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Notes on Introduction to the Humanities -- Hum A212 William Jamison - Instructor Lecture 5 We should be familiar with the muses, the source for our word music". Another conceptual set The Three Graces is also important. Look up "The Three Graces" on Google images and see how many variations there are. (Socrates was said to have made a statue of the Three Graces that stood at the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens until it was destroyed.) Also called the Three Charities. Ancient Greek Music with images and the Seven Wonders of Ancient Greece (Note the comparison with Ancient Jewish Music or contemporary chant, Arabic Chant, Persian Chant, Ravi Shankar playing Raga). I will look at these in reverse order. Aristophanes (the name seems to mean "Best Play" since "Aristo" means best and "phanes" appearance or show.) Lysistrata in English or here modernized. Be aware there are adult themes in this as there are in all of Aristophanes' plays. Plato on art: Mimesis is imitation but only the ideas are real. So the merely material are imitations. Art would be thrice removed from the real. Idealism and elitism. Is the invisible world more important than the visible world? Contrast this, perhaps, with the contemporary criticism of religion and the arts by some today who feel the arts are a suspension of the rational. Aristotle on art: imitates the real. The visible world is all there is. Art enhances the beauty of life. Alexander the Great - in the steps of Alexander the Great. Alexander was a student of Aristotle. Christian culture was adapted to Platonic philosophy by Saint Augustine who was a student of Saint Ambrose. Ambrosian Chant and other liturgical chants are other worldly. How does this music lend a feel of the eternal and invisible to remove one from the present? Compare the choir at Saint Thomas Aquinas and this modernized version or this piece from Evanescence - so does this communicate a different sort of meaning than this by Evanescence? It seems so. Our view of Medieval Art is certainly different than it would have been to those who created it. For example, we often view Medieval Art through the work of those who are more contemporary. Carmina Burana is most famous through the work of the composer Carl Orff. Here is one performance of his music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBrgUbQs0A His music was very popular with the Nazi regime. In Trutina with a discussion of the lyrics. Another of his works was Catulli Carmina Hildegard von Bingen is also an example of this. Modernized versions of her songs are very popular. But this might be closer to her work. How could I know? Timeline of Art History http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/04/eust/ho_03.14.13a-g.htm Here is a link to a Tothesource interview with Alister McGrath: |
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This page is maintained by William S. Jamison. It was last updated January 12, 2008. All links on these pages are either to open source or public domain materials or they are marked with the appropriate copyright information. I frequently check the links I have made to other web sites but each source is responsible for their own content. |