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Explore the evolution of worldviews and their impact on art, from the dualistic beliefs of Byzantine culture to the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance. Learn how artists' perspectives shape their work and how style reflects underlying worldviews.
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Recap: What is a worldview? • A worldview is habituated way of seeing and doing. • A worldview is the “big picture” that directs our daily decisions and behavior.
Respond to the following quote: “How can playwrights be thinkers, when everyone knows that they’re feelers? They deal in emotions, not ideas-don’t they?” ~Richard Gilman, “Introduction,” The Playwright as Thinker by Eric Bentley (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987 [1945]), xix, emphasis in original.
Respond to the following quote: “Art tries, literally, to picture the things which philosophy tries to put into carefully thought-out words.” ~Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker.
Respond to the following quote: “All art is a language-a language of color, sound, movement, or words,” poet Dana Gioia observes. Gioia goes on to say, “When we immerse ourselves in a work of art, we enter into the artist’s worldview. It can be an expansive and glorious worldview, or it can be cramped, dehumanizing worldview.” ~ Poet Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; key note address at a conference titled, “Artists as Reconcilers,” International Arts Movement (February 2006). Comments condensed by Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo, 76.
Respond to the following quote: In a book review over William Faulkner’s, “The Sound and the Fury,” Jean-Paul Sartre asserted, “I like his art, but I do not believe in his metaphysics.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre ~ Jean-Paul Sartre, “On The Sound and the Fury,” in William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, ed. David Minter (New York: Norton, 1994), 265, 271.
What about style? “…aesthetic elements grow ultimately out of worldviews. This can be a difficult concept to grasp. In popular music, for example, most people readily recognize that the lyrics express the songwriter’s perspective and experience. But they tend to assume that that the musical style is neutral. That is a mistake. Artistic styles develop originally as vehicles for expressing particular worldviews. As painter Louis Finkelstein says, ‘The sense of all stylistic change is that the underlying view of the world changes.’” ~ Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo, 76-77.
Basic Movements To Know: Geometric Greeks: Ultimate Truth Found In Mathematics & Geometry. For example, Pythagoras discovered that musical harmonies depend on geometric patterns. “God always geometrizes.” Linguistics is how do we communicate what we know. Epistemology is how do we know that which is. Metaphysics is what is that which is (the nature of existence). Reality is that which exists (or is).
Geometric Greeks: Focus on the universals from the particulars. Metaphysics and epistemology: Geometry is the key to eternal truths. Pythagoras discovered that musical harmonies depend on geometric patterns. “God always geometrizes.” Style: Balance, proportion, symmetry, & clarity. 3. The arts are particular individuals that reveal universal types or ideals.
Aristotle-Aquinas Metaphysics and epistemology: Geometry is the key to eternal truths. Pythagoras discovered that musical harmonies depend geometric patterns. “God always geometrizes.” Style: Balance, proportion, symmetry, & clarity. 3. The arts are particular individuals that reveal universal types or ideals.
Byzantine Culture & Christian Neoplatonism: Greek thought with Eastern Mysticism. Distinct dualism: a. sensible realm is that of corruption, evil, decay, and death. b. Spiritual realm: withdraw from the senses and contemplate the realm of universals by means of the inner eye of reason. Freedom from physical body unto spiritual realm. Ascetic practices; the secular is divided from the sacred. 4. Emphasis is on the divinity of Jesus Christ (not humanity).
Byzantine Culture & Christian Neoplatonism: A mixture of Greek thought with Eastern mysticism. The result was a sharp dualism. The world was the realm of death, evil, corruption, and decay whereas the path to wisdom was to withdraw from the physical realm known by the senses in order to contemplate the realm of ideal or universals known by the inner eye of wisdom. The ultimate goal of life was to escape from the prison house of the physical body and ascend to the spiritual realm.
Neo-Platonism 1. Around 5th century we see impact of neo-Platonism on arts with the artists losing interest in portraying the ordinary world. 2. Byzantine icons the emphasis was on Jesus’ deity, not humanity. 3. Typically Jesus was portrayed as the all-powerful Judge and Ruler of the Universe. Mary was not portrayed as a poor peasant girl from Galilee but the Mother of God exalted on high.
Renaissance: In Giotto’s Lamentations: 1. Neo-Platonism is discarded and replaced with the notion that the physical world is no longer a prison from which to escape. Rather, the physical world is the nexxus whereby the human, the divine, the physical, the spiritual, the temporal and eternal converge. Best illustration of this for Giotto is Christ.
Renaissance: It was an incarnational theme that Renaissance artists began to elaborate upon and give realistic details in the background. The use of perspective begins to underscore the message that these events have happened in our world whereby the spiritual realm entered into physical, ordinary living.
Welcome to the Renaissance: • During the Renaissance the Platonic Academy in Florence revived neo-Platonism. In fact, some philosophers like Marsilio Ficini believed that neo-Platonism is a “perennial” wisdom given by God to Gentiles. Thus, the idea of harmonizing Christian theology with Platonism could be done. But what they did do is introduce Renaissance humanism. How?
Answer: Reflect God’s Image. • Remember, the neo-Platonic worldview believed that human flesh was corrupted, subject to death, and is evil whereas the spirit or soul is trapped in the body. To overcome this dualism, he promoted the notion that we are “created in the image of God.” As a result, we must become a “terrestrial god.” In other words, we reflect God by being a “god of the animals.” Just like God governs people, the idea is that we govern animals. Instead of withdrawing from the world, we are to be its masters.
Vitruvian Man: The Unifier between Heaven & Hell: Leonardo Vitruvian Man exemplifies what it means to be the ideal man. For Leonardo, the painter was a “god” who created images at will. This artwork captures the neo-Platonic notion that a human is a microcosm uniting the two realms of spirit and matter. The square is a symbol of the earth whereas the circle represents the eternity of heaven. Thus, the ideal human is “both of this earth and heaven… the unifier of the universe.”
Renaissance: Leonardo’s Last Supper
