Tristan:

see Chapter I page 45

 

Manet, Menzel, Leibl:

Spengler summing up modern art, their techniques & their use of older traditions.

 

Pergamum:

see Chapter II page 85

 

Bayreuth:

aka Bayreuth Festspielhaus or Bayreuth Festival Theatre, opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, built by Richard Wagner, dedicated solely to the performance of his stage works, the venue for the annual Bayreuth Festival, for which it was specifically conceived and built.   Construction began in 1872 and in 1876 it hosted the premiere of the Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle.

 

Nietzsche (criticism of Wagner):

In Nietzsche contra Wagner (published 1889), a critical essay by Nietzsche, he explains why he parted ways with Wagner.  He attacks Wagner's views, expressing disappointment and frustration in Wagner's life choices.  He evaluates Wagner's philosophy on tonality, music and art; while he admires Wagner's power to emote and express himself but disdains his religious biases.

 

Nietzsche (criticism of the Ring):

In Nietzsche contra Wagner, the author claims he & Wagner are opposites. While he admired Wagner's ability to express his own suffering & misery in short musical creations, he is critical of Wagner's larger works (such as The Ring).  His objections to Wagner's music were physical (lungs, feet, stomach, heart, intestines, throat), his body is uncomfortably.  Wagner's music tries to produce a physically jarring effect on the Biedermeier audience.  His “unending melody” was the chaotic degeneration of rhythmic feeling, & results in using music to merely produce dramatic effects.  Music expresses the decline of a culture. Wagner's music is the song of a dying swan.  The French appreciate and value pessimistic, refined culture. Wagner belongs with the French.  French art, like Wagner's, is based on world literature. Wagner and the French have a talent for sensational artistic effects, both sick artists who stupefy mass audiences with their dramatic shows. 

 

Nietzsche (criticism of Parsifal):

In his The Genealogy of Morality (1887) Nietzsche took aim at Parsifal.  The Wagnerian idea of redemption corresponds to the Christian one; Wagner’s brilliance was to recognise that redemption requires sacrifice – the very sacrifice enacted in the Christian Eucharist: This Eucharistic conception of art became ever more prominent in Wagner’s artistic evolution, so that Parsifal (his final opera) is described as a ‘festival play for the consecration of the stage’, a religious ceremony.  He even attempted to confine the performance of Parsifal to the sacred precinct of Bayreuth!  For Nietzsche the whole idea of redemption conceived in this way was a denial of life & an invocation to decadence.  In the third essay of The Genealogy of Morality, devoted to the demolition of asceticism, he ridicules Parsifal, wondering whether the composer had not intended the work as a kind of satyr play, a grotesque sequel to The Ring.  He argues that an aesthetic disaster ensues when such a character is made central to a large-scale music drama.  The goal of this essay is the rejection of Wagner’s moral vision & suggests that the attempt to build this vision into a sustained work of art, leads to music fundamentally sick.  The moral faults of the vision translate directly into aesthetic faults in the music, the listener immersed in the music suffers corruption of their soul - their psyche is jeopardised by this surrender to a polluted ideal.

 

Gigantomachia frieze:

This is a reference to the subject of the Pergamum alter.  The term “Gigantomachia” refers to the battle between the giants & the Olympian Gods, a primordial struggle through which the order of the world was both threatened & forged.  It is a foundation myth.  Hesiod claims the Giants (also called Gigantes ) were the offspring of Gaia (Earth), born from the blood that fell when Uranus (Sky) was castrated by his Titan son Cronus.  They were a race of great strength & aggression, though not necessarily of great size.  The Greeks were especially fascinated by this struggle.  It appears in Homer, the tragedies & in Hesiod, as well as sculpted friezes on the Parthenon, temples at Delphi, the temple at Sounion and Pergamum, among others.

 

points d'appui:

French, points of support

 

Farnese Bull: * see EndNote<A>

Roman copy of a Hellenistic sculpture, largest single sculpture yet recovered from antiquity. It represents the myth of Dirce (first wife of Lykos, King of Thebes).  She was tied to a wild bull by Amphion & Zethus, the sons of Antiope, who wanted to punish Dirce for the ill-treatment inflicted on their mother.  Pliny the Elder states that the original was the work of the Rhodian artists Apollonius of Tralles & his brother Tauriscus, and that it was commissioned late 2nd century BC, carved from just 1 block of marble.  It was imported from Rhodes as part of the remarkable collection of artwork and sculpture owned by Asinius Pollio, a Roman politician who lived during the years between the Republic and the Principate.

 

Laocoon group:

see Chapter IV page 129

 

specious:

superficially plausible, but actually wrong; misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive.

 

nascent Civilizations:

Spengler means the point at which a culture, which is growing & alive, transforms into a Civilization, the Autumn period.

 

the Helios of Chares: * see EndNote<B>

statue of the Greek sun-god Helios, erected in Rhodes, by Chares of Lindos, 280 BC.  Considered 1 of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World,  built to celebrate the victory of Rhodes over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus.  the latter’s son Demetrius I of Macedon unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC.  Contemporary witnesses describe the Colossus as 108 feet high, from feet to crown, making it the tallest statue of the ancient world.  It would collapse in an earth quake in 226 BC. Parts were preserved.  The Rhodians did not build it again

 

architecture of the Roman Imperial Age: * see EndNote<C>

The Augustan period saw a surge in building activity, innovation& extravagant use of marble, increased imperial patronage allowed for ever bigger & more impressive building projects to be undertaken, in Rome & across the Empire, where buildings became propaganda for the might and perceived cultural superiority of the Roman world.

 

architecture of the New Empire Egypt: * see EndNote<D>

aka New Kingdom, Egyptian history, 16th & 11th century BC, covering the 18th, 19th & 20th dynasties; begins 1570 BC immediately after the Second Intermediate Period & was succeeded by the 3rd Intermediate Period.  It was Egypt's most prosperous time & peak of her power.  The later part of this period (the 19th & 20th Dynasties, 1292–1069 BC), is known as the Ramesside period, after the 11 Pharaohs that took the name Ramesses from Ramesses I, founder of the 19th Dynasty.  Ramses II, a 19th Dynasty pharaoh (1279-1213 BC).  Among his many accomplishments was the construction of a massive temple called the Ramesseum, in Thebes (the current capital for the New kingdom).

 

the American skyscraper:

a continuously habitable high-rise building that has over 40 floors & is over 492 ft. in height; historically, the term first referred to buildings with 10 to 20 floors in the 1880s.  The definition shifted with advancing construction technology during the 20th century.  Skyscrapers may host offices, residential spaces, and retail spaces. For buildings above a height of 984’ the term supertall skyscrapers can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 1,969 ft. are classified as megatall skyscrapers.  Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of Chicago and New York City toward the end of the 19th century.  Burnham and Root's 148 ft. Rand McNally Building in Chicago, 1889, was the first all-steel framed skyscraper, while Louis Sullivan's 135 ft. Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, 1891, was the first steel-framed building with soaring vertical bands to emphasize the height of the building and is therefore considered to be the first early skyscraper.

 

superpersonal Rule:

a rule which transcends the personal, a rule or guide higher then personal creativity

 

Form (absolute mathematic of):

the perfection & precision of the symbol, beyond the personal creative or subjective

 

Polycletus to Lysippus to the sculptors of the groups of Gauls:

Spengler’s reference to the growth & progression of Apollonian sculptor.   During the first major phase, Culture, form and inner being occur simultaneously, the form language emerges.  Within Culture are 2 periods- Spring & Summer.  In the closing state of Summer  we find the formation of a group of arts which are urban & conscious, in the hands of great individuals or Great Masters.  These individuals perfect the form language, intellectualize it.  Polycletus (450-420 BC) was a Great Master & represents this Late Summer Period, in which he will advance the reign of Classical sculptor.  Lysippus (360-320 BC) is also part of the Culture Late Period, but further down the road, the final phase of Summer.  Here we find the exhaustion of strict creativeness, the dissolution of the grand form, the end of style.  Romanticism now takes over.  The Pergamene School (200-150 BC) appears in the next major phase-Civilization.  They are active during the first period of Autumn.  Early Autumn Civilization, takes sculptor & transforms it into that which will excite the megapolitan consciousness; Spengler calls this “theatricality”.  These men all represent sculpture before it slips into the totally bankrupt, sterile Winter period (Rome, the age of the copyists).

 

sculptors (of the groups of Gauls):

reference to the Pergamene School, a type of Greek sculpture associated with Pergamon when it was ruled by the Attalid dynasty (241-133 BC).  Like Hellenistic art in general, it was marked by a high degree of emotion & pronounced naturalism, creating a vivid sense of reality.  The names of only a few of the sculptors are known;  they include Antigonus, Epigonus, Phyromachus, Sogonus and Stratonicus.  This school reflects a unity of style which distinguish it from other Hellenistic art.  It is called Pergamene Baroque & is reflected in Hellenistic sculpture from the period 200-150 BC.  It is characterized by highly expressive gestures, dramatic action-filled poses, exaggerated musculature & deep drapery folds, all of which helps to convey the pain, anguish and other emotions of its subjects.  The most famous example of this school is the Pergamene Alter.  [traditionally the content is known as a Gigantomachy but on a second level depicts the Pergamene victories over the Celts & other invaders from the east.  Indeed, some scholars believe it equates Pergamene triumphs with those of 5th century Athens].  Other examples of this school include the famous statue of a Gaul killing himself and his wife (copies only as originals lost).  These and other similar Pergamene statues were later copied by Roman sculptors and are known as "Dying Gauls".

 

Bach, Beethoven, Wagner:

Spengler’s reference to the growth & progression of Faustian music.  During the first major phase, Culture, form and inner being occur simultaneously, the form language emerges.  We have 2 periods- Spring & Summer.  The latter period (the late period) sees the formation of a group of arts which are urban & conscious, in the hands of great individuals or Great Masters.  These individuals perfect the form language, intellectualize it.  Bach (1685-1750), a Great Master represent this Late Summer Period, in which he will advance the reign of Classical Music.  Beethoven (1770-1827) is also part of the Culture Late Period, but further down the road, the final phase of Summer.  Here we find the exhaustion of strict creativeness, the dissolution of the grand form, the end of style.  Romanticism now takes over.  Wagner (1813-83) appears in the next major phase-Civilization.  He lives during the first period, Autumn.  Early Autumn Civilization, takes music & transforms it into that which will excite the megapolitan consciousness; Spengler calls this “nerve excitement”.  These men all represent music before it slips into the totally bankrupt, creative less Winter period

 

Praxiteles and Haydn (early masters)

Praxiteles (370-330 BC) and Hayden (1732-1809) were Great Masters of the mid Summer period during the Perfection of an intellectualized form-language

 

canon:

an accepted principle or rule, a criterion or standard of judgment; a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms

 

Lysippus and Beethoven (strain to stay within norm):

Lysippus (360-320 BC) and Beethoven (1770-1827) were active in the final period of the Summer phase, a period in which we find the exhaustion of strict creativeness & the dissolution of grand form.  Both artists pushed the form to its very limit.