Course work

"Baroque Aesthetics"

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Causes of the Baroque

1.2 Origin of the term "Baroque"

Chapter II. The essence and examples of the embodiment of baroque aesthetics

2.1. Essence, principles and aesthetics of the Baroque

2.2 Examples of the embodiment of Baroque aesthetics

CONCLUSION

List of used literature

INTRODUCTION

It is known that in the history of culture, each epoch is an interweaving of various processes reflecting its essence and reality in different ways. A striking example of this is the Baroque era.

Baroque is a European culture of the 17th-18th centuries, the main characteristics of which are contrast, the desire for grandeur and luxury, the combination of reality with allusion, the dynamism of images and tension. Baroque appeared in Italy (Florence, Venice, Rome) and from there spread throughout Europe. The Baroque era is considered to be the beginning of the planting of the foundations of "Western civilization" in the world; it largely predetermined the dynamics of the formation of cultures of other eras. The Baroque style, as it spreads, becomes popular both in the West and in Russia.

With a certain degree of probability, it can be argued that the baroque still directly affects the culture of modernity - through the art of its outstanding representatives, now stored in museums, or put on public display, as examples of the architecture of European cities. This determines the relevance of studying the Baroque era.

We formulate the main goals and objectives of this course.

The main goal for us will be to study the Baroque era as a whole: its essence, history, meaning.

In accordance with the goal, we highlight the following tasks of the course work:

To identify the reasons for the emergence of baroque as a cultural style; get acquainted with the history of the term baroque;

To analyze the essence and principles of the Baroque, to study the basics of Baroque aesthetics, to give examples of the embodiment of Baroque in the art of Europe in the 17th - 18th centuries.

These goals and objectives form the structure of the course work, which consists of an introduction, the main part, consisting of two chapters with two paragraphs each, a conclusion, a list of references and applications.

When studying the Baroque era, we used the conceptual book of H. Welfin "Renaissance and Baroque", which allowed us to understand the essence of this cultural era, as well as such fundamental publications as the General History in 24 volumes, 1997 edition, the History of Art of Foreign Countries, 1980 year, as well as the World History of Architecture in 1978. In addition, we used the special literature of the following authors Yu. Boreev, A. Vasiliev, M. Vinogradov, F. Dass, V Kolomiets, T. Livanova and V. Lipatov, as well as some others.

Chapter I. Baroque: the history of appearance, the meaning of the term

1.1 Causes of the Baroque

Chronologically, Baroque appeared in the 17th century. Such a chronology implies that this style replaced the Renaissance. That is why, it is often customary to designate the era in which the Renaissance dissolved or, as they often say, in which the Renaissance degenerated, it is often customary to designate the word "Baroque" with the word "Baroque".

Indeed, the Baroque originated in Italy, that is, the country in which the Renaissance manifested itself most strongly. That is why, in the framework of studying the causes of the appearance of the Baroque, it seems necessary to give a brief description of the Renaissance.

So, the Renaissance is an era in the history of European culture. The chronological framework of its heyday is the XIV - XVI centuries. A distinctive feature of the Renaissance, or Renaissance, is the secular orientation of its culture and its interest in man and his activities, that is, what is called the term anthropocentrism. During this period, interest in ancient culture is shown, its "revival" takes place, from there this term appeared. In Italy, as in the country where the Renaissance appeared, painting, music, architecture and literature reach new heights. The Renaissance reached its peak by the end of the 15th century, and in the 16th century the crisis of its ideas began. Cultural historians note that it was during this period that the first rudiments of new ideas of mannerism and baroque appeared.

Thus, the baroque appeared against the background of the crisis of the ideas of the Renaissance, and appeared in the same place where the Renaissance reached its greatest prosperity - in Italy.

Let us analyze the reasons for this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon.

As noted above, baroque is characterized by contrast, tension, dynamism of images, the desire for grandeur and splendor, for combining reality and illusion, for merging and at the same time - a tendency for the autonomy of individual genres.

The ideological foundations of the style were formed as a result of a shock, such as the Reformation and the teachings of Copernicus were in the 16th century. The notion of the world, established in antiquity, as a rational and constant unity, as well as the Renaissance idea of ​​man as a most rational being, has changed. Man has ceased to feel like a "reasonable being" having screwed up, he, in the words of Pascal, is aware of himself "something in between everything and nothing"; "to those who catch only the appearance of phenomena, but are not able to understand either their beginning or their end"

Italy in the 17th century is a country with which the very style of the Renaissance is associated, as they would say now - a trendsetter. However, at the same time, this country is drastically losing economic and political power and begins to play a secondary role in European politics. Moreover, usurpers come to its territory - French and Spanish soldiers. The country becomes a divided semi-colony.

However, Italy, and especially Rome, still remained the cultural center of Europe. Gradually, due to these, one might say, socio-economic moments, a new style begins to be born, the first task of which was to create the illusion of wealth and power, the exaltation of the Catholic Church and the Italian nobility, which, apart from cultural levers of influence, had nothing. Gradually, the Baroque begins to reject authority and tradition as prejudice. The main leitmotif of the baroque of that time was the rejection of the soul and the transition to enlightenment and reason.

However, it is not correct to consider the Baroque era solely as a time of transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Baroque is an independent phase in the development of art and the reasons for its appearance are not only the economic and political problems of Italy. Moreover, the baroque, although it appeared in Italy, spread very quickly throughout Europe.

Based on this premise, it seems necessary to give a general description of Western Europe in the 17th century.

Western Europe as a whole, during this period, enters a new era of socio-economic and political relations. This period is characterized primarily by the clash of class worldviews, the struggle between traditional feudalism and progressive capitalism. In a number of states (for example, in France and Austria) there is a centralization of state power, a transition to absolutism. However, this process itself is clearly uneven. Here are just a few examples from European countries:

A bourgeois revolution is already taking place in Holland, and bourgeois relations have developed;

In France, already mentioned, the absolute power of the king flourishes;

The overthrow of the king and the bourgeois revolution are taking place in England;

Italy becomes a divided semi-colony;

Spain is a backward outskirts;

Germany is the sum of the small principalities, moreover, the Thirty Years' War is going on in it.

Throughout Europe, the leading social strata are becoming the bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the aristocracy. However, with all the uneven development of European countries in their culture, more and more influence is given to new fundamental points, which became the basis of the Baroque.

The ideological basis for the spread of baroque in Europe was the general weakening of spiritual culture, the split of the church - as a result, the fall of its authority, the struggle of teachings that reflected the interests of various classes. Since Catholicism remained the ideological basis for feudal tendencies, Protestantism reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie. At the same time, the role of state institutions is growing, the struggle between secular and religious principles is intensifying. The natural sciences are rapidly developing - optics, physics, thermodynamics and geography.

Thus, we highlight the main reasons for the spread of baroque.

Chronologically, baroque appeared in the 17th century in Italy, against the background of the crisis of the ideas of the Renaissance. Italy itself during this period loses its economic and political significance and becomes a disunited semi-colony, while continuing to be the cultural center of Europe. Gradually, due to these socio-economic reasons, a new style begins to be born, the first task of which was to create the illusion of wealth and power, the exaltation of the Catholic Church and the Italian nobility, which, apart from cultural levers of influence, had nothing;

At the same time, it is not correct to consider the Baroque era solely as a time of transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Baroque is an independent phase in the development of art and the reasons for its appearance are not only the economic and political problems of Italy. Moreover, the baroque, although it appeared in Italy, spread very quickly throughout Europe. Based on this, it can be argued that the Baroque reflected the mood of the entire European society, was in demand, and therefore could not develop without prerequisites, and these prerequisites were largely different in different European countries;

The ideological basis for the spread of baroque in Europe was the general weakening of spiritual culture, the split of the church - as a result, the fall of its authority, the struggle of teachings that reflected the interests of various classes. At the same time, the role of state institutions is growing, the struggle between secular and religious principles is intensifying. The natural sciences are rapidly developing - optics, physics, thermodynamics and geography. This means that the prerequisites for the main leitmotif of the Baroque appear - the rejection of the soul, anthropocentrism and the Renaissance as a whole, in favor of enlightenment and reason.

BAROQUE(Italian barosso bizarre, artsy, strange) - an artistic style in European art of the late 16th - mid-18th centuries. (in Germany, Russia until the end of the 19th century).

Baroque originates in Italy in the 16th century. as a reflection of the crisis of ideas and artistic principles of the Renaissance, deep contradictions of a political, social and religious nature. The idea of ​​the harmony of the world and the idea of ​​the limitless possibilities of man are crumbling. The leading art of the Baroque is architecture; applied art, painting, sculpture.

AT baroque architecture the decorative beginning prevails over the constructive. The artistic task is to amaze, to dazzle with splendor. A strict sense of proportion in the works of the artists of the High Renaissance is replaced by a fantastic richness and variety of decor, sometimes to the detriment of beauty. Curvilinear outlines, asymmetry, the dominant ascending line, the complexity of the composition, the unclear division of space are the features of Baroque architectural structures. Richly ornamented pilasters are used, the columns become a purely decorative element, they cease to carry a constructive load. Caryatids, atlantes, ornament overloaded with stucco, niches and porticoes, galleries with statues, the play of light and shadow are designed to influence the emotions of the viewer.

Such are the palaces of Versailles, Sanssouci, the Winter Palace. The interior corresponds to the new tastes: the corners of the ceiling and walls are smoothed out, the plafonds and walls are decorated with richly colored paintings, stucco, gilded rosettes, the rooms are richly decorated with tapestries, statues, mirrors. Inlaid floors, crystal chandeliers, elegant furniture on thin legs complete the palace decoration. The motifs of devastating catastrophes (Global Earth, Hell), martyrdom, the struggle of everything that causes tension of spiritual and physical forces predominate in fresco paintings. These are, as a rule, multi-figured compositions, where everything is in motion, in unusual angles, with many purely decorative details. The life-affirming beginning in them coexists with asceticism, deliberately rude with exquisite (Rubens, Van Dyck, sculptures by Bernini). The portraits are ceremonial and theatrical with all the accessories of power.

AT Baroque literature- the form is given more importance than the content, figurative and expressive means acquire a self-contained value. Complicated syntactical constructions are widely used, pretentious, lofty syllable with an abundance of mythological grotesque images. Poems are printed in the form of a cross, rhombus, circle. Tragedies abound with horror and bloody scenes. Comedies sparkle with humor and unexpected verbal finds (P. Calderon, A. Gryphius, Tirso de Molino, S. Polotsky).

Baroque in music presented by G. Gabrieli, M. Chesti (Italy). They call Waha and Handel, but their genius stepped over the Baroque. Greatness, complexity of composition, intonation richness, drama, deep reflection of the world of human passions are the main features of their work (such are the majestic "Passion according to John" and "Passion according to Matthew" by J. S. Bach, concerts and oratorios by G. F. Handel). Some features of the Baroque are used by modern modernist trends in art.

Did you know that the era that gave us Bach and Handel was called "fantastic"? And they were called far from being in a positive context. “A pearl of irregular (bizarre) shape” is one of the meanings of the term “Baroque”. Still, the new culture was wrong from the point of view of the ideals of the Renaissance: harmony, simplicity and clarity were replaced by disharmony, complex images and forms.

Aesthetics of the Baroque

The musical culture of the Baroque combined the beautiful and the ugly, tragedy and comedy. “In the trend” were “wrong beauties” that replaced the naturalness of the Renaissance. The world no longer seemed integral, but was perceived as a world of contrasts and contradictions, as a world full of tragedy and drama. However, there is a historical explanation for this.

The Baroque era covers about 150 years: from 1600 to 1750s. This is the time of great geographical discoveries (remember the discovery of America by Columbus and the circumnavigation of Magellan), the time of brilliant scientific discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus and Newton, the time of terrible wars in Europe. The harmony of the world was collapsing before our eyes, just as the very picture of the Universe was changing, the concepts of time and space were changing.

Baroque genres

The new fashion for pretentiousness gave birth to new and. She was able to convey the complex world of human experiences opera, mainly through bright emotional arias. Jacopo Peri (opera Eurydice) is considered the father of the first opera, but it was precisely as a genre that opera took shape in the works of Claudio Monteverdi (Orpheus). Among the loudest names of the baroque opera genre are also known: A. Scarlatti (the opera Nero Who Became Caesar), G.F. Telemann (“Mario”), G. Purcell (“Dido and Aeneas”), J.-B. Lully (“Armida”), G. F. Handel (“Julius Caesar”), G. B. Pergolesi (“The Maid -Madam"), A. Vivaldi ("Farnak").

Almost like an opera, only without scenery and costumes, with a religious plot, oratorio occupied an important place in the hierarchy of baroque genres. Such a high spiritual genre as the oratorio also conveyed the depth of human emotions. The most famous baroque oratorios were written by G.F. Handel ("Messiah").

Of the genres of sacred music, spiritual music was also popular. cantatas and passions(passions are “passions”; perhaps not by the way, but just in case, let’s remember one single-root musical term - appassionato, which means “passionately” in Russian). Here the palm belongs to J. S. Bach (Matthew Passion).

Another major genre of the era - concert. Sharp play of contrasts, rivalry between the soloist and the orchestra ( solo concert), or different groups of the orchestra among themselves (genre concerto grosso) - well echoed the aesthetics of the Baroque. Maestro A. Vivaldi ("The Four Seasons"), J.S. Bach "Brandenburg Concertos"), G. F. Handel and A. Corelli (Concerto grosso).

The contrasting principle of alternation of diverse parts was developed not only in the genre of the concerto. He formed the basis sonatas(D. Scarlatti), suites and partitas (J.S. Bach). It should be noted that this principle also existed earlier, but only in the Baroque era did it cease to be random and acquired an orderly form.

One of the main contrasts of baroque musical culture is chaos and order as symbols of time. The accident of life and death, the uncontrollability of fate, and at the same time - the triumph of "ratio", order in everything. This antinomy was most clearly conveyed by the musical genre preludes (toccata, fantasies ) and fugues. I.S. Bach created unsurpassed masterpieces in this genre (preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Toccata and Fugue in D minor).

As follows from our review, the baroque contrast manifested itself even in the scale of the genres. Along with voluminous compositions, laconic opuses were also created.

Musical language of the Baroque

The Baroque era contributed to the development of a new style of writing. Entering the music arena homophony with its division into the main voice and accompanying.

In particular, the popularity of homophony is also due to the fact that the church made special demands on the writing of spiritual compositions: all words must be legible. So the vocals came to the fore, acquiring, moreover, with numerous musical decorations. The baroque tendency to pretentiousness manifested itself here as well.

The instrumental music was also rich in decorations. As a result, it was widespread improvisation : the ostinato (that is, repeating, unchanged) bass, discovered by the Baroque era, gave room for imagination on a given harmonic series. In vocal music, however, long cadenzas and chains of grace notes and trills often adorned opera arias.

At the same time flourished polyphony, but in a completely different direction. Baroque polyphony is the development of counterpoint.

An important step in the development of the musical language was the adoption of the temperament system and the formation. Two main ones were clearly defined - major and minor.

Theory of affects

Since the music of the Baroque era served to express human passions, the goals of the composition were revised. Now each composition was associated with an affect, that is, with a certain state of mind. The theory of affects is not new; it goes back to antiquity. But in the Baroque era, it became widespread.

Anger, sadness, jubilation, love, humility - these affects were associated with the musical language of the compositions. Thus, the perfect affect of joy and fun was expressed by the use of thirds, fourths and fifths, fluent tempo and tripartite size in writing. On the contrary, the affect of sadness was achieved by the inclusion of dissonances, chromatics and slow tempos.

There was even an affective characterization of keys, in which the harsh E-flat major paired with the grumpy E-major opposed the plaintive A-minor and gentle G-major.

Instead of concluding...

The musical culture of the Baroque had a huge impact on the development of the subsequent era of classicism. And not just this era. Even now, echoes of the Baroque are heard in the genres of opera and concerto, which are still popular today. Quotations from Bach's music appear in heavy rock solos, pop songs are mostly built on the baroque "golden sequence", and jazz to some extent adopted the art of improvisation.

And already no one considers Baroque a “strange” style, but admires its truly precious pearls. Albeit a bizarre shape.

1. Differences between the general aesthetic attitudes of the Baroque and the Renaissance

Baroque is one of the so-called "great styles" in the culture of Europe, which flourished in the 17th century. The term "baroque" itself began to be used in the 19th century, in retrospective studies of the art of this time. There are different explanations for the origin of the term. “The name was thought to be derived from the Portuguese perola baroca, meaning a precious pearl. irregular shape, shimmering and iridescent with different colors of the rainbow. According to the second version, barocco is an intricate scholastic syllogism. Finally, the third option - barocco means falsehood, deceit. Wed also from A.V. Mikhailova: “The very word “baroque” is connected and merged with “strangeness” as a marked historical and cultural phenomenon; according to the research, “baroque”, a word with an internal form that is closed to the majority of those who use it, arises from a kind of symbiosis of two words that are distant in their semantics: “baroque” is also known since the 13th century. a figure of a syllogism leading to false conclusions (from among the symbols of syllogisms in scholastic logic), and an irregularly shaped pearl (from Portuguese).

The aesthetics of the Baroque differs in many ways from the aesthetics of the Renaissance. In a certain respect, it can also be called the antithesis of Renaissance aesthetics.

1) Renaissance thinkers most often considered beauty objective dimension of reality (neoplatonists saw its source in God, the World One, authors such as Alberti and Leonardo attributed it to nature). In baroque aesthetics, the opposite idea dominated: the beautiful here, by and large, was considered a product of subjective attitude to the world, its source was seen in the imagination and "wit" of the artist.

2) The Renaissance continued the line of "mathematical" aesthetics, which was begun in antiquity (let's take Leonardo as an example with his conviction that art is the highest of sciences and the most perfect of philosophies). The Baroque was averse to any "mathematization" and rationalization of the aesthetic; on the contrary, its theorists very often translate the aesthetic into the realm of the irrational.

3) Renaissance thinkers saw the goal of art in the elevation of the mind and soul from relative, partial knowledge to absolute knowledge, from conditional being to unconditional being. As for the theorists of the Baroque, for them art is rather a form of escapism, an escape from a boring and faded reality into a world of "dreams", illusions, magnificent deceptions, luxurious affects. Renaissance realism is losing its position here, being replaced by something like illusionism.

In terms of comparing the Renaissance and the Baroque, it is appropriate to refer to the work of Heinrich Wölfflin "The Renaissance and the Baroque". Here, two artistic styles are compared in such a way that the contrast of the cultures themselves and the worldviews underlying them is highlighted. For example: “The Renaissance is the art of a beautiful, peaceful existence. It gives us that liberating beauty, which is perceived as a certain general state of well-being, as a uniform increase in our vital pulse. In his perfect creations we find nothing oppressed or constrained, nothing restless or agitated.” On the contrary, “baroque does not give a happy being, its theme is an emerging, transient being, not giving peace, unsatisfied and not knowing peace. The mood is not resolved, but passes into a state of passionate tension.

Indeed, the baroque world is a world of affected, "limiting" states. Here, the boundaries between reality and a dream, consciousness and material things (in general - subjective and objective), "this world" and "other world" are almost imperceptible. "The religious man of the Baroque is attached to the world, because he feels himself carried along with the world to the waterfall." This feeling is deep eschatologically, however, according to Walter Benjamin, “baroque eschatology does not exist”, because much of what belongs to the transcendent, otherworldly is transferred to earthly reality and becomes the subject of direct (almost always exalted in a Catholic way) experience: “The other world is freed from everything in which even the lightest breath of the world is present, and baroque takes away from it many things that usually do not lend themselves to any kind of articulation, bringing them to light in their highest rise, in a rude form, in order to free the last heavens and, turning them into a vacuum, to make them capable one day of swallowing up the earth with catastrophic force.

In Wölfflin, Renaissance and Baroque are contrasted according to the following five features: linearity / picturesqueness; plane / depth; closed form / open form; unity / plurality; clarity / obscurity . These signs can also be perceived as general symbolic characteristics of the worldview of both eras, its main intentions (it is in this respect that they are important to us). The Renaissance, Wolflin believes, is characterized by graphicness, plasticity, a preliminary definition of forms and boundaries (here lines follow as “the path of the gaze and the educator of the eye”); in the baroque, the indefiniteness of forms, the vision of indefinite masses. In Renaissance art, the principle of plastic isolation and rigor, distinct and intense tectonicity is cultivated (remember the sculptures of Michelangelo). Baroque does not have this rigor and this unity. There is also no tectonic tension of forms itself - they are blurry, shimmering, endowed with the property of some kind of enigmatic incompleteness. Consider, for example, baroque architecture. Smooth, rounded, very unsteady and very "nervous" forms are ubiquitous here; here we often encounter attempts to expand space through mirrored glass, deceptive painting techniques, and so on.

“Not individual forms,” writes Wölfflin, “not individual figures, not individual motifs, but mass effects; not limited, but infinite!” . It is in this sense that we must understand the remark of Friedrich Nietzsche that the name of Bernini (the great sculptor and architect of the Baroque era) is “the name for the death of sculpture”: Bernini’s plastic forms are devoid of rigor, they seem to flow into each other, and the lines, outlining them are continuously blurred - so that not static, but moving, flickering volumes come to the fore, organized, as Wölfflin would put it, according to the “picturesque” principle. It can be said that this "picturesqueness" is the principle of "baroque" thinking in general.

2. Philosophical and aesthetic justification of the Baroque: Baltasar Gracian

According to the historian of aesthetics V.P. Shestakov, “the Baroque style has not received a holistic and systematic theoretical expression in aesthetics. However, individual statements, prefaces to poetic and musical works give an idea of ​​the basic principles of baroque aesthetics. This judgment is not entirely accurate: within the framework of the Baroque culture, primarily in Spain and Italy, several major treatises of a rather high philosophical level were written. We will briefly review two of them below.

Generally speaking, the philosophy of art of the Baroque is not interested in the objective foundations of beauty or ugliness; her attention is riveted to the subjective conditions of aesthetic perception and creativity (it is no coincidence that the very concept of taste appears within the framework of baroque aesthetics); she cares about tricks beliefs spectator or reader - a belief, essentially identical to suggestion, illusionistic deception (i.e., the representation of the non-existent by the existing). Here, by the way, played an important role Rhetoric» Aristotle, translated into Latin for the first time in 1570. The Polish esthetician Belostotsky wrote in his book on the Baroque: “The theory of affects, set forth in the second book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, has become an element of art, understood as persuading the viewer and bringing him into excitement. Rhetoric does not distinguish truth from plausibility; as means of persuasion, they seem to be of equal value - and hence the illusory, fantastic, subjectivism of baroque art, combined with the "classification" of the technique of art, which creates a subjective, misleading impression of plausibility, follows.

One of the most interesting works of this era is the treatise of the Spanish writer Baltasar Gracian y Morales (1601-1658) "Wit or the Art of a Quick Mind" (1642). According to L.E. Pinsky, this book is “usually assessed as the most significant and programmatic work for the aesthetics of the Baroque era (or - in connection with a detailed enumeration of various techniques of craftsmanship - as Baroque rhetoric). Gracien's "Art of the Sophisticated Mind" is in this sense comparable to the "Poetic Art" of Boileau, the artistic program of 17th-century classicism." .

First of all, consider what Gracian means by "wit".

Wit is the unconditional good of the mind and the source of its pleasure: “What beauty is for the eyes, and euphony for the ears, wit is for the mind.” This is the highest faculty of the mind. “Dialectic deals with the connection of concepts in order to correctly build reasoning or syllogism, and rhetoric deals with verbal decorations in order to create an eloquent turn.” Both dialectics and rhetoric require great, but apparently not the most refined skill: "wit, wit are also based on skill, and the highest among all others."

Wit is the property of a “sophisticated mind”, the action of which is quick and precise, as if intuitive. The subject of a rational, logical (“slow”) mind is truth, while wit, “unlike reason, is not content with truth alone, but strives for beauty” . Curiously, by beauty, Gracian means something not quite usual for all previous aesthetics, namely, such harmony, which is expressed in subtle, sometimes imperceptible connections and correspondences between various objects.

A sharp thought “is an act of reason expressing the correspondence that exists between objects. Their very coordination, or skillful correlation, expresses their objective subtle connection. Moreover, the establishment of this correspondence is all the more valuable, the less obvious it seems both in reality and in the most "witty" work. “Conformity,” writes Gracian, “is a generic trait common to all kinds of wit and embracing all the tricks of a sophisticated mind; even where we have opposition and heterogeneity, this is also nothing more than a skillful correlation of objects.

Thus, the properties of beauty in the Gracian (and general Baroque) understanding are correspondence, subtle coherence, skillful correlation with each other of such objects, between which there is no logically regular closeness. This is beauty, possible only in art, true beauty, brought to perfection by a “sophisticated mind”; as stated in another work of Gracian, "even beauty must be helped: even the beautiful will appear as ugliness, if not decorated with art, which removes flaws and polishes dignity."

The correspondences that Gracian speaks of are in some cases inherent in the objects themselves (they "already contain all sorts of ingenious moves"), in others they are established quite arbitrarily. Essentially, it doesn't matter if they are "objective" or "subjective": it is much more important whether the artist managed to convince us that they are not fiction. The only means of such, sometimes completely illusionistic, persuasion is itself the beauty. The artist acts with beauty, and beauty can have a much greater probative force than any syllogism. Characterizing the proofs generated by wit, i.e. appealing, first of all, to the beauty of form, Gracian points out their paradoxical nature: “the evidence is based on the conformity of contradictory extremes”; “contrast is emphasized in such evidence”; “the proof is based on the opposition of two concepts”, etc.

The Spanish thinker tries to rationalize both these proofs and the “technique” of wit in general: he cites many examples from contemporary Spanish poetry and scrupulously analyzes the techniques by which the effects of illogical “correspondence” are created. At the same time, he is convinced that wit cannot be limited by the possession of techniques (rhetorical skill), since much of it is determined by an intuition that surpasses reason, or, in Gracian's terms, "talent". Wit, he believes, is a synthesis of reason and talent, and the latter dominates in this synthesis. “... Nature,” writes Gracian, “stole from the mind everything that bestowed talent; Seneca's paradox is based on this: a grain of madness is inherent in every great talent. Impressions influence him, he lives on the borders of affect, on the border of desire and near the dangerous neighborhood of passions.

Thus, wit is expressed not so much in knowledge as in an artistic game that destroys the boundaries of the familiar. The most important thing here is the ability to combine the incompatible, the ability to surprise, to amaze (Gracien says: “the salt of wit is in the unusual”), and, in addition, to present the imagination as real (to convince, create illusions). This is intellectual epicureanism, an exciting aesthetic game.

Let's try to project these provisions of Gracian's treatise onto the field of art.

A) We will see that in the work of the artist the importance of reception: it is directly related to clarity, distinctness in identifying "correspondences" and all sorts of subtle connections between things.

B) If art is a game of a sophisticated mind, more associated with talent than with reason, then there can be no strict (linear-geometric, in the sense of Wölfflin) definiteness of the form of speech. Here in the foreground is a paradoxical association, as well as a free, "musically" organized and certainly spectacular metaphor.

To illustrate, let us take a few examples from the work of the great baroque poet Luis de Gongora (1561-1627), an older contemporary of Gracien (the latter largely generalized and conceptualized his artistic findings).

One line from "Solitudes": "The oxen return to the stall, trampling on the dim ray of day." This is an ideal combination of the incompatible: one can “trample” only some dense surface, something material in general, but not a ray. The image that arises here turns out to be, as it were, incomplete, and hence its “enigmatism”, which is so characteristic of Gongora's poems and baroque poetry in general.

When Gongora speaks of a wounded man: "veins in which there is little blood / eyes in which there is a lot of night," he also combines traditionally incompatible things: a concrete idea and a metaphorical image. In some cases, the poet uses metaphors that are stunning in their effectiveness and unexpectedness. For example, about the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus (in the same "Loneliness"), he writes: "it was a terrible yawn of the earth"; about the clock: "evil time dressed in numbers." Sometimes he resorts to a technique that the "classic" oriented poets were not in favor of - to hyperbole. For example, the beauty of the bride is described by him as follows: “She could make sultry Norway with the help of two suns / And white Ethiopia with the help of two hands.”

“The originality of Don Luis de Gongora,” wrote Federico Garcia Lorca in an essay about him, “besides the purely grammatical plan, lies in the very method of his “hunting” for poetic images, the method in which he embraces their dramatic antagonism and, overcoming his horse gallop creates a myth." It seems that the method of actualization and overcoming of the "dramatic antagonism" of images is largely characteristic of all baroque art. Concluding the conversation about Baltasar Gracian, we note that it was he who introduced the concept of "taste" in the meaning of "aesthetic taste" (he called it "high taste"). With this concept, he designated one of the abilities of human cognition, specifically focused on the comprehension of beauty and works of art.

The main theme of Tesauro's treatise is the same "wit" as that of Gracian, and, speaking about wit, the philosopher reveals the same subjectivism in understanding the essence of beauty and the same desire to elevate "talent" above reason. It should be noted that the methodological guide for Tesauro, in his own words, is Aristotle's Rhetoric. In one of the opening paragraphs of his treatise, he writes: “Reader, get ready to watch how I, with the help of the indispensable Aristotelian spying device, will undertake to look at everything that deserves the name of the Witty, so that, relying on Searches and Observations, I can find the most solid evidence for my thoughts.”

How does Tesauro interpret wit? His approach to the consideration of this concept can, in general, be called rhetorical: “Witticisms used to be understood as Exquisite NAMES, that is, Figurative and Metaphorical uses of Names; then they began to understand also refined STATEMENTS, that is, Witty and Elegant Phrases, Descriptions; now they have also added refined JUDGMENTS, they are the greatest reason and have to be called Witty CONCEPTS. Therefore, all Speeches, Poems, Inscriptions, Epitaphs, Praises and Epigrams, arranged with the help of such CONCEPTS, we will call witty.

The main qualities of wit are "insight" and "resourcefulness". Insight sees the most hidden and smallest qualities of various objects. Essence, Material and Form, Properties, Causes, Meaning, Kind, Purposes, Inclinations, Similarity and Divergence, Equivalence, Superiority and Inferiority, Distinctive Signs, Names and any possibilities of double understanding - in a word, nothing remains unexplored, unnoticed; and after all, in every existing Subject there is something hidden, deeply hidden. As for resourcefulness, it “instantly compares these noticed Qualities, connects them with each other, or each correlates with the visible appearance of the Object, then combines the observations or opposes them; underestimate or exaggerate as necessary; one is placed in causal dependence on the other; one notices the other; finally, with the marvelous dexterity of Figlyar, one property is put in the Figure of Allegory in the place of the Other.

It is interesting here to compare wit with the dexterity of the "buffoon". "Shuffling" usually consists in deliberately frivolous, often parodic, buffoonish, playing a role. In this sense, it is akin to the skill of a magician. Apparently, it is important for Tesauro to emphasize the features external style that aesthetic game, in which, in fact, wit is manifested: it seems to us that its meaning can be reduced to pure “showmanship” - to dexterity, grace, unexpectedness of an effect that strikes the imagination, etc. However, this is only an appearance. Wit, of course, is a game, but a game based on the knowledge of the “hidden” qualities of things and generating a new image of the world, an image in which everything dissimilar and disparate appears united, more precisely, connected by relations of paradoxical “correspondence”. Moreover, wit is the highest of the arts, in which a person imitates God himself, who “often appears to his creatures as a Poet and a wondrous wit: speaking to people and to Angels, he spreads allegorical proverbs and symbolic sayings, wrapping them around his Concepts filled with the highest Secrets".

According to Tesauro, the main device of witty expression is allegory. There are different types of parables - comparison, allegory, hyperbole, metonymy. But the most important one is metaphor. She, as the philosopher says, is "the mother of Poetry, Wit, Concepts, Symbols and heroic Mottos", "the most INVENTORY and INSIGHT, AMAZING and STRIKING, ENHORING and USEFUL, RICH and FRACTURING of the creations of the Human Mind".

The doctrine of metaphor, set forth in Aristotle's Spyglass, is essentially the general theory of baroque art, and here Tesauro is really the Boilo of the Baroque era. He writes: a metaphor, "carrying thought far away and for the sake of this, with its power, sublimating different words from one category to another, and the concept itself transforms, making it seem different, completely different: in this way, similarities are revealed in dissimilar things" . And one more thing: “For the true perfection of the Metaphor, it is most ideal if the very deep concepts hidden in it are as far apart as possible, so that special talent and training are required, and the ability to roll down and climb up through many steps with one spirit. , and embrace all the depths of different meanings with a single look. The artist, wittily operating with metaphors, “creates the existing out of the non-existent. His lion turns into a Man, and the Eagle into a whole City. Sharp Mind crosses a woman with a Fish and creates a Siren, a symbol of Patting. He adds to the front part of the body of the Goat the Serpent's tail, and thus the Chimera, the hieroglyphic symbol of Madness, is born.

Metaphor is characterized by originality, surprise and “strikingness” (the ability to amaze, amaze): “the spirit of the listener, struck by novelty, is puzzled, marveling at the same time at the amazing form of the witty statement and at the amazing essence of the described subject” . In addition, the metaphor expresses such complexes of meanings that ordinary, non-metaphorical language is unable to express: “Want to translate the language into a common language: The vines mourn, or the Sun sows rays, you are tormented and you will not be able to.”

I must also say that the world itself for Tesauro is a “Divine metaphor”. Therefore, the metaphors of art, although they look illusory, fantastic, by their nature coincide with the internal structure of the universe.
4. Medieval symbol and baroque metaphor
At one of the last lectures it was said that for the Middle Ages the world is a collection of symbols. Tesauro asserts: the world is a Divine Metaphor. What is the difference between these two positions?

First of all, the difference is that with a symbolic relationship (precisely in its medieval version), the meanings of the symbols are interpreted more or less strictly: for example, the red color, and it can be associated either with the blood of Christ, or with the mercy of the Mother of God, or else with anything. It is important that with all the variety of interpretations, the correspondence of the signified to the signifier here will be established clearly and even unambiguously. When we talk about a metaphor, we can no longer allow such unambiguity, because a metaphor is, as it were, an eternally “unprepared”, becoming, fluid meaning. In a metaphor there is always an understatement, an underdetermination. At the same time, she strives to “transparent” the boundaries between opposite objects - both phenomenally opposite (subjective and objective, real and immaterial, dense and rarefied, solid and fluid, distant and close, local and cosmic, etc.), and noumenal (material and ideal, "heavenly" and "earthly", natural and cultural, human and superhuman). Therefore, the metaphor allows a mysterious and arbitrary (not controlled by the mind) combination of the incompatible, the convergence of the dissimilar, the constant "flow" of opposites into each other (cf. Roman Jacobson and then Paul Ricoeur: metaphor - "split reference").

In addition, symbolic relations are perceived as completely objective, independent of our "disposition" in relation to them, from our consciousness as a whole. And, in principle, here the arbitrariness of interpretations is not allowed. Metaphor, on the other hand, is interpreted subjectively, and its various explanations, decodings, in one way or another depend on how we look at it, what we “grasp” in it. Metaphor is such a semantic relationship in which there is neither objective nor subjective, but rather there is a unity of the subjective-objective, i.e. inseparability, unity of the world and man. In baroque culture, everything is exactly like this: consciousness and the world are initially, as it were, “included” in each other, according to the principle of the Leibniz monad, and form one whole (albeit quite fancifully organized, changeable, mysterious, always unsaid). Thus, Gilles Deleuze wrote, comparing the image of baroque art with soft folded matter: “... Each soul or each subject is completely closed, without windows and without doors, and in its very dark base contains the whole world, illuminating only a small part of this world (cf. This is with the effects of baroque chiaroscuro painting, for example, by Caravaggio or Dosso Dossi. N.B.), each has its own World, so it is folded or folded in each soul, but each time in a different way, since there is only a very small side of this fold, which is illuminated.

State educational institution

higher vocational education

Moscow State University

named after M. V. Lomonosov

Faculty of Arts

Department of Musical Art

Coursework on the topic:

"Aesthetics of the Baroque"

Moscow 2016

Table of contents

In the Baroque era, a tragic hero enters the stage, he challenges all the elements - earthly and heavenly, he turns to heaven: "God, if you exist, then how can you endure all this?" Musical art strove to convey all human passions in their contrasts and diversity, and therefore chose melodic monophony, and not choral polyphony. The music becomes tragic, it seems to repel the serene clarity of the Renaissance. Many composers are beginning to turn to the aria genre in order to pour out the sadness of a suffering heart. But, despite all the mental anguish, the music is saturated with Faith, there is no hopelessness in it. It is to him, to the Lord, that tragic questions are directed, it is he, the Almighty, who must dispel doubts, support him in life's trials. Such is the content and mood of the "Psalm of David" to the biblical verses of the composerXVIIcentury of Heinrich Schutz. And a miracle happens: a person who was disappointed by the imperfection of the world, but was strong in spirit, finally finds peace of mind and joy. But now he has to look for them in doubt, reflection and hard struggle - peace of mind and joy are no longer sent by God.

The world in the Baroque era was presented as clearly divided vertically into three spheres: heaven-earth-hell, and a person turned out to be a wanderer, a pilgrim. S. A. Gudimova wrote: “The picture of the world in the Baroque era appeared as a Christian cosmos; the world-macrocosm was a theater on the stage of which a man-microcosm performed, settling in this boundless world, repeating its structure ».

The ideas of natural Harmony, which inspired the Renaissance, faded into the background with the advent of the New Age. The connection of times was broken and the motto of the Baroque era was Contradiction, which manifested itself in everything. The most significant was the contradiction between rational and emotional, reason and feelings. Passion and cold calculation seemed to argue with each other and wished to occupy a dominant position in the culture of the era. This "dispute" further emphasized the bizarre nature of this era, which knew no limits in anything. Baroque passion was boundless: joy invariably turned into jubilation, and sadness into sorrow. Thomas Carew very accurately conveyed this attraction to hyperbole in his poem "Intolerance to the Ordinary":

Give me love, give me contempt,

Let me enjoy the fullness.

I need life over the edge -

In love unbearable peace!

Fire and ice - one of two!

Excessive excites the spirit.

Let love come down from heaven

Like golden rain through granite

Zeus penetrated Danae!

Let hatred strike like thunder

Destroying everything I've been given.

Eden and hell are one of the two.

Oh, let me drink in fullness -

The soul is unbearable peace.

The craving for exaggeration manifested itself in the Baroque era at different levels and in different types of art: excessive emotional fullness, the desire to free oneself from the framework of the usual are characteristic of music, painting, and architecture. Baroque forms strive for asymmetry, excessive detailing, abundance.

Since the era was filled with contradictions, rationalism was noticeable along with emotions and feelings in the Baroque era. It manifested itself with particular force in the art of music, when various aspects and aspects of the musical whole seemed to correspond to opposite directions: the "sound body" of music - melodies and combinations of sounds - gravitate towards excitement, the manifestation of emotions, while the intensity of passions is balanced by a clear structural organization whole and rhythmic discipline. The contradiction between the emotional and the rational in the culture of the Baroque acquired a new facet, supplemented by the contradictions of the individual and the rhetorical, which was reflected in the poem "Imaginary Love" by Girolamo Fontanello:

I speak with word and pen

About the lightning of the eyes, not knowing the thunder.

I shed tears, but this is just a reception,

And in the throat of a lump - and no coma .

Individualization in the artistic speech of the Baroque arose because the well-known writing techniques, forms and plots were used each time in a different context, so the author could interpret them differently.

The Baroque era created its own allegorical mythology. Mythological figures were not only Hope, Mercy, Faith, Consolation, Church, Love, but also islands, countries of the world, cities. Such allegorical figures acted as carriers of abstract concepts and personified the phenomena and forces of nature. Ancient deities entered into a complex system of symbols and allegories, overgrown with new attributes. That is why the emblem genre became one of the dominant genres of the Baroque era.

With the opening of the homophonic warehouse, major and minor also stood out as leading ones, since sadness and joy only now required musical expression. In the Baroque era, another discovery was made - modal gravity, trying to convey with the help of complex connections and tones the imperceptible process of the emergence and resolution of emotional experiences. The discovery of major and minor as two opposite principles in music and the discovery of modal gravity allowed music to move from immersion in natural harmony to the depiction of universal passions, or, as they were then called, affects.

With the advent of the new era, the rhythmic side has also undergone changes. From the beginning of the Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance, time seemed to be something frozen, static, eternal. In the Baroque era, with the advent of the theme of Man, the concept of time also changed - "the eternal and infinite time of the Lord God turned into the finite time of human life." The idea of ​​space moving and time moving forward became fundamental. Every passing minute began to be valued, moments that inevitably brought the end of earthly existence closer. This was also reflected in music: not a long, but a short note became the conventional unit of musical rhythm. Musical speech at that time began to be divided into equal measures, became accentuated.

In connection with the desire to express all the richness and diversity of the soul, new musical genres and forms appeared. The beginning of this process was marked by the birth of opera at the beginning of the 17th century. Also, "opera-like" wind genres arose - cantata and oratorio. Instrumental music acquired an independent meaning. New genres and forms were born: prelude and fugue, instrumental concerto, dance suites. A work in which the elements mutually reflected each other was considered integral and perfect in the Baroque era. This criterion for evaluating works of art was associated with the idea of ​​the Baroque era about the interdependence of the elements of the world, about the inseparable connection of everything that exists.

Conclusion

Thus, the baroque appeared inXVIIcentury, in Italy, against the background of the crisis of the ideas of the Renaissance. The first task of the new style was to create the illusion of wealth and power, the rise of the Catholic Church and the Italian nobility. However, it is wrong to consider the Baroque era solely as a time of transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Baroque is an independent phase in the development of art, and the reasons for its appearance are not only the economic and political problems of Italy: the new style reflected the mood of the entire European society.

The essence of baroque aesthetics is thatin this era, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe world, which was established in antiquity, as a rational and constant unity, as well as the Renaissance idea of ​​​​man as a most rational being, changed. In baroque aesthetics, what was ugly was sometimes considered beautiful, for example, in the Renaissance. The Baroque begins to reject authorities and traditions not in themselves, but as prejudices, as an obsolete substance. For baroque, new forms are important for the knowledge of the beautiful, the surrounding world, the mind.

The essence of the Baroque reflects the crisis concept of the world and the individual, which is humanistically oriented, but socially pessimistic: it contains doubts about the capabilities of a person, a sense of the futility of being and the doom of good to defeat in the fight against evil. The main features of the Baroque are increased emotionality, obvious dynamism, emotionality, contrast of images; great importance is attached to irrational effects and elements. These features are most clearly manifested in architecture and sculpture, music, literature and art in various European countries.

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