the 18th century occupies a special place. There were times of more grandiose achievements, but there was no era more complete in style, more, so to speak, “whole.” The famous art critic N. Dmitrieva calls it the last century of the dominance of aristocratic culture. Hence its refinement and this very “stylishness,” sometimes at the expense of depth. And at the same time, this is the era of the establishment of new values in the life of Europeans, values that are still alive today and which, in fact, determine the current face of European civilization.
To the melodious chimes of harpsichords and harps, several revolutions took place simultaneously in the lives, heads and hearts of Europeans, of which only two we usually call “revolutions” proper: the Great French Revolution and the War of Independence of the United States of America. Meanwhile, they only put points that smelled of blood and gunpowder in the sentences that Europe diligently wrote throughout the 18th century.
So, first a little about revolutions.

Revolution on the tables

The main achievement of the “eighteenth century” is that it, in principle, ended famine in the main countries of Europe. The “bread riots” in Paris don’t bother us too much: more often they rioted due to the lack or high cost of the already familiar white bread. So Marie Antoinette’s frivolous phrase (“If the people have no bread, let them eat cake”) is in some ways not so frivolous. Yes, there were interruptions in the supply of bread to large cities, but in terms of absolute famine, Europe suffered in full at the very beginning of the 18th century, when during a bad harvest, even black bread began to be served at Madame Maintenon’s table.
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 increasingly popular delicacies). And the previous three “pillars” of the European diet are significantly changing their “face”. Since the mid-18th century in France, rye bread has been replaced by wheat bread made with milk (the famous “French boxes” were brought to Europe by Napoleon’s soldiers on their bayonets).
With the improvement of livestock farming, the meat market, which was extremely constrained by the powerful population growth in the previous three centuries, is gradually becoming saturated. Of course, for most Europeans, meat is not yet available in the most healthy form: in the form of corned beef and all kinds 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, 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, still very expensive) made it possible to stock up on fruits and berries (and vitamins for the winter). 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 produced a real revolution. Suffice it to say that Britain, which did not know a shortage of meat products, largely owes its powerful population growth in the 18th century to this, without which, in fact, the British Empire would not have happened. And the American colonists’ love for tea led to their outrage at the rise in tea duties 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 table revolution propelled the development of society forward. 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 also came to grips with setting the European table, which was greatly facilitated by the production of porcelain, gourmetism instead of gluttony and increased hygiene standards. Rules of behavior 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 our heads

The 18th century is usually called the Age of Enlightenment, although this word itself is too sluggish and approximately defines the processes that took place in the minds of Europeans between 1700 and 1804 (I indicate the year of death of I. Kant).
European thinkers break with theology and delimit the sphere of philosophy proper from natural science. According to Newton’s mechanistic picture of the world, God is needed only as the one who gave the initial impetus to the development of nature, and then the world rolled away from him completely separately.
The 18th century is the century of practitioners, which is why thinkers are not satisfied with empty scholastic reasoning. The criterion of truth is experience. Any pathos and rhetoric seem inappropriate under any circumstances. Dying of cancer, the marquise, for 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 carefree smile.
Philosophers admire the perfection of the world (Leibniz) and mercilessly criticize it (encyclopedists), sing hosannas to reason and the progress of civilization (Voltaire) and declare progress and reason the enemies of natural human rights (Rousseau). But all these theories now, at a distance of years, do not seem mutually exclusive. They all 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, philosophers have been confident for a very long time that man 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 was Voltaire’s call for everyone to “cultivate his own garden.”
Alas, the bloody horrors of the French Revolution will force us to radically reconsider the complacent delusion of philosophers, but this will only happen in the next century. However, the purely European idea of individual rights would then, in the 18th century, establish itself as the most basic value.

Revolution in hearts

The “Age of Reason” would not have taken place in all its splendor without a revolution in hearts. The personality gradually becomes emancipated and realizes its inner world as important and valuable. The emotional life of Europeans is becoming richer and more sophisticated.
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 intrinsic role of music, which was previously considered only an aid to words. He wrote: “To truly enjoy music, we must completely dissolve in it” (quoted from: G. Koenigsberger, p. 248).
Music expressed the emotions of the time much more accurately and subtly than the censored word squeezed by conventions. For an educated European it has become an urgent necessity. In the libraries of Czech and Austrian castles, along with books, sheet music folders are crowded on the shelves: new musical releases were read here at sight, like newspapers, and just as greedily!
The music of the 18th century is still full of a lot 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 gives a chance even and amateurs: Zh.Zh. Rousseau composes an opera that is a success at court, and the king himself, terribly out of tune, sings his favorite arietka from it.
Music of the 18th century was closely connected with life and everyday life. Bach hoped that his sacred music could be performed by a choir of parishioners in a church, and the most beloved everyday dance, the minuet, became an integral part of any symphony until the era of Beethoven
Each country in the 18th century realized its identity through music. German G.F. Handel brought the lush Italian opera seria to foggy London. But the ancient stories seemed too abstract and lifeless to the British public. Almost without changing the musical form, Handel proceeds to create oratorios, which are, as it were, the same operas, but only in concert performance, and they are written based on stories from the Bible that were passionately experienced by listeners. And the general public responds to this with delight; Handel’s spiritual oratorios become a national treasure, their performance results in patriotic manifestations.
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 he turns into a person of a specific era, acquires the features of a real personality and destiny

A revolution in manners

A strictly hierarchical feudal society always pays special attention to etiquette. It is a means of emphasizing the status (orderly inequality) of social position.
Of course, etiquette continues to dominate relations between people in the 18th century. Ambassadors delay presenting credentials if papers proving their nobility dates back to at least the 14th century do not arrive on time. Otherwise, during the presentation ceremony at Versailles, the king will not be able to hug and kiss the ambassador’s wife, but will only greet her! Etiquette dominates the minds of the courtiers to such an extent that some of them quite seriously claim that the Great French Revolution broke out because the Controller General of Finance Necker came 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 constraints of etiquette in the boudoirs of his lovers, Catherine the Great in her Hermitage, and Marie Antoinette cannot swallow a bite at the traditional public royal meal and is satisfied afterwards, already alone.
Opposed to the courtyard is a salon, aristocratic and bourgeois, where hosts and guests communicate briefly. The tone is set by the most august persons. The Regent of France, Philippe d'Orléans the Younger, proclaims at his orgies: “Everything is prohibited here except pleasure!”
But the ice floe of feudal etiquette is melting slowly and unevenly. Back in 1726, the lackeys of a noble lord could beat the fashionable author de Voltaire with sticks for an impudent 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 an actor.”
But twenty years later, in the same France, the status of the artist changes, the artist will literally force the king to respect his human dignity. And it was like this. Offended by Louis the Fifteenth, the famous pastel portrait master Latour refused for a long time to immortalize the Marquise of Pompadour “herself.” When she managed to persuade the whim, the artist undressed in front of her almost to his shirt. During the session the king entered. “How, madam, you swore to me that they would not interfere with us!” Latour screamed and rushed to collect the crayons. The king and his mistress barely persuaded the pastel virtuoso to continue the session.
Of course, in a feudal society everything is determined by rank, not talent. Mozart writes that at the table of the Salzburg archbishop his place is higher than the footman, but lower than the cook. But at about this time, 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 the feudal lord or the court nobleman, but the private individual, the “good man” in France, the gentleman in England. By the end of the century, in these countries it was not nobility, but success, talent and wealth that determined the status of an individual in society.
Here is a typical anecdote on this topic. Napoleon could not stand the composer Cherubini. Once, at a reception in the palace, after introducing everyone present, the emperor again pointedly inquired about the name of “this gentleman.” “Still Cherubini, sire!” The maestro answered him sharply.
In other countries, it will take almost half of the next century to emancipate the individual.

Peter discovers Europe

In the 18th century, another great power appeared on the European political scene: Russia. The “presentation” of the new political giant took place in the spring and summer of 1717, when an embassy of the still mysterious, but already slightly Europeanized “Muscovites” visited a number of European capitals.
Alas, neither Paris nor Berlin were fascinated by the Russian heroes led by Tsar Peter.
Now for the details.
At the end of April that year, the Russians arrived at the French border. Versailles sent one of its most elegant courtiers, the Marquis de Mailly-Nesle, to meet them. The Marquis found the Russians, naturally, in the tavern, snoring and vomiting. Only Peter moved his tongue.

Cultural figures of the 18th century Western Europe. Culture of the Enlightenment of Western Europe in the 18th century

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Introduction

Chapter I The main values ​​of the Enlightenment

Chapter II Development of science in the Age of Enlightenment

Chapter III Style and genre features of art of the 18th century

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The relevance of studying this topic is directly related to the significance of the period under consideration for the development of cultural studies.

European culture of the 17th-19th centuries. It is customary to unite the general concept of culture of the New Age, which is characterized by the formation and development of the capitalist mode of production.

The consequence of this was the triumph of feudal power, with its fragmentation and low level of socio-economic and cultural development. In fact, the first bourgeois revolution in Europe was defeated. France is engulfed in religious and civil wars.

The subject of the study is the process of cultural development in Western Europe in the 18th century.

The object of the study is the main achievements of cultural development in Western Europe.

The purpose of this work is the need to characterize the process of cultural development in Western Europe in the 18th century.

Achieving this goal involves solving a number of the following tasks:

1. Identify the main values ​​of the Enlightenment.

2. Characterize the development of science during the Enlightenment.

3. Highlight the main stylistic and genre features of art in the 18th century.

The following methods were used in the work: descriptive, synthesis, analysis, induction, deduction, statistics.

In this work, we mainly used monographic and educational literature. The use of this type of literature allows us to characterize the main achievements in the development of culture in the 18th century.

ChapterI. The main values ​​of the Enlightenment

Similar documents

Chapter I The main values of the Enlightenment

1. Identify the main values of the Enlightenment.

ChapterI. The main values of the Enlightenment