Who can talk about "Renaissance"?

Renaissance

The Renaissance is a historical period in the development of European culture and thought from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a major new cultural movement in European history and a major new cultural movement in human history. A glorious era in which hundreds of flowers bloom, fruitful achievements are made, stars compete for beauty, and talents abound. Engels called it "the greatest and progressive change that mankind has ever experienced" and "an era that requires giants and produces giants."

The Renaissance first originated in Italy. Italy had taken the lead in Europe at that time in completing class preparations, ideological preparations and material preparations for the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Marx once said, "Capitalist production first developed in Italy." In Florence, Italy, and other places in the 14th and 15th centuries, with the continuous expansion of factory production scale and the continuous advancement of production technology, wealthy craftsmen and large workshop owners became the emerging bourgeoisie. They need to obtain a social status commensurate with their economic status, and they need to promote their class's values, ideology and culture into the mainstream of society. But the bourgeoisie at that time was still a new force that had just stepped onto the historical stage and was growing. In order to compete with and ultimately defeat the stubborn, conservative, ignorant and cruel Catholic Church at that time, it had to find a powerful ideological weapon to arm itself. It must be able to arouse public awareness and at the same time appear non-violent and non-revolutionary. Therefore, the bourgeoisie turned its attention to the ancient Greek and Roman periods. They believed that it was a glorious era that Europeans were proud of and a peak in the history of European culture. At that time, the flourishing classical natural sciences, philosophy, literature, art and Roman law could be used to fight against the Catholic Church. A practical and effective weapon. As a result, the bourgeoisie actively advocated the "resurrection" and "rebirth" of ancient Greek and Roman culture, setting off reform activities in all fields from culture to society. This is where the Renaissance gets its name.

The guiding ideology of the Renaissance is humanism, the core of which is "Man is the foundation of all things", which advocates using the individual as the measure of all things. Humanists value human values, advocate individuality and human rights, advocate individual freedom, and oppose Catholic theocracy; advocate hedonism and oppose asceticism; advocate scientific culture and oppose feudal superstition.

The development of the Renaissance generally went through four stages: (1) The 13th century was the early stage of the Renaissance movement, and its outstanding feature was that the development of literature reached an unprecedented level. The cultural center city of this period was Florence. The representative figures are the three literary writers known as the "First Three": Dante (1265 to 1321), Petrarch (1304 to 1374) and Boccaccio (1313 to 1375). Their masterpieces "The Divine Comedy", "Africa" ??and "The Decameron" occupy a prominent position in the history of world literature. Due to the widespread circulation of their works, the dialect of the three poets' hometown of Florence became the precursor to modern Italian. Also worth mentioning at this stage is the master Giotto (1267-1337), who is revered as the "Father of European Painting". His artistic techniques directly influenced the Italian painting style for the next hundred years. (2) The period from the end of the 14th century to the first half of the 15th century was the preparation period for the climax of the Renaissance. During this period, humanism and literature and art developed further, producing a number of high-level painters, sculptors and architects, such as the painter Masaccio (1401 to 1428), the sculptor Donatello (1386 to 1464) and Architect Brunelleschi (1377-1446). Among them, the great vault of the Florence Cathedral, designed by Brunelleschi between 1434 and 1437, is large, majestic and magnificent, and is unforgettable. (3) The period from the end of the 15th century to the first half of the 16th century was the peak period of the Renaissance, and the cultural center city had been transferred from Florence to Rome. The main representatives are the "Last Three Masters" - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519), Michelangelo (1475 to 1564) and Raphael (1483 to 1520). The "Mona Lisa", "The Last Supper", "David", "The Sorrow of Mary" and "The Virgin of Sixtus" they left behind, as well as the large number of murals in Raphael's studio in the Vatican Museum, can be regarded as world art gallery treasures , is also a household name in China, known to all women and children.

(4) The period from the second half of the 16th century to the first half of the 17th century was the late Renaissance. The representatives of this period include the four famous masters of the Venetian School: Giorgione, Titian (1490-1576), Veronese and Tintoretto. There are also three famous scientists and thinkers: Bruno, Galileo and Campanella.

The Renaissance movement played an important role in promoting the social and cultural development of Europe and the world: the Renaissance induced the religious reform and created the prototype of a modern secular country; the cultural field was individual-oriented The content and rigorous and elegant form have become a model for later generations to learn from; the outstanding contribution of humanists is to lay the foundation of modern natural science; the Renaissance movement was a great ideological emancipation in European history, expressing the bourgeoisie's desire to break the feudal ideological system. Spiritual shackles, the requirement to liberate productive forces and establish new production relations.