Philolog

The reception of Classical antiquity has become quite a hot topic in recent years. It helps that there are lots of examples of the use and appropriation of Classical themes and motifs in modern art and architecture that can be studied through this approach. The field of reception studies has also increasingly been accepted as part of Classics ‘proper’. I have a lot of sympathy for this interest in Classical reception, although I occasionally feel that it contributes more to a communal sense of nostalgia (i.e. longing for a time when the public still appreciated the ‘true’ value of Classics, and Latin was taught as the first foreign language in schools, etc.) rather than ‘enlivening’ the subject and rendering it relevant in the present. It is perhaps because of this that I often find that the most interesting examples of the use (and occasional abuse) of Classics are those that you come across (almost) at random and in contexts where you hadn’t expected them.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised by the extremely interesting decorative programme of the Old City Hall in Poznan when I visited this summer. Across the facade of its loggia runs a series of portrait roundels of various Classical authors, scientists, politicians, a Byzantine emperor and even a rebel slave. Read on at www.iconoclasm.dk

Posted by Troels Myrup Kristensen at 9:17 AM | Permalink

Caravaggio, The Raising of Lazarus, Museo Regionale, Messina, 1609

Every time I see Caravaggio's Raising of Lazarus (1609) again in Messina, Sicily - such as just this week in the middle of June - new evidence of his genius appears from this late canvas. Many of these observations I've published in a recent book (Hunt, 2004:125 ), but although noticed before and mentioned in lectures at Stanford and elsewhere, the confirmation of such ideas usually comes from repeated direct reflection many times in front of the canvas after one's eyes adjust to the tenebrism of his dark style palpably employed here. Indeed, the passage of John 11:1-43 even refers to this miracle of the raising of Lazarus in the context of light versus darkness (John 11:9), which seems not to have been lost on Caravaggio.

Exemplary prior studies have long discussed Caravaggio's treatment of Lazarus as commissioned by the Genoese merchant Giovanni Battista de' Lazzari (Caravaggio's likely intended name pun noted) for the Church of the Padri Crociferi or "Cross-Bearing Fathers" in Messina (e.g., Langdon, 1998:370-3), often commenting on Lazarus's crosslike pose as an allusion to the "Cross-Bearing Fathers" and some have also long commented on Caravaggio's allusion to Michelangelo's creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel with life returning to Lazarus's hand from the command of Christ while the rest of his body is still in the sleep of death. But several possibly new observations can be suggested here as well as to develop further or respond to others' ideas.

First, the contrasting light and darkness on the hand of Lazarus also reminds one of the famous passage in Genesis 1:3 when God says "Let there be light". That God (in Christ) may also divide the light from the darkness here is possibly alluded by opposition: divine light returns warm life to Lazarus where the cold dark side of his hand is still in absolute shadow and death and the side facing Christ is in light and returning to life. Caravaggio's chiaroscuro is nowhere so dramatic as in this gesture of a dead hand responding to Christ's verbal command to move again. If God is light - Caravaggio's artistic manifest - and also life, Lazarus will rise again starting from this hand in its dual state of light and darkness.

Second, also in parallel with the darkness of Christ's face hidden in like shadow on the left - also suggestive of his yet hidden deity both before and after his Transfiguration - the body of Lazarus is held almost tenderly by his sisters Mary and Martha on the far right (his family members can endure the smell of corruption of his flesh only because of their great grief and loss). But when the lungs of Lazarus refill with air in a few seconds after the moment Caravaggio has painted, his sisters will be the first spectators to notice his breath, their faces being so close to his face about to be reanimated by this resurrection.

Third, the depth and intensity of the darkness of those holding Lazarus is finally enlightened when one studies the painting for a long time in its Messina context and one's eyes dilate to the proper level. With all due respect, John Spike - hugely authoritative - reports that the person often believed to be a self-portrait of Caravaggio is the man above Christ's pointing hand and facing Christ with praying hands, although Spike is clearly not endorsing this view (Spike, 2001: 221). Puglisi, for example, in her magisterial book supports this identification for a self-portrait (Puglisi, 1998: 327). In my opinion, however, this man is not nearly as interesting a candidate for a self-portrait as another candidate suggested below, nor does the bearded resemblance of this candidate seem as compelling as another. Furthermore, my strongest concern about the identification of the praying man as a Caravaggio self-portrait is that it seems to push piety for this rebellious artist a little too far, especially since the artist refused holy water to absolve venial sin in the Messina church of the Madonna del Pilero, as Sussino related, purportedly saying, "I don't need it because all my sins are mortal" (Hunt, 2004, 128).

On the other hand, the person who holds Lazarus's torso is usually forgotten because there is more light on the spectators around Jesus and also on Mary and Martha at either end of the canvas. If one looks very closely at this individual holding Lazarus in the middle of his body (and he is also in the darkest center of the painting), his bearded face is almost entirely in shadow yet fascinatingly lit by the light reflected off Lazarus. He is also in subtle opposition to the more easily recognizable Jesus and the sisters of Lazarus. Given Caravaggio's other self-portraits, this visage is so similar to the face of Caravaggio (equally possible given Puglisi's hallmarks "short dark hair, low forehead, beard and moustache") that it is very plausible as the painter himself in some puzzling act either akin to vicarious faith or at least a voyeur of death. Paranoid and sleeping with a dagger under his pillow at this time in Messina, as his local Sicilian chronicler Susinno relates in 1724, Caravaggio is all too aware of his own mortality.

This painting does not need to in any way suggest an intended point on the continuum of faith (however feeble or strong) or be interpreted as redemptive by its artist who is a fugitive for murder and with a death sentence all too real, but it is nonetheless a mystery about faith where Caravaggio seems to place himself in the middle of a desperately-neeeded miracle.

Notes

F. Susinno. Le vite de' pittore messinesi, 1724. Florence: V. Martinelli, ed. (1966).

Helen Langdon. Caravaggio: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998, 370-3 & 376.

Catherine Puglisi. Caravaggio. London: Phaidon, 1998, 327.

John Spike. Caravaggio. New York: Abbeville, 2001, 221.

Patrick Hunt. Caravaggio. Life and Times Series. London: Haus Publishing, 2004, 125, 128.

John Varriano. Caravaggio: The Art of Realism. Pennsylvania State University, 2006.

copyright © 2007 Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

Posted by Patrick Hunt at 1:49 PM | Permalink

Introduction

Bartolomeo Montagna’s nearly forgotten contribution to Renaissance Painting of the Veneto merits revisiting through a brief examination of the controversial Monte di Pietà as related to an altarpiece he painted for the Franciscan Church of San Marco in Lonigo, near Vicenza, Montagna attained status of celebrated painter in Venice after he received his first public commission in 1482. By 1485 Montagna’s altarpiece production thrived in Vicenza, Padua, Verona and throughout the Veneto, which made him an industrious and recognized painter by 1500. Here The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Sts. Francis and Homobonus, Bernardino da Feltre and Beggar, circa 1512, tempera on canvas, now in the Berlin, Gemäldegalerie shall be given primary focus with respect to the influence of Bernardino da Feltre.

Bernardino da Feltre, the Monte di Pietà and Vicenza

The figures of Blessed Bernardino da Feltre, who was never canonized, and St. Homobonus (1) were employed with some frequency in Northern Italy, though Homobonus less so than Bernardino. The presence of Bernardino da Feltre may appear innocuous as a Franciscan advocate of charity upon first glance; however, the beholder should consider that he became one of the most passionate Franciscan preachers from the 1470-90s. The effects of his fervent preaching against Jewish money-lending, especially in Mantua, Cremona, Pavia, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza and throughout northern and central Italy, inspired the flourishing of Monti di Pietà, or Christian money-lending establishments. The Monti di Pietà provided a Franciscan alternative in an attempt to interrupt the loan businesses of Jewish lenders, and Bernardino da Feltre advocated donations for the Monti di Pietà as a step toward salvation. (2) As Bernardino preached from town to town, funds poured into the local Monti di Pietà. Vicenza was no exception, and Bernardino gave sermons on numerous occasions in 1493 and 1494 at the request of its citizens. He preached as many as ninety sermons at Vicenza’s cathedral. (3) Nearby Lonigo is registered as having had a Monte di Pietà by the time of the Pope Leo X (1513-1522). Ultimately, the Monte di Pietà was not so much a charitable alternative to usury, but in point of fact, according to Franciscan scholar Vittorino Meneghin, it developed into another lending/earning establishment. (4) It is relevant that Bernardino da Feltre was the son of a wealthy noble notary, and therefore wise to finance; often arguing in support of the Monti di Pietà charging an interest rate to support its administration. Thus, the distinction between the two established loan systems becomes blurred. In the literature, it is fascinating to observe that the motives of Bernardino da Feltre are historicized differently. In one camp, Bernardino da Feltre is seen as preaching fervidly about the Monte di Pietà and its connection to Christian salvation. (5) In the other, scholars have argued that Bernardino preached only in towns with significantly populated Jewish communities with the objective of one, dispersing the Jewish community, and two, destroying their businesses. (6) In one particular case, Bernardino preached in Trent on Easter just before nine Jews were arrested, accused of the murder of a boy named Simon, and tormented until they confessed. As a late fifteenth-century depiction shows, the local Jews were charged - typically falsely - with having tortured and killed the two and half year-old Simon in order to use his blood for making Passover matzo. (7) Regrettably, the practice of charging Jews with ritual murder created an epidemic of similar cases in Northern Italy and Austria. (8) After Bernardino’s death in 1494, the Monti di Pietà continued to thrive; however, the War of the League of Cambrai, 1508-1517, in addition to the growing population in the Veneto, had disastrous effects and put the Franciscan institution in peril. (9)

In looking to fifteenth-century images of Bernardino da Feltre including Montagna’s, one finds that they are not extremely common. According to Meneghin’s survey of Bernardino da Feltre’s iconography, the incidence of Bernardino’s portraits from the late fifteenth century typically correspond to where he gave sermons and established Monti di Pietà throughout the Veneto, Umbria, and Emilia Romagna. (10) A number of visual examples present a window into the depth of Bernardino’s effectual nature as a speaker, a proponent of the Monte di Pietà and Franciscanism in the Veneto and beyond. As was the case in Vicenza, Bernardino gave sermons on a variety of occasions in Faenza, as this canvas was to commemorate his memorable orations.

The portrait shows Bernardino dressed as a Franciscan, hooded with presumably golden rays that issue from his head, a standard iconographical feature indicating the image postdates his life. Meanwhile, a donor is portrayed kneeling in the left lower corner. Bernardino holds a cartouche in his left hand with the maxim written, “Diligere Mundum,” which refers to the First Epistle of John’s “Do not love things of this world (2:15)”, and a clear allusion to the steps taken towards salvation. These same features are seen in another painting of Bernardino by an unknown Ferrarese painter, dated to 1507. Bernardino holds the typical sign for the Monte di Pietà, a mound topped with a standard flying the flag of the Resurrection, which bears an image invoking pathos: Christ, Man of Sorrows. Usually the emblem of the Monte di Pietà also contains the words “Curam illius habe,” or “Give them to the Host,” allusive to the request for charity as seen in the Umbrian example painted by Giovanni di Pietro, otherwise known as “Lo Spagna” The Veronese painter Paolo Morando, called Cavazzola, painted a profile portrait intended as one of a cycle of paintings for a chapel in the Church of San Bernardino in Verona. Here Bernardino gestures as if in the act of sermonizing. Filippo Mazzola, father of the famous Parmigianino, painted a half-length sacra conversazione with Bernardino da Feltre in Parma. While the original context of this oil on panel is uncertain, it is known that Bernardino gave sermons in Parma between 1485 and 1492. Thus, the possibility remains that Mazzola himself might have had contact with the Franciscan missionary. Here Bernardino’s physiognomy is very similar to the features seen in Lo Spagna’s portrait, taking into account the round bulbous eyes and mustache, though the symbol of the Monte di Pietà is an abbreviated Man of Sorrows. Because in many instances the paintings of Bernardino da Feltre were intended as ex-votos honoring his sermons, I pose the following question: Where does Montagna’s sacra conversazione, incorporating Bernardino da Feltre, fit into this tradition? Undoubtedly, the presence of this figure forces us to observe this understudied work in a new light.

State of Conservation

In Montagna’s San Marco altarpiece, the beggar, pendant figure to Bernardino, appears original, as is the miniature figure of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The apparent diminished size of Bernardino is curious, though interesting to note that according to his biographies, he was apparently diminutive in stature. The Bishop of Padua was recorded as having called him, affectionately, “piccolino,” or “parvulo.” (11)

As a part of the recent technical investigation conducted by the Berlin Gemäldegalerie in 2004, the x-ray assemblage reveals that Bernardino da Feltre was likely added later, due to the fact that the figure is extremely light in intensity, almost invisible compared to the other figures in the painting. (12) Further examination reveals that the podium and socle were finished before Bernardino was added, thus he is most likely not a part of the originally planned painting. The letters “M.D.” on the throne base likely refer to Mater Dei, given the titular dedication to the Immaculate Conception. The Church of San Marco was re-consecrated and three additional altars were built on June 3, 1512. (13) Given the evidence of Montagna’s stylistic maturity observed in this work, such as his interest in saturated tones, movement of human form and the blurring of hard contours, it seems probable that Montagna would have produced this altarpiece for the new structure, and thus a date of 1500 for Montagna’s painting is premature. Vicentine Church historian, Francesco Barbarano, gives an account of San Marco’s six altars and describes them as they appeared in the mid-eighteenth century. According to Barbarano, the confraternities of Lonigo maintained these six altars, though Barbarano does not specify patrons to altars. (14)

By 1512 Vicenza and its provincial territory, including Lonigo, had long since restored its allegiance to the Venetian Republic, yet the war of the League of Cambrai persisted. It is known that the Monte di Pietà in Vicenza was affected adversely during these years. If the loan establishment in urban Vicenza had exhausted its funds in this time of extreme need, then can we assume that there were similar conditions in rural Lonigo during the League of Cambrai years? I suggest here that Montagna finished the altarpiece around 1512 and upon presentation to his patron, a local confraternity in Lonigo, it was decided to augment the composition to include Bernardino da Feltre in the interest of re-awakening his memory and donations given to the local Monte di Pietà. Bernardino’s presence in Lonigo was never documented, however he spoke many times in nearby Vicenza, Padua and Verona. Moreover, as his ex-voto portraiture tradition suggests, imagery of Bernardino da Feltre is strictly connected to commemorating his sermons, thus the appeal for donations.
Regrettably, the specifics of Bartolomeo Montagna’s commission remain obscured by the lack of archival information, as none of the convent’s inventories mention the painting. The San Marco in Lonigo altarpiece thus stands as a cultural marker of Franciscan rhetoric: promoting propaganda against Jewish money lending practices, and endorsement for the use of Monti di Pietà reflects Vicentine local piety.

NOTES:

(1) George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art: Iconography of the Saints in the Paintings of North East Italy. Florence: Sansoni, 1978, 425. In North Eastern Italy, Kaftal cites only two others in addition to Montagna, one in the Basilica San Marco and another by Domenico da Tolmezzo (1479) in Udine at the Museo Civico.

(2) Renata Segre, “Bernardino da Feltre: I Monti di Pietà e I Banchi Ebraici,” Rivista storia italiana, vol. 90, Issue 4, (1978): 888.

(3) Vittorino Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e I Monti di Pietà (Vicenza: 1974), 393-5.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Meneghin, 388-90.

(6) Segre, 825. For example, oddly Bernardino da Feltre never preached sermons in his native Feltre. Monte di Pietà was founded as late as 1542.

(7) Dana E. Katz, “The Contours of Tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini Altarpiece in Urbino,” The Art Bulletin 55 4 (December 2003): 652.

(8) Leon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism (New York, Shocken Books, 1965), 148. Here is an exerpt from the Franciscan preacher’s sermon at Trento, “Jewish usurers bleed the poor to death and grow fat on their substance, and I who live on alms, who feed on the bread of the poor, shall I then be mute as a dog before outraged charity? Dogs bark to protect those who feed them, and I, whom am fed by the poor, shall I see them robbed of what belongs to them and keep silent? Dogs bark for their masters; shall I not bark for Christ?” Furthermore, the site of Simon’s execution later became a pilgrimage site.

(9) Meneghin, 401-2.

(10) See Meneghin, Iconografia del B. Bernardino Tomitano da Feltre. Venice: San Michele in Isola, 1967.

(11) Meneghin, (1967), 11. Bernardino Guslino da Feltre was his earliest biographer in 1696 and Simone da Marostica in 1871.

(12) See Elizabeth Carroll. “La Pala Ritrovata: Una rivisitazione della Pala d’Altare di
Bartolomeo Montagna, già nella Chiesa di San Marco a Lonigo.” Arte Documento 20 (2004):112-117.

(13) Pomello, 68. Cites the documentation as, “…si legge nei atti di Pietro Giovanni da Schio.”

(14) Francesco Barbarano de Mironi, Historia Ecclesiastica della Città, Territorio e Diocesi di Vicenza 1649-1762, Vicenza: Carlo Bressan, 1761., vol. VI, 48

Images courtesy of Berlin Gemaldegalerie and Vittorino Meneghin

copyright 2007

Elizabeth Carroll Consavari, Ph.D.
Department of Art and Art History
Stanford University

Posted by Liz Consavari at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Julian the Apostate, killed June 23, A.D. 363 in battle.

The capture of Pirisabora represented the first major victory for Julian's Persian expedition in A.D. 363. Ammianus Marcellinus, Zosimus, and Libanius all discuss the siege and the subsequent setback the Romans suffered the next day, when three squadrons of scouts were routed and a standard lost. Putting all three accounts together reveals substantial omissions in Ammianus' account which suggest the historian purposefully distorted his account to minimize the damage to the reputation of his hero, Julian.

On the second day of the siege of Pirisabora, Julian himself led an attack against one of the gates of the city but was repelled. He then ordered a helepolis “city-taker” siege engine to be built, the mere sight of which convinced the defenders to surrender under lenient terms of peace (24.2.18-22). Ammianus reports that the soldiers found a large stockpile of grain and weaponry in the citadel, since the city had been evacuated and 2500 men left behind to defend it from the Romans (24.2.22). Of this, the soldiers took what they needed and burnt the remainder as well as the city.

Ammianus’ chronology at this point becomes murky: he next recounts the loss of a standard by a reconnaissance force and the punishment of the men involved postera die “on day following” (24.3.1), and then he relates Julian’s speech which occurred incensa denique urbe, ut memoratum est “after the burning of the city, as I have said” (24.3.3). The reader is left to ask whether the loss of the standard (and punishment of the soldiers) occurred before or after the speech?

Ammianus seems to say that on the same day as the capture of the city, the citadel was found full of goods, the city burned, and Julian’s speech given. The following day, then, the reconnaissance force lost their standard, Julian routed the enemy, and punished the soldiers who had lost the standard. This interpretation means that Ammianus has reported the events of 24.3.1-2 out of sequence, jumping forward to the day after the city was captured and then jumping back to the day of the capture to relate Julian’s speech. Based on just the information he gives, this certainly is a possible interpretation of the sequence of events (1), but when Zosimus’ account is considered it becomes less plausible.

On the siege itself, Ammianus and Zosimus agree, but Zosimus gives much more detail following the city’s surrender. First, he says that in addition to grain and weapons, abundance τῆς ἄλλης ἀποσκευῆς “of other household stuff” was also found (3.18.5). He states that of the large amount of grain found, most was loaded onto ships and the rest split between the men. Of the weapons, the arms useful for Roman battle tactics were distributed to the men and the rest burned or thrown into the river (3.18.5-6). Zosimus' account makes good sense, but accepting it means that Ammianus’ sequence of events become awfully crowded for the day of the capture of Pirisabora: the troops had to have tried to attack the city in the morning, built a siege engine, negotiated terms with the inhabitants, found the stockpile, carried off most (if not all) of the grain and loaded it on the supply ships, burned the city, and then heard Julian’s speech.

On the other hand, the note that Julian’s speech occurred incensa denique urbe “after the city had been burned” does not necessarily place the Julian’s speech immediately before the loss of the standard by the scouts. Two alternatives are possible: either the first notice that the city was burned looks forward to the next day (having been dislocated to round out the climax of the seige in 24.2), or the second notice acts to remind the reader of the situation (the successful capture of an important city and the reason for the donative) and not act as a temporal marker. Indeed, Williams accepts without question that the speech occurred after the punishment of the soldiers (2). Zosimus’ version does not clearly put the loss of the standard either before or after Julian’s speech: while he narrates the speech before defeat of the scouts, he does not give any words which can confirm the ordering is chronological and not just topical (3.19.1).

The account of the attack and Julian’s counterattack also present difficulties when compared to Zosimus’ version, which again adds more details.

Continue reading "Julian's Spin Doctor: Ammianus Marcellinus 24.2.22-24.3.8 and the Persian Mutiny" »

Posted by Adam J. Bravo at 8:18 PM | Permalink

Fig. 1 Rubens, Landscape with Philemon and Baucis, 1620

"Parfois, un arbre humanise mieux un paysage que ne le ferait un homme." Gibert Cesbron

Man and nature… The story of humanity has been an unending conflict between civilisation and that needing civilising. One is constantly assaulting the other: man with his axes and ploughs, and nature with its tempests and floods. Very rarely has man lived in complete harmony with his surroundings. Until the Renaissance in Western Europe, the kinds of emotions with which man associated nature centred on fear. And yet, over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Western European man nurtured a different sort of relationship with his environment: a connection that was not based on necessity or the desire to tame, but an aesthetic appreciation of the mystery of nature’s wild beauties. Nature became “landscape”, and an artistic genre in its own right.

The rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman literature after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 revived interest in the animist perspective of the great civilisations of the past. The Greeks believed not only that trees and brooks had spirits but also that natural phenomena could be explained by means of myths. Every element of nature stemmed from divine intervention. Storms, earthquakes, and plagues were physical manifestations of godly anger. Attributing emotions to nature helped man to understand the world around him. This tight understanding bridged a gap between man and nature, which enabled – with a small leap of imagination – the transformation of one matter into the other. Ovid illustrates this bond in his Metamorphosis, a compilation of poetry that had a profound influence on writers and artists of the Renaissance.

The myth that both dramatically and tenderly explores man’s relationship with nature in the Renaissance period is the story of Philemon and Baucis. Philemon and Baucis are an old mortal couple, still deeply in love after decades of marriage. Although they live very humbly, they offer hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury – travelling through the land in disguise – when the people of a nearby town had all turned the gods from their doorsteps. The gods punish the townsfolk by summoning a flood, but reward Philemon and Baucis by granting their wish: to be able to die together at the very same moment. When the old couple dies, they are transformed into trees that grow forever in each other’s embrace. The myth was the inspiration for two important artists of the seventeenth century: the French poet Jean de La Fontaine and the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.

An analysis of the poem Philémon et Baucis by La Fontaine and the painting Landscape with Philemon and Baucis by Rubens (Fig.1) will illuminate the nature of the relationship between man and landscape. The term “man” encompasses many different bodies: the peasant, the urban-dweller, and for our purposes, even the gods. The works of art invite a comparison between the controlled power of the human body and the savage power of nature. Philemon and Baucis’ metamorphosis into trees unites the two worlds and humanises the landscape. Though, it is possible that the two spheres were not so different to begin with, as we consider the notion of landscape as the mirror of the human being.

I. Landscape and the Peasant

No link between man and nature is as deeply forged as the connection between the peasant and the land he cultivates. In his Court traité du paysage (Short Treaty on Landscape), Alain Roger states that the peasant does not appreciate the beauty of a landscape in an aesthetic capacity, but rather he judges the beauty of a landscape based on its usefulness. “This does not signify that the peasant is bereft of all ties to his country and that he does not feel any attachment towards his land, quite the contrary; but this attachment is all the more powerful because it is symbiotic” . Further in the text, Roger reassesses his idea of the “natural contract” that exists between peasant and landscape, defined as “either death or symbiosis.”

The myth of Philemon and Baucis corresponds to Roger’s theory. Philemon and Baucis live in peace with nature. La Fontaine writes that they “cultivated, without assistance, Their enclosure and their field for two score summers.” This wisdom is rewarded by “a bit of milk, of fruits, and the gifts of Ceres.” The earth is respected and well cared for; therefore, it reciprocates with its fertility. Moreover, the cabin belonging to Philemon and Baucis is described by La Fontaine as narrow and humble. With its broken table and used carpet, is so decrepit that it is practically an extension of nature itself.

In Rubens’ painting, the artist transmits by his use of colours the notion of commensalism between the old couple and nature. While Zeus and Hermes are garbed in vibrant blue and red, Philemon and Baucis’ clothes are coloured in tones nearly indistinguishable from the hues of the countryside. Rubens uses the same greys and browns to paint their clothing and skin as the shades he applies to the waterfalls and trees. Already, during their lifetimes, Philemon and Baucis blended in with nature. This link in life prefigures their bond beyond death.

Meanwhile, the city-dwellers of the nearby burg have lost their contact with the land and consequently, they perish as punishment. Is there a correlation between life in an urban environment and the corruption of its inhabitants? In Ovid’s time, cities were being built around the quintessential city, Rome. The poet would have been able to witness the degeneration of nature and the result of this rupture between men of the countryside and city-dwellers. In his work entitled Philémon et Baucis, author Ernst Jünger says of Ovid, “He was born in the Samnite village of Sulmo, and although he lived in Rome since his earliest youth, it is likely that he always spent a part of the year in his country estates. As always with the Latins, cultivated lands, labours and gardens were more familiar than the woods. The way in which one sowed, cultivated, harvested and consumed the fruit of the land held not the slightest secret from him.”

For Ovid, the myth of Philemon and Baucis might have represented the joy of civilising nature while still cultivating and appreciating the goodness of the earth. The danger lay only in building a civilisation to the detriment of nature. City-dwellers lose their roots, so to speak, and their connection to the land. And since the land is, in animist cosmology, simply a physical manifestation of spirits and gods, we can deduce that the city-dwellers lose a certain part of their faith.

After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, scholars fled the great city with their manuscripts and knowledge, and Western Europe found itself flooded by the literature and philosophy of Antiquity. Authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began to re-examine ancient literary themes, finding in the old stories material with which they could easily identify. Why did La Fontaine choose the myth of Philemon and Baucis in particular? As in Ovid’s era, large cities were developing in France. Consequently, the abundance of bodies, malnutrition and lack of hygiene contributed to the diseases that raged across Europe. Numerous illnesses, notably the bubonic plague, struck thousands of victims, particularly in overpopulated cities where maladies spread quickly. The punishment delivered upon the townspeople in the myth of Philemon and Baucis would have struck a chord with the public of La Fontaine’s Europe. We can consider the destruction wrought by Jupiter and Mercury as symbolic of the plague, which was also considered a punishment imposed by God: “God, irritated by the sins of an entire population had decided to extract vengeance…” Readers of La Fontaine’s poem might have hoped to be protected from divine retribution in the same way that Philemon and Baucis were spared by the gods. The health of the body depended on the respect that that body showed for its environment.

II. The Power of Men and Gods

In Homer’s Odyssey, the text describes only the voice of the sirens and neglects their entire physical description. This omittance only thickens their elusive and mysterious character. La Fontaine’s poem, however, often alludes to parts of the body in reference to its human and godly protagonists: hearts, front, wrinkles, feet, eyes, eyebrows, hand. Instead of distancing the characters, as Homer does with the sirens, these physical details humanise not only the mortal characters but also the gods. If it looks like a human and walks like a human… Although the gods possess abilities lacking in ordinary men, in art, we represent and thus consider them to be simply glorified humans: powerful undying men.

Fig. 2 Rubens, Self-Portrait with Isabella Brant, 1609

Artists employ many different kinds of visual strategies to depict the importance of a certain figure in relation to others present in a painted scene. For instance, in Rubens’ 1609 Self Portrait with his wife Isabelle Brant, the artist places himself in an elevated position. (Fig. 2) His wife is seated at his side; the top of her hat does not even reach the level of her husband’s nose. In this case, height designates Rubens’ superiority over Isabelle, and establishes in the mind of the observer a certain dynamic in the perception of their marriage.

Continue reading "METAMORPHOSES OF MAN AND NATURE: The Myth of Philemon and Baucis as Represented by Rubens and La Fontaine" »

Posted by Naomi Levin at 4:33 PM | Permalink

From Robert Solomon's introduction to Existentialism (1974):

As Camus tells us, 'at any streetcorner the absurd can strike a man in the face.' Imagine yourself involved in any one of those petty mechanical tasks which fill so much of your waking hours--washing the car, boiling an egg, changing a typewriter ribbon--when a friend appears with a new movie camera. No warning: 'Do something!' he commands, and the camera is already whirring. A frozen shock of self-consciousness, embarrassment, and confusion. 'Do something!' Well of course one was doing something, but that is now seen as insignificant. And one is doing something just standing there, or perhaps indignantly protesting like a housewife caught in curlers. At such moments one appreciates the immobilization of John Barth's Jacob Horner, that paralyzing self-consciousness in which no action seems meaningful. In desperation one falls back into his everyday task, or he leaps into an absurd posture directed only toward the camera. It is the Kantian transcendental deduction with a 16mm lens: there is the inseparable polarity between self and object; but in this instance the self is out there, in the camera, but it is also the object. A sum (not a cogito) accompanies my every presentation. 'How do I look?' No one knows the existential attitude better than a ham actor.
Enlarge this moment, so that the pressure of self-consciousness is sustained. Norman Mailer, for example, attempted in Maidstone a continuous five-day film of himself and others which did not use a developed script, leaving itself open to the 'contingencies of reality.' His problem was, as ours now becomes, how to present oneself, how to live one's life, always playing to the camera, not just as one plays to an audience but as one plays to a mirror. One enjoys making love, but always with the consciousness of how one appears to be enjoying himself. One thinks or suffers, but always with the consciousness of the 'outer' significance of those thoughts or sufferings. A film of one's life: would it be a comedy? a tragedy? thrilling? boring? heartrending? Would it be, as Kierkegaard suggests, the film of 'a life which put on the stage would have the audience weeping in ecstasy'? Would it be a film you would be willing to see yourself? twice? infinitely? Or would eternal reruns force you to throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse this Nietzschean projectionist? And who would edit this extravagant film of every detail--of yet undetermined significances--of your life? How would the credits be distributed? Each of us finds himself in his own leading role--the hero, the protagonist, the buffoon. John Barth tells us that Hamlet could have been told from Polonius' point of view: 'He didn't think he was a minor character in anything.'
What does one do? 'Be yourself!' An empty script; myself sounds like a mere word that points at 'me' along with the camera. One wants to 'let things happen,' but in self-conscious reflection nothing ever 'just happens.' One seizes a plan (one chooses a self), and all at once demands controls unimaginable in everyday life. Every demand becomes a need, yet every need is also seen as gratuitous.

Posted by James Collins at 1:25 PM | Permalink

The Philosophical Stages project is featured in the January/February 2007 issue of Edutopia, the award-winning, national multimedia publication of the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) designed to celebrate and profile the stories and people behind innovation in education. GLEF is a nonprofit operating foundation that documents, advocates, and disseminates information about exemplary programs in K-12 education in order to help these practices spread nationwide.

Edutopia identifies the Philosophical Stages project as an exciting landmark in an ideal educational landscape, and explains how and why it is important that Philosophical Stages brings a new P to PBL.

(1) "Acting Up: Higher philosophical thinking through drama" and
(2) "How To: Use Performance-Based Learning in the Classroom"

Continue reading "Acting Up: Higher philosophical thinking through drama" »

Posted by James Collins at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fig. 1 Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520-23, National Gallery, London 176 x 191 cm

Between 1520-23 Titian painted Bacchus and Ariadne, one of a series of mythological works for the ducal study [studiolo, the so-called 'Camerini d'Alabastro'] in the castle of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. (1) [Fig. 1]. Although the room was disassembled in 1598 after the d'Este family line in Ferrara died out and the castle reverted to the pope, the duke wanted these mythological paintings:

“to be explicitly all'antica in both style and content; indeed the subjects were largely based on descriptions of lost classical paintings." (2)

This is an intriguing idea where it might be asked which lost paintings and which ancient authors might describe them? This is an immediately reminder of Aristotle's comparison of the paintings of Zeuxis and Polygnotus [Poetics 6.27-28] or the paintings of Polygnotus at Delphi as recorded by Pausanias in his Description of Greece, Book 10.xxv.1 & ff., especially the Polygnotus portrait of Ariadne in 10.xxix.4 from the Lesche of Cnidos:

“You see a painting of Ariadne. Seated on a rock, she is looking at her sister Phaedra...Ariadne was taken away from Theseus by Dionysus, who sailed against him with superior forces, and either fell in with Ariadne by chance or set an ambush to catch her. This Dionysus was, in my opinion, the first to invade India.” (3)

Another Pausanias passage [Book 20. xx. 3-4] describes the paintings in the temple of Dionysus Eleuthereus in the theater precinct in Athens:

“The oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is near the theater...There are paintings here...Pentheus and Lycurgos paying the penalty of their insolence to Dionysus, Ariadne asleep, Theseus putting out to sea, and Dionysus on his arrival [at Naxos] to carry off Ariadne.”

This passage is similar in part to what Titian has depicted in Bacchus and Ariadne. Other source possibilities also abound. In Pliny [Nat. Hist. XXXV. 36, 65 & ff.] there is the story about Zeuxis that his painted grape clusters were so real that even birds tried to peck at his grapes, (4) where, admittedly speculative, such clusters might reference a painted Dionysian scene, since it was in a theater context. The probable source of the lost art applicable to Titian's work here, however, is usually thought to be that series of Naples wall-paintings described by Philostratus:

“Nor yet is it enough to praise the painter for things for which someone else too might be praised; for it is easy to paint Ariadne as beautiful and Theseus as beautiful; and there are countless characteristics of Dionysus for those who wish to represent him in painting or in sculpture...Having arrayed himself in fine purple and wreathed his head with roses, Dionysus comes to the side of Ariadne.“ (5)

Naturally, while extant Roman wall paintings or mosaics often have Dionysus (or Bacchus) and Ariadne or their sacred marriage as subjects [e.g., the 1st c. BCE Bacchus hieros gam[e]os panel in the Villa of the Mysteries, (6) the painting of Bacchus and Ariadne known from Boscoreale but now also lost; (7) and the 3rd c. CE Antioch mosaic pavements of Dionysus and Ariadne in the House of Dionysus and Ariadne, (8) to name only a few], many of these would have come to light only after the 18th c. [especially at Pompeii and Herculaneum], long after Titian. Even though many of the ancient paintings may now be lost or their influences untraceable, the classical iconography of the likely subject matter is still accessible. Although the question of lost classical paintings is quarry obviously worthy of the chase, it is not the subject of this brief paper on Titian's use of both classical iconography and literary sources in Ovidian and possibly Catullan narrative. Mosaics showing Bacchus returning from India are also known, such as the famous Sousse, Tunisia pavement with tigers (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Bacchus returns from India, Sousse, Tunisia

Additionally, while it is likely that Titian's sources were mostly from literary texts rather than from the surviving classical visual arts, this problem will be discussed later in conjunction with early 16th c. Venetian collections such as that of Cardinal Grimani, (9) in which light we should consider that: "There were probably more notable works of ancient art available to artists in Venice and other northern Italian cities in the first decades of the sixteenth century than is normally supposed" as Marilyn Perry has suggested (10) [following the trail of Otto Brendel] with her notation of the early collections of Grimani, di Martini and Isabella d'Este.

If visual referents are difficult to prove, what about classical literary influences on this painting? In his landmark collection Essays on Literature and Art, Walter Pater discussed the school of Giorgione and Titian and extrapolated that the early Renaissance transformed prior literary narrative. It was his idea that "we may trace the coming of poetry into painting by fine gradations upwards" and also that a painting of this period can be "quite independent of anything definitely poetical in the subject it accompanies". (11) That poetry here should not be limited to mere literary text is clear, nevertheless Pater distinguishes between inspired visual accompaniment and the inspiring source subject. As Lucilla Burn elaborates:

“With the rediscovery of classical antiquity in the Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid
became a major influence on the imagination of poets and artists. His were among the first classical texts to benefit from the invention of printing in the late fifteenth century; they were widely and enthusiastically translated, and remained a fundamental influence on the diffusion and perception of Greek myths through subsequent centuries. “ (12)

Hope details the Duke of Ferrara's prior interest in artists such as Bellini, especially for the illustration of familiar Ovidian narrative. In the case of Bellini, however, the Duke did not express communication in "detailed instructions" and was ignorant of the "casual attitude of Venetian artists to erudite subject matter". (13) This description of casual attitude might well fit other artists and works, such as Hope mentions in Bellini's Feast of the Gods [National Gallery, Washington], (14) but Titian's attitude is anything but casual in his depiction of Bacchus and Ariadne, particularly since the classical iconography of Bacchus [or Dionysus in the Greek tradition], more than that of Ariadne, is a complex one, with multiple attributes or recognizable traits consistently portrayed in Greek and Roman art via black and red figure vase paintings, wall paintings, sculpture and mosaics. (15)

In terms of all'antica in style, Hope also mentions that "in general, authentically classical subject matter was almost always important to patrons elsewhere in Italy" (16) Furthermore, he claims that after d'Este's experience with Bellini, Titian was provided with a specific text to follow in the case of Bacchus and Ariadne (17) which classical texts can probably be adduced, as has been often attempted. As G. H. Thompson showed, Ovid is the most likely classical literary source for Titian, with probable direct allusions to the Ars Amatoria as a primary inspiration for this painting. Thompson also related and challenged the long-held opinions of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo [Trattato dell'Arte della Pittura, Scoltura et Architettura, 1585] and Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 that Catullus Carmen LXIV was the primary source for this Titian painting. (18)

Continue reading "Titian's BACCHUS AND ARIADNE (1520-23) from Classical Art and Literature" »

Posted by Patrick Hunt at 11:11 PM | Permalink

The work underway using X-ray fluorescence to tease out information from the Archimedes palimpsest is back in the news.

Jonathan Fildes of the BBC reports this concerning the text and its "excavation" which is taking place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab:

Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings.

Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

The goatskin parchment records key details of Archimedes work, considered the foundation of modern mathematics.

The writings include the only Greek version of On Floating Bodies known to exist, and the only surviving ancient copies of The Method of Mechanical Theorems and the Stomachion.

In the treatises, the 3rd Century mathematician develops numerical descriptions of the real world.

"Archimedes was like no one before him," says Will Noel, curator of manuscripts and rare books at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland and director of the imaging project.

"It just doesn't get any better than rereading the mind of one of the greatest figures of Western civilisation."

Considered by some as the "eighth wonder of the world" a live webcast of the researchers revealing some of the original Greek will be shown at 4:00 pm PDT on 4 August.

Continue reading the BBC article here.

Posted by Christopher Witmore at 10:29 AM | Permalink

While on an impromptu peripatesis in the environs of the world's oldest strip-mall (Grandview Heights Shopping Center, est. 1927; Ohio Historical Marker #34-25), David G. Smith and Donald E. Lavigne were pondering the genesis of modern American capitalism. In the course of their wanderings, this Aristotelian duo, almost in spite of the damp|gray uncertainty of the day, was lambasted by postcapitalist modernity's inevitably philosophemic materiality. Our heroes became aware that this would be no ordinary encounter with the Archaeological. The gloom of an overcast day amidst the pastiche of spa pizzerias and peppermint barbershop poles encrusting the stoai of the proud polis of Columbus quickly gave way to the joyous sodality of two old friends reunited over coffee and crosswords. These hapless surveyors, crowned by the pungent effects of Sumatra's roasted and boiled offspring, came upon a sight|site that offered an enigmatic response to the challenge of their bodily engagement. An atemporal causality engendered by the presence of the absent Ron Arps led to an inescapable answer to a question as yet only partially exposed to the efforts of their cognitive excavation. For, as it became clear that the obfuscating brick of an artigianal masonry boutique would join a two meter high window from the outside to the inside (or was it from the inside to the outside?), they began to reflect on the shadowy, self-reflective Forms emanating from the looked-at glass. A chorus of commuters and the ire of the eagle's dew resounded in their ears, shifting their double-consciousness from the surface to the depths of a revelatory spec(tac)ulum. The vicarious stratigraphy of their gaze was inadequately mediated, as is all materiality, by the interpretative agency of the camera's edge:

Posted by Don Lavigne at 1:39 PM | Permalink