The flowering of Spanish culture was immediately preceded by the most famous period in the history of the country. At the end of the 15th century, previously fragmented Spain united under the rule of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. In 1492, Spain, united under central rule, completed the Reconquista - the centuries-old struggle of the Spaniards against the Arabs to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula. A characteristic feature of Spanish art, in contrast to other European countries, is a scanty proportion of secular works created in this state for a very long period after the end of the Middle Ages and the onset of modern times. At a time when Italians and Flemings happily used the wealth of subjects from ancient history or mythology, as well as the life around them, the sphere of activity of Spanish artists was limited to exclusively Christian themes. At first, the only oasis among this hegemony of ideology were images of monarchs and their families - a court portrait, the first secular genre in Spanish painting, from which Spanish art critics sometimes deduce the further development of non-religious painting.

The line of development of the court portrait passed apart from the main theme of Spanish art, and the masters of this trend had to solve special problems in their work, creating works that reflected their original approach to the problem of depicting a person. The solution to this problem had to combine both the ideal ideas about the model and its realistic vision - without oversimplification. And the Spanish court portrait art, based on several different components, created its own unique style. Examining the various impulses that have influenced the Spanish portrait helps to gain a deeper appreciation of its specificity.

Local Spanish tastes proper, the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and also, to a large extent, the influence of the Northern Renaissance, especially the Dutch school of painting, became extremely important for the formation of its distinctive features.

The art workshops of the Iberian Peninsula during the period of the new awakening of European art and the departure from the principles of the Middle Ages did not have a chance, unlike Italy and the cities of Northern Europe, to become powerful

Spanish painting is unique and unlike anything else. Spanish artists have made a very large contribution to world culture. Spanish painting has its origins in the painting of church frescoes and altarpieces, which were created by Italian, German and Dutch masters. True, the Spaniards adopted only technology, and the passion and fanaticism that their works possess are their own, not borrowed from anyone. The name Domenicos Theotokopoulos (1541 - 1614) is known as the name of the first famous painter of Spain, who studied in Italy under Titian and was invited to Spain by Philip II. The flowering of Spanish culture: literature and theater (consecrated with the names of Cervantes and Lope de Bega), and then painting - did not coincide with the period of the highest economic and political power of Spain and came somewhat later. The golden age of Spanish painting is the 17th century, or rather, the 80s of the 16th - 80s of the 17th century.

For Spanish art of the 16-18th century, the existence of traditions was not classical, but medieval, Gothic. The role of Moorish art in connection with the centuries-old domination of the Arabs in Spain is undoubted for the entire Spanish culture, which managed to rework the Moorish features in an unusually interesting way, fusing them with the original national ones.

The Spanish artists had two main customers: the first was the courtyard, the wealthy Spanish grandees, the aristocracy, and the second was the church. The role of the Catholic Church in the formation of the Spanish school of painting was also very great. Customers' tastes were formed under her influence. But the severity of the fate of the Spanish people, the originality of their life paths have developed a specific worldview of the Spaniards. Religious ideas, which, in fact, sanctified all the art of Spain, are perceived very concretely in the images of reality, the sensual world surprisingly coexists with religious idealism, and the folk, national element bursts into the mystical plot. In Spanish art, the ideal of a national hero is expressed primarily in the images of saints.

The concept of "court portrait" includes certain characteristic features that are not typical of other varieties of the portrait genre. This is caused, first of all, by the special social position of the portrayed and related functions, including ideological ones. But although the range of models of the court portrait is not very narrow, including images of the retinue - high-ranking aristocrats, and portraits of the royal family, as well as - in the case of the Spanish court - images of dwarfs and freaks (los truhanes), the most significant subject of his depiction has always remained exclusively the monarch - and no one but him. In this work, the topic was limited to images of exclusively kings, since it is their portraits that are the quintessence of the image and are performed at the highest level, and also serve as a typological and iconographic model.

The image of the supreme ruler, unlike other portraits created at court even by the same artists, was invariably filled with certain unique qualities. They were generated by an ideology that sets God's anointed one apart from all others, even those closest to him in blood. The portrait of the king, in contrast to the images of his relatives, concentrated in an even more exaggerated form all the qualities inherent in this court art, and also used certain techniques intended exclusively for him - associated with the special, unique position of the monarch on earth. The mood of subjects, including artists, is characterized, for example, by the well-known postulate of law "Imago regis, rex est" - the image of the king is the king himself, and crimes or oaths committed in the presence of this image are tantamount to those committed in the personal presence of the monarch.

Thus, the king and his images, thanks to the faith of his subjects, became related in function to the celestials and their images, which, undoubtedly, was reflected in the portraits.

At the end of the 15th century. the Reconquista ended (the war for the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula from Arab rule, which lasted almost eight centuries) and a single Spanish kingdom was formed. In the XVI century. an active military policy, and above all the seizure of vast territories in the newly discovered America, turned Spain into one of the richest European monarchies. However, prosperity did not last long - already at the end of the century the country was experiencing an economic decline, and in the wars with England in the 16th - 17th centuries. she lost her dominance at sea.

In cultural development, it was precisely by the 17th century. Spain reached its peak, primarily in literature and painting. Since Spain gained independence and unity rather late, the creation of a national artistic style was especially important. This was not easy for a country without well-rooted traditions.

The development of Spanish painting and sculpture was also complicated by the position of the Catholic Church: the Inquisition imposed strict censorship on art. However, despite a number of strict restrictions, Spanish masters worked in almost all genres and covered the same circle in their work as their contemporaries from other European countries.

In architecture, the traditions of medieval European and Arab architecture (especially in the decorative design of buildings) were combined with the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and since the 17th century. - baroque. As a result, Spanish architecture did not completely free itself from eclecticism - a combination of features of different styles in one work. The national originality manifested itself much more clearly in sculpture, in particular in wooden plastics. In painting, the combination of European influence and national characteristics turned out to be the most harmonious and received a deeply original embodiment.

Speaking about the culture of Spain, it should be noted that with all the attention to art on the part of the royal court, the brightest masters still worked in the province. It was their work that determined the main artistic trends of that time.

The Inquisition (from the Latin inquisitio - "search") - in the Catholic Church in the XIII-XIX centuries. courts independent of the secular government, established to combat heresies (religious movements that deviated from the official provisions of the Church).

The Spanish painter, sculptor and architect El Greco (Teotokopouli Domenico) was born in Crete in 1541, hence his nickname - the Greek. He studied traditional icon painting in Crete, after 1560 he went to Venice, where, possibly, he studied with Titian, and in 1570 - to Rome.

The creative handwriting was formed mainly under the influence of Tintoretto and Michelangelo. In 1577 El Greco moved to Spain and settled in Toledo, where he worked from 1577 until his death (April 7, 1614), creating a number of remarkable altars. His works are characterized by incredible emotionality, unexpected angles and unnaturally elongated proportions, creating the effect of a rapid change in the scale of figures and objects ("The Martyrdom of St. Maurice", 1580-1582). El Greco's masterful paintings on religious subjects with a large number of characters are akin to the poetry of Spanish mystics in their unreality. Such, for example, is the solemnly majestic composition "The Burial of the Count Orgaz" (1586-1588).

Finding himself first in the orbit of the influence of Titian and Michelangelo, and then embarking on the path of Mannerism, El Greco became the forerunner of baroque art. The desire to go beyond the limits of ordinary human experience makes him related to the Spanish mystics - the poet Juan de la Cruz, St. Teresa and St. Ignatius Loyola. That is why Spain became a fertile ground for El Greco's creativity, which, in turn, was readily assimilated by Spanish art. Over time, scientific knowledge and studies in mathematics began to gain more and more importance in his work.

Emotionality is also characteristic of El Greco's portraits, sometimes marked by psychological and social insight. The traits of unreality are most clearly seen in the master's later works ("The Removal of the Fifth Seal", "Laocoon", 1610-1614). The "View of Toledo" (1610-1614) is fanned with an acute poetic perception of nature, a tragic attitude towards the world. After the death of the artist, El Greco's work was forgotten and rediscovered only at the beginning of the 20th century, with the advent of expressionism.

El Greco died in 1614.

renaissance painting vinci raphael

Burial of Christ. 1560

Christ heals a blind man. 1567

Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. 1567

Modena Triptych. 1568

Modena Triptych. 1568

The Last Supper. 1568

Mount Sinai. 1570-72

Cleansing the Temple. 1570

Christ heals a blind man. 1570-75

Adoration of the shepherds. 1570-72

Annunciation. 1570

Giulio Clovio. 1571-72

Vincenzo Anastachi. 1571-76

Pieta` (Lamentation of Christ). 1571-76

Annunciation. 1575

Portrait of a man. 1575

Portrait of the sculptor. 1576-78

Penitent Mary Magdolina. 1576-78

Stripping the clothes off Christ. 1577-79

Chapter "Art of Spain". General History of Art. Volume III. Renaissance art. Author: T.P. Captereva; edited by Yu.D. Kolpinsky and E.I. Rotenberg (Moscow, State Publishing House "Art", 1962)

The conditions for the emergence of the Renaissance culture have developed in Spain since the middle of the 15th century. By the beginning of the 16th century, Spain had become one of the strongest powers in the world; soon it became part of the huge Habsburg empire. It would seem that especially favorable opportunities have opened up here for the broadest development of a new culture. Yet Spain did not know such a powerful Renaissance movement as other European countries. The pathos of discovering the real world did not receive full and comprehensive manifestation in the culture of the Spanish Renaissance. The new often made its way with difficulty, often intertwining with the old, which is out of date.

Spain left the stage of feudal fragmentation by the end of the 15th century. Relatively early state centralization in Spain was associated with the victory of the reactionary feudal forces, whose interests were expressed by the prevailing at the beginning of the 16th century. Spanish absolutism. The preconditions for the insufficiently consistent spread of a new, antifeudal culture in Spain were hidden in the economic and political immaturity of Spanish cities, whose political claims did not go beyond the struggle for medieval liberties. To this it should be added that in the historical destinies of Spain, the Catholic Church played an exceptionally reactionary role. In no other European country has it achieved such power. Its roots go back to the days of the reconquest, when the reconquest of the country was carried out under religious slogans. Throughout the Middle Ages, the church was continuously enriched and strengthened its power. Already in the first stages of the formation of Spanish absolutism, she became his loyal ally. The unlimited power of the Church and the Inquisition was a real tragedy for the Spanish people. The Church not only destroyed the country's productive forces, subjecting the "heretics" to mass extermination - most often representatives of the most active commercial and industrial strata of the population - it stifled any free manifestation of thought with fanatical fanaticism, fettering the living soul of the people in a cruel grip. All these circumstances complicated and filled with contradictions the evolution of the art of the Spanish Renaissance. For the same reasons, the individual phases of the Renaissance in Spain did not coincide with the corresponding stages of the Renaissance in other countries.

The penetration of Renaissance forms into Spanish art can be traced back to around the middle of the 15th century. But the germs of the new appeared only in the field of painting; architecture and sculpture retained a Gothic character.

At the turn of the 15-16 centuries. an important qualitative change has taken place in Spanish culture. Since that time, new ideas and forms have embraced all areas of art - architecture, sculpture, painting and applied art. The artistic process has acquired features of greater integrity. However, even in the period under consideration, the art of the Spanish Renaissance has far from reached the degree of maturity that would make it possible to bring it closer to the period of the High Renaissance, which fell in other countries in the first decades of the 16th century. Early Renaissance traditions predominated in Spanish art of this time. The diversity of the general picture of development, a kind of combination of various artistic stages was also reflected in the fact that simultaneously with the works in which elements of the Gothic were still preserved, works were created either of a manneristic nature, or even works marked by a premonition of the baroque. In essence, Spain did not know the integral phase of the High Renaissance, for the absolutist regime itself, which was established in the 20s. 16th century, could not become the soil on which this art could be widely developed.

The second half of the 16th century was the time of the highest creative achievements of Spanish culture. This is a period of collision of various artistic trends, on the one hand, completing the Renaissance and at the same time marking the transition to the culture of the 17th century. It is enough to mention the name of the great Cervantes to imagine what deep and multifaceted problems of reality were embodied in Spanish literature of that time. Significant artistic achievements characterize the architecture and painting of Spain in the second half of the century. But, unlike the Italian (in particular, Venetian) masters of this period, in whose work the connection and continuity with the range of artistic ideas of the previous phases of the Renaissance was clearly expressed, the features of the tragic crisis of the late Renaissance were more sharply embodied in Spanish painting.

The 15th century in the history of Spain was marked by some break in the external struggle with the Arabs, who retained in their hands only the territorially insignificant Emirate of Granada. At the same time, it was a time of heightened antagonistic contradictions within Spanish society, all classes of which were, as it were, brought into active movement by the previous centuries of reconquest. The interests of the growing royal power clashed with the interests of the secular and spiritual nobility. On the other hand, the intensification of feudal oppression provoked resistance from free cities, united in military alliances - Sacred Ermandada, and the peasantry, who rebelled against their enslavement.

The process of overcoming the conservative canons of Gothic, the formation of realism in painting took place primarily in those rich coastal regions of the country, which, like Catalonia and Valencia, were the most economically developed territories of Spain, which early established lively trade and cultural ties with the Netherlands and Italy. The impact of the Dutch school was especially strong, increased after the visit in 1428-1429. Iberian Peninsula by Jan van Eyck. The preference shown by Spanish masters to Dutch art is explained not only by the close political, trade and cultural ties between Spain and the Netherlands: the very nature of the realism of Dutch painting with its precise detailing and materiality of forms, acutely individual characteristics of a person and general sonorous colorful system was close to the creative quests of the Spanish painters. The Spanish masters gravitated more towards the empiricism of the Dutch school than towards the high generalization of the images of Italian art. However, a comparison of the works of Spanish and Dutch painting convinces how strong the traditions of the Middle Ages were in Spain at that time. Realistic techniques in conveying space and volumetric forms are largely limited here. In the works of Spanish masters, the planar principle of the image dominates, even more emphasized by the introduction of golden backgrounds. Love for the careful reproduction of patterned precious fabrics, in the oriental abundant ornamentation gives these works a touch of conventional medieval decorativeness. At the same time, in comparison with Dutch painting, Spanish painting of the 15th century. more severe and dramatic. The main attention in it is paid to the image of a person, the disclosure of his inner, most often religious experiences. Much less space is occupied by the image of his environment - interior, landscape, still life.

The work of the Valencian artist Luis Dalmau (died in 1460) was of great importance in the spread of Dutch influence in painting not only in Valencia, but throughout Spain. In the painting Madonna Surrounded by City Counselors (1443-1445; Barcelona, \u200b\u200bMuseum), Dahlmau imitated the works of Jan van Eyck.

However, in Dalmau's work, the plane-decorative character is more pronounced, and in his figures - the constraint of movements. It is significant that the painting was not painted in oil, but in tempera, the technique of which was preserved for a long time in Spain. At the same time, the images of advisers, people full of inner dignity, are marked by an undeniable portrait authenticity.

The realistic interpretation of the characteristic human appearance also distinguishes the works of another famous painter of Valencia, Jaime Baso, nicknamed Hakomar (1413-1461).

One of the largest Catalan painters of the 16th century. Haime Uge (worked in 1448-1487) - the creator of the courageous images of St. George, Saints Abdon and Senen (1459-1460; altar of the Church of Mary in Tarras). The saints are presented in the guise of slender youths with simple and open faces. The sublimity in them is combined with inner nobility. Bright spots of the saints' dark and red robes, golden sword hilts silhouetted against the burning gold background.

A new stage in Spanish art begins at the end of the 15th century. In 1479 Spain was united under the rule of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Using the support of Sacred Ermandada, the royal power suppressed the resistance of the feudal lords. However, on the whole, the Spanish nobility did not lose, according to K. Marx, their "harmful privileges" and took dominant positions in the system of state administration. An offensive was soon launched against the medieval liberties of the Spanish cities. To assert their rule, Ferdinand and Isabella, who received the official name "Catholic kings" from the Pope, relied on the Inquisition established in 1480.

It was this period that turned out to be favorable for the completion of the reconquista. In 1492 the Emirate of Granada fell. The last stage of the reconquest caused an increase in religious intolerance: those Arabs and Jews who refused to accept Christianity had to leave the country.

After the end of the reconquest, the search for new sources of income contributed to the active colonial expansion of Spain. It began with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, which was an event of enormous global significance.

The unification of the country, the formation of an absolute monarchy, the end of the Reconquista and especially the colonization of the New World contributed to the political rise of Spain. Broad prospects of economic power opened up before her. Spain emerged from the closed framework of its internal development into the international historical arena. The early inclusion of Spain in the process of initial capitalist accumulation at first caused the country's political and economic rise. Important steps were taken towards the liberation of the human person from the yoke of medieval dogmas. But, on the other hand, the art of Spain since the formation of the absolutist state was intended to glorify the ideas of the power of the growing monarchy and the rule of Catholicism. If the secular principle was more fully expressed in architecture, then in the field of sculpture and painting, religious themes completely prevailed. The influence of humanistic ideas, a new artistic system of thinking, which sometimes led to a duality of perception of the world, not yet completely freed from the bonds of the Middle Ages, became, however, more and more noticeable in Spanish culture.

The dominant position in Spanish culture in the early 16th century. occupied architecture, which later received the name of the plateresque style (from the word platero - jewelry; it means a subtle, like jewelry, decorative decoration of buildings). The early stage of plateresque was made up of works of the late 15th century, called the Isabelino period, that is, the time of the reign of Queen Isabella. Gothic traditions, especially in the solution of the plan and construction of the building, were still very strong in the architecture of Isabelino, but in general, a new architectural image was born in the works of this style in a complex fusion of various artistic trends. Moorish elements played a significant role in it.

The penetration into architecture and partly sculpture of the artistic tendencies of Arab Spain is an extremely significant phenomenon. Throughout the Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula, the political and religious antagonism of the two peoples got along with their close cultural interaction. At the time under consideration, the outlined shift in artistic consciousness opened the way for the development of a secular, life-affirming principle. On the one hand, Italian art was an inspiring example here, the classical forms of which gradually spread in Spain. At the same time, the solemn and festive Moorish artistic culture, which continued its existence in the 15th century. in the style of Mudejar, immediately appeared before the Spaniards in all its splendor after the capture of Granada. It was, so to speak, a local tradition that the art of the developing Spanish Renaissance embodied.

At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, mainly small churches were erected in Spain to commemorate historical events, the tombs of the royal family and the aristocracy. Magnificent chapels were added to the old Gothic cathedrals. Strengthened international ties resulted in the wide attraction of foreign masters to the Spanish court, in whose work, however, local traditions and new artistic tastes prevailed.

The first signs of the emergence of a new style appeared in the interior of the Church of San Juan de los Reyos (1476) in Toledo by the architect Juan de Guas. The exterior of the church is austere and traditional in the Gothic style. But in the spacious, light interior, where the architect introduced the Moorish motif of the eight-pointed Star in the ceiling of the vault, the decoration makes an unusual impression. The walls are completely covered, especially in the space under the dome, with sculptural ornamentation. The principle of carpeted filling of the wall plane with a rich sculptural decoration - the main feature of the plateresque style - was reflected in this early construction by Juan de Guas.

In the further development of Spanish architecture, what was hidden in the interior seemed to come to the surface of the building, and above all to its facade, as, for example, in the remarkable monuments of the late 15th century. - in the Church of San Pablo and the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid. The exceptional expressiveness and novelty of the appearance of their facades is significantly increased because the entire decoration is concentrated on the portal, the thin, whimsical, rich plastic carving of which is opposed to the harsh simplicity of the smooth wall protrusions that close the facade. A sharp and effective contrast gives rise to a complex architectural image, at the same time creating the impression of severity and grace, simplicity and sophisticated imagination, the statics of the bulk of the building and the picturesque flickering of the complex forms of its elegant attire.

The façade of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid, built in 1496 according to the design of Juan de Guas, is one of the most typical creations of the early plateresque. The composition of the portal, which resembles a patterned shield protruding from the main plane of the building, is dominated by Gothic decorative motifs. Its division into vertical stripes, somewhat restraining the free and picturesque movement of sculptural forms, still does not play a decisive role. The decoration of the portal is not subject to the strict laws of tectonics; it is designed primarily to create a vivid decorative impression.

The analogy of such a portal with the Spanish post-altar image (retablo) is undeniable, especially since at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries the art of retablo reached its peak in Spain. It is difficult to distinguish between the work of an architect and the work of a sculptor. The very understanding of sculpture is still gothic. The sculpture did not acquire an independent significance - it is merged with architecture, being born, as in medieval cathedrals, from the mass of the building. As in Gothic, it is imbued with a sense of the unique uniqueness of every smallest detail inherent in medieval craftsmanship. Undoubtedly, folk stone carvers who combined the traditions of Spanish Gothic and Moorish artistic culture took a wide part in the construction. The influence of the latter was realized in that peculiar ornamental element that dominates the general appearance of the portal, in the introduction of an inner closed courtyard into the composition of the building of the collegium, as well as in its decoration.

One of the most original structures of Juan de Guas is the Palace of the Dukes of Infantado in Guadalajara (c. 1480-1493). The building, badly damaged by rebuilding in the second half of the 16th century, is an example of an attempt to create a type of three-story palace based only on local traditions, without using Italian designs. This task was complicated by the fact that the entire early plateresque represents the stage of preorder architecture. Hence the archaic appearance of the building. In the façade devoid of clear tectonic organization, the entrance portal is shifted to the left; windows, varying in size, are unevenly scattered over its surface.

The appeal to Moorish traditions was reflected in the design of the portal and in the appearance of an open bypass gallery, and especially in the fantastically fabulous two-tiered arcade of the courtyard.

In the decoration of the palace in Guadalajara, one important point should be noted, which has become widespread in plateresque architecture - the decoration of the facade surface with protrusions of various shapes, in this case, diamond-shaped. In another interesting building, the House of Shells in Salamanca (1475-1483), large shells - the emblem of the owner of the house, holder of the Order of Sant Jago - are staggered on the plane of the wall. Such a technique differs from the principles of “diamond rustication” of some Italian buildings, based on saturation of each stone with increased volumetric expressiveness and enhancing the effect of the entire mass of the building.

The Spanish master perceives the wall to a greater extent as a plane on which decorative spots, bright in the play of light and shadow, are highlighted, especially contrasting against the background of the harsh smooth surface of the wall surface. This is reflected in some of the features of Spanish architectural thinking, dating back to distant Eastern traditions.

The mature plateres stage dates back to the first half of the 16th century. The growing influence of the artistic culture of the Italian Renaissance manifested itself in the field of architecture, but has not yet led to a radical change in its figurative system. Even in the architecture of the mature plateresque, the borrowing of some Renaissance structural elements has little affected the Gothic foundations "of the plan and construction of buildings. The main achievements of the style relate to the field of facade composition. Facades of buildings are now saturated with classical architectural and sculptural forms: order elements, floral ornaments, flower garlands, medallions, bas-reliefs, portrait busts, statues of ancient deities and figurines of putti. The inclusion of new Renaissance elements in the local, still largely medieval architectural system gives the impression in this case not of an eclectic mixture of traditions, but of their organic fusion into a holistic artistic image. that the masters of the plateresque interpret the classical forms in their own way, not so much using them to reveal the strict tectonics of the building as subordinating the picturesque elegance of its general appearance. The name of the order, although the order elements already now perform a certain organizing role in the composition.

Among the works of mature plateres, the western façade of the University of Salamanca (1515-1533) is especially famous. In contrast to the pictorial freedom of decoration in the portal of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid, a clear logical system of vertical and horizontal divisions of the overall composition is expressed here with a clearly marked center in each tier. The decorative elements are enclosed in cells framed by cornice lines and ornamented with ribbed pilasters. The well-known restraint and poise of the composition are combined with an amazing richness and variety of plastic forms, sometimes larger and more juicy, sometimes like the finest web covering the stone surface, sometimes possessing a strict and clear graphic pattern, especially in the depiction of coats of arms. The higher the facade, the freer the decor becomes, without losing the symmetrical correspondence of the parts. As in the early stage of plate painting, the sculpture here is imbued with a sense of completeness in every detail. However, this is no longer the language of Gothic, but of new forms of classical art.

The building of the University of Salamanca is included in the composition of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by facades of classrooms. The secular, graceful image of the entire architectural ensemble corresponds to the spirit of the Salamanca University itself, one of the oldest in Europe, which even in the conditions of Spain in the 16th century. remained the center of advanced scientific thought.

The University Building in Alcala de Henares, the main façade of which was designed by Rodrigo Gilá de Ontanón in 1540-1559, and the Seville City Hall (started in 1527, architect Diego del Riaño) are also excellent examples of mature Spanish plateres. Both buildings show a more developed solution to the volumetric-plastic architectural composition than in the facade of the University of Salamanca. Each of them is a horizontally elongated palace-type structure, divided into floors, in which window openings, cornices, and the main entrance are highlighted. The decorative system of the plate is much more subordinated to the revelation of the structure of the building. In some residential buildings of this time, the traditions of Moorish architecture were affected (for example, in the palace of the Dukes of Monterey in 1539 in Salamanca). In other structures, the principles of mature plateresque prevailed, as expected, mainly in facade compositions. In many cities in Spain, especially in Salamanca, beautiful residential buildings were built.

Although plateresque developed in various Spanish provinces and bore the imprint of regional traditions, it was at the same time a single national architectural style. The structures of the plateresque, very peculiar and attractive in their appearance, constituted one of the brightest pages in the history of Spanish architecture.

The sculpture of Spain in the late 15th - early 16th centuries, closely related to architecture, developed with it in a common direction. The Isabelino period was clearly seen in the work of one of the most original Spanish sculptors, Gil de Siloé (active in 1486-1505). The rectangular wooden retablo of the Carthusian church of Miraflores near Burgos was made by Gil de Siloë in collaboration with Diego de la Cruz in 1496-1499. From a distance, the altar, filled with many Gothic architectural and sculptural forms, gives the impression of a shimmering patterned surface. Close up, a complex ornamental system of composition is revealed, somewhat reminiscent of the principle of decorating oriental fabrics; her main motive is the circle motive. Dark gold sculptural decoration with subtly injected accents of white and blue paint emerges against the deep blue, studded with gilded stars, the background of the altar.

In front of the retablo is the tomb of Isabella the Catholic's parents, King Juan II and his wife, created by Gil de Siloé a few years earlier. The base of the tomb is shaped like an eight-pointed star, decorated with statues. The openwork forms, the abundance of ornamental patterns distinguish all the details of the tomb, made of white alabaster. And here Gothic and Moorish motives merge into a single fantastic sophisticated image.

In the further development of sculpture at the beginning of the 16th century. the composition of the retablo included classical architectural forms and sculptural images, which form a unique combination with a bright decorative effect of its general appearance.

Renaissance motifs were also used in the construction of tombs made of marble and decorated with medallions, bas-reliefs, and flower garlands. Often, elements of the classical order were also used in their frame. But the masters of Spain perceived and depicted a lot in their own way. Working in stone and marble, they willingly created painted wooden statues.

The works of Felippe de Borgogna (died in 1543) and Damian Forment (1480-1543) are close to the period of mature plateresque. The polychrome alabaster retablo of the Royal Chapel in Granada (1521) by Borgogna contains, along with scenes on religious subjects, reliefs that depict the historical events of the last stage of the reconquest. Each sculptural stamp is inserted into a kind of niche framed by vertical and horizontal divisions of retablots - pilasters, columns and cornices. This light, graceful system of architectural forms will undoubtedly organize the entire composition.

The sculpture itself is also peculiar. Quite large statues are located in the niche space. To a large extent, these are new images, free from gothic constraint and angularity. At the same time, the master is fascinated not so much by the transfer of the plastic beauty of the human body as by the desire to reveal the dramatic nature of the plot conflict. In the scene "The Beheading of John the Baptist", the features of that mercilessly truthful depiction of martyrdom and suffering, which generally distinguishes Spanish art, are especially noticeable. The decapitated figure of the saint is brought to the fore, behind it is the triumphant executioner, raising the bloody head of John. The polychrome coloring of the figures further enhances the dramatic effect of the scene. On the sides of the retablo are statues of kneeling Catholic kings. Solemn and static, they are marked at the same time with an undeniable portrait authenticity of the appearance of the weak-willed Ferdinand and the cruel, domineering Isabella.

The displacement of the Gothic elements by the Renaissance took place gradually. In the forms of the retablo of the cathedral in Huesca (1520-1541) by Damian Forment, a connection with the Middle Ages is still felt. A completely different impression is produced by his retablo in the church of San Domingo de la Calzada in Logroño (1537), where the master is fluent in the language of new plastic forms. At the same time, this work is a vivid evidence of how arbitrarily the classical elements were used by Spanish masters. Retablo in Logroño is built on a picturesque heap of fractional forms, imbued with a restless rhythm of movement; all its architectural details seem to be woven with ornaments.

Outlined in Spanish painting of the 15th century. the development of realism intensified significantly in the first decades of the 16th century. Catalonia and Valencia ceded their role as the leading artistic centers of Castile and Andalusia. The acquaintance of Spanish masters with the achievements of Italian painting became closer. The pictorial structure of their works bears a clear imprint of the Renaissance. But at the same time, the ideological orientation of Spanish painting remained in many respects far from the Renaissance free-thinking. This duality of the artistic image was clearly manifested in the work of the leading masters of Spain of this time.

The Castilian painter, court painter of the Catholic kings, Pedro Berruguete (d. C. 1504) worked for a long time in Italy at the court of the Urbino duke Federigo da Montefeltro, together with the Italian Melozzo da Forli and the Dutchman Jos van Geyt. Berruguete's paintings for the library of the palace in Urbino testify to how seriously he mastered the techniques of Renaissance painting. The Italian school is also felt in the works created by Berruguete upon his return to his homeland, in 1483. However, in them he showed himself as a typical Spanish master. The central place in the artist's work is occupied by the paintings ordered by the Inquisitor Torquemada for the altar of St. Thomas in Avila (located in the Prado). They depict scenes from the life of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Dominic and Peter the Martyr. With great care and reliability, the master captured in them what he could observe in reality: the scene of the burning of heretics in the city square ("St. Dominic at the auto-da-fe"), various types of Spanish clergy ("St. Dominic burning books"), expressive figures of a blind beggar and his young guide ("Miracle before the shrine of St. Thomas"). Using perspective, Berruguete strove to portray the interior space in which the action takes place, to create real images of people united by a common experience.

At the same time, the work of Berruguete is marked with the stamp of special severity and asceticism. In the man of the Spanish master, he was mainly interested in the transmission of the inner, at the core of his religious feeling. The figures in his paintings are not always anatomically correct, sometimes, as in medieval art, they are of different scales; their movements, even those that are supposed to look fast, are static. The gilding, which the master sometimes used, introduces a plane element into the composition, reinforcing the impression of the emphasized solemnity of the scenes depicted. So, the expressiveness of the Episode of the burning of heretical books, so characteristic of Catholic Spain, is achieved to a large extent by the fact that the black robes of monks, brocade clothes of nobles, the scarlet flame of a bonfire and precious bindings of burned books appear as sonorous spots against the general golden background of the picture.

More lyrical creativity of the representative of the Seville school Alejo Fernandez (d. 1543). Like Berruguete, Alejo Fernandez was well acquainted with Italian and Dutch art. And medieval traditions were reflected in his work. Especially famous is his painting "Madonna of the Navigators", sometimes poetically called "Madonna of a Tailwind" (first third of the 16th century; Seville, Alcazar). A motif rare in the history of Spanish painting - a seascape in the foreground, a sea receding into the distance, covered with a variety of ships - as it were, personifies the endless possibilities of the Spanish fleet that plowed the ocean. Above, in the heavens, under the cover of the Mother of God - the kneeling figures of seafarers; one of them is considered to be a depiction of Christopher Columbus. These images are undoubtedly distinguished by their portrait authenticity. But the bold motive of the "discovery of the world" is subordinated in the picture to a religious idea. The Madonna, a slender woman in a magnificent, elegantly ornamented dress, is the same traditional image of the blessing Madonna of Mercy. Her immensely large figure dominates the entire composition. The broad outlines of her cloak, overshadowing the conquistadors, also encompass the figures of Indians who converted to Christianity depicted in the background. The painting is intended to glorify the triumph of Catholicism in the conquered lands. Hence its special conventional and solemnly decorative figurative structure, which combines elements of a real image and religious symbolism.

In the first half of the 16th century. the final formation of Spanish absolutism was accompanied by an increase in colonial expansion and an active policy of conquest. The Spanish king Charles I of Habsburg in 1519 inherited the crown of the German emperor under the name of Charles V. Spain became an integral part of a huge empire that owned Germany, the Netherlands, part of Italy and colonial lands in America. The period, covering approximately the first half of the 16th century, is characterized by the continuing political and economic upturn of the country. Spain's entry into the international arena caused a further deepening of public consciousness, revival of scientific and humanistic thought. But the flip side of these achievements was the bloody epic of the conquest of the colonies, the cruel exploitation of the countries that were part of the Habsburg Empire.

A new stage in the history of Spain - henceforth the largest power in the world - was fraught with insoluble internal contradictions. The fate of the Spanish cities was remarkable. Their relative heyday in the first half of the 16th century was short-lived. The defeat in 1521 by the Spanish absolutism of the uprising of the Castilian urban communes, the so-called communeros uprising, finally destroyed their medieval liberties. But if the offensive of absolutism on the medieval rights of cities in other European countries did not prevent the further growth of the bourgeoisie, which took place under the auspices of the absolute monarchy itself, then in Spain, where, according to Karl Marx, “the cities lost their medieval power without acquiring the significance inherent in modern cities ”(K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., vol. 10, p. 432.), the historical process of the creation of absolutism was accompanied by the growing ruin of the bourgeoisie. The reactionary forces of the Spanish feudal society, fettering the development of new capitalist relations, led the country to economic and political decline.

Spanish culture in the early 16th century was experiencing a growing influence from Italy. Diplomatic, commercial and cultural ties expanded between both countries. Many Spaniards - participants in the military campaigns of Charles V - visited Italy. Spanish society was fascinated by the culture of the Italian Renaissance. For the court circles, this passion was expressed in a superficial fashion for everything Italian. But if we take the whole culture of Spain as a whole, then it must be recognized that the influence of Italy contributed to the expansion of the creative possibilities of Spanish society.

The rise of the world empire required the creation of a new, more monumental artistic style. Hence the introduction of the Renaissance forms "from the outside" into the art of these countries, so typical of the absolute monarchies of Europe, a kind of "upper" Renaissance implanted by the ruling class. In Spain, as in other countries, Italian masters were invited to the royal court. An official art movement was persistently cultivated, imitating Italian art. Many of the Spanish masters studied with Italian architects, sculptors, painters and worked in Italy.

The most advanced area of \u200b\u200bSpanish art during this period was architecture. True, the general picture of its development is distinguished by its variegation and lack of stylistic unity. After all, it was precisely in the first half of the 16th century that the construction of the most significant works of mature plateresque belongs. But it was not they who now represented the leading artistic trend of the era. The bearers of it were monuments, the number of which is small, but the role of which in Spanish architecture is extremely significant. The largest building of them is the Palace of Charles V in Granada. His project belongs to the Spanish architect Pedro Machuca. who studied in Rome at the time of Bramante and Raphael. The construction of the palace began in 1526, when the emperor decided to establish his own residence in the gardens of the Alhambra. The palace was erected in close proximity to the famous Moorish complex, which violated its artistic unity. The construction of the palace, however, dragged on with long interruptions until the middle of the 17th century. and was not completed.

The Palace in Granada is a stately building in the classical tradition of the High Renaissance. In plan, it is a square with an inscribed circle, forming a closed courtyard with a diameter of about 30 m. The architect's desire to create a single centric composition manifested itself here with great courage and novelty: the core of the whole composition is a magnificent open courtyard. Its space is, as it were, enveloped in a calm and clear rhythm of the circular movement of the two-tiered colonnade (below - the Tuscan order, above - the Ionic order), which supports the bypass gallery. This courtyard, reminiscent of both ancient Roman amphitheaters and the Spanish bullring, seems to be intended for solemn court shows. The clear consistency of the architectural divisions of the round courtyard corresponds to the consistent system of the classical order on all four external facades of the palace. The lower floor is weighted down with massive rustication. The central risalits, as it were, concentrate in themselves the main elements of the architectural framing of the entire surface of the building, enhancing their expressiveness: here pilasters are replaced by paired columns, round windows - by elegant medallions decorated with bas-reliefs. The unity of the compositional concept, the proportionality of the parts, the restraint of the decorative decoration give the palace of Charles V an impression of artistic integrity and strict imposingness.

New tendencies in the cult architecture of the period under review were also reflected in the changes made by the architect Diego de Siloë - the son of Gil de Siloé, who was also a gifted sculptor - in the initial design of the cathedral in Granada, especially in the solution of its altar part (1528). The altar included in the building in the form of a multifaceted rotunda crowned with a dome gives the entire space of the cathedral a sense of freedom and harmony. The inner courtyard of the Alcazar in Toledo, built in 1537 by Diego de Covarrubias, is also a fine example of Spanish Renaissance architecture.

All these works testify that the process of deep assimilation of classical traditions took place in Spanish architecture. Thus, the foundation was laid for the development in Spain of new planning and volumetric-spatial compositions, more fully in line with the spirit of the times.

The evolution of sculpture and painting took place in more difficult conditions. If the introduction to the new artistic language developed by the culture of Renaissance Italy was a good school of professional skill for Spanish sculptors and painters, then the very ideological orientation of the art of the Italian High Renaissance remained largely alien to them. Therefore, the visual system of this art was not always perceived organically by Spanish masters; sometimes they went no further than direct imitation. But still, within the framework of the Italianizing trend, the Spanish masters strove for independent figurative solutions, found a way out for their creative quests. This was especially evident in the depiction of a strong human feeling so characteristic of Spanish art. Quite often the search for increased expressiveness of images gave their works an emphasized expressiveness and intense drama. It is also no coincidence that many Spanish masters soon turned to the works of the masters of Italian Mannerism, in which they found some consonant features. However, in search of adequate means, the Spanish masters used only some of the Mannerist techniques; their own art as a whole possessed a much greater sincerity and truthfulness, for it was still based on an undoubted interest in the inner world of man, although limited within the limits of a certain idea.

Spanish sculpture of the first half of the 16th century is more original and brighter than painting. At this time, such gifted sculptors as the already mentioned Diego de Siloe (1495-1563), Bartolomeo Ordonez (d. 1520), and Pedro Berruguete's son and student Alonso Berruguete (c. 1490 - 1561) worked.

In the works of Diego de Siloé and Bartolomeo Ordoñez, the Renaissance school is felt. Both of them lived in Italy for a long time. In his homeland, Ordonez, commissioned by Charles V, created the tomb of his parents Philip the Fair and Juana the Mad (1513; Royal Chapel in Granada). He also manifests himself as a mature master in another work - the tomb of Cardinal Cisneros in the university church of Alcala de Henares (1519). Among the traditional statues of the church fathers, placed at the corners of the tomb, the statue of St. Gregory. This majestic old man is depicted seated in a natural pose. He has an imperious, rough face; wide folds of clothes drape a mighty overweight figure. The image is distinguished by the severe unvarnishedness so characteristic of the Spanish masters.

If the work of the talented early deceased Ordoñez as a whole developed within the framework of the Renaissance traditions, then the art of Alonso Berruguete, one of the most prominent Spanish sculptors, is an example of how classical ideals changed in Spain.

Alonso Berruguete was a multi-talented master: being mainly a sculptor, he is also known as a painter. Berruguete spent his youth in Italy, where he studied with Michelangelo and copied antique statues. The bright plasticity of his sculptural images was based on his fluency in the language of classical forms, an excellent knowledge of the anatomy of the human body. But, unlike the images of the Italian Renaissance, the works of Berruguete, among which the wooden polychrome statues of the retablo of the Church of San Benito in Valladolid (1532) are especially famous, are full of drama and confusion. The proportions of slender figures are elongated, the shapes are often distorted, the postures are dynamic, the gestures are harsh and impetuous, the faces reflect internal tension. In the history of Spanish art, Berruguete is usually regarded as a representative of Mannerism. Such an interpretation will, however, be simplified, since the similarity between this master and the Mannerists is purely external. In addressing this issue, one can draw a kind of analogy between Berruguete and one of the largest French sculptors, Jean Goujon. Just as the breathtakingly beautiful images of Goujon's nymphs from his fountain of the Innocents, for all their extraordinary sophistication, are far from the soulless coldness and pretentiousness of manneristic images, so the bright Expressiveness of "The Sacrifice of Abraham" by Berruguete is not an external device, but an expression of the essence of the living images themselves. The art of Berruguete is the art of passionate spiritual impulse, dramatic conflicts. With great expressiveness he depicted suffering, grief, pain, confusion of feelings. "St. Sebastian ”Berruguete is almost a boy with a fragile, angular, painfully curved body. His "Moses" - one of the magnificent reliefs that adorned the wooden benches of the choir of Toledo Cathedral (1548; now in the Valladolid Museum) - is filled with anxiety and excitement. It seems that the storm has swept away his hair and clothes. A deep spirituality characterizes the Berruguete group, depicting the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, in the retablo of the church of St. Ursula in Toledo. The image of Elizabeth is the very embodiment of a strong and immediate feeling. She quickly rushed to Maria, ready to fall on her knees in front of her. The viewer does not see Elizabeth's face, but the whole outline of her figure and the stormy rhythm of fluttering folds create a feeling of an irresistible inner impulse. The beautiful young Maria is calmer and more restrained, but how much tenderness is guessed in the regally majestic gesture of her hands, with which she supports Elizabeth, in the expression of her soulful face. The dynamism of this episode is emphasized by the strict and motionless figures of the women accompanying Mary, depicted on the sides of the central composition of the retablo.

Berruguete was especially attracted to work in the field of polychrome wood sculpture. The increased emotionality of his images found here the most grateful embodiment, emphasized by the exquisite range of coloring used by the sculptor with a predominance of white, black and gold.

The desire of the Spanish masters to embody the expressiveness of human experience in images led them further and further away from classical traditions, more and more gave their works a shade of disharmony and external expression. These traits prevailed in the work of Juan de Juni (c. 1507-1577), a Spanish sculptor who also studied in Italy. Some of his images have considerable artistic persuasiveness ("Our Lady with Daggers"; Valladolid, Museum). But the multi-figured compositions of Juan de Juni of the 1540s. (The Entombment in the Cathedral of Segovia, the retablo of the Church of San Francisco in Valladolid) are overloaded with details, riddled with confusing and tense movement. Everything about them is exaggerated, unnatural, calculated for an external effect and seems to be full of a premonition of the spirit of church baroque art.

Spanish painting of the first half of the 16th century did not give a master equal in strength to the talent of Alonso Berruguete. The terms of the order limited the possibilities of the artists. Still paintings were intended to decorate church altars. Spain of this time, in essence, did not know either an easel painting or a fresco. Naturally, mythological and secular subjects in these conditions could not get the right to exist.

Yet Spanish painting of the first half of the 16th century was not just a faint reflection of Italian painting. It showed the features of originality, attempts to paraphrase classical samples in their own way.

The main artistic centers of the Italianizing trend were the large commercial cities of Seville and Valencia. The Valencians Hernando Janés de Almedina (d. C. 1537) and Hernando Llanos (d. After 1525) lived and worked in Italy, where they studied under Leonardo da Vinci, whom they imitated, going as far as directly borrowing some images. In the Valencian Cathedral, both masters have painted the main altar of the life of the Virgin Mary (1507). From the point of view of Italian painting, these are quite "literate" works, which reflect the knowledge of drawing, perspective, anatomy and modeling of figures. Renaissance architecture is often included in the picture as a background against which the action takes place. And yet, images of a harmoniously beautiful makeup in Spanish art are found more as an exception than as a rule. One of the few successful examples here is the painting by Yanes “St. Catherine "(c. 1520; Prado). To a much greater extent, the Spanish masters succeeded in episodic characters as if snatched from life, for example, the shepherds in the painting by Yanés "Adoration of the Shepherds." Similar features can be seen in the work of the Valencian painter Juan de Juanes (c. 1528-1579). How pale and even corny are his ideal images, so expressive, for example, in their inexorable cruelty, the participants in the beating of St. Stephen's stones in his composition of the same name, kept in the Prado Museum.

A peculiar Spanish interpretation of the famous "Last Supper" by Leonardo is a painting by Juanes of the same name (Prado). Juanes follows Leonardo's composition in many ways. However, the figurative solution to his picture is based not on a deep psychological conflict, but on a mystical miracle. A different moment was chosen than that of Leonardo: Christ, raising the Holy Communion in his hand, utters the words: "Behold, my body." The characters' gestures are full of exaltation, the composition lacks harmonic clarity, subordination of parts to the whole, it is overloaded with everyday details. The figurative structure of the picture takes on a manneristic shade. The Seville painter Luis de Vargas (1502-1568), an admirer of Raphael, in his painting "Madonna before the forefathers of the Old Testament" (1561; Seville, Cathedral) imitates the works of Vasari, nevertheless achieving greater vitality, especially in the interpretation of secondary characters.

The second half of the 16th century in the history of Spain in the dark years of the despotism of Philip II is the time of the growing political and economic crisis of the world power. The Spanish monarchy, claiming world domination, tried to maintain its position by leading the feudal and Catholic reaction in Western Europe. However, Spanish absolutism, which could no longer defeat the new and progressive that was rising and gaining strength in European countries, suffered one defeat after another. A huge blow to the Habsburg empire was struck by the fall of the Northern Netherlands in 1581, and the attempt in 1588 to crush England was also unsuccessful.

The tragedy of Spanish society was that Spain, essentially not knowing the reformation, experienced in full all the disastrous consequences of the counter-reformation. The Inquisition turned out to be the main instrument of the internal policy of Philip II. Mass executions of "heretics", fierce persecution of the baptized Moors - Moriscos, persecution of scientific thought, the triumph of religious obscurantism - all this happened against the background of the deepening ruin of the country, the collapse of its world power. In the conditions of Spanish reality, the ground was created for the most acute expression of those ideas of crisis and the tragic disharmony of public consciousness, which are so characteristic of the era of the late Renaissance.

The idea of \u200b\u200ba single great monarchy required the creation of a special style in art that exalted the power of the empire. The task of its creation was solved only in the field of Spanish architecture.

Already the image of Charles V's palace in Granada bore the features of sovereign representation. But the idea of \u200b\u200ba great monarchy was to be embodied in a work of a more powerful scope - in the whole architectural complex. Such a work was created. This is the famous El Escorial, the palace-monastery, the residence of Philip II. The grandiose structure dedicated to St. Lawrence was erected 80 kilometers from the new Spanish capital - Madrid, in the deserted valley of the Manzanares River, near the village of El Escorial, from where it got its name. His project (1563) belonged to the Spanish architect Juan de Toledo, who was trained in Italy. After his death in 1567, the construction was headed by a young gifted architect Juan de Herrera (1530-1597), who not only expanded, but also in many ways changed the original plan.

A huge building, erected from gray granite, El Escorial contains a monastery, palace premises, the tomb of the Spanish kings, a library, a college and a hospital. The area occupied by the ensemble exceeds 40,000 sq. m. In Escorial, there are 11 courtyards and 86 staircases. The height of the corner towers, decorated with high slate roofs, reaches 56 m. The construction of El Escorial, which was completed in 1583, was distinguished by an unprecedented scale and excellent organization of construction work. It was conducted under the personal supervision of Philip II.

Juan de Herrera brilliantly solved the problem of creating this most complex architectural complex. It is based on a single clear plan in the form of a huge rectangle with sides 206 X 261 m. Only in the eastern part is a small ledge highlighted, where the personal royal apartments were located. The rectangle is cut by two axes: the main one, accentuating the entrance, from west to east, and transverse - from north to south. In each of the compartments, the location of buildings and courtyards is subordinated to the basic principle of dividing the plan into geometrically regular rectangular cells. The center of the entire ensemble is the majestic cathedral crowned with a dome. The scale of the architectural image of El Escorial, which creates the impression of a whole city emerging among the harsh foothills of rocky Guadarrama, is determined not only by its grandiose size. Juan de Herrera has achieved strict proportionality and unity of a clear overall silhouette and volumetric-spatial composition of the entire architectural complex. So, he very correctly found the proportional relationship between the vertical elements of the composition - the powerful dome of the cathedral, the corner towers and the horizontal lines of the very extended facades. The solution of the colossal five-story facades is one of the most daring innovations of the Spanish architect. They are not all equal. On the western facade, for example, the main entrance is designed in the form of a portico - a complex two-tiered structure with columns and pediments. This portico, reminiscent of the facade of the Roman Jesuit Church of Il Gesu, is not quite organically connected with the mass of the building: it seems to be set against the wall. A much greater impression is made by other facades of Escorial, especially the southern one, perhaps the most avaricious and restrained in appearance. The architect built the expressiveness of the facade in an extremely original way for his time on the accentuated laconicism of a smooth wall, as if going into infinity.

Often spaced windows and horizontal rods follow a single harsh rhythm. Rectangular pools stretch along the facade; the vast area, paved with stone slabs, is framed by low stone parapets. The southern facade of El Escorial is perceived as a very holistic architectural image, full of power and significance.

Numerous buildings of El Escorial are designed in a single strict monumental style. On the main axis is a rectangular entrance courtyard, the so-called Court of the Kings, which overlooks the western façade of St. Lawrence. The composition of the facade consists of large massive architectural masses - a central two-tier portal with a high pediment and quadrangular towers at the corners. A huge dome of the cathedral can be seen from behind the pediment. The portico of the Tuscan order supports the statues of the Old Testament kings located on the pedestals, to whom the court owes its name.

The architectural solution of the interior space of the cathedral, in which the Elements of the Doric order prevail, is distinguished by austere simplicity and at the same time emphasized imposingness. The frescoes on the vaults were painted by Italian court masters and, in terms of color, are kept in cold, conventional tones. Bronze statues (by the Italian masters Pompeo and Leone Leoni), depicting Charles V and Philip II, frozen in prayer poses, surrounded by their families, stand against the dark background of large smooth niches on the sides of the altar.

One of the original buildings of El Escorial is the so-called Well of the Evangelists in the form of a small temple located in the center of the courtyard surrounded by a two-tiered arcade, which adjoins the cathedral on the right. This graceful building, crowned with a dome and decorated with statues and a balustrade, has a complex and whimsical outline (in the plan - an octagon with a cross inscribed in it), as it were, anticipates the dynamic compositions of the Baroque. However, even here Herrera maintains the unity of style, very skillfully linking the building with the general ensemble. Already the motif of the rectangular pools, placed on the four sides of this building, includes it in a single clear geometric system of the entire architectural complex.

El Escorial is one of the most significant works in the history of Spanish architecture. Its ideological and figurative content is complex and contradictory. Erected at the whim of Philip II in a desolate area, too huge to be properly used in all its volume, this grandiose structure was the brightest artistic expression of its time. It is no coincidence that it was created in Spain and that Europe of the 16th century does not know such an architectural monument. The idea of \u200b\u200bcentralized absolute power was figuratively reflected in the integral unity, in the strict subordination of all parts of this majestic ensemble. Since the very idea of \u200b\u200ba centralized monarchy was historically progressive, advanced features found their expression in the architectural design of Escorial - not without reason that in a number of respects he became the prototype of the grandiose palace complexes in the absolutist states of the 17th century. In the architecture of El Escorial, you can find the emergence of elements of classicism and baroque; other innovations of the 17th century were anticipated here, for example, the theme of a dome crowning the entire ensemble composition. But in Spain, where absolutism became a brake on social development, such a work as El Escorial - this ascetically austere and officially cold palace-monastery, completely merged with the desert, scorched by the sun, by the time of completion of construction had turned into a gloomy monument of the past despotic empire.

An attempt to create a unified artistic style of the Spanish monarchy was marked in the field of painting with incomparably less success than in the field of architecture. At the court of Philip II, a school of court painters arose, mainly decorating Escorial with frescoes and paintings. It was a kind of "school of Fontainebleau", although much less vivid and much more imbued with the ideas of Catholicism. By this time, the artistic ideals of Spanish painters had changed markedly. Mannerism manifestations were strongly condemned in numerous theoretical works published in Spain. The embodiment of the objective norms of classical beauty in art has become the main requirement of the time. From now on, the works of the Roman school were considered the main role models, which is why this artistic direction was called Romanism. However, Romanism, which excluded the possibility of creative rethinking of the Italian prototypes, was an eclectic trend. Italian painters Federigo Zuccari, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Luca Cambiazo, Bartolomeo Carduccio and others invited to the court, as well as the Spanish novelists Gaspar Besserra, Pablo Cespedes created works that are outwardly ceremonial, but superficial and artistically insignificant. Among the novelists of Spain, only the painter Juan de Navarete (1526-1579), a talented colorist who was influenced by Venetian painting, can be noted; the features of realism were reflected in his work.

The requirements of court culture could not, nevertheless, suppress the development of realistic tendencies in Spanish painting, even within the limits of the same court art. In the second half of the 16th century, a national school of portrait painters emerged in Spain, associated with the names of Alonso Sanchez Coelho (c. 1532 - 1588), his students and followers.

The youth of Sanchez Coelho, a Portuguese by birth, was spent in his homeland, where he became acquainted with the work of Antonis Mora, who worked at the Portuguese court. In 1557, Sanchez Coelho became the court painter of Philip II.

The figures of the nobles depicted on the canvases of Spanish portrait painters are frozen, straight, as if petrified in their cold inaccessibility, with monotonous static gestures, full of dispassion; bodies under stiff clothes seem ethereal. The details of the costume are meticulously reproduced: patterned brocade fabrics, rigid collars, heavy embossed decorations. In the addition of this type of portrait, the role of traditional class representations and conventional norms of the strictest court etiquette is obvious. The stiffness and stiffness of these images closely merge in our view with the deathly despondency of the life of the Spanish court, whose inert and monotonous monotonous life was subject to a precisely established ceremony.

In a Spanish portrait of the second half of the 16th century. you can often see the borrowing of external Mannerist techniques. But on the whole, the Spanish masters, in essence, proceeded from a different perception of a person than that of the Italian Mannerists. Perhaps, compared to the works of Pontormo or Bronzino, Spanish portraits may seem archaic, even somewhat primitive. But their imagery is based on healthier principles; they have preserved the realistic tradition of the Spanish Renaissance. Each individual is captured by them with exact likeness, without a shadow of flattery. The amazing authenticity of the faces of the portrayed, sometimes even with a touch of some prosaicity, is the original and main feature of these works.

Repeatedly depicting Philip II, Alonso Sanchez Coelho conveyed with great persuasiveness the faded face of the king, his devastated gaze. In the portrait of the young prince Don Carlos (Prado), the artist does not hide the fact that the entire appearance of the heir to the throne is marked with the stamp of obvious degeneration. On the contrary, a strong domineering character is guessed in the young Isabella-Clara-Eugenia, the future ruler of the Netherlands (Prado). A pupil of Sanchez Coelho, more dryish and petty in his pictorial style, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (1549-1609), with the same reliability conveyed the appearance of his models.

Spanish portrait painters of the 16th century often depicted in court portraits next to noble persons of jesters, dwarfs and freaks. Their pitiful figures were supposed to contrast in contrast with the stately posture, the nobility of the appearance of representatives of high society or the natural healthy beauty of a royal child. Often, portraits of jesters and dwarfs were also created.

The depiction in art of a person's physical deformity, his spiritual inferiority reflected a characteristic feature of a new crisis era: the loss of a harmonious idea of \u200b\u200bthe personality, an increased interest in painful and abnormal natural phenomena. However, this acute topic of modernity could not be grasped by Spanish portrait painters in all its depth. In the image of a jester and a freak, who served as the favorite amusement of the king and bored courtiers, the artists strove to convey mainly the features of their unusual appearance, the details of the "buffoon" costume.

Some naively straightforward documentary and static psychological solutions of Spanish portrait images are quite understandable: the portrait of the second half of the 16th century was one of the first stages in the realistic comprehension of the human personality by art in Spain. But it was Sanchez Coelho and his school who played a significant role in preparing the ground for the development of the next stage of Spanish realistic portraiture in the 17th century.

If in court circles the ideas of official Catholicism, reflected in court art, dominated, then at the same time in philosophy, literature and painting of Spain, mainly in cities far from the court, various mystical currents spread, in which ideas of the counter-reformation were intertwined with the still very alive on the soil of Spain with medieval mysticism. For all their reactionary nature, these ideas contained some "heretical" propositions that were initially rejected by official Catholicism, and later used by it in their own interests.

In Spanish painting, the representative of the direction in which mystical tendencies prevailed was Luis Morales (c. 1509-1586), who worked in his hometown of Badajoz. The artist knew Italian and Dutch art well. His virtuoso, like enamel painting technique is close to the techniques of the Dutch school of the 15th century. Old and new are closely merged in the work of Morales. In the exaggerated religious spirituality of his images, something medieval appears. The return to the forms of increased spiritualization in the conditions of the Renaissance gives the art of Morales an imprint of a kind of convention and subjectivity. Morales is an artist of individual characters, not events, an artist of one theme - the theme of suffering, full of a sense of Christian sacrifice and humility. The circle of his images is narrow - most often it is the suffering Christ, or Mary, mourning her dead son, or young Mary, caressing the baby, but already seized with a tragic foreboding of his future fate. The pictorial repertoire of Morales is also limited, who usually painted half-figures in static mournful poses, with a woeful expression of thin, deathly shade of faces, with internally tense, but outwardly very mean, as if numb gestures. His paintings are sustained in a range of cold colors; the faces of the saints are, as it were, illuminated with an inner light. The artist undoubtedly used some manneristic techniques. However, the transfer of emotional emotion wins over in Morales with its sincerity, especially in works of a lyrical plan, such as, for example, in the poetic painting "The Virgin and Child" (c. 1570; Prado).

The same task of affirming the subjective principle, which in Morales manifested itself, so to speak, in locally Spanish forms, with immeasurably greater brightness and power on a global scale, was solved by the first great painter of Spain, Domenico Theotokopouli, nicknamed in connection with his Greek origin El Greco (1541- 1614). Only in Spain during the collapse of the world empire and the triumph of feudal and Catholic reaction could Greco's art develop - the very embodiment of the catastrophe that ends the Renaissance. At the same time, the creation of art of such a scale was possible only for a master who mastered all the achievements of late Renaissance culture in its most complex and profound - the Italian version. The tendencies of a crisis order, which became widespread in the art of the late Renaissance, especially the Venetian school, are continued in the work of Greco, but with the difference that the line of spiritualist perception receives its extreme expression from Greco. The image of a man is endowed with heightened spirituality, but he is devoid of the heroic principle characteristic of, for example, Tintoretto; the lot of Greco's heroes is blind obedience to the highest mystical forces.

Greco is a native of the island of Crete, where he studied in his youth, probably from local masters who preserved the iconographic traditions of Byzantine painting. Then the artist moved to Italy, to Venice, and in 1570 to Rome. His imagination was captured by the images of Venetian painting. Early works of the Italian period, such as The Healing of the Blind (c. 1572; Parma, Pinacoteca), testify to Greco's close connection with the art of Venetian masters. But even here there appear the features of that inner excitement that distinguish his images throughout the further evolution of his work. In 1576 Greco left for Spain for good, which became his second homeland.

The unusual techniques of the pictorial language characteristic of Greco are not the discovery of only his one - some analogies to them in one form or another are found in the works of late Michelangelo and late Tintoretto. But if the artistic image of the masters of the Renaissance was based on an organic synthesis of reality and high generalization, then in Greco's art an imaginary, surreal principle prevailed. The very environment in which the artist places any scene is a fantastic other world, a world of wonders and visions. In boundless space, the boundaries between earth and sky are erased, plans are arbitrarily shifted. Greco's ecstatic images are like ethereal shadows. They have unnaturally elongated figures, convulsive gestures, distorted shapes, elongated pale faces with wide open eyes. Greco uses the effect of a rapid change in the scale of figures and objects, then suddenly growing, then disappearing in the depths. The same principle applies to their sharp, unexpected angles. The sky in his paintings, filled with the glow of flickering light, with soaring figures of angels and saints, or dramatically gloomy, like a bottomless dark blue abyss that opens in the breakthroughs of vortex clouds, is perceived as the personification of the highest divine power. All the thoughts of those living on earth, seized by the state of a single spiritual illumination, are directed to the sky. This state manifests itself either in a frenzied passionate impulse of the soul seeking heavenly bliss, or in a contemplative, in-depth comprehension of the other world.

Already in his first painting commissioned by the king, created in Madrid, Greco turned to a topic unusual for Renaissance painting. This is a depiction of a dream by Philip II (1580; El Escorial). The irrational space combines the image of heaven, earth and hell. All participants in the grandiose mystical performance worship the name of Christ, which appears in heaven. Greco does not yet resort here to the emphasized deformation of figures. The color, although built on his favorite method of contrasting bright colors, still retains the general warm golden tone coming from the Venetians. Only the angular, kneeling figure of Philip II, standing as a dark spot against the background of sparkling colors, is perceived as an image taken from the real world. The visionary character of Greco's art was expressed even more consistently and sharply in another of his paintings, also commissioned by the king for the Cathedral of Escorial - “The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius "(1580-1584). In a very complex, rich in many figures, compositions are captured, as in works of medieval art, episodes from the life of the saint at different times. In the foreground are the figures of the commander of the Theban army of Mauritius and his associates, who are ready to accept a martyr's death for their faithfulness to Christianity. They are presented in the armor of Roman soldiers; the plastic modeling of their figures is inspired by the techniques of classical painting. However, these images, in which Greco's typical understanding of the human person was manifested, are infinitely far from the heroic images of the Renaissance. Their bodies are devoid of real weight, faces and gestures reflect emotional excitement, humility and mystical ecstasy, bare feet silently step on the ground. The depiction of the execution of Mauritius, the ascension of his soul to heaven, pushed aside by the artist into the distance, seems to take place in the sphere of boundless space.

But no matter how expressive in Greco's art the methods of composition, drawing, perception of space, sense of rhythm, the most important and significant in his imaginative system is color. The artist's coloristic achievements are a kind of continuation of the quests of the Venetian school. Greco, as it were, drew from the Venetian system of colorism its deep Byzantine foundation. Greco's color system is unusually spiritual. The artist achieves exceptional luminosity of colors, as if radiating from themselves an inner flame. He boldly juxtaposes lemon yellow and steel blue, emerald green and fiery red tones. The abundance of unexpected reflexes - yellow on red, yellow on green, hot pink on dark red, green on red, the use of dazzling white and deep black colors - all add tremendous emotional tension to the Greco gamut. And in the painting The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius "this unusual color, imbued with a restless struggle of opposing colors, flashing brightly, then extinguishing in the flickering of a ghostly unreal light, is one of the main means of mystical transformation of reality.

So unlike traditional works of church art, Greco's painting was not appreciated either by Philip II or by the Italian court masters. Its place in the Cathedral of El Escorial was given to the canvas of a mediocre Italian painter. Disappointed with his failure at court, Greco left Madrid and settled in Toledo. Once the "heart of Spain", ancient Toledo in the 16th century. became the haven of the old feudal aristocracy. Having lost its significance as the state capital, Toledo remained the center of the Inquisition and theological thought. The Toledan intelligentsia was fond of the ideals of medieval culture and mystical teachings. Her spiritual life, in which music, poetry and art played an important role, was distinguished by great refinement. This environment turned out to be the most favorable for the development of Greco's talent.

Most of his paintings, based on New Testament subjects, have a certain uniformity of artistic solutions. Greco often returned to the same images. Among the works of this kind, his famous painting "The Burial of Count Orgaz" (1586; Toledo, Church of San Tome) stands out. The plot is based on a medieval legend about the miraculous burial of the pious Count Orgaea by Saints Augustine and Stephen. The solemnly mournful scene of the funeral ceremony is placed in the lower zone of the painting. Above, heaven opens up, and Christ, at the head of the host of saints, receives the soul of the deceased. And here the mystical miracle is the main content of the picture. However, its figurative solution differs in much greater complexity and depth than in other works of the master. In this canvas, three planes of the artist's idea of \u200b\u200bthe world are merged in harmonious unity. His purely visionary perception is embodied in the upper, heavenly zone. At the same time, the depiction of the participants in the funeral mass - monks, clergy and especially the Toledan nobility, in whose images Greco created excellent portraits of his contemporaries, brings a sense of reality to the picture. But these real participants in the burial of Count Orgaz are also involved in the miracle. Their spiritual experiences are embodied with amazing sophistication in thin, pale faces, in restrained gestures of fragile hands - as if bursts of inner feeling. Finally, a kind of synthesis of the concrete-real and the abstract-sublime is carried in themselves by the images of Saints Augustine and Stephen, who in the foreground carefully support the body of the deceased. Nowhere else in Greco was sorrow, deep tenderness and grief expressed with such humanity. And at the same time, the images of saints are the very embodiment of the highest spiritual beauty.

The master's appeal to the theme of life and death, to the direct transmission of the world of human feelings and their ideal transformation, gives the picture an exceptional content and polyphonic. Complicated comparison of various figurative plans is manifested even in particulars. So, the brocade robe of St. Stephen is decorated with images of episodes from his life - the stoning of the saint. This is not just an elegant embroidery, but a whole picture of a ghostly character typical for Greco. The introduction of such a motive, as it were, combines the present and the past in the image of a beautiful young man, gives his image a multifaceted shade.

And in the coloristic sound of the picture, painted in a magnificent solemn and mourning scale with accents of white and silver, yellow, dark blue and red tones, various pictorial solutions are merged. The conventional unreal color of the celestial sphere, where transparent clouds are illuminated by an inner light, are opposed by the more weighty, dark, gray-black tones of the lower zone in the clothes of noblemen, monastic robes, in the metal armor of Orgas, sparkling with cold brilliance. The figures of Saints Augustine and Stephen are a kind of amalgamation of these opposite tendencies. Keeping the measure of reality, bright against a dark background, the spots of their heavy gold-woven robes at the same time fantastically shimmer in the glow of the pinkish-red light of burial torches.

The features of Greco's creativity, which found a detailed embodiment in The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, were reflected in his works such as St. Martin and the Beggar "(after 1604; Washington, National Gallery)," Annunciation "(1599-1603; Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts), and many others.

Greco's desire to reveal the human personality in a highly spiritualized refraction was especially manifested in his portrayal of Christ's disciples. In the Hermitage painting The Apostles Peter and Paul (1614), the artist was interested in comparing two internally different types of character: the meek contemplative Peter and the convinced, passionate preacher Paul. Swarthy-pale elongated ascetic faces stand out against a golden-brown background, shaded by the colors of cloaks - olive-golden in Peter's and dark red, shimmering in pink-orange in Paul. The hands of the apostles form a peculiar pattern, and although their gestures are not connected with each other, just as their views are disunited, both apostles are united by a common inner experience. Many evangelical characters in Greco are brought together not only by the unity of mood, but also by a great external similarity with a variety of emotional and psychological shades. As for the apostles in the Hermitage painting, along with the subtle differentiation of images, they emphasize features of deep spiritual beauty.

There is not always a sharp fundamental line between the images of Saints Greco and his portraits. And in the portrait, the artist, by subjective sharpening of certain character traits, now passionately impetuous, now more deeply contemplative, sought to reveal the spiritualized inner world of the human person. However, if the interpretation of the images of saints, each of whom most often embodies one of these types of character, is distinguished by a certain one-sidedness, then in the portrait it is enriched with subtle and complex nuances. To a large extent, the specificity of the genre itself, associated with the image of a specific human individuality, is reflected here. Greco's portraits are much more vital. They are not all equal. Some of them are dominated by the ideal image of a nobleman of his time, as if raised by the master into the framework of a kind of canon. In others, subjective perception leads to a distortion of nature. But in the best portraits of Greco, when the very direction of his interpretation coincides with the inner essence of the depicted persons, the artist achieves great and, in essence, real psychological expressiveness.

The image in the portrait of the unknown in the Prado (c. 1592) is fanned with some special sadness. Everything is hidden, extinguished in this emaciated narrow face, and only beautiful mournful eyes are full of wet shine and their look, amazing in its emotional excitement, as if reflects a complex spiritual movement in itself.

In a portrait of Inquisitor Niño de Guevara (1601; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) Greco created a complex and profound image of a religious fanatic. Already a coloristic solution - the contrast of a light crimson cassock and a pale face - brings special tension to the characterization. Guevara is outwardly calm, his right hand rests on the armrest, but a piercing gaze directed at the viewer through dark horn-rimmed glasses, and the gesture of his left hand squeezing the arm of the chair, reveal what is hidden that lies in this strong-willed, inexorably cruel man.

The noble intellectuality of the appearance is emphasized in the portrait of the mystic poet, friend and admirer of Greco fra Ortensio Paravisino (1609; Boston, Museum). He has a mobile, painful face, a relaxed posture, a lively gesture of nervous hands. The artist managed to create a very clean and light image. His spirituality is subtly matched by an exceptionally free, painting style built on a combination of black and white spots. Among the few female portraits of the master, the image of the fragile big-eyed Jerome Cuevas, Greco's wife (c. 1580; Glasgow, Stirling Maxwell collection) stands out, full of complex inner life.

Greco's best portraits are marked by the artist's passionate interest in the intense life of the human spirit. This quality was his great objective achievement.

Greco's creative evolution is characterized by an increase in mysticism and a tragic sense of doom. In his later works, the images become more and more surreal, morbidly fantastic. The deformed figures, in their extreme ecstasy, resemble tongues of flame soaring to the sky. Clothes and draperies, enveloping disembodied bodies, as if they live their own lives, are subject to a special rhythm of movement. Now suddenly flashing, then sliding light, the emotional impact of which in Greco is extremely great, destroys the materiality of forms. Color, losing the brightness of colors, approaches monochrome, acquires a specific ash-gray tone. The paintings painted during this period are the very embodiment of the ecstatic spiritual impulse, the dematerialization of the image: “The Descent of St. Spirit "(after 1610; Prado); Adoration of the Shepherds (1609-1614; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth (c. 1614; Dumbarton Oaks).

The theme of the death of the world, divine retribution sounds more and more acutely and insistently in Greco's work. Indicative is his appeal to a scene from the Apocalypse in the painting "The Removal of the Fifth Seal" (New York, Metropolitan Museum). In the bottomless space, the restless souls of the righteous are depicted - strange incorporeal, faceless creatures typical of Greco, whose convulsively elongated naked figures seem to be shaken by the movement of the wind. In the midst of this world of shadows, the figure of a kneeling evangelist grows to grandiose proportions in the foreground, who, raising his hands, passionately cries out to the invisible lamb. The emotional expressiveness of the picture with its sharp distortion of forms and, as it were, phosphorescent paints, reaches exceptional intensity. The same tragic theme of doom and death sounds in other works of Greco, seemingly unrelated to the religious plot. In the painting Laocoon (c. 1610; Washington, National Gallery), you can find some external signs of the mythological legend: the image of Laocoon and his sons tormented by snakes, the figures of the avenging gods, the Trojan horse, the city in the background. But everything has been transformed beyond recognition by the artist. The gods are the same ghostly creatures as in other paintings by the master; Laoocon and his sons are Christian martyrs who accept divine punishment with humble humility. Their bodies of a completely unreal ash-lilac shade are devoid of strength, they have no points of support, gestures are sluggish, unconscious, and only the indomitable fire of faith illuminates the faces facing the sky. The personification of dying Troy is the image of Toledo, the image of which often formed the background of many of Greco's paintings. The artist captured quite accurately some of the architectural monuments of the ancient city. However, he was attracted not so much by the concrete rendering of the appearance of Toledo, as, perhaps, by the creation of a more complex, generalized image of the fantastically beautiful, emerging in the form of a disturbing vague mirage of the city-world. This image, which worried Greco, in his magnificent landscape "View of Toledo" (1610-1614; New York, Metropolitan Museum) is fanned with deep tragedy. Lifeless, as if numb, illuminated by the ominous greenish light of flashing lightning, the city, like a ghostly vision, appears in the blue-lead sky in the swirling clouds.

Greco had no followers. Quite different tasks were faced by Spanish painting, in which at the turn of the 16-17 centuries. a mighty wave of realism arose, and its art was forgotten for a long time. But at the beginning of the 20th century, during the crisis of bourgeois culture, it attracted a lot of attention. Greco's discovery turned into a kind of sensation. Foreign critics saw in him the forerunner of expressionism and other decadent trends in contemporary art. Elements of mysticism and irrationalism and the associated features of the pictorial structure of Greco's works were viewed by them not as specific manifestations of his time, but as supposedly eternal and most valued qualities of art in general. Of course, such an assessment unjustifiably modernizes the artist's appearance, and most importantly, it presents in a distorted light what constitutes the exciting power of his images - the enormous intensity of tragic human feelings.

Completing a certain stage in the history of Spanish art, Greco's work simultaneously marks a kind of dividing line between two great artistic eras, when in the art of many European countries, in painful and contradictory searches, the first heralds of a new artistic stage - the art of the 17th century ...

Spanish Renaissance.

The Spanish Renaissance can be roughly divided into three periods: the earlier Renaissance (until the middle of the 16th century), the high (mature) Renaissance (up to the 30s of the 17th century) and the so-called Baroque period (later) (until the end of the 17th century).

During the early Renaissance, interest in science and culture increased in the country, which was greatly facilitated by universities, especially the ancient University of Salaman and the university founded in 1506 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros in Alcala de Henares.

In 1473-1474, printing appeared in Spain, journalism developed, in which ideas dominated, consonant with the ideas of the Reformation and the renewal of the Catholic Church along the lines of Protestant countries. The ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam had a significant influence on the formation of new ideas.

The 15th century was marked by significant changes in the socio-political life of the peninsula. The reconquista ends with the complete conquest of all the lands that belonged to the Moors; only Grenada remains, which at the beginning of the 16th century. joins the Castilian crown by “Catholic kings”. Relying on the idea of \u200b\u200bunity, in which the main social groups are interested - both broad strata of the small landed nobility, both townspeople, and peasants - for whom strong state power ensures the consolidation of the conquered lands and normal conditions of economic development, the kings act aggressively as against the claims of the feudal lords, decisively removing them from participation in power, and against the expansion of the political rights of the bourgeoisie. The ground is gradually being prepared for the absolute power. The royal court becomes the center of the country's entire life. The majority of the nobility subordinate to him support and strengthen the royal power and all its undertakings. Poetry begins to express "loyal" feelings, hierarchical relationships to the king, his family and courtiers. The 15th century is the century of court lyricism par excellence.

The first editions of the so-called old romances, created in the days of epic legends and related to the heroic struggle with the Moors, also belong to the same era. Manifested in the XV century. the interest in these folk songs is explained by the desire of the ruling groups close to the court to endow the monarch with all the attributes characteristic of a people's leader who fights at the head of the masses for the fundamental ideals of the nation. Old Spanish romances, written by a Spanish folk meter, are the richest treasury of feudal poetry, reflecting both heroic episodes of internecine wars, and the struggle with the Moors, and the knightly life of old Spain. Romances were significant in that they served as a source of inspiration for professional lyricists who grouped around the royal court in the 15th and 17th centuries, and for the Spanish drama, which drew plots and motives from them.

The narrative literature of this era is characterized by two opposite currents. On the one hand, the firm stability of medieval literary traditions and clerical-feudal worldview is evident. This is most vividly expressed in a series of numerous knightly novels, which flourished in the early 16th century.

Another tendency of the era comes from the urban bourgeoisie and the small landed nobility, taking the most active part in the bureaucratic state apparatus, constituting the main force of the army, opening up new trade routes and colonies.

If in the main part of the genres of Spanish literature it was not possible to create anything original, then this fully manifested itself in the field of narrative prose and drama. A kind of "formula for the transition" from the Middle Ages to modern times is a series of knightly novels. Such stability of the genre, which would seem completely alien to the real conditions of Spanish life in the 15th century, is explained, firstly, by the fact that the events unfolding in the novel took the noble reader into the desired world of the past, evoking in it pleasant reminiscences of a free chivalrous life in a feudal society. secondly, they met his need to sublimate his passionate desire to rise, to become equal to the great feudal lords and the sons of kings, who are the protagonists of the chivalric romance.

The novels of England and France, which developed several centuries earlier, served as models for the authors. Novels of this genre were translated into Spanish as early as the 15th century. The first and most famous Spanish knightly novel - "Amadis of Gaul" was published in 1508 (the hero fights against giants, monsters). The image of the knight is gradually filled with new content.

In the middle of the 16th century. one of the main genres of Spanish literature of the Renaissance is formed - a rogue novel (a novel about the adventures of rogues and rogues), the appearance of which is associated with the collapse of old patriarchal ties, the decomposition of class relations, the development of trade and the accompanying cheating and deception. The author of one of the most striking works of this genre - the Tragicomedy about Calisto and Melibey (1499) - Fernando de Rojas (about 1465-1541). The tragicomedy is better known as Celestine, after the most striking character - the pimp Celestine (this occupation was considered unacceptable and unworthy), which the author condemns at the same time and praises her intelligence and resourcefulness.

In the novel, the glorification of love is combined with satire on Spanish society, and the characteristic features of the genre are clearly visible - an autobiographical form of narration, the hero's service with different masters, allowing him to notice the shortcomings of people of different classes and professions. Initially, the novel was anonymous, then under a pseudonym, and then Roxas (Jew, Catholic, ancient scholarship. Works - national specificity and originality).

Celestine helps the lovers, promotes their reunion. The bastard knows the unchanging desires of people and the true mask of humanity. Society is interested in the services of a pimp. Celestine's idea is the equality of love (the subject of Renaissance ideology).

Celestine is not a roguish novel in full measure, but its beginnings. A brilliant start to the roguish novel itself was laid by an unknown author of the story about "Lasarillo of Tormes" (1554). The features of the rogue novel were most clearly expressed, describing the successes and misfortunes of the protagonist. The novel became widely known. In 1559, the Inquisition put it on the list of prohibited books because of its anti-clerical content.

Each episode is important in the story of the hero. The hero was born into the family of a miller who got caught stealing and was taken away. The stepfather also caught stealing. The mother gives the hero to the artisan, the boy passes from hand to hand. Thus, we can see Spain at that time. Then he gets a job as a herald, begins to cheat with stealing food. The hero is a cheat by necessity, his life pushed him to cheat. The manifestation of the mind and ingenuity of the boy. Parenting inside out.

In the rogue novel, the protagonist is a representative of the lower classes, a proletarian thrown overboard of public life, forced to fight his way up by hook or by crook; in the conditions of impoverished Spain, in which productive labor is devalued, the main tool of such a person is cunning and deception, with the help of which he builds his material well-being. Such types were teeming with Spain at that time, and the interest in them from the whole society was undoubtedly very great.

In its form, the roguish novel is an autobiography, which allows the author to adhere to a realistic depiction of reality, due to which the everyday background against which the adventure plot of the story unfolds appears extremely vividly and clearly. It would, however, be a mistake to think that bourgeois sentiments are reflected in the rogue novel, that it is a product of philistine culture.

The authors of the rogue novels were from the same social group that supplied the writers of chivalric and pastoral novels, precision poems and dramatic works. Fundamentally different from the chivalrous novel both in relation to the characters depicted in it, and in the general everyday situation and realistic interpretation of the topic, the rogue novel still has many similarities with it.

The main similarity is in the ideological orientation of both: in disregard for productive labor, in the cult of "Spanishization" to which the bourgeois of the period of initial accumulation was alien, the worldview of the Spanish nobleman of the 16th-17th centuries is quite clearly manifested. This is a "chivalric romance inside out" (Krzhevsky), a projection onto the lower classes of the nobleman's attitude to modernity. Lazarillo evoked a number of imitations, of which the first was Lazarillo of Manzanares.

Biography of Guzman de Alfarache - by Mateo Aleman (1547-1614?). The first volume was published in 1599, the second - in 1604. Along with the realistic story of the tricks of the Picaro in the novel, an important place is occupied by philosophical and moral reasoning in the spirit of Catholicism. The period of "learning" for cheating is shorter than that of the previous author. "To live with wolves is to howl like a wolf." The hero is a cheat by vocation, the wife is also a cheat. The story of his life is being built. The chronotope of the road (Bakhtin) appears in the rogue novel. Rogue novels depict real life, for which they are popular. The partly roguish romance was reflected in the 18th and 19th centuries (Dead Souls) and the 20th (Ostap Bender). An incredible achievement and discovery of Spanish culture.

Another narrative genre that also enjoyed great success among contemporaries was the pastoral novel. In 1549, the first translation into Spanish of "Arcadia" by the Italian Sannadzaro appeared. Soon after this was published the first Spanish pastoral novel "Diana" (Diana) by Jorge de Montemayor (1520? -1561). In contrast to the chivalric novel, the pastoral novel tries to be closer and more understandable to readers, bringing representatives of the modern aristocracy under fictitious names in an implausible setting.

This is a mythological masquerade, in which Spanish gentlemen and court ladies take part, pouring out love complaints to each other. The pastoral novel satisfies the needs of the higher society grouping around the court in the ideal expression of the relations prevailing in its environment, for which the action is completely abstracted from reality and transferred to the imaginary world of shepherds and shepherdesses. The pastoral novel also differs from the chivalric novel by the slow pace of development of the plot, known for its static action; chivalrous romance is full of movement, unbridled, not attached to one place, disharmonious in its construction. In such forms, the feeling of the world of the highest aristocracy and the mass of the petty nobility found expression.

The plot basis allows for many possibilities. Attraction to nature (the highest value), the ability to look into the soul of the hero. The story of lovers, for some reason separated, against the background of nature the inaccessibility of happiness, dreams of the "golden age of mankind." Galatea (1585) - Cervantes. The shepherd is in love with the shepherdess, but the girl's father is against it. The shepherd's friends are a republic of scientists, friends of Cervantes himself. The novel remains unfinished. The perfect plan for love. It is impossible to connect this plan with the real plan.

At the same time, "Moorish" novels appeared, dedicated to the life of the Moors.

In the same period, the Spanish national drama was formed, which was based on church traditions and at the same time the genre of folk performances, as well as on the experience of the Italian Renaissance drama. The creator of the Spanish humanistic drama was Juan del Ensina (1469? –1529), who is called "the patriarch of the Spanish theater". He called his plays from the life of shepherds, religious and secular, eclogs.

A new stage in the development of the Spanish Renaissance, the so-called high Renaissance, dates back to the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. Acting in accordance with the rigid principles of the Counter-Reformation (from 1545), Philip II (1527-1598) pursued advanced thinkers while at the same time encouraging cultural development by founding a library in El Escorial and supporting many universities. Creative and thinking people, deprived of the opportunity to express themselves in philosophy and journalism, turned to art, as a result of which it survived in the second half of the 16th and 17th centuries. an unprecedented flowering, and this era was called the "golden age". The secular ideas of humanism in some poets and writers were intertwined with religious motives.

In the second half of the 16th century to the 30s of the 17th century. poetry prevails - lyric and epic. In addition, pastoral novels were popular, and realistic romance and drama were born. In Spanish lyric poetry, there were two opposing schools of poetry - Seville and Salamanca. Fernando de Herrera (1534-1597) and other poets of the Seville school gave preference to love lyrics, earthly and sensual, in which civic motives often sounded.

At the head of the Salamanca school was the Augustinian monk and professor of theology Luis de Leon (1527-1591), the founder of the poetry of the "mystics". In contrast to the Catholic Church, mystics advocated an individual way of knowing God, merging with Him.

Thanks to the work of Miguel de Cervantes Savedra (1547-1616), who showed himself in different literary genres, Spanish literature gained worldwide fame. His immortal work - the novel The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, conceived as a parody of the chivalrous novels of that time, has become one of the most striking monuments in world literature.

In this era, the formation of the Spanish national drama was completed. Its characteristic features were most fully embodied in the work of Lope F. de Vega Carpio (1562-1635). The worldview of Lope de Vega, an innovator in the field of drama, combined humanistic and patriarchal ideas. He outlined his views on drama in the treatise "The New Art of Compose Comedy in Our Time" (1609). Lope de Vega - the creator of the drama of honor, in his works appears anticipating the classicism of the 17th century. the thought of a person's lack of freedom, since honor for him is more important than passions. His comedies can be conditionally divided into three groups - "court comedies", "cloak and sword comedies" and "comedies of bad manners".

The famous student of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina (1584-1648), defended the principles of Spanish drama in the Toledo Villas, which is reminiscent of Boccaccio's Decameron composition. Tirso de Molina is the author of religious plays that, like his secular plays, reflected the social contradictions of the time. His philosophical plays deal with the theme of sin and heavenly mercy - the Seville mischievous, or Stone Guest (1610), the first dramatic adaptation of the legend of Don Juan, and Condemned for lack of faith. In his secular plays he turned to the dramatic genres developed by Lope de Vega.

At the beginning of the 17th century, Spain retained its position as a world leader, but the economic situation deteriorated sharply, despite the huge influx of gold from colonial America. In the final stage of the Renaissance, often distinguished in a special period of the Baroque, the prevailing tendency was to interpret what was happening in the country as a consequence of the evil principle in a person, an idea consonant with the Christian doctrine of sinfulness. The way out was seen in an appeal to the mind, helping a person to find the way to God, which was reflected in the literature, which pays special attention to the contrast between human nature and his mind, between beauty and ugliness, while the beautiful was perceived as something ephemeral and practically inaccessible.

Poetry was dominated by two styles - "gongorism", named after the greatest poet of the time, Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627), and "conceptism", from the word concepto, which means "thought".

"Gongorism" was also called "culturism", from the word culto ("cultivated"), since this style was designed for a select, educated audience. Gongora was a secular poet and a folk motif in his work, an appeal to the genres of folk poetry (romances and letrills) are combined with exquisite artistic techniques. Gongorism ideologically expressed the alienation between the upper and lower classes of society, which intensified more and more as the country became impoverished and wealth was concentrated in the hands of a small handful of money and land capitalists and royalty.

Already in the rogue novels written by the nobles about people of alien social origin, a tinge of disdain is noticeable, expressed in the sharpening of the negative traits of the rogue-beggar; already Cervantes called the word gentazza (kanalya) upstarts from the lower classes, who tried to equalize with the intelligentsia from the ranks of the nobility. The gongorist literature appeals only to educated people, that is, to an insignificant handful of privileged people who have access to education. Literary speech is filled with ancient tropes and figures, mythological images, clever metaphors and comparisons, wordplay.

"Conceptism", the founder of which is considered A. de Ledesma, who published a collection of poems Spiritual Thoughts (1600), opposed the "gongorism". At the same time, in "conceptism", as in "gongorism", much attention was paid to form, the creation of complex concepts, play on words, and wit.

Baroque drama reached perfection in the work of Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1680). Like Tirso de Molina, he belongs to the national drama school Lope de Vega. The work of this last great representative of Spanish literature of the "golden age" reflects the pessimistic view of man, characteristic of the era. Calderon's central work is the philosophical drama Life is a Dream (1635), the main idea of \u200b\u200bwhich, already alien to the Renaissance, is that for the sake of earthly life one should not give up eternal life. Calderon - for the illusory nature of our ideas about life, since it is incomprehensible. In the play Himself in custody (1636), he gives a comic interpretation of the same theme.

Decomposition of literary forms in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. was accelerated by political events. At the end of the War of Spanish Succession, Spain falls entirely under the influence of France, to which the role of the European hegemon has passed. Literature created under the auspices of the Spanish royal court in the 17th century is automatically supplanted by literature nurtured by French absolutism.

A new stage in the development of the Spanish Renaissance, the so-called high Renaissance, dates back to the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. Acting in accordance with the rigid principles of the Counter-Reformation (from 1545), Philip II (1527-1598) pursued advanced thinkers while at the same time encouraging cultural development by founding a library in El Escorial and supporting many universities. Creative and thinking people, deprived of the opportunity to express themselves in philosophy and journalism, turned to art, as a result of which it survived in the second half of the 16-17th centuries. unprecedented flowering before, and this era was called the "golden age". The secular ideas of humanism in some poets and writers were intertwined with religious motives.

In the second half of the 16th century. up to the 30s of the 17th century. poetry prevails - lyric and epic. In addition, pastoral novels were popular, and realistic romance and drama were born. In Spanish lyric poetry, there were two opposing schools of poetry - Seville and Salamanca. Fernando de Herrera (1534-1597) and other poets of the Seville school gave preference to love lyrics, earthy and sensual, in which civil motives often sounded and sounded.

At the head of the Salamanca school was the Augustinian monk and professor of theology Luis de Leon (1527-1591), the founder of the poetry of the "mystics." In contrast to the Catholic Church, mystics advocated an individual way of knowing God, merging with Him. The most prominent representatives of this trend are Teresa de Cepeda y Aumada (1515-1582), known as Saint Teresa de Jesus, and Juan de la Cruz (1542-1591), who belonged to the Carmelite order. The Dominican Luis de Granada (1504-1588), who wrote in Latin, Portuguese and Spanish, also joined the "mystics".

Admiration for ancient poetry, which was considered a lofty example, aroused the desire to create works in the spirit of the epic poems of Homer and Virgil. The most successful attempt was made by Alonso de Ercilla and Zuniga (1533-1594), who wrote to Araucan.

Second half of the 16th century marked by the flourishing of the pastoral romance. The ancestor of the genre in Spain was the Portuguese Jorge de Montemayor (c. 1520-1561), who wrote the Seven Books of Diana (1559), which was followed by many sequels, for example, Diana in Love (1564) Gaspar Gil Polo (1585), and Galatea (1585) by Cervantes and Arcadius (1598) by Lope de Vega.

At the same time, "Moorish" novels appeared, dedicated to the life of the Moors: the anonymous History of Abenserrach and the beautiful Harifa and the Civil Wars in Granada (part I - 1595, part II - 1604) by Jines Perez de Ita. Thanks to the work of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), who has conducted himself in various literary genres, Spanish literature has gained worldwide fame. His immortal work - the novel The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, conceived as a parody of the chivalrous novels of that time, has become one of the most striking monuments in world literature.

In this era, the formation of the Spanish national drama was completed. Its characteristic features were most fully embodied in the work of Lope F. de Vega Carpio (1562-1635). The worldview of Lope de Vega, an innovator in the field of drama, combined humanistic and patriarchal ideas. He outlined his views on drama in the treatise The New Art of Coming to Comedy in Our Time (1609). Lope de Vega - the creator of the drama of honor, in his works appears anticipating the classicism of the 17th century. the thought of a person's lack of freedom, since honor for him is more important than passions. His comedies can be conditionally divided into three groups - "court comedies", "cloak and sword comedies" and "comedies of bad manners". He influenced such playwrights as Guillen de Castro y Belvis (1569-1631), Antonio Mira de Amesqua (1574-1644), Luis Velez de Guevara (1579-1644).

At the beginning of the 17th century. Spain maintained its position as a world leader, but the economic situation deteriorated sharply, despite the huge influx of gold from colonial America. In the final stage of the Renaissance, often distinguished in a special period of the Baroque, the prevailing tendency was to interpret what was happening in the country as a consequence of the evil principle in a person, an idea consonant with the Christian doctrine of sinfulness. The way out was seen in an appeal to the mind, helping a person to find the way to God, which was reflected in the literature, which pays special attention to the contrast between human nature and his mind, between beauty and ugliness, while the beautiful was perceived as something ephemeral and practically inaccessible.

Poetry was dominated by two styles - "gongorism", named in honor of the greatest poet of the time, Luis de Gongor-y-Argote (1561-1627), and "conceptism", from the word concepto, which means "thought." "Gongorism" was also called "culturism", from the word culto ("cultivated"), since this style was designed for a select, educated audience. Gongora was a secular poet and a folk motif in his work, an appeal to the genres of folk poetry (romances and letrills) are combined with exquisite artistic techniques. "Conceptism", the founder of which is considered A. de Ledesma, who published a collection of poems Spiritual Thoughts (1600), opposed the "gongorism". At the same time, in "conceptism", as in "gongorism", much attention was paid to form, the creation of complex concepts, wordplay, and wit.

One of the representatives of "conceptism", Quevedo tried himself in different genres, but this style reached its greatest development in his satirical sketches, Dreams, (1606-1622). An outstanding philosopher, moralist and writer was Baltasar Gracian y Morales (1601-1658), a member of the Jesuit order, who appeared under pseudonyms. In Wit, or the Art of the Sophisticated Mind (1648), he formulates the principles of conceptism.

So: the individual phases of the Renaissance in Spain did not coincide with the corresponding stages of the Renaissance in other countries.

• - The 15th century in Spanish art represents the period of the birth of a new artistic perception of the world.
• - In the first decades of the 16th century, stylistic phenomena associated with the High Renaissance appeared, but nevertheless, early Renaissance traditions were prevailing.
• - The time of the highest achievements of Spanish culture is the second half of the 16th century. It is enough to name the name of the great Cervantes to imagine what deep and multifaceted problems of reality were embodied in the literature of that era. Significant artistic achievements characterize architecture and painting.

The construction of such a magnificent ensemble as the Escorial belongs to the second quarter of the 16th century; at this time, the Greek artist Domenico Teotokopouli, known as El Greco, was working in Spain. But unlike the Italian (in particular, Venetian) masters of the late Renaissance, in whose work the connection and continuity with the range of artistic ideas of the previous stages of the Renaissance were clearly expressed, the features of the tragic crisis of the late Renaissance were more sharply embodied in Spanish painting.

The literature of the Renaissance in Spain, as well as in Portugal, culturally associated with it and even subject to the Spanish kings from 1580 to 1640, is distinguished by its great originality, which is explained in the peculiarities of the historical development of Spain. Already in the second half of the 15th century. here, as in other European countries, there is a loosening of feudal institutions and medieval worldview. The latter was especially undermined by humanistic ideas that penetrated from the most advanced country of that time - Italy. However, in Spain this process proceeded in a very peculiar way, in comparison with other countries, due to two circumstances that made up the specifics of the history of Spain of that era.

The first of them is associated with the conditions in which the reconquista took place. The fact that individual regions of Spain were conquered separately, at different times and in different conditions, led to the fact that in each of them special laws, customs and local customs were developed. The peasantry and cities based on the conquered lands in different places received various rights and freedoms. On the other hand, the heterogeneous local rights and liberties, to which various regions and cities tenaciously held, were the cause of constant conflicts between them and the royal power. Quite often it even happened that the cities united against her with the feudal lords. Therefore, by the end of the early Middle Ages in Spain, such a close alliance between the royal power and the cities against the large feudal lords was not established. Spanish absolutism was formed under the "Catholic kings" (Ferdinand and Isabella) and their grandson Charles I (1515-1556, he was the German emperor Charles V since 1519). Since then, absolutism has firmly established itself in Spain, but unlike other European states, it did not contribute to the unification of the country.

Another feature of the historical development of Spain in the XVI century. - undoubted economic decline with paradoxically lush external signs of prosperity. The result of the extraordinary influx of gold from America was a sharp rise in the price of all products - the "price revolution", which affected all European countries, but manifested itself with particular force in Spain. Since it became more profitable to buy foreign products, the Spanish industry in the second half of the XVI century. decreased greatly. Agriculture also fell into decline - partly for the same reason, partly due to the massive ruin of the peasants and the impoverishment of a huge number of small noble farmers who could not compete with large landowners who enjoyed various privileges. In addition, the temptation of easy money in the colonies or in the European regions subject to Spain (Flanders, southern Italy), through military service associated with the robbery of civilians, trade and money speculation, various dark scams, discouraged many people from productive labor, creating hordes adventurers, marauders, seekers of happiness, belonging to the most diverse classes of society.

To this must be added the extremely uneven distribution of the wealth coming from the colony. Most of them went to the nobility, which stood at the head of all colonial enterprises and turned out to be the main, if not the only owner of the mines and mines where valuable metals were extracted. In turn, of all the nobility involved in this robbery, the highest aristocracy was especially rich, receiving, in addition to various monopolies and entire regions in the New World, countless pensions, sinecura and all kinds of handouts from the hands of the king. As a result, in this early stage of initial accumulation in Spain, the sociocultural consolidation of the bourgeoisie did not take place in other countries - especially Italy and England.

Spanish absolutism therefore had a much narrower social base than absolutism in most other European countries. The old feudal lords reluctantly put up with him, especially since he fully reckoned with their economic interests, the bourgeoisie obeyed him by necessity, and the masses accepted him as the least evil, seeing in him some protection against their oppression by the feudal lords. The true support of Spanish absolutism was only the middle nobility ("caballeros"), since this system fully satisfied its requirements and interests, especially the new aristocracy that emerged from it, which formed the ruling elite of society. As for the petty nobility ("hidalgia"), since, on the one hand, significant strata of it became poorer and fell into decay, and on the other hand, seductive prospects nevertheless opened before him and the ghost of glory, easy enrichment flickered, his attitude to absolutism was ambivalent: hidalgia was betrayed to the royal power, or, at least, loyal, but at the same time there was a deep inner discontent in it, which sometimes took very sharp ideological forms.

Under such conditions, Spanish absolutism all the time needed military support for its support. Another natural support in history was the Catholic Church. A dense network of monasteries covered the country, numbering several hundred thousand priests and monks. The Christian Church as an ancient and very rooted social institution in Spain, on the one hand, was the traditional territory of culture and the custodian of its values, as well as the only organizer of education (universities were a formal part of it); on the other hand, she fought, sometimes fiercely, against all manifestations of dissent, preventing, in particular, the development of Protestant ideas in Spain, and promoted views pleasing to the government.

The situation for the XVI century. in this regard, it has changed more than once: for example, the teachings of Erasmus of Rotterdam under Charles I, in the first half of the century, were freely discussed and widely disseminated, including with the support of the authorities, in the second half of the century, under Philip II, erasmism was persecuted. A particularly prominent role in Spain in the 16th-17th centuries. played by the Jesuit order and the Inquisition, which since the time of Ferdinand the Catholic has become a powerful instrument in the hands of power - primarily a political and economic one.

Despite the fragility of its economic foundation, the Spanish monarchy had planetary political ambitions. The concentration under the rule of Charles V of half of Western Europe, not counting the huge possessions in America, the colossal wealth that flowed from the colonies, the unbridled courage of the conquistadors and the courage of the military leaders of the Spanish armies - all this inspired the Spanish nobility with an exaggerated idea of \u200b\u200bhis own valor and dignity, of his historical mission. homeland. Hence the dream of Charles V about the transformation of Spain into a world monarchy, which would establish Catholicism everywhere on the globe (“one flock, one shepherd, one ruler, one empire, one sword,” as the poet Hernando de Acuña put it in a sonnet he presented to the king) ...

Under Charles I's successor, Philip II (1556-1598), at the same time, the economic crisis clearly emerged and the external manifestations of the country's political power reached a maximum. For example, under Philip II, Spain had the strongest army in Europe. Nevertheless, the most discerning minds of the era began to become clear that great-power Spain, this multinational state, was a colossus with feet of clay. Large sections of the population are impoverished, industry and agriculture are declining, there are a number of state bankruptcies, foreign policy and military failures follow one after another: a series of defeats inflicted by the French, the fall of the Netherlands, the defeat of the "Invincible Armada" sent in 1588 to conquer England. All this was not able to reason with the military-clerical clique that surrounded Philip II, and the king of Spain still dreamed of the dominance of the Catholic faith over the whole world and thus of the salvation of millions of lost souls. The Inquisition, transformed by Ferdinand the Catholic from a modest internal church body of internal government into a powerful political weapon and widely used by the authorities at the beginning and middle of the century, remained active under Philip II. Under the much less gifted successors of Philip II, the persistent continuation of the same policy brought Spain down towards the end of the 17th century. to the position of a second-rate European power.

All these features of Spanish history determine the general character of its literature in the XVI-XVII centuries. The literature of the Spanish Renaissance in the national tradition is usually divided into two periods: the early Renaissance (1475-1550) and the mature Renaissance (1550 - the first decades of the 17th century); Western literary criticism often uses the concepts

"Early" and "late" baroque, respectively applied to the second half of the 16th century. and by the 17th century. These two different approaches do not contain serious contradictions, for the concept of "baroque" is more based on aesthetic foundations, and "Renaissance" - on general historical and ideological ones. The modern view of things makes it possible to dialectically combine the idea of \u200b\u200bthe deep baroque character of Don Quixote and the idea of \u200b\u200bthe undoubted Renaissance pathos of Cervantes' work.

At the beginning of this period in Spain, as in most other countries, the emergence of that new, open and critical approach to reality, which is characteristic of the Renaissance worldview, is observed. Spain has a number of prominent scientists and thinkers who overturned old prejudices and paved the way for modern scientific knowledge. True, among them there were few figures so great that it was possible to attribute to them a general European significance. The most famous are Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540), a philosopher, one of the reformers of pedagogy, a friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Miguel Servetus, a rationalist philosopher and physician, who in his works - even before Harvey - came close to establishing the law of blood circulation. In 1553 he was burned at the stake in Geneva, becoming one of the first victims of Protestant fanaticism.

Secondly, many characteristic features of the previous historical development determined the high level of national self-awareness and, consequently, its influence on literature. That is why the Renaissance humanistic tendencies in Spanish literature were not scholarly and philosophically profound, but spontaneous and impulsive, but no less profound and even more revolutionary from this. Considering that the mass of Spain was at that time mainly the peasantry, for which stable patriarchal ideals are very characteristic, we finally note that in the humanistic culture of Spain we find both sharp criticism of social reality and aspirations for patriarchal antiquity (which was especially clearly revealed in the spread of ideas of the "golden age", which supposedly preceded the present, "iron") and in the folk-utopian coloring of ideals. While rejecting utopianism, some Spanish writers come to a pessimistic assessment of reality and the possibilities of its transformation.

Humanistic ideas in Spanish Renaissance literature are expressed almost exclusively in poetic images, and not in theoretical writings. For the same reason, the influence of antique and Italian designs, in some cases indisputable, was generally much less significant in Spain than, for example, in France or England. Likewise, the Spanish literature of the Renaissance is less inherent in the cult of form and a certain kind of aestheticism, prompted by these samples and typical of most other national literatures of the era. On the contrary, it is characterized by masculinity, severity, sobriety, a great concreteness of images and expressions, dating back to the medieval Spanish tradition. In all these respects, the Spanish literature of the Renaissance has a peculiar, specifically national character.

It is not enough to say that the religious trends of the era were vividly reflected in this literature. The ideology and practice of Catholicism, continuously shaping cultural consciousness for ten centuries, by the 16th century. not only left a strong external imprint on Spanish life, but also shaped the mentality, ethics, customs and cognitive mechanisms of culture. Even in the struggle against Catholic dogma, writers and thinkers remained in the field of its influence.

Nowhere in the literature of the XVI-XVII centuries. religious forms are not as prominent as in Spain. We find here an extremely developed mystical literature, which is one of the peak manifestations of Spanish culture - religious poems and lyrics (Juan de la Cruz, Luis de Leon), prose that deeply gives self-observation of the author of "miraculous conversions", ecstasies and visions (Teresa de Jesus) , theological treatises and sermons (Luis de Granada). The greatest playwrights (Lope de Vega, Calderon), along with secular plays, write religious plays, dramatized legends and the lives of saints, or "sacred acts" (autos sacramentales), as a rule, having the theme of the glorification of the sacrament of the sacrament. But even in the plays of secular content, religious and philosophical themes often appear ("The Mischievous Seville" by Tirso de Molina, "The Steadfast Prince" by Calderon).

The concept of sin, heavenly punishment, grace, etc. - the usual motives of Spanish poetry of the time. On the other hand, it is also true that in the broadest socio-cultural circles there was a passionate protest against the sometimes inhuman moral cruelty of churchmen, obedience and the struggle with natural drives. Therefore, anti-clerical tendencies also took place, sometimes finding an ideological basis for themselves (mainly in Erasmianism and partly in mysticism), although for the most part they were spontaneous and poorly understood. Deep contradictions of feelings found expression in the harsh, tragic tops of many works of the era, in the gloomy hyperbolism of images, in the display of sudden ups and downs rather than the gradual development of passions and events.

The Spanish Renaissance released a maximum of national energy, revealed a great inquisitiveness of mind, determination and courage of its leaders in overcoming obstacles. The broad perspectives that opened up before the people of that time, the scope of political and military enterprises, an abundance of new impressions and opportunities for various ebullient activities - all this was reflected in Spanish literature of the 16th-17th centuries, which is characterized by great dynamics, passion and rich imagination.

Thanks to these qualities, the Spanish literature of the "golden age" (as the period from about the second third of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century is called) occupies one of the first places among the national literatures of the Renaissance.

Brilliantly showing itself in all genres, Spanish literature gave especially high examples in the novel and in the drama, i.e. in those literary forms in which the most complete expression of the features typical of the then Spain could be found - the ardor of feelings, energy and movement.

Questions and tasks

• 1. What historical and geographical factors give the cultural history of the Iberian Peninsula an acute originality against the background of the rest of Europe?
• 2. What distortions of the social structure accompanied the reconquista and state consolidation of the 15th-16th centuries? in Spain? How did this affect the history of her literature?
• 3. How is secular and ecclesiastical humanism related in Spanish cultural history?
• 4. Using reference books and encyclopedias, get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat mysticism is and what mystical literature has been known in Europe since ancient times. Find information about the genius Castilian mystics - Juan de la Cruz, Teresa de Jesus, Luis de Leone, as well as their Russian translations.
• 5. Make a chronological table from 1492 to 1616, which would correlate various events in Spanish history: general historical (for example, the discoveries of Columbus), political (the reign of Spanish kings) and creative (publication of the masterpieces of major writers).

Topics of essays and reports

• 1. Renaissance titan: the personality of Charles I.
• 2. Is Schiller right? The historical truth about Infanta Don Carlos and his father Philip I.
• 3. Spanish Universities in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
• 4. Spanish mysticism in art and literature.
• 5. Conquista and Hispanic Literature.