The French word decadence comes from the Latin decadentia (fall). It is used to indicate cultural decline, regression. Montesquieu coined the term in his study of the sunset of the Roman Empire.
Cultural decadence repeats itself in history with a certain frequency: the decline of the Roman Empire of the 2nd-4th centuries AD, the mannerism of the 17th century, which completed the Renaissance, decadence at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, postmodernism of the end of the last century
Mannerism originated in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century as a crisis of the Renaissance humanistic worldview. In painting, this trend is characterized by the rejection of the classical High Renaissance style. The mannerists believed that the basis of the artistic image was the "internal drawing" generated by the artist's imagination. The outward expression of the “inner idea” was elongated silhouettes, a sophisticated compositional pattern, and irrational colors. Representatives of mannerism can be considered Italians Pontormo, Rosso, Beccafumi; Spaniard El Greco; artists of the French school of Fontainebleau; court artists of Emperor Rudolph II. In literature, Mannerism is characterized by sophistication of the syllable and pretentiousness of style, the widespread use of allegories, and the opposition of the high and low sides of life. It is believed that Donn, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne experienced the influence of Mannerism. In 1886, the French Symbolists began to publish their own Decadence magazine, after which poets and writers adherents of the movements of symbolism and aesthetics began to be called decadents. Decades declared the rejection of civil and political themes in the work. In their opinion, only the inner world of the artist could be the subject of art. In Russia, the symbolists of the older generation considered themselves the last singers of high culture from the time of its decline, designed to preserve the aesthetic values of a dying civilization. In the early 90s of the last century, new symbolists, led by Vyacheslav Ivanov, as an alternative to decadence put forward the idea of "theurgy" - a religious art aimed at transforming reality. Representatives of decadence are O. Wilde, Baudelaire, Meterlink, Nietzsche. In Russia, the most famous decadent poets are F. Sollogub, Z. Gippius, early Bryusov, K. Balmont, Merezhkovsky.
