Claude Perrault’s Architectural Views as an Anticipation of the Romantic Artistic Worldview

Abstract

The article examines the features of Claude Perrault’s architectural theory, a French architect of the 17th-century, in terms of anticipating the romantic artistic worldview, which is characterized by individualism and freedom of creativity as opposed to the universality, rational statics, and formality of classicism. C. Perrault’s theoretical views on architecture are characterized as judgments that did not reach the level of development of the aesthetic positions of the leading theorists of the Romantic era; however, it is possible to identify their se-mantic potential. C. Perrault’s conceptual provisions are explored in their cultural and intellectual context, which is necessary for correct interpretation. The anticipation of the romantic artistic worldview is manifested in C. Perrault’s attitude towards Gothic architecture, in the division of architecture into “positive” and “arbitrary”, as well as in the possibility of combining opposites in an architectural object.