Leonardo da Vinci is an artist, thinker and revolutionary. Da Vinci's world
Renaissance
В stories of humanity there are periods that represent fundamental turning points. Such periods are characterized by great social, political and cultural transformations. Ideas, habits and traditions that have indisputably been adopted for centuries or even millennia are suddenly questioned. Society is in a state of fermentation, which also affects the minds of men and women. A lifestyle that has become old and decrepit is beginning to stagger. Although people do not understand what is happening, everyone senses that fundamental change is approaching. Such a period of social upheaval is inevitably reflected in profound changes in religion, philosophy and art.
The sixteenth century was marked by the culmination of the expansion of the power of the bourgeoisie during one of the most remarkable periods in human history. The Renaissance brought about an extraordinary flourishing of culture, art and science. Never before or since has the world seen such a gallery of heroes and geniuses. To this day, the works of art from this unique period of history remain unsurpassed. He set the standard by which artistic achievement is measured throughout history.
Engels describes the Renaissance as follows:
“It was the greatest progressive revolution that humanity has experienced so far, a time that demanded giants and gave birth to giants - giants in power of thought, passion and character, in universality and learning. The people who founded modern bourgeois rule had anything but bourgeois restraints. On the contrary, the adventurous nature of the time inspired them to a greater or lesser extent. It is unlikely that at that time there was at least one important person who would travel a lot, did not speak four or five languages, did not shine in a number of areas. Leonardo da Vinci was not only a great artist, but also a great mathematician, mechanic and engineer, to whom the most diverse fields of physics owe important discoveries. Albrecht Dürer was a painter, engraver, sculptor and architect and, in addition, invented a fortification system that embodied many ideas that were much later taken up again by Montalembert and the modern German science of fortification. Machiavelli was a statesman, historian, poet and at the same time the first notable military author of modern times. Luther not only cleansed the Augean stables of the Church, but also the German language; he created modern German prose and composed the lyrics and melody of that triumphal anthem, imbued with confidence of victory, which became the Marseillaise of the sixteenth century. "
The roots of this extraordinary period are to be found in the second half of the fifteenth century, when the prolonged decline of feudalism in Western Europe led to the emergence of the great absolute monarchies that anticipated modern European nation states. Relying on the burghers in the cities, the absolute monarchies managed to break the power of the old feudal nobility. The bourgeoisie used their leverage to get concessions from the central government in the form of charters and royal privileges. Here, in general terms, we already see the rapid ambition and growing power of the bourgeoisie, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchies in England and France.
Art and the rise of the bourgeoisie
The young bourgeoisie hastened to throw off the rags of feudalism. She readily embraced new ideas, new philosophies, new science and new art forms. At present, the connection between the rise of the bourgeoisie and the struggle against the dominant ideology of the Roman Catholic Church is clear to everyone. The struggle between hostile classes was reflected in the struggle between rival religions, which found expression in what we call the Reformation, the Dutch and English revolutions, and the religious wars that raged in Europe throughout the 17th century.
With the decline of feudalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie, new artistic and literary forms began to appear. They originated in the wealthy Flemish city-states with their new class of wealthy merchants. The new methods of capitalist production found their expression in art.
The new style of art included revolutionary techniques of great complexity, which allowed the artist to depict previously unseen details - the golden thread on the dress, the folds of the cloak, the shine of the sun's rays on the armor, the reflection in the polished mirror, which create special technical difficulties. Contemporary British artist David Hockney believes that these artists used techniques developed from recent scientific discoveries in optics to achieve an almost photographic quality and realism.
The new style was also associated with a new spirit of invention, the study of proportions and anatomy, the invention of new colors and, above all, the discovery of perspective. A mathematical perspective of the Renaissance type was unknown in the Middle Ages. Before the Renaissance, God the Father was portrayed much larger than human figures, thereby emphasizing the insignificance of man in relation to the Almighty. But in the Renaissance, this art form was destroyed.
The conflict between the nascent bourgeoisie and the Church — the central conflict throughout the entire dawn of capitalism — was driven in part by the fact that the Church provided the primary moral and religious underpinning for the existing feudal order.
This was the period when the bourgeoisie played a progressive role, fighting to free itself from the fetters of feudalism that impeded its development. The idea of freedom began to form in the imagination of people: first of all, freedom from the dead hand of religion and the church, which ultimately led to Luther and the Reformation.
Renaissance Italy
The enormous wealth of cities such as Florence, Genoa, Milan and Venice, with their powerful ruling families of princes-merchants, created the objective conditions for the flourishing of art, which has no analogues since ancient times.
In this seething crucible of intellectual life, new schools of art arose. From these schools comes a galaxy of giants: Titian, Michelangelo, Raphael and, towering over all of them, Leonardo da Vinci.
But not a single fine art. Literature kept up with him. The change in it was the figure of Dante Alighieri, who can be considered as the last writer of the Middle Ages and the first writer of the modern era. Petrarch and Boccaccio were, along with Dante, the greatest literary figures of this period. In Boccaccio's Decameron, we see the beginnings of a modern novel.
Another genius of the time was Machiavelli. His reputation as an unscrupulous schemer is completely underestimated. In fact, he was a great scientist and thinker of the Renaissance. His History of Florence (which Marx greatly admired) is a masterpiece of historical science. She accurately describes the brutal class struggle that was raging in the Italian city-states at the time. Machiavelli was the first writer who gave a scientific analysis of the state, devoid of all moralistic and idealistic adornments, and revealed its essence as weapons.
The new art is closely linked with the rise of the bourgeoisie. And with the rise of the bourgeoisie, we see the growth of individualism in art. The Renaissance is an age of individualism, the bold assertion of human rights.
Until now, the true object of art has been God, not man. But just as Copernicus and Galileo "made the world revolve around the sun," so the humanistic worldview of the Renaissance made art revolve around real people. This would have been unthinkable in the medieval period.
It is no coincidence that Italy played such an outstanding role in the formation of the Renaissance. Italy (along with the Netherlands) was the birthplace of capitalism. In the cities of northern and central Italy, the nascent bourgeoisie was already flexing its muscles and gaining a voice of its own, becoming more and more assertive.
The first manifestations of capitalism can be seen in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries. These centuries were accompanied by the most grandiose burst of artistic creativity. The rise of the Italian bourgeoisie was expressed in the creation of a number of independent city-states. In the absence of a strong central monarchy, the burghers of Florence, Milan, Genoa, and other prosperous cities created city-states that balanced between emperor and pope.
However, there was a problem that ultimately slowed down the development of capitalism in Italy. Lack of national unity and sharp divisions between the city-states contributed to the constant intervention of foreign powers. Already in the Middle Ages, Italian politics was characterized by a struggle between two opposing groups - the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the former supported the papacy, the latter supported the German emperors.
This contributed to chronic strife in the cities of northern Italy throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. As a result, Italy has been a battleground for centuries where the French, German and Spanish armies fought bloody wars to gain control of the country's wealth. The resulting disagreements made it impossible for Italy to develop as a single nation-state. Thus, the full potential of early capitalist development was wasted as a result of internecine conflicts, wars and factional strife.
Leonardo da Vinci and his time
Leonardo was a Renaissance man par excellence. More than anyone else, Leonardo was responsible for taking painting to the next level and making a true artistic revolution.
Speaking about both Leonardo himself and dozens of other people of that time, Engels wrote the following lines:
“... The heroes of that time had not yet fallen into the slavery of the division of labor, the restrictive consequences of which, with its one-sidedness, we so often see in their successors. But what is especially characteristic of them is that they almost all live in the very midst of the interests of their time, taking an active part in practical struggle, take the side of one party or another and fight some with a word and a pen, some with a sword, and some with both together. Hence the fullness and strength of character that make them whole people. "
His fiercely inquiring mind "turned" in one direction or the other in search of solutions to the problems of art and science, and in this he reflected the whole spirit of his age. But at the very moment when he solved one problem, he seemed to lose interest in it and went in search of others. For this reason, he often left projects unfinished and spent a lot of time starting new ones (for example, it took him four years to complete the Mona Lisa). In other cases, he simply left the paintings to his students to finish for him. As if he lacked the worlds he could conquer, and lacked the lives he could live.
He was an architect and engineer who planned to build tunnels in the mountains and connect rivers through canals. He anticipated Copernicus's theory of the movement of the Earth and Lamarck's classification of animals into vertebrates and invertebrates. He discovered the laws of optics, gravity, heat and light. He was obsessed with flying birds and spent a lot of time researching the possibility of creating a flying machine.
Among his many drawings, we find one that depicts a helicopter. In addition, he developed the tank and parachute, several centuries before these items found their central application on the battlefields of World War II. He also developed a dialectical philosophy in which will was considered the energy of life, and this adequately reflects the inner meaning of his own life, which has achieved much more than ordinary people could achieve.
However, it is remarkable that the true genius of Leonardo really began to be understood only in our time.
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