visible brush-strokes:

Until the Renaissance, painting media was mainly egg tempera or fresco; with this material there was limited scope for leaving brushstrokes in the paint layer.  Sometimes marks were left in gold. During the Renaissance, the widespread adoption of oil paints led to changes in painting techniques.  In N Europe, the major development was the faithful representation of surface textures & optical properties using pigments & layers of paint rather than exploiting the physical properties of the paint itself.  Some backgrounds (especially ‘filler’ vegetation) were painted leaving more overt evidence of the brush.  In S Europe oil painting went a different direction.  Painters in & around Venice began to manipulate the properties of oil paint & its application to help model surface textures.  While painters left brush marks in their oil sketches these were not intended for public view.  A few artists (including Rembrandt & several Venetians, & those under their influence) started to use brush marks in their finished works.  This was most common in representing textiles and fabrics, occasionally also flesh (late Rembrandt).  After 1750, it became fashionable for portrait painters to show brushstrokes depicting clothing & other fabrics, with the background & occasionally hair, although this was not adopted by the neoclassical painters & was confined to portrait; visible brushstrokes were avoided in history & landscape painting (with the occasional Venetian exceptions such as Francesco Guardi).  The 1800s saw the steady spread of painterly marks across genres, and in any or all passages, not just those showing fabrics or textiles. However they remained most common where used to emphasise surface textures.  After 1850, more innovative painters were leaving brush marks in many of their paintings which they deemed complete & intended for public view.

 

atmospheric depth-effects:

2 types of perspective are used in painting: linear & atmospheric (or aerial).  Linear perspective uses lines & vanishing points to determine how much an object’s apparent size change with distance.  There are 2 aspects of this: first diminishing size-as objects recede and secondly diminishing, disappearing detail-as objects recede.  The other perspective is atmospheric; it deals with how the appearance of an object is affected by the space or atmosphere between it & the viewer.  Leonardo da Vinci noticed this latter phenomenon and dubbed it “the perspective of disappearance.”  There are 3 key apects.  First as objects recede contrast diminishes, meaning the value contrast between the object & its background falls.  Secondly lighting shifts: as objects recede into the distance, light values begin to get lighter.  Background values are generally not as dark as foreground values.  This also contributes to the previous effect in which contrast is reduced.  This effect is most noticeable over greater distances (more prominent in landscape than in still life).  When viewing into the distance the observer will note an obvious up shift (lightening) in the value range. This effect is important in landscapes that illustrate vast expanses.  Finally we see neutralization of colour & a possible shift to blue: as objects recede; colours begin to fade and may shift toward blue.  As with the previous effect, at great distances this effect is extremely noticeable.

 

chromatic of string: * see Endnote <A>

chromatic is Greek meaning “color”.  A chromatic scale uses every note as it goes up or down i.e. it goes up and down in semitones (half tones).  To play a chromatic scale on the piano every note is played: both white & black notes.  A chromatic scale can start on any note.  In the 16th & 17th century organists such as Sweelinck liked to write “Chromatic Fantasias” based on tunes which were chromatic.  In those days, because of the tuning systems used, not all the semitones were exactly the same size.  Going up a chromatic scale would have been like walking up a staircase with steps which were slightly larger or smaller in depth, making these scales very interesting and “colourful” which is why they were called “chromatic”.  Chromatic harmony uses notes which do not belong to the key the music is in (not in the key signature).  Bach used chromatic harmony but it was the 19th century composers who fully exploited it.  Wagner wrote music which was very chromatic: there were lots of sharps and flats and it kept modulating to different key areas.

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wind choruses:

In music, a “chorus effect” occurs when individual sounds with approximately the same time & very similar pitches converge & are perceived as one.  With a choir or string orchestra similar sounds coming from multiple sources can occur naturally.  A woodwind choir (aka woodwind orchestra, or woodwind ensemble) is a performing ensemble consisting exclusively of members of the woodwind family of instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons & saxophones, all of varying sizes).  As early as Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400 )we find mention of the wood wind ensemble.  Wind music flourished in the courts of Europe. Henry VIII celebrated his coronation in 1509, which included 3 days of entertainment, with performances from several wind groups.  In 1749 Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks was performed as a piece for winds after King George II ordered Handel to remove the string parts.  Harmoniemusik played an equally important role in the eighteenth century for open-air and important social occasions. Together with the string quartet, the ensemble and genre typifies the Classical era.  In 1782, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, founded his Imperial Wind Ensemble in Vienna. Harmoniemusik had an important influence on the development of the symphony orchestra. Mozart & Beethoven became more daring in the way they wrote for the wind sections in their symphonic works however by the end of the 19th century, interest in this ensemble began to fade.

 

draped figures (of Gothic, Romanesque cathedrals): * see Endnote<B>

Romanesque & Gothic sculpture is architectonic.  The architecture fosters the sculpture; it grows organically out of it rather than imposed on it.  Like a living plant, a Gothic building can enrich itself from its own roots, throwing out foliage, tendrils, and flowers without losing its central unity.

 

tetrachords:

In music theory a series of 4 notes separated by 3 smaller intervals; in traditional music theory, it always spanned the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion.  In modern use it means any 4-note segment of a scale or tone row, not necessarily related to a particular tuning system.  Apollonian (Ancient Greek) music theory distinguishes 3 genera (singular: genus) of tetrachords. These genera are characterized by the largest of the three intervals of the tetrachord:

• Diatonic

• Chromatic

• Enharmonic

 

chromatic:

a Greek tetrachord that has a characteristic interval that is greater than about half the total interval of the tetrachord, yet not as great as four-fifths of the interval (between about 249 and 398 cents). Classically, the characteristic interval is a minor third (approximately 300 cents), and the two smaller intervals are equal semitones, e.g. A–G♭–F–E.

 

enharmonic:

a Greek tetrachord that has a characteristic interval that is greater than about four-fifths the total tetrachord interval.  Classically, the characteristic interval is a ditone or a major third, and the two smaller intervals are quarter tones, e.g. A–G double flat–F half flat–E.

 

single-voiced:

aka monophony which means music with a single "part";  a "part" typically means a single vocal melody, although it also includes a single melody on an instrument of one kind or another. It is the simplest of musical textures, consisting of a melody (or "tune"), typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player (e.g., a flute player) without accompanying harmony or chords.  The principal example of monophony is plainchant, with its single unaccompanied vocal melody. When sung by multiple voices in unison (i.e. the same pitch), this music is still considered monophonic.  Just like fabric, music has texture. In fabric, texture is created by the materials used to weave the fabric.  In music, texture is the combined layers of sound & the relative function of those layers in a piece of music. Monophonic texture is the simplest & most basic texture. The word comes from Greek and literally means 'one sound.' This texture involves only one musical layer: melody.

 

Egyptian harp:

musical instrument dating back over 5000 years; bowed harps of the Old Kingdom, (2686– 2181 BC) resembled large archery bows strung with 4 - 5 strings, development of the basic African Mesolithic Musical Bow (the ancestor of both the harp & lyre).  Strings were gradually added to about 22 - the classic full-sized ancient Egyptian arched harp generally featured a taut leather soundboard, stretched over a resonator, usually of woods such as Cedar. Beneath the leather skin, the string passed directly into the resonator, attached to a horizontal wooden pole. The tension of the strings on the wooden pole beneath the skin kept the skin soundboard taut - a very simple, elegant design.

 

tone-colour:

aka timbre or tone quality, the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. It also enables listeners to distinguish different instruments in the same category (e.g. an oboe and a clarinet, both woodwind instruments).

 

melody:

aka tune, voice, or line, a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity; a combination of pitch & rhythm, the term includes successions of other musical elements such as tonal color. It may be considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody.  They often consist of 1 or more musical phrases or motifs, usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms.

 

Classical verse:

Homer, author of “The Iliad” & “The Odyssey”, considered the earliest & most important of all Greek writers, a poetic pioneer standing at a pivotal point between pre-literate and literate society, from a centuries old bardic tradition of oral verse to the new technique of alphabetic writing. The language he used is an archaic version of Ionic Greek combined with certain other dialects such as Aeolic Greek; it later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically written in dactylic hexameter verse.  Dactylic hexameter (aka "heroic hexameter" and "the meter of epic") is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin (eg, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses).  Dactylic hexameter has 6 feet.  In dactylic hexameter each foot would be a dactyl (a long & 2 short syllables), but classical meter allows for the substitution of a spondee (2 long syllables) in place of a dactyl in most positions.  Specifically, the first 4 feet can either be dactyls or spondees more or less freely.  The 5th foot is usually a dactyl.  The 6th foot can be filled by either a trochee (a long then short syllable) or a spondee.

 

quantitatively:

relating to the measuring of quantity (this being an exact or specified amount or measure); relating to a metrical system (as that of classical verse), based on the alternation of long and short, rather than accented and unaccented, syllables.

 

accentually:

In the study of poetic meters and versification it refers to a form of poetry based on the number of stresses, as distinguished from poetry depending on the number of syllables or quantities.

 

syllables: * see Endnote <C>

The metrical "feet" in the classical languages were based on the length of time taken to pronounce each syllable, which were categorized according to their weight as either "long" syllables or "short" syllables. The foot is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to whole notes and half notes. In English poetry, feet are determined by emphasis rather than length, with stressed and unstressed syllables serving the same function as long and short syllables in classical metre.

 

rhythm:

Metrical rhythm generally involves precise arrangements of stresses or syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. In English verse the pattern of stresses or accent primarily differentiate feet, so rhythm based on meter in English is founded on the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.  In Greek & Latin while the metrical units are similar, vowel length rather than stresses define the meter.

 

bodies:

Spengler is reinforcing his concept that the focus of the Apollonian Soul was the material body, the physical structure & material substance of man.  He applies this focus to Apollonian meter & poetry.