The representation of pain and the metamorphosis of aesthetics from the Middle Ages to Early modern period

Abstract

The article provides an aesthetic and philosophical analysis of the causes of historical changes in the image of pain in Western European culture. The concept of suffering arising in the Renaissance is considered as a significant reflection of the general transformation of sensuality. The main approaches to the phenomenon of pain in the humanities and various points of view on the possibility of its representation by artistic means are outlined. The focus of attention is on changes in the spatial and temporal orientations of culture, as well as the aesthetic metamorphoses caused by them, considered by the example of how artistic creativity revealed the theme of pain. The change of aesthetic consciousness from the Middle Ages to Modern period is analyzed using examples from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art. The article examines the formation of the concept of personal existential suffering and its reflection in cultural artifacts. The novelty of the research is the concept of the aesthetic mechanism of the Renaissance, understood as a change of forms of sensuality that structure experience. Such transformations lead to the emergence of new artistic forms, which especially characterizes the Renaissance. The foundations of the metamorphoses of sensuality are found in the change in the image of reality, which formed the renaissance aesthetics and predetermined subsequent cultural trends. The social and theological reasons for these changes and their interpretation by humanist philosophers are considered. The research draws a connection between a new understanding of time and space, communicated both to the other world and to earthly life, and the deepening of personal affective experience and aesthetic component. It is concluded that the result of the new chronotoping was the strengthening of the immanent experience of suffering and the formation of a different way of representation.