<A>
Campagna aqueducts: *
Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct, Roman Campagna, Italy; its massive arches make it one of Rome's most visually impressive aqueducts.
See illustration
<B>
the Rhine (castles of): *
Castle Stahleck, towers over the city of Bacharach on the upper middle Valley of the Rhine; the 600-year old city wall with its original guard towers makes Bacharach is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany.
See Illustration
<C>
Hersfeld: *
The abbey has a long history. In 786 Lullus was buried in the church; after 780 it became a place of pilgrimage as it held the relics of Saint Wigbert; the buildings were extended 831-50. A valuable library was collected; it became well known as a seat of piety and learning. Late 10th century, the abbey suffered a general decline, monastic discipline became relaxed; later reformed by Saint Gotthard (afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim). The abbey sided with emperor Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy; late 11th century fully restored to papal favour, and it continued to prosper for a long subsequent period. Hersfeld town, just outside the abbey, grew & flourished; in 1371 asserted independence & came under the protection of the Landgraves of Hesse. With time the monastery again deteriorated, in 1513 it reached a low point. The library was in a state of ruin & decay. The abbot of Fulda was authorized by Emperor Maximilian to incorporate the house into Fulda abbey. This union lasted until 1517. A new abbot arose (Krato) with Lutheran sympathies. He swore allegiance to the Lutheran Landgrave of Hesse, in 1525. The abbey was closed to Roman Catholic worship.
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<D>
Paulinzella: *
The ruins are important both for Romanesque architecture & the Romantic movement. As a Romanesque church, the 12th-century monastery ruins were considered critical in the 20th century (it is the sole remaining example of the Hirsauer Reform movement in church construction). Around 1800, the ruins acquired special significance linked to the awakening German national feeling. Goethe and Schiller were deeply impressed by the picturesque remnants of the dilapidated monastery complex. Schiller wrote a poem dedicated to the ruins in 1810.
See illustrations
<E>
Addison: *
“IF we consider the works of nature and art, as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we shall find the last very defective in comparison of the former; for though they may sometimes appear as beautiful or strange, they can have nothing in them of that vastness and immensity, which afford so great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder.- The one may be as polite and delicate as the other, but can never show herself so august and magnificent in the design. There is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless strokes of nature than in the nice touches and embellishments of art. The beauties of the most stately garden or palace lie in a narrow compass, the imagination immediately runs them over, and requires something else to gratify her; but in the wide fields of nature the sight wanders up and down without confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of images without any certain stint or number. For this reason we always find the poet in love with a country life, where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes that are most apt to delight the imagination…."
Extract from The Spectator, 25 June 1712
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<F>
Pope: *
In his Pastorals (1709), Pope evolves a theory of the relationship between nature and art which helps to explain his subsequent abandonment of that genre. He begins, in "Spring," with what seems the most convenient assumption for writing pastoral poetry: art simply reflects natural beauty. The three following eclogues gradually reverse this thesis. In "Summer" the poet adopts personification as a dominant trope. Now man is more than merely a piece of the all-important setting; landscape is significant as a projection of the speaker. In the third poem, "Autumn," metaphor replaces personification as the major techinique. Here the human use of nature is even more clearly dominant. By the final "Winter," nature is absolutely subservient to the poet, whose command brings it into being. Landscape of and for itself has been replaced by an interest in the human which makes scenery only incidental. Art does not exist to reflect nature; nature is only a poetical device to depict man. The next logical step is to omit nature as a device, replacing the study of man through nature with the study of man through man. Pope has not simply written fine examples of the pastoral, but shaped his Pastorals to explain his future, non-pastoral, career.
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First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides:
In some fair body thus th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those Rules of old discover'd, not devis'd,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodis'd;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd
By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.
Nature and Art, from An Essay on Criticism: Part 1
<G>
sensibility: *
The term & concept became common currency in 18th century English philosophical & scientific writings. Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) is one of the initial texts using “sensibility”: "I conceive that Ideas in the Understanding, are coeval with Sensation….” Medical writers referred to the English Malady (hysteria in women, hypochondria in men), with symptoms resembling clinical depression, felt to be the result of over-taxed nerves. However it was also claimed that individuals who had ultra-sensitive nerves would have keener senses, more aware of beauty & moral truth. Sensibility was thus an emotional fragility, but also a virtue. In literature the new genre, the novel, adopted “sensibility “. Said works featured individuals prone to sensibility, weeping, fainting, feeling weak, having fits in reaction to an emotionally moving experience. The highly sensible reacted to scenes others saw as insignificant; this reaction a reflection of their ability to perceive things intellectually or emotionally stirring in the world around them. However, England soon saw a backlash. Johnson in The Idler (1758-60) reacted against this idea, labelling such behaviour as histrionic narcissism.
<H>
Classical torso: *
The Belvedere Torso (Spengler refers to it on page 255 as the "Vatican toros of Hercules") is a fragmentary marble statue of a nude male, signed prominently on the front of the base by "Apollonios, son of Nestor, Athenian", (unmentioned in ancient literature). Probably a copy from the 1st century BC or AD, a copy of an older statue possibly dated to the early 2nd century BC. The figure is portrayed seated on an animal hide; precise identification is not possible, candidates include Heracles seated on the skin of the Nemean lion, but also Polyphemus, Marsyas or Ajax contemplating his suicide. The torso was known to be in Rome from the 1430s. Its contorted pose & musculature were highly influential on Renaissance, Mannerist, & Baroque artists, including Raphael & Michelangelo (the latter was especially fond of it, to the extent it became known as the "The School of Michelangelo").
