Philosophical thought and artistic creativity of western europe at the turn of the ХІХ – ХХ centuries

Philosophical thought and artistic creativity are two important manifestations of human thinking, which try to reflect the inner world of a person, the problems of interaction between a person and society. Since ancient times, human, his purpose and actions, his past, present and future have been objects of artistic research and philosophical analysis. The article explores the processes that took place in the philosophical and aesthetic thought of Western Europe at the end of the ХІХth and the beginning of the ХХth centuries, which not only revealed commonalities in the worldviews of prominent representatives of art and philosophy of that historical period, but also in many ways, in a certain way, determined the ways of development of Western European art of the ХХth century. A characteristic and important tendency of philosophical and aesthetic thought was the transition from fascination with natural science to aesthetic activity, to the transformation of the philosophy of art, to the attempt to discredit the intellect, to declare aesthetic activity a protected zone of irrational, mystical phenomena of social life, which caused this kind of transformation of philosophy, art, and natural science. A huge influence is also exerted on the artistic and creative practice, which, with its figurative structures, reflected the feelings, experiences and interpretations of this historical period, as a period of crisis, disorder of the integrity of being, of the person himself, timid and contradictory stratification of his spiritual forces, breakdown of social relations.The turn of the ХІХ – ХХ centuries became a benchmark in the spiritual life of Western Europe for a significant break in entrenched ideas and forms developed in the process of developing social consciousness. And philosophy, artistic creativity are important components of the spiritual culture of society, and are a kind of barometer of the «trend» of fashion, which covers wide areas of the emotional and psychological factor of the spiritual life of society.