The Aesthetic Construction of Europe: the European notion in writers and artists from the Middle Ages to the XXth Century

The main objective of our investigation group is to establish the genealogy of ideas, images, notions and doctrines concerning Europe since the Middle Ages until contemporary times. Naturally, there exists a prehistory in the European concept in classical antiquity that should be kept in mind as the point of departure of our investigation. Therefore our starting point will be the examination of the first contributions in the Greek tradition as well as in the Latin tradition. In the Hellenic tradition it would be necessary to isolate the first sketches or outlines of a not only geographical but also mental configuration of the European character in historiography as well as in literature and philosophy. Therefore we should refer to Herodotus, the Athenian tragedy and by all means to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Concerning the Roman frame the main interest relies on the controversy concerning the notion of empire with its legal, moral and politic organizational effects. This idea concerning the empire will mark, in posterity, one of the essential grounds of the modern approximation to the idea of Europe. At the same time, the source of the Christian tradition should be the logical complement to identify the sources that subsequently will lead to a unified image of Europe. After this prelude our main effort will be to draw the itinerary of European doctrines since its explicit formulations starting from Charlemagne, even if in a more specific view the nucleus of our work should rely on the transition scenario between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. From an intellectual and literary point of view we will draw special attention to the works of Dante and Petrarch as well as to the subsequent formulations of the Humanist movement.  Likewise, we will also establish a correspondence with the effective construction of a specifically European art beginning in the Romanic and Gothic periods, and in the case of painting starting from Giotto. After establishing the basis of that first literary and artistic formulation of the European matter, our work group's objective is to investigate the main aesthetic contributions that help establish the settlement of a unified image of Europe. Therefore it would be absolutely necessary to establish the origin of the novel in the works of Cervantes and its influence in the development of a genre so genuinely European as the novelistic narrative has been. It's of primary concern to analyze what has been named the Baroque culture with its international denominations in varied European countries and its coexistence with Rationalism. In subsequent phases of our investigation, the aesthetics of the Enlightenment as well as of the Romanticism will contribute with a varied number of philosophers and artists in which the theme of Europe consolidates by all means. Authors such as Montaigne, Descartes, Spinoza and Goethe exemplify this progressive construction of the idea. At the same time, painting, architecture and in prominent way music staring from Johan Sebastian Bach may help to understand the aesthetic contribution to the idea of Europe. The culmination of our work should be the recognition and tracking of these varied intellectual threads in the modern civilization. It's basic to highlight the contribution of the artistic avant-gardes in this direction and establish an evaluation of the legacy of the writers and artists of the XXth century in a time that, precisely, the politic approach of a construction of Europe starts after the Second World War, which is the same approach we are now living in.