Classical Tradition

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Classical Tradition_ A tradition, as opposed to ‘period’ or ‘epoch which relates to a distinct time frame, suggests the handing down of customs, beliefs and cultural values, often through a set of precedents

W. Gray Young. Wellington Railway Station. Thorndon Wellington 1937 Lecture 1: Classical Tradition The history lecture series will be covering: Classical Tradition_

W. Gray Young. Wellington Railway Station. Thorndon Wellington 1937 Lecture 1: Classical Tradition The history lecture series will be covering: Classical Tradition_ Gothic Tradition

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Wellington Railway Station, W. Gray Young, 1937

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Parthenon, Ictinus and Callicrates and , Athens, 477-438BC

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition • Important Dates

• Plato 428/427 BC-347/348 BC

• Greek civilisation's "Classical" phase lasted from about 500 BC to 300 BC and was followed by the "Hellenistic" period, marked by increasingly "humanistic" art.

• The Roman Republic and then Empire rose about the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The first Emperor was Augustus, (63 BC-14 AD) and began to decline around the 4th century AD.

• The Renaissance began around the early 1400s (it can be said to have begun in the 1300s) and peaked around 1500 with the "High Renaissance". It represents the Humanist triumph over the theocratic or church-ruled civilisation of the Middle Ages. Artists of this time include Leonardo, Michelangelo. Later, dramatic styles are called Baroque (eg., the Scala Regia of Bernini). Several course could be devoted to this period, naturally!

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

• The period of the late 1600s and especially the late 1700s is called the Enlightenment or "The Age of Reason", and is marked by clear, strict interpretations of the Classical Style, called Neoclassicism, the development of true scientific method, academic institutions, ideals of republican democracy etc. A time of turmoil (American Revolution 1776, French Revolution 1789), it ended or overlapped with the Industrial Revolution. One can point out Sir Isaac Newton (1642/3-1727), a scientist at the beginning, William Blake near the end (1757-1827), also such great modern myths as Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), written 1818.

• Other Sources

• Web: http://www.britannica.com, http://www.artchive.com

• Reading: Clark, Kenneth, Civilisation

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _For the US of America, Classicism became the signature style of the ‘New Republic ’

_Classical values, such as ‘democracy’ are expressed through its visual language:

_Western Culture traces its origins back to in Greek culture, to a ‘Golden Age’ that is conjured up through its stories / myths and what remained of its architecture and art

White House, J. Hoban, Washington DC, USA, 1800 Capitol Complex, W. Thornton / multiple designers, Washington DC, USA, 1793-

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _For the US of America, Classicism became the signature style of the ‘New Republic ’

_Classical values, such as ‘democracy’ are expressed through its visual language:

_Western Culture traces its origins back to in Greek culture, to a ‘Golden Age’ that is conjured up through its stories / myths and what remained of its architecture and art

White House, J. Hoban, Washington DC, USA, 1800 Capitol Complex, W. Thornton / multiple designers, Washington DC, USA, 1793-

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

_Knowledge about Greek culture has come down to us also in the form of its myths.

_Greek Mythology revealing the cosmic order, how the world worked.

_Explanation of natural phenomena

_In general gods were set up for human beings to aspire to the virtues described in the mythical stories

Nike of Samothrace, Greece, 300BC

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _The Victorian age understood ‘Britannia’ as part of a combined English and Greek mythology, relating the English Celtic tribe with the Golden Age of Ancient Rome and Greece, to form its National heroine modelled on Athena.

_Similarly Nike,Goddess of triumph and victory, stood as the model for Rolls Royce’s car mascot ‘The spirit of Ecstasy’, portraying grace and speed, and drawing on classical authority, superiority, excellence, good taste and highest quality

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Zealandia, the classically based personification of New Zealand on the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Certificate of Attendance, Leonard Mitchell, 1940

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _A fundamental aspect of Greek or classical thinking are archetypes or what Plato called ideas.

_Mimesis: means imitation ‘in the fairly direct sense of copying from nature’.

_For Plato, things as they appear in nature are mere reflections of their true identity which could not be attained in the physical world of the living.

_The ultimate reality is beyond the physical

_The world is ordered in a hierarchical fashion.

Illustration of Plato’s Cave

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _It was to be found in the mind, the intellect was favoured over emotions

_A consequence of this is the emphasis of the mind, the cognitive, reason and the abstract over the physical and the body and over sensory perception.

_Greek thought established a binary structure in Western thinking:

Classical values

stand for are opposed to reason emotion restraint impulse moderation excess self control inconstancy clarity deception simplicity redundancy .

Illustration of Plato’s Cave

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

_Ideas or ‘universal essences’ have a strong connection to mathematics - they need to be considered with logic and the mind

_Mathematics, geometry and proportions are all bound up with beauty and might reveal universal / cosmological order

_Basic geometric shapes like circles, squares, triangles and rectangles; solids such as spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders

Vitruvian Man, Leonardo Da Vinci 15th C Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _Ideas or ‘universal essences’ have a strong connection to mathematics - they need to be considered with logic and the mind

_Mathematics, geometry and proportions are all bound up with beauty and might reveal universal / cosmological order

_Basic geometric shapes like circles, Pantheon, Rome, Italy, 118-128 squares, triangles and rectangles; solids such as spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Pantheon, Rome, Italy, 118-128

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _The intent of all theory of proportion is to create order among the elements in a visual construction

_The Golden Section is a mathematical phenomenon that can be found in nature.

Parthenon and the Golden Section

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition • www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/golden- ratio.html

• www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008ct2j

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Parthenon and the Golden Section

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _They built their temples so that the roof was slanted. This gave the illusion that the temple was actually standing straight.

_They also made the columns bulge so that from a distance they would look perfectly proportioned.

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition A visual order was established by applying the Classical Canon (set of strict and sacred rules)

‘the logos opticos’

_Doric order

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

_Ionic Order

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

_Corinthian Order

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Post and beam [lintel] >architrave >trabeated

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Post and beam [lintel] >architrave >trabeated

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Wellington Railway Station, W. Gray Young, 1937

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _Renaissance: re-birth of the Classical tradition in 15th C Italy

-Vitruvian Man establishing the relationship between the number, man and the universe

Bramante, Tempietto, Rome, 1502

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Bramante, Tempietto, Rome, 1502

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda, 1570

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _Proportioning system applied to plan of Villa

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _’The Grand Tour’ was undertaken by the wealthy English and other Europeans to see Roman ruins in particular, but also other parts of Europe, and resulted in the spread of the classical knowledge

_Neoclassicism becomes the most popular style right into the 20th Century

Palais du Justice, Brussels, 1861-63

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _Classical tradition can be found in Modernist designs where basic geometric forms were to assure control, clarity and simplicity

_The Bauhaus and its preoccupation with pure form and good design suggests an attainable ‘ideal’.

Bauhaus illustration [magazine cover] Herbert Bayer, 1928 Lecture 1: Classical Tradition

_The Modulor, a proportioning system designed by Le Corbusier, linked the Golden Section with the proportions of the human body and so placed himself and his work within the classical tradition of Vitruvius and the Renaissance.

Le Corbusier, ‘Modulor’ c1948

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1932

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _More modernism with Le Corbusier, with the citing of ‘classical authority’ and juxtapositions with equal ‘modern’ feats of the civilisation he was living in. Le Corbusier, Towards a new Architecture Lecture 1: Classical Tradition [publication], 1924 _Neue Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: ‘classical references abound’

_Postmodernist architecture of the 1980s was characterised by an eclectic use of forms and classical elements as a response to the Modernist, abstract, minimalist formal language and lack of historical references.

James Stirling, Stuttart Staatsgallerie, Germany, 1977-84

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition James Stirling, Stuttart Staatsgallerie, Germany, 1977-84

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Albert Speer, Zeppelinfeld, Nuremberg, 1934

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition _Nationalsocialists’ ‘favoured style’

_Olympics as the striving for the perfect body and expression of the classical ideal in modern times

Leni Riefenstahl, Poster for Film Olympia, 1938 Lecture 1: Classical Tradition Summary:

_Western Classical tradition derived from ancient Greek attempt to interpret the world through archetypes

_It is based on Greek and Roman authorities

_Classical values are claimed to be universal and timeless

_Classical values are passed on through the generations as tradition

_Classical styles are recognised excellence [definition: “of recognized authority or excellence”]

_Systems, orders, conventional styles are reassuring, create a feeling of security

_ The Classical canon refers to a set of rules [sacred in ancient times]

_Reason vs emotion restraint vs impulse moderation vs excess _clarity vs deception….. [binary system]

_Classical visual language employed to promote power structures i.e. Napoleon as emperor; National Socialists’ monumental architecture in WW II Germany

_Postmodern parody, citing history as a response / backlash to a modernist, a-historical agenda

Lecture 1: Classical Tradition