Page 34 - 6241

necessary link in the cultural process. In general, there are three basic paradigms of
interpretation of this cultural and historical phenomenon:
• Renaissance era is completely independent, a qualitatively new stage in the
history of European culture following the Middle Ages and being akin to Greco-

Roman antiquity;
• Renaissance is the last stage of the Middle Ages, the quintessence of the
Middle Ages (prominent Dutch culturologist J. Huizinga called Renaissance

‘autumn of the Middle Ages’);
• Renaissance is an era of transition from medieval to modern times with all
the characteristics that ‘bridge’ contradictions (Reformation and Counter-

Reformation, secularization and inquisition).
The term ‘Renaissance’ characterizing the era of the XIV-XVI centuries was
introduced by Italian humanists. Genetically this term was related to the religious

and ethical concept of ‘recovery’: restoration of culture, rise of literature, art,
science after their prolonged decline during the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance was seen as a ‘middle epoch’, a cultural stage coming after
the millennial rule of ‘medieval barbarism’. Italian poet Francesco Petrarch set out

the concept of ‘dark ages’ differing from the antiquity and an idea of a strong
continuity between the antiquity and contemporary period (the Renaissance).

Humanists do not hide their contempt for the ‘ignorance and barbarism’ of the
Middle Ages and vigorously ‘revived the ancient traditions’. But the history of
culture has no more or less prominent. Each stage of human existence faced
problems needed to be dealt with by the society.

The Renaissance period is characterized by a transfer of cultural interest
from the scope of the higher (heavenly) world to the material manifestations of life
evolving to the culture of anthropocentrism (from the Greek ‘anthropos’ – ‘man’).

The Renaissance art was abound in the field of visual arts (painting, sculpture),
translated into the formation of local people's national languages, nation-states,
emergence of national literature, commercial and economic development of the

cities, spiritual secularization and increasing individualistic tendencies in social
life.
There are three main types of the Renaissance culture: Italian Renaissance,

Northern Renaissance and partial revival in the peripheral areas. The Italian
Renaissance as a whole is characterized by the sequence of the process of spiritual
emancipation, release from the power of church (both economically and politically
- this process is called secularization), rise in all areas of art (new genres). Italy is

considered the birthplace of the Renaissance culture. This is where the first
European literary work published in the national language entitled ‘New Life’
(‘Vita nuova’) by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was published. The Northern

33