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Entire Graeco-Roman Period Classical art from Ruins to RISD Ancient objects modern issues Today • The enduring legacy of the Greco-Roman body • The making and appropriation of Classical Art and the human body from Winckelmann to Alt-right movements – Roman and Renaissance Classicisms – Neoclassicism and Winckelmann – Nazi Germany and Fascism – Alt-Right movements Identity Evropa,” a crypto-fascist, white supremacist organization Apollo Belvedere, Vatican Museums Rome What is ‘Classical’? The word used to describe something perceived as being of the highest quality or ideal beauty, classical usually refers to the culture and objects of Greece in the period from approximately 480 BC to 323 BC. But it can also mean the entire Graeco-Roman period. The term classical also refers to a style of sculptured figures of naturalistic proportions, clear articulations and quietude Classical Art is not about ancient Greece and Rome Classical? Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker By Canova Napoleon bonaparte 1769 – 1821 Classical? Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker Canova Napoleon bonaparte 1769 – 1821 Disentangling the past from the present Doryphoros, Polykleitos All western art in a sense, is neo-classical Classicisms • Roman Renaissance • The rebirth of antiquity Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1485. Uffizi, Florence Michelangelo David, 1501 -1504 Vitruvius • firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis – stability, utility, beauty • Perfection reached in Greek art with the invention of the architectural orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. It was about symmetry and proportion, • culminating in understanding the proportions of the greatest work of art: the human body. Da Vinci, 1487 “The human figure is the perfect paradigm of proportion, because it can be fitted within the two most perfect geometrical forms, the circle and the square.” Vitruvius Winckelmann Art, Classics and Archaeology • Johan Joachim Winckelmann • 1717 –1768 • One of the founders of scientific archaeology • first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums - 1764 Old style: de pre-Classical period (before 480 BC) Large style: Early and High Classical period(480-400) Beautiful style: Late Classical to Hellenistic period (400-323) Imitatian style: Hellenistic and Roman period “t]he one way for us to become great, perhaps inimitable, is by imitating the ancients" edle Einfalt und stille Größe noble simplicity and quiet grandeur Idealism and the established norm p. 194: (on the ideal way to portray eyes and face in Greek sculpture): “…This must be the reason at least, for the unseemliness of a skewed mouth, for when two lines deviate from each other without reason, it is disagreeable to the eye. Therefore, such eyes- where found among us, and as found among the Chinese and Japanese and as seen on Egyptian heads in profile, are a deviation from the norm....it interrupts the unity of the forms according to which the other parts of the body are shaped, and there is no reason why the nose would be so concave, instead of following the line of the forehead..” Winckelmann, Italy and neoclassicism • Renewed interest in Classical antiquity in the 18th century trhough the discovery and excavation of herculaneum and Pompeii • Aiming for ‘purity’ of the Classical world in painting, sculpture and architecture • Important influence Winkelmann on art and architecture in Western art and Architecture Le antichità di Ercolano esposte (1757-1792) Wedgewood portland vase Neo-Classicism Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Via Appia and Via Ardeatina, 1756 Augustin Pajou, 1780 Pierre-Alexandre Vignon- façade van La Madeleine, Paris, 1806-42 Architecture, Washington DC The Rhode Island State House Athenaeum Manning Hall: Greek revival style ‘The ugly truth’ painted marble “If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect…the way you would wipe color off a statue.” (Euripides Helen of Troy 412 BC) ‘The ugly truth’ painted marble Hermes, Roman copy of original by Polykleitos 1-2nd c. AD, Metropolitan Museum of Art The Analysis of Beauty ,William Hogarth, 1753 19th century: Ideal bodies in art- Ideal bodies in reality Farnese Hercules, 3rd c. AD marble Eugen Sandow, father of modern body copy of 4th c. BC original National building Archaeological museum Napels The Grecian Ideal Eugen Sandow Physically incorporating the Classical Friedrich Nietzsche: Man Will Zurück “Today we are again getting close to all those fundamental modes of interpreting the world which the Greek Spirit devised. Day by day, we’re becoming more Greek. At first, as is to be expected, in our concepts and estimation-like Hellenising ghosts, so to speak: but one day –or so we hope- we will also become more Greek in our bodies.” Hitler and Classical art “Never was humanity in its appearance and its feelings closer to Classical Antiquity than today” Hitler, 1937, 1936 Summer Olympics Riefenstahl Olympia 1938 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3LOPhR q3Es&vl=en Mussolini Stadio dei Marmi Post-war Italy Bianchi Bandinelli What else could publisher Einaudi say About Mann visiting Rome with his guide But that he was different from Hemingway And also particularly surprised At the Italian Communists’ diversity Shaped perhaps by political adversity His guide a red archaeologist had once been the black-clad Fascist Who had shown the Führer and his bigwigs The Eternal City’s monumental digs (Lamberto Bozzi) Politics, power and the ideal nude (Greek) body Discussion Greek and Roman past - the foundation of Western civilization and culture? How to Be a Good Classicist Under a Bad Emperor, Donna Zuckerberg “This new, ultrasensitive curriculum and its appendages — diversity training, journal writing, gender and racial sensitivity, multiculturalism, situational ethics, personal growth and self- indulgence, and the politics of commitment — ran directly counter to Greek wisdom” Hanson and Heath 2001 Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom Challenging the Canon The ancient art of the body remains with us – whether as ideal, antitype or point of departure Materials and materiality: Debbie Han Mass of Perception, Ceramics (White Terms of Beauty VI, Ceramics (White porcelain), Porcelain), Dimensions variable, 2010 21.2" x 9.8" x 11" (54 x 25 x 28 cm) each, 2009 - 2011 Debbie Han Salvador Dali Inside marble statues Discussion Do museums perpetuate the classical ideal and how? .
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