The Evolution of A. Durer's Aesthetic views in the Context of Renaissance Philosophy

At present, interest in the ideas of the humanists of the age of Objection has significantly faded, however, as well as to the problems of the history of philosophy in general, however, many views of thinkers of the past find a response in modernity. Thus, the evolution of Durer's ideas, in our opinion, perfectly demonstrates the process of forming a new type of perception of an artistic work: utilitarian, which got its start in the 17th century, and has now reached its apogee. The very transition from titanism to utilitarianism and the "managerial" approach in aesthetics is a problem that requires a separate study, not only philosophical or art criticism, but also those new directions of thought that have emerged in the modern era: cultural marketing, for example.

Also, do not forget that it was the geniuses of the Northern Renaissance who largely determined the special image of the apocalypse demanded by the mass culture of the modern digital era. The aesthetics of A. Durer is largely built around apocalyptic visions, which found expression in his paintings, letters and diary entries. Durer's works have now become a kind of illustration of our era and are often used in the media. This makes the analysis of the artist's aesthetic views undertaken by us relevant and justified.

A lot has been written about the aesthetics of Albrecht Durer and the peculiarities of his worldview. The classical works of Heinrich Welflin, Ernst Heidrich, Erwin Panofsky, Mikhail Yakovlevich Liebman are known. It is impossible not to mention the translation into Russian of Durer's diaries, letters and treatises by Cecilia Henrikhovna Nesselstraus, their research and commentary ^{[1, 2]}. Currently, the appeal to Durer's work is mainly of an art criticism or biographical nature ^{[3, 4, 5, 6]}, although the problem of the evolution of his views, his attitude to the Reformation and religion is also comprehended in the scientific literature ^{[7, 8, 9, 10]}. It would seem difficult to add something new to the results of research that has the character of a scientific tradition.

However, we are primarily interested in those accents that will clarify the features of Durer's worldview in the context of the general philosophy of the Renaissance.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Durer's philosophical heritage in order to assess the final result of his studies in art theory and the evolution of his aesthetic ideas. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to consider two topical problems that are little studied at present.

The first is connected with the determination of Durer's place among artists, humanists, philosophers – his predecessors, contemporaries, as well as those who lived one or two generations after him. It should be emphasized that in previous studies, the commonality of the aesthetic views of the great German with the artistic theories of Italy of the XV century was usually emphasized. In our study, we will try to open the door leading to the paths connecting Durer with the scientific method of the second half of the XVI and XVII centuries.

The second problem is the problem of freedom. It is known that Italian humanists and artists have succeeded so well in emancipating themselves from the remnants of the "dark" Middle Ages that there is a clear threat of an anti-humanistic transformation of the freedom they too broadly understand. N.A. Berdyaev and A.F. Losev wrote about this at the time ^{[11, 12]}. Here the question arises, how free was Durer in the manifestation of creative individuality?

The analysis of Durer's philosophical heritage undertaken by us thus becomes a kind of bridge that helps to understand how the ideas of Renaissance humanism were transformed into the ideas of rationalism of the Modern era, and subsequently into the ideas of utilitarianism.

As follows from the initial extensive plan dating back to 1507, the theory of art was conceived by Durer as a universal guide to the education and training of artists and at the same time as a work highlighting the current scientific and applied problems posed by the Era. This plan expressed Renaissance maximalism, the Renaissance's bid for the impossible. So the young Durer organically fit into the semantic and ideological structure of the Renaissance, its mythological model, precisely in its "classical", Italian version.

For the development of the theory, Durer needed to determine his attitude to tradition. And already in the "Early handwritten sketches" made after 1507, Durer bitterly writes about the destruction of monuments of ancient culture during the establishment of Christianity. "If I happened to be there... – I would say – dear sirs and holy fathers, you should not so ruthlessly in the name of evil kill noble arts discovered and accumulated with great labor and care. For art is great, difficult and beautiful, and we can and want to turn it with great reverence to the glory of God" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 20]}. In these words, Durer's awareness of the irretrievability of the losses incurred declares itself. But there is also a religious subtext here: art is called to serve God; at the same time, the glory and power of God are identified with the greatness and beauty of art. Including the art of pagan-antique. The fact that this is not a random emotional assessment is evidenced by the fact that a similar provision appears five years later – in 1512 in the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on proportions." Here Durer writes as follows: "Many years ago, famous artists lived... some of them described their art and skillfully explained it and made it clear to everyone. But these praiseworthy books of theirs are still hidden from us and, perhaps, completely lost due to wars, displacement of peoples, or changes in laws and beliefs, which, indeed, every reasonable person should regret" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 200]}. It should be noted that this is also the position of a middle-class person, for whom social stability is an indispensable condition for preserving tradition.

If we turn to the Italian art theorists, Leon-Battista Alberti agrees with Durer in assessing its religious significance: "Painting contributes to the piety that connects us with the gods, as well as to maintaining the fullness of religious feeling in our soul" ^{[13, p. 39]}. But as soon as it comes to the importance of the ancient tradition for the contemporary art of Italy, the idea of competition with Antiquity, the desire to surpass it, sharply manifests itself in his texts. "If it was not difficult for the ancients, who had plenty to learn from and imitate, to rise to the knowledge of the higher arts, then our names deserve all the more recognition because we create unprecedented and unheard-of arts without any mentors and any models" ^{[13, p. 26]}. If we use the terminology of A.F. Losev, then we have a renaissance titanism growing into its opposite ^{[12, pp. 120-138]}. This is Renaissance God-fighting, but projected into the theory of art. Durer is not inclined to such self-admiration and exorbitant self-esteem. He does not rise in pride above the world, does not break away from the cultural and historical soil, he stubbornly tries to find himself inside the tradition.

It is noteworthy that in the "Early handwritten sketches", in two consecutive fragments, the concept of "labor" is used twice in the meaning of "heaviness". This is something that is not easy for the artist and that has to be overcome with considerable effort. Once it is given in the form of a noun as diligent and hard work; and then – as a definition that characterizes art in general, as a field of activity. Apparently, this is a generalization of Durer's difficult personal experience. This attitude to creativity remains with Durer until the end of his life. "Without measuring or understanding good proportions, you can't make a good figure. For a good figure is made with great effort, labor and diligence (our italics are N.B., M.F.) and should be well thought out" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 221]}. This was written by him in the "Aesthetic excursion to the third book on Proportions", on which, being already ill, with exorbitant, sometimes efforts, he worked from 1523 to 1527.

How different these assessments are from the perception of their work by Italian craftsmen. Durer's contemporary, the Italian painter Castiglione, in his treatise "On Grace" claimed the exact opposite. From his point of view, an artist and a poet should "apply in every case a certain ease that would hide art (our italics are N.B., M.F.) and present what has been done... like a given without effort... nothing in art requires such diligence as the need to hide diligence" ^{[14, pp. 293-294]}. Durer was far from such tricks. His works testify to the considerable spiritual and physical efforts invested in them by their creator. Durer's letters to J. Geller provide material both about the professional responsibility of the artist and about the complexity of the creative process. Art for Durer is "great, difficult and beautiful"; this is what enriches life, makes it better. This is not an audacious rivalry with God in a creative neoplatonic obsession (Durer was familiar with the teachings of Marsilio Ficino by that time), but as if an increment of the divine creation, the expansion of the boundaries of being, reverent co-creation, the continuation of the work of God on earth, addressed "with great reverence" to the glory of the Almighty.

Awareness of belonging to a tradition raises the question of its future fate. Durer came close to him. Art "was revived only a hundred and fifty years ago. And I hope that it will continue to grow and bear fruit, especially in the Italian lands, so that later it can pass to us" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 217]}. In the context of this fragment, Durer's criticism of the dedication compiled for him by one of his friends is understandable. "I highly praise the Italians for their naked figures and perspective" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 220]}. This is how the artist responds to excessive praise in his address. It can be assumed that subjectively Durer feels himself inside the artistic system of the Renaissance; but at the same time, outgrowing the Renaissance, he goes beyond this era, more prone to self-admiration in "creating unprecedented and unheard-of arts" (as Alberti claimed) than to sober self-esteem.

Durer's departure beyond the time limits of the Renaissance is confirmed by his interpretation of the category "beautiful". L.M. Batkin has a position according to which the "artificiality" and "realism" of Renaissance art culture acted as necessary conditions ^{[15, p. 122]}. However, the fact that these conditions were necessary for the development of culture, and that it was in their interaction that the originality and uniqueness of the spiritual world of the Renaissance was – the representatives of the Renaissance themselves did not realize this. Therefore, faced with the problem of beauty (this happened at the very beginning of his theoretical research), Durer found himself in the center of the strongest contradictions.

It is known that the "artificiality" and "realism" of Renaissance art culture predetermined that the aesthetics of the Renaissance proceeded from two premises. The first premise was the idea of imitation as a simple reproduction of nature, achieving maximum similarity with real reality p^{[16, p. 47]}. As a main trend, it manifested itself in the work of Giotto, then in Masaccio. And, perhaps even more, in the high marks that were given to them later. For example, Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "The Florentine Tomaso, nicknamed Masaccio, showed with a perfect work that those who were inspired by something other than nature, the teacher of teachers, worked in vain" ^{[17, vol. II, pp. 85-86]}. L.-B. Alberti, in turn, pointed out that the sculptors "although different in many ways, however, they strive for one thing: that the work they started... it seemed, in the end, to the viewer as similar as possible to a real natural body" p^{[18, p. 12]}.

The second premise was the task of improving, decorating, artistic idealization of nature. Initially, the implementation of this task was understood as following ancient models ^{[19, p. 97]}. However, soon this approach is being developed, and the task of improvement was supposed to be achieved in two ways.

The first way is to be able to create fantastic images with the help of layout that do not occur in reality. At the same time, simultaneously solving the problem of substantiating the advantages of painting over poetry, Italian theorists went from praising those who followed nature in their works to proclaiming the limitations of nature's possibilities and extolling the possibilities of the artist –creator that know no boundaries. "Simple natural things are finite, and works made by hands at the behest of the eye are infinite, as the painter proves by inventing (our italics – N.B., M.F.) infinite forms of animals and grasses, trees and localities" ^{[17, vol. I, p. 74]}.

The second way assumed that nature (primarily in the image of man) could be made even more beautiful by selecting its most beautiful parts and their subsequent artistic synthesis. On this occasion, Alberti wrote that one should not be content with "only conveying the similarity of all parts", but one should "take care to give them beauty" and that "the ancient painter Demetrius did not achieve the highest recognition only because he sought more natural similarity in things than their beauty" ^{[13, p. 59]}.

In this case, the artist could identify himself with God, since his purpose now was to select, compose, improve, combine, and thereby make visible the beauty that does not exist in its pure form in the world created by God. True, L.-B. Alberti admits that "this is a difficult matter," but immediately adds: "Those who are used to handling and coping with larger things will easily overcome smaller ones... and there is no such thing that would be so difficult that it could not be overcome by diligence and perseverance" ^{[13, p. 59]}.Note that in this case we are talking about nature as a whole and about man as a part of it. It turns out that by "diligence and perseverance" both are defeated, both man and nature, becoming, thanks to diligence and perseverance, as if ... more perfect, better, more beautiful. This desire to outwit and surpass both nature and man (as part of nature) speaks of the emerging elements of the technogenicity of the Renaissance, as the threshold of a New Time.

It was shown above how the initial requirement of a simple imitation of nature underwent a significant deformation. It is noteworthy that for Leonardo, imitation of nature began to mean mainly its research and creation on this basis of new forms not found in nature with the aim of self-affirmation and disclosure of his spiritual individuality ^{[19, p. 96]}. Thus the increasing individualism of the creative personality came into conflict with the natural state of things. As a result, a contradiction was born, consisting in the demand for a truthful reflection of nature and at the same time a not always pronounced, but constantly implied attitude to finding beauty hidden in it from the surface view. E. Panofsky emphasized that in the theory of art of the Italian Renaissance, "this constantly repeated exhortation to truthfully depict nature is interspersed with an equally insistent demand to choose the most beautiful of artistic objects, avoid ugly forms, especially in human proportions, and most importantly – to achieve beauty above the truth that exists in nature"^{[16, p. 48]}.

In order to show how Durer tried to resolve this contradiction, it is necessary to present the difference between the Italian and German approaches to this problem. A.F. Losev pointed out that Leonardo da Vinci "with amazing ease alone passed all the problems that a man like Durer could work on all his life"^{[12, p. 521]}.

Let's take Raphael's method as an Italian example. To depict a beautiful woman, Raphael requires the artist to observe specific beautiful female bodies in practice, but at the same time introduces a defining correction, which he designates by the word "idea". "Due to the lack of both good judges and beautiful women, I use some idea that comes to my mind (our italics – N.B., M.F.). Whether it has any perfection of art in it, I do not know, but I try very hard to achieve it" ^{[12, p. 260]}.

Let's comment on this recognition. Firstly, Raphael is free to choose his own corrections – ideas. His "idea" is a product of spontaneity: it "comes to mind" freely, without any effort, as an unconscious generalization of creative experience. According to A.F. Losev's definition, this "idea" is not an extra–sensory abstraction of reality, "but something figurative and pictorial, never coming into conflict with contemplation, but being this contemplation itself" ^{[12, p. 520]}. Secondly, Raphael's "idea" is subjective: he emphasizes that he "does not know" how much this arbitrarily chosen image of his correlates with the generally accepted criteria of perfection. Thirdly, despite this reservation, he still tries, starting from this "idea" of his, not to approach perfection - the latter would not be so self–confident – namely, to achieve it.

We find a completely different approach in Durer, who was as helpful and correct as possible in the realization of creative freedom. "I do not know what is beautiful" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 14]}, we read in his early handwritten sketches made in 1507. Five years later, in the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on proportions," Durer wrote: "There is no man on earth who would combine everything beautiful in himself, since he could always be even more beautiful," and "there is no man on earth who could definitively say what should be to be the most beautiful human figure", and that "no one knows about it except God alone" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}.

From this it can be seen that the beautiful is considered by Durer both as something unattainable in one human figure, and as something incomprehensible for a single creative consciousness; and most importantly, it is beyond the control of the final, final, once and for all given definition. "The beautiful" under the pen of Durer acquires the hypostasis of the ultimate concept, like N. Kuzansky's "Absolute", which can be approached forever, but which in its definition is unattainable. So he finds himself in line with the advanced achievements of Italian theology of the XV century. On the other hand, a purely individual and more archaic religious feeling, characteristic rather of the Middle Ages, declares itself here: the true knowledge of beauty is available only to the Lord, who himself is his personification. Thus, the beautiful, as an aesthetic category, the desire to know it, the Lord and faith in him – in this context, in turn, form a unity.

Let's try to characterize this triad. To begin with, let's pay attention to the fact that Durer begins the path to comprehending the incomprehensible essence of beauty with denial. "I do not know what is beautiful. Nevertheless, I want to define the beautiful here for myself in this way..." ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 14, 28]}. This proclamation of one's own ignorance is not an accident, it occurs repeatedly in Durer's early texts and, in fact, is the methodological source of further searches. Apparently, this approach is based on the traditions of German mysticism – the method of negative theology developed by Meister Eckhart (1260-1327). The method of negative theology proceeded from the idea of unknowability, incomprehensibility of the all-perfect and infinite God with the help of concepts clothed in a strict formal-logical form. For Eckhart, God was "pure nothingness" – an abstraction that defies definition and devoid of signs of being. But at the same time, this incomprehensible God, through his own self-awareness, was present in nature, in every active and active human personality. For Eckhart, he was "nothing of everything and at the same time everything in everything" ^{[20, p. 211]}. For Durer, the beautiful is also something infinitely comprehensive and at the same time elusive and unattainable; this is what he "does not know". And at the same time, this is what is "contained in many things" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}, and therefore is pantheistically dissolved in these things, in the world as a whole [see 21]. But the "technical" side of this dissolution is hidden from us; it is comprehended, but can never be fully comprehended by the artist's work, and therefore about "what the most beautiful human figure should be... no one knows except God alone" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}. So, God in this context is the embodiment of perfection, beauty and the highest authority of knowledge about the beautiful.

Then, using denial as a methodological premise, Durer begins to search for ways to overcome his proclaimed ignorance.

The first way is determined by the need to take into account authoritative assessments. "... We should strive to create what has been considered beautiful by the majority throughout human history" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 14]}. In other words, "beautiful", according to Durer, is not such if it does not correspond to what has traditionally been considered beautiful by the competent majority. A careful attitude to tradition is also found here, but in this case (in relation to the beautiful) it is already becoming an evaluation criterion. And the divine authority in relation to the beautiful is complemented by a theoretical generalization of human experience.

One hundred years later, describing "four kinds of ghosts that besiege people's minds" ^{[22, p. 40]} F. Bacon wrote that "alone... they tend to venerate antiquity, others are seized with a love for the perception of the new, but few can observe such a measure so as not to discard what is correctly laid down by the ancients, and not to neglect (our italics. – N.B., M.F.) what is correctly brought by the new" ^{[22, p. 46]}. These "few" include Durer, in whom this criterion is not dogmatized, does not remain the only one, monologically unambiguous.

The authority of ancient antiquity is corrected on the basis of dialogue. For, from Durer's point of view, his path to achieving the beautiful in works of art is not the only one. There are many options and directions; each master goes his own way, but "in order to judge the beautiful, one should confer about it to the best of one's abilities... to make it into every thing" ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 20, 28]}. At the same time, as they say in the Introduction of 1512, "no one should trust himself too much, because many will notice more than one"; and one should not rely entirely on one's own taste and refer to the lack of good judges and beautiful models (as Raphael did), but – everyone should take care of himself, "so that love does not blind his judgments" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 30]}.

Here is another comparison characteristic of Renaissance aesthetics, which, from our point of view, outlines Durer's style of thinking more clearly: "The degree of proportionality to the truth is different for different tools (apparently, here they compare the edged knife and the stichel – N.B., M.F.) and for different people; there is always the difference depends on the place, time, addition and other things" ^{[23, p. 96]}.

 And here again it is appropriate to draw a parallel with Bacon: "Let everyone who contemplates nature... he considers doubtful what has particularly captured and captivated his mind. Great caution is needed in cases of such preference so that the mind remains balanced and pure" ^{[22, p. 46]}.

It follows from the above that, firstly, the method of denial used by Durer, the initial proclamation of his own ignorance, acquires the character of "scientific ignorance", whose path from N. Kuzansky's pantheism and Bruno's natural philosophy led to the rationalism of the XVII century. Secondly, Durer approaches the problem of beauty from the position of dialogical consciousness. It is aimed at dialogue with tradition. At the same time, he seeks to avoid extremes in the idealization of antiquity, which in various aspects were inherent in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

In the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on Proportions", the following fragment attracts attention: "You should not think that I highly appreciate my subsequent description and measurement, although I do not want to blame it. I don't think it's the worst way either. This method does not have to be exactly the same or different, but you can change it as you like" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 31]}. Before us is an expression of incompleteness, openness, willingness to take into account other opinions, in order to more objectively depict reality. It is noteworthy that in this case we are at the very beginning of Durer's theoretical research. But in the future, including in the course of preparing them for publication, Durer will strictly follow this initial setup. In the "Aesthetic Excursion to the third Book on Proportions", on which he worked from 1523 to 1527, the above provision is clarified: "About ... proportions... I won't argue with anyone… I will make them so because I hope that many of you will follow me, who, following this path, will show how people are built and what they should and could be" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 222]}.

Under the pen of Durer, the cognition of the category "beautiful" as the Absolute is transformed into the cognition of infinite nature, represented by an infinite variety of bodies. The path to the beautiful as to the truth, as to the knowledge of the mysteries of nature, is impossible alone. The achievement of the beautiful is presented to Durer as a process going in many directions and requiring generalization of experience. At the same time, familiarization with the beautiful, cognition of it, turns out to be the embodiment of what N. Kuzansky claimed – the debatable ability of the human mind, which continuously and endlessly moves towards the truth, but never reaches it ^{[23, pp. 123-124]}. Kuzanets himself wrote as follows: "Every search consists in a more or less difficult comparative proportion. For this reason, the infinite as such, escaping all proportionality, remains unknown" ^{[23, p. 50]}. AndDurer, in turn, was convinced that "there is no man on earth who would combine everything beautiful in himself, since he could always be even more beautiful" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 20]}.

So, Durer is making a complex ideological evolution. Having fallen under the influence of Italian ideas in his youth, and, as we see now, objectively starting from the Renaissance utopia as the realized ideal of a comprehensively developed personality, bodily embodied in perfect proportions, Durer tries not only to find, but with German pedantry, on the basis of experience, rationally substantiate this ideal. At the same time, the logic of his thinking and the experience of the artist lead to the fact that, both in theory and in practice, he overcomes the utopian beginnings of the Renaissance – the superhuman maximalism of his era. As for God, references to his authority in knowledge and the ability to judge what a beautiful human body can be are gradually becoming formal. Deep, sincere religiosity continued to live in Durer's mind at the level of the traditional structures of everyday life in Nuremberg. She helped to live with dignity, instilled hope, creatively manifested herself in relationships with family and friends. But when it came to academic studies in the theory of art, she apparently had to stay behind the door of Durer's studio more and more often.

In the theory of proportions, Durer admitted the possibility of coexistence of different views on the perfection of the human body. Views are not mutually exclusive, but complementary to each other and allowing you to choose a variety of options. The style of the "Initial Sketches..." and the "Aesthetic Excursion..." completed already in the last years of his life shows that Durer was in a state of polemic with imaginary opponents. At the same time, he conducts this constant debate, answers to questions formulated by them, objections and doubts, from the standpoint of a humanistic dialogue. His partners in this dialogue are representatives of ancient culture, the previous generation of Russian masters, contemporaries and those whom he does not know, but who will come after him. There are no names expressing this or that position. But there is a joyful feeling of awareness of the variability of the beautiful, the inexhaustibility of its riches, in this case, in the disclosure of the beauty of the physical nature of man.

But Durer's thinking is different from the Italian humanist dialogue. Durer never finds himself in the situation inherent in Italian humanists, when, according to L.M. Batkin, the combination of different positions is achieved not by logic, but by communication, not by intelligence, but by wit, not by severity, but by the gaiety of the spirit playing on a convincing word ^[15]. The dialogue that Durer conducts is serious, there are no game moments in it. This seriousness is determined by the specifics of the Northern Renaissance, and precedes the generalizing conclusions and recommendations that Durer came to.

In addition, the dialogue with other creative consciousnesses, with other criteria of artistic vision and opinions about what a beautiful human figure should be, receives clearly defined limitations in Durer's aesthetics. They set off Durer's special place in the Renaissance era and culture.

The first limitation is mathematics. The criteria of beauty should be based on measurement and supported by evidence. "...When someone says that he can show the best proportions of the human body, it seems impossible to me. ...lies are contained in our knowledge... we fall into mistakes. However, the one who proves his judgments with the help of geometry ... must be believed by the whole world" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 190]}. Here it is worth returning to the difference between the approaches of Raphael and Durer to the problem of beauty. If we proceed from the above fragments of "Initial sketches ..." and "Aesthetic excursion...", then for Durer not only the idea of beauty should be perfect in itself from the point of view of visual and sensory criteria; but these criteria themselves should be mathematically justified. In other words, Durer, unlike Raphael, sought to reinforce the idea of beauty that had dawned on him both empirically and mathematically. At the same time, he, like Raphael, did not know "whether she has any perfection of art in her" ^{[12, p. 260]}, "I do not know what is beautiful..." But if Raphael did not go further than stating his uncertainty in the format of incomplete induction (he saw few beautiful women's bodies), then Durer made a lot of efforts to formulate and rationalize this aesthetic category. "And yet I will try to define the beautiful in this way..." ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 14, 28]}, he continues stubbornly and insistently brings empirically and rationalistically verified grounds under this concept. At the same time, Durer again starts from denial, from the awareness of the relativity of knowledge, experience and skill of the artist. "...It seems to me impossible to make at least one part of a human figure in the most beautiful way and quite correctly without mistakes… Therefore, if there is someone who can correctly substantiate with the help of measurements (our italics – N.B., M.F.) a beautiful figure of a person, I will honor him as a great master" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 232]}. But, recognizing the relativity of human knowledge and admitting the possibility of inaccuracies in the proposed calculation options, Durer defends the correctness of his chosen method, listing all possible errors ^{[1, vol. II, p. 230]}. Thus, Durer wanted to provide for all possible errors so that a collision with them in practice would not be a surprise to readers of his treatise, and would not cause doubts about the scientific validity of the techniques described in it.

The second limitation is nature. It can be imitated. Let's assume, within certain limits, the mechanical synthesis of its most beautiful elements... But it cannot be surpassed in any way, and it should be treated with the greatest reverence. "... The more accurately your work corresponds to life, the better it seems and that's right. Therefore, never imagine that you will be able to do anything better than the creative power that God has given to the nature he created. For your possibilities are insignificant compared to the creation of God" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 193]}. We have before us a worthy answer to the so-called divine obsession that is supposedly being realized in artistic creativity, and to the ideas of Renaissance God-fighting. At the same time, there is an almost identification of God and nature. In any case, it is not clear from the text who Durer warns to surpass – God, or nature created by him.

So, nature, according to the provisions of Durer, has creative power. It is given by God, but it follows from the context that then, apparently, the "creation of God" creates already from itself, or, as Giordano Bruno wrote, from its own womb. If this is indeed the case, then in this fragment Durer sounded something that overcomes Renaissance pantheism and not only aesthetically, but also worldviews and puts Master Albrecht on the advanced natural philosophical frontiers of the Renaissance.

The following passage says that nature is boundless and inexhaustible, and that the creative possibilities of the artist are incomparable with her creative possibilities: "And the one who is diligent ... will find everything necessary for his work and even more… But the human mind rarely attains the ability to correctly convey the beauty of a living creation" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 192]}.

So, nature in Durer's interpretation is independent and active. It contains so much beauty that its beauty surpasses the mind of the painter. The incomprehensibility of the beauty inherent in nature, its inexhaustible wealth on the one hand, and the delusion inherent in man on the other, prevent this beauty from being fully and adequately transferred into a work of art. And here the knowledge of the artist acquires self-sufficient importance; and the knowledge of nature, in the end, becomes the key to understanding the beautiful, as its most important component. "Truly, art is contained in nature; whoever is able to discover it, owns it. Knowledge will help you to mitigate your delusions. With the help of geometry, it is possible to prove the truth of every thing" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 232]}. In other words, if knowledge has empirical and rational foundations, then relying on it, it is possible to eliminate the flaws. In this way, the perfection and inexhaustibility of nature are met by the artist striving for perfection and his efforts aimed at unlimited knowledge of nature. It can be assumed that Durer anticipates another position of D. Bruno in his aesthetic views: "Nature descends to the production of things, and the intellect ascends to their cognition on the same ladder... both move from unity to unity, passing through a multiplicity of means" ^{[24, p. 282]}.

The topic of knowledge in the treatise "Four Books on Proportions" and the preparatory materials for it is one of the main ones. It has already been said that Durer begins by proclaiming his ignorance, which eventually turns out to be a scientist. However, if Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa used the path of intuitive insight to know God, then Durer does otherwise. Being convinced of the possibility of knowing and defining the beautiful, he discursively considered various opinions and ways of comprehending it and settled on rational knowledge, supported by measurements of human bodies and geometry. As a result, Durer's "scientific ignorance" rises to a higher level than its predecessors. Admitting the theater of opinions and assessments, it resolutely outlines its own sphere in which cognition is carried out on the basis of rationalism, which marks the birth of a New Time. "It happens... that a certain artist becomes, thanks to a lot of experience... so skilled that he can only do without any model on the basis of his knowledge acquired with great difficulty... something better than someone else who sets himself to draw living people, but does not have knowledge" ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 193-194]}. "Knowledge is true, judgments often deceive us" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 195]}, we read below.

The knowledge of the artist is understood by Durer as the unity of theory and practice. It protects against inaccuracies, is able to minimize errors ^{[1, vol. II, p. 19]}.

Knowledge is the basis not only of quality, but also of speed of execution: "Speed in work is achieved due to the fact that you do not need to think for a long time, because your head is full of knowledge... the power of knowledge (our italics – N.B., M.F.) will expel the wrong from your work and protect you from mistakes" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 196]}.

So, the artist's skill is determined by his knowledge, and the concept of "knowledge" in Durer's texts is constantly interfaced with the concept of "power". "The power of knowledge governs all work" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]}. So Durer in his theory of art anticipates the well-known position of F. Bacon, who became a symbol of scientific rationalism of Modern times. According to Durer, the study of nature is at the heart of the knowledge that gives strength. We emphasize once again that such knowledge is obtained with "great labor", and beautiful works of art are created on its basis "with great effort, labor and diligence ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 194, 221]}. It is also worth noting that the power of knowledge ensures the speed of execution.

Here we should focus on one more essential element of Durer's worldview – "freedom". It is directly related to cognition, since knowledge in general is both a condition and a form of human freedom; and professional knowledge of the artist is the most important component of his creative freedom. "There can be no freedom in work without knowledge," writes Durer ^{[1, vol. II, p. 196]}.

First, knowledge determines freedom of choice. This applies, first of all, to novice artists: "And let everyone find here the foundations of truth and expediency of nature, or art and beauty, or their own pleasure… And I give everyone a choice whether he wants to portray beautiful or ugly things" ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 222, 224]}, – Durer addresses his readers.

Secondly, the knowledge of the master is not only a source of his self-awareness, but also a guarantee of quality work. From the correspondence between Durer and Geller, it is clear how persistently he is trying to convince the customer to take into account the new knowledge about what a beautiful painting should be, which he, Durer, possesses, unlike the masters who continue to work in line with the late Gothic tradition.

Thirdly, freedom conditioned by knowledge ends where violence against nature begins, expressed, at the level of fine art, in attempts to create something better and more original than nature itself can give. Describing the techniques of distortion of proportions, Durer notes that "attention should be paid not to force nature too much, and that everything remains within the limits of the human" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 171]}.

So, according to Durer, nature does not tolerate violence; and an artist who seeks to overcome it, finding himself in a situation of enslavement by some image embedded in his consciousness, "an idea that came to mind", becomes unfree. An example of such unfreedom is a drawing by the Low German artist Erhard Altdorfer (1490-1562) "St. Sebastian" (Braunschweig, Duke Anton Ulrich Museum), created in 1511 – 1512, most likely in Wittenberg. ^{[25, pp. 16-26]}. Describing this work, Franz Winziger points out the clearly exaggerated emphasis on the physique, the desire of the young master to make an effect, to show off his knowledge of anatomy, which was previously unusual for him, and incompatible with the principles of the Danube school on which he was brought up. Answering the question about the source of this uncritical borrowing, fascination with the "idea", Winziger claims that Erhard Altdorfer was in this case inspired by drawings belonging to the circle of Filippo Lippi, brought from Florence ^{[26, pp. 27-28]}.

Fourth, a necessary condition for freedom is the understanding that beauty is relative. This is also due to the objective relativity of our perception and the subjectivity of assessments. "Beauty is contained in a person, but our assessment of it is so doubtful that we sometimes find two people who are not similar to each other in any part beautiful... Therefore, if we make a judgment about this, it is inaccurate" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]}.

But freedom, in the sense that Durer understood it, has a limitation. From the relativity of the beautiful, from the concrete utopian program of its achievement, as a gradual and never-ending approach to it, an imperative suddenly grows. "It follows from this that no strong artist should limit himself to one type…Then he will be able to make an image of any kind that is required of him" ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]} (our italics. – N.B., M.F.). This means everything that Durer wrote about before: the craft training of the artist, his experience, professionalism, his knowledge, based on "scientific ignorance"; recognition of the power of knowledge and at the same time its relativity, as well as the relativity of the beautiful and the vicissitudes of subjective assessments and judgments about it (especially in the context of the postulate about the accessibility of its evaluation only for God), – all this, as a high achievement of the Renaissance theory of art, – no longer makes sense, since it brings sacrificing the tastes of employers. The customer with his ideas about beauty, if not completely displaces God, but at least becomes close to him.

How can this be explained? The fact that Durer's innovations were not always understood? By the fact that customers saw him as a craftsman and therefore had a tendency not to pay generously for his works? The artist's bitter admission that it is unprofitable in Germany to perform large paintings in accordance with the requirements of the Renaissance theory of art and that a master striving for this suffers losses, since payment does not recoup the cost of materials and time spent, is indicative in this respect. It is known that his wife and mother, Agnes and Barbara Durer, traveled to the cities of Franconia on fair days and sold "Apocalypse", "Big" and "Small" passions, "The Life of Mary". Is it possible to imagine family members of famous Italian artists in this role?

Anyway, the result is disappointing. For Durer, for the first time in the aesthetic thought of the Renaissance, clearly voiced a conscious recognition of the primacy of the market over art; the primacy of undeveloped taste, disposition and ignorance of the customer over the knowledge, skills and talent of the artist. Apparently, the realization of the destructive essence of this realism hostile to creativity was not easy for Durer. And he could not help but experience it as a personal tragedy, because "in his mind there is a passionate desire to reduce painting to rational rules... it struggled with an almost romantic conviction (our italics – N.B., M.F.) that the genius of the artist is something individual and can be understood as a divine gift" ^{[16, p. 121]}. So Albrecht Durer opened the door to a completely different era, in comparison with the Renaissance, in an era hostile to art. We are talking about a time that had to increasingly distance itself from God, from traditional religiosity and create, in contrast to it, new cults that people should serve and be a living environment for them: science, technology, speed, a new reality, and so on – to infinity.

Maybe his significance lies in the fact that he was the first of the representatives of the Renaissance theory of art not only to see the onset of this era, but also described it in his treatise in such a form that, in fact, he proclaimed the end of the Renaissance?

At one time, L.-B. Alberti urged artists to pay attention to the opinions of experts and connoisseurs. "The work of the painter wants to please the crowd, so do not despise the verdict and judgment of the crowd and satisfy its demands as long as they are fair" ^{[13, p. 63]}. In the final version of the "Aesthetic Excursion", Durer does not make reservations about justice. It should be emphasized here that if in the first half of the XV century in Italy Masaccio and Donatello formed and developed the taste of the Florentine people, then in Germany for the first time Durer proclaimed that the knowledge and experience of the painter were needed in order to do "what is required of him." There is a clear contradiction with what was at the beginning of his creative career – with the situation of the altar of Jacob Geller, in which the young Durer tried to educate the customer. And at the same time – not unsuccessfully.

This position in Durer's treatise is not an accident: it is stylistically worked out and sustained in his characteristic manner: in the mode of interviewing his contemporaries and artists of the future. But while maintaining stylistic unity, it is in this place that the meaning changes dramatically. The dialogue ceases to be a dialogue, and these words sound already in the imperative mood, as a new lifestyle, as a strict requirement of science, technology and everyday practice of the coming New Time. An epoch that renounced humanism, natural philosophy, and, ultimately, God too, and forever ended the utopian illusions of the Renaissance and paved the way for rationalism and utilitarianism.

At present, interest in the ideas of the humanists of the age of Objection has significantly faded, however, as well as to the problems of the history of philosophy in general, but many views of thinkers of the past find a response in modernity. Thus, the evolution of Durer's ideas, in our opinion, perfectly demonstrates the process of forming a new type of perception of an artistic work: utilitarian, which got its start in the 17th century, and has now reached its apogee. The very transition from titanism to utilitarianism and the "managerial" approach in aesthetics is a problem that requires a separate study, not only philosophical or art criticism, but also those new directions of thought that have emerged in the modern era: cultural marketing, for example.

Also, do not forget that it was the geniuses of the Northern Renaissance who largely determined the special image of the apocalypse demanded by the mass culture of the modern digital era. The aesthetics of A. Durer is largely built around apocalyptic visions, which found expression in his paintings, letters and diary entries. Durer's works have now become a kind of illustration of our era and are often used in the media. This makes the analysis of the artist's aesthetic views undertaken by us relevant and justified.

A lot has been written about the aesthetics of Albrecht Durer and the peculiarities of his worldview. The classical works of Heinrich Welflin, Ernst Heidrich, Erwin Panofsky, Mikhail Yakovlevich Liebman are known. It is impossible not to mention the translation into Russian of Durer's diaries, letters and treatises, made by Cecilia Henrikhovna Nesselstraus, their research and commentary ^{[1, 2]}. Currently, the appeal to Durer's work is mainly of an art or biographical nature [see 3, 4, 5, 6], although the problem of the evolution of his views, his attitude to the Reformation and religion is also comprehended in the scientific literature [see 7, 8, 9, 10]. It would seem difficult to add something new to the results of research that has the character of a scientific tradition.

However, we are primarily interested in those accents that will clarify the features of Durer's worldview in the context of the general philosophy of the Renaissance.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Durer's philosophical heritage in order to assess the final result of his studies in art theory and the evolution of his aesthetic ideas. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to consider two urgent problems that are little studied at present.

The first is connected with the determination of Durer's place among artists, humanists, philosophers – his predecessors, contemporaries, as well as those who lived one or two generations after him. It should be emphasized that in previous studies, the commonality of the aesthetic views of the great German with the artistic theories of Italy of the XV century was usually emphasized. In our study, we will try to open the door leading to the paths connecting Durer with the scientific method of the second half of the XVI and XVII centuries.

The second problem is the problem of freedom. It is known that Italian humanists and artists have succeeded so well in emancipating themselves from the remnants of the "dark" Middle Ages that there is a clear threat of an anti-humanistic transformation of the freedom they too broadly understand. N.A. Berdyaev and A.F. Losev wrote about this at the time ^{[11, 12]}. Here the question arises, how free was Durer in the manifestation of creative individuality?

The analysis of Durer's philosophical heritage undertaken by us thus becomes a kind of bridge that helps to understand how the ideas of Renaissance humanism were transformed into the ideas of rationalism of the Modern era, and subsequently into the ideas of utilitarianism.

As follows from the initial extensive plan dating back to 1507, the theory of art was conceived by Durer as a universal guide to the education and training of artists and at the same time as a work highlighting the current scientific and applied problems posed by the Era. This plan expressed Renaissance maximalism, the Renaissance's bid for the impossible. So the young Durer organically fit into the semantic and ideological structure of the Renaissance, its mythological model, precisely in its "classical", Italian version.

For the development of the theory, Durer needed to determine his attitude to tradition. And already in the "Early handwritten sketches" made after 1507, Durer bitterly writes about the destruction of monuments of ancient culture during the establishment of Christianity. "If I happened to be there... – I would say – dear sirs and holy fathers, you should not so ruthlessly in the name of evil kill noble arts discovered and accumulated with great labor and care. For art is great, difficult and beautiful, and we can and want to turn it with great reverence to the glory of God" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 20]}. In these words, Durer's awareness of the irretrievability of the losses incurred declares itself. But there is also a religious subtext here: art is called to serve God; at the same time, the glory and power of God are identified with the greatness and beauty of art. Including the art of pagan-antique. The fact that this is not a random emotional assessment is evidenced by the fact that a similar provision appears five years later – in 1512 in the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on proportions". Here Durer writes as follows: "Many years ago, famous artists lived... some of them described their art and skillfully explained it and made it clear to everyone. But these praiseworthy books of theirs are still hidden from us and may be completely lost due to wars, displacement of peoples, or changes in laws and beliefs, which, indeed, every reasonable person should regret" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 200]}. It should be noted that this is also the position of a middle-class person, for whom social stability is an indispensable condition for preserving tradition.

If we turn to the Italian art theorists, Leon-Battista Alberti agrees with Durer in assessing its religious significance: "Painting contributes to the piety that connects us with the gods, as well as to maintaining the fullness of religious feeling in our soul" ^{[13, p. 39]}. But as soon as it comes to the importance of the ancient tradition for the contemporary art of Italy, the idea of competition with Antiquity, the desire to surpass it, sharply manifests itself in his texts. "If it was not difficult for the ancients, who had plenty to learn from and imitate, to rise to the knowledge of the higher arts, then our names deserve all the more recognition because we create unprecedented and unheard-of arts without any mentors and any models" ^{[13, p. 26]}. If we use the terminology of A.F. Losev, then we have a renaissance titanism growing into its opposite ^{[12, pp. 120-138]}. This is Renaissance God-fighting, but projected into the theory of art. Durer is not inclined to such self-admiration and exorbitant self-esteem. He does not rise in pride above the world, does not break away from the cultural and historical soil, he stubbornly tries to find himself inside the tradition.

It is noteworthy that in the "Early handwritten sketches", in two consecutive fragments, the concept of "labor" is used twice in the meaning of "heaviness". This is something that is not easy for the artist and that has to be overcome with considerable effort. Once it is given in the form of a noun as diligent and hard work; and then – as a definition that characterizes art in general, as a field of activity. Apparently, this is a generalization of Durer's difficult personal experience. This attitude to creativity remains with Durer until the end of his life. "Without measuring or understanding good proportions, you can't make a good figure. For a good figure is made with great effort, labor and diligence (our italics are N.B., M.F.) and should be well thought out" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 221]}. This was written by him in the "Aesthetic excursion to the third book on Proportions", on which, being already ill, with exorbitant, sometimes efforts, he worked from 1523 to 1527.

How different these assessments are from the perception of their work by Italian craftsmen. Durer's contemporary, the Italian painter Castiglione, in his treatise "On Grace" claimed the exact opposite. From his point of view, an artist and a poet should "apply in every case a certain ease that would hide art (our italics are N.B., M.F.) and present what has been done... like a given without effort... nothing in art requires such diligence as the need to hide diligence" ^{[14, pp. 293-294]}. Durer was far from such tricks. His works testify to the considerable spiritual and physical efforts invested in them by their creator. Durer's letters to J. Geller provide material both about the professional responsibility of the artist and about the complexity of the creative process. Art for Durer is "great, difficult and beautiful"; it is what enriches life, makes it better. This is not an audacious rivalry with God in a creative neoplatonic obsession (Durer was familiar with the teachings of Marsilio Ficino by that time), but as if an increment of the divine creation, the expansion of the boundaries of being, reverent co-creation, the continuation of the work of God on earth, addressed "with great reverence" to the glory of the Almighty.

Awareness of belonging to a tradition raises the question of its future fate. Durer came close to him. Art "was revived only a hundred and fifty years ago. And I hope that it will continue to grow and bear fruit, especially in the Italian lands, so that later it can pass to us" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 217]}. In the context of this fragment, Durer's criticism of the dedication compiled for him by one of his friends is understandable. "I highly praise the Italians for their naked figures and perspective" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 220]}. This is how the artist responds to excessive praise in his address. It can be assumed that subjectively Durer feels himself inside the artistic system of the Renaissance; but at the same time, outgrowing the Renaissance, he goes beyond this era, more prone to self-admiration in "creating unprecedented and unheard-of arts" (as Alberti claimed) than to sober self-esteem.

Durer's departure beyond the time limits of the Renaissance is confirmed by his interpretation of the category "beautiful". L.M. Batkin has a position according to which the "artificiality" and "realism" of Renaissance art culture acted as necessary conditions ^{[15, p. 122]}. However, the fact that these conditions were necessary for the development of culture, and that it was in their interaction that the originality and uniqueness of the spiritual world of the Renaissance was – the representatives of the Renaissance themselves did not realize this. Therefore, when faced with the problem of beauty (this happened at the very beginning of his theoretical research), Durer found himself in the center of a combination of the strongest contradictions.

It is known that the "artificiality" and "realism" of Renaissance art culture predetermined that the aesthetics of the Renaissance proceeded from two premises. The first premise was the idea of imitation as a simple reproduction of nature, achieving maximum similarity with real reality p. ^{[16, p. 47]}. As a main trend, it manifested itself in the work of Giotto, then in Masaccio. And, perhaps even more, in the high marks that were given to them later. For example, Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "The Florentine Tomaso, nicknamed Masaccio, showed with a perfect work that those who were inspired by something other than nature, the teacher of teachers, worked in vain" . ^{[17, vol. II, pp. 85-86]}. L.-B. Alberti, in turn, pointed out that the sculptors "although different in many ways, however, they strive for one thing: that the work they started... it seemed, in the end, to the viewer as similar as possible to a real natural body" p. 1^{[18, p. 12]}.

The second premise was the task of improving, decorating, artistic idealization of nature. Initially, the implementation of this task was understood as following ancient models ^{[19, p. 97]}. However, soon this approach is being developed, and the task of improvement was supposed to be achieved in two ways.

The first way is to be able to create fantastic images with the help of layout that do not occur in reality. At the same time, simultaneously solving the problem of substantiating the advantages of painting over poetry, Italian theorists went from praising those who followed nature in their works to proclaiming the limitations of nature's possibilities and extolling the possibilities of the artist –creator that know no boundaries. "Simple natural things are finite, and works made by hands at the behest of the eye are infinite, as the painter proves by inventing (our italics – N.B., M.F.) infinite forms of animals and grasses, trees and localities" . ^{[17, vol. I, p. 74]}.

The second way assumed that nature (primarily in the image of man) could be made even more beautiful by selecting its most beautiful parts and their subsequent artistic synthesis. On this occasion, Alberti wrote that one should not be content with "only conveying the similarity of all parts", but one should "take care to give them beauty" and that "the ancient painter Demetrius did not achieve the highest recognition only because he sought more natural similarity in things than their beauty" ^{[13, p. 59]}.

In this case, the artist could identify himself with God, since his purpose now was to select, compose, improve, combine, and thereby make visible the beauty that does not exist in its pure form in the world created by God. True, L.-B. Alberti admits that "this is a difficult matter," but immediately adds: "Those who are used to handling and coping with larger things will easily overcome smaller ones... and there is no such thing that would be so difficult that it could not be overcome by diligence and perseverance" ^{[13, p. 59]}.Note that in this case we are talking about nature as a whole and about man as a part of it. It turns out that "diligence and perseverance" overcomes both, both man and nature, becoming, thanks to diligence and perseverance, as if ... more perfect, better, more beautiful. This desire to outwit and surpass both nature and man (as part of nature) speaks of the emerging elements of the technogenicity of the Renaissance, as the threshold of a New Time.

It was shown above how the initial requirement of a simple imitation of nature underwent a significant deformation. It is noteworthy that for Leonardo, imitation of nature began to mean mainly its research and creation on this basis of new forms not found in nature with the aim of self-affirmation and disclosure of his spiritual individuality ^{[19, p. 96]}. Thus the increasing individualism of the creative personality came into conflict with the natural state of things. As a result, a contradiction was born, consisting in the demand for a truthful reflection of nature and at the same time a not always pronounced, but constantly implied attitude to finding beauty hidden in it from the surface view. E. Panofsky emphasized that in the theory of art of the Italian Renaissance, "this constantly repeated exhortation to truthfully depict nature is interspersed with an equally insistent demand to choose the most beautiful of artistic objects, avoid ugly forms, especially in human proportions, and most importantly – to achieve beauty above the truth that exists in nature"^{[16, p. 48]}.

In order to show how Durer tried to resolve this contradiction, it is necessary to present the difference between the Italian and German approaches to this problem. A.F. Losev pointed out that Leonardo da Vinci "with amazing ease alone passed all the problems that a man like Durer could work on all his life"^{[12, p. 521]}.

Let's take Raphael's method as an Italian example. To depict a beautiful woman, Raphael requires the artist to observe specific beautiful female bodies in practice, but at the same time introduces a defining correction, which he designates by the word "idea". "Due to the lack of both good judges and beautiful women, I use some idea that comes to my mind (our italics. – N.B., M.F.). Whether it has any perfection of art in it, I do not know, but I try very hard to achieve it" ^{[12, p. 260]}.

Let's comment on this recognition. Firstly, Raphael is free to choose his own corrections – ideas. His "idea" is a product of spontaneity: it "comes to mind" freely, without any effort, as an unconscious generalization of creative experience. According to A.F. Losev's definition, this "idea" is not an extra–sensory abstraction of reality, "but something figurative and pictorial, never coming into conflict with contemplation, but being this contemplation itself" ^{[12, p. 520]}. Secondly, Raphael's "idea" is subjective: he emphasizes that he "does not know" how much this arbitrarily chosen image of his correlates with the generally accepted criteria of perfection. Thirdly, despite this reservation, he still tries, starting from this "idea" of his, not to approach perfection - the latter would not be so self–confident – namely, to achieve it.

We find a completely different approach in Durer, who was as helpful and correct as possible in the realization of creative freedom. "I do not know what is beautiful" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 14]}, we read in his early handwritten sketches made in 1507. Five years later, in the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on proportions," Durer wrote: "There is no man on earth who would combine everything beautiful in himself, since he could always be even more beautiful," and "there is no man on earth who could definitively say what should be to be the most beautiful human figure", and that "no one knows about it except God alone" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}.

From here it can be seen that the beautiful is considered by Durer both as something unattainable in one human figure, and as something incomprehensible for a single creative consciousness; and most importantly, it is beyond the control of the final, final, once and for all given definition. "The beautiful" under the pen of Durer acquires the hypostasis of the ultimate concept, like N. Kuzansky's "Absolute", which can be approached forever, but which in its definition is unattainable. So he finds himself in line with the advanced achievements of Italian theology of the XV century. On the other hand, a purely individual and more archaic religious feeling, characteristic rather of the Middle Ages, declares itself here: the true knowledge of beauty is available only to the Lord, who himself is his personification. Thus, the beautiful, as an aesthetic category, the desire to know it, the Lord and faith in him – in this context, in turn, form a unity.

Let's try to characterize this triad. To begin with, let's pay attention to the fact that Durer begins the path to comprehending the incomprehensible essence of beauty with denial. "I do not know what is beautiful. Nevertheless, I want to define the beautiful here for myself in this way..." . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 14, 28]}. This proclamation of one's own ignorance is not an accident, it occurs repeatedly in Durer's early texts and, in fact, is the methodological source of further searches. Apparently, this approach is based on the traditions of German mysticism – the method of negative theology developed by Meister Eckhart (1260-1327). The method of negative theology proceeded from the idea of unknowability, incomprehensibility of the all-perfect and infinite God with the help of concepts clothed in a strict formal-logical form. For Eckhart, God was "pure nothingness" – an abstraction that defies definition and devoid of signs of being. But at the same time, this incomprehensible God, through his own self-awareness, was present in nature, in every active and active human personality. For Eckhart, he was "nothing of everything and at the same time everything in everything" ^{[20, p. 211]}. For Durer, the beautiful is also something infinitely comprehensive and at the same time elusive and unattainable; this is what he "does not know". And at the same time, this is what is "contained in many things" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}, and therefore is pantheistically dissolved in these things, in the world as a whole [see 21]. But the "technical" side of this dissolution is hidden from us; it is comprehended, but can never be fully comprehended by the artist's work, and therefore about "what the most beautiful human figure should be... no one knows except God alone" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 28]}. So, God in this context is the embodiment of perfection, beauty and the highest authority of knowledge about the beautiful.

Then, using denial as a methodological premise, Durer begins to search for ways to overcome his proclaimed ignorance.

The first way is determined by the need to take into account authoritative assessments. "... We must strive to create what has been considered beautiful by the majority throughout human history" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 14]}. In other words, "beautiful", according to Durer, is not such if it does not correspond to what has traditionally been considered beautiful by the competent majority. A careful attitude to tradition is also found here, but in this case (in relation to the beautiful) it is already becoming an evaluation criterion. And the divine authority in relation to the beautiful is complemented by a theoretical generalization of human experience.

One hundred years later, describing "four kinds of ghosts that besiege people's minds" ^{[22, p. 40]} F. Bacon wrote that "alone... they tend to venerate antiquity, others are seized with a love for the perception of the new, but few can observe such a measure so as not to discard what is correctly laid down by the ancients, and not to neglect (our italics. – N.B., M.F.) what is correctly brought by the new ones" ^{[22, p. 46]}. These "few" include Durer, in whom this criterion is not dogmatized, does not remain the only one, monologically unambiguous.

The authority of ancient antiquity is corrected on the basis of dialogue. For, from Durer's point of view, his path to achieving the beautiful in works of art is not the only one. There are many options and directions; each master goes his own way, but "in order to judge the beautiful, one should confer about it to the best of one's abilities... to make it into every thing" . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 20, 28]}. At the same time, as they say in the Introduction of 1512, "no one should trust himself too much, because many will notice more than one"; and one should not rely entirely on one's own taste and refer to the lack of good judges and beautiful models (as Raphael did), but – everyone should take care of himself, "so that love does not blind his judgments" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 30]}.

Here is another comparison characteristic of Renaissance aesthetics, which, from our point of view, outlines Durer's style of thinking more clearly: "The degree of proportionality to the truth is different for different tools (apparently, here they compare the edged knife and the stichel – N.B., M.F.) and for different people; there is always the difference depends on the place, time, addition and other things" ^{[23, p. 96]}.

 And here again it is appropriate to draw a parallel with Bacon: "Let everyone who contemplates nature... he considers doubtful what has particularly captured and captivated his mind. Great caution is needed in cases of such preference so that the mind remains balanced and pure" ^{[22, p. 46]}.

It follows from the above that, firstly, the method of denial used by Durer, the initial proclamation of his own ignorance, acquires the character of "scientific ignorance", whose path from N. Kuzansky's pantheism and Bruno's natural philosophy led to the rationalism of the XVII century. Secondly, Durer approaches the problem of beauty from the position of dialogical consciousness. It is aimed at dialogue with tradition. At the same time, he seeks to avoid extremes in the idealization of antiquity, which in various aspects were inherent in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

In the "Sketches of the introduction to the first version of the treatise on Proportions", the following fragment attracts attention: "You should not think that I highly appreciate my subsequent description and measurement, although I do not want to blame it. I don't think it's the worst way either. This method does not have to be exactly the same or different, but you can change it as you like" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 31]}. Before us is an expression of incompleteness, openness, willingness to take into account other opinions, in order to more objectively depict reality. It is noteworthy that in this case we are at the very beginning of Durer's theoretical research. But in the future, including in the course of preparing them for publication, Durer will strictly follow this initial setup. In the "Aesthetic Excursion to the third Book on Proportions", on which he worked from 1523 to 1527, the above provision is clarified: "About ... proportions... I won't argue with anyone… I will make them so because I hope that many of you will follow me, who, following this path, will show how people are built and what they should and could be" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 222]}.

Under Durer's pen, the cognition of the category "beautiful" as the Absolute is transformed into the cognition of infinite nature, represented by an infinite variety of bodies. The path to the beautiful as to the truth, as to the knowledge of the mysteries of nature, is impossible alone. The achievement of the beautiful is presented to Durer as a process going in many directions and requiring generalization of experience. At the same time, familiarization with the beautiful, cognition of it, turns out to be the embodiment of what N. Kuzansky claimed – the debatable ability of the human mind, which continuously and endlessly moves towards the truth, but never reaches it ^{[23, pp. 123-124]}. Kuzanets himself wrote as follows: "Every search consists in a more or less difficult comparative proportion. For this reason, the infinite as such, escaping all proportionality, remains unknown" ^{[23, p. 50]}.AndDurer, in turn, was convinced that "there is no man on earth who would combine everything beautiful in himself, since he could always be even more beautiful" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 20]}.

So, Durer is making a complex ideological evolution. Having fallen under the influence of Italian ideas in his youth, and, as we see now, objectively starting from the Renaissance utopia as the realized ideal of a comprehensively developed personality, bodily embodied in perfect proportions, Durer tries not only to find, but with German pedantry, on the basis of experience, rationally substantiate this ideal. At the same time, the logic of his thinking and the experience of the artist lead to the fact that, both in theory and in practice, he overcomes the utopian beginnings of the Renaissance – the superhuman maximalism of his era. As for God, references to his authority in knowledge and the ability to judge what a beautiful human body can be are gradually becoming formal. Deep, sincere religiosity continued to live in Durer's mind at the level of the traditional structures of everyday life in Nuremberg. She helped to live with dignity, instilled hope, creatively manifested herself in relationships with family and friends. But when it came to academic studies in the theory of art, she apparently had to stay behind the door of Durer's studio more and more often.

In the theory of proportions, Durer admitted the possibility of coexistence of different views on the perfection of the human body. Views are not mutually exclusive, but complementary to each other and allowing you to choose a variety of options. The style of the "Initial Sketches..." and the "Aesthetic Excursion..." completed already in the last years of his life shows that Durer was in a state of polemic with imaginary opponents. At the same time, he conducts this constant debate, answers to questions formulated by them, objections and doubts, from the standpoint of a humanistic dialogue. His partners in this dialogue are representatives of ancient culture, the previous generation of Russian masters, contemporaries and those whom he does not know, but who will come after him. There are no names expressing this or that position. But there is a joyful feeling of awareness of the variability of the beautiful, the inexhaustibility of its riches, in this case, in the disclosure of the beauty of the physical nature of man.

But Durer's thinking is different from the Italian humanist dialogue. Durer never finds himself in the situation inherent in Italian humanists, when, according to L.M. Batkin, the combination of different positions is achieved not by logic, but by communication, not by intelligence, but by wit, not by severity, but by the gaiety of the spirit playing on a convincing word ^[15]. The dialogue that Durer conducts is serious, there are no game moments in it. This seriousness is determined by the specifics of the Northern Renaissance, and precedes the generalizing conclusions and recommendations that Durer came to.

In addition, the dialogue with other creative consciousnesses, with other criteria of artistic vision and opinions about what a beautiful human figure should be, receives clearly defined limitations in Durer's aesthetics. They set off Durer's special place in the Renaissance era and culture.

The first limitation is mathematics. The criteria of beauty should be based on measurement and supported by evidence. "...When someone says that he can show the best proportions of the human body, it seems impossible to me. ...lies are contained in our knowledge... we fall into mistakes. However, the one who proves his judgments with the help of geometry ... must be believed by the whole world" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 190]}. Here it is worth returning to the difference between the approaches of Raphael and Durer to the problem of beauty. If we proceed from the above fragments of "Initial sketches ..." and "Aesthetic excursion...", then for Durer not only the idea of beauty should be perfect in itself from the point of view of visual and sensory criteria; but these criteria themselves should be mathematically justified. In other words, Durer, unlike Raphael, sought to reinforce the idea of beauty that had dawned on him both empirically and mathematically. At the same time, he, like Raphael, did not know "whether she has any perfection of art in her" ^{[12, p. 260]}, "I do not know what is beautiful..."But if Raphael did not go beyond stating his uncertainty in the format of incomplete induction (he saw few beautiful female bodies), then Durer made a lot of efforts to formulate and rationally justify this aesthetic category. "And yet I will try to define the beautiful in this way..." . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 14, 28]}, he continues stubbornly and insistently brings empirically and rationalistically verified grounds under this concept. At the same time, Durer again starts from denial, from the awareness of the relativity of knowledge, experience and skill of the artist. "...It seems to me impossible to make at least one part of a human figure in the most beautiful way and quite correctly without mistakes… Therefore, if there is anyone who can correctly substantiate with the help of measurements (our italics – N.B., M.F.) a beautiful figure of a person, I will honor him as a great master" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 232]}. But, recognizing the relativity of human knowledge and admitting the possibility of inaccuracies in the proposed calculation options, Durer defends the correctness of his chosen method, listing all possible errors . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 230]}. Thus, Durer wanted to provide for all possible errors so that the collision with them in practice would not be a surprise to the readers of his treatise, and would not cause doubts about the scientific validity of the techniques described in it.

The second limitation is nature. It can be imitated. Let's assume, within certain limits, the mechanical synthesis of its most beautiful elements... But it cannot be surpassed in any way, and it should be treated with the greatest reverence. "... The more accurately your work corresponds to life, the better it seems and that's right. Therefore, never imagine that you will be able to do anything better than the creative power that God has given to the nature he created. For your possibilities are insignificant compared to the creation of God" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 193]}. We have before us a worthy answer to the so-called divine obsession that is supposedly being realized in artistic creativity, and to the ideas of Renaissance God-fighting. At the same time, there is an almost identification of God and nature. In any case, it is not clear from the text who Durer warns to surpass – God, or nature created by him.

So, nature, according to the provisions of Durer, has creative power. It is given by God, but it follows from the context that then, apparently, the "creation of God" creates already from itself, or, as Giordano Bruno wrote, from its own womb. If this is indeed the case, then in this fragment Durer sounded something that overcomes Renaissance pantheism and not only aesthetically, but also worldviews and puts Master Albrecht on the advanced natural philosophical frontiers of the Renaissance.

The following passage says that nature is boundless and inexhaustible, and that the creative possibilities of the artist are incomparable with her creative possibilities: "And the one who is diligent ... will find everything necessary for his work and even more… But the human mind rarely attains the ability to correctly convey the beauty of a living creation" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 192]}.

So, nature in Durer's interpretation is independent and active. It contains so much beauty that its beauty surpasses the mind of the painter. The incomprehensibility of the beauty inherent in nature, its inexhaustible wealth on the one hand, and the delusion inherent in man on the other, prevent this beauty from being fully and adequately transferred into a work of art. And here the knowledge of the artist acquires self-sufficient importance; and the knowledge of nature, in the end, becomes the key to understanding the beautiful, as its most important component. "Truly, art is contained in nature; whoever is able to discover it, owns it. Knowledge will help you mitigate your delusions. With the help of geometry, it is possible to prove the truth of every thing" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 232]}. In other words, if knowledge has empirical and rational foundations, then relying on it, it is possible to eliminate the flaws. In this way, the perfection and inexhaustibility of nature are met by the artist striving for perfection and his efforts aimed at unlimited knowledge of nature. It can be assumed that Durer anticipates another position of D. Bruno in his aesthetic views: "Nature descends to the production of things, and the intellect ascends to their cognition on the same ladder... both move from unity to unity, passing through a multiplicity of means" ^{[24, p. 282]}.

The topic of knowledge in the treatise "Four Books on Proportions" and the preparatory materials for it is one of the main ones. It has already been said that Durer begins by proclaiming his ignorance, which eventually turns out to be a scientist. However, if Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa used the path of intuitive insight to know God, then Durer does otherwise. Being convinced of the possibility of knowing and defining the beautiful, he discursively considered various opinions and ways of comprehending it and settled on rational knowledge, supported by measurements of human bodies and geometry. As a result, Durer's "scientific ignorance" rises to a higher level than its predecessors. Admitting the theater of opinions and assessments, it resolutely outlines its own sphere in which cognition is carried out on the basis of rationalism, which marks the birth of a New Time. "It happens... that a certain artist becomes, thanks to a lot of experience... so skilled that he can only do without any model on the basis of his knowledge acquired with great difficulty... something better than someone else who sets himself to draw living people, but does not have knowledge" . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 193-194]}. "Knowledge is true, judgments often deceive us" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 195]}, we read below.

The knowledge of the artist is understood by Durer as the unity of theory and practice. It protects against inaccuracies, is able to minimize errors . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 19]}.

Knowledge is the basis not only of quality, but also of speed of execution: "Speed in work is achieved due to the fact that you do not need to think for a long time, because your head is full of knowledge... the power of knowledge (our italics – N.B., M.F.) will expel the wrong from your work and protect you from mistakes" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 196]}.

So, the artist's skill is determined by his knowledge, and the concept of "knowledge" in Durer's texts is constantly interfaced with the concept of "power". "The power of knowledge governs all work" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]}. So Durer in his theory of art anticipates the well-known position of F. Bacon, who became a symbol of scientific rationalism of Modern times. According to Durer, the study of nature is the basis of knowledge that gives strength. We emphasize once again that such knowledge is obtained with "great labor", and beautiful works of art are created on its basis "with great effort, labor and diligence . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 194, 221]}. It is also worth noting that the power of knowledge ensures the speed of execution.

Here we should focus on one more essential element of Durer's worldview – "freedom". It is directly related to cognition, since knowledge in general is both a condition and a form of human freedom; and professional knowledge of the artist is the most important component of his creative freedom. "There can be no freedom in work without knowledge," writes Durer . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 196]}.

First, knowledge determines freedom of choice. This applies, first of all, to novice artists: "And let everyone find here the foundations of truth and expediency of nature, or art and beauty, or their own pleasure… And I give everyone a choice whether he wants to portray beautiful or ugly things" . ^{[1, vol. II, pp. 222, 224]}, – Durer addresses his readers.

Secondly, the knowledge of the master is not only a source of his self-awareness, but also a guarantee of quality work. Durer's correspondence with Geller shows how persistently he tries to convince the customer to take into account the new knowledge about what a beautiful painting should be, which he, Durer, possesses, unlike the masters who continue to work in line with the late Gothic tradition.

Thirdly, freedom conditioned by knowledge ends where violence against nature begins, expressed, at the level of fine art, in attempts to create something better and more original than nature itself can give. Describing the techniques of distortion of proportions, Durer notes that "attention should be paid not to force nature too much, and that everything remains within the limits of humanity" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 171]}.

So, according to Durer, nature does not tolerate violence; and an artist who seeks to overcome it, finding himself in a situation of enslavement by some image embedded in his consciousness, "an idea that came to mind", becomes unfree. An example of such unfreedom is the drawing of the Low German artist Erhard Altdorfer (1490-1562) "St. Sebastian" (Braunschweig, Duke Anton Ulrich Museum), created in 1511 – 1512, most likely in Wittenberg. ^{[25, pp. 16-26]}. Describing this work, Franz Winziger points out the clearly exaggerated emphasis on the physique, the desire of the young master to make an effect, to show off his knowledge of anatomy, which was previously unusual for him, and incompatible with the principles of the Danube school on which he was brought up. Answering the question about the source of this uncritical borrowing, fascination with the "idea", Winziger claims that Erhard Altdorfer was in this case inspired by drawings belonging to the circle of Filippo Lippi, brought from Florence ^{[26, pp. 27-28]}.

Fourth, a necessary condition for freedom is the understanding that beauty is relative. This is also due to the objective relativity of our perception and the subjectivity of assessments. "Beauty is contained in a person, but our assessment of it is so doubtful that we sometimes find two people who are not similar to each other in any part beautiful... Therefore, if we make a judgment about this, it is inaccurate" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]}.

But freedom, in the sense that Durer understood it, has a limitation. From the relativity of the beautiful, from the concrete utopian program of its achievement, as a gradual and never-ending approach to it, an imperative suddenly grows. "It follows from this that no strong artist should limit himself to one type…Then he will be able to make an image of any kind that is required of him" . ^{[1, vol. II, p. 194]} (our italics. – N.B., M.F.). This means everything that Durer wrote about before: the craft training of the artist, his experience, professionalism, his knowledge, based on "scientific ignorance"; recognition of the power of knowledge and at the same time its relativity, as well as the relativity of the beautiful and the vicissitudes of subjective assessments and judgments about it (especially in the context of the postulate about the accessibility of its evaluation only for God), – all this, as a high achievement of the Renaissance theory of art, – no longer makes sense, since it brings sacrificing the tastes of employers. The customer with his ideas about beauty, if not completely displaces God, but at least becomes close to him.

How can this be explained? The fact that Durer's innovations were not always understood? By the fact that customers saw him as a craftsman and therefore had a tendency not to pay generously for his works? The artist's bitter admission that it is unprofitable in Germany to perform large paintings in accordance with the requirements of the Renaissance theory of art and that a master striving for this suffers losses, since payment does not recoup the cost of materials and time spent, is indicative in this respect. It is known that his wife and mother, Agnes and Barbara Durer, traveled to the cities of Franconia on fair days and sold "Apocalypse", "Big" and "Small" passions, "The Life of Mary". Is it possible to imagine family members of famous Italian artists in this role?

Anyway, the result is disappointing. For Durer, for the first time in the aesthetic thought of the Renaissance, clearly voiced a conscious recognition of the primacy of the market over art; the primacy of undeveloped taste, disposition and ignorance of the customer over the knowledge, skills and talent of the artist. Apparently, the realization of the destructive essence of this realism hostile to creativity was not easy for Durer. And he could not help but experience it as a personal tragedy, because "in his mind there is a passionate desire to reduce painting to rational rules... it struggled with an almost romantic conviction (our italics – N.B., M.F.) that the genius of the artist is something individual and can be understood as a divine gift" ^{[16, p. 121]}. So Albrecht Durer opened the door to a completely different era, in comparison with the Renaissance, in an era hostile to art. We are talking about a time that had to increasingly distance itself from God, from traditional religiosity and create, in contrast to it, new cults that people should serve and be a living environment for them: science, technology, speed, a new reality, and so on – to infinity.

Maybe his significance lies in the fact that he was the first of the representatives of the Renaissance theory of art not only to see the onset of this era, but also described it in his treatise in such a form that, in fact, he proclaimed the end of the Renaissance?

At one time, L.-B. Alberti urged artists to pay attention to the opinions of experts and connoisseurs. "The work of the painter wants to please the crowd, so do not despise the verdict and judgment of the crowd and satisfy its demands as long as they are fair" ^{[13, p. 63]}. In the final version of the "Aesthetic Excursion", Durer does not make reservations about justice. It should be emphasized here that if in the first half of the XV century in Italy Masaccio and Donatello formed and developed the taste of the Florentine people, then in Germany for the first time Durer proclaimed that the knowledge and experience of the painter were needed in order to do "what is required of him." There is a clear contradiction with what was at the beginning of his creative career – with the situation of the altar of Jacob Geller, in which the young Durer tried to educate the customer. And at the same time – not unsuccessfully.

This position in Durer's treatise is not an accident: it is stylistically worked out and sustained in his characteristic manner: in the mode of interviewing his contemporaries and artists of the future. But while maintaining stylistic unity, it is in this place that the meaning changes dramatically. The dialogue ceases to be a dialogue, and these words sound already in the imperative mood, as a new lifestyle, as a strict requirement of science, technology and everyday practice of the coming New Time. An epoch that renounced humanism, natural philosophy, and, ultimately, God too, and forever ended the utopian illusions of the Renaissance and paved the way for rationalism and utilitarianism.