Return of Antiquity: the Renaissance

Question 1

Return of Antiquity: Renaissance

Answer 1

In this period there was a rebirth of ancient art and styles (Greek and Roman)

Artists held ancient art (paintings, sculptures, poets, etc.) to the model - highest standard and started imitating them

• Idea that ancient art was supreme
• Similar architecture in buildings (DC treasury, Kingston courthouse, political buildings in Philadelphia, museums, etc.)
• Maenads dancing in paintings (movement)
• Pagan gods turned into saints

Question 2

Modern and ancient in the late Middle Age and Renaissance

Answer 2

Ancient (included Greeks and Romans but also those who follow the model) while “modern” are those who practice different styles and have different models

Cultural debate: ancient vs. modern
-Byzantine =modern?

Question 3

Modern and ancient in the late Middle Age and Renaissance

Answer 3

• Only between 1600s and 1700s some “modern” artists and authors began claiming their superiority over the model, some considered antiquity as a past experience
• “Classicus” found in Aulus Gellius was first to readopt to mean authors who are good models worth imitating and reading, and were studied at school
• Portraits of men (collectors) with ancient artifacts are much like veristic statues - showing wisdom and power

Question 4

Greek art is the model

Answer 4

-Until 1700s, Greek and Roman antiquity had been mostly considered together
-Starting from this period, Greek and Roman pasts were seen as different
-Greek culture was considered superior (usually) – 1700s
J.J. Wickelmann supported this ….

Question 5

J.J. Wickelmann

Answer 5

• His work set an important model for the art at his time
  
  • Foundation of Neoclassical movement
  • Project was not only about art: Greek art was supposed to inspire learned men to strive for superior achievements in intellectual and spiritual life
  • Book was most important of the century “History of Greek Art”
• Greek art of a specific period was the great model for Roman art
  
  • 5th C Romans thought that Greek art was model
  • Greek art in Classical period = ideals
• Could see in 5th C Athens of a culture of democracy (taking power away from Kings and tyrants) - relatable
  
  • Proved model because in the Renaissance there were many revolutions trying to free society (relatable, they wanted to build a society with no Kings or Queens)
• Much of his work was wrong: at this time it was easier to access Italy rather than Greece, so much of his ‘Greek art’ was mistaken for Roman
• *The cover of his book is an Etruscan coin

Question 6

Greek Freedom for modern times

Answer 6

• Only Greeks were able to express Natural Beauty in art and achieve perfection
• Lived in a political regime that made it possible to reach the highest result and fostered creativity
• Strong statement in support of Greek freedom as the ideal environment for arts and science
• Freedom of the Greek citizen encouraged him to do his best and the loss of this freedom because of the Macedonians and later the Romans caused decline and corruption
• Enlightenment made extensive use of ancient Greece in its struggle against absolutism

Question 7

Succession of styles and periods - Winckelmann

Answer 7

1. Archaic style – before Phidias
2. High or sublime style – of the sculptors of Phidias and Polyclitus (5th C BC) until the 4th C – peak of art
3. Beautiful style – sculptors Praxiteles and Lysippus and the painter Apelles and early Hellenistic
4. Imitative period – Hellenistic and Roman, progressive decadence and end in the post-Constantineian period
   
   • Ancient art dies just after Constantine

Question 8

Neoclassical Art

Answer 8

-Not only a style - a component of a political and cultural renovation of society

• Art had an educational value: art makes better citizens, better citizens make a better society
• Represented the perfect balance of rationality and emotion, inspired by nature, which made it able to speak to the masses (1800s)

Question 9

Greek vs Roman- Greek revival

Answer 9

• Work of Winckelmann influential on the development of the notion of superiority of Greek art over Roman
  
  • France, England, Germany, etc. looked at Greece as “authentic” classical experience
• Travels to Greece to reconnect with the Greek art
• 1802 purchase of Elgin Marbles – collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures (mostly of Phidias) taken from Parthenon (Thomas Bruce)
• New trends in architecture with revival of Doric style, considered as more “authentically Greek”

Question 10

Thomas Bruce

Answer 10

7th Earl of Elgin: destroyer of antiquity, broke pieces of the Parthenon, etc.

- Was a man of his time, probably because of personal prestige he was 	entitled to these pieces
- Got skin disease
- Left by his wife for another man, public scandal
- Ship wrecked, needed to pay people to recover items
- Asking for 75,000 pounds to be even with his expenses
- He tried to convince people that the Greek statues were Roman so he could 	lower the price to have them

Question 11

Classical antiquity in the age of colonialism

Answer 11

• Ancient Greece and Rome as the foundation of European identity & defining factor in the making of European culture
• In age of European expansion, it was the factor that distinguished the European’s from other cultures (could justify their success)
• Greek and Latin are highly valued in education of the ruling class
• idea of western civilization being the product of antiquity – J.S. Mills

Question 12

Crisis of Europe and the crisis of the idea of classical

Answer 12

• Crisis of colonialism, criticism of imperialism and decline of Europe produced in the culture of the 20th C a strong criticism and even rejection of the Greek culture as it had been constructed and used in the previous period
• Relationship between the modern world and Greek past was totally reinvented

Question 13

Which Greeks? Classical Greece (and Rome), now

Answer 13

• Postmodern reuse of the classical art and architecture
• Free and unsystematic use of elements of the classical past
• Scholarly research has long abandoned the old vision of the classical world and is now exploring different aspects of the Greek culture, such as its relationship with other cultures, its internal variability, etc.

Question 14

Greeks and us: identity issues

Answer 14

• Use of the Greek past as foundation and justification of present trends
• Models for future, continues in the most diverse contexts
  
  • Global politics and economy, and concerns they raise
• Authority of the Classical world from this point of view is declining and so is the level of analysis
• Another trend is focus on diversity of the Greek world from us, which frees it from the role of model and makes a fascinating object of inquiry
  
  • We study Greeks because we are the new Greeks or that we are different from them (diversity)