Okay, 16 days in Europe, a lot of places and things seen, a lot of places and things without enough time to see. You come back flooded with impressions. So, do they just drift away, or do they become part of you, either adding to you, or changing the way you view the world? Or are you just the ugly American who can only see America no matter where you are?
Well, this blog isn’t going to go that deep. but I do have some subtle synthesis points that I wanted to discuss, and I’ll start here:
Pompeii. Or, more accurately for my point, Pagan Roman antiquity. The Romans had statuary everywhere. Guilded. Painted. Statuary.
What followed that was:
Constantinople. Byzantium. Greek Orthodox.
The Orthodox Christians didn’t want to have statuary, because it reminded them of the pagans, so they went into the colorful icons in their churches, teaching and telling the stories of the faith to the educated as well as the illiterate masses.
But they were followed by:
Istanbul. Muslim, Mosques. Patterned mosaics.
The muslims took issue with the idolatry of the Orthodox, with images of men and people in places of worship, and so went to their colorful patterned mosaics.
Which led to:
Italy. Roman Catholicism. Renaissance.
Statuary. Mosaics. Paintings.
Everything that the others rejected, they embraced.
And so the circle is complete.
Am I trying to say one is better than the other, because of where they fall historically? I know my C.S. Lewis better than that. I won’t make the mistake of chronological snobbery. Each age is aware of the fallacies of other ages, and blind to its own (the reason for a study of history, and a true reading of original sources, with as little interpretation as possible).
Yet it is interesting how they embraced or rejected the same things, in pursuit of the same thing, and all successfully created great art and culture.
I am sure there is more that could be drawn from this, but that is as far as I have gotten, in words anyway. The intuition and subconscious is still pursuing.
So, comments anyone. I really would appreciate thoughts and comments.
At The Rainbow 