Katharsis of the Attic drama and the Nirvana-idea:

this is an comparison between 2 concepts, both emerging in the autumn of their respective Civilizations (e.g. Apollonian & Indian); both ideas are intellectual, of the mind, rarefied; Aristotle (in the Poetics) states that Attic drama imitates noble & fulfilled actions which produces in the audience emotions of compassion & fear; in turn these emotions purify the passions; those who watch are emotional cleansed.  In the Buddhist tradition Nirvana means the "blowing out" or "quenching"; the ultimate spiritual goal in Buddhism & brings the extinction of the "three fires (greed, aversion & ignorance), which brings salvation in the form of release from the cycle of rebirths. 

 

Chrysippus (& the Stoa):

(279-206 BC) third head of the Stoic school (the Stoa), disciple of Cleanthes, whom he succeed on the latter’s death (230 BC).  Noted for intellectual audacity, self-confidence & reliance on his own ability, he wrote over 705 works (few survived) although many considered his work verbose, obscure & careless in style.  He resisted attacks from the Academy (Plato’s school founded 387 BC in Athens) & crystallized the doctrines of Zeno & Cleanthes, establishing the definitive system of Stoicism, in particular the physical doctrines, theory of knowledge & formal logic.

 

irreligion:

having a lack of religion or indifference to religion

 

Manet (irreligion): see EndNote <A>

(1832 83) French progressive painter, leader of the Impressionists, famous for his genre painting & portraits; he painted everyday scenes, beggars, street singers, construction workers & fashionable ladies drinking in cafes (he rarely painted academic work- of historical, religious or mythological content).  His content reflected his friendship with Baudelaire & the latter’s literary aesthetics: the need to substitute the reality of the present for the conventions of fiction.  His work scandalized the French art establishment. 

 

Velasquez (religion): see EndNote <A>

(1599-1660) Spanish, leading court painter of King Philip IV, commissioned to produce ornament & propaganda for the dynasty; painted portraits of the Spanish royal family & scenes of historical & cultural significance; initially used a precise tenebrist style with dramatic illumination, pronounced chiaroscuro & violent contrasts of light & dark (darkness being the dominating feature of the image).  It adds drama with a spotlight effect (common in Baroque & reminiscent of Caravaggio).  He later developed a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork.

 

Wagner (irreligion):* see EndNote <B>

(1813-83), German composer & theatre director known for his operas writing both the libretto & music for each; apart from these he composed relatively few pieces of music.  He established himself with the romantic operas The Flying Dutchman (1843), Tannhäuser (1845) & Lohengrin (1850).  After 1849 he revolutionised opera with his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art, synthesizing the poetic, visual, musical & dramatic arts, music being subsidiary to drama.  He gave the orchestra equality with the singers: its role included the use of leitmotifs or musical phrases announcing specific characters, locales & plot elements; their complex interweaving & evolution illuminates the progression of the drama.  He worked 26 years on the Ring (1848-74) & considered it the realization of his Gesamtkunstwerk idea.  In between he wrote the tragic love story Tristan & Isolde (1865) and his only mature comedy The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (1868).  Tristan was the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality & lay the groundwork for 20th century music.

 

Haydn (religion):* see EndNote <B>

(1732 -1809) Austrian composer, father of the modern symphony & string quartet, developed chamber music & sonata form.  His career began at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna as a choirboy, where he worked for 9 years.  St. Stephen's was a leading musical centre of Europe & Haydn learned a great deal.  For much of his career (1761-90) he served as Kapellmeister for the wealthy Esterházy family.  Here he composed The Seven Last Words of Christ, an orchestral work commissioned in 1786 for the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva, Cádiz.  It was most successful & within a year was being performed in Paris, Rome, Berlin & Vienna.  Haydn was now recognized across Europe & in 1790 began touring.  In 1795 he returned to Vienna a rich man in no need of a patron, with time to write for posterity; he composed The Creation (1798) & later The Seasons (1801), music which addresses the meaning of life & purpose of humankind, an attempt to render the sublime in music.  A devout Catholic he turned to his rosary when he had trouble composing.  Each manuscript of his composition began with "in nomine Domini" ("in the name of the Lord") and ended with "Laus Deo" ("praise be to God").

 

Lysippus (irreligion):* see EndNote <C>

(370- 300 BC) sculptor of the Classical era, a transition artist moving towards the Hellenistic style; a worker in bronze in his youth, self-taught becoming head of the school of Argos and Sicyon; hugely popular in his life & later in the Hellenistic period, he had a large workshop & many disciples.  Contemporaries noted his grace & elegance & the coherent balance of his figures; he broke the canon of Polykleitos with leaner figures & proportionately smaller heads, making them taller & slimmer.  His figures also possess contained movement; the head, torso & limbs all face different direction.  He was famous for his attention to the details of eyelids & toenails.  He produced over 1,500 bronze sculptures (although few survive).  His works include: the Horses of Saint Mark, Eros Stringing the Bow, the Oil Pourer, Apoxyomenos, several “victor” statues-Agias of Pharsalus, Coridas of Pythia (both for the athletic games for boys) & Troilus (Olympic games, 372 BC); at Tarentum (the Greek colony in Italy) 2 colossal bronzes, Zeus & a seated Heracles; at Rhodes the chariot of the sun (Apollo on a 4-horse chariot); at Sicyon a bronze Zeus & a colossal Heracles (exhausted & melancholic).  He was the personal sculptor to Alexander the Great, credited with producing the iconic representation of godlike Alexander with tousled hair & lips parted, looking up.

 

Phidias (religion):* see EndNote <C>

(480-430) Greek sculptor, painter & architect, famous for his chryselephantine sculpture of Zeus at Olympia considered by Hellenistic critics 1 of the 7 Wonders of the World.  He executed carvings in gold, ivory & wood-carving & particularly excelled in bronze casting.  He designed the 2 gigantic statues of Athena for the Acropolis: the chryselephantine Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon & outside a colossal bronze, the Athena Promachos.  He also produced Athenas for Pellene, Plataea & Lemnia & a chryselephantine Aphrodite for Elis.  At Delphi he created a group of gods (Apollo & Athena) & heroes (to include Miltiades).  Not all his work was temple based.  His first known work is a dedication to the Greek victory at Marathon; his first commission was a sculptural group of national heroes (the central figure being Miltiades).  None of his works survived.

 

Theocritus (irreligion): * see EndNote <D>

(300-260 BC) Sicilian poet & creator of Greek pastoral poetry; probably lived in Alexandria & Syracuse where he wrote about everyday life.  His “idylls” or little poems consisted of bucolics (pastoral poetry), mimes (with rural or urban settings), brief poems in lyric metres & epigrams.  The bucolics, the most characteristic & influential of his work, introduce the pastoral setting in which shepherds wooed nymphs & shepherdesses & held singing contests with their rivals.  

 

Pindar (religion): * see EndNote <D>

(518-438 BC) Greek lyric poet from Thebes, whose poetry illustrates the beliefs and values of Archaic Greece at the dawn of the classical period; first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry & the poet's role; like other poets of the Archaic Age, he has a profound sense of the vicissitudes of life, but he also articulates a passionate faith in what men can achieve by the grace of the gods.

 

Magian-souled Pantheon:

see chapter II page 72 and Chapter VI page 211

 

Alexandria (irreligious megalopolis):

founded by Alexander the Great 331 BC, Egypt's main Greek city, a link between Greece & the rich Nile valley; after 323 BC, Ptolemy I Soter (305-285 BC), a diadochus, controlled Egypt & in 305 moved his capital here.  The city took over trade from ruined Tyre, becoming a new commercial centre between Europe, Arabia & India; in less than a generation it out grew Carthage & by 205 BC was the largest city in the world second only to Rome, with a population of 300,000; famous for its library & Mouseion (built by Ptolemy II, 283-46 BC).  Until 400 AD it was the main centre of learning, though suffering constant religious turmoil.  In 415 AD fighting between the pagans & Christians led to the murder of the Neo-Platonic philosopher Hypatia & the burning of the great library.  Thereafter the city went into decline.

​

Athens (old Culture-towns):

The period from the end of the Persian Wars (449 BC) to the Macedonian conquest (338 BC) marked the zenith of Athens as a centre of literature, philosophy, arts, architecture & theatre.  Defeated by Philip II in 338 BC Athens failed to regain her independence twice, in the Lamian War (323–322 BC) & then the Chremonidean War (267–261 BC).  Despite military defeats Hellenistic Athens was the home of New Comedy & several schools of philosophy (notably Stoicism & Epicureanism).  In 88–85 BC the Roman Sulla levelled Athens though he left intact many civic buildings & monuments.  Rome admired the schools of Athens & gave it free city status; it remained a centre of learning & philosophy.  Many emperors patronized the city.  Hadrian (76-138 AD) improved its infrastructure & built numerous civic buildings, & temples (completed the Temple of Olympian Zeus).  In 267 AD the Herules sacked Athens & shattered the city's fabric.  Athens continued as a centre of learning (especially of Neo-Platonism & paganism) until 529 AD when Emperor Justinian I closed its schools.

 

Paris (irreligious megalopolis): * see EndNote<E>

Paris enjoyed a long history from the Middle age onward, often punctuated by periods of instability, war and plague.  The 17th century Enlightenment put Paris on the map for learning & philosophy & in the 19th Paris became one of Europe’s premier cities.  Her economic, political & cultural authority rivalled that of London; by 1901 the city was the hub of national rail network, possessed a large industrial base, extensive suburbs & a million plus population.

 

Bruges (old Culture-towns): * see EndNote<F>

Located at the crossroads of Hanseatic & southern trade routes & with access to the sea, between 1134 & 1500  Bruges enjoyed economic & cultural affluence.  Initially built on the wool & cloth industry, commerce expanded to include Norman grain & Gascon wines; in 1277 Genoese merchants arrived followed by Venetians in 1314.  Bruges became a key link in the Mediterranean & spice trade from the Levant.  Her entrepreneurs introduced advanced commercial & financial techniques & in 1309 the Bourse opened (the world’s first stock exchange).  Castilian wool merchants & later Basques merchants further expanded the city's trading scope.  In the 15th century Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, set up court attracting prominent personalities, artists & bankers.  The weavers & spinners of Bruges were considered the best in the world.  The new oil-painting techniques of the Flemish school gained world renown & would influence the Renaissance.  William Caxton printed the first book in English in Bruges.  By 1400 the population hit 200,000.  The wealth of Bruges was translated into the construction & adornment of many fine city churches & the collections of religious art.  Then in 1500, the critical channel to the sea began silting up.  Antwerp became a serious competitor.  Despite a healthy lace industry Bruges declined in the 17th century.  Antwerp became increasingly dominant leaving Bruges impoverished; its population dwindled, from 200,000 to 50,000 by 1900.

 

Berlin (irreligious megalopolis):

In 1443 Frederick II (the Margrave of Brandenburg) located a new royal palace in the city.  Progress was slow however & the Thirty Years' War devastated Berlin: 1/3rd of its houses were damaged or destroyed, half the population fled.  In 1701 the Kingdom of Prussia was born & Berlin became its capital & for the first time the city grew.  In 1709 Berlin incorporated the 4 surrounding municipalities.  Under Frederick the Great (1740-86) it became a centre for the Enlightenment.  However it was also occupied, first in the Seven Years' War by the Russian army, then under Napoleon.  In the 19th century the city was the main railway hub & economic centre of Germany & benefitted from the Industrial Revolution, her population expanded.  After 1870 Bismarck made Berlin the centre of European power politics.  As the imperial capital the city saw the rapid expansion of government administration & the military establishment, bringing together the landed junker nobility, rich bankers & industrialists, talented scientists & scholars. In 1884 the Reichstag (parliament) was built.  To deal with primitive sanitation the Imperial government brought in scientists, engineers & urban planners to forge a model city; by 1906 the city had become a modern marvel of administration & organization.  It was an industrial city with 800,000 inhabitants.  While the city centre was full of tenement blocks, east of Berlin became industrial areas while the SW emerged as wealthy residential areas.  In 1896 a subway was began & completed in 1902. 

 

Nurnberg (old Culture-towns): * see EndNote<G>

In 1050 Nuremberg was the location of a small Imperial castle.  From small beginnings the city expanded & rose dramatically mainly due to its location on key trade-routes between northern Europe & the south.  It also benefited from close connections with the Holy Roman emperor.  Economic success brought cultural affluence & the city was a centre for the German Renaissance in the 15th & 16th centuries.