high symbol:

Spengler’s reference to the prime symbol, or "Ursymbol", which is central to each Culture’s conception of space.  All other symbols are based on this.

 

Faustian last phase:

Spengler refers to the final winter stage of the Faustian Culture/Civilization, which he projected to extend up to 2118 AD

 

posthumous:

arising, occurring, or continuing after one's death

 

Constantinian style (eyes big, staring, directed): * see EndNote<A>

Constantine (272-337 AD), emperor 306-337 AD; during & after the 3rd century Roman art seemed unable to produce sculpture in the classical tradition; even the most important imperial monuments now show stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace.  The hallmark of the style consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness & angularity.  Treatment of the eye is notable.  As early as the 2nd century (see the colossal statue of Antinous,. 130 AD) artists worked to produce a more natural rendering of the eyes in marble works.  Before this pupil and iris had only been painted on but now sculpted as had been the case in bronze and terracotta works.

 

Pneuma (higher):

Latin, spirit or breath; in the Gnostic religion the pneumatic or "spiritual" were the highest order of humans, fully initiated, immaterial souls escaping the doom of the material world via gnosis.  The 2 lower orders were the psychics and hylics ("matter").

 

two soul-substances:

Gnostic concept- the man who identifies himself with the objective existing world builds a personality fully dependent upon the ever-changing structures of temporal existence.  Lacking permanence or autonomy, this leads to anxieties while ignoring the mysterious & collectively meaningful patterns of existence.  The end result of this is hopelessness, atheism, despair.  This is not the natural end of man; the temporally constructed self is not the true self.  The true self is the supreme consciousness existing & persisting beyond all space and time.  Gnostics identified the “worldly” consciousness with soul (psukhê), while the pure or true Self they identified with spirit (pneuma), mind relieved of its temporal contacts & context.  This distinction was important in Gnostic thought & was adopted by St. Paul, notably in his doctrine of the spiritual resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:44).

 

Classical sculptor (blind eyes): * see endnote<B>

reference to the common blank stare often seen in monumental Greek sculpture.  However it is also the case that eyes were often inlaid using bone, crystal, or glass; such decorative additions are now mostly lost.

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Early Christian-Late-Roman sarcophagi (eyes turned to the beholder): * see EndNote<C>

box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, usually in stone, displayed above ground (Greek word "sarcophagus" means "flesh-eating").  The time taken to make them encouraged the use of standard subjects, with personalized inscriptions; the intricate reliefs employed subjects based on Greek & Roman mythology, mystery religions & allegorical representations, sometimes scenes from everyday life.  Early Christian art quickly adopted the sarcophagus, with scenes such as the Life of Christ in 2 rows within an architectural framework.

 

early Florentine & early Rhenish gold-ground pictures (share Magian tendencies):* see EndNote <D>

Masaccio (1401-28), a Florentine artist, considered first great painter of the Quattrocento.  In the Brancacci chapel, he painted a series of innovative frescoes that used light, coming strongly & consistently from a single direction, to model figures with shadow & give them robust 3-dimensionality.  He practiced Brunelleschi's theories on depth beyond a flat painted surface, employing the lines of painted architecture to create a convincing illusion of space.  Although he was clearly intrigued by the depth problem, he continued to use the flat gold leaf surface characteristic of Byzantine art.

 

Leonardo (space in paintings):* see EndNote<E>

Leonardo applied 1-point perspective as well as shallow focus to some of his works.  A drawing has 1-point perspective when it contains only 1 vanishing point on the horizon line. This type of perspective is typically used for images of roads, hallways or buildings viewed as a full frontal.  Any objects that are made up of lines either directly parallel with the viewer's line of sight or directly perpendicular (the horizontals) can be represented with one-point perspective. These parallel lines converge at the vanishing point.