historical/ahistorical form:

Spengler provides 3 contrasting characteristics (the others being assertion/denial of inner development and eternity/instantaneity).  These illustrate the dichotomy between his Faustian  “eternal Becoming, directional Time, and Destiny” in contrast to the Apollonian  Become, “the here and now point.” 

 

physiognomy:

the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character

 

allegro feroce:

Italian musical term for fast, fierce tempo

 

andante con moto:

Italian musical term for slowly, but with motion; whilst the music should be slow, it should not be so slow that things grind to a halt.

 

Hals: * see EndNote<A>

1582-1666, Dutch Golden Age painter, lived and worked in Haarlem; played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture, famous for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens; also large group portraits for local civic guards & the regents of local hospitals; practiced intimate realism with a radically free approach, illustrating a broad strata of society: banquets or meetings of officers, guildsmen, local councilmen mayors to clerks, itinerant players & singers, gentlemen, fishwives & tavern heroes.  His group portraits capture each character in a different manner, faces are not idealized, clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in a variety of poses & expressions.

 

Van Dyck: * see EndNote<A>

1599-1641, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands & Italy.  Age 19 became a master in the Antwerp guild, while working in the studio of Rubens (leading northern painter of the day & a major influence on Van Dyck).  Studied 6 years in Italy (where he studied Venetian school & Titian), court painter in Flanders & in 1632 travelled to London to become court painter for Charles I (who made him a knight).  He revolutionised the portrait genre. Famous for portraits of European aristocracy, most notably Charles I; he became the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years.  Gainsborough in particular admired Van Dyck.

 

Guercino: * see EndNote <B>

See page 246 above

 

Velasquez: * see EndNote <B>

See Chapter IV page 148

 

tempo:

in Music, the relative rapidity or rate of movement, usually indicated by such terms as adagio, allegro, etc., or by reference to the metronome.

 

aery:

adjective- ethereal or aerial

 

chiaroscuro:

Italian for light-dark, a technical term used by artists & art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling 3D objects and figures; the use of strong contrasts between light & dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition;

 

corporeal:

of the nature of the physical body; bodily; material; tangible

 

chromatic:

Spengler uses adjective with meaning in both painting and music.  In painting it pertains to colour; as a musical term it refers to the modification of the normal scale by the use of accidentals.

 

atelierbraun:

German for studio brown

 

Pacher:

1435-98, painter & sculptor from Tyrol; one of the earliest artists to introduce the principles of Renaissance painting into Germany.  He was a comprehensive artist with a broad range of sculpting, painting, and architecture skills producing works of complex wood and stone.  He painted structures for altarpieces on a scale unparalleled in North European art.

 

Durer:

See Chapter III page 103, and above page 245

 

Holbein:

Hans, the Younger, 1497-1543; German painter & printmaker, worked in a Northern Renaissance style, considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century; he also produced religious art, satire & Reformation propaganda & he made a significant contribution to the history of book design. His father (the Elder) was an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school.  His art is called realist, since he drew and painted with a rare precision.  His portraits were renowned in their time for their detailed accuracy; however he was never content with outward appearance, however; he embedded layers of symbolism, allusion, and paradox in his art.

 

Leonardo: * see EndNote<C>

See Chapter II page 69, and pages 237, 239, 244, 246 above

 

Schongauer: * see EndNote<C>   

1450–53, Alsatian engraver & painter, most important printmaker north of the Alps before Albrecht Dürer, & the first painter to be a significant engraver, although he had the family background & training in goldsmithing which was usual for early engravers.  His style shows no trace of Italian influence, but a very clear and organised Gothic, which draws from both German and Early Netherlandish painting.  Most of his surviving works are engravings, well known not only in Germany, but also in Italy, England and Spain.  Vasari says that Michelangelo copied one of his engravings, in the Trial of Saint Anthony.

 

Grunewald: * see EndNote<C>

See above pages 240, 246

 

"a mystic power..."

The full quote is “that controlled and at will could thrust aside the laws governing corporeal existence”; Spengler sums up the Magian metaphysical vision which informed all their philosophy, religious thought and Culture, it sums up the notions bound in the Arabian world feeling.

 

world-cavern:

This is Spengler’s Prime Symbol for the Magian Culture

 

hyperbolic:

exaggerated

 

Prologue of Goethe's Faust:

Faust Part 1 begins with a Prologue in Heaven.  The Lord and all the hosts of heaven are assembled. The 3 archangels, Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael, individually step forward and recite eloquent praises of the beauty and perfection of the universe and the omnipotence of God.

 

Lear:

tragedy by Shakespeare, 1603-06; dramatizes the 17th century’s understanding of "Nature" (the word is used over 40 times in the play); it reflect the 17th century debate about what nature was.  The play gives 2 contrasting views of human nature: that of Lear (Lear, Gloucester, Albany, Kent) reflecting the philosophy of Bacon & Hooker, and that of Edmund (Edmund, Cornwall, Goneril, Regan) reflecting views later formulated by Hobbes.   Along with these views of Nature, we find 2 views of Reason, brought out in Gloucester and Edmund's speeches on astrology.  The rationality of the Edmund party is modern but they carry rationalism to extremes & it becomes madness: a madness-in-reason. This betrayal of reason lies behind the play's later emphasis on feeling.  The 2 Natures & 2 Reasons imply 2 societies.  Edmund is the New Man, living in an age of competition, suspicion, glory, contrasting the older society linked to the Middle Ages, with belief in co-operation, decency & respect for the whole as greater than the part.  King Lear is thus an allegory. The older medieval society, with its doting king, falls into error, and is threatened by the new Machiavellianism; it is regenerated and saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in the king's rejected daughter (Cordelia).

[J. F. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature – A Study of King Lear(1949) ]

​

Macbeth:

tragedy by Shakespeare, 1603-06; the 3 Angels in Goethe’s Prologue correspond nicely to the 3 Witches in Macbeth in Act 1, though their meanings differ.  The Three Witches are darkness, chaos & conflict & communicate treason & impending doom.  They stand between the natural and the Supernatural world.  The confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to straddle these  worlds.  They are entrenched in both but it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are its agents.  They defy logic, not being subject to the rules of the real world.  Their lines in the first act: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air" set the tone for the rest of the play by establishing a sense of confusion.  The play is filled with situations where evil is depicted as good, good rendered evil.  The line "Double, double toil and trouble," communicates the witches' intent clearly: they seek only trouble for the mortals around them.  Nature itself is subject to the disastrous consequences of Macbeth's ambition.  Almost from the moment of the murder, the play depicts Scotland shaken by inversions of the natural order.  As in Julius Caesar, perturbations in the political sphere are echoed & even amplified in the material world.  Among the most often depicted of these inversions of the natural order is sleep.  Macbeth's announcement that he has "murdered sleep" is figuratively mirrored in Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking.  Androgyny is another aspect of the theme of disorder of nature.  The inversion of normative gender roles is famously associated with the witches & with Lady Macbeth as she appears in the first act.