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Matthews

Platt
Noble

Experience Humanities

MD DALIM #1216054 11/12/12 CYAN MAG YELO BLK


ISBN 978-0-07-337665-3
MHID 0-07-337665-5
Experience Humanities
EAN

Roy T. Matthews F. DeWitt Platt Thomas F. X. Noble


www.mhhe.com
Experience Humanities

Roy T. Matthews & F. DeWitt Platt


MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Thomas F. X. Noble
THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

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EXPERIENCE HUMANITIES
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Matthews, Roy T.
[Western humanities]
Experience humanities / Roy T. Matthews & F. DeWitt Platt, Michigan State University; Thomas F. X. Noble, The University
of Notre Dame. Proudly sourced and uploaded by [StormRG]
pages cm Kickass Torrents | TPB | ET | h33t

Revised edition of: The Western humanities. 7th edition. New York : McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-337665-3 (complete edition : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-07-337665-5 (complete edition : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-749470-4 (volume I : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-07-749470-9 (volume I : alk. paper)
[etc.]
1. Civilization, WesternHistory. I. Platt, F. DeWitt, author. II. Noble, Thomas F. X., author. III. Title.
CB245.M375 2014
909'.09821dc23
2012043014

The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an
endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented
at these sites.

www.mhhe.com

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Contents
Top
WHY STUDY CULTURAL HISTORY?xviii
A HUMANITIES PRIMER: HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE ARTSxxiv
Top

1 Prehistory and the Rise Summary 30


of Civilization in the Near East Legacies from Prehistory and Near Eastern
and Egypt 2 and Egyptian Civilization 31
Key Cultural Terms 31
PREHISTORY AND EARLY CULTURES 4
Paleolithic Period 4
The Neolithic Revolution 5
2 The Aegean
The Age of Metals 6 The Minoans, the Mycenaeans,
and the Greeks of the Archaic
THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION:
MESOPOTAMIA 7 Age 32
The Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian PRELUDE: MINOAN CULTURE,
Kingdoms 8 30001100 BCE 34
The Cradle of Civilization 9 BEGINNINGS: MYCENAEAN CULTURE,
Writing 9 Religion 9 Literature 10 19001100 BCE 37
Law 11 Science, Mathematics, and Technology in Minoan Crete and Mycenae 38
Medicine 12
THE ARCHAIC AGE, 800479 BCE 39
SLICE OF LIFE A Sumerian Father Lectures His Son,
Anonymous, Found on Clay Tablets 13 Political, Economic, and Social Structures 39
The Greek Polis: Sparta and Athens 40
Art and Architecture 13
Technology in Archaic Greece 41
THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION: EGYPT 15
THE EMERGENCE OF GREEK GENIUS:
Continuity and Change over Three Thousand THE MASTERY OF FORM 42
Years 16
Religion 42
A Quest for Eternal Cultural Values 18
Literature 44
Religion 18 Writing and Literature 19
Science and Medicine 19 Architecture 20 Epic Poetry 44 Lyric Poetry 45
Sculpture, Painting, and Minor Arts 21 Philosophy and Science 45
INTERPRETING ART Bust of Egyptian Queen SLICE OF LIFE The Worlds of Women and Men in
Nefertiti 22 Ancient Greece: Sappho, He Seems to Be a God,
and Alcaeus, Longing for Home 46
HEIRS TO THE MESOPOTAMIAN
AND EGYPTIAN EMPIRES 26 Natural Philosophy 47
The Assyrians 26 INTERPRETING ART Red-Figure Ware: Achilles Killing
The Neo-Babylonians 27 the Amazon Queen Penthesilea 48

The Medes and the Persians 27 Architecture 49


Sculpture 51
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iv CONTENTS

Summary 55 THE TENOR OF LIFE 86


The Legacy of the Aegean World 55 The Experiences of Women 87
Key Cultural Terms 55 Urban Life 87
HELLENISTIC CULTURES 89
3 Classical Greece Drama and Literature 89
SLICE OF LIFE Street Scene in Hellenistic Egypt,
The Hellenic Age 56 Theocritus, from Idylls 91
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN Philosophy and Religion 91
AFFAIRS: WAR, PEACE, AND THE TRIUMPH
Cynicism 92 Skepticism 92
OF MACEDONIA 59
Epicureanism 93 Stoicism 93
Political Phases of the Hellenic Age 59
Science and Technology 94
THE ARTS OF HELLENIC GREECE:
THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION 61 Architecture 95

Theater 61 Sculpture 96
Tragedy 63 Comedy 65 INTERPRETING ART Hagesandros, Polydoros,
and Athanadoros, The Laocon Group 99
Music 66
Summary 101
HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, The Legacy of the Hellenistic World 101
AND MEDICINE 66
Key Cultural Terms 101
History 66
Philosophy, Science, and Medicine 67
The Pre-Socratics 67 The Sophists 68 5 Classical Rome
The Socratic Revolution 68 Plato 69
From Republic to Empire 102
Aristotle 70 Medicine 70
SLICE OF LIFE Secrets of a Successful Marriage in THE RISE OF ROME 104
Ancient Greece, Xenophon, from Oeconomicus 71 Etruscans and Greeks 104
THE VISUAL ARTS 72 The Roman Republic 104
Architecture 72 The Rise of the Roman Empire 106
Sculpture 75 The Decline of the Roman Republic 107
INTERPRETING ART Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos 77 The Augustan Principate 107
Painting 80 THE ROMAN ETHOS 110
Summary 80 Roman Values 110
The Legacy of Classical Greece 81 The Roman Family 110
Key Cultural Terms 81
Roman Religion 111
INTERPRETING ART Double Portrait of Marcus Gratidius
4 The Hellenistic World 82 Libanus and Gratidia 112

ROMAN LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY 112


 HE CHANGING FRAMEWORK
T
OF POLITICS 84 The Literature of the Republic 113
SLICE OF LIFE A College Students Letter Home 114
The Major Hellenistic Monarchies 84
The Nature of Government 86 The Golden Age 114
The Silver Age 115
Philosophy 115
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CONTENTS v

MUSIC 116
THE VISUAL ARTS 116
7 Late Antiquity
Architecture 116 The Transformation of the
Roman Empire and the Triumph
Sculpture 120
of Christianity 150
Painting and Mosaics 123
LAW AND WAR: ROMES ARTS 124 THE TRANSFORMATION
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 152
Summary 127
The Crisis of the Third Century 152
The Legacy of Classical Rome 127
Key Cultural Terms 127 The Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine 152
The Later Roman Empire in West and East 154

6 Judaism and the Rise SLICE OF LIFE A Roman Delegate at a Barbarian


Banquet, Priscus 157
of Christianity 128
THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY 157
JUDAISM 130 The Growth of the Catholic Church 157
The People and Their Religion 130 Christian Monasticism 158
Egypt, Exodus, and Moses 130 The Kingdom Christianity and the Roman State 158
of Israel 132 The Babylonian Captivity
and the Postexilic Period 133 The Hellenistic Varieties of Christian Experience 158
and Roman Periods 134 THE SECULAR CULTURE OF LATE
SLICE OF LIFE A Jewish Eyewitness to the Destruction ANTIQUITY 159
of the Second Temple, Flavius Josephus, from A Jewish Philosophy 159
Soldier in the Roman Army 135
Science and Medicine 159
Societal and Family Relationships 136 Law 160
The Bible 136 FROM THE SECULAR TO THE SPIRITUAL:
Early Jewish Architecture and Art 136 CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 160
CHRISTIANITY 141 The Fathers of the Church 160
The Life of Jesus Christ and the New Church History 162
Testament 141 Poetry 163
Christians and Jews 143 MUSIC 163
Christianity and Greco-Roman Religions THE VISUAL ARTS 163
and Philosophies 144
Architecture 163
Christians in the Roman Empire 144
Sculpture 165
Early Christian Literature 145
Painting and Mosaics 167
Early Christian Art 145
INTERPRETING ART The Sarcophagus
SLICE OF LIFE A Christian Mother Faces Death from of Junius Bassus 168
Roman Authorities, Vibia Perpetua, A Martyr in the
Early Christian Church 146 Summary 172
The Legacy of Late Antiquity 173
INTERPRETING ART Christ as the Good Shepherd 147
Key Cultural Terms 173
Summary 148
The Legacy of Judaism and Early Christianity 149
Key Cultural Terms 149

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vi CONTENTS

8 The Heirs to 9 The Rise of Islam


the Roman Empire 6221520 203
Byzantium and the West in the MUHAMMAD,
Early Middle Ages 174 THE PROPHET 204
IMPERIAL ISLAM 206
THE BYZANTINE WORLD 176
The Post-Muhammad Years 206
The Birth of Byzantium: War
and Government 176 The Umayyad Dynasty 206
The Birth of Byzantium: Culture The Abbasid Dynasty 207
and Religion 177 The Fragmentation of the Caliphate 207
THE EARLY MEDIEVAL WEST 179 The Rise of the Ottomans 208
THE WORLD OF CHARLEMAGNE 181 Islam as Religion 208
The Reign of Charlemagne 182 MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC CULTURE 210
The Carolingian Renaissance 182 Medicine 210
The Post-Carolingian World 183 Mathematics and Astronomy 212
THE LITERARY ARTS IN THE EARLY Philosophy and History 212
MIDDLE AGES 184
Philosophy 213 History 213
Byzantine Writers 184
Technology 213
The Latin West 185
Papermaking 213 Hydraulics 214
SLICE OF LIFE Marriage Diplomacy Nets a Mechanical Engineering 214
Diplomatic Insult, Liudprand of Cremona 188
Literature 214
The Vernacular Achievement 189
Poetry 214 Prose 215
THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE EARLY
MIDDLE AGES 189 Art and Architecture 215
Architecture 215
Byzantine Art 190
SLICE OF LIFE Fears of Assimilation in a
Byzantine Architecture 192
Multicultural Society, Paul Alvar 218
Western Art 193
Painting 220
INTERPRETING ART Christ in Majesty,
from Lorsch Gospels 197 Music 221
INTERPRETING ART The Night Journey
Western Architecture 198
of Muhammad 223
TECHNOLOGY 200
Summary 223
Military Technology: Byzantine 200
The Legacy of Medieval Islam 223
Military Technology: Western European 200 Key Cultural Terms 224
Agriculture 200
MUSIC 200
Summary 201
10 The High Middle Ages
The Legacy of Byzantium and the West
10001300 226
in the Early Middle Ages 201 POLITICS AND SOCIETY 228
Key Cultural Terms 201
Lords and Vassals: Those Who Fight 228

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CONTENTS vii

Peasants: Those Who Work 229


The Rise of Towns (and the Rest of Those
11 The Late Middle Ages
Who Work) 229 Crisis and Recovery
Medieval Government 230 13001500 262
The French Monarchy 231 The English
HARD TIMES COME TO EUROPE 264
Monarchy 231
Ordeal by Plague, Famine, and War 264
INTERPRETING ART Figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga
on the Facade of the South Transept of Strasbourg THE SECULAR MONARCHIES 265
Cathedral 232 THE PAPAL MONARCHY 266
The German Empire 233 The Papal TECHNOLOGY 267
Monarchy 234
The Rise of Industries 267
MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY AND THE SLICE OF LIFE A Gossip Columnist
CHURCH 235 of the Late Middle Ages, Henry Knighton,
Christian Beliefs and Practices 235 from his Chronicle 268
Religious Orders and Lay Piety 236 The Printing Press 269
The Crusades 238 GLOBAL ENCOUNTER The Dissemination
of Technologies 269
Beyond the Boundaries 238
THE AGE OF SYNTHESIS: EQUILIBRIUM THE CULTURAL FLOWERING
BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND THE OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES 269
SECULAR 239 Religion 269
Theology and Learning 239 Theology and Philosophy 271
The Development of Scholasticism 239 The Via Antiqua versus the Via Moderna 271
SLICE OF LIFE When Love Knows No Boundaries, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham 271
Heloise, from a Letter 240 Science 272
Peter Abelard 241 The Rise of the Literature 273
Universities 241 Intellectual Controversy
Northern Italian Literature: Petrarch and
and Thomas Aquinas 241
Boccaccio 273 English Literature: Geoffrey
Science and Medicine 242 Chaucer 273 French Literature: Christine
Science 242 Medicine 242 de Pizan 274

Literature 243 Art and Architecture 275


Courtly Writing 244 Dante 245 Late Gothic Architecture 275 Late Gothic
Sculpture 278 Late Gothic Painting and the
Architecture and Art 246 Rise of New Trends 280
Romanesque Churches and Related Arts 246 INTERPRETING ART Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Wedding
Gothic Churches and Related Arts 250 or Arnolfini Double Portrait 290
Music 257 Music 291
Technology 259 Summary 292
Summary 260 The Legacy of the Late Middle Ages 293
Key Cultural Terms 260 Key Cultural Terms 293
The Legacy of the High Middle Ages 261

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viii CONTENTS

12 The Early Renaissance Technology 328


Sailing 328 Warfare 329
Return to Classical Roots Science and Medicine 330
14001494 294
FROM HIGH RENAISSANCE TO EARLY
EARLY RENAISSANCE HISTORY MANNERISM 330
AND INSTITUTIONS 296 Literature 331
Italian City-States during the Early Michelangelo 332 Castiglione 332
Renaissance 296 Machiavelli 332
Florence, the Center of the Renaissance 298 Painting 334
The Resurgent Papacy, 14501500 299 Leonardo da Vinci 334 Michelangelo 336
International Developments 300 INTERPRETING ART Michelangelo, The Libyan
Sibyl 339
THE SPIRIT AND STYLE OF THE EARLY
RENAISSANCE 300 Raphael 339 The Venetian School:
Humanism, Schooling, and Scholarship 301 Giorgione and Titian 342 The School
of Parma: Parmigianino 344
SLICE OF LIFE Battle of the Sexes, Fifteenth-Century
Style, Laura Cereta, from In Defense of the Education Sculpture 344
of Women 302 SLICE OF LIFE Artists and Their Critics:
Michelangelos Strategy, Giorgio Vasari, from
Thought and Philosophy 302
Life of Michelangelo 346
Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting 303
Architecture 348
Artistic Ideals and Innovations 303
Architecture 306 Sculpture 309 Painting 311 Music 350
INTERPRETING ART Sandro Boticelli, Primavera 307 Choral Music 350 Other Developments 352
Summary 352
Music 319
The Legacy of the High Renaissance
Summary 320
and Early Mannerism 353
The Legacy of the Early Renaissance 321
Key Cultural Terms 353
Key Cultural Terms 321

13 The High Renaissance 14 Northern Humanism,


Northern Renaissance,
and Early Mannerism
Religious Reformations,
14941564 322
and Late Mannerism
THE RISE OF THE MODERN SOVEREIGN 15001603 354
STATE 324
NORTHERN HUMANISM 356
The Struggle for Italy, 14941529 324
THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 357
Charles V and the Hapsburg Empire 325
THE WEST AND ISLAM The Rise of the Northern Renaissance Thought and Science 357
Ottoman Empire 327 Jean Bodin 357 Andreas Vesalius 358

ECONOMIC EXPANSION AND SOCIAL Northern Renaissance Literature 358


DEVELOPMENTS 327 Michel de Montaigne 358 William
Demographics, Prosperity, and the Beginning Shakespeare 359
of a Global World 328 Northern Renaissance Painting 361
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER The First European Albrecht Drer 361 Matthias Grnewald 362
Explorers 328 Hieronymus Bosch 363 Pieter Bruegel
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CONTENTS ix

INTERPRETING ART Pieter Bruegel the Elder, THE WEST AND ISLAM The Austrian-Turkish
Wedding Dance 366 Wars 388

THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: CAUSES SLICE OF LIFE Eyewitness to the Great Fire of London,
OF THE RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS 366 the First Day, Samuel Pepys 390
The Protestant Order 367 Technology 391
Luthers Revolt 367 Warfare Technology 391 Household
SLICE OF LIFE Bartolom de las Casas, from Technology 391
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies 370 THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON
The Reforms of John Calvin 370 The Reform AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 391
of the English Church 371 The Florid Baroque 392
The Counter-Reformation 372 Architecture 392 Sculpture 393 Painting 394
The Revitalized Papacy 372 New Monastic The Classical Baroque 399
Orders 372 Architecture 399 Painting 400
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER The Jesuits in the
The Restrained Baroque 401
New World 373
Painting 401 Architecture 406
The Council of Trent 374
INTERPRETING ART Christopher Wren, St. Pauls
Warfare as a Response to Religious Dissent, Cathedral 407
15201603 374
Literature 407
LATE MANNERISM 375
Baroque Literature in France 408 Baroque
Spanish Painting 375 Literature in England 409
Spanish Literature 377 Music 409
Late Mannerist Painting in Italy: Tintoretto 378 Opera 410 Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi 410
Music in Late-Sixteenth-Century Italy Summary 412
and England 378
Key Cultural Terms 412
Summary 380
The Legacy of the Baroque Age 413
Key Cultural Terms 380
The Legacy of Northern Humanism, Northern
Renaissance, Religious Reformations, and Late
Mannerism 381
16 The Baroque Age II
Revolutions in Scientific and
Political Thought 16001715 415
15 The Baroque Age I THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSE BEFORE THE
Glamour and Grandiosity SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 416
16001715 383 THE MAGICAL AND THE PRACTICAL IN THE
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 417
ABSOLUTISM, MONARCHY, AND THE
BALANCE OF POWER 384 Astronomy and Physics: From Copernicus
to Newton 418
France: The Supreme Example of
Nicolaus Copernicus 418 Johannes Kepler 419
Absolutism 386
Galileo Galilei 419 Isaac Newton 419
England: From Monarchy to Republic
to Limited Monarchy 387 Medicine and Chemistry 421
Medicine 421
Warfare in the Baroque Period: Maintaining
the Balance of Power 388 INTERPRETING ART Rembrandt van Rijn,
The Thirty Years War, 16181648 388 The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp 422
The Wars of Louis XIV, 16651713 388 Chemistry 423 S
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x CONTENTS

Technology 423 CULTURAL TRENDS IN THE


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: FROM
The Impact of Science on Philosophy 424
ROCOCO TO NEOCLASSICAL 445
Francis Bacon 424 Ren Descartes 424
Blaise Pascal 425 The Rococo Style in the Arts 445
Rococo Painting 446 Rococo Interiors 448
Ironies and Contradictions of the Scientific The English Response 449
Revolution 425
The Challenge of Neoclassicism 450
THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY 426 INTERPRETING ART Jacques-Louis David, Oath
of the Horatii 451
Natural Law and Divine Right: Grotius
and Bossuet 426 Neoclassical Painting 451 The Print 452
Neoclassical Architecture 453
Absolutism and Liberalism: Hobbes
and Locke 426 GLOBAL ENCOUNTER Chinoiserie, a Fantasy
SLICE OF LIFE Innocent or Guilty? A Seventeenth- of the East 455
Century Witch Trial, Suzanne Gaudry: Trial Court Philosophy 455
Records, June 1652 428
Political Philosophy 455 David Hume 456
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER European Exploration
and Expansion 429 Literature 456
French Writers: The Development of New
RESPONSES TO THE REVOLUTIONS Forms 457 Neoclassicism in English
IN THOUGHT 432 Literature 457 The Rise of the Novel 458
The Spread of Ideas 432 SLICE OF LIFE How to Manipulate the System, Lady
Impact on the Arts 433 Mary Wortley Montagu, Letter, 25 March 1744 459
Summary 434 Music 459
The Legacy of the Revolutions in Scientific and Summary 462
Political Thought 435 Key Cultural Terms 462
Key Cultural Terms 435 The Legacy of the Age Of Reason 463

17 The Age of Reason 18 Revolution, Reaction,


17001789 437 and Cultural Response
THE ENLIGHTENMENT 438 17601830 465
The Philosophes and Their Program 438 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 466
Religion 439 Industrialization in England 466
Deism 440 Popular Religion 440 Classical Economics: The Rationale for
The Encyclopdie 440 Industrialization 466
The Physiocrats 441 SLICE OF LIFE Life Inside a Satanic Mill in
1815, Elizabeth Bentley, Report of Parliamentary
THE GREAT POWERS DURING THE AGE Committee on the Bill to Regulate the Labour of
OF REASON 441 Children in Mills and Factories, 1832 467
Society: Continuity and Change 442
POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS, 17601815 468
Absolutism, Limited Monarchy, and
The American Revolution 468
Enlightened Despotism 443
France: The Successors to the Sun King 443 The French Revolution 469
Great Britain and the Hanoverian Kings 444 From Constitutional Monarchy to Empire 469
Enlightened Despotism in Central and Eastern French Empire 470
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CONTENTS xi

GLOBAL ENCOUNTER Slavery and the French Industrialism 502 Symbols of the Bourgeois
Revolution 471 Age: The Crystal Palace and the Suez Canal 502

Technology 472 NINETEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT:


Changes in Military Weaponry 472 PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND SCIENCE 504
Composition of Armies 472 Changes to Liberalism Redefined 504
Naval Warfare 472
Socialism 505
REACTION, 18151830 473 Religion and the Challenge of Science 506
THE WEST AND ISLAM The Ottoman Empire
CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM
in Retreat, 17001830 474
TO REALISM 507
REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND IDEAS: FROM INTERPRETING ART douard Manet, A Bar at the
NEOCLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM 474 Folies-Bergre 508
Neoclassicism in Literature after 1789 476 Literature 508
Neoclassical Painting and Architecture The Height of French Romanticism 509
after 1789 476 Romanticism in the English Novel 509
Romanticism: Its Spirit and Expression 477 SLICE OF LIFE Observing Human Behavior:
The Romantic Movement in Literature 480 A Frenchman Watches the English at Play, Hippolyte
Taine, A Day at the Races, 28 May 1861 510
Romantic Painting 481
Romanticism in American Literature 510
England 481 Germany 483 Spain 485
Realism in French and English Novels 511
France 487
The Russian Realists 512 Realism among
INTERPRETING ART Eugne Delacroix, Liberty African American Writers 512
Leading the People 488
Art and Architecture 512
Science and Philosophy 489 Neoclassicism and Romanticism after 1830 513
Science 489 Philosophy 489 The Rise of Realism in Art 514
The Birth of Romantic Music 490 Photography 520
Summary 492 Music 521
The Legacy of the Age of Revolution and Summary 524
Reaction 492 Key Cultural Terms 524
Key Cultural Terms 493 The Legacy of the Bourgeois Age 525

19 The Triumph 20 The Age of Early


of the Bourgeoisie Modernism 18711914 527
18301871 494
 UROPES RISE TO WORLD
E
THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENE: LEADERSHIP 528
LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM 496
The Second Industrial Revolution,
The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 496 New Technologies, and the Making
European Affairs in the Grip of Realpolitik 498 of Modern Life 528
Limited Reform in France and Great Britain 498 Response to Industrialism: Politics
Wars and Unification in Central Europe 499 and Crisis 530
Domestic Policies in the Industrialized West 530
Civil War in the United States 500
SLICE OF LIFE Winning the Right to Vote,
Industrialism, Technology, and Warfare 500
Lady Constance Lytton, Notes from a Diary 531
Industrialism: The Shrinking Globe 501
New Technologies 501 The Spread of
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xii CONTENTS

Domestic Policies in Central, Southern, GLOBAL ENCOUNTER Civil Disobedience


and Eastern Europe 531 in British India 565
Imperialism and International Relations 532 THE WEST AND ISLAM The End of the Ottoman
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER The Opening of Japan Empire 566
to the West 532 The Founding of the Republic of Turkey,
The Scramble for Colonies 532 The Outbreak 19231938 566 Transition: 19381945 566
of World War I 533 Other Major Events in the Former Ottoman
Lands 567
THE WEST AND ISLAM 18301914 533
The Rise of Totalitarianism 567
The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire 533
Russian Communism 567 European
Orientalism 537
Fascism 567
EARLY MODERNISM 537
World War II: Origins and Outcome 568
Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion 537
THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 570
Nietzsche 537 Freud and Jung 538 Religious
Developments 538 Mass Culture, Technology, and Warfare 570
Mass Culture and the New Technologies 570
Literature 539 Warfare 571
Naturalistic Literature 539 Decadence in
Literature 540 Expressionist Literature 541 Experimentation in Literature 571
The Novel 571 Poetry 572 Drama 574
The Advance of Science 541
Philosophy, Science, and Medicine 575
The Modernist Revolution in Art 543
Philosophy 575 Science 575
Impressionism 543
SLICE OF LIFE The Face of Evil: A Nazi Death Camp,
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER The Western Art World
Elie Wiesel, from Night (2006) 577
and Ukiyo-e Art 545
Medicine 578
Postimpressionism 545
INTERPRETING ART Vincent Van Gogh, The Bridge Art, Architecture, Photography, and Film 578
in the Rain (After Hiroshige) 547 Painting 579
Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism 550 New INTERPRETING ART Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist
Directions in Sculpture and Architecture 553 Painting 580

Music: From Impressionism to Jazz 555 Architecture 585 Photography 588 Film 588
Summary 558 Music: Atonality, Neoclassicism,
Key Cultural Terms 558 and an American Idiom 589
The Legacy of Early Modernism 559 Summary 592
Key Cultural Terms 593

21 The Age of the Masses The Legacy of the Age of the Masses and the Zenith
of Modernism 593
and the Zenith of Modernism
19141945 560
THE COLLAPSE OF OLD CERTAINTIES AND
22 The Age of Anxiety
and Late Modernism
THE SEARCH FOR NEW VALUES 562
19451970 595
World War I and Its Aftermath 562
The Great Depression of the 1930s 564 TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE POSTWAR
WORLD 596
The Era of the Superpowers, 19451970 596
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CONTENTS xiii

Postwar Recovery and the New World Economic, National, and International
Order 596 The Cold War 598 Developments 630
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER Emergence of the Third World The Fall of Communism 631
Outside of the Middle East 599 The PostCold War World 631
THE WEST AND ISLAM The Middle East The World Economic Boom and Regional
and Israel 600 Violence 633
Mass Culture 601 THE WEST AND ISLAM Rising Tensions Across
the Globe 634
THE END OF MODERNISM 601
Philosophy and Religion 602 THE AGE OF TERRORISM, 2001 634

Political and Social Movements 603 War, Recession, and Revolution 634
GLOBAL ENCOUNTER Migrations
Science and Technology 605
and Demography 635
Medicine 606
THE BIRTH OF POSTMODERNISM 636
The Literature of Late Modernism: Fiction,
Poetry, and Drama 606 Medicine, Science, and Technology 637
Fiction 606 Medicine 637 Science 638 Technology 638
SLICE OF LIFE Humans in Space: One Giant Leap Philosophy and Religion 639
for Mankind, Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Philosophy 639 Religion and Religious
Recollections of the Moon Landing and Transmittals Thought 640
of the Astronauts Voices 607
The Literature of Postmodernism 640
Poetry 608 Drama 609
Fiction 641 Poetry 643 Drama 643
Late Modernism and the Arts 610
Postmodernism and the Arts 643
Painting 610
Painting 643
INTERPRETING ART Jackson Pollock, White Light 611
INTERPRETING ART Anselm Kiefer, Osiris and Isis 645
Sculpture 615 Architecture 621
Sculpture 647 Installation Art 650
Happenings 623 Environmental Art 651 Video Art 652
Architecture 652
Late Modern Music 623
Film 624 Film 657
Summary 626 Postmodern Music 658
The Legacy of the Age of Anxiety Performance Art 660
and Late Modernism 627 SLICE OF LIFE How Did We Get Here? Where Are
Key Cultural Terms 627 We Going? Amin Maalouf, from Origins 660

Mass Culture 662


23 The Contemporary Summary 662
The Legacy of the Contemporary World 663
World
Key Cultural Terms 664
Globalization, Terrorism, and
Postmodernism 1970 628
GLOSSARY665
TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL ORDER, CREDITS681
19702001 630
INDEX685

S
N
L
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mat76655_FM_i-xxxii.indd 13 11/28/12 8:58 AM


Experience Humanities
and Connect Humanities
The humanities are alive. We see the great
pyramids in contemporary design, we hear
Bach in hip-hop and pop music, and we
feel ancient religious themes and philoso-
phies in our impassioned contemporary
dialogues. Experience Humanities invites
students to take note of the continual evo-
lution of ideas and cross-cultural influences
to better understand the cultural heritage of
the West, and to think critically about what
their legacy will be for future generations.

Together with Connect Humanities, a


groundbreaking digital learning solution,
students not only experience their cultural
heritage, but develop crucial critical reading, thinking, and writing skills that
will prepare them to succeed in their humanities course and beyond.

Connect
to Engage
Dynamic video previews of each chap-
ter immerse students in the sights and
sounds of artistic contributions over
time and across continents. Key ideas,
people, and events that shaped the time
period are introduced to provide histori-
cal context and prepare students for the
xiv
discussions to come in each chapter.

mat76655_FM_i-xxxii.indd 14 11/28/12 8:58 AM


Connect
to Analyze
Cultural artifacts come to life in Connect
Humanities. Interactive assessments
guide students through the process
of analyzing art, literature, music, and
other primary source documents from
each chapter to build critical reading and
analysis skills.

Connect to
Experience
Interdisciplinary activities challenge stu-
dents to explore connections across
artistic genres, and begin to develop and
express informed opinions on how ideas
evolve over time and across cultures.

xv

mat76655_FM_i-xxxii.indd 15 11/28/12 8:58 AM


THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENE: LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM

Experience Humanities Features


Medieval islaMic culture 223

Interpreting Art
Cross-Cultural
Subject Quran 1:17 may be
Influences The buraq has
paraphrased: A journey of a single
night was made by a servant of God parallels in the winged beasts of
ancient Mesopotamia and later
from the sacred place of worship
central Asian art. The biblical story
to the further place of worship.
of Elijah riding into the sky on a fiery
chariot (2 Kings 2:712) is also a
Theological source.
Perspective Traditionally, the
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REvOLUTION, REACTION,
servant of God was Muhammad AND CULTURAL RESPONSE Style The image blends
and the sacred place of worship Christian, Persian, central Asian,
was Mecca. The early commentators and Chinese motifs. The faces
interpreted the further place of in particular betray Buddhist
worship as heaven (miraj ) and features, and the fiery halos around
contrast, Prussia, Russia, and Austria remained auto-believed that the ascension of the (17031792) influenced millions of Muslims during Muhammad and Gabriel are Chinese.

Interpreting
Figure 19.3 Art Joseph M allord WilliaM Turner. The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard
the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). Ca. 1840. Oil on canvas, 35 3/4 481/4.tive
cratic, and untouched by democracy and representa-
Museum
Prophet took place from Mecca.
this period, teaching them to support their communi-
Under the Umayyads, the further
place of worship was interpreted
The image reveals superbly the
extraordinary melting pot of Islamic
culture.

government. ties and, most especially, to live


as Jerusalem. The versions were
later reconciled such that the Isra by theTheQuran,
Composition Islamic
Twenty-three Interpreting Art examples focus on aof great
surface
of Fine Arts, Boston. Turner was motivated, in part, to paint The Slave Ship because the
The fate of reform in Europe between 1815 and 1830
was taken to be a night journey to
law, and the teachings of the Prophet.
Jerusalem with the ascension to
is virtually flat, the picture two-
dimensional. The absolute centrality
famous Zong trial of 1783. The captain of the Zong, a British slave ship, in a ploy to collect insurance on his
varied across the Continent. In Great Britain, the gov-
heaven occurring from there.
While the sultans struggled toof perspective
keepthatpeace
of Muhammad to the scene creates
at home,
work
property, of art
claimed (painting
that because the ship wasorrunning
sculpture)
out of water, heorordered
architecture, using
the crew to throw the sick a Content Muhammad is
a sense is not
geometric but is still effective. By
ernment at first resisted attempts to thereform
portrayed riding buraq, a Parliament the Ottoman Empire often fought ringing Muhammadborderland
and Gabriel wars
slaves overboard. At the trial, testimony proved that there was no water shortage on the ship. However, the
set of six call-outs that highlight both formal qualities
court saw the incident as a civil insurance issue, not a criminal case, and the insurance company eventually
(how mythical winged horse, and being
or to institute free trade, but Gabriel
in amidthe 1820s, it began to
accompanied by the archangel
a host of angels.
against Russia (sometimes joined
with angelic figures, the artist
achieves anby Austria). Of these
effect of great energy
and movement. The artist took sheer

itpay
had to is fora the
work of art) and
loss of propertythat is, thehistorical context
value of the slaves (how
who had died. it refl
By the time make
ectsThe
he painted modest
the changes. France regressed toward ab- wars, the two most damaging were waged
delight in rich colors of many hues.
against
Slave Ship (ca. 1840), Parliament had, in the 1830s, abolished slavery in the British colonies. Turnerssolutism as the restored Bourbon monarchy chipped
terrifying Russias empress Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796). In
imagehistorical moment).
of natural calamity Students
and human cruelty who master
reflected the humanitarian this
values that feature
had surfaced duringwill
away at
thethe revolutionary heritage. In 1830, resistance the first war, the Ottomans were forced to cede the
be able
parliamentary and to apply
national debatesthe
aboutapproach to scene,
slavery. The ghoulish understanding any
painted in Turners unique work
toromantic
the crown ofexploded in the July Revolution, which Crimea to Russia, and the second ended in a draw
style, depicts the castaway bodies of the dead and dying, encircled by hungry fish, as they sink into the
replaced the Bourbon king with Louis Philippe, the (1792). While Russia gained little in the second war,
art
stormy sea.that they encounter. Duke of Orlans (r. 18301848). Constitutional govern-
The Night Journey of Muhammad. Persia. Sixteenth century. British Li-
brary, London. This the
Persian West drewa key
miniature represents theMuslim
conclusion
belief: that the Ottoman Em-
Muhammad made a night journey (Isra) from Mecca to Jerusalem before his as-
ment now put the middle class in power. cension to heaven. His pire was
face was left fairit wasgame
blank because for future incursionsboth mili-
deemed blasphemous
to depict his visage. This painting was executed during the Mongol period, as
In central Europe, the Austrian Empire kept liberal tary
the Asian invaders, though
rence of figural art.
and
converts commercial.
to Islam, did not share the Arabs abhor-

sentiments under tight control. Prussia, which had The Ottoman Empires feeble condition was
1. Theological Perspective Why might different traditions 4. Style Identify Mesopotamian, central Asian, and Jewish
Industrialism: The Shrinking Globe After competingmadenationalimportant
postal rates liberal ledreforms indeveloped
to the formation
have the about
Napoleonic
ofProphets ascension to heaven? confirmed
the in 1798,
traditions represented when Napoleon invaded
in this image.
era, now seemed more
the Universal Postal Union (UPU); within focused on
2. efficiency
Content than
What are the essential
ten years, in
elements in this picture? Egypt, as part
5. Composition ofAND
Discuss hissense
the plan to cut
of perspective off byBritish access
conveyed
its beginnings in England in the 1700s (see 3 CHAPTER ONE: PREHISTORy AND THE RISE OF CIvILIZATION
3. Cross-Cultural Influences Identify shared cultural tradi-
IN THE NEAR
this picture.
EAST EGyPT
modernizing
the UPU numbered the state.
fifty-five Russia became
independent increasingly
tions countries. to India. Muhammad Ali (17691849), the Ottoman
Chapter 18), industrialism started to take root in represented in this picture.
reactionaryis and repressive. Until the 1860s, Russias
represented on a throne before two fire altars, as
commander sent to fight the French invasion, broke
Persian court at the time of Darius I. Zoroastrianism
France in the 1830s, and a short time later Belgium en- czarist regime and Austrias mastery of slightly
centralfrom Eu- the with themost sultan andand made himself rulerlegacies.
of a quasi-
tered the industrial age. For the next forty years, Bel- New Technologies
rope widened
he receives
waist,
Rapid atechnological
thethegulf
court official.
between
official
Bending
covers eastern
advances
his mouthand with western
the tips of independent
is the
Rejecting polytheism,
original
dynasty Zoroaster
enduring
in Egyptfriendly
of Persias
called for a dualis- to France.
gium and France were the chief economic powers on confirmed Europe.
the revolutionary
his fingersanature gesture ofofdevotion.
the indus- These two sculp- Having tic religion gained in which a toeholdthe godin Egypt,
of light, the Mazda
Ahura French, in
the Continent, with factory and railway systems radi- trial age. tures illustrate the limited range of subjects, namely, 1830 (Persian,
invaded Wise Lord),(modern
Algiers engaged in a universal strug-
Algeria)an OttomanS
ating from Paris and Brussels to Vienna and Milan by The steam engine,the king and in
invented his 1769,
court duties,
was used employed in the in the art pro- gle with the god of darkness, Ahriman. According to

1871. The expansion of rail lines meant that factories


The
following transportation West
gram and
of the Islam:
Persian
and manufacturing: kings The Ottoman
at Persepolis.
The fire altars depicted in the relief panel mentioned
provinceconquering
Thegain
rity
The West and Islam
Ottoman favoredEmpire treatment
it over a twenty-year period. N
Zoroaster, not only did those who had led lives of pu-
nextin thelostafterlife,
Greecebut in the
theirGreek
L
DF
Empire inareRetreat, 17001830 War of Independence (18211830). During this pro-
no longer needed to be near coal mines or clustered in above symbols of
Steamboats, with paddle wheels (1807); their hey- Zoroastrianism, the religion of In seven chapters in volume
actions also ensured the triumph of the forces of good
urban areas. Inventions in communications, such as After the
the Treaty
Persian of Karlowitz,
prophet in 1699
Zoroaster (see Chap-
[ZOHR-uh-was-ter] longedin life struggle,
on earth. These progressiveteachingsEuropeans rallied to the
later had a profound
day was 18161870,
(about on
ter 15), by which 600 the
BCE),Ohio
Ottoman which and
rule over
became Mississippi
most of the Chris-
the official faith of the Greek II, this
impact cause,
on Westernfeature
among them
philosophy helps the students
andFrench
religion.artist, Eugene
the telegraph, made it easier for industrialists to take Rivers.
tian peoples of the Balkans was ended, the Ottoman Delacroix. Delacroixs
understand the forces at play Massacre at Chios (Figure 18.5)
advantage of distant resources and markets, and in
Steam locomotives
Empire was never (1830);
the same. the ForAgecenturies,
of the Rail- the empire depicts dead and dying Greeks in the foreground,
1866 engineers laid a transatlantic telegraph cable, between thesoldiers West(inand Islam.
road had
wasbeen
18301945.
the major power in the Middle East and the while two Turkish turbans) slaughter the
linking Europe and America. Further shrinking of the innocents. Earlier, in cover 1822, thethe TurksOttomanhad killed twenty
globe occurred with the founding of national postal
WaterArab
turbines SUMMARY
world. Now, were
(1820s) it wasused a weakened force in the re-
first in sawmills Discussions
gion, racked by internal strife and threatened by west- thousand Greeks on the Aegean island of Chios, the
and textile mills and, after 1882, also in hydro- Empire, showing its
systems. The United Kingdom led the way (1839), cre- ern invaders. At home, the
By responding battles
to the dramatic were now caused
changes between by the legendary access birthplace
to stone and built ofwith Homer.mudcomplicated
Thus,Egyptians
bricks. for educated
electric plants. Neolithic Revolution, people in southern Mesopota- had plenty of nearby stone and used it imaginatively.
ating the worlds first postal service with a uniform reformers, who wanted to westernize the Ottoman relations
westerners, thiswith painting the was West,a visual down metaphor of
postage rate. Switzerland and Brazil soon followed mia and Egypt took
Gas lighting, with coal gas, came into use in the
world, and a renewal movement the first
based steps on along
Islamic the path
law. that an Narrow
Islamic fertile S
attack strips
upon surrounded
the gloriesby forbidding
of the des-
humanistic
led to civilization. They created governments, military to
erts the
imposed empires
very early abolition a high degree in 1923
of political
Global Encounter
with their own systems (1843). By 1878, a crazy quilt of In foreign
early 1800s in Greatand affairs,
Britain. the
religious
perennial
It institutions,
was used and issue was
for increasingly the threat tradition.
lighting sophisti- and social regimentation.
and the
N Above all, one people after
of European catedstates intent
cultures on expanding
characterized by complextheir technologies,
political another builtLconsequent
on the work of theirrise of a new
predecessors and
In Chapter 11 in Volume I and in most chap- and commercial
alluringinfluence across thearchitecture.
arts, and impressive Middle East Theand advent created a platform,
system DF
of Islamic so to speak, running from North
states.
North Africa.of writing permitted the rise of public record-keeping Africa to Central Asia, on which the foundations of
ters in Volume II, this feature shows the Betweenand 1699alsoandof literature.
1830, OttomanGeography rulersplayedmade a key a se-role in REVOLUTIONS the Western humanities were IN erected.
ART AND
both areas. Mesopotamians, for example, lacked ready
West interacting with the rest of the world. ries of sociopolitical innovations based on European IDEAS: FROM NEOCLASSICISM
models and guided by European advisers. The reigns
These encounters, which show cultural of two sultans are particularly noteworthy: Sultan TO ROMANTICISM
influences flowing in either direction, are Selim III (r.17891807), who introduced many admin-
Legacies from Prehistory and Near
The makers of the French Revolution adopted an artis-
Eastern andwas Egyptian Civilization
istrative, land, taxation, and military reforms; and tic style that already in vogue and perfectly suited
highlighted in the text in two different ways: Mahmud IIToday (r. 18081839), who continued the western- their purposesthe neoclassical. Unlike the frivolous
one cannot turn on the news without being del- an Egyptian. For a while, lots of young people galli-
either as a shaded section or denoted by a izing effortsugedin government,
with stories about education,
the Nearand Eastdress.
or the Middle rococo, vantedthis around style was high-minded,
imitating poses from Egyptian ethical, art. and seri-
These top-down
East. Therereforms was no led to growing
news in antiquity, interest in
but things ous. Neoclassical artists and architects followed the
symbol. western goodswould and haveculture,
been the especially
same. This in old,
the vast,
wealthier rich, and ancient Greco-Roman ideals of balance, simplicity, and
sectors of complex
Ottoman region has been
society. But simultaneously
a few scholars at theandroot restraint, principles that were thought to embody the
and at the forefront of the West. Greeks, Romans, Mus-
clerics, taking great offense at this opening to the underlying order of the universe. Truth was seen as
lims, Crusaders, and modern European imperialists
West, countered by urging a return to a purer form
have continually warred, traded, and exchanged ideas
eternal, unchanging, the same for one and all. Art
S of Islam, that
with is, the alands
renewal movement.
of Gilgamesh and theGroups pharaohs. likeApart and literature created according to classical principles
N the Sufi brotherhood
from the vast forces (see Chapter
of history, we 9) and the Wah-
have inherited much were believed to be both morally uplifting and aes-
L habi sect (founded
else from by these Muhammund
people. Students Abd stillal-Wahhab
go to school to thetically satisfying.
Legacy DF lean their a, b, cs. High school and college students
study circles by means of pi. The ancients used lunar
calendars and most people today use solar ones. But
The Western arts and humanities influence not the ancients gave us sixty-second minutes and sixty-
only high culture but also todays mass culture. minute hours. The Egyptians remain perennially fas-
cinating. If a museum has a display of mummies, there
The Legacy feature draws from sources across the will be lines at the door. We no longer bury people Louvre Pyramid, Paris. 115 on each side, 70 high. This glass and steel
pyramid designed by I. M. Pei (1917) opened in 1989 as the main entrance
in pyramids, but the distinguished architect I. M. Pei
cultural spectrum to help readers recognize that built a glass one to serve as an entrance to the Louvre
to the Louvre Museum. Peis pyramid was in part a homage to the precise
geometric designs of the great French landscape architect, Andre LeNotre.
Museum in Paris. And in 1986 a rather forgettable rock
todays culture did not emerge in a vacuum but that group, the Bangles, had a hit song called Walk Like
And, in part, the pyramids geometric planes echoed the articulated planes
of the Louvres roof and surrounding buildings.
S
it grew from the matrix of the Western tradition.
N
xvi L
DF

mat76655_FM_i-xxxii.indd 16 11/28/12 8:58 AM


Chapter Opening
Each chapter opening is organized
around a specific artworkeither a
painting, a sculpture, or a building.
The artwork is carefully selected to
embody many of a chapters themes.
The chapter opening sets the stage
for a particular cultural period and The Aegean
The Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and the Greeks of the Archaic Age
draws readers into the text.

Preview Questions Three significant peoples thrived in the Aegean basin: the
1. What key aspects Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and then the Greeks. The former two were the
of the Minoan and first to achieve civilization in Europe from about 2000 to 1200 BCE. On
Mycenaean cultures the island of Crete and in southern Greece, these peoples built complex
lived on among the
later Greeks? societies only to fall, the Minoans to the Mycenaeans and the Mycenaeans
Temple of Hera, Paestum. Ca. 560550 BCE. Limestone. Archaic temples set patterns long to the Dorians. For about three centuries after 1100 BCE the Greek world
vast were the
2. AWhat
used by the Greeks. The buildings were aligned east-west, with the entrance in the east.
principal political and
altar stood before the entrance, and people gathered around it to share a sacrificial meal. The
was poor, isolated, and a cultural backwater. Then, between about 800 and
enclosed space inside the temples colonnade was off-limits except to the priests. social achievements 500 BCE the Greek world entered the Archaic period. Archaios in Greek
of the Greek Archaic
means ancient, or beginning, and this was indeed the beginning of
S period?
N Greek history and culture in the strict sense (Timeline 2.1, Map 2.1). On
3. How do epic and lyric
L rocky coasts and rugged islands and peninsulas, the peoples of the Ae-
32 poetry differ from each
DF
other? gean basin coaxed a subsistence living from the thin, stony soil and turned
4. In what ways do to the sea for trade, conquest, and expansion. From the Bronze Age to the
Greek religion and Iron Age, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Greeks interacted with and learned
philosophy differ from
from the cultures that surrounded them, chiefly those of the Hittites and
each other, and how
do both differ from the the Egyptians, but whether it was in systems of writing or forms of sculp-
achievements of the ture, Aegean peoples were never content merely to borrow. They always
Mesopotamians and
adapted, blended, and, finally, superseded the contributions of other cul-
Egyptians?

Preview Questions tures. The Greek


KEYgenius was partly
CULTURAL a matter of stunning
TERMS
partly a matter of creative synthesis.
55 originality and

The building to the left, a Greek temple in the Doric style, symbolizes
SUMMARY
and Summary Civilization arose in Europe in the Aegean world in
many aspects of the Archaic period. It is balanced, ordered, and propor-
tioned, but it does not yet achieve the harmony and beauty of the later
plunged into darkness. Around 800 BCE the Archaic
classical period (see Chapter 3). This temple, now in ruins, is located in
Each chapter begins with a series of Preview the second millennium BCE, first on the island of Crete
and then on the adjacent Greek mainland. The Mino-
period opened and, over the next several generations,
the Greek polis tooksouthern Italy, an area colonized by Greeks who left the mainland amid
shape and political power, no lon-
ans, peaceful folk and avid traders, built a complex political
ger confined to kings andand economic
mounted strife. Greeks
warriors, camenotto only learned from their neigh-
Questions and ends with a Summary. This twin society, erected majestic palaces, and created beautiful be shared with farmers andalso
bors, they merchants. Intercity
exported their rival- Temples were usually the larg-
own culture.
artworks. Influenced themselves by the Hittites and ries and a rising population led manybuildings
Greeks in toaleave
feature guides students to an understanding of
est and most elegant polis, the city-state form of political
Egyptians, they in turn influenced the Myceneans. At home and settle inorganization
colonies around the
that was Mediterranean
a key achievement of the Archaic period.
several sites in the Peloponnesus the Myceneans, led shores. The polis was Thedynamic
peoples of not only in and
political
cultural achievements within their historical by kings and warriorsthe people we meet in Hom-
Mesopotamia
life but also in literature and the arts. Epic and lyric
Egypt seem at once remote and famil-
iar, whereas the Greeks seem utterly familiar; they seem to be like us. S
ers Iliadalso built palaces and created works of art poetry flourished. Philosophy, as a rational way of N
settingthe thrust of the Experience Humanities that still dazzle the eye. The identity of the Myceneans understanding the world, appeared in several places. 33
L
DF
is still a little mysterious, but they did speak Greek Sculptors began to capture the human form and to in-
programand helps students master the com- and bequeathed to the later Greeks religious, mythical, vest it with motion, with life. Builders created flexible,
and political ideas. After about 1100 the Greek world adaptable models.
plexities of the humanities story.
The Legacy of the Aegean World
The Archaic Age in Greece marked a decisive moment century some intellectuals said, You were born in
in history. The new way of life devised by the Archaic Greece. They had a point.
Greeks gave rise to what we call, in retrospect, the
humanitiesthose original artistic and literary forms
that made the Greeks unique by turning the focus of
Learning Through Maps
Rome Ad

human
Slice of Life features
striving away from the divine and toward hu-
manity. Homeric heroes and the figures in sculpture
ria Black Sea reveal a turn to the individual, to the flesh-and-blood
MAGNA GRAECIA tic Sinope
The Slice of Life boxes offer students the opportunity
human. The attempt by Greek philosophers to under-
(ITALY) stand the world in purely rational terms inaugurated
Se

to hear the voices of eyewitnesses to the historical and


THRACE
a

Poseidonia a tension still felt today between reason and revela-


(Paestum) MACEDONIA Byzantium
Tyrrhenian tion, between religion and science. We still read the
Sea
Thurii Dodona Aegean
cultural events described in the text. These excerpts from
literature of the Archaic period and admire its arts
and crafts. Nowadays movies, rock concerts, and foot-
THESSALY
Sea
Chaeronea
Delphi Thebes
primary sources and original documents bring history
ball games are called epic. We do not have to look far
to see geometric designs on everything from clothing
Sardis
Segesta
SICILY
Ionian
Sea
Plataea
Corinth Athens Miletus
to life.
to building facades. Readers of this book have prob-
ably studied geometry
and haveFIVE:
CHAPTER thereby contended
CLAssICAL ROME
Tarsus Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, 1824. Designed by
Syracuse Sparta DELOS with the Pythagorean Theorem: C 2 = a 2 + b 2. There William Strickland (17881854), one of the founders of the Greek Revival
are Doric buildings all around us. In the nineteenth movement in the United States.

RHODES

KEY CULTURAL TERMS SLICE OF LIFE


CRETE
CYPRUS A College Students Letter Home
Mediterran Sidon
ean S Damascus frieze chthonian deities post-beam-triangle capital
ea Tyre
fresco hubris, son of cicero
Marcus construction triglyph
Cyrene Linear A epic poetry architrave metope
Ciceros son Marcus, having spent allpediment
his money, wrote in he often strolls in upon us when we least expect him
Jerusalem matriarchy bard entasis
44 BCE to his fathers secretary Tiro. Because of the press and are at dinner, and throwing to the wind all aus-
myth Homeric entablature
of public life, epithet
Cicero often relied on Tiro to handle his cor- fluting
terity as a philosopher, he bandies jokes with us in the
Dead Linear B lyre
respondence. Knowing that Tiro will cornice
relay a message to kouros
most genial manner possible.
Naucratis Sea shaft grave his lyric
father, Marcus offers assurancesstylobate
poetry that he has mended kore
As to Bruttius, why should I mention him at all?
Persian Empire
oligarchy his lyric
ways and describes his schoolwork. stereobate There is never a moment when I allow him to leave my
Archaic
Nile R.

Athenian subjects and allies, 431 BC Memphis cella side. He leads a simple and austere life, but that the
muse natural philosophy humanities S
0 125 250 mi same time he is a most delightful man to live with. For
Olympian deities That the rumors, which reach you Doric
epistemology about me, are grati-
Lines of Athenian influence and trade there is no ban upon merry talk in our literary discus- N
500 km fying and welcome to you, I have no doubt at all, my
0 250 sions and our daily joint researches. I have hired lodg- L
dearest Tiro; and I shall make every effort to guaran-
ings for him next door, and, as far as I can, alleviate DF
tee that this opinion of me which is springing up more
MHS63 67
MAP 3.1 THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE, 431 BCE
mat76620_m0301.eps distinctly every day becomes twice as good. For that
his penury out of my own narrow means.
Besides all this I have begun to practice declaiming
This proofshows the Athenian and Persian Empires on the eve of the Peloponnesian War. 1. Compare the Athenian and Persian Empires, with respect to size
First map reason you may with unshaken confidence fulfill your
in Greek with Cassius; but I like practicing in Latin
and sea and land configuration. 2. Notice the difference between Athenian and Spartan influence in the eastern Mediterranean. 3. How did the locations of promise of being the trumpeter of my reputation. For
with Bruttius.
Athens and Sparta influence their respective naval and military policies? 4. In what way did the distance between Sicily and Athens affect the course of the the errors of my youth have caused me such grief and
I beg of you to see that a secretary is sent to me as
agony that not only do my thoughts shrink from what
Peloponnesian War? 5. Observe that Macedonias proximity to Greece helped in its conquest of the late fourth century BCE. quickly as possiblebest of all a Greek; for that will re-
I have done, but my very ears shrink from hearing it
lieve me of a lot of trouble in writing out lecture notes.
talked about.
I must tell you that my close attachment to Cratip- Interpreting This Slice of Life
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN After defeating the Persians, the Greeks realized pus is not so much that of a pupil as that of a son. For
1. How was education conducted in Greece and Rome?
Learning Through Maps
AFFAIRS: WAR, PEACE, AND
that a mutual defense organization was the key to pre-
venting further Persian attack. In 478 BCE, a number of
not only do I attend his lectures with enjoyment, but I
am greatly fascinated also by the charm of his person-
ality. I spend whole days with him, and often a part of
2. How credible does Marcuss letter to his father
strike you?
THE TRIUMPH OF MACEDONIA
This feature
poleis formed the Delian League, a defensive alliance,
encourages students to develop geographi-
the night. Indeed, I implore him to dine with me as of-
ten as possible. Now that we have become so intimate,
3. Compare and contrast the life of a typical student to-
day with that of Marcus.
with Athens at its head. But Athens soon began to trans-
On the eve of the Hellenic Age, the Greeks, having
cal skillshighly desirable in this age of globalization. By
defeated the Persians, were united only in their con-
form the voluntary league into an Athenian Empire. As
the oppressive nature of Athenian policies emerged,
tinuing opposition to Persia and in their hostility to
interacting with map exercises and answering map-related
any polis that tried to control the others. Although
Athenss independent neighbors became alarmed.
Athenian power, however, was restricted by strained
questions, students learn to read maps and understand
they cooperated on short-term goals that served their
common interests, goodwill among the poleis usually
relations with Sparta, by the continuing menace of Per- The Golden Age Western heritage. But Virgil is best known for the Ae-
sia, and by the highly unstable Delian alliance. When
historical and cultural developments within a specific
evaporated once specific ends were met. If the period
a negotiated settlement finally resolved Persian claims,
The reign of Augustus marked the Golden Age of Ro-
man letters. This periods three greatest poets, Virgil,
neid, an epic poem in twelve books that he wrote in
imitation of Homer. In this work, infused with Roman
was marked by division, rivalry, and conflict, it was
geographic setting.
also generally prosperous. Wealth made possible some
the Delian League fell apart, leaving Athens vulnerable Horace, and Ovid, captured the ages euphoric mood values and ideals, Virgil gave full voice to his love

aspects of a brilliant culture that sometimes reflected


to its enemies on the Greek mainland. First Thebes and as peace and stability once more returned to Rome. Of
these three writers, Virgil best represented the times
of country, his respect for Augustus, and his faith in
Romes destiny. xvii
then Sparta led attacks on Athens. The war dragged on, through his vision of Rome and his stirring verses. In The Aeneid tells of Aeneas, the legendary Trojan
on but that was never deflected by strife.
but in 445 BCE, when Sparta unexpectedly withdrew, prose, Livy captured the spirit of the age with his in- hero who wandered the Mediterranean before found-
Athens won a quick victory that forced its enemies to spiring tales of Romes greatness. ing Rome. In the first six books, Virgil models his tale
Political Phases of the Hellenic Age negotiate. The works of Virgil [VUR-jill] (7019 BCE), a mod- on the Odyssey, writing of travel and love. The second
estly born Italian from Mantua, were inspired by Greek half is modeled on the Iliad, stressing fighting and
The Hellenic Age is divided into four distinct phases: The ensuing Thirty Years Peace (which lasted only
literary formsidylls (or vignettes), didactic (instruc- intrigue. The Aeneid became Romes bible and its lit-
fourteen years) brought the Hellenic Age of Athens to tive) poems, and epicsyet his use of native themes erary masterpiece. Children were often required to
The Delian League
its zenith. Athenian democracy expanded so that even and his focus on the best traits in the Roman people memorize passages from the poem to instill in them
Wars in Greece and with Persia and the ensuing the poorest citizens were empowered with full rights give an authentic Roman voice to his work. Deeply the values that had made Rome great. Aeneas served
Thirty Years Peace (though women continued to be excluded). Artists moved by Augustuss reforms, he put his art in the ser- as the prototype of the faithful leader who would not
The Peloponnesian War vice of the state. Virgils pastoral poetry, the Eclogues be diverted from his destined path. The works rich
and sculptors beautified the Acropolis, and the three S
S and Georgics, celebrated rural life and urged readers language led later poets to mine the Aeneid for expres-
Spartan and Theban hegemony and the triumph great Athenian tragediansAeschylus, Sophocles, and N N to seek harmony with nature in order to find peace sions and images. As Homer inspired Virgil, so Virgil
of Macedonia (Timeline 3.1) Euripideswere active in the drama festivals. Drawing L L advice that became a significant moral theme of the became the model for Western poets.
mat76655_FM_i-xxxii.indd 17 DF DF 11/28/12 8:58 AM
Why Study Cultural History?
A Letter from the Authors

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to When people realize that the rich legacy of Western
remain always a child. culture is their own, their view of themselves and the
CICERO, FIRST CENTURY BCE times they live in can expand beyond the present mo-
ment. They find that they need not be confined by the
Anyone who cannot give an account to oneself of the limits of today but can draw on the creative insights
past three thousand years remains in darkness, without of people who lived hundreds and even thousands of
experience, living from day to day. years ago. They discover that their own culture has a
GOETHE, NINETEENTH CENTURY CE history and a context that give it meaning and shape.
Studying and experiencing their cultural legacy can
The underlying premise of this book is that some basic help them understand their place in todays world.
knowledge of the Western cultural heritage is neces-
sary for those who want to become educated human
beings in charge of their own destinies. If people are THE BOUNDARIES OF THE WEST
not educated into their place in human historyfive The subject of this text is Western culture, but what
thousand years of relatively uninterrupted, though exactly do we mean, first, by culture and, second, by
sometimes topsy-turvy, developmentsthen they are the West? Culture is a term with several meanings,
rendered powerless, subject to passing fads and out- but we use it here to mean the artistic and intellectual
landish beliefs. They become vulnerable to the flattery expressions of a people, their creative achievements.
of demagogues who promise heaven on earth, or they By the West we mean that part of the globe that lies
fall prey to the misconception that present-day events west of Asia and Asia Minor and north of Africa, espe-
are unique, without precedent in history, or superior cially Europethe geographical framework for much
to everything that has gone before. of this study.
Perhaps the worst that can happen is to exist in a The Western tradition is not confined exclusively
limbo of ignorancein Goethes words, living from to Europe as defined today, however. The contribu-
day to day. Without knowledge of the past and the tions of peoples who lived beyond the boundaries of
perspective it brings, people may come to believe that present-day Europe are also included in Western cul-
their contemporary world will last forever, when in re- ture, either because they were forerunners of the West,
ality much of it is doomed to be forgotten. In contrast such as those who created the first civilizations in Mes-
to the instant obsolescence of popular culture, the opotamia and Egypt, or because they were part of the
study of Western culture offers an alternative that has West for periods of time, such as those who lived in
passed the unforgiving test of time. Long after todays the North African and Near Eastern lands bordering
heroes and celebrities have fallen into oblivion, the the Mediterranean Sea during the Roman and early
achievements of our artistic and literary ancestors Christian eras. Regardless of geography, Western cul-
those who have forged the Western traditionwill re- ture draws deeply from ideals forged in these lands.
main. Their works echo down the ages and seem fresh When areas that had been part of the Western tra-
in every period. The ancient Roman writer Seneca put dition at one time were absorbed into other cultural
it well when he wrote, in the first century CE, Life is traditionsas happened in the seventh century in Mes-
S short but art is long. opotamia, Egypt, and North Africa when the people
N
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WHY STUDY CULTURAL HISTORY? xix

embraced the Muslim faiththen they are generally style is a combination of features of artistic or literary
no longer included in Western cultural history. Be- expression, execution, or performance that defines a
cause of the enormous influence of Islamic civilization particular school or era. A historical period may have
on Western civilization, however, we include both an the identical time frame as a cultural style, or it may
account of Islamic history and a description and ap- embrace more than one style simultaneously or two
preciation of Islamic culture. In this edition, we have styles successively. Each chapter of this survey focuses
added a feature called The West and Islam to show the on a historical period and includes significant aspects
difficult relations between these two worldviews over of cultureusually the arts, architecture, literature,
the centuries. Different in many ways from our own, religion, music, and philosophyorganized around a
the rich tradition of Islam has an important place in discussion of the relevant style or styles appropriate
todays world. to that time.
After about 1500, with voyages and explorations The survey begins with prehistory, the era before
reaching the farthest parts of the globe, the European writing was invented, setting forth the emergence of
focus of Western culture that had held for centuries human beings from an obscure past. After the appear-
began to dissolve. Starting from this time, the almost ance of writing in about 3000 BCE, the Western cul-
exclusively European mold was broken, and Western tural heritage is divided into three sweeping historical
values and ideals began to be exported throughout the periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.
world, largely through the efforts of missionaries, sol- The ancient period dates from 3000 BCE to 500 CE
diers, colonists, and merchants. Coinciding with this (Timeline 1). During these thirty-five hundred years
development and further complicating the pattern of the light of Western civilization begins to shine in
change were the actions of those who imported and Mesopotamia and Egypt, shines more brightly still in
enslaved countless numbers of black Africans to work Greece and Rome, from the eighth century BCE, until
on plantations in North and South America. The inter- it begins to dim with the collapse of the Roman Em-
play of Western culture with many previously isolated pire in 500 CE. Coinciding with these historical pe-
cultures, whether desired or not, forever changed all riods are the cultural styles of Mesopotamia; Egypt;
who were touched by the process. Greece, including Archaic, classical (or Hellenic), and
The Westernization of the globe that has been go- Hellenistic styles; and imperial Rome.
ing on ever since 1500 is perhaps the dominant theme The medieval period, or the Middle Ages, covers
of our time. What human greed, missionary zeal, and events between 500 and 1500 CE, a one-thousand-year
dreams of empire failed to accomplish before 1900 span that is further divided into three subperiods
has been achieved since through modern technology, (Timeline 2). The early Middle Ages (5001000) is typi-
the media, and popular culture. The world today is a fied by frequent barbarian invasions and political
global village, much of it dominated by Western values chaos so that civilization itself is threatened and barely
and styles of life. In our time, Westernization has be- survives. No single international style characterizes
come a two-way interchange. When artists and writers this turbulent period, though several regional styles
from other cultures adopt Western forms or ideas, they flourish. The High Middle Ages (10001300) is a period
are not only Westernizing their own traditions but of stability and the zenith of medieval culture. Two suc-
also injecting fresh sensibilities and habits of thought cessive styles appear, the Romanesque and the Gothic,
into the Western tradition. The globalization of culture with the latter dominating culture for the rest of the
means that a South American novel or a Japanese film medieval period. The late Middle Ages (13001500) is a
can be as accessible to Western audiences as a Euro- transitional period in which the medieval age is dying
pean painting, and yet carry with it an intriguingly and the modern age is struggling to be born.
new vocabulary of cultural symbols and meanings. The modern period begins in about 1400 (there is
often overlap between historical periods) and contin-
HISTORICAL PERIODS ues today (Timeline 3). With the advent of the modern
period, a new way of defining historical changes starts
AND CULTURAL STYLES to make more sensethe division of history into move-
In cultural history, the past is often divided into his- ments, the activities of large groups of people united
torical periods and cultural styles. A historical period to achieve a common goal. The modern period con-
is an interval of time that has a certain unity because sists of waves of movements that aim to change the
it is characterized by the prevalence of a unique cul- world in some specific way.
ture, ideology, or technology, or because it is bounded The first modern movement is the Renaissance
by defining historical events, such as the death of a (14001600), or rebirth, which attempts to revive the
military leader like Alexander the Great or a politi- cultural values of ancient Greece and Rome. It is ac-
cal upheaval like the French Revolution. A cultural companied by two successive styles, Renaissance and S
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Timeline 1 THE ANCIENT WORLD

3000 BCE 1200 800 500 323 146 31 500 CE

Greek Civilization
Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations;
Precursors of Greece
Roman Civilization

MAJOR HISTORICAL PERIODS

Greek Classical Helle-


Archaic (Hellenic) nistic
Mesopotamian and Egyptian; Imperial
Minoan and Mycenaean Roman
Etruscan and Greek Helle-
Influences nistic

CULTURAL STYLES

mannerism. The next significant movement is the Ref- reform politics and society according to the principles
ormation (15001600), which is dedicated to restoring of the new science. In stylistic terms the eighteenth
Christianity to the ideals of the early church set forth century is schizophrenic, dominated first by the ro-
in the Bible. Although it does not spawn a specific coco, an extravagant and fanciful style that represents
style, this religious upheaval does have a profound the last phase of the baroque, and then by the neoclas-
impact on the subjects of the arts and literature and sical, a style inspired by the works of ancient Greece
the way they are expressed, especially in the manner- and Rome and reflective of the principles of the Sci-
ist style. entific Revolution. Before the eighteenth century is
The Reformation is followed by the Scientific Rev- over, the Enlightenment calls forth its antithesis, ro-
olution (16001700), a movement that results in the manticism (17701870), a movement centered on feel-
abandonment of ancient science and the birth of mod- ing, fantasy, and everything that cannot be proven
ern science. Radical in its conclusions, the Scientific scientifically. The romantic style, marked by a revived
Revolution is somewhat out of touch with the style taste for the Gothic and a love of nature, is the perfect
of its age, which is known as the baroque. This mag- accompaniment to this movement.
nificent style is devoted to overwhelming the senses Toward the end of the nineteenth century, mod-
through theatrical and sensuous effects and is associ- ernism (18701970) arises, bent on destroying every
ated with the attempts of the Roman Catholic Church vestige of both the Greco-Roman tradition and the
to reassert its authority in the world. Christian faith and on fashioning new ways of under-
The Scientific Revolution gives impetus to the En- standing that are independent of the past. Since 1970,
lightenment (17001800), a movement that pledges to postmodernism has emerged, a movement that tries

Timeline 2 THE MEDIEVAL WORLD

500 1000 1150 1300 1500

Early Middle Ages High Middle Ages Late Middle Ages

MAJOR HISTORICAL PERIODS

Regional Styles Romanesque Gothic

CULTURAL STYLES
S
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WHY STUDY CULTURAL HISTORY? xxi

Timeline 3 THE MODERN WORLD

1400 1500 1520 1600 1700 1770 1800 1870 1900 1970 2013

Reformation Scientific Romanticism Post-


Modernism modern-
Revolution
Renaissance Enlightenment ism

MAJOR MOVEMENTS

Mannerism Rococo Romantic Post-


Baroque Modern
modern
Renaissance Neoclassical

CULTURAL STYLES

to make peace with the past by embracing old forms following a bleak period when urban life had virtually
of expression while adopting a global and multi- ceased. Although religion was still the dominant force
voiced perspective. Although every cultural period is in European life, trade was starting to flourish once
marked by innovation and creativity, our treatment of again, town life was reviving, and urban dwellers were
them in this book varies somewhat, with more space beginning to prosper. In part as testimonials to their
and greater weight given to the achievements of cer- new wealth, cities and towns commissioned architects
tain times. We make these adjustments because some and hired workers to erect these soaring churches,
periods or styles are more significant than others, es- which dominated the landscape for miles around and
pecially in the defining influence that their achieve- proclaimed the economic well-being of their makers.
ments have had on our own era. For example, some We adopt an integrated approach to Western culture
styles seem to tower over the rest, such as classicism not just in considering how the arts are related to ma-
in fifth-century BCE Greece, the High Renaissance of terial conditions but also in looking for the common
sixteenth century Italy, and modernism in the mid themes, aspirations, and ideas that permeate the artistic
twentieth century, as compared with other styles, such and literary expressions of every era. The creative ac-
as that of the early Middle Ages or the seventeenth- complishments of an age tend to reflect a shared per-
century baroque. spective, even when that perspective is not explicitly
recognized at the time. Thus, each period possesses a
unique outlook that can be analyzed in the cultural rec
AN INTEGRATED APPROACH ord. A good example of this phenomenon is classical
Greece in the fifth century BCE, when the ideal of mod-
TO CULTURAL HISTORY eration, or balance in all things, played a major role in
Our approach to the Western heritage in this book is to sculpture, architecture, philosophy, religion, and tragic
root cultural achievements in their historical settings, drama. The cultural record in other periods is not al-
showing how the material conditionsthe political, so- ways as clear as that in ancient Greece, but shared qual-
cial, and economic events of each periodinfluenced ities can often be uncovered that distinguish the varied
their creation. About one-third of each chapter is de- aspects of culture in an era to form a unifying thread.
voted to an interpretive discussion of material history, A corollary of this idea is that creative individuals
and the remaining two-thirds are devoted to the arts, and their works are very much influenced by the times
architecture, philosophy, religion, literature, and music in which they live. This is not to say that incompa-
of the period. These two aspects of history do not oc- rable geniusessuch as Shakespeare in Renaissance
cur separately, of course, and one of our aims is to show Englanddo not appear and rise above their own ages,
how they are intertwined. speaking directly to the human mind and heart in ev-
As just one example of this integrated approach, ery age that follows. Yet even Shakespeare reflected
consider the Gothic cathedral, that lofty, light-filled the political attitudes and social patterns of his time.
house of worship marked by pointed arches, towering Though a man for the ages, he still regarded monarchy
spires, and radiant stained-glass windows. Gothic ca- as the correct form of government and women as the S
thedrals were erected during the High Middle Ages, inferiors of men. N
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xxii WHY STUDY CULTURAL HISTORY?

A CHALLENGE TO THE READER offered by the faculty listed below. We believe that, be-
cause of the changes their reviews inspired, we have
The purpose of all education is and should be self- produced a better, more usable textbook. Reviewers,
knowledge. This goal was first established by the we salute you! The reviewers include the following:
ancient Greeks in their injunction to Know thyself,
the inscription carved above the entrance to Apollos Jonathan Austad, Chadron State College
temple at Delphi. Self-knowledge means awareness Richard Baskin, Gordon College
of oneself and ones place in society and the world. Penelope A. Blake, Rock Valley College
Reaching this goal is not easy, because becoming an Kurt Blaugher, Mount Saint Marys College
educated human being is a lifelong process, requiring Dan Brooks, Aquinas CollegeMichigan
time, energy, and commitment. But all journeys be- John Chamberlain, Saint Petersburg CollegeGibbs
gin with a single step, and we intend this volume as a Cynthia Clements, Richland College
first step toward understanding and defining oneself Kevin DeLapp, Converse College
in terms of ones historical and cultural heritage. Our May Dubois, West Los Angeles College
challenge to the reader is to use this book to begin the
Andrew J. Grover, Thiel College
long journey to self-knowledge.
Richard Hall, Texas State UniversitySan Marcos
John Hardin, Hillsborough Community
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CollegeBrandon
We are grateful to many people for their help and Jason Horn, Gordon College
support in this revision of Experience Humanities. Roy Luke Howard, Brigham Young UniversityProvo
Matthews and DeWitt Platt continue to appreciate the Cheryl Hughes, Tulsa Community College
many insightful comments of students and former Derek Jensen, Brigham Young UniversityIdaho
students at Michigan State University over the years. Prudence Jones, Montclair State University
Tom Noble is grateful to his thousands of students for Susan Jones, Palm Beach Atlantic University
all they have taught him over thirty-eight years. He is Kim Justesen, Utah Career College
also pleased, and humbled, at being asked to lend a Richard Kortum, East Tennessee State University
hand in crafting another new edition of a wonderful Barbara Kramer, Santa Fe Community College
and successful book.
Connie LaMarca-Frankel, Pasco-Hernando
This edition is built on the mutual respect and
Community College
friendship we three authors forged when we became
Diana Lurz, Rogers State University
a writing team in the previous edition. Once again,
we are grateful to Art Pomponio for his reasonable Ruth Miller, Diablo Valley College
responses, calming voice, and steady guidance as we James Mock, University of Central Oklahoma
met various deadlines. To our McGraw-Hill handlers, Margaret Worsham Musgrove, University of
we are especially grateful to Nancy Crochiere for her Central Oklahoma
smart leadership. From the start of this project, Nancy Victoria Neubeck-OConnor, Moraine Valley
was on top of things, ably answering our many ques- Community College
tions or helping us to find quick solutions to issues out- Kaliopi Pappas, San Joaquin Delta College
side her sphere. Great job, Nancy! We also praise Susan Douglass Scott, Chattanooga State Tech
Trentacosti, Lead Project Manager, for her skill in guid- Sonia Sorrell, Pepperdine University
ing us through the production process. We profited Deborah Sowell, Brigham Young UniversityProvo
from the splendid work of Robin Sand, our Photo Re- Michael Sparks, Wallace State University
searcher, and Jenna Caputo, our Literary Researcher. Alice Taylor, West Los Angeles College
The finalizing of this revision was complicated by the
Margaret Urie, University of NevadaReno
impact of Hurricane Sandy, but the production team
Theresa A. Vaughan, University of Central
never wavered in its ability to prevail against the fall-
Oklahoma
out from that storm. To Laura Wilk, we give a shout-
out for her lead role in helping us transform our project Paul B. Weinstein, The University of Akron Wayne
in Experience Humanities. Thanks, Laura. College
Jason Whitmarsh, St. Johns River Community
College
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF REVIEWERS
S This edition continues to reflect many insightful sug-
N gestions made by reviewers. The current edition has
L benefited from constructive and thorough evaluations
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WHY STUDY CULTURAL HISTORY? xxiii

TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH EXPERIENCE HUMANITIES


Online Learning Center
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Tegrity is a service that makes class time available
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A Humanities Primer
How to Understand the Arts

INTRODUCTION we like, because we bring ourselves to the work: What


we like has as much to do with who we are as with the
We can all appreciate the arts. We can find pleasure or art itself.
interest in paintings, music, poems, novels, films, and Many of us, for example, will respond positively to a
other art forms, both contemporary and historical. We painting like Leonardo da Vincis The Virgin of the Rocks.
dont need to know very much about art to know what The faces of the Madonna and angel are lovely; we may
have seen images like these on Christmas cards or in
other commercial reproductions. We respond with
what English poet William Wordsworth calls the first
careless rapture, which activates our imaginations
and establishes a connection between us and the work
of art. However, if this is all we see, if we never move
from a subjective reaction, we can only appreciate the
surface, the immediate form, and then, perhaps sub-
consciously, accept without question the values it im-
plies. We appreciate, but we do not understand.
Sometimes we cannot appreciate because we do not
understand. We may reject Picassos Les Demoiselles
dAvignon, for it presents us with images of women that
we may not be able to recognize. These women may
make us uncomfortable, and the values they imply may
frighten us rather than please or reassure us. Rather
than rapture, we may experience disgust; but when we
realize that this painting is considered a groundbreak-
ing work, we may wonder what were missing and be
willing to look deeper. (The Virgin of the Rocks and Les
Demoiselles dAvignon are discussed in the text on pages
317318 and pages 551552, respectively.)
To understand a work of art (a building, a poem,
a song, a symphony), we need to keep our rapture
(our emotional response and connection) but make it
less careless, less superficial and subjective, less re-
stricted to that which we recognize. We need to enrich
our appreciation by searching for a meaning that goes
beyond ourselves and which involves understanding:
The intent or the goal of the artist
The elements of form present in the work
S
N The ways in which the various elements contribute
L Leonardo da Vinci. The Virgin of the Rocks. to the artists goal
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A HUMANITIES PRIMER xxv

The context within which the artwork evolved The artists intent and motives in creating the work
The connections of the work to other works How the work fits in with other works of the same
genre of the same or different eras
APPROACHES TO THE How the work fits in with the rest of the artists body
of work
ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE,
A contextual analysis of the da Vinci and Picasso
ART, AND MUSIC paintings would include information about where and
To analyze a work of art, we want to identify the in- when each painting was completed, the conditions
tent of the work, and we want to evaluate its execu- from which it arose, the prevailing artistic styles of the
tion. Thus, we can examine the formal elements of the times, the life circumstances of the artists, and so on.
workan approach known as formalismand we can The paintings alone do not provide enough informa-
explore its contextknown as contextualism. tion for contextual inquiry. Similarly, contextual anal-
ysis of a novel by Dostoyevsky would consider both
Formalism his personal circumstances and the conditions in Rus-
A formal analysis is concerned with the aesthetic (ar- sia and Europe when he wrote. A contextual analysis
tistic) elements of a work separate from context. This of a chorale and fugue by Bach would include infor-
type of analysis focuses on medium and technique: mation on Bachs life, his religious beliefs, and the po-
litical climate of Germany in the eighteenth century.
A formal analysis of a painting, sculpture, or ar-
chitectural structure examines its line, shape, color,
texture, and composition, as well as the artists
An Integrated Approach
technical ability within the medium used; it is not In a strictly contextual analysis of an artwork, the
concerned with anything extraneous to the work work itself can sometimes be lost in the exploration
itself. of context. In a strictly formal analysis, important
A formal analysis of a literary work, such as a short knowledge that can contribute to understanding may
story or novel, explores the relationships among remain unknown. The most effective analyses, there-
theme, plot, characters, and setting, as well as how fore, combine and integrate the two approaches, exam-
well the resources of languageword choice, tone, ining the formal elements of the work and exploring
imagery, and symbolare used to support the the context within which it was created. A work of art,
other elements. whether a poem or a painting, a cathedral or a cantata,
A formal analysis of a film explores theme, plot,
characters (as developed both verbally and non-
verbally), and setting, as well as how the resources
of cinematographycamera techniques, lighting,
sound, editing, and costumessupport the other
elements.
A formal analysis of The Virgin of the Rocks examines
the artists use of perspective, the arrangement of
figures as they relate to each other and to the grotto
that surrounds them, the technical use of color and
line, and the dramatic interplay of light and shadow
(known as chiaroscuro). The same technical consider-
ations are explored in a formal analysis of Les Demoi-
selles dAvignon. That the two paintings were completed
in 1483 and 1907, respectively, is important only in
terms of the technology and mediums available to the
artists. In a formal analysis, time and place exist only
within the work.

Contextualism
Unlike formalism, contextualism requires that a work
be understood in its time and place. Contextual analy-
sis focuses on what is outside the work:
S
The artistic, social, cultural, historical, and political N
forces, events, and trends Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles dAvignon. L
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xxvi A HUMANITIES PRIMER

is a complex entity, as are the relationships it fosters psychological, religious, and economic issues, as
between the artist and the art and between the art well as questions about class and gender in various
and its audience. The integrative approach recognizes times and places. Historical analysis requires an
these relationships and their complexity. This is the understanding of the significant events of the time
approach to artistic and cultural analysis most fre- and how they affect the individual and shape the
quently used in Experience Humanities. culture. Experience Humanities most often takes a
historical perspective in its views of art and culture.

A Variety of Perspectives The Vocabulary of Analysis


Many students and critics of culture are also interested
Certain terms and concepts are fundamental to the
in looking at things from a particular perspective, a
analysis of any artwork:
set of interests or a way of thinking that informs and
influences their investigations and interpretations. Audience is the group for whom a work of art, archi-
Common perspectives are the psychological, the femi- tecture, literature, drama, film, or music is intended.
nist, the religious, the economic, and the historical. The audience may be a single person, a small group
of people, or a special group with common interests
A psychological perspective looks for meaning in
or education.
the psychological features of the work, such as sex-
ual and symbolic associationsin effect, a kind of Composition is the arrangement of constituent ele-
retroactive psychological analysis of the artist. This ments in an individual work. In music, composition
perspective might also examine the facial expres- also refers to the process of creating the work.
sions, gestures, and body positions of Mary and the Content is the subject matter of the work; content
angel in The Virgin of the Rocks, or it might be inter- can be based on mythology, religion, history, cur-
ested in da Vincis attitudes toward women and his rent events, personal history, or almost any idea or
relationship with them. feeling deemed appropriate by the artist.
A feminist perspective examines the art itself and Context is the setting in which the art arose, its
the context in which it arises from a womans point own time and place. Context includes the politi-
of view. This perspective also asks how the work cal, economic, social, and cultural conditions of the
depicts women, what it says about women and their time; it can also include the personal conditions
relationships in general, and how it may or may not and circumstances that shape the artists vision.
reflect a patriarchal society. Many critics have dis- A convention is an agreed-upon practice, device,
cussed the apparent hatred of women that seems technique, or form. A sonnet, for example, is a
evident in Picassos Les Demoiselles dAvignon. At fourteen-line poem with certain specified rhyme
the same time, the work, in its size (8 feet by 7 feet schemes. A poem is not a sonnet unless it follows
8 inches) and in the unblinking attitude of its sub- this formal convention. A convention of the theater
jects, suggests that these women have a kind of raw is the willing suspension of disbelief: we know
power. Feminist critics focus on such considerations. that the events taking place before our eyes are not
A religious perspective is often appropriate when real, but we agree to believe in them for the dura-
a work of art originates in a religious context. The tion of the play.
soaring spires and cruciform floor plans of medi- Genre is the type or class to which a work of art,
eval cathedrals reveal religious meaning, as do Re- literature, drama, or music belongs, depending on
naissance paintings depicting biblical characters. its style, form, or content. In literature, for example,
Religious analyses look to the use of symbolism, the novel is a genre in itself; the short story is an-
the representation of theological doctrines and be- other genre. In music, symphonies, operas, and tone
liefs, and intercultural connections and influences poems are all different genres.
for meaning. The medium is the material from which an art ob-
An economic perspective on a work of art focuses on ject is mademarble or bronze, for example, in
its economic contentthe roles and relationships sculpture, or watercolors or oils in painting. (The
associated with wealth. Often drawing upon Marxs plural of medium in this sense is often mediums;
contention that class is the defining consideration when medium is used to refer to a means of mass
in all human relationships and endeavors, an eco- communication, such as radio or television, the plu-
nomic analysis examines both purpose and con- ral is media.)
tent: the artwork created as a display of power by Style is the combination of distinctive elements of
the rich, as a depiction of people of different classes, creative execution and expression, in terms of both
S and as an indicator of the distribution of wealth. form and content. Artists, artistic schools, move-
N Perhaps the most encompassing of all perspectives ments, and periods can be characterized by their
L is the historical, because it includes explorations of style. Styles often evolve out of existing styles, or
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A HUMANITIES PRIMER xxvii

in reaction to styles that are perceived as worn out ondary (or even tertiary) themes. Plot can be evalu-
or excessive. ated by how well it supports the theme.
Technique refers to the systematic procedure Characters provide the human focus, the embodi-
whereby a particular creative task is performed. For ment, of the theme; they act out and are affected by
example, a dancers technique is the way he or she the plot. The protagonist, or primary character, of
executes leaps and turns; a painters technique is the the work is changed by the dramatic action of the
way he or she applies paint to a canvas with broad, plot and thus is a dynamic character; static charac-
swirling brushstrokes. ters remain unchanged throughout the story. An
The theme is the dominant idea of a work, the mes- antagonist is a character in direct opposition to the
sage or emotion the artist intends to convey. The protagonist. Some characters are stock characters,
theme, then, is the embodiment of the artists in- representing a type rather than an individual hu-
tent. In a novel, for example, the theme is the ab- man being.
stract concept that is made concrete by character, The setting is the background against which the ac-
plot, setting, and other linguistic and structural tion takes place. It can include the geographical lo-
elements of the work. cation, the environment (political, social, economic)
in which the characters live, the historical time in
These general concepts and terms are supplemented
which the action takes place, and the culture and
by the more specific terms that will be introduced in
customs of the time, place, and people.
the following literary, artistic, and musical sections.
The narrator tells the story or poem from his or her
point of view. The narrator is not necessarily iden-
LITERARY ANALYSIS tical with the author of the work. The narrator (or
Literary analysis begins with a consideration of vari- narrative voice) can be examined and analyzed
ous literary genres and forms. A work of literature is like any other element of the work. When a narra-
written either in prose, the ordinary language used tor seems to know everything and is not limited
in speaking and writing, or in poetry, a more imagi- by time or place, the work has an omniscient point
native and concentrated form of expression usually of view. Such a narrator tells us what everyone is
marked by meter, rhythm, or rhyme. Prose is often thinking, feeling, and doing. When the story is told
divided into nonfiction (essays, biography, autobiogra- from the perspective of a single character who can
phy) and fiction (short stories, novels). relate only what he or she knows or witnesses, the
In literature, genre refers both to formessay, short work has a first-person point of view. Such a narra-
story, novel, poem, play, film script, television script tor is limited in his or her understanding. Thus, we
and to specific type within a formtragedy, comedy, need to consider the narrator in order to judge how
epic, and lyric. accurate or complete the narrative is.

Tragedy, according to Aristotle, must have a tragic A literary analysis of a drama, whether a play for
heroa person of high stature who is brought down the stage or a film script, will consider not only the
by his or her own excessive pride (hubris); this per- elements already mentionedtheme, plot, character,
son doesnt necessarily die at the end, but whatever setting, language, and so onbut also the technical
his or her greatness was based upon is lost. considerations specific to the form. In theater, these
Comedy is a story with a complicated and amus- would include the work of the director, who interprets
ing plot; it usually ends with a happy and peaceful the play and directs the actors, as well as stage design,
resolution of any conflicts. light and sound design, costumes, makeup, and so on.
In film, technical considerations would include direc-
An epic poem, novel, or film is a relatively long re-
tion, editing, cinematography, musical score, special
counting of the life of a hero or the glorious history
effects, and so on.
of a people.
Lets turn now to a poem by Shakespeare and see
A lyric poem is a short, subjective poem usually ex- how to approach it to enrich our understanding. Iden-
pressing an intense personal emotion. tifying a poems intent and evaluating its execution is
Theme is the message or emotion that the author called an explication, from the French explication de texte.
wishes to convey. In an essay the theme is articu- An explication is a detailed analysis of a poems mean-
lated as the thesis: the idea or conclusion that the ing, focusing on narrative voice, setting, rhyme, meter,
essay will prove or support. In a novel, story, or words, and images. An explication begins with what
play, we infer the theme from the content and the is immediately evident about the poem as a whole, fol-
development of ideas and imagery. lowed by a more careful examination of its parts.
Plot, in fiction, is the action of the story. There may William Shakespeare (15641616) was not just a great S
be a primary plot that becomes the vehicle by which playwright; he was also a great poet. His works portray N
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xxviii A HUMANITIES PRIMER

recognize today as well as the conditions and concerns My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun;
of his time. In this sense, they are an example of aes- The speakers lovers eyes are not bright.
thetic universality, the enduring connection between a Coral is far more red than her lips red;
work of art and its audience. Her lips are not very red, certainly not as red as coral.
Shakespeares sonnets are his most personal work. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
Scholars disagree about whether they are generic love Her breasts are mottled in color, not as white as snow.
poems or are addressed to a specific person and, if the If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
latter, who that person might be. Formally, an English Her hair is black (not blond, as was the conventional
(or Shakespearean) sonnet is a 14-line poem consist- beauty standard then, when poets referred to
ing of three 4-line stanzas, or quatrains, each with its womens hair as golden wires).
I have seen roses damaskd, red and white,
own rhyme scheme, and a concluding 2-line stanza,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
or couplet, that provides commentary on the preced-
Her cheeks are not rosy.
ing stanzas. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean
And in some perfumes is there more delight
sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg; that is, the first and third
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
lines of each quatrain rhyme with each other, as do the Her breath doesnt smell as sweet as perfume.
second and fourth lines, though the rhymes are dif- I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
ferent in each quatrain. The last two lines rhyme with That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
each other. Her voice doesnt sound as melodious as music.
The meter of most Shakespearean sonnets is iam- I grant I never saw a goddess go,
bic pentameter; that is, each line has five feet, or units My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
(pentameter), and each foot consists of an iamb, an Although the speaker has never seen a goddess walk,
unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable he knows his lover does not float above ground,
(as in alone). An example of iambic pentameter is My as goddesses are supposed to do, but walks on the
mistress eyes are nothing like the sun; each foot con- ground, a mortal woman.
sists of an unaccented and an accented syllable, and And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
there are five feet. Unrhymed iambic pentameterthe As any she belied with false compare.
verse of most of Shakespeares playsis known as His lover is as rare and valuable as any idealized
blank verse. woman glorified by false poetic comparisons.
Sonnet 130 (My mistress eyes are nothing like the
sun) is a poem that not only illustrates sonnet form Remember that to analyze a poem, we ask questions
but also showcases Shakespeares wit and his attitude like, What is the theme of the poem, the poets intent?
toward certain conventions of his time. The poem was How does Shakespeare support his point with specific
originally written in Elizabethan English, which looks images? From the paraphrased lines it is clear that the
and sounds quite different from modern English. We narrator is stating that his love is a real woman who
reproduce it in modern English, as is customary today walks upon the ground, not an unattainable ideal to
for Shakespeares works. be worshiped from afar. Idealized qualities are irrel-
evant to how he feels about her; the qualities he loves
Sonnet 130 are the ones that make her human.
My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun; Closely examining each line of a poem helps to re-
Coral is far more red than her lips red; veal the rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg), the meter
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; (iambic pentameter), and thus the form of the poem
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. (sonnet). Explication of the formal elements of the
I have seen roses damaskd, red and white, poem would also include examining the use of lan-
But no such roses see I in her cheeks, guage (such as word choice, imagery, comparisons,
And in some perfumes is there more delight metaphors), the tone of the narrative voice, and so on.
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
To understand the context of the poem, we would
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
consider the cultural climate of the time (was courtly
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
love a prevalent cultural theme?); common contem-
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
porary poetic conventions (were many other poets
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare proclaiming their eternal love for idealized women?);
As any she belied with false compare. and the political, social, and economic conditions (what
roles were open to women in Elizabethan England,
Because the poets intent may not be immediately and how were they changing? What influence might
evident, paraphrasing each line or stanza can point Queen Elizabeth have had on the poets point of view?
S the reader to the theme or meaning intended by the What comments about his society is Shakespeare
N poet. Lets begin, then, by paraphrasing the lines: making?).
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Finally, we might consider how honest and accu- which are set forth above, this feature serves as a tool
rate we find the emotional content of the poem to be, to further unify the text. Following an integrative ap-
how relevant its truth. Are Shakespeares observations proach to an understanding of a work of art or archi-
germane to today, a time when the mass media pre tectureblending formal analysis with contextual
sent us with a nearly unattainable ideal as the epitome analysisour Interpreting Art feature offers a model
of female beauty? that students can apply to any work of art, whether in
the textbook or when they visit art galleries and muse-
FINE ARTS ANALYSIS ums. To demonstrate this new feature, we offer the ex-
ample of Cows Skull with Calico Roses by the American
As with literature, knowledge of a particular vocabu- artist Georgia OKeeffe (18871986), painted in 1931.
lary helps us speak the language of art critics. The
terms introduced here are in addition to those dis-
cussed earlier, such as medium and technique. They MUSICAL ANALYSIS
apply to all the visual arts, including drawing and Like literature and art, music has its own vocabulary,
painting, sculpturethe art of shaping material (such and we need to be familiar with it in order to analyze
as wood, stone, or marble) into three-dimensional a composition.
works of artand architecturethe art and science of
designing, planning, and building structures, usually Sacred music refers to religious music, such as
for human habitation. In architecture, the critic would Gregorian chants, Masses, requiems, cantatas, and
also pay attention to the blending of artistry and func- hymns.
tionality (how well the structure fulfills its purpose). Secular music is the term used to describe sym-
phonies, songs, operas, dances, and other nonsacred
Representational art is true to human perception musical works.
and presents a likeness of the world much as it ap-
Vocal music is music that is sung and generally has
pears to the naked eye.
lyrics (words).
Perspective is the appearance of depth and dis-
Choral music is vocal music performed by a group
tance on a two-dimensional surface.
of singers.
Abstract art presents a subjective view of the world,
Instrumental music is music that is written for and
the artists emotions or ideas; some abstract art sim-
performed on instruments.
ply presents color, line, or shape for its own sake.
Form, in music, means the particular structure or
The formal elements of visual art include the arrangement of elements by the composer in the
following: musical composition. Musical forms include sym-
Line is the mark made by the artist, whether with phonies, songs, concertos, string quartets, sonatas,
pencil, pen, or paintbrush. Lines can be straight or Masses, and operas.
curved, thick or thin, light or dark, spare or plentiful. Tone is a musical sound of definite pitch (pitch is
Color is the use in the artwork of hues found in determined by the frequency of the air waves pro-
nature; color can enhance the sense of reality pre- ducing the sound). The term tone can also refer to
sented in a visual image, or it can distort it, de- the quality of a sound.
pending on how it is used. The primary colors are A scale is a set pattern of tones (or notes) arranged
red, blue, and yellow, and the secondary colors are from low to high (or high to low). The modern
orange (a combination of red and yellow), green Western scale is the familiar do, re, mi, fa, sol, la,
(a combination of yellow and blue), and purple (a ti, do, with half steps in between the tones. In other
combination of blue and red). cultures, more or fewer tones may be distinguished
Composition is the artists arrangement of elements in a scale.
within the artwork. Through the composition the Tempo is the rate of speed of a musical passage,
artist leads us to see the artwork in a particular way. usually set or suggested by the composer.
The setting of an artwork is the time and place Texture describes the number and nature of the
depicted in a representational work, as defined by voices or instruments employed and how the parts
visual cues, such as the people, their dress, their ac- are combined. In music, a theme is a characteris-
tivity, the time of day, and the season of the year. tic musical idea on which a composition is built or
developed.
Interpreting Art Melody is a succession of musical tones, usually
The Interpreting Art feature helps students to under- having a distinctive musical shape, or line, and a
stand the visual arts and architecture. Drawing on definite rhythm (the recurrent alternation of ac- S
the analytical terms and categories of the fine arts, cented and unaccented beats). N
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Interpreting Art
Form Verticality is the Psychological
dominant form, as in the vertical
line of the skull, the skulls vertical
Perspective The overall
feeling is one of contemplation:
crack, and the band of black,
the pairing of incongruous objects-
running from top to bottom. The
cows skull and artificial flowers-
skulls horns form a horizontal line,
reminds the viewer of the intimate
thus adding a crosslike shape.
relationships between life and
death, beauty and ugliness, art
Color The colors are neutral- and nature.
shades of black, gray, cream, and
white. Inside the skull, darker
hues-tan and ochre-cause it
Depth Perception The
works surface is shallow and flat,
to stand out from the muted
a typical feature of modernist art.
background.
The skull appears to float in the
foreground, and, at the same time,
Setting The cows skull the black band seems to open into
evokes the stark desert landscape a mysterious space that recedes
of Taos, New Mexico, where the from the viewer.
work was painted.

Religious
Perspective Renaissance
artists used human skulls to
remind viewers of their mortality,
and, here, the cows skull
suggests the unforgiving nature
of the desert.

GEORGIA OK EEFFE. Cows Skull with Calico Roses. Oil on canvas, 36 24.
1931. Georgia OKeeffes passion for nature was inspired by a childhood
on a Wisconsin farm. Her mature artistic style blended realism and
abstraction. Her artistic trademark, as shown here: the abstraction of an
object from nature, which she then painted according to her inner vision.

Harmony is the simultaneous combination of two (probably a pops orchestra, one that performs more
or more tones, producing a chord. More generally, popular classical music). When listening to a new
harmony refers to the choral characteristics of a piece of music or one you are not familiar with, its
work and the way in which chords interact with a good idea to try to get a sense of its general mood
one another. and characteragain, focusing on the creators intent.
What emotions or ideas is the composer trying to con-
With these basic categories in mind, lets consider a vey? What musical elements does the composer use to
well-known musical work, Rhapsody in Blue, by George execute that intent?
Gershwin (18981937). Even if you dont know this You will notice, first of all, that the work is writ-
piece by name, its very likely that you have heard it. It ten for a small orchestra and a solo piano, the same
has been used in ads and in the sound tracks of many instrumental configuration you would expect for a
movies, including Fantasia 2000; it is also a standard classical piano concerto (a concerto is a work for one
accompaniment to images of New York City. or a few instruments and an orchestra, with much of
S Imagine that youre seated in a concert hall and its interest coming from the contrasts between the solo
N hearing this piece performed by a symphony orchestra voice and the ensemble voice). But the opening notes
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A HUMANITIES PRIMER xxxi

of Rhapsody in Blue reveal something other than clas- for the work. You will find that George Gershwin was a
sical intentions: a solo clarinet begins low and sweeps gifted and classically trained pianist who quit school at
up the scale in a seemingly endless smear of sound, fifteen and went to work in Tin Pan Alley, a district in
finally reaching a high note, briefly holding it, and New York City where popular songs were written and
then plunging into the playful, zigzag melody that published. His goal in writing Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
becomes one of the major themes of the work. Within was to blend classical and popular music, to put the en-
moments, the orchestra enters and repeats the theme ergy and style of jazz into a symphonic format. Many
in the strings and brass, to be followed by the entry listeners see and hear New York City in this piece.
of the solo piano. Throughout the work, piano and Gershwin created his own unique idiom, a fast-paced
orchestra alternate and combine to sing out beauti- blend of rhythm, melody, and harmony that followed
ful melodies and create a varied and colorful texture. certain rules of composition but gave the impression of
Variety also comes from different instrumentation of improvisation. He went on to write musicals, more se-
the themes and tunes, played first by a slinky muted rious compositions like the opera Porgy and Bess, and
trumpet, then by a sweet solo violin, later by a whole music for Hollywood films, all in his distinctive style.
lush string section or a brash horn section. Information like this can help you begin to compare
Youll notice, too, the constant changes in tempo, now Rhapsody in Blue both with other works of the time and
slower, now faster, almost as if the work is being im- with other works by Gershwin. As in any analysis, inte-
provised. Complex, syncopated, off-the-beat rhythms grating the formal and the contextual rounds out your
give the piece a jazzy feeling, and the combination of interpretation and understanding of the work.
tones evokes the blues, a style of music in which certain
notes are bent, or lowered slightly in pitch, creating a
particular sound and mood. The general feeling of the CONCLUSION
piece is upbeat, exciting, energetic, suggestive of a bus- The foregoing materials should give you some ideas
tling city busy with people on the go. It may also make about how literature, art, and music can be approached
you think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies in productive ways. By taking the time to look more
youve seen on late-night TVsophisticated, playful, closely, we gain access to the great works of our cul-
casually elegantand in fact, Gershwin wrote the mu- ture. This statement leads us to another issue: What
sic for some of their films. makes a work great? Why do some works of art have
What can we learn about this work from its title? relevance long beyond their time, while others are for-
Musical works often reveal their form in their titles gotten soon after their designated fifteen minutes of
(Fifth Symphony, Violin Concerto in D, and so on). A fame? These questions have been debated through-
rhapsody is a composition of irregular form with an out history. One answer is that great art reflects some
improvisatory character. Although you may have heard truth of human experience that speaks to us across
themes, repetitions, and echoes in Rhapsody in Blue, you the centuries. The voice of Shakespeare, the paintings
probably were not able to discern a regular form such of Georgia OKeeffe, and the music of George Gersh-
as might be apparent in a classical sonata or symphony. win have a universal quality that doesnt depend on
The word rhapsody also suggests rapture, elation, bliss, the styles of the time. Great art also enriches us and
ecstasyperhaps the feelings conveyed by that soar- makes us feel that we share a little more of the human
ing first phrase on the clarinet. Blue, on the other hand, experience than we did before.
suggests the melancholy of the blues. The dissonance As both a student of the humanities and an audi-
created by the combination of the two termslike the ence member, you have the opportunity to appreciate
combinations and contrasts in the musiccreates an and understand the arts. Despite the formal nature of
energetic tension that arouses our curiosity and height- academic inquiry, an aesthetic analysis is a personal en-
ens our interest. deavor. In looking closely at a creative work, seeking the
In making these observations about Rhapsody in creators intent and evaluating its execution, you enrich
Blue, weve been noticing many of the formal elements your appreciation of the work with understanding; you
of a musical work and answering questions that can bring the emotional reaction you first experienced to its
be asked about any composition: What is the form of intellectual completion. As twentieth-century composer
the work? What kind of instrumentation has the com- Arnold Schoenberg once wrote, You get from a work
poser chosen? What is the primary melodic theme of about as much as you are able to give to it yourself.
the work? What tempos are used? How do the instru- This primer has been intended to help you learn how
ments or voices work together to create the texture? to bring more of yourself to works of art, to couple your
What is the overall mood of the piecejoyful, sad, subjective appreciation with intellectual understand-
calm, wild, a combination? ing. With these tools in hand, you wont have to say you
Now, at your imaginary concert, there may be notes dont know much about art but you know what you like; S
in the program that will provide you with some context you will be able to say you know about what you like. N
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To LeeAnn, Dixie, and Linda
There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye
keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends,
as they themselves know better than anyone.
Homer, Odyssey

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Experience Humanities

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The Great Sphinx. Ca. 2560 BCE. 65 high 240 long. Giza, Egypt. Huge and majestic, the
great Sphinx, a lion with a mans face, stood silent sentinel before the great Pyramid.

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Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization
1
in the Near East and Egypt

Preview Questions For some two hundred years, it has been customary to speak
1. What are the chief of Western civilization and, for a somewhat shorter time, to speak of
signs of the emergence the many cultures that have made up Western civilization. What do these
of civilization in terms mean? When people first spoke about the West, they were refer-
Mesopotamia and
Egypt? ring to western Europe. But western Europe was the product of cultures
and peoples who had lived around the Mediterranean Sea in antiquity, and
2. How did geography
influence the eventually Europe exported its cultures to much of the rest of the globe.
development of West is therefore as much an idea as a place. Civilization is in a way the
government, society,
largest unit within which any one person might feel comfortable. It is an
and culture in
Mesopotamia and organizing principle that implies common institutions, economic systems,
Egypt? social structures, and values that extend over space and time. Culture is
3. How were the cultures a more restricted term. On one very general level, it means high culture:
of Mesopotamia the fine arts and philosophy, for example. On another level, it means the
and Egypt alike and
different? totality of expressions and behaviors that characterize a readily identifi-
able group of people in a specific place and time. Every civilization enfolds
many cultures, at any one time and across long periods of time. Mesopota-
mia and Egypt, like greece and Rome, were cultures within ancient West-
ern civilization, and they contributed powerfully to an enduring tradition.
The two structures to the left, the great Sphinx and one of the great
Pyramids, are probably familiar to readers of this book. Why should that
be so? After all, they are five thousand years old. The reasons are many,
but among the most prominent are history and tradition. These monu-
ments have a history and they have entered the Western tradition. They
have become a part of who we are. Standing as they do at the beginning
of Western civilization, they invite us to reflect on the people who erected
them. What kinds of political power, social structure, and wealth permit-
ted such monuments? What do they tell us about those peoples tastes and
sensibilities? Why did they choose to represent themselves in this way?

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4 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

PREHISTORY AND Western Hemisphere, reaching the latter by means


of a land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska.
EARLY CULTURES People had begun to use more sophisticated tools,
Human beings long preceded culture and civiliza- such as fishhooks, bows and arrows, and needles (Fig-
tion. The remote ancestors of modern human beings ure 1.1). Most impressively, however, late Paleolithic
emerged in Africa at least four million years ago. That peoples began to express themselves in art. Ice Age
is merely a moment in comparison to the roughly six cave paintings of reindeer, bison, rhinoceroses, lions,
billion years that planet Earth can boast. To put those and horses in Altamira, Spain, and in Lascaux and the
huge numbers into perspective, let us imagine a cal- Ardche region of France date from the Upper Paleo
endar: if Earth appeared on January 1, then human lithic (40,00010,000 BCE) and are the earliest examples
ancestors showed up around the end of August, but of human art (Figure 1.2). The purposes of the paint-
civilization, and history, commenced a few minutes ings in the Chauvet caves in the Ardche region re-
before midnight on December 31. main a mystery, but those at Altamira and Lascaux
Perhaps two million years ago, the species Homo, or were probably elements in hunting rituals. By paint-
the hominids, made its appearance whereas Homo sapiens, ing numerous wild animals pierced with arrows, the
the immediate ancestor of modern humans, emerged artists were attempting to ensure a successful hunt.
around two hundred thousand years ago. For a very Another type of Upper Paleolithic art is seen in the
long time, therefore, the key story was the develop- carved female figurine found at Willendorf, Austria
ment of the human species itself. Unfortunately, knowl- (Figure 1.3). Made of limestone, the statue is faceless
edge about these hominids is limited and fragmentary. and rotund. The distended stomach and full breasts
They were hunters and gatherers, lived in natural shel- suggest that the figure may have been a mother god-
ters such as caves, and did not possess complex social dess used as a fertility symbol to represent the cre-
structures. Hominids invented crude stone tools, used ative power of nature. As a mythological figure, the
fire, and probably developed speecha major break- mother goddess appeared in many ancient cultures,
through that enabled them to communicate in ways beginning in Paleolithic times; approximately thirty
denied to animals. Their first stone tools were simple thousand miniature sculptures in clay, marble, bone,
choppers and, later, hand axes, pointed tools, and scrap- copper, and gold have been uncovered at about three
ers, all chiseled with care. Hominids and Homo sapiens thousand sites in southeastern Europe alone. The
span the Paleolithic period, the Old Stone Age, a time supremacy of the mother goddess was expressed in
roughly coterminous with the geological Pleistocene, the earliest myths of creation, which told of the life-
the Ice Age, about 2,000,000 BCE to about 10,000 BCE. giving and nurturing powers of the female. The Wil-
lendorf figurine, with its emphasized breasts, navel,
and vulva, symbolic of creativity, may have been used
Paleolithic Period in religious ceremonies to ensure the propagation of
The latter millennia of the Paleolithic period are some- the tribe or to guarantee a bountiful food supply. The
what better known than earlier ones owing to discov- statue also reveals the aesthetic interests of the sculp-
eries in widely dispersed places. Homo sapiens had tor, who took care to depict the goddesss hands rest-
migrated across the Eastern Hemisphere and even the ing on her breasts and her hair in tightly knit rows.

Figure 1.1 The Ice Man. South Tyrol


Museum of Archaeology. In 1991 hikers
in the Alps discovered the body of a man
in melting ice. He turned out to be over five
thousand years old. He died in a bloody fight
after having eaten a last meal of bread and
goat meat. He possessed a bow and arrows,
S a copper hatchet, and several pouches and
N containers. The Ice Man was about 5 feet
L 2 inches tall and had lived a very hard life.
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Prehistory and Early Cultures 5

Figure 1.2 Herd of Rhinoceroses. Ca. 32,00030,000 BCE. Chauvet


Cave, Ardche region, France. This naturalistic detail of a panel painting
includes lions, bison, and a young mammoth (not visible here) moving across
a vast expanse of the cave wall. The repeated black lines of the rhinoceroses
horns and backs create a sense of depth and give energy to the work.

The Neolithic Revolution


As the last glaciers retreated from Europe, during the
Holocene (Recent) epoch of geological time, humans
had to adapt to new living conditions. The brief Meso-
lithic period (Middle Stone Age) proved to be a decisive
turning point. In the most important development in
human history, hunters and gatherers became farmers
and herders. Thus began, some ten thousand years ago,
the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age. As Homo sa-
piens became farmers and herders, they gained knowl-
edge about agriculture and developed wooden tools
and other technologies for farming and herding. Their
stone tools became more advanced than those in the
Mesolithic period and included knives and hammers.
Along with the domestication of animals, the animal-
drawn plow was introduced to Mesopotamia, thus

Figure 1.3 Figurine from Willendorf. Ca. 25,000 BCE. Ht. 4 3/8.
Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna. Discovered in about 1908 CE,
this female statuette measures just under 5 inches high. Carved from
limestone, it still shows evidence of having been painted red. Many other
S
statues like it have been discovered, but this one remains the most famous N
because of the unusual balance it strikes between symbolism and realism. L
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6 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

Timeline 1.1 GEOLOGICAL TIME AND PREHISTORIC CULTURAL PERIODS All dates approximate and BCE

1,800,000 10,000

Pliocene Pleistocene (Ice Age) Holocene (Recent)

GEOLOGICAL TIME

5,000,000 2,000,000 200,000 40,000 10,000 8000 3000


Lower Middle Upper
Paleolithic Paleolithic Paleolithic Meso- Age of
Neolithic
lithic Metals
PALEOLITHIC (New Stone Age)
(Old Stone Age)

Hominids Genus 300,000200,000


Homo Homo sapiens

CULTURAL PERIODS

increasing the yield of crops. After 3500 BCE, the rise mastery of gold and silver metalworking. Gold and sil-
of the new technologies accelerated, making this one of ver were first reduced from their ores after 3500 BCE,
the most fruitful eras for change that the world has ever but their scarcity made them too precious for general
known. In transportation the changes included two use. The shift from stone tools to bronze tools occurred
innovations: the boat (with and without sails) and the at first in only a few areas in the Near East, China,
wheeleach with enormous potential for commerce, and Southeast Asia. Elsewhere, especially in Europe,
travel, and warfare. In construction and building, the Mesoamerica, and the Andes of South America, stone
discovery and use of kiln-fired bricks made houses, continued as the dominant material for tools.
temples, and palaces possible. Five new technologies From Mesopotamia, where the earliest successful
changed the domestic scene: weaving, dyeing (using bronze was produced by anonymous artisans, this
animal and vegetable dyes), tanning, pottery making metalworking tradition was transmitted to Egypt,
(both plain and kiln-fired), and lighting with oil lamps. Greece, and elsewhere. It produced a host of new tech-
Large-scale irrigation in dry lands expanded crop nologies. Writing is the hallmark of this period, with
yields and brought new plants under cultivation, such Egyptians putting words on papyrus, a flat writing
as wheat, flax, millet, barley, and spices. surface made from pressed reeds, and Mesopotamians
In Southeast Asia, Central America, parts of South incising words on clay tablets. With the invention of
America, and the Near East, humans ceased their no- writing, the silence of the prehistoric period gave way
madic existence and learned to domesticate wild ani- to the voice of the historic period.
mals. They learned to plow the earth and sow seeds, Other technologies improved the lives of people
providing themselves with a more reliable, predictable during the Bronze Age. Construction methods moved
food supply than in earlier times, which in turn per- along two different paths: in Egypt, stone building
mitted increased population, permanent settlements, techniques arose, and in Mesopotamia, stepped tem-
and eventually urban centers. This agrarian pattern of ples, made of dried bricks, became the chief building
life dominated the West until about 150 years ago. style. Advances in transport were made, with sail-
boats plying their wares on Egypts Nile and wooden
ships maneuvering in the Mediterranean. Copper and
The Age of Metals tin were in short supply in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The Neolithic Revolution expanded across the Near To ensure a continuous supply of these metals, com-
East and probably into Europe and Africa. Between plex trading ties and mining operations had to be es-
6000 and 3000 BCE, human beings also learned to tablished. Copper was found in neighboring Anatolia
mine and use copper, signifying the end of the Neo- (modern Turkey), but tin was scarce, as it was mined
lithic period and ushering in the Age of Metals. In in only a few places, in modern Serbia and Bulgaria
about 3000 BCE, artisans combined copper and tin at first, and in Cornwall, in modern England, after
to produce bronze, a strong alloy, which they used in 2500 BCE. Domestic life made extraordinary advances
S their tools, weapons, and jewelry. in Mesopotamia, with many changes that are still
N The Bronze Age extended from about 3000 to about part of life today, including baking bread in ovens,
L 1200 BCE. A herald of the Age of Metals was the brewing beer, and distilling perfumes. In Egypt and
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The Rise of Civilization: Mesopotamia 7

Learning Through Maps


MAP 1.1ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
ASIA MINOR AND EGYPT
(Anatolia)
This map shows the two earliest civilizations
CRESCE
Caspian
IL E NT Sea of the Near East: Mesopotamia and Egypt.
RT ASSYRIA 1. Notice that much of Mesopotamia is

FE
ME

Ti
SO Nineveh contained within the area known as the Fertile

gr
PO

is
SYRIA TA
up MEDIA Crescent and that Egypt is settled mainly

R.
M

E
CYPRUS hr
a IA
PHOENICIA tes along the Nile River. 2. Locate the cities in
Mediterranean Sea R. PERSIA
Mesopotamia and Egypt. 3. Compare and

ZA
LEBANON AKKAD
BABYLONIA contrast the role and importance of rivers

GR
PALESTINE
Babylon in these civilizations. 4. Why was Egypt less

OS
Jerusalem
SUMER
Dead Sea
exposed to external influences than was

M
O
Giza Ur
Mesopotamia?

U
TA Persepolis

N
Memphis IN
LOWER S

Pe
EGYPT
Amarna ia

rs
n
UPPER EGYPT Gu
lf
Thebes
Luxor
ARABIAN DESERT
First Cataract
Re
dS
R.

ea
ile
N

NUBIA
0 250 500 mi
Fourth Cataract
0 500 1000 km

Areas of greatest fertility

MHS63 12
mat76620_m0101.eps
Mesopotamia, making glass and wine became com- processes
First proof brought the division of labor, government,
mon, and, in Egypt, the invention of hand mirrors and religion, priestly classes, arts and crafts, and sciences.
the sundial lent new perspectives for people to experi- Taken together, along with writing, these elements
ence. Urban culture also led to the widespread use of add up to civilization. Western civilization arose in
calendars, in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia and Egypt (about 35003000 BCE). Both
The Iron Age began in about 1200 BCE, but the regions were ruled by kings who were supported by
making of iron has been dated to about 2000 BCE. Iron educated priestly classes and shared power with an
technology soon led to new devices, fashioned from economic and military elite. Their economies were
either iron or steel, such as iron-tipped plows, weap- slave based; their societies were hierarchical and strat-
onry, buckets, and locks and keys. Warriors quickly ified. Both had elaborate palaces and temples for gov-
realized that sturdy iron defeats brittle bronze every ernmental and ceremonial purposes.
time. Indeed, the outcome of some wars between 1200 Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning between
and 1000 BCE was determined by which side wielded the rivers. The valleys of the Rivers Tigris and Eu-
iron weapons. phrates formed part of what is known as the Fertile
Crescent, which starts at the Persian Gulf, runs slightly
THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION: northwestward through the region between the riv-
ers (roughly modern Iraq), and then turns westerly
MESOPOTAMIA to the Mediterranean Sea and curves south along the
Civilization is based on a Latin word meaning city shoreline toward Egypt (Map 1.1). This arc of land con-
and citizen. It was the Neolithic Revolution that tained most of the fertile soil in the Near East, many S
made cities possible. That revolution depended on heavily traveled trade routes, and early centers of civi- N
agriculture and the domestication of animals. Those lization. The hill country and Zagros Mountains rise L
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8 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

Timeline 1.2 MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATIONS All dates approximate and BCE

3000 2350 2000 1600

Sumerian Akkadian Babylonian

to the east of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and the vast Agriculture dominated the economy of Mesopo
Arabian Desert stretches to the west. The rivers flow tamia. Harsh living conditions and unpredictable
down to the Persian Gulf, draining an area approxi- floods forced the inhabitants to learn to control the
mately 600 miles long and 250 miles wide. Near the rivers through irrigation systems and cooperative till-
mouth of the gulf, in the river delta, human wanderers ing of the soil. Farmers eventually dug a complex canal
settled in about 6000 BCE. system to irrigate cultivated plots at increasing dis-
tances from the river. As production increased, pros-
perity allowed larger populations to thrive. Villages
The Sumerian, Akkadian, soon grew into small citieswith populations rang-
and Babylonian Kingdoms ing from ten thousand to fifty thousandsurrounded
Three successive culturesSumerian, Akkadian, and by hamlets and tilled fields. Trade developed with
Babylonianflourished in Mesopotamia for nearly fif- nearby areas, and wheeled vehiclesperfected by
teen hundred years (Timeline 1.2). As historian Samuel the Sumeriansand sailboats carried goods up and
Kramer asserts, History begins at Sumer. down the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and eventually
The rulers of Sumer sought a just and stable society throughout the Fertile Crescent.
and fostered a rich cultural life. Sumers most inspira- By the beginning of the Bronze Age, the family
tional king, Gilgamesh [GILL-guh-mesh], ruled about had replaced the tribe or clan as the basic unit in so-
2700 BCE at Ur, one of the thirty or so cities of Sumer. ciety. Families now owned their lands outright, and,
His heroic adventures and exploits were later im- under the general direction of the religious and sec-
mortalized in the poem The Epic of Gilgamesh. A later ular authorities, they worked their fields and main-
ruler, Urukagina [Ur-oo-KA-gee-na], is known for re- tained irrigation ditches. Marriages were arranged
forming law codes and revitalizing the economy near by parents, with economics an essential considera
the end of the Sumerian period (2350 BCE). But Uru- tion. According to the law codes, women possessed
kaginas successors were unable to maintain Sumers some rights, such as holding property; however, a
power, and the cities became easy prey for the Akka- wife was clearly under her husbands power. Divorce
dians of northern Mesopotamia. was easier for men than for women, and women
Akkadian rulers between about 2350 and 2000 BCE were punished more severely than men for breaking
incorporated Sumerian culture into their own society moral and marital laws. As peoples fought and con-
and carried this hybrid culture far beyond the Tigris- quered each other, government became increasingly
Euphrates valley. According to legendswhich are military in outlook and function and the roles and
similar to the later story of the Hebrew leader Moses status of women declined. In sum, Mesopotamian
Sargon (r. about 23342279 BCE), the first and greatest women were originally able to participate actively in
Akkadian ruler, was born of lowly origins and aban- economic, religious, and political life as long as their
doned at birth in the reed marshes; yet Sargon sur- dependence on and obligation to male kin and hus-
vived and rose to prominence at the Sumerian court. bands was observed, but they progressively lost their
Excavated inscriptions reveal that Sargon conquered relative independence because rulers extended the
the Sumerians and founded a far-flung empire to the concept of patriarchy (rule by the fathers) from family
east and northeast. At its height, Sargons power was practice into public law.
felt from Egypt to India, but his successors, lacking his The political structure reflected the order and func-
leadership and skill, could not maintain the Akkadian tions of the social system. At the top stood the ruler,
Empire. who was supported by an army, a bureaucracy, a ju-
Babylonia was the third culture in Mesopotamia. dicial system, and a priesthood. The ruler usually
From northern Mesopotamia, their power base, the obtained advice from prominent leaders, meeting in
Babylonians governed the entire valley from about council, who constituted the next layer of the social
2000 to 1600 BCE. Under their most successful military order: rich landowners, wealthy merchants, priests,
leader and renowned lawgiver, Hammurabi [ham-uh- and military chiefs. The next group consisted of ar-
S RAHB-e] (r. 17921750 BCE), the Babylonians reached tisans, craftspeople, and low-level businesspeople
N their political and cultural ascendancy. and traders. Below them were small landowners and
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The Rise of Civilization: Mesopotamia 9

tenant farmers. At the bottom of the social scale were symbols eventually resulted in a phonetic writing sys-
slaves, who either had been captured in war or had tem of syllable-based sounds that, when combined,
fallen into debt. produced words (Figure 1.4).
The Sumerian writing system is called cunei-
form (wedge shaped), from the Latin word cuneus
The Cradle of Civilization (wedge). Using wedge-shaped reeds or styluses,
The three Mesopotamian cultures responded to the scribes pressed the symbols into wet clay tablets, and
same geography, climate, and natural resources. The artists and craftspeople, wielding metal tools, incised
Sumerians were the most influential: from Sumer the script into stone monuments or cylindrical pillars.
came writing, the lunar calendar, a mathematical com- Scholars have painstakingly deciphered thousands of
putation system, medical and scientific discoveries, clay tablets thus revealing the society and thought of
and architectural and technological innovations. the Sumerians and of their Akkadian and Babylonian
successors.
Writing Thousands of clay tablets inscribed with Around 1050 BCE, the Phoenicians (fuh-NEE-shuns)
the wedge-shaped symbols of Sumerian script have improved on the syllabic writing they had inherited
been uncovered in Mesopotamia, indicating that from their neighbors. They created the first alphabet,
the Sumerians had developed a form of writing by a system of writing in which one sign (we call them
3000 BCE. With the invention of writing, people no letters) is assigned to each sound. Afterward, writ-
longer had to rely on memory, speech, and person- ing became more economical because it was not neces-
to-person interactions to communicate and transmit sary to have a single symbol for every possible syllabic
information. Instead, they could accumulate a perma- configuration (ba, ca, da, etc.). The original Phoeni-
nent body of knowledge and pass it on from one gen- cian alphabet had twenty-two letters, all consonants
eration to the next. (Figure 1.5). The Phoenicians were great travelers and
At first, the Sumerians needed a simple way to re- merchants, and from their homeland, in what is now
cord agricultural and business information and the Lebanon, they influenced the writing of many other
deeds and sayings of their rulers. Their earliest sym- peoples including, prominently, the Hebrews and the
bols were pictograms, or pictures, carefully drawn to Greeks. The Greeks turned some Phoenician letters
represent particular objects. To these they added ideo- into vowels and created additional vowels too.
grams, pictures drawn to represent ideas or concepts.
A simple drawing of a bowl, for example, could be Religion Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian re-
used to mean food. As these pictures became styl- ligions shared many basic attitudes and concepts that
ized, meaning began to be transferred from the repre- became the foundation for other Near Eastern belief
sented object to the sign itself; that is, the sign began to systems. Fundamentally, Mesopotamian religion held
stand for a word rather than an object. that the gods had created human beings to serve
Later, Sumerian scribes and writers identified the them, that the gods were in complete control, and that
syllabic sounds of spoken words and created pho- powerless mortals had no choice but to obey and wor-
nograms, symbols for separate speech sounds, bor- ship these deities. The hostile climate and unpredict-
rowing from and building on the earlier pictograms able rivers (flooding that ranged from a torrent to a
and ideograms. These simplified and standardized trickle) made life precarious, and the gods appeared

1 2 3 4 5

Man

Figure 1.4 Sumerian Cuneiform Writing.


Ca. 30001000 BCE. The columns illustrate
the evolution of Sumerian writing from
pictograms to script. Column 1 shows the Ox
pictogram: a man, an ox, and the verb to
eat (represented by the mouth and a bowl).
In column 2, the pictographic symbols have
been turned 90 degrees, as the Sumerians
did in their first writing. Columns 3 and 4 show To
how the script changed between 2500 and Eat
1800 BCE. Column 5 is an Assyrian adaptation S
of the Sumerian cuneiform script. N
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10 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

NORTH SEMITIC GREEK ETRUSCAN LATIN


Figure 1.5 First Four Letters of the
EARLY EARLY
PHOENICIAN HEBREW PHOENICIAN EARLY CLASSICAL EARLY EARLY CLASSICAL
Alphabeta Comparison. This table
presents, in comparative form, the opening
four letters of the Phoenician, Greek,
Hebrew, Etruscan, and Latin alphabets. The
early Phoenician letters predated the rest,
and other peoples adapted those letters
into their writing styles.

Phoenician, Greek, Hebrew, Etruscan, and Roman letters.

capricious. The Mesopotamians held a vague notion and stored in their temples. This cultic literature not
of a shadowy netherworld where the dead rested, but only told the Mesopotamians how to worship but also
they did not believe in an afterlife as such or any re- informed them about their deities origins, character-
wards or punishments upon death. Happiness seldom istics, and deeds. Religious myths and instructions
was an earthly goal; pessimism was a constant theme constituted a major part of Mesopotamian literature
throughout their religion and literature. and made writing an essential part of the culture.
Mesopotamian religion had three important char-
acteristics: it was polytheisticmany gods and god- Literature Of the surviving epics, tales, and leg-
desses existed and often competed with one another; ends that offer glimpses into the Mesopotamian mind,
it was anthropomorphicthe deities were envisioned the most famous is The Epic of Gilgamesh. King Gil-
in human form and had their own personalities and gamesh, whose reign in about 2700 BCE is well docu-
unique traits; and it was pantheisticeverything, mented, became a larger-than-life hero in Sumerian
whether animate or inanimate, was suffused with di- folktales (Figure 1.6). In all probability, the Gilgamesh
vinity. Since Mesopotamians thought of their gods in epic began as an oral poem and was not written on
human form with all the strengths and weaknesses of clay tablets for hundreds of years. The most com-
mortals, they believed their deities lived in the same plete surviving version, from 600 BCE, was based on
way as people did, and they were pragmatic in ap- a Babylonian copy written in Akkadian and dating
proaching the supernatural powers. For example, they from about 1600 BCE. Although this poem influenced
believed that their deities held council, made deci- other Near Eastern writings with its characters, plot,
sions, and ordered the forces of nature to wreak havoc and themes, The Epic of Gilgamesh stands on its own as
or to bestow plenty on mortals. poetry worthy of being favorably compared with later
Mesopotamians divided the deities into the sky Greek and Roman epics.
gods and the earth gods. There were several major de- Through its royal hero, The Epic of Gilgamesh fo-
ities: Anu, the sky god; Enlil, the air god; Utu, the sun cuses on fundamental themes that concern warriors in
god; Enki, the god of earth and the freshwater god; an aristocratic society: the need to be brave in the face
Nanna, the moon goddess; Inanna (or Ishtar), the god- of danger, the choice of death before dishonor, the con-
dess of love and war; and Ninhursag, the mother flict between companionship and sexual pleasure, the
goddess. Enlil emerged as the most powerful god power of the gods over weak mortals, and the finality
for the Sumerians. He gave mortals the plow and the of death. Above all, it deals with human beings vain
pickax, and he brought forth for humanity all the pro- quest for immortality. As the tale begins, the extrava-
ductive forces of the universe, such as trees, grains, gant and despotic policies of Gilgamesh have led his
and whatever was needful. subjects to pray for relief. In response, a goddess cre-
Rituals, ceremonies, and the priesthood were essen- ates from clay a wild man of tremendous physical
tial to Mesopotamian religion. Although the average strength and sends him to kill Gilgamesh. But Enkidu,
Mesopotamian might participate in worship services, as he is called, is instead tamed by a womans love,
the priests played the central role in all religious func- loses his innocence, wrestles Gilgamesh to a draw, and
tions. They also controlled and administered large becomes his boon companion.
parcels of land, which enhanced their power in eco- As the epic unfolds, Gilgamesh chooses friendship
nomic and political matters. Priests carefully formu- with Enkidu rather than the love offered by the god-
lated and consciously followed the procedures for dess Ishtar. Gilgamesh is punished for this choice by
S rites and rituals, which were written on stone tablets being made to watch helplessly as Enkidu dies from
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The Rise of Civilization: Mesopotamia 11

Figure 1.6 Gilgamesh Fighting a Lion. Ca. 25002000 BCE. Cylinder seal (left) and modern
impression of a cylinder seal (right). British Museum, London. The separate scenes, rolled out on
this impression from the seal, which is about 1 inch high, depict the Sumerian hero in one of his many
battles against beasts. The artist heightens the intensity of the physical struggle by placing Gilgamesh,
with his legs bent and arms locked around the lion, at a sharp angle under the animal to muster his brute
strength against his foe.

an illness sent by the gods. Forced to confront the fate Mesopotamia also gave the world the first known
awaiting all mortals, a grieving Gilgamesh begins a female literary figure, Enheduanna [en-hay-Doo-an-
search for immortality. na] (fl. 2330 BCE), an Akkadian poet who wrote in the
The next section of the epic, which details Gil- Sumerian language. Made priestess of temples in the
gameshs search, includes the Sumerian tale of the Sumerian cities of Ur (see Figure 1.9) and Uruk by her
Great Flood, which parallels the later Hebrew story father, King Sargon, she used her priestly offices and
of Noah and the Ark. Although the Sumerian ac- literary gifts to further his political goal of uniting
count of the flood was probably a later addition to the the Sumerians and the Akkadians. In these posts, she
original story of Gilgamesh, the episode does fit into composed hymns to both Sumerian and Akkadian de-
the narrative and reinforces one of the epics major ities, and these hymns became models for later poets.
themes: the inescapable mortality of human beings. Enheduanna was especially devoted to Inanna, the
Gilgamesh hears the story of the flood from its sole Sumerian goddess of love, and she made this deity the
survivor, an old man named Utnapishtim. Utnapish- subject of her best-known literary work, The Exaltation
tim tells Gilgamesh how he built an ark and loaded of Inanna. In this work, Enheduanna exalted, or raised,
it with animals and his family, how the waters rose, Inanna to supremacy in the Sumerian pantheon (all
and how he released birds from the ark to discover if the gods and goddesses), her tribute for what she be-
the waters were receding. The old man then explains lieved was Inannas role in Sargons triumph over a
how the gods, feeling sorry for the last remaining hu- general uprising at the end of his reign.
man, granted him immortality. Utnapishtim refuses
to divulge the secret of eternal life to Gilgamesh, but Law The central theme of Sumerian law, whose
the old mans wife blurts out where a plant may be first existing records date from about 2050 BCE, was
found that will renew youth but not give immortality. justice. From the earliest times, the Sumerian kings
Although Gilgamesh locates the plant, he loses it on understood justice to mean the straight thingthat
his journey home. Gilgamesh, seeing the city of Uruk, is, dealing fairly with all their subjects and prohibiting
which he had built, realizes that the deeds humans do the exploitation of the weak by the strong. This con-
on earth are the measure of their immortality and that cept of equity applied especially to economic matters,
death is inevitable. such as debts, contracts, and titles to land.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is essentially a secular moral- The most important set of laws from Mesopotamian
ity tale. Gilgameshs triumphs and failures mirror the civilization is that of the Babylonian king Hammurabi.
lives of all mortals, and the Sumerians saw themselves Dating from about 1700 BCE, the Code of Hammurabi
in Gilgameshs change from an overly confident and was found preserved on a seven-foot-high black stone
powerful hero to a doubting and fearful human being. stele, or pillar. At the top, Hammurabi is depicted
Those who, like Gilgamesh, ignore the power of the standing in front of Shamash, the Babylonian and
deities have to pay a heavy price for their pride. Sumerian god of justice. Like other ancient lawgivers S
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12 CHAPTER ONE: PREHISTORy AND THE RISE OF CIvILIzATION IN THE NEAR EAST AND EgyPT

malpractice, and personal rights for women, children,


and slaves. Hammurabis code, like other Mesopota-
mian laws, was only one part of a complex judicial
system that encompassed judges, courts, legal pro-
ceedings such as trials, and contracts.

Science, Mathematics, and Medicine Mesopo-


tamian science was strongly influenced by the regions
polytheistic, anthropomorphic, and pantheistic reli-
gion. The Mesopotamians believed that a knowledge
and understanding of the natural world was related to
their deities personalities and acts. Priests performed
ceremonies and rituals not only to placate the gods
and goddesses and to fend off their disruptive powers
but also to deal with practical matters, such as land
surveys, irrigation projects, sickness, and disease.
Thus, Mesopotamias priests were also astronomers,
mathematicians, and purveyors of medicine.
Knowing that the deities were powerful and capri-
cious, the priests were convinced that they could avert
some of the divine wrath by observing, studying, and
calculating the heavensthe abode of most of the
gods. The priests assumed that, by understanding the
movements of the stars, moon, and sun, they could
forecast natural calamities, such as floods, pestilence,
and crop failure. Around 3500 BCE, the priests in
Figure 1.7 Code of Hammurabi. Ca. 1700 BCE. Basalt, ht. approx. 3. Sumer invented a calendar based on the movements of
Louvre. Hammurabi stands on the left, his hand raised before his mouth
the moon. In this calendar, a month equaled twenty-
in the traditional Mesopotamian gesture of devotion, and Shamash, the
sun god and protector of truth and justice, sits on the right. The cult of eight days, but the year was divided into thirteen, not
Shamash (in Sumeria, Utu) emerged from the earliest times, and this gods twelve, months. They then used this lunar calendar to
representationflames shooting from the shoulders and hands holding make plans for the future. Once they were able to cal-
symbols of powerwas established in the Sumerian period. The relief, culate the seasonal pattern of nature, they instituted a
with its incised folds of cloth and ceremonial chair, is carved deep enough
festival celebrating the New year, which recognized
into the hard stone stele (7 feet 4 inches) to suggest a three-dimensional
sculpture. the end of the growing season and the arrival of the
next season.
Mathematics probably developed out of the need to
(Moses, for example), Hammurabi received the legal measure and allocate land, build dams, remove dirt,
code from a deity. Below the two figures appear the pay workers, and regulate water. The Mesopotamian
prologue, the collection of laws, and an epilogue (Fig- number system, likely influenced by their system of
ure 1.7). The prologue lists Hammurabis accomplish- weights and coinage, used 60, not 100, as its base. Our
ments and sings his praises while making it clear that calculation of degrees, minutes, and seconds evolved
the gods are the source of his power to establish law from this system. Later societies, like the Babylonian,
and justice. The epilogue warns future rulers to carry built on this system to fashion complex formulas,
out these laws or else be subject to defeat and ruin. theorems, and equations, which aided shopkeepers in
The laws concerning punishment for crimes are managing their businesses and astronomers in map-
based on the judicial principle of lex talionis, or retali- ping the heavens and plotting navigation charts. We
ation, which demands an eye for an eye, although differentiate religions and science today, so it is inter-
Hammurabis code often substitutes payments in kind esting to think that in Mesopotamia religious authori-
for damages done. The code constitutes decisions ren- ties took the first halting steps toward observational
dered in some three hundred actual cases. Accord- science by trying to make sense of the natural world.
ingly, the codes provisions are not lofty and abstract Although the oldest surviving records of Mesopo-
but, instead, concrete and specific. Decisions deal with tamian medicine can be dated only to about 1600 BCE,
property rights, sales, contracts, inheritance, adop- these texts, preserved on stone tablets, represent ear-
tion, prices and wages, sexual relations (much more lier centuries of medical practice and tradition. In these
S severely restricted for women than for men), medical texts, the authors connected disease with supernatural
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THE RISE OF CIvILIzATION: MESOPOTAMIA 13

SLICE OF LIFE
A Sumerian Father Lectures His Son

Anonymous
FOUND ON CLAY TABLETS
In this Sumerian text, dating from around 1700 BCE, a as a laborer. go, work and support me, I never in my
father rebukes his son for leading a wayward life and ad- life said to you.
monishes him to reform. Others like you support their parents by work-
ing. . . .
Where did you go? I, night and day I am tortured because of you.
I did not go anywhere. Night and day you waste in pleasures. you have ac-
If you did not go anywhere, why do you idle cumulated much wealth, have expanded far and wide,
about? go to school. Stand before your school-father, have become fat, big, broad, powerful, and puffed.
recite your assignment, open your schoolbag, write But your kin waits expectantly for your misfortune,
your tablet, let your big brother write your new tab- and will rejoice at it because you looked not to your
let for you. After you have finished your assignment humanity.
and reported to your monitor, come to me, and do not
wander about in the street. . . . Interpreting This Slice of Life
you who wander about in the public square, The key to interpreting this Slice of Life is to deter-
would you achieve success? Then seek out the first mine the tone of the fathers speech to his son. Tone
generations. go to school, it will be of benefit to means manner of speaking.
you. My son, seek out the first generations, inquire 1. What tone does the speaker manifest here? List
of them. three words that assist you in identifying the tone
Perverse one over whom I stand watchI would of voice.
not be a man did I not stand watch over my sonI 2. How does the father define family, and what expec-
spoke to my kin, compared its men, but found none tations does the father have for his son?
like you among them. . . .
3. To which class do the father and his son belong?
I, never in all my life did I make you carry reeds
Explain.
in the canebrake. The reed rushes which the young
and the little carry, you, never in your life did you 4. What are the fathers values regarding education,
carry them. I never said to you Follow my caravans. worldly success, and family honor?
I never sent you to work, to plow my field, I never sent 5. Which values in this Sumerian text are shared by
you to work to dig up my field. I never sent you to work families in American culture?

forces such as deities, ghosts, and spirits. Remedies in- It was the Egyptians who came to be viewed as the
volved the patient making sacrifices to the gods. At the most successful practitioners of medicine during an-
same time, these texts counseled various treatments, cient times and who influenced later societies, espe-
such as administering potions made from herbs or cially the greeks.
plants. Mesopotamian diagnostic methods and cura-
tive practices, while outdated, followed a set of logical Art and Architecture The art of Mesopotamia
steps. First, the patient was examined to determine the also evolved from Sumerian styles to the Akkadian
nature of the disease and advised how to cure it. Then, and Babylonian schools. Artisans worked in many
the patient was sent to a healer, who prescribed cer- formssmall seals, pottery, jewelry, vases, reliefs
tain medications or applied bandages or plasters. Ad- (figures and forms carved so that they project from
ditional evidence for Mesopotamian medicine comes the flat surface of a stone background), and statues
from the Code of Hammurabi, in which doctors were and in many mediaclay, stone, precious gems, gold,
held accountable for their mistakes and duly fined or silver, leather, and ivory. Artifacts and crafted works
punished. What contributions the Mesopotamians from all three civilizations recorded the changing
made to medicine tended to be lost over the centuries. techniques of the producers as well as the shifting S
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14 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

tastes of the consumers, whether they were rich in-


dividuals decorating their homes or officials issuing
commissions for statues to adorn their temples. The
temples, usually the center of the city and set on high
mounds above the other structures, were often splen-
didly ornamented and housed exquisitely carved stat-
ues of gods and goddesses.
A fine example of Sumerian artistry is a bulls head
carved on the sound box of a lyre (Figure 1.8). Work-
ing in gold leaf and semiprecious gems, the unknown
artist has captured the vigor and power of the animal
in a bold and simple style. Such elegant musical in-
struments were played in homes and in palaces to ac-
company the poets and storytellers as they sang of the
heroes adventures and the deities powers. The bull
shape of the lyre reflects Sumerian religion, in which
this animal was believed to possess supernatural
powers.
Mesopotamian architecture often seems unin-
spired. Good building stone was not readily avail-
able in Mesopotamiait had to be brought at great
cost from the mountains to the eastso wood and
clay bricks were the most common building materi-
als. Even though the Mesopotamians knew about the
arch, the vault, and the column, they did not employ
them widely; they used primarily the basic post-and-
lintel construction of two vertical posts capped by
a horizontal lintel, or beam, for entryways. The clay
bricks used in construction limited the builders in
both styles and size. Domestic architecture was par-
ticularly unimpressive, partly by design and partly
because of perishable materials. Private homes of clay
bricks looked drab from the street; however, they were
often attractive inside, with decorated rooms and built
around an open courtyard. This is a common feature
of ancient societies whereas, for many later peoples,
power and status were communicated by impressive
personal residences. The exteriors of temples and pal-
aces were sometimes adorned with colored glazed
bricks, mosaics, and painted cones arranged in pat-
terns or, rarely, with imported stone and marble.
Although much remains to be discovered, it seems
that Mesopotamian cities were surrounded by walls
with a circumference of up to five miles in early Sumer
and characterized by a broad central thoroughfare with
a palace at one end and a temple complex at the other.
Urban walls, with imposing and elaborately decorated
gates, proclaimed the citys wealth and power. The most
prominent structure in each Sumerian city was the
ziggurat, a terraced brick and mudbrick pyramid
Figure 1.8 Sound Box from Sumerian Lyre, from Ur. Ca. 2685 BCE. Wood that served as the center of worship. The ziggurat re-
with inlaid gold, lapis lazuli, and shell, ht. of bulls head approx. 13. University sembled a hill or a stairway to the sky from which the
Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. The lyres sound box, on deities could descend; or perhaps the structure was
which the bulls head is carved, is a hollow chamber that increases the resonance of
the sound. Music played an important role in Mesopotamian life, and patrons often
conceived as the gods cosmic mountain. A temple of
S commissioned the construction of elegant instruments. Thus, even at this early stage welcome for the gods stood on the top of the ziggu-
N of civilization, those with wealth influenced the arts. rat, approached by sets of steps. Shrines, storehouses,
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The Rise of Civilization: Egypt 15

Figure 1.9 Ziggurat of Ur. Ca. 2100 BCE. Ur (Muqaiyir, Iraq). A temple to Nanna, the moon god, stood
on the top of the ziggurat, which was terraced on three levels. On the first level was an entryway approached
by two sets of steps on each side and one in the front. The base, or lowest stage, which is all that remains of
this Hill of Heaven, measures 200 by 150 feet and stands 70 feet high. In comparison, Chartres cathedral in
France is 157 feet wide, with each tower over 240 feet high.

and administrative offices were constructed around Because the survival and prosperity of the people
the base or on the several levels of the massive hill. In depended on the Nile, the river dominated Egyptian
the low plain of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the zig- experience. About 95 percent of the people lived on
gurat dominated the landscape. The Tower of Babel, the less than 5 percent of Egyptian land that was ar-
described in the Jewish scriptures as reaching to the able and located along the Nile. People clustered in
sky, may have been suggested by the Sumerian ziggu- villages, the fundamental unit of Egyptian civiliza-
rats, some of which had towers. tion. The reward for farm labor tended to be subsis-
Of the numerous ziggurats and temples that have tence living, yet the perennial hope that next years
survived, the best preserved is at Ur, in southern Mes- flood would bring a more bountiful harvest created
opotamia, dedicated to the moon god, Nanna (Fig- an optimistic outlook that contrasted with the darker
ure 1.9). Built in about 2100 BCE, this ziggurat was Mesopotamian view.
laid out to the four points of the compass. A central The Nile linked the Two Lands, Upper and Lower
stairway led up to the highest platform, on which the Egypt, two regions whose differing geography made
major temple rested. Other cities constructed similar for two distinct ways of life. Since the Nile flows north-
massive podiums in the hope that they would please ward, Lower Egypt referred to the northern lands fed
the gods and goddesses, that the rivers would flood by the rivers spreading delta, a region made wealthy
and thus irrigate their crops, and that life would con- by its fertile soil. In contrast, the harsh topography
tinue. Thus, the central themes of Mesopotamian civi- and poor farming conditions of the southern lands
lization manifested themselves in the ziggurats. made Upper Egypt an area of near-subsistence living.
In addition, Lower Egypt, because of its proximity to
both Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures, be-
THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION: EGYPT came more cosmopolitan than the provincial, isolated
Egypt was said to be the gift of the Nile. And so it lands of Upper Egypt.
was. The regular floods of the Nile made civilized life Whereas Mesopotamian kingdoms were subject to
possible in Egypt. Red sandy deserts stretched east constant external pressures, Egypt was isolated by des-
and west of the waterway. Beside the Niles banks, erts on both sides and developed an introspective atti-
however, the black alluvial soil of the narrow flood- tude that was little influenced by neighboring cultures.
plain offered rich land for planting, although the The Egyptians cultivated a sense of cultural superiority
rivers gifts of water and arable land were limited. Ir- and achieved a unified character that lasted for three
rigation canals and ditches plus patient, backbreaking thousand years. Subjected to the annual flooding of the
labor were required to bring the life-giving liquid into Nile and aware of the revolutions of the sun, Egypt saw S
the desert. itself as part of a cyclical pattern in a timeless world. N
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16 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

Timeline 1.3 EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION All dates approximate and BCE

6000 3100 2700 2185 2050 1800 1552 1079 525


First Second
Early
Neolithic and Old Inter- Middle Inter- New Late Dynastic Persian
Dynastic
Predynastic Periods Kingdom mediate Kingdom mediate Kingdom Period Conquest
Period
Period Period

The earliest Neolithic settlers in the Nile valley symbol of the kings power, the massive pyramids
probably arrived in about 6000 BCE. These earliest served to link the rulers with the gods and the world
Egyptians took up an agricultural life, working the around them. Yet, although the kings could impress
surrounding lands, taming the river, and domesticat- their people with divine claims, they could neither
ing animals. In the rich alluvial soil, they cultivated subdue the forces of nature nor make their power last
barley, wheat, and vegetables for themselves and fod- forever. For reasons not fully understood, these rulers
der for their animals. They hunted with bows and lost their control over Egypt and thus ushered in an
arrows and fished with nets, thereby supplementing age of political fragmentation called the first interme-
their simple fare. They also planted flax, from which diate period.
thread was woven into linen on primitive looms. Most In the first intermediate period (about 21852050 BCE),
tools and weapons were made of stone or flint, but civil war raged sporadically and starvation wiped
copper, which had to be imported, became more im- out much of the populace. Eventually, a family from
portant after 3500 BCE. The early Egyptians lived in Thebes, in Upper Egypt, reunited Egypt and initiated
simply furnished, flat-topped houses built of sun-dried the Middle Kingdom (about 20501800 BCE). The new
bricks. These basic patterns characterized peasant life dynasty, the twelfth, fortified the southern frontier
throughout much of Egypts history. with Nubia (roughly modern Sudan) and helped bring
about a cultural renaissance, especially in literature,
but unity was short-lived.
Continuity and Change During the second intermediate period (about
over Three Thousand Years 18001552 BCE), the rulers at Thebes focused on Up-
Manetho, a historian who wrote in the third cen- per Egypt and on trade in the Red Sea region, which
tury BCE, divided Egypts rulers into twenty-six dy- left Lower Egypt at the mercy of the Hyksos, Semitic-
nasties, or ruling families. Egypt stepped from the speaking people who immigrated from Palestine.
shadows of its preliterate past in about 3100 BCE, Although based in the Nile delta, the Hyksos took
when Menes [MEE-neez] proclaimed himself king advantage of horse-drawn chariots, bronze weapons,
and united Upper and Lower Egypt. Modern histori- and composite bows to dominate most of Egypt. The
ans lump Egypts historical dynasties into three main Hyksos adopted Egyptian gods and intermarried
periods, the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. These with the local population thus opening Lower Egypt
are preceded and followed by the early and late dy- to outside influences just as Theban trade was doing
nastic periods. Two intermediate periods separate the the same thing in Upper Egypt. Inadvertently, Egypt
kingdoms from each other (Timeline 1.3). entered the Bronze Age, adopted the horse, and as-
In addition to unifying Egypt, the kings of the similated cultural strains from Mesopotamia.
early dynastic period (about 31002700 BCE) brought Ahmose I [AH-moh-suh], another Theban king,
prosperity through their control of the economy and drove out the Hyksos and inaugurated the New King-
fostered political harmony through diplomacy and dom (15521079 BCE), the most cosmopolitan era in
dynastic marriages. These rulers, claiming to be gods ancient Egyptian history. To the south, the pharaohs
on earth, adopted the trappings of divinity and built pushed Egypts frontiers to the Niles fourth cataract,
royal tombs to ensure their immortality. conquering the Nubians long in residence there. To
With the Old Kingdom (about 27002185 BCE), the northeast, Egypts kings, now called pharaohs,
Egypt entered a five-hundred-year period of peace pursued imperial ambitions against the cities in Pal-
and prosperity, as its political institutions matured estine, Phoenicia, and Syria, a move that provoked
and its language was adapted to literary uses. The deadly warfare with the Hittites of Anatolia.
most enduring accomplishment of the Old Kingdom The Hittites, the first Indo-European people of his-
became the pyramidthe royal tomb devised by the torical significance, emigrated from southern Russia
S Fourth Dynasty kings (Figure 1.10). As the visible to Anatolia around 3000 BCE. Gradually they built a
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The Rise of Civilization: Egypt 17

Figure 1.10 The Pyramids at Giza. Ground view from the south. Pyramid of Menkure (foreground), ca.
2525 BCE; Pyramid of Khafre (center), ca. 2544 BCE; Pyramid of Khufu (rear), ca. 2580 BCE. The Fourth
Dynasty was the Age of Pyramids, when the pyramids characteristic shape was standardized and became a
symbol of Egyptian civilization. The Great Pyramid, in the rear, was the first structure at Giza; it originally stood
480 feet high but today is only 450 feet high. All three pyramids were originally surfaced with shiny, white
limestone, but this covering was stripped in later centuries by builders in nearby Cairo; the only remnant of the
limestone surface is the cap on the top of the Pyramid of Khafre, in the center.

powerful kingdom and defeated the kingdoms of Mes- separate units. Politically, ancient Egypt alternated be-
opotamia. They made skillful use of horses and chari- tween central and local control.
ots and also of iron weapons. At the height of their Foreign trade was a royal monopoly. The govern-
domination (about 14501180 BCE), they encountered ment obtained cedar from Lebanon, olive oil from
the expanding Egyptians and warred with them con- Palestine, myrrh from Punt, probably on the Somali
tinuously. After a great battle at Kadesh in 1274 BCE, coast, and lapis lazuli, a precious blue stone, from
itself essentially a draw, the Egyptians and Hittites Afghanistan. Egypt never developed a coinage, so
concluded a treaty that divided Palestine and Syria the pharaohs bartered for these imports with papy-
between them. The treaty survivesthe worlds old- rus rolls (for writing), linen, weapons, and furniture.
est international agreementand its provisions are on The pharaohs also exported gold from the eastern
display at the United Nations headquarters, in New desert and copper from the Sinai peninsula. In addi-
York City. By about 1200 BCE, both the Egyptian and tion, Egypt served as the carrier of tropical African
Hittite Empires were on the decline. Egypts lack of goodsebony, ivory, and animal skinsto the east-
iron ore probably contributed fatally to its military de- ern Mediterranean.
cline as its neighbors entered the Iron Age. Egyptian society was hierarchical, and at the top
Just as they dominated the state, so the pharoahs stood the pharaohthe king and god incarnate. Be-
controlled the predominantly agrarian economy, al- cause divine blood coursed through the rulers veins,
though departments of government or the priesthood he could marry only within his own family. Tradition
of a temple often exploited the land and the kings la- decreed that the chief queen, who was identified with
borers. In prosperous years, the pharaohs claimed up the goddess Hathor, would produce the royal heir. If
to half of the farm crops to support their building pro- she failed to produce offspring, the successor pharaoh
grams, especially funerary monuments. But in years was selected from sons of the rulers other wives or
of famine, dynasties fell and the state splintered into royal cousins. On rare occasions, when there was no S
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18 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

suitable heir, the chief queen became the pharaoh, as embodied the state. Egyptian rulers also identified
did Hatshepsut [hat-SHEP-soot] in the New Kingdom. with various deities. For example, Menes claimed to
Because there was no provision for a female king in be the two ladies, the goddesses who stood for Up-
Egyptian culture, the appearance of a female ruler is per and Lower Egypt. Other rulers identified them-
thought by scholars to signal a political crisis. Only four selves with Ra, the sun god, and with Ras son, Horus,
times in Egypts three-thousand-year history was the the sky god, who was always depicted as having the
king female; in contrast, there were more than two hun- head of a falcon. Because of the kings divinity, the re-
dred male kings. Of the four female rulers, three ap- sources of the state were concentrated on giving the
peared at the end of dynasties: Nitiqret [nee-tee-KRET] ruler proper homage, as in the Old Kingdoms massive
in the Sixth Dynasty, Nefrusobk [nef-RUU-sobek] in tombs, designed on a superhuman scale to ensure his
the Twelfth, and Tausret [touse-RET] in the Nineteenth. safe passage to the afterlife.
Hatshepsuts assumption of power was unique in Egyptian subjects worshiped the pharaoh, but the
that it occurred in the midst of a flourishing dynasty, pharaoh could venerate any deity he pleased. Hence,
though during the infancy of Thutmose III [thoot- the shifting fortunes of Egypts many cults depended
MOH-suh], the heir apparent. Acting at first as regent on the rulers preference. For example, early pharaohs
to the young heir, Hatshepsut soon claimed the king- favored Ptah (who, like the Hebrew God in Genesis,
ship in her own right and reigned for about ten years. called things into being with words), whereas later
After her death, Thutmose III obliterated her name ones preferred Ra, the sun god, and they honored this
and image from her monuments, though the reason celestial deity by building him temples more impres-
for their removal is unclear. He may have been ex- sive than their own royal tombs. Later still, pharaohs
pressing hatred of her, or he may have wanted to erase worshiped Amen (hidden one), and a series of rul-
the memory of a woman who had seized power con- ers adopted his name, as in Amenemhat [AH-men-
trary to maat, the natural order of things. EM-hat]. Royal favor to a god generally increased the
Ranked below the ruling family were the royal of- wealth and influence of the gods cult and priests. Con-
ficials, nobles, large landowners, and priests, all gen- sequently, by the time of the New Kingdom, society
erally hereditary offices. The pharaohs word was law, had become top-heavy with priests and their privi-
but these groups were delegated powers for executing leged religious properties.
his will. On a lower level, artists and artisans worked Egypt came close to having a national deity dur-
for the pharaonic court and the nobility. Peasants and ing the New Kingdom when Akhenaten [ahk-NAHT-
a small number of slaves formed the bulk of Egypts uhn] (r. about 13691353 BCE) reshaped the royal
population. Personal liberty took second place to the religion at his capital, Amarna. Elevating Aten, the
general welfare, and peasants were pressed into forced god of the suns disk, to supremacy above the other
labor during natural disasters, such as unexpected gods, Akhenaten systematically disavowed the older
floods, and at harvest time. divinitiesa heretical view in tolerant, polytheistic
Egypt. This innovation, called henotheismthe wor-
A Quest for Eternal Cultural Values ship of one god without denying the existence of other
Until the invasion of the Hyksos, Egypt, in its splendid godsaroused the opposition of conservative nobles
isolation, forged a civilization whose serene values who supported the powerful priests of the Theban
and timeless forms mirrored the religious beliefs of god, Amen. Akhenaten ultimately failed to impose his
the rulers and the stability of the state. But as contact innovation, and later pharaohs tried to erase his name
with other cultures and civilizations grew, Egyptian and memory from history. The Amarna revolution,
culture reflected new influences. Writers borrowed however, like the religious choices of the pharaohs
words from other languages, for example, and sculp- generally, had little effect on the ordinary Egyptian,
tors displayed the human figure in more natural set- who continued to believe that the pharaoh could inter-
tings and poses than in earlier times. Still, Egyptian vene with the other gods for the benefit of all.
culture retained its distinctive qualities, and innova- The foremost distinguishing mark of Egyptian
tions continued to express traditional ideals. religion was its promise of immortality. Because the
afterlife was imagined to be a carefree continuation
Religion Mesopotamias kings were theocratic: they of earthly existence, Egyptians had a more optimis-
believed that they ruled at the behest of the gods. tic attitude toward human existence than that found
Egypts pharaohs were gods. Believing that the dei- in Mesopotamia. In the Old Kingdom, only the kings
ties had planned their countrys future from the be- were accorded this reward. Eventually, nobles and
ginning, the Egyptians thought of their society as royal officials were buried in the vicinity of the rul-
sacred. From the time Menes first united Egypt, re- ers tombs, thereby ensuring their immortality as as-
S ligious dogma taught that the king, as god on earth, sistants to the risen god in the afterlife. By the first
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The Rise of Civilization: Egypt 19

Figure 1.11 Egyptian Writing. From the Old


Kingdom onward, the hieroglyphs (in the top Hieroglyphics
line) constituted the style of formal writing that
appeared on tomb walls and in monuments.
Religious and governmental scribes soon
Literary hieratic
devised two distinct types of cursive script, a
careful manuscript hand (in the middle line)
and a more rapid hand (in the bottom line) for
administrative documents and letters. Swift hieratic

Amen roemt per-'o hru


Translation god of Memphis mankind Pharaoh day

intermediate period, the nobles had claimed their own in one episode he subdues a taunting giant of a man,
right to immortality by erecting tombs on which the much as David defeats Goliath in the Old Testament
royal funerary texts were copied. Later, immortality story. Eventually, a gracious Senusert writes to Sinuhe,
was apparently opened to all Egyptians. forgiving his wandering subjects unnamed crime and
inviting him to return home. The travel yarn concludes
Writing and Literature Late predynastic Egypt with a homecoming scene in which a joyful Sinuhe is
(around 3100 BCE) borrowed the idea of writing from reintegrated into Egyptian court society.
Mesopotamia. The Egyptians initially drew picto- During the New Kingdom, in addition to songs
graphs, called hieroglyphs, for such words as hoe, ar- praising the pharaoh, poets composed lyrics telling
rowhead, and plow. This early hieroglyphic script could of the pain of parted lovers, and new genres included
also depict abstract words for which no adequate model letters, wisdom literature, and fairy tales. Ak
picture was available, but because such picture writ- henatens revolution led to unique forms of literary
ing was time-consuming and difficult to execute, the expression, as in the Hymn to Aten, which praised this
scribes soon made the pictographs function as signs, universal god. The hymn has similarities to Psalm 104
or clusters of consonants, for other words (Figure 1.11). of the Old Testament, which suggests the relatively
Egyptian literature produced no single great work free flow of ideas during Egypts imperial years.
that rivals Gilgamesh, but the Egyptian experience
was rich in its variety of literary genres, or types of Science and Medicine Natural philosophy, as a
literature. For example, pyramid texts, the writings separate field of study, did not emerge in ancient Egypt.
inscribed in burial chambers (see the backgrounds in No term for either philosophy or science existed in the
Figures 1.18 and 1.19), formed the chief literary genre Egyptian language. The Egyptians put their efforts
in the Old Kingdom. As this era gave way to the first into what today would be called applied science. For
intermediate period, new prose genres, such as proph- example, they invented a convenient decimal num-
ecies and pessimistic writings, arose that addressed ber system rendered inconvenient by their cumber-
the prevalent political disintegration and social up- some hieroglyphics. They devised problem-solving
heaval. Such was the tenor of the times that writers methods and related rules for measuring figures and
expressed views contradicting Egypts otherwise op- calculating the volumes of solids. They kept accurate
timistic attitudes to death and life. The Dispute of a records of the annual floods of the Nile and built pyra-
Man with His Soul describes a desperate mortal finally mids and other structures, which required knowledge
choosing the emptiness of death rather than life in a of measurement and design.
materialistic and violent world. Egyptians studied the movement of the stars, but
The prophecies, hymns (songs of praise to the gods), Egyptian astronomy was not well advanced, being
and prose narratives of the Middle Kingdom consti- concerned primarily with casting horoscopes and the
tute the classical period of Egyptian letters. The most keeping of the civil calendar. Egypts lasting contribu-
famous work of the Middle Kingdom, as well as of all tion in this field was the calendar itself, which priests
Egyptian literature, is the Story of Sinuhe, a prose tale maintained for the celebration of religious rituals and
that celebrates the ruler Senusert I and his subject, the festivals during the year. The Egyptians divided the
hero named in the title. Fleeing Egypt, Sinuhe earns year into twelve months of thirty days each, with five
fame and fortune in Lebanon yet yearns for his beloved extra days at the end of the year. This calendar began
homeland. Sinuhes exploits smack of the folktale, for each annual cycle on September 21, the autumnal S
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20 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

equinox. Later, the Romans adopted the Egyptian cal- at Sakkareh, opposite Memphis (Figure 1.12). Later
endar, with its twelve-month, 365-day cycle, and they Egyptian rulers preferred the true pyramid form, and
in turn transmitted it to the modern world. this design did not develop further.
Medicine was another area of Egyptian scientific The true pyramid appeared in the Old Kingdom
achievement, partly from a concern with the health of when King Khufu [KOO-foo] erected the Great Pyra-
the living and partly from an acute interest in the physi- mid at Giza, across the Nile from Cairo (see Figure 1.10).
cal remains of the dead. Mummies, the carefully pre- The anonymous architect executed this largest stone
pared and preserve remains of dead persons, fascinate building in the world6.25 million tonswith math-
modern visitors to museums but also reveal the accu- ematical precision. Many of the tombs two million
mulated physical knowledge of the Egyptians. An an- stones were quarried on the site, although most were
cient medical treatise, dating from about 1600 BCE (but obtained farther upstream and ferried to Giza during
possibly from as early as 3000 BCE), is the worlds oldest the flooding of the Nile. The infinitesimally small devi-
surviving medical textbook. This surgical treatise of- ation between the two sets of opposing base sides of the
fers a comprehensive survey of the human body, detail- pyramid displays awesome technical capability. Later,
ing the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of various two of Khufus successors, Khafre [KAF-ray] and Men-
maladies that can afflict the human organs. A second kure [men-KOO-ray], added their pyramids to make
medical treatise, dating from about 1550 BCE, lists hun- the complex at Giza the symbol of the Old Kingdom
dreds of magical incantations and folk remedies for nu- and one of the wonders of the ancient world.
merous illnesses and injuries, such as ingrown toenails The pyramids eventually gave way to funerary
and wounds inflicted by crocodiles, along with advice temples when the New Kingdom pharaohs began to
on ridding the house of vermin, insects, and scorpions. construct splendid monuments for themselves that
reflected Egypts new imperial status. The temple of
Architecture The classic Egyptian building was the Queen Hatshepsut is perhaps the most beautiful ex-
pyramid, whose shape seemed to embody a constant ample of this architectural development (Figure 1.13).
and eternal order. During the Old Kingdom, the pyra- Designed by the royal architect Senmut, the temple
mid became the only building deemed suitable for a of Hatshepsut was carved into the face of a moun-
ruler-gods resting place preparatory to the afterlife. A tain across the Nile from Luxor. Senmut, adopting
modified version of the pyramid appeared first in about the post-and-lintel style of construction, gave the
2680 BCE in the step pyramid of King Djoser [ZHO-ser] queens temple two levels of pillared colonnades, each

Figure 1.12 Imhotep. Step Pyramid of King Djoser. Ca. 2680 BCE. Sakkareh, Egypt. Although the
step pyramid at Sakkareh resembles the Mesopotamian ziggurat, the two structures have different origins.
Sakkarehs step pyramid, with its terraced stages, evolved from an Egyptian prototype, which dated from
the First Dynasty. Unlike ziggurats, which were made of dried-clay bricks, the step pyramid was made of
cut stone, the first buildings to be so constructed in the world. The step pyramid has six levels on a
411-by-358-foot base and stands 204 feet high.

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Figure 1.13 Senmut. Hatshepsuts Temple. Ca. 1490 BCE. Deir el
Bahri, across from Luxor, Egypt. Hatshepsuts temple was planned
for the same purpose as the pyramidsto serve as a shrine for the royal
remains. In actuality an ascending series of three colonnaded courtyards,
this temple provided a spectacular approach to a hidden sanctuary carved
in the steep cliffs.

accessible by long sloping ramps. The most arresting


feature of Hatshepsuts temple is its round columns,
which are used alongside rectangular pillars in the
porticoes, or covered entrances. These columnswith
their plain tops and grooved surfacessuggest the
graceful columns of later Greek architecture, although
some scholars dismiss this similarity as coincidental.
Be that as it may, this Egyptian monument, like the
later Greek temples, shows a harmonious sense of pro-
portion throughout its impressive colonnades.

Sculpture, Painting, and Minor Arts The Egyp-


tians did not understand art as it is defined today. In-
deed, they had no word for art. Rather than being art
for arts sake, Egyptian painting and sculpture served
as a means to a religious end, specifically to house the
ka, or spirit of a person or deity. Art was more than
mere representation; images embodied all of the sub-
jects qualities.
In the royal graveyard at Giza, artisans of the Old Figure 1.14 The Great Sphinx. Ca. 2560 BCE. Sandstone, 65 high
Kingdom carved from the living rock a mythical crea- 240 long. Giza, Egypt. Sphinxes, creatures part-lion and part-human,
ture that stirred the imagination of most peoples in the were often depicted in Egyptian art. The most famous sphinx is the one
ancient worlda sphinx, a lion with a human head at Giza, carved from the rock on the site. The sphinxs colossal size
prevented the anonymous sculptor from rendering it with any subtle
(Figure 1.14). Although this creature often inspired facial expressions. More significant as a monument than as a great work
feelings of dread, in actuality there was little mystery of art, the Great Sphinx had a practical purposeto guard the nearby S
to the sphinx, since its original purpose was to guard pyramid tombs. N
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22 CHAPTER ONE: PREHISTORy AND THE RISE OF CIvILIzATION IN THE NEAR EAST AND EgyPT

Interpreting Art
Subject Nefertiti, which means The Symbolism Her surpassing
Beautiful One Has Come, was the wife beauty suggests that Nefertiti was, like
and consort of Akhenaten. She is the only a pharaoh, both divine and human. Her
queen known to have shared rule with crown bears the uraeus, the image of a
her husband. cobra ready to strike. This image signified
power and protection and was a typical
Religious Perspective In element of Egyptian regalia, the signs
Egyptian religion the rulers were gods. and symbols of royalty.
Hence this bust depicts Queen Nefertiti
as a goddess, fit to be worshiped. Style The face is thrust proudly
However, the precise purpose for which forward, the elongated neck is elegant,
this statue was carved is unknown. and the long, slender nose is regal. The
Archaeologists discovered the bust in lips are lush and full. Cosmetics have
1912 in Amarna in the workshop of a been applied tastefully. Although the
sculptor named Thutmose. image is highly stylized, the sculptor
has tried to capture a sense of the ideal
Medium The statue is carved woman.
from limestone, painted with six colors
ranging from the whites of the eyes to Context The art of Amarna in
the reddish tint of the skin to the brilliant Akhenatens time abandoned the
blue of the crown. The right eye has a austerity of traditional Egyptian art. This
quartz iris. The left eye was apparently bust achieves a naturalism and lifelike
left unfinished. vitality that is unusual in Egyptian art of
any period.

Possibly by Sculptor Thutmose, Bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. Ca. 1345 BCE.
Limestone, ht. 20. Neues Museum, Berlin. This most exquisite example of Egyp-
tian art has become an iconic figure of universal female beauty.

1. Subject Compare and contrast the face of Nefertiti with 4. Symbolism Why has the sculptor added paint to this lime-
that of the chief queen in Figure 1.15. stone image?
2. Religious How does this bust of Nefertiti reflect its histori- 5. Context What is the purpose of the regalia worn by
cal period? Nefertiti?
3. Style Why has this statue become such an iconic image in
Western culture?

the royal tombs, perhaps to frighten away grave rob- of what became the standard, or classical, Egyptian
bers. Indeed, this first sphinxs face was that of Khafre, style: their left legs forward, the kings clenched fists,
the Fourth Dynasty king whose pyramid stood nearby. their headdresses (sacred regalia for him and wig for
Today, this crumbling relic stands as a reminder of the her), their rigid poses, their serene countenances, and
claims to immortality of the Old Kingdom rulers. the figures angularity. Designed to be attached to a
The sheer size and mythical character of the great wall, the sculpture was intended to be viewed from
Sphinx set it apart from Old Kingdom sculptures in the front, so the couple has a two-dimensional quality.
the round, which favored human-scale figures and In contrast to practices in the Old Kingdom, the
realistic images. The life-size statue of King Menkure wives of rulers in the New Kingdom acquired claims
and his chief queen, found beneath the rulers pyra- to divinity in their own right. A statue of Hatshepsut
S mid at giza, shows this arts brilliant realism (Fig- (see p. 18) represents her in the clothing and with the
N ure 1.15). The sculpture embodies the characteristics sacred pose of pharaoh (Figure 1.16). Although more
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THE RISE OF CIvILIzATION: EgyPT 23

Figure 1.15 King Menkure and His Chief Queen. Ca. 2525 BCE. Ht. 541/2.
Museum expedition. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This life-size slate sculpture Figure 1.16 Hatshepsut. Ca. 1460 BCE. Marble, ht. 65. Metropolitan
of Menkure, a Fourth Dynasty ruler, and his chief queen was removed from its resting Museum of Art. Rogers Fund and contribution from Edward S.
place beneath the kings pyramid at Giza (see Figure 1.10). In this sculpture, the figures Harkness, 1929 (29.3.2). This sculpture is one of more than two hundred
are represented as being of comparable size, unlike the usual depiction of husbands statues of Hatshepsut intended to adorn her massive and elegant funeral
as much larger than their wives, indicating their greater importance. The sizes here temple at Deir el Bahri, across from Luxor, Egypt. The authoritative pose
probably reflect the royal status of the chief queen. The queens subordination to the and regalia convey her pharaonic status, and she is only subtly represented
king is subtly shown in her position on his left side, thought to be inferior to the right, as a woman. S
and her arm around his waist, an indication that her role was to encourage and support. N
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24 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

than a thousand years separated this sculpture from A major challenge to Egypts traditional, austere
that of Menkure (see Figure 1.15), in its expression of forms occurred in Akhenatens revolutionary reign. A
dignity and authority the statue of Hatshepsut bears a low-relief sculpture of the royal family exemplifies the
strong resemblance to the earlier work, thus demon- naturalism and fluid lines that this artistic rebellion
strating the continuity of the Egyptian style. favored (Figure 1.17). Akhenaten nuzzles one of his
daughters in an intimate pose while his wife, Nefertiti,
dandles another daughter on her knees and allows a
Figure 1.17 Family Scene: Pharaoh Akhenaten, Queen Nefertiti, and Their Three
third to stand on her left arm. The domesticity of this
Daughters. Ca. 1350 BCE. Limestone, 13 high 155/12 wide. gyptisches Museum scene is quite unlike the sacred gestures of traditional
und Papyrussammlung, Berlin. The religious ideas associated with Akhenatens Egyptian sculpture, but the religious subject of this re-
reforms are expressed in the lines streaming from the suns disk above the royal couple. lief remains true to that tradition, as the rays streaming
Each ray of the sun ends in a tiny hand that offers a blessing to the royal family. from the disk of Aten onto the royal family indicate.
Just as Egypts sculpture in the round developed a
rigid canon, or set of rules, so did two-dimensional
representations acquire a fixed formula, whether in
relief sculptures or in wall paintings. The Egyptians
never discovered the principles of perspective. On a
flat surface, the human figures were depicted in pro-
file, with both feet pointing sideways, as in a painting
from a New Kingdom funerary papyrus (Figure 1.18).
However, the artistic canon required that the eye and
the shoulders be shown frontally, and both arms had
to be visible, along with all the fingers. The artist deter-
mined the human proportions exactly, by the use of a
grid. The human figure was usually conceived as being
eighteen squares high standing and fourteen squares
high seated, with each unit equivalent to the width of
one fist; anatomical parts were made accordingly pro-
portional. The canon of proportions was established
by the time of the Old Kingdom, and its continued use,
with slight variations, helped Egyptian art retain its

Figure 1.18 Opening of the Mouth


Scene, Funerary Papyrus of Hunefer.
Ca. 13051195 BCE. British Museum,
London. Egyptian painters and sculptors
always depicted human subjects from
the side, with the feet in profile, as in this
painting on a papyrus manuscript deposited
in a New Kingdom tomb. This paintings
treatment of flesh tones of the human figures
also typifies the Egyptian style. Egyptian men,
represented here by the officiating priests,
were consistently shown with red-brown,
tanned skins at least partially reflective of
their outdoor lives. Egyptian women, such
as the mourners directly before the mummy,
were usually painted with lighter complexions
of yellow or pink or white. The Opening of
S the Mouth was a burial ritual, preparing the
N deceased to speak in the afterlife.
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The Rise of Civilization: Egypt 25

Figure 1.19 Nebamun Hunting Birds. Ca. 1400 BCE. From the Tomb of Nebamun, Thebes. Paint on
gypsum plaster, ht. 32. British Museum, London. For the nobleman Nebamun, hunting was a pastime
not a necessity. Decorating his tomb with hunting scenes was Nebamuns way of ensuring that there would
be plenty of birds to hunt in the afterlife. Note the faces in profiletypical in Egyptian art (see Figures 1.17
and 1.18).

unmistakable style. Wall paintings, in contrast to relief only that of King Tutas he is popularly known
sculptures, permitted a greater sense of life and energy, escaped relatively free from ancient tomb robbers.
as in the scene of Nebamun hunting birds, but the rules A freestanding, life-size sculpture of the funerary
regarding the human figure still had to be observed goddess Selket was one of four goddess figures who
(Figure 1.19). Given those stringent conventions, the watched over the gilded shrine that contained the
Egyptian artists who worked in two dimensions were kings internal organs (Figure 1.20). Her arms are
amazingly successful in creating the image of a care- outstretched in a protective fashion around her royal
free society bubbling with life. charges shrine. The sculptures style, with its natu-
Royal tombs have yielded incomparable examples ralism and fluid lines, reflects the art of Amarna, the
of Egyptian sculpture, as in the burial chamber of revolutionary style that flourished briefly in the four-
the New Kingdom pharaoh Tutankhamen [too-tahn- teenth century BCE before being abandoned and re- S
KAHM-en]. Of the thirty-four excavated royal tombs, placed by Egypts traditional formal style. N
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26 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

Timeline 1.4 HEIRS TO THE MESOPOTAMIAN AND EGYPTIAN CULTURES All dates approximate and BCE

3000 1450 1180

Hittites in Anatolia Hittite Empire

2000 850 612

Assyrian
Rise of Assyria
Empire

700 612 550 327

Rise of Medean Persian


Medes Empire Empire

HEIRS TO THE MESOPOTAMIAN


AND EGYPTIAN EMPIRES
With the decline of the Egyptian and Hittite Empires,
the ancient Near East entered a confusing period. At
first a number of small states emerged and enjoyed
periods of independence. Israel (see Chapter 6) and
Phoenicia were the most prominent. Then a series of
ever-larger empires arose: the Assyrians, the Neo-
Babylonians, and finally the Persians (Timeline 1.4).

The Assyrians
The earliest Assyrian tribes lived in the Upper Tigris
region, in present-day Iraq. Their original state fell in
the general collapse following the Egyptian-Hittite
clash at Kadesh (1274 BCE). For some three centuries
the Assyrians gathered their resources and then went
on a series of lightning conquests that brought them
to the Mediterranean coast. For a short time the As-
syrians became the first people to rule both Egypt and
Mesopotamia. Their successes were ideological and
military. The Assyrians were relentless, cunning, and
brutal. They also used iron weapons and swift-moving
cavalry instead of chariots. After conquering an area,
the Assyrians deported many of the people they did
not kill or enslave. They waged utter destruction on
anyone who dared to resist or rebel. Capable adminis-
trators and spies ensured significant human and mate-
Figure 1.20 Selket. Ca. 1325 BCE. Wood, overlaid with gesso and rial resources. Yet, just when it appeared the Assyrian
gilded, ht. 53 5/8. Cairo Museum, Egypt. This statue of the goddess Empire would continue for centuries, it was quickly
Selket was found in King Tutankhamens tomb in 1923, one of the great defeated by the Medes and the Neo-Babylonians in
archaeological finds of the twentieth century. Discovered by Egyptologist 612 BCE, at Nineveh.
Howard Carter, the tomb held thousands of royal artifacts and art objects, Cruelty and militarism manifested themselves in
including the pharaohs gold funerary mask, a solid gold coffin, a gold
throne, chairs, couches, chariots, jewelry, figurines, drinking cups, clothing,
Assyrian culture and art. Their cities were built as
weapons, and games. The fascinating story of the discovery is told in fortresses. The temples to their gods were huge and
S Carters book, The Tomb of Tutankhamen. adorned. Their rulers palaces were constructed on a
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Heirs to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Empires 27

magnificent and gigantic scale with open courtyards, of northern and western Mesopotamia and eastern
terraces, and decorations. These royal residences ex- Anatolia. The power of the Medes, however, proved
pressed the empires triumphs and sent a clear mes- to be short-lived. In about 550 BCE, their empire fell to
sage of power to the Assyrian people and to subjected the Persians, another Indo-European tribe led by the
enemies. Among the ruins of the Assyrian palaces charismatic Cyrus the Great (559530 BCE). The Per-
and sculpture, the portal carvings, or guardians of sians, under a series of masterful rulers, forged the
the gates, and the wall reliefs remain as testaments to strongest and largest empire that the eastern Medi-
the glories and values of a fierce and proud people. The terranean had yet seen. At its height, Persian rule ex-
stone animals, placed as pairs at the entrances of pal- tended from Egypt in the south to central Russia in
aces and temples, were there to impress visitors and to the north, and from Cyprus in the west to the Indus
ward off evil forces. The human-headed winged bulls River in the east. Of its neighbors in the eastern Medi-
(Figure 1.21), found at several royal palaces, convey terranean basin, only mainland Greece eluded Per-
the power, aura, and mystery of the Assyrian kings sias grasp. The Persians brought peace to a wide area;
and the awe they sought to inspire. granted autonomy to most peoples; instituted com-
mon coinage, weights, and measures; and built good
The Neo-Babylonians roads.
One beneficiary of the fall of the Assyrians was the For two hundred years the Persian Empire and its
Neo-Babylonian kingdom established in 626 BCE. Al- culture had a brilliant run. The Persians created an
though militant and warlike, the Neo-Babylonians eclectic style that derived from their own past as well
were also culturally sophisticated. In addition to help- as from the cultures of many of the peoples folded
ing to defeat the Assyrians, the Neo-Babylonians into the Persian Empire. For example, Persian arts
conquered Jerusalem and exiled the Hebrews of the had included distinctive vase painting and elegant
kingdom of Judah (see Chapter 6). Under the direction
of their greatest king, Nebuchadnezzar (605562 BCE),
the city of Babylon was largely rebuilt (Figure 1.22)
and adorned with the famous hanging gardens, a
luxurious, terraced complex built for the queen. The
Neo-Babylonians, like the Assyrians, were accom-
plished in astronomy. Their interests, however, were
religious not scientific. That is, they observed the heav-
ens closely to practice astrology. In the end, the Neo-
Babylonians were no match for their erstwhile allies
the Medes who, having merged with the Persians,
conquered them in 539 BCE.

The Medes and the Persians


After their defeat of the Assyrians in 612 BCE, the Medes
[Meeds], an Indo-European people from the southwest
Iranian plateau, retained Nineveh, the Assyrian capital.
From their homeland in the central Zagros Mountains,
the Medes built an empire that eventually covered most

Figure 1.21 Human-Headed Winged Bull. Eighth century BCE.


Gypseous alabaster, ht. 1310. Louvre. In Assyrian iconography,
human-headed winged bullsor lionsthat guarded the entrances to
royal residences and temples combined the characteristics of certain living
beings. The head of a man represented intellectual power and the lord of
creation; eagle wings were signs of speed and flight; the bull symbolized
strength and fecundity, or, if the creature was a lion, then strength and the
king of beasts. The carvings five legsan unnatural touchgave each
animal the appearance of either walking or standing still, depending on
the perspective from which it was viewed. While their purposes are not
fully understood, these guardian statues, with their imposing stance and
symbolic meanings, made all who approached know that they were in the
presence of a powerful ruler and forces. S
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28 CHAPTER ONE: Prehistory and the Rise of Civilization in the Near East and Egypt

Figure 1.22 The Ishtar Gate, Babylon. Ca. 575 BCE. Glazed brick, ht. 489. Vorderasiatisches
Museum, Berlin. Nebuchadnezzar dedicated this magnificent processional entryway to Ishtar, the goddess
of love and war. It was one of eight gates into the city of Babylon. Excavated by German archaeologists
between 1899 and 1914, the gate was reconstructed in Berlin. Dragons and aurochs (now-extinct oxen) are
depicted on the gate. The hanging gardens have vanished, so only this gateway survives to convey a sense
of Babylons opulence.

Figure 1.23 Nobles Marching Up the


Stairs. Ca. 512494 BCE. Persepolis,
Iran. This charming relief sculpture, carved on
a wall facing a stairway at the Persian capital,
Persepolis, depicts aristocrats mounting stairs
to greet the king on New Years Day, a sacred
festival celebrated on the summer solstice and
one of the major holidays in Mesopotamia.
Each noble bears a flower offering as a tangible
sign of his devotion to the monarch. The artist
has humanized this courtly ritual by injecting
an element of sly humor into the stately scene:
one noble (the seventh from the right) sniffs
his flower, and a second noble (the third from
the right) turns to check on the progress of the
S procession behind him.
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Heirs to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Empires 29

metalworking but no tradition of stone architecture. cated in the Persian homeland of Parsa (modern Fars,
Now, under the empire, artists and craftspeople, in southern Iran), Cyrus the Great chose the site for
many of whom were new subjects, built on that heri- a palace. His successor, King Darius I (duh-RYE-us)
tage and, at the same time, borrowed from their own (r. 522486 BCE), eventually built the first monumental
building traditions. These borrowings included ma- palace there, and later rulers made splendid additions.
sonry techniques, the finished appearance of build- Persepolis today is a ruin, having been looted during
ings, treatment of architectural and sculptural details Alexander the Greats conquest in 330 BCE. Among
as decorations, as on columns, and some new build- the ruins, a magnificent decorative relief survives,
ing types. In the end, Persian architecture became the depicting aristocrats as they offer tribute to the king
first highly decorated style (between India in the east on New Years Day. Despite its battered condition, this
and Syria in the west) to use large dressed stone rather relief attests to the stateliness of the Persian imperial
than brick. style (Figure 1.23).
Persian art was courtly and ceremonial and fo- Persian visual arts also stressed contemplative
cused on heightening the dignity and authority of themes with little action, as in the relief sculpture of
the king and his court. At the capital, Persepolis, lo- King Darius (Figure 1.24). In this panel, King Darius

Figure 1.24 King Darius Giving Audience before Two Fire Altars. Found in the Treasury, Persepolis.
Ca. 512494 BCE. Limestone, length 20. Archaeological Museum, Tehran. This relief sculpture, carved
on the walls of the Treasury at Persepolis, shows King Darius seated before two fire altars. In front of him is
the master of ceremonies, with his hand raised to his lips in a gesture of devotion. Two bodyguards, holding
spears, stand to the right. The Persian sculptural style is shown by the stylized hair and beards, precise folds in
the clothing, and formal poses of the figures.

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30 CHAPTER ONE: PREHISTORy AND THE RISE OF CIvILIzATION IN THE NEAR EAST AND EgyPT

is represented on a throne before two fire altars, as Persian court at the time of Darius I. zoroastrianism
he receives a court official. Bending slightly from the is the most original and enduring of Persias legacies.
waist, the official covers his mouth with the tips of Rejecting polytheism, zoroaster called for a dualis-
his fingersa gesture of devotion. These two sculp- tic religion in which the god of light, Ahura Mazda
tures illustrate the limited range of subjects, namely, (Persian, Wise Lord), engaged in a universal strug-
the king and his court duties, employed in the art pro- gle with the god of darkness, Ahriman. According to
gram of the Persian kings at Persepolis. zoroaster, not only did those who had led lives of pu-
The fire altars depicted in the relief panel mentioned rity gain favored treatment in the afterlife, but their
above are symbols of zoroastrianism, the religion of actions also ensured the triumph of the forces of good
the Persian prophet zoroaster [zOHR-uh-was-ter] in life on earth. These teachings later had a profound
(about 600 BCE), which became the official faith of the impact on Western philosophy and religion.

SUMMARY
By responding to the dramatic changes caused by the access to stone and built with mud bricks. Egyptians
Neolithic Revolution, people in southern Mesopota- had plenty of nearby stone and used it imaginatively.
mia and Egypt took the first steps along the path that Narrow fertile strips surrounded by forbidding des-
led to civilization. They created governments, military erts imposed very early a high degree of political
and religious institutions, and increasingly sophisti- and social regimentation. Above all, one people after
cated cultures characterized by complex technologies, another built on the work of their predecessors and
alluring arts, and impressive architecture. The advent created a platform, so to speak, running from North
of writing permitted the rise of public record-keeping Africa to Central Asia, on which the foundations of
and also of literature. geography played a key role in the Western humanities were erected.
both areas. Mesopotamians, for example, lacked ready

Legacies from Prehistory and Near Eastern and Egyptian Civilization


Today one cannot turn on the news without being del- an Egyptian. For a while, lots of young people galli-
uged with stories about the Near East or the Middle vanted around imitating poses from Egyptian art.
East. There was no news in antiquity, but things
would have been the same. This old, vast, rich, and
complex region has been simultaneously at the root
and at the forefront of the West. greeks, Romans, Mus-
lims, Crusaders, and modern European imperialists
have continually warred, traded, and exchanged ideas
with the lands of gilgamesh and the pharaohs. Apart
from the vast forces of history, we have inherited much
else from these people. Students still go to school to
lean their a, b, cs. High school and college students
study circles by means of pi. The ancients used lunar
calendars and most people today use solar ones. But
the ancients gave us sixty-second minutes and sixty-
minute hours. The Egyptians remain perennially fas-
cinating. If a museum has a display of mummies, there
will be lines at the door. We no longer bury people Louvre Pyramid, Paris. 115 on each side, 70 high. This glass and steel
in pyramids, but the distinguished architect I. M. Pei pyramid designed by I. M. Pei (1917) opened in 1989 as the main entrance
to the Louvre Museum. Peis pyramid was in part a homage to the precise
built a glass one to serve as an entrance to the Louvre geometric designs of the great French landscape architect, Andre LeNotre.
Museum in Paris. And in 1986 a rather forgettable rock And, in part, the pyramids geometric planes echoed the articulated planes
S group, the Bangles, had a hit song called Walk Like of the Louvres roof and surrounding buildings.
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KEy CULTURAL TERMS 31

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


civilization phonogram reliefs hieroglyphs
culture cuneiform post-and-lintel genre
Paleolithic polytheism construction hymn
Neolithic anthropomorphism ziggurat portico
pictogram pantheism theocracy regalia
ideogram stele henotheism canon

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Temple of Hera, Paestum. Ca. 560550 BCE. Limestone. Archaic temples set patterns long
used by the Greeks. The buildings were aligned east-west, with the entrance in the east. A vast
altar stood before the entrance, and people gathered around it to share a sacrificial meal. The
enclosed space inside the temples colonnade was off-limits except to the priests.

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The Aegean
2
The Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and the Greeks of the Archaic Age

Preview Questions Three significant peoples thrived in the Aegean basin: the
1. What key aspects Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and then the Greeks. The former two were the
of the Minoan and first to achieve civilization in Europe from about 2000 to 1200 BCE. On
Mycenaean cultures the island of Crete and in southern Greece, these peoples built complex
lived on among the
later Greeks? societies only to fall, the Minoans to the Mycenaeans and the Mycenaeans
to the dorians. For about three centuries after 1100 BCE the Greek world
2. What were the
principal political and was poor, isolated, and a cultural backwater. Then, between about 800 and
social achievements 500 BCE the Greek world entered the Archaic period. Archaios in Greek
of the Greek Archaic
means ancient, or beginning, and this was indeed the beginning of
period?
Greek history and culture in the strict sense (Timeline 2.1, Map 2.1). On
3. How do epic and lyric
poetry differ from each rocky coasts and rugged islands and peninsulas, the peoples of the Ae-
other? gean basin coaxed a subsistence living from the thin, stony soil and turned
4. in what ways do to the sea for trade, conquest, and expansion. From the Bronze Age to the
Greek religion and iron Age, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Greeks interacted with and learned
philosophy differ from
from the cultures that surrounded them, chiefly those of the Hittites and
each other, and how
do both differ from the the Egyptians, but whether it was in systems of writing or forms of sculp-
achievements of the ture, Aegean peoples were never content merely to borrow. They always
Mesopotamians and
adapted, blended, and, finally, superseded the contributions of other cul-
Egyptians?
tures. The Greek genius was partly a matter of stunning originality and
partly a matter of creative synthesis.
The building to the left, a Greek temple in the doric style, symbolizes
many aspects of the Archaic period. it is balanced, ordered, and propor-
tioned, but it does not yet achieve the harmony and beauty of the later
classical period (see Chapter 3). This temple, now in ruins, is located in
southern italy, an area colonized by Greeks who left the mainland amid
political and economic strife. Greeks not only learned from their neigh-
bors, they also exported their own culture. Temples were usually the larg-
est and most elegant buildings in a polis, the city-state form of political
organization that was a key achievement of the Archaic period.
The peoples of Mesopotamia and Egypt seem at once remote and famil-
iar, whereas the Greeks seem utterly familiar; they seem to be like us. S
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34 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

Timeline 2.1 MINOAN AND MYCENAEAN CULTURES All dates approximate and BCE
3000 2000 1700 1450 1100

Early Minoan Middle Minoan High Minoan Late Minoan

MINOAN CIVILIZATION, CRETE First destruction Rebuilding Second destruction


of palaces at of palaces in of palaces at
Knossos and grandiose Knossos and
elsewhere style elsewhere
1900 1250 1100 800

Dorian
Mycenaean Dominance Dark Ages
Invasions

Mycenaeans 1500 Trojan Mycenaean 800


arrive on Mycenaeans War, civilization Beginning
Greek rule Greek fall of eclipsed of Archaic
peninsula peninsula Troy Age
1380
Mycenaeans rule
eastern Mediterranean
MYCENAEAN CIVILIZATION, PELOPONNESUS

The most profound and recognizable features of the remained at peace with one another and that the island
Western tradition derive from the Greeks. Whether itself faced no threats from sea raiders. Cretes tranquil
one thinks of political institutions, literary forms, or image is confirmed by the absence of weapons in exca-
aesthetic tastes, the Greeks were both original and vated remains.
influential. The Greeks shifted focus from gods and The palace of Minos, at Knossos, is the principal
godlike rulers to men and women. Ordinary people source of knowledge about Minoan Crete. The ruins,
were seen as having some control over their destinies covering some three acres, though no longer paved or
and some moral responsibility for their actions. By the walled, provide a sense of the grandeur and expanse
fifth century BCE the philosopher Protagoras could of this once-magnificent site (Figure 2.1). The palace in-
proclaim, Man is the measure of all things. cluded an impressive plumbing and drainage system
and a complex layout of rooms and passageways on
several levels. Belowground, a storage area contained
PRELUDE: MINOAN CULTURE, huge earthenware pots that held grains, oils, and wines,
probably collected as taxes from the populace and serv-
30001100 BCE ing as the basis of trade and wealth. Beautiful friezes
Civilization was already flourishing in Mesopotamia (bands of painted designs and sculptured figures)
and Egypt when it first emerged in Europe, among the decorated the walls of rooms and hallways. Frescoes,
Neolithic settlements on the island of Crete. By about wall paintings made by applying paint to wet plaster,
2000 BCE, a prosperous and stable mercantile cul- of sea creatures (dolphins and octopuses), of beautiful
ture had emerged, and between 1700 and 1500 BCE, women, and of intriguing bull-leaping rituals (Fig-
it reached its high point in wealth, power, and sophis- ure 2.2) enlivened the palace walls. These remains are
tication. This society, labeled Minoan after the leg- highly revealing but, unfortunately, early Minoan writ-
endary King Minos, had a complex class system that ing, called Linear A, a syllabic system, cannot be read.
included nobles, merchants, artisans, bureaucrats, and No one knows the language of the Minoans, which
laborers. Noble life centered on palaces, and twentieth- adds to the mystery surrounding their origins.
century archaeological excavations of several palace Minoan religion appears to have been matriarchal,
sites indicate that communities were linked in a loose led or ruled by women, centering on the worship of a
political federation, with the major center at Knossos mother goddess, or great goddess, creator of the uni-
[NAH-sauce] on the north coast. Remarkably, Minoan verse and source of all life. Statues of a bare-breasted
S palaces had no fortifications, suggesting that the cities earth goddess with snakes in her hands show how the
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Prelude: Minoan Culture, 30001100 BCE 35

Learning Through Maps


Black Sea

THRACE

MACEDONIA Dardanelles
Sea of
Marmara

Troy
ASIA MINOR
Poseidonia Mt. Olympus
(Paestum) Aegean (Persian Empire)
THESSALY Sea LESBOS
MAGNA
GRAECIA Thermopylae IONIA
(Italy) SALAMIS CHIOS
Thebes
Ithaca Plataea SAMOS Miletus
Marathon
Corinth Athens
Mycenae Aegina DELOS
Argos Tiryns
PELOPONNESUS
Sparta
LACONIA RHODES
SICILY Syracuse Medite
rran
ean
Se Knossos
a
CRETE PH
A
FR IC

OE
NI
C IA
TH A

EG
YP
0 100 200 mi T
N OR

0 200 400 km

MAP 2.1
MHS63 43 THE AEGEAN WORLD, 479 BCE
mat76620_m0201.eps
This map
First shows the location of the Minoan, Mycenaean, and Greek Archaic Age civilizations.1. Consider the role of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas
proof
in shaping these three civilizations. 2. What were the centers of Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations? 3. Why do you think the location of Troy helped to make
it a wealthy and strategic city? 4. Locate the major city-states of the Greek Archaic Age. 5. How did geography influence the origins and strategies of the
Persian War?

Figure 2.1 North Entrance, Palace of


Minos, Knossos, Crete. Ca. 17501650 BCE.
The palace complex, with courtyards,
staircases, and living areas, now partially
restored, indicates that the royal family lived in
comfort and security, surrounded by works of
art. When British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans
uncovered these ruins in 1902, he became
convinced that he had discovered the palace
of the legendary King Minos and labeled the
civilization Minoan. S
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36 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

Figure 2.2 Bull-Leaping. Ca. 1500 BCE. Archaeological Museum,


Heraklion, Crete. This fresco (approximately 32 inches high) from the
east wing of the palace at Knossos is one of the largest paintings recovered
from Crete. The association of young men and women with bulls in this
scene brings to mind the legend of the Minotaur, in which seven youths
and seven maidens were periodically sacrificed to a monster, half-man and
half-bull, who lived in an underground labyrinth, supposedly on Crete. A bull
cult may have been central to Minoan religion. Scholars have long debated
whether the depiction of bull-leaping is real or fanciful. Prevailing opinion
holds that skilled athletes could have performed the trick of vaulting over a
bulls horns and back.

deity was portrayed by the Minoans, but the precise


purpose of these statues is unknown (Figure2.3). Mi-
noans also honored numerous minor household god-
desses and venerated trees and stone pillars, to which
they probably attributed supernatural powers. Near
the end of their era, the Minoans began to bury their
dead in underground tombs and chambers, but nei-
ther the reason for the new burial practice nor its ritu-
alistic meaning has been discovered.
Around 1600 BCE, Crete suffered when a nearby
volcanic island erupted. About a century later, the
mainland Mycenaeans conquered Crete but did not
destroy Knossos. Around 1375 BCE, Knossos was dev-
astated but it is not known how or why. The inhabit-
ants of Crete had always relied heavily on trade, and
this did not change under Mycenaean domination un-
til about 1100 BCE.
The Greeks of the later Archaic Age had no direct
knowledge of Minoan culture, but the Greek atti- Figure 2.3 Earth Goddess with Snakes. Ca. 16001580 BCE.
Faience, ht. 131/2. Archaeological Museum, Heraklion, Crete. This
tude toward the Minoans was shaped by mythology. cult figure was discovered in the Treasury of the Knossos Palace. Her
S Myths are traditional stories told about bygone eras triangular dress, with its apron and flounced skirt, is similar to those of
N by later peoples who are seeking to explain some of Cretan youths in surviving frescoes.
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Beginnings: Mycenaean Culture, 19001100 BCE 37

their basic political, social, or religious practices and An aggressive warrior people, perhaps from the plains
ideas. They are often communal and comforting in of southern Russia or from the upper Tigris-Euphrates
their explanations, and frequently provide insights valley, the Mycenaeans arrived on the peninsula in
into peoples ways of thinking. As an example, Crete about 1900 BCE, and, by about 1500 BCE, they ruled
is traditionally the birthplace of the god Zeus. The Mi- the entire Peloponnesus. More is known about the My-
noans worshiped a Zeus who was born in a cave, grew cenaeans than about the Minoans. The archaeologi-
to manhood, and died. They venerated the site of his cal record is more abundant, revealing several palace
birth and honored him as a child. The later Greeks, sites and numerous splendid artifacts. But writing is
however, believed Zeus to be the immortal father and also critical in two distinct respects. First, the Myce-
ruler of the Olympian deities, and they were incensed naeans adapted Cretan Linear A writing to their own
by the Minoan belief that the god had died. The grain language, a primitive form of Greek, and produced
of truth in this story may be that, although the Greeks thousands of Linear B tablets. These tablets contain
eventually dominated Crete in physical terms, ele- administrative and commercial documents that aid in
ments of Minoan religion found their way into later understanding Mycenaean government. Second, the
Greek beliefs; thus, in a sense, the Olympian gods were much later Iliad and Odyssey are set in the Mycenaean
born on Crete. Cretan influences on Greece may also world and contain a good deal of authentic informa-
be detected in language, social organization, and eco- tion about it.
nomic pursuits, although the Archaic Greeks did not Judging from the Iliad, Mycenaean society was aris-
regard the Minoan past as part of their heritage. tocratic and hierarchical. A confederation of autono-
mous kings might occasionally accept the leadership
of one of their number. For example, in the Trojan
BEGINNINGS: MYCENAEAN War, Agamemnon of Mycenae was the leader of all
the Greeks. Excavations at Mycenae, especially its im-
CULTURE, 19001100 BCE pressive Lion Gate (Figure 2.4), hint at the wealth and
Mycenaean culture, named by archaeologists for Myce- power of kings. Literary and artistic depictions sug-
nae, a prominent fortress city, developed on the rugged gest a society that prized military prowess. Linear B
lower Greek peninsula known as the Peloponnesus. documents suggest a bureaucratic system that was

Figure 2.4 The Lion Gate at Mycenae.


Ca. 1300 BCE. The Lion Gate is a massive
structure of four gigantic blockstwo posts
and a beam forming the entrance and a
triangular block on which are carved the two
9-foot-high lions and the central column. So
impressive were the megalithic Mycenaean
fortresses to the later Greeks that they called
them cyclopean, convinced that only a race of S
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38 CHAPTER TWO: THE AEGEAN

adept at raising taxes. There were certainly merchants bitter trade dispute. Although similar expeditions had
in the Mycenaean world, the majority of whose people brought spoils to the Mycenaeans on earlier occasions,
were farmers. Slavery existed but its exact significance this long, exhausting foray weakened them. The My-
is not clear. ceaneans were no match for the dorians, who invaded
Excavations show that the Mycenaeans appreciated or migrated from the north in about 1100 BCE.
fine objects and achieved a high level of technical skill.
Within the citadel of Mycenae, six shaft graves (ver- Technology in Minoan Crete and Mycenae
tical burials) were discovered. One of them contained Early cultures in the AegeanMinoan and Mycenaean
a spectacular gold burial mask (Figure 2.5) tradition- built on the bronze technology of earlier Near East-
ally called the Mask of Agamemnon. On discover- ern models (see Chapter 1). Bronze was the preferred
ing it, the famous German archaeologist Heinrich metal of Mycenaean artisans, as it was for the Mino-
Schliemann telegraphed Berlin, i have looked on the ans before them, but copper, tin, silver, and gold were
face of Agamemnon. Probably notbut it is a good also used. All these metals were available from mines
story. The graves do reveal the care with which the and deposits in the Mediterranean basin, except tin,
Mycenaeans attended to the remains of their dead. it which came from the British isles. Crete and Mycenae
is tempting to think that they may have learned this used bronze for weapons and everyday objects until
from the Egyptians. Near Sparta, archaeologists un- both societies collapsed before the onset of the iron
earthed a pair of gorgeous drinking cups, one of which Age, in about 1200 BCE.
is shown in Figure 2.6. The energy of the figures de- in military technology, the Minoans and the My-
picted on the cup is palpable, but no less noticeable is cenaeans followed the lead of Near Eastern neighbors
the technical mastery of the unknown artist. but made some advances too:
After their conquest of the Minoans, the Myce-
naeans extended their raiding and trading activities Bronze weapons: daggers, swords, spears, and
throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Between 1210 javelins; and body armor, such as shields, hel-
and 1180 BCE, they attacked the wealthy and strate- mets, and leg and arm coverings
gic city of Troy, on the western coast of present-day introduction of the horse and of horse-drawn
Turkey (see Map 2.1). it is delightful to think that the chariots by 2000 BCE
face of the beautiful Helen launched a thousand ships, Redesigned chariots by 1300 BCE, with six
but the Trojan War was only the culmination of a wheel spokes instead of four and axles under

Figure 2.6 Vapheio Cup. Ca. sixteenth century BCE. Gold, 31/2
high. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. This gold cup, one of
two discovered in a tomb at Vapheio near Sparta, Greece, shows a man
attempting to capture a bull. At the bottom of the image, the hunter tries
to ensnare the bull by means of the net held in his outstretched arms. The
curved line of the animals arched back helps frame the scene, while the
Figure 2.5 Mask of Agamemnon. Ca. 1500 BCE. Thinly beaten gold, bull, with its size and muscular body, seems to be winning this ferocious
c. 12 across. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Although this struggle between man and beast. This cup is thought to be from the
is the only Mycenaean gold burial mask so far discovered, it is likely that Mycenaean period, because its execution is less refined than the exquisite
high-status persons, especially kings, may have had such masks placed in artistry of the other cup (not shown here), which is attributed to the Minoan
S their graves. This is reminiscent of the burial masks on the sarcophagi that style. However, both goldsmiths used the same technique: hammering out
N held the mummies of prominent Egyptians. the scenes from the inside of the cup.
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Figure 2.7 Acropolis, Athens. View from the west. The Acropolis dominates
the rear platform, which enhanced stability and Athens in the twenty-first century just as it did in ancient times when it was the center
of Athenian ceremonial and religious life. Today it is the towering symbol of Athenss
maneuverability
cultural heritage as well as the center of the local tourist industry. A landmark in the
Advances in shipbuilding: extending the height history of town planning, the Acropolis is the ancestor of all carefully laid-out urban
of the mast, enlarging the size of the sails, and environments from ancient Rome to Renaissance Florence to modern Brasilia.
redesigning the oar to increase rowing power

their commercial and trading interests. They claimed


THE ARCHAIC AGE, 800479 BCE a common mythical parent, Hellen, who fathered
After the Mycenaeans, Greece entered a period known three sonsthe ancestors of the three major Greek
as the Dark Ages, dark because little is known about tribes: the Ionians, the Aeolians, and the Dorians
it. People lived in isolated farming communities and and thus they called themselves Hellenes and their
produced only essential tools and domestic objects. land Hellas. In the next three centuries, the Greeks
Commercial and social interchange among commu- reconstructed their political and social systems, devel-
nities, already made hazardous by the mountainous oped new styles of art and architecture, invented new
terrain, became even more dangerous, and commu- literary genres, and made the first formal philosophi-
nication with the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms cal inquiries into the nature of human behavior and
nearly ceased. the universe.
Yet some fundamental changes were slowly oc-
curring. Political power was gradually shifting from Political, Economic, and Social Structures
kings to the heads of powerful families, laying the By the beginning of the Archaic Age, the isolated farm-
foundation for a new form of government, and iron ing community was evolving into the polis (plural, poleis),
gradually replaced bronze in tools and weapons, ush- a small city-state. Eventually some two hundred poleis
ering in the Iron Age in Greece. Many Mycenaeans lay scattered over the Greek mainland and abroad. Al-
fled to the coast of Asia Minor, which later came to though each polis was unique, all shared some features:
be called Ionia, thus paving the way for the formation
of an extended Greek community around the Aegean An acropolis (Figure 2.7): a high, fortified point,
and Mediterranean Seas. often the dwelling place of rulers and location
In about 800 BCE, the Greeks emerged from years of temples
of stagnation and moved into an era of political in- An agora: essentially a market area where the po-
novation and cultural experimentation. Although litical, social, and economic life of the polis took
scattered and isolated, they shared a sense of identity place
based on their common language, their heroic stories A chora: the agricultural hinterland that made a S
and folktales, their myths and religious practices, and true polis a city-state N
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40 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

The polis was a remarkably flexible and creative insti- Politically, the Archaic period was important for
tution that brought diverse people together into a real three reasons. First, it saw the creation of the polis. Sec-
community. Poleis generated tremendous pride and ond, there was a dramatic expansion of political partici-
loyalty among their citizens. pation often accompanied by violent conflict between
Simultaneous with the emergence of the polis, the and within poleis. And third, the age of colonization
Greek political system underwent a series of changes. spread Greek ideas, institutions, and artistic achieve-
As a result of these changes, more and more men were ments throughout the Mediterranean world.
able to participate in the political life of the polis. The
kings had been deposed by the leaders of noble fami-
lies, who owned most of the land and possessed the The Greek Polis: Sparta and Athens
weapons and horses. These wealthy warriors estab- Among the Greek poleis, Sparta and Athens stand
lished oligarchies, or governments run by the few. out for their vividly contrasting styles of life and their
Oligarchs looked out for their own interests but also roles in subsequent Greek history. Dorian Sparta chose
provided exemplary leadership, fostered civic ideal- to guarantee its integrity and future through stringent
ism, and supplied cultural and artistic patronage. and uncompromising policies. Athens created an in-
However, most oligarchies eventually failed because creasingly open system. Faced by land shortages and
of unforeseen and far-reaching military and economic population pressures, the Spartans conquered and
changes. New military tactics now made obsolete the enslaved their neighbors, making them Helotsstate
aristocratic warriors in their horse-drawn chariots. slaves. To prevent rebellions and to control the Helots,
Foot soldiersarmed with long spears, protected by who outnumbered the Spartans ten to one, a vigilant
shields and body armor, and grouped in closed ranks Sparta was forced to keep its military always on the
called phalanxeswere proving more effective in alert. Spartan boys were trained through the agoge
battles. These foot soldiers, or hoplites, were recruited (the upbringing) to be tough, brave, skilled, and
from among independent farmers, merchants, traders, self-reliant. All male Spartans over the age of thirty
and artisans, who were also profiting from an expand- belonged to an assembly that could propose measures
ing economy. As their military value became evident, to a smaller council made up of Spartans over the age
these commoners soon demanded a voice in political of sixty. There were also two kings and five annually
decisions. elected officials who pronounced on the legality of
Rising population and limited land generated acute legislation. The Spartan system had elements of mon-
tensions. Frustrated by the inability of reform efforts to archy, oligarchy, and democracy.
solve deep-seated problems, in the sixth century BCE The history of Ionian Athens echoes the general
many poleis turned to rulers whom they entrusted pattern of change in the poleis during the Archaic
with extraordinary powers to make sweeping eco- Age (Timeline 2.2). Aristocrats initially ruled Athens
nomic and political changes. Many of these tyrants, as through councils and assemblies. As long as farm-
the Greeks called them, restructured their societies to ing and trading sustained an expanding population,
allow more citizens to benefit from the growing econ- the nobles ruled without challenge. But at the begin-
omy, to move up the social scale, and to participate in ning of the sixth century BCE, many peasant farmers
the political process. However, some tyrants perpetu- were burdened with debts and were threatened with
ated their rule through heirs or political alliances and prison or slavery. Having no voice in the government,
governed harshly for years, thus giving a simple word the farmers began to protest what they perceived as
for ruler its modern negative meaning. unfair laws.
Increasing population and its attendant tensions An aristocrat named Draco codified Athenss laws in
generated another response: colonization. The Greeks about 625 BCE. His laws were harshDraconian
sent citizens to join their earlier Ionian settlements and but by issuing them publicly, he made it clear that
to establish new colonies along the coasts of Spain, law (not arbitrary decisions) ruled the state. In about
North Africa, southern Russia (or the Black Sea), and 590 BCE, the Athenians granted an aristocrat named
Sicily and southern Italy, which became known as Solon special powers to reform the laws. He abolished
Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece. Colonies were ex- debt slavery, guaranteed a free peasantry, and over-
pected to provide resources, especially food, for their hauled the judicial system. Solon also restructured
metropoleis (mother cities). Foreign ventures and ex- Athenian institutions by distributing political partici-
panded trade increased the wealth of the new middle pation according to wealth, instead of restricting par-
class and reinforced its desires for more economic op- ticipation to the wealthy.
portunities and political influence, but the entrenched Solons principal successor was Cleisthenes [KLICE-
aristocracy and farmer-hoplites tried to deny the mid- thu-neez], whose reforms established democracy in
S dle class access to power. Colonization solved some Athens beginning in 508 BCE. Cleisthenes realized that
N problems and generated others. the great obstacle to civic-minded participation was
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The Archaic Age, 800479 BCE 41

Timeline 2.2 THE ARCHAIC AGE IN GREECE All dates BCE

ca. 800 600 590 508 490 479

Political, Social,
Solon in Cleisthenes Persian Hellenic
Dark Ages Expansion and Colonization Economic
Athens in Athens Wars Age
Reforms

Political and cultural


activity revives

formed by entrenched class interests. That is, he knew it for public service so that such service would not be re-
would be hard to get small farmers, day laborers, mer- stricted to the idle rich. Athens had a weak executive
chants, and landed nobles to cooperate. So he created a and a powerful legislative system. Political thinkers in
new council in which he lumped together people from antiquity had very mixed feelings about Athenss gov-
each of these groups in such a way as to force them to ernment, admiring its massively inclusive character
collaborate. but criticizing its volatility and instability.
Cleisthenes domestic reforms were one of the two One of the most surprising contrasts between
major events that heralded the end of the Archaic Age Sparta and Athens is the difference in the roles and sta-
and the coming of Greeces Hellenic (or classical) Age. tus of women. In general, Spartan women, though ex-
The other event, the Persian Wars, was pivotal not pected to marry, spent their time outside the home and
only for Greece but also for Western civilization. If the spoke freely to men; Athenian women were kept in
autocratic and imperialistic Persians had won these seclusion and rarely talked with their husbands. What
wars, then the democratic institutions, the humanis- made Spartan women so independent was that, above
tic values, and the cultural landmarks that the Greeks all else, they were to be strong mothers of the vigorous
were establishing would have been lost. males needed to maintain this warrior society. To that
By the midsixth century BCE, the Persians ruled end, Spartan girls, alone among Greek females, were
a huge empire in the Near East which had gradually given public training, including choral singing and
incorporated the Greek poleis in Ionia. When Dar- dancing, and athletics, in which they stripped just as
ius, king of the Persians in the late sixth century, de- Greek boys did. Spartan women were unique in being
manded taxes from the Ionian Greeks, they revolted able to own land and to manage their own property.
and looked to their homeland for support. A few Written sources suggest that the women of Athens
poleis, including Athens, sent an expedition, which pursued respectability as an ideal, which meant they
Darius defeated. To prevent future uprisings, Darius were supposed to marry and stay indoors, overseeing
invaded the Greek peninsula and landed near Athens their households and performing domestic chores.
at Marathon in 490 BCE. The Athenian army defeated It is not clear how strictly this ideal was imposed on
a vastly larger Persian force. them in daily life. Athenian drama contains many
However, the Persians soon found a new and de- instances of female characters complaining about
termined ruler in Xerxes [ZIRK-seez], son of Darius, their powerlessness, as when a wife is abandoned or
who overran much of northern Greece. Under Spar- a woman is left behind by her soldier-husband during
tan leadership, the Greeks attempted to trap the Per- wartime. But vase painting depicts women actively
sians at Thermopylae, a northern mountain pass, and positively participating in religious rituals, festi-
but they were annihilated by Xerxes troops. Xerxes vals, weddings, and funerals. Womens engagement
moved southward and sacked Athens, whose inhabit- in these events was deemed necessary to the smooth
ants escaped to the island of Salamis. The Athenians functioning of society.
drew the Persian navy into narrow waters, where the
swifter Greek ships outmaneuvered the more numer-
ous but cumbersome Persian craft. After witnessing Technology in Archaic Greece
the destruction of his fleet, Xerxes returned to Per- The Archaic Greeks lived fully in the Iron Age al-
sia. The remainder of the Persian army was routed at though some artisans continued to work with bronze
Plataea in 479 BCE. The Greeks final victory over the in limited fields, such as sculpture. As the Archaic pe-
mighty Persians created a euphoric mood in Athens riod opened, the Greeks built on the technology of the
and set the stage for the ensuing Hellenic Age. earlier cultures of Crete and Mycenae, using mainly
The great service provided by Athenss seamen iron and steel (a refined form of iron) to build weap-
won them full participation in the political life of the onry and body armor. Metalworkers learned to reduce S
city. After the war, the Athenians even introduced pay iron from its ore in charcoal-fed furnaces, intensifying N
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42 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

Figure 2.8 Greek Trireme. This type of


ship had emerged by 525 BCE and was used
by the Ionian Greeks when they revolted
against the Persians. It was large and fast but
also maneuverable.

TABLE 2.1THE NINE MUSES AND THEIR


THE EMERGENCE OF GREEK
AREAS OF CREATIVITY GENIUS: THE MASTERY OF FORM
During the Archaic Age, the Greeks explored the nat-
NAME ART OR SCIENCE
ural world, probed human existence, and celebrated
Calliope Epic poetry life by means of literature, philosophy, and art. These
Clio History cultural accomplishments, like those of the older
Erato Erotic poetry and mime Near Eastern cultures, arose from religious beliefs
Euterpe Lyric poetry and music and practices that played a central role in Greek life
Melpomene Tragedy and history. In fact, the Greeks believed that creativ-
ity itself was a divine gift from the muses, the nine
Polyhymnia Sacred hymn
goddesses of artistic inspiration (Table 2.1). Guided by
Terpsichore Dance and song
their muses, they created enduring works of art, litera-
Thalia Comedy
ture, and theater, each with a universal appeal. Criti-
Urania Astronomy cal to the Greek experience, however, was a quest for
understanding independent of religious explanations.

the heat by means of a foot bellows. Harder and more Religion


readily available than copper and tin, iron drove out For the Greeks, religion was an essential part of private
the general use of softer metals by 500 BCE. and public life. Indeed, the polis and religion could not
Also important were the Greeks improvements in be separated, for in the eyes of the Greeks the fate of
sailing vessels. Between 800 and about 450 BCE, the each community depended on the civic deity. Public
Greeks developed several modifications of a basic rituals and festivals forged community, infused civic
oared ship. At first they used uniremes (Latin remus pride, and recalled common heritage. Greek religion
means oar), small, swift boats with a single row of was always more civic than personal, more public than
oars on each side. Gradually the trireme developed, private. During the Archaic Age, Greek religionan
a decked ship with three rows of oars on each side amalgam of deities derived from the original settlers
(Figure 2.8). From about 700 BCE, the uniremes were as well as invaders and foreignersevolved into two
outfitted with a beak or a battering ram, to be used major categories: the Olympian and the chthonian.
in sea battles. This ramming device forever changed The Olympian deities dwelled in the sky or on moun-
the nature of sea warfare. Prior to this time, ships had taintops and were associated with the Homeric heroes
been designed to transport warriors to fight on land; and the aristocracy. The chthonian [KTHOE-nee-uhn]
now, they served as the site for the battles themselves. (from Greek chthon, the earth) deities lived under-
Greek ships became not only faster but larger as well. ground and were associated with peasant life, the sea-
Size and speed had important implications for mer- sons and cycles of nature, and fertility.
S chants, who could ship more goods farther and more Olympian religion shared some traits with the
N quickly than before. polytheistic cults of the ancient Near East, including
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The Emergence of Greek Genius: The Mastery of Form 43

the notion that the deities intervene in daily affairs, and a bountiful harvest. The Mediterranean triad
the belief that they are like humans in many respects, of cropsolives, grapes, and cereal grainsled to
and the idea of a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The two major cults emphasizing grains and grapes, the
Greeks endowed their deities with physical bodies and sources of bread and wine (olives lacked a cult). De
individual personalities, creating a fascinating blend meter, a sister of Zeus, was a harvest goddess. She in
of charm and cruelty, beauty and childishness, love of turn had a daughter, Persephone, whom Hades ab-
justice and caprice. These unruly and willful deities ducted to his kingdom belowground. According to
quarreled with one another and played favorites with her cult legend, Demeter finally rescued Persephone,
their mortal worshipers. Faced with such favoritism but not before Hades had tricked Persephone into
among the deities, the Greeks themselves developed a eating a fruit that made her return to the underworld
strong moral sense. They came to believe that as long for part of each year. Thus, during the winter months,
as they recognized the divinities power and did not the earth is bare, but when Persephone and Deme-
challenge themand thus become victims of hubris, ter are together, the earth regains fertility. At Eleu-
or pridethey would survive and often prosper. sis, a small village in Attica, Demeter was the focus
Zeus, a sky god and first among the immortals, of a mystery cult. Prospective initiates from all over
reigned as king on Mount Olympus, hurling thun- Greece traveled there, apparently to receive her prom-
derbolts and presiding over the divine councils. Sexu- ise of immortal life.
ally voracious, he sired both immortals and mortals. Whereas Demeters followers honored her in a
Hera, probably the great goddess of earlier cultures, dignified manner, Dionysuss worshipers, through
was the sister and wife of Zeus. She watched over the wild dancing and wine drinking, hoped to be re-
women who appealed to her for help and kept a close invigorated by their god and born again. Dionysus,
eye on her wandering husband. Zeuss two brothers the god of wine, came to represent the irrational, emo-
controlled the rest of the universe, Poseidon ruling the tional, and uncontrolled aspects of human nature to
seas, all waters, and earthquakes, and Hades guard- the Greeks. In contrast, the rational, conscious, con-
ing the underworld where the dead reside. Zeuss sis- trolled aspects were associated with Apollo. The two
ter Hestia protected the hearth and its sacred flame. aspectsDionysian and Apollonianwere considered
Zeuss twin offspring, Apollo and Artemis, symbol- opposing but complementary. Eventually, a Diony-
ized the sun and the moon, respectively. Apollo, Zeuss sus cult arose in Athens, where Dionysuss followers
favorite son, personified the voice of reason. Artemis annually held ceremonies honoring his power as god
watched over childbirth and guarded wild creatures. of the vine. Over the years these rituals became civic
Zeuss lying son Ares delighted in fierce battles and, festivals, which in turn spawned the competitive per-
as the war god, possessed a quick temper and few formances of tragic drama in Athens in the sixth cen-
morals. He and AphroditeZeuss daughter and the tury BCE.
goddess of love and beautywere adulterous lovers.
Hephaestus, the ugly, lame son of Zeus who was mar-
ried to Aphrodite in some tellings, was a master smith TABLE 2.2THE OLYMPIAN DEITIES
and the patron of artisans. AND THE AREAS THEY RULED
Two other children of Zeus rounded out the Olym-
pic roster. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and patron GOD OR DUTIES AND
goddess of Athens, was associated with warfare, the GODDESS RESPONSIBILITIES
arts, and handicrafts. She was worshiped as a virgin Zeus Chief deity and keeper of order on
goddess. Hermes, the god of trade and good fortune, Olympus
was also the patron of thieves, although he was best Hera Mother goddess, protector of women
known as a messenger for the other deities (Table 2.2). Poseidon Ruler of waters
The chthonian gods and goddesses were prob-
Hades Keeper of the underworld
ably derived from ancient earth and harvest deities.
Hestia Protector of the hearth
At first they were worshiped only by the lower levels
Apollo God of wisdom and moderation
of society, but as ordinary people grew in influence,
chtho nian rituals spread and were integrated into Artemis Virgin goddess who aided women
civic rituals. Chthonian worship was open only to Ares Amoral god of violence and warfare
initiates, who were sworn to silence; hence, they were Aphrodite Goddess of passion, love, and beauty
called mystery cults (from Greek mystos, keeping si- Hephaestus Patron of craftspeople
lent). Mystery cults constituted the personal element Athena Goddess of wisdom and warfare
in Greek religion. Hermes God of merchants and thieves;
The chthonian practices originally invoked the messenger for the gods S
powers of the earth to ensure a successful planting N
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44 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

Figure 2.9 The Delphic Sanctuary. Aerial


view. Late sixth to fourth century BCE. The
ruins of Apollos templethis is an earthquake
zonereveal a rectangular foundation and
a few standing columns. A sacred way, or
road, zigzagged up the mountain to the shrine.
During the fourth century, a gymnasium (boys
school), theater, and stadium were built on
the site.

Chthonian and Olympian religion fused at Delphi, the Iliad (ca. 750 BCE) and the Odyssey (ca. 725 BCE),
about 100 miles northwest of Athens and the most im- Homer sang of the events before, during, and after
portant shrine in the Greek world (Figure 2.9). In the the Trojan War, stories that had circulated among the
second millennium BCE a sanctuary was dedicated Greeks since the fall of Mycenae. He entertained an
there to Gaia, the earth goddess. Mythology says the aristocratic audience eager to identify with the Myce-
shrine was founded by Zeus. Mythology also says that naean past. For many years, his poems were transmit-
around 750 BCE Apollo killed a python and took its ted orally by other bards and probably did not exist in
place in giving oraclesdivine answers to questions written versions until the sixth century BCE. Homers
put by ordinary peoplethrough a priestess, the Py- authorship and, indeed, even his very existence are es-
thia. Pythians were always women over fifty years of tablished solely by tradition. Nevertheless, by the end
age and of blameless life. Most Greek poleis founded of the Archaic Age, the appeal of Homers poetry had
treasuries at Delphi where they offered everything embraced all social levels, and his authority and in-
from statues and valuables to arms captured in war. fluence approached that of a modern combination of
Whereas cities had their own gods, Delphi belonged television, Shakespeare, and the Bible.
to all the Greeks. The epic genre displays certain features. Always in
verse, an epics language is elevated and its tone is se-
Literature rious. Epic possesses a universalizing qualitywhat
During the Archaic Age, the Greeks produced some is said is held to be true for all times and places, not
of the greatest literature of the Western heritage, with for a specific moment. The characters in an epic are
stories as adventurous, amusing, and heartfelt as they deeply human and yet, in their prowess or wisdom
are sophisticated, structured, and rich with many of or cunning, are greater than most humans. Homers
the values we still hold dear today. epics have some distinctive characteristics that recur
in Greek culture. Homer delights in verbal play. He
Epic Poetry The originator of the major conven- revels in competition, sometimes verbal, sometimes
tions of epic poetry is traditionally believed to be physical. And in Homer we can begin to see the char-
S Homer, a bard, or poet who sang his verses while acteristic Greek interest in balance, order, harmony,
N accompanying himself on a stringed instrument. In and proportion.
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The Emergence of Greek Genius: The Mastery of Form 45

The basic appeal of Homers epics lies in their well- speak eloquently in the company of other men, to give
crafted plots, filled with dramatic episodes and finely and receive hospitality, to shed tears in public over
drawn characters. Set against the backdrop of the the death of his closest friend, to admire the beauty of
Trojan War, the Iliad describes the battle for Ilium, an- women, to esteem the material wealth of other nobles,
other name for Troy, and the Odyssey recounts events to appreciate songs of bravery, and, above all, to pro-
after the Greeks defeat the Trojans. The Iliad focuses tect his reputation as a man and warrior. On the other
on Achilles, the epitome and paradox of heroic Greek hand, a young wife who imitated Penelope, the patient
manhood. Achilles was angry and refused for a long and faithful wife of Odysseus, would inhabit a con-
time to fight because Agamemnon, the Greeks leader, stricted world as she learned to weave at the loom, to
had taken away his prize slave girl. Just as the polis manage a household, to cultivate her physical beauty,
was taking shape, Homer invited reflection on partici- and to resist the advances of other men.
pation and allegiance: Where does one draw the line
between self-interest and the common good? In con- Lyric Poetry Verses sung to the music of the lyre
trast to the battlefield heroics of the Iliad, the Odyssey (a handheld stringed instrument), or lyric poetry, be-
narrates the wanderings of the Greek warrior Odys- came the dominant literary expression in the late Ar-
seus after the fall of Troy. Moreover, the Odyssey cel- chaic Age, and lyric verses have dominated Western
ebrates marriage, for Odysseus, despite some amorous poetry ever since. Lyric poetry, which originated later
adventures, remains fixed on thoughts of his wife, Pe- than the epic, expressed an authors personal, pri-
nelope, who waits for him in Ithaca. vate thoughts, though the muse Euterpe was credited
In both poems, the deities merrily intrude into the with the inspiration. The shift from epic to lyric po-
lives of mortals, changing and postponing the fate etry in the sixth century BCE coincided with changes
of friend and enemy alike. For example, Homer pre- in the polis, where the rising democratic spirit encour-
sented Zeus, the nominal protector of the moral order, aged a variety of voices to be heard.
as forever under siege by other gods seeking help for Of the several types of lyric poetry, monody, or
their favorite mortals. Homers roguish portraits of the the solo lyric, became the most influential in Archaic
deities remained indelibly imprinted in the minds of Greece. Poets of monody achieved relative simplicity
the general populace of Greece. So great was Homers by using a single line of verse or by repeating a short
authority that his works made him the theologian of stanza pattern. Whereas the Homeric epics survive
Greek religion. His stories of the gods and goddesses, relatively intact, the solo lyrics exist in fragments. For
although not completely replacing other versions of example, of Sapphos [SAF-oh] nine books of verse,
their lives, became the standard that circulated wher- only one complete poem and several dozen fragments
ever Greek was spoken. survive. And all the music has been lost. The ancients,
In addition to poetic forms and themes, Homer however, regarded Sappho (about 600 BCE) as the
gave texture to the Greek language. Similes, figures greatest of lyric poets. The philosopher Plato hailed
of speech in which two unlike things are compared, her as the tenth muse in a short lyric he dedicated to
help make the dramatic, exotic events understand- her. A truly original writer, Sappho apparently owed
able to all. For example, Homer creates a vivid image no debt to Homer or any other poet. Her work is ad-
of Odysseus as a ferocious killer when he compares dressed to a small circle of aristocratic women friends
him to a lion covered with blood, all his chest and on her native island of Lesbos in the Aegean. She was
his flanks on either side bloody. In a less violent sim- deeply personal in her interests, writing chiefly about
ile, Homer has Achilles compare his fellow Greeks to herself, her friends, and their feelings for one another.
unwinged baby birds and himself to their nurtur- In her elegant but restrained verses, Sappho sang
ing mother. Homers images also provide a rich rep- mostly about moods of romantic passion: of longing,
ertoire of ready phrases and metaphors, known as unrequited love, absence, regret, jealousy, and fulfill-
Homeric epithets, such as the wily Odysseus, the ment. Sapphos willing vulnerability and her love of
swift-footed Achilles, and the rosy-fingered dawn. truth made the solo lyric the perfect vehicle for confes-
These phrases constitute ready-made metrical units sional writing.
(think of the beat in music) that permitted the bard to
compose his poem orally. Philosophy and Science
Homer also served as a guide to behavior for the Ar- The mental attitudes that exemplified the democratic
chaic Greeks. Because they became part of the Greek challenge to established authority in the Archaic Age
educational curriculum, his poems acquired an ethical also brought forth thinkers who questioned the power
function. Pais in Greek means a young man and pai and, ultimately, the existence of the gods. Just as the
deia means bringing up the young. A young man who, democrats constructed a human-centered state, so did
having learned his Homer, took Achilles or Odysseus the philosophers conceive of a world where natural S
for a model would learn to maintain his well-being, to processes operated and human minds could grasp N
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46 CHAPTER TWO: THE AEGEAN

SLICE OF LIFE
The Worlds of Women and Men in Ancient Greece

By pairing these two very different perspectives, it is pos- emotions across time and class, but their subjects are
sible to see the chasm that lay between the worldviews of rather different. Sappho (about 600 BCE) describes her
women and those of men in ancient Greece. Because there intensely personal feelings, as in this ode to a lost love. In
are no records of ordinary people from the Archaic Age, contrast, Alcaeus (about 620about 580 BCE) sings of his
human reactions to Archaic life come almost exclusively anguish when he was banished for political activities in
from famous individuals, such as Sappho and Alcaeus the polis of Mytilene on the island of LesbosSapphos
[al-KAY-us]. In the following poems, they express human hometown too.

Sappho
HE SEEMS TO BE A GOD
Sapphos lyrical poems reflect the constricted world of My tongue sticks to my dry mouth,
Greek women. In this ode, she describes the pangs of jeal- Thin fire spreads beneath my skin,
ousy and grief she feels on seeing someone she loves re- My eyes cannot see and my aching ears
spond to another. Roar in their labyrinths.
Chill sweat slides down my body,
He seems to be a god, that man i shake, i turn greener than grass.
Facing you, who leans to be close, i am neither living nor dead and cry
Smiles, and, alert and glad, listens From the narrow between.
To your mellow voice But endure, even this grief of love.
And quickens in love at your laughter
That stings my breasts, jolts my heart
if i dare the shock of a glance.
i cannot speak,

Alcaeus
LONGING FOR HOME
Unlike Sappho, Alcaeus wrote about the world of men. Now lesbos long-robed girls are here for the beauty
His works were collected into ten books in antiquity, but contest. All around,
only a few fragments survive today. the womens wondrous annual cry,
the holy alleluia, rings.
Plunged in the wild chaste-woods i live When will the gods from all my trials
a rustic life, unhappy me, deliver. . . .
longing to hear Assembly called
and Council, Agesilaidas! Interpreting This Slice of Life
From lands my grandfather grew old 1. What emotions does Sappho express in her poem?
possessing, and my father too,
2. How does Sappho describe her bodys reaction to
among these citizens who wrong
jealousy?
each other, ive been driven away.
3. What does Alcaeus long for while he is away from
An outland exile: here i dwell
his homeland?
like Onomacles, the Athenian
spear-wolf, out of the fray. To make 4. Why is Alcaeus away from home?
peace with . . . is no wise. 5. How does the mood of these poems by Sappho and
So to the precinct of the gods, Alcaeus differ from the mood of Homers poetry?
treading the dark earth . . .
. . . i live
keeping well out of troubles reach.

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THE EMERGENCE OF GREEK GENiuS: THE MASTERy OF FORM 47

TABLE 2.3 PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ARCHAIC AGE

PHILOSOPHER TIME ACHIEVEMENT

Thales About 585 BCE First philosopher and founder of philosophic materialism
Pythagoras About 580about 507 BCE Founder of philosophic idealism
Heraclitus About 545about 485 BCE First dialectical reasoning; belief in continual flux

them. These Greek thinkers invented natural phi-


losophy, a term that encompasses the fields we now
call philosophy and science. The close connection
between philosophy and science persisted until the
Newtonian revolution of the seventeenth century CE.
From that point on, science simply demonstrated what
happened in nature without speculating about its pur-
pose. The Greeks asked both how and why.

Natural Philosophy The origins of natural philos-


ophy, like those of lyric poetry, are hidden in the frag-
mentary historical record, but we can nevertheless say
that formal Western philosophy began on the ionian
coast of Asia Minor in the sixth century BCE. There,
in the polis of Miletus, thinkers known as the Mile-
sian school speculated that beneath the ever-changing
natural world was an unchanging matter (Table 2.3).
Thales [THAy-leez] (fl. 585 BCE), the founder of
the Milesian school, reasoned that the fundamen-
tal substance of the universe was wateran outlook
that made him a materialist, because he thought that
everything was made of matter. From the standpoint
of modern science, Thales was wrong and so were the Figure 2.10 BY the DIpYLon mASteR. The Dipylon Krater. Ca. 750 BCE.
rest of his circle, who proposed other elementsearth, Painted terra cotta funerary vessel, ht. 42. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York. Found in the Dipylon cemetary at Athens, this Krater
air, fire, and the infiniteas the underlying essence.
is executed in the geometric style. Grace, order, and harmony mark every
But more important than their conclusions regarding aspect of its beautiful design. Strips of color and geometric designs
matter were their convictions that there is regularity alternate with two bands of figural designs, themselves in geometric
in the universe and that human reason can ultimately patterns; note how chests become triangles. The upper one shows mourners
understand the natural order. Their belief in rational- in highly abstract representation while the lower one centers on a prosthesis
panel showing the deceased person with, to the left, two small figures that
ity not only determined the direction of speculative
may be a wife and child. This is how Pythagoras saw the world.
thought but also initiated the steps that led to phys-
ics, chemistry, botany, and other sciences. Proposing
that the universe is governed by natural laws, these relationships explained the basic order in naturean
first philosophers questioned divine explanations for outlook that made him an idealist, because he thought
natural events, a development deplored by those who that an immaterial principle was the root cause of
found satisfactory explanations in religion. things. His musical studies probably led him to this
When the Persians conquered Asia Minor near the conclusion. He may have observed that a plucked
end of the sixth century BCE, the center of intellec- string vibrated, making a certain sound; if the string
tual thought shifted to Athens and to southern italy were cut in half and plucked again, then a new note
and Sicily, where a tradition emerged that challenged an octave higher than the first, with twice as many vi-
the Milesian school. Pythagoras [puh-THAG-uh-ruhs] brations per second, would be heard. Hence, mathe-
(about 580about 507 BCE), the leader of the italian matical ratios determined musical sounds. Pythagoras
school, rejected the concept of an underlying sub- then concluded that numbers explain everything in
stance. instead, he proclaimed, Everything is made the cosmos, his term for the orderly system embrac-
of numbers, by which he meant that mathematical ing the earth and the heavens (Figure 2.10). S
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48 CHAPTER TWO: THE AEGEAN

Interpreting Art
Style Executed in the
Composition Two black-figure style, the
figures are captured in figures are painted in black
dynamic action. Achilles and details are incised
is shown mainly in with a stylus. The red
profile thereby drawing background of plain baked
the viewers attention clay might be glazed.
to the frontally depicted
Pehthesilea. Each figure is Form Despite its
identified by name. modest size, this amphora
was probably owned by a
Subject Matter prosperous family. Ordinary
Following an unknown people would have used
sourcethis episiode from ceramic ware without
the Trojan War is not in figured decorations or with
HomerExekias depicts geometric designs.
the moment when Achilles,
his arm poised to strike, is Context Vase
moved by the beauty of the paintings, such as this, were
Amazon queen Penthesilea central to the culture of
and falls in love. He killed Archaic Greece, along with
her nonetheless but later the kouros and kore statues
grieved over her. (see Figures 2.152.18);
the popularity of Homeric
Artists Intent themes, in general; and the
Exekias is only one of many winning of greater roles by
sixth-century vase painters ordinary men in the life of
who signed their works, the polis.
probably to win fame and
increase sales.

SIGNED BY E XEKIAS. Achilles Killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea. Ca. 530 BCE. Clay, ht. of jar 16. British
Museum, London (B 210). Almost the only painting surviving from ancient Greece is found on ceramic vessels.
By the sixth century BCE, black-figure ware emerged as a major art form. Exekias painted this scene on an Athe-
nian amphora, a vase with an oval body, cylindrical neck, and two handles, used for wine or oil.

1. Composition Who are the figures depicted on this 4. Style Identify the chief characteristics of the black-figure
amphora? style.
2. Subject What are the basic details of the story depicted 5. Form Why is it likely that a prosperous family owned this
here? amphora?
3. Intent What were the artists intentions in creating a work 6. Context What does this amphora reveal about Archaic
such as this? Greece?

A third philosopher, Heraclitus [hair-uh-KliTE- dialectical form of reasoning when he speculated that
uhs] (about 545about 485 BCE), appeals more to the growth arises out of opposites, a fundamental tenet of
modern age than does any other thinker in Archaic dialectic thought. This original idea led him to argue
Greece. Heraclitus pioneered a philosophic tradition that strife is justice and that struggle is necessary for
that found truth in constant change, as in his well- progress.
known idea that a person cannot step twice into the Further thinkers began to ask what it means to
S same flowing river. in addition, he devised the earliest know, how it is possible to know. For example, some
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THE EMERGENCE OF GREEK GENiuS: THE MASTERy OF FORM 49

questioned whether the five sensessight, smell, The cornicethe horizontal piece that crowns
touch, taste, hearingare actually capable of securing the entablature, and
accurate information about the world. Others began to The stylobatethe upper step of the stereobate,
wonder about language: What are the limits of words the base on which the columns stand.
ability to articulate and communicate understanding?
These philosophers laid the foundations for episte- A typical temple had columns on four sides, which
mology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the in turn enclosed a walled room, called a cella, that
nature of knowledge. housed the cult image. Each temple faced east, with
the doors to the cella placed so that, when opened, the
sunrise illuminated the statue of the deity.
Architecture The earliest temple style in Greece was called
Doric, because it originated in the dorian poleis and
The supreme architectural achievement of the Greeks,
adopted the simplicity of design and scarcity of deco-
the temple, became the fountainhead of the building
rative detail characteristic of the austere dorian taste
components, decorative details, and aesthetic princi-
(Figure 2.12). The doric columns have plain tops, or
ples that together have largely shaped Western archi-
capitals, and the columns rest directly on the stylo-
tecture until today. in its origins during the Archaic
bate without an intervening footing. On the entabla-
Age, the temple, probably made of wood, was a sacred
ture of each doric temple is a sculptural band, called
structure designed to house the cult statues of the civic
a frieze, which alternates three-grooved panels, called
deities. As the Archaic Age gathered economic momen-
triglyphs, with blank panels, called metopes [MET-
tum, each polis rebuilt its wooden sanctuaries in stone.
uh-peez], that could be left plain or filled with relief
A diagram of a typical temple illustrates how much
sculptures. The triglyphs are reminders of the tem-
the building has influenced Western architecture (Fig-
ples origin as a wooden building when logs, faced
ure 2.11). Generic Greek architecture is called post-beam-
with bronze, served as overhead beams.
triangle construction (also known as post-and-lintel
An excellent example of the doric style in the Ar-
construction). Post refers to the columns; beam (or lin-
chaic Age is the Temple of Hera in Paestum, in south-
tel) indicates the horizontal members, or architraves,
ern italy (Figure 2.13). The Temple of Hera (about
resting on the columns; and triangle denotes the trian-
550 BCE) was constructed from coarse local limestone.
gular area, called a pediment, at either end of the up-
This large temple has a somewhat ungainly appear-
per building. Other common features include
ance, due in part to the massive architrave and the
The entablatureall of the building between small spaces between the columns. The builders at-
the columns and the pediment, tempted to remedy this defect (without total success)

Figure 2.11 Elements of Greek architecture.

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50 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

rnice
g Co
Rakin
Pediment

Cornice
Entablature

Frieze
Metope Triglyph
Architrave

Capital

Figure 2.13 Temple of Hera, Paestum. Ca. 560550 BCE. Limestone. This
temple, with its heavy, squat columns, stands not only as a model of Archaic Greek
Column

architecture but also as a reminder of Greek wealth and expansion. Colonists from
mainland Greece settled in southern Italy, the land they thought of as Greater Greece,
Shaft in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, bringing with them the Olympian gods and
goddesses and ideas of how to build temples in their honor.

Stylobate
Stereobate
Figure 2.14 Temple of Aphaia, Aegina. 510 BCE. The Temple of Aphaia in
Aegina became the standard for the Doric temple style from its creation until it was
superseded by the Athenian Parthenon in the 440s. Built of local limestone, covered in
stucco, and painted, the Temple of Aphaia gleamed like a jewel in its carefully planned
Figure 2.12 Greek architecture of the Doric Order.
site overlooking the sea. Constructed and decorated with strict attention to artistic
refinements, such as the slender columns and the lifelike sculptures, this temple
represents the climax of Archaic architecture.

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The Emergence of Greek Genius: The Mastery of Form 51

by introducing refinements into the temples design.


The columns were made to appear strong and solid
enough to support the entablature by enlarging the
middles of the shafts, a technique known as entasis.
The artisans also carved vertical grooves, called flutes,
along the shafts to give the columns a graceful, delicate
surface and enhance their visual three-dimensionality.
After much experimentation, Greek architects over-
came the awkwardness of the early Doric style by
deciding that a temples beauty was a function of math-
ematical proportions. The Temple of Aphaiaerected
in 510 BCE by the citizens of Aegina, Athenss neighbor
and perennial enemyseems to embody this principle
(Figure 2.14). The architect of this temple achieved its
pleasing dimensions by using the ratio 1:2, placing six
columns on the ends and twelve columns on the sides.
The Temple of Aphaia, with its harmonious proportions
and graceful columns, became the widely imitated
standard for the Doric style over the next half century.

Sculpture
Like the art of Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greek sculp-
ture was rooted in religious practices and beliefs. The
Greek sculptors fashioned images of the gods and god-
desses to be used in temples either as objects of wor-
ship or as decorations for the pediments and friezes.
Of greater importance for the development of Greek
sculpture were the kouros (plural, kouroi) and the
kore (plural, korai), freestanding statues of youths and
maidens, respectively. Before 600 BCE, these sculp-
tures had evolved from images of gods, into statues
of dead heroes, and finally into memorials of ordinary
people, like civic notables or victorious athletes.
What made the Archaic statues of youths and maid-
ens so different from Egyptian and Mesopotamian art
was the Greek delight in the splendor of the human
body. In their representations of the human form, the
Greeks rejected the sacred approach of the Egyptians
and the Mesopotamians, which stressed conventional,
static poses and formal gestures. Instead, Greek sculp-
tors created athletic, muscular males and lively, robust
maidens. Health and beauty were as important as re-
ligious purpose.
The first Archaic statues of youths owed much to
the Egyptian tradition, but gradually Greek sculp-
ture broke free of its origins. An early example of the
kouros type of sculpture is the New York Kouros (Fig-
ure 2.15), now in New York Citys Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art. Artistically, this marble statue of a youth
with the left foot forward, the clenched fists, the arms
held rigidly at the sides, the stylized hair, and the Figure 2.15 New York Kouros. Ca. 615590 BCE. Marble, ht. without
frontalitythe quality of being designed for view-
plinth 76 5/8. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1932
(32.11.1). The New York Kouros is one of many similar statues dating from
ing from the frontshows the Egyptian influence about the beginning of the sixth century BCE. During that century, the male
(see Figure 1.15). The Greek sculptor has moved be- and female statues evolved from rigid and stereotyped models to natural S
yond Egyptian techniques, however, by incorporating and anatomically correct forms. N
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52 CHAPTER TWO: The Aegean

changes that make the figure more lifelike, such as by


attempting to show the correct shape of the knees and
suggesting an actual persons mouth. That the result is
not a realistic or idealized human figure is less impor-
tant than that the sculptor studied the human body
with fresh eyes and endeavored to represent it accu-
rately. With such groundbreaking works as the New
York Kouros, the Greeks launched a dynamic tradition
that later artists continually reshaped.
A generation after the New York Kouros, new
sculptors expressed their changed notion of a beauti-
ful living male body in such works as the Anavysos
Kouros (Figure 2.16). This sculpture, which was prob-
ably a dedicatory offering to a god or a goddess, still
shows a powerful Egyptian influence, but it takes a
giant step forward to a greater sense of life. The taut
body and muscled torso convincingly reproduce the
athletic qualities of an Olympic competitor. The legs
are flexed and the right arm and shoulder are slightly
in advance of the left, suggesting motion. The curious
facial expression, known as the Archaic smile, gives
an enigmatic quality to the marble figure.
The korai sculptures, like the statues of youths,
evolved from a frozen, lifeless style toward a greater
realism, although women were never depicted in the
nude at this stage in Greek sculpture. The earliest
draped korai sculptures mixed Mesopotamian and
Egyptian traditions with Greek ideas, sometimes pro-
ducing an interesting but awkward effect. Such an early
work is the Auxerre Kore (Figure 2.17)named for the
museum in Auxerre, Francewhose cylindrical shape
is copied from Mesopotamian models and whose rigid
pose, wiglike hair, and thin waist are borrowed from
Egypt. The Greek sculptor added the broad mouth and
the Greek peplos (a loose-fitting outer robe) decorated
with a meander pattern, but the Auxerre Kore, despite
its charming details, is rigid and inert.
The Peplos Kore (Figure 2.18), dating from about
a century later, expresses beautifully the exciting
changes that were taking place in late Archaic sculp-
ture. The statue wears a chiton, or tunic, over her
upper torso, and a belted peplos. The sculptor has re-
placed the rigidity of the Egyptian pose with a more
graceful one, as shown, for example, by the way the
figure holds her right arm. Traces of a painted neck-
lace may be seen, for the Peplos Kore, like all Greek
sculpture, was painted to make the figure as true to
life as possible. The often-awkward Archaic smile is
here rendered to perfection, giving this lovely maiden
an aristocratic demeanor.
The Greek tradition of representing males nude and
females clothed persisted throughout the Archaic Age Figure 2.16 Anavysos Kouros. Ca. 540520 BCE. Marble, ht. 76.
and well into the succeeding Hellenic Age. The Greeks National Archaeological Museum, Athens. The Anavysos Kouros
possesses the distinguishing characteristics of all kouroi: frontality,
readily accepted male nudity, witnessing it in the army attention to bodily details, and a general formality. However, its subtle
S on campaigns, in the gymnasium during exercises, innovationsmore precise musculature and more liveliness than the New
N and in the games at Olympia and elsewhere, and this York Kouros in Figure 2.15foreshadow the Hellenic sculpture style.
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Figure 2.17 Auxerre Kore. Ca. 675600 BCE. Limestone. Figure 2.18 Peplos Kore. Ca. 535530 BCE. Marble, ht. 48. Acropolis
Louvre. The Auxerre Kore represents a fairly early stage in the Museum, Athens. The kore, a statue of a young draped female, was highly
development of this female form. The small size of the sculpture (about popular during the Archaic Age, which set the standard for later Greek art.
291/2 inches high) suggests that it may have been part of a burial rite. The Peplos Kore depicted herewith her beautiful face, elegant dress, and
Traces of red pigment on the bust indicate that this kore was once painted expectant countenancerepresents the highest expression of this early S
to make it appear more lifelike. style. Like the Anavysos Kouros, this statue conveys a vivid sense of life. N
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54 CHAPTER TWO: THE AEGEAN

acceptance is reflected in their art. But they were much would have looked like. in Figure 2.20, a statue from
less comfortable with female nudity (except in Sparta, the east pediment depicts a dying warrior. On the eve
where women exercised in the nude), so women were of the Persian Wars, the Greeks reminded themselves
usually depicted draped or robed. of an earlier war against an enemy from the East. No-
This discussion of Archaic sculpture may conclude tice the beautiful balance, order, and symmetry of the
with two figures that pull together the themes already figures as a group in the reconstruction drawing. in
encountered. Figure 2.19 shows a reconstruction of the looking at the singular dying warrior, notice his nobil-
east pediment of the Temple of Aphaia (see Figure2.14) ity and his humanity. Here dies a man carrying out his
depicting Athena presiding over a battle between duty. Of course, his body is superbly craftedbetter
Greeks and Trojans. Aphaias sculptures are now in a even than those of the kouroi. in sculpture, as in al-
museum in Munichvirtually no Greek pedimental most every aspect of life, advances are coming at an
sculptures are still in place. This reconstruction con- accelerating pace.
veys a wonderful sense of what those many pediments

Figure 2.19 Reconstruction Drawing of the East Pediment of


the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina. Staatliche Antikensammlung und
Glyptothek, Munich, after Janson after Frtwangler. Marble, ht. ca. 40.
This drawing displays what pedimental sculpture would have looked like.
Notice especially how the sculptor had to fit his figures into a complex Figure 2.20 Fallen Warrior. East pediment, Temple of Aphaia at
triangular space by making each one proportionately larger as they Aegina. Ca. 510 BCE. Marble, ht. 72. Staatliche Antikensammlung
approach the summit of the triangle. und Glyptothek, Munich. This dying soldier commands respect more
than pity. Indeed, do we see him falling down or struggling to get up?

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KEy CulTuRAl TERMS 55

SUMMARY
Civilization arose in Europe in the Aegean world in plunged into darkness. Around 800 BCE the Archaic
the second millennium BCE, first on the island of Crete period opened and, over the next several generations,
and then on the adjacent Greek mainland. The Mino- the Greek polis took shape and political power, no lon-
ans, peaceful folk and avid traders, built a complex ger confined to kings and mounted warriors, came to
society, erected majestic palaces, and created beautiful be shared with farmers and merchants. intercity rival-
artworks. influenced themselves by the Hittites and ries and a rising population led many Greeks to leave
Egyptians, they in turn influenced the Myceneans. At home and settle in colonies around the Mediterranean
several sites in the Peloponnesus the Myceneans, led shores. The polis was dynamic not only in political
by kings and warriorsthe people we meet in Hom- life but also in literature and the arts. Epic and lyric
ers Iliadalso built palaces and created works of art poetry flourished. Philosophy, as a rational way of
that still dazzle the eye. The identity of the Myceneans understanding the world, appeared in several places.
is still a little mysterious, but they did speak Greek Sculptors began to capture the human form and to in-
and bequeathed to the later Greeks religious, mythical, vest it with motion, with life. Builders created flexible,
and political ideas. After about 1100 the Greek world adaptable models.

The Legacy of the Aegean World


The Archaic Age in Greece marked a decisive moment century some intellectuals said, you were born in
in history. The new way of life devised by the Archaic Greece. They had a point.
Greeks gave rise to what we call, in retrospect, the
humanitiesthose original artistic and literary forms
that made the Greeks unique by turning the focus of
human striving away from the divine and toward hu-
manity. Homeric heroes and the figures in sculpture
reveal a turn to the individual, to the flesh-and-blood
human. The attempt by Greek philosophers to under-
stand the world in purely rational terms inaugurated
a tension still felt today between reason and revela-
tion, between religion and science. We still read the
literature of the Archaic period and admire its arts
and crafts. Nowadays movies, rock concerts, and foot-
ball games are called epic. We do not have to look far
to see geometric designs on everything from clothing
to building facades. Readers of this book have prob-
ably studied geometry and have thereby contended Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, 1824. Designed by
with the Pythagorean Theorem: C 2 = a 2 + b 2. There William Strickland (17881854), one of the founders of the Greek Revival
are doric buildings all around us. in the nineteenth movement in the United States.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


frieze chthonian deities post-beam-triangle capital
fresco hubris construction triglyph
linear A epic poetry architrave metope
matriarchy bard pediment entasis
myth Homeric epithet entablature fluting
linear B lyre cornice kouros
shaft grave lyric poetry stylobate kore
oligarchy lyric stereobate Archaic
muse natural philosophy cella humanities S
Olympian deities epistemology doric N
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LYSIPPOS. Bust of Aristotle. Ca. 330 BCE. Marble Roman copy of Greek bronze, ht. 12.5.
Louvre. Aristotle was born in stagira, in the far north of Greece. His father was a doctor, who
became the court physician to the Macedonian kings. Aristotle studied in Platos Academy
in Athens. He was a handsome man, but the artist has not idealized him.

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Classical Greece
3
The Hellenic Age

Preview Questions The Hellenic Age, extending fromthe Greek defeat of the
1. How did the Persians in 479 BCE to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, was
Peloponnesian War the golden age of ancient Greece. Indeed, it was one of the most brilliant,
impact Athens and the creative, and dynamic periods in all of human history. It has become clas-
other Greek poleis in
the Hellenic Age? sic. Classic, or classical, has a rich array of meanings. It can simply mean
best. It can mean of enduring significance. Or it can mean a standard
2. Define tragedy and
comedy and explain by which all other things are judged. In all these respects the Hellenic Age
what the popularity was classical.
of Athenian theater
The figure at the left represents Aristotle, one of the greatest philoso-
teaches us about the
city, its people, and phers of the Hellenic Age. His influence extends to our own time. If spe-
their interests. cialization is valued today, it is precisely Aristotles astonishing range of
3. What intellectual intellectual interests that attracts us to him. He wrote on literary theory
attitudes and and political philosophy; on logic and ethics; on biology and botany. look
assumptions are shared
by these Hellenic at his portrait sculpture. With its receding hairline, furrowed brow, and
cultural achievements: wrinkled face, this is a real human being. Humanity was the highest ideal
history, medicine, and of the Hellenic Age. The bust is a copy of the original fourth-century work
philosophy?
by lysippos [lY-sipp-us] (370310 BCE), the second greatest Hellenic sculp-
4. What is classicism and
tor. The Hellenic Age has left us a gallery of famous figures: sophocles and
how is it manifested in
architecture, sculpture, Thucydides, Pericles and Alexander, socrates and Plato.
and painting of the Not only was the Hellenic Age marked by exceptional versatility across
Hellenic Age?
the fields of human endeavor, but significant strides were also made
within each one. In philosophy, for example, the work of the Archaic phi-
losophers was deepened and expanded. Above all, however, philosophers
tried to understand human beings more than to understand the natu-
ral world around them. Nevertheless, much of our understanding of the
natural world today still depends on the empirical observations of Hel-
lenic philosophers. Medicine became an empirical discipline with the
causes of illness divorced from divine intervention or moral failings.
History emerged as a distinct discipline dedicated to understanding the
relevance of past human action to present reality and future possibility.
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58 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

Various archaic rituals and celebrations coalesced into


drama in its classic tragic and comedic forms. The
epic and lyric poetry of the Archaic Age was little in
evidence in the Hellenic era, but the plays written for
the stage were in beautiful and expressive verse.
Artists in several media overcame every obstacle in
capturing and interpreting the human form. Architec-
ture saw the perfection of the Archaic Doric style and
the elaboration of a new Ionic style. In virtually every
area of the humanities, the Greeks of the Hellenic era
not only achieved high standards but also set stan-
dards that people would seek to emulate for the next
2,500 years.
Balance, order, harmonywhat the Greeks called
sophrosynewere central tenets of the age, even as
they appreciated the human inclination toward the
opposite. Playwrights balanced competing moral po-
sitions. Artists avoided excess. Aristotle was THE phi-
losopher of moderation. Greek life always stood in a
tense field bounded by Apollo (Figure 3.1), the god of
rational thought, ethical standards, and aesthetic bal-
ance, and Dionysius, the god of wine, drunken rev-
elry, sexual excess, and madness (Figure 3.2).
The polis may have been the most creative achieve-
ment of Archaic Greece, but it did not have a happy
experience in the Hellenic Age. Although the Greeks
Figure 3.1 Apollo. West pediment, Temple at Olympia. Ca. 460 BCE. could not imagine living in any other kind of com-
Marble, ht. 102. Archaeological Museum, Olympia, Greece. Apollos munity, they could not make the polis work over the
serene countenance in this splendidly crafted head reflects his image as
the god of moderation. As the deity who counseled Nothing in excess,
long term. Individual cities were unstable, racked by
Apollo was a potent force in combating the destructive urges that assailed internal violence, and frequently at war with one an-
the Greeks. This sculpture is executed in the Severe style, or the first stage other. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the cultural
of the Hellenic classical style, which is evident by the turn of the head to achievements of the Hellenic era all took place amid
the right. However, its wiglike hair indicates the lingering influence of the war and strife.
Archaic style.

Figure 3.2 Dionysus and His Followers. Ca. 430 BCE. Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Scrolling around
a perfume vase, this painting depicts a bearded Dionysus seated on the right with his followers. Of his
twelve devotees, eleven are maenads, young female revelers; the last is the bearded Silenus, the foster
father and former schoolmaster of Dionysus. Silenus is depicted on the lower left in his usual drunken,
disorderly state.

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Learning Through Maps
Rome Ad
ria Black Sea Sinope
MAGNA GRAECIA tic
(ITALY)

Se
THRACE

a
Poseidonia
(Paestum) MACEDONIA Byzantium
Tyrrhenian
Sea Dodona
Thurii Aegean
THESSALY
Chaeronea Sea
Delphi Thebes
Segesta Sardis
Ionian Plataea
SICILY
Sea Corinth Athens Miletus
Syracuse DELOS Tarsus
Sparta

RHODES

CRETE
CYPRUS
Mediterran Sidon
ean S Damascus
ea Tyre

Cyrene

Jerusalem

Dead
Naucratis Sea
Persian Empire

Nile R.
Athenian subjects and allies, 431 BC Memphis
0 125 250 mi
Lines of Athenian influence and trade
0 250 500 km

MAP 3.1 THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE, 431 BCE


MHS63 67
mat76620_m0301.eps
This proofshows the Athenian and Persian Empires on the eve of the Peloponnesian War.1. Compare the Athenian and Persian Empires, with respect to size
First map
and sea and land configuration. 2. Notice the difference between Athenian and Spartan influence in the eastern Mediterranean. 3. How did the locations of
Athens and Sparta influence their respective naval and military policies? 4. In what way did the distance between Sicily and Athens affect the course of the
Peloponnesian War? 5. Observe that Macedonias proximity to Greece helped in its conquest of the late fourth century BCE.

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN After defeating the Persians, the Greeks realized
that a mutual defense organization was the key to pre-
AFFAIRS: WAR, PEACE, AND venting further Persian attack. In 478 BCE, a number of
THE TRIUMPH OF MACEDONIA poleis formed the Delian League, a defensive alliance,
with Athens at its head. But Athens soon began to trans-
On the eve of the Hellenic Age, the Greeks, having
form the voluntary league into an Athenian Empire. As
defeated the Persians, were united only in their con-
the oppressive nature of Athenian policies emerged,
tinuing opposition to Persia and in their hostility to
Athenss independent neighbors became alarmed.
any polis that tried to control the others. Although
Athenian power, however, was restricted by strained
they cooperated on short-term goals that served their
relations with Sparta, by the continuing menace of Per-
common interests, goodwill among the poleis usually
sia, and by the highly unstable Delian alliance. When
evaporated once specific ends were met. If the period
a negotiated settlement finally resolved Persian claims,
was marked by division, rivalry, and conflict, it was
the Delian League fell apart, leaving Athens vulnerable
also generally prosperous. Wealth made possible some
to its enemies on the Greek mainland. First Thebes and
aspects of a brilliant culture that sometimes reflected
then Sparta led attacks on Athens. The war dragged on,
on but that was never deflected by strife.
but in 445 BCE, when Sparta unexpectedly withdrew,
Athens won a quick victory that forced its enemies to
Political Phases of the Hellenic Age negotiate.
The Hellenic Age is divided into four distinct phases: The ensuing Thirty Years Peace (which lasted only
fourteen years) brought the Hellenic Age of Athens to
The Delian League
its zenith. Athenian democracy expanded so that even
Wars in Greece and with Persia and the ensuing the poorest citizens were empowered with full rights
Thirty Years Peace (though women continued to be excluded). Artists
The Peloponnesian War and sculptors beautified the Acropolis, and the three S
Spartan and Theban hegemony and the triumph great Athenian tragediansAeschylus, Sophocles, and N
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60 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

Timeline 3.1 PHASES OF HELLENIC HISTORY All dates BCE


478 460 431 404 323

Wars in Thirty
Delian Peloponnesian Spartan and Triumph of
Greece and Years
League War Theban Hegemony Macedonia
with Persia Peace

Athenss neighbor Corinth went to war with Corcyra


(present-day Corfu) in western Greece, Corcyra ap-
pealed to Athens for aid. Athenss initial victories
frightened Corinth, whose leaders persuaded the Spar-
tans to join with them in the Peloponnesian League.
The Peloponnesian War (431404 BCE) had begun.
Pericles knew the league was superior on land but
thought the Athenians could hold out indefinitely
within their own walls and win a war of attrition.
However, a plague broke out in Athens in 430 BCE,
killing many citizens, including Pericles. The first
phase of the war ended in 421 BCE, when a demoral-
ized and defeated Athens sued for peace.
The second half of the Peloponnesian War shifted
from Greece to distant Sicily and the Westa move
that sealed Athenss fate. In 416 BCE, a Sicilian polis
begged Athens for military assistance. In trying to
conduct a war so far from home, the Athenians lost
their fleet and never recovered their military and eco-
nomic power.
In the early decades of the fourth century BCE,
first Sparta and then Thebes emerged as the preemi-
nent city-state, but these power struggles only further
weakened the poleis and made them easy prey for an
invader. At the northern edge of the civilized Greek
Figure 3.3 Pericles. Ca. 440 BCE. Marble, ht. 193/4. Vatican
world, that invader was gathering its forces. Macedo-
Museum. Pericles possessed a vision of Athens as the political, economic,
and cultural center of the Greek world. Even though this portrait bust is nia was a primitive Greek state, governed by a king
a Roman copy of the Greek original, it conveys Pericles strong sense of and whose people spoke a rough dialect of the Greek
leadership and determination. language. Its king, Philip II, having been a hostage in
Thebes when young, had become a philhellenea lover
of Greek culture. A brilliant soldier, Philip expanded
on the Delian treasury, Pericles [PER-uh-kleez], the Macedonia to the east as far as the Black Sea. He then
popular leader and general, launched a glorious build- moved southward, conquering the poleis of central
ing program that was essentially a huge public works Greece. The poleis hastily raised an army, but Philips
project (Figure 3.3). In a speech over Athenss war dead, well-disciplined troops crushed it at Chaeronea in
Pericles offered an eloquent summation of Athenian 338 BCE. After establishing a league between Mace-
democracy, praising its use of public debate in reach- donia and the poleis, Philip granted the Greeks au-
ing decisions, tolerance of diverse beliefs, and ability to tonomy in everything except military affairs. He then
appreciate beauty without sacrificing military strength. announced an all-out war against Persia but was as-
His conclusion boasted that Athens was the model for sassinated before he could launch his first campaign.
Greece. Philips nineteen-year-old son, Alexander, suc-
However, those poleis that were not enamored of ceeded to the throne. Tutored in philosophy by the
Athenian aggression became convinced that war was renowned Aristotle, Alexander nevertheless had the
the only way to protect themselves. Athenss foreign heart of a warrior. When Thebes and other poleis at-
policy and its expansionism had given rise to an alli- tempted to take control at Philips death, Alexander
S ance so delicately balanced that neither side could al- burned Thebes to the ground, sparing only the house
N low the other to gain the slightest advantage. When of the poet Pindar. Placing a general in command of
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THE ARTS OF HELLENIC GREECE: THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION 61

ble temples gleamed in the brilliant Aegean sun (Fig-


ure 3.5). Below, in the agora (market area), philosophers
debated the most profound questions of human na-
ture. Hundreds of citizens congregated outdoors to
serve in the assembly, where they passed laws or sat
on juries that made legal rulings. Citizens who were at
leisure cheered on the athletes exercising in the open-
air gymnasium (Figure 3.6). During drama festivals,
all of Athenss citizens turned out to share a gripping
tragedy or to laugh uproariously at the latest comedy.

Theater
The theater, in which the dramatic form known as trag-
edy reached a state of perfection, was one of the most
prominent civic institutions in Greece. Greek theater
originally arose in connection with the worship of Dio-
nysus. The word tragedy in Greek means goat song,
and this word may refer to a prehistoric religious cer-
emony in which competing male chorusesgroups
of singerssang and danced, while intoxicated, in
Figure 3.4 Alexander the Great. Ca. 200 BCE. Marble, ht. 161/8. homage to the god of wine; the victory prize may have
Istanbul Museum. Alexanders youth and fine features, idealized perhaps
been a sacrificial goat. Whatever its precise origins,
in this portrait bust, add to the legends that have accumulated around
one of the most famous conquerors in history. Later rulers measured during the Archaic Age theater in Athens had taken
themselves against Alexander, whose dream of a united world was cut the form of a series of competitive performances pre-
short by his early death. sented annually during the Great Dionysia, celebrated
in March. Although the names of numerous tragedi-
ans are known to us, the plays of only three survive
Greece, Alexander turned his sights to the East (Fig-
and we have only a handful of their plays. Eventually
ure 3.4).
comedy took its place alongside tragedy as a public
Alexander dreamed of a world united under his
spectacle and as another component of the Dionysiac
name and of a culture fused from Hellenic and Per-
festival. Only one comedians plays are extant. All the
sian roots. His armies marched into Asia Minor,
while, music grew in prominence, in connection with
Egypt, and Mesopotamia, absorbing the great Per-
tragedy and independently.
sian Empire; then they swept east through Asia to
At first, the chorus served as both the collective ac-
the Indus River in India. As he conquered, Alexander
tor and the commentator on the events of the drama.
destroyed and looted the great centers of Eastern civi-
Then, in the late sixth century BCE, according to tradi-
lization, but he also founded new cities and spread
tion, the poet Thespisfrom whose name comes the
Greek culture.
word thespian, or actorintroduced an actor with
Alexanders dream ended abruptly with his death
whom the chorus could interact. The theater was born.
in 323 BCE at the age of thirty-two. Seizing the op-
Initially, the main function of the actor was simply to
portunity presented by his sudden death, the Greeks
ask questions of the chorus. During the Hellenic Age,
revolted against the Macedonian oppressors, but they
the number of actors was increased to three, and, oc-
were quickly overwhelmed. The Macedonians then
casionally, late in the fifth century BCE, a fourth was
occupied Athens and installed an aristocratic govern-
added. Any number of actors who did not speak might
ment. Thus ended democracy and the Hellenic phase
be on the stage, but only the three leading actors en-
of Greek history.
gaged in dialogue. In the fifth century BCE, the chorus
achieved its classic function as mediator between ac-
THE ARTS OF HELLENIC GREECE: tors and audience. As time went on, however, the role
of the chorus declined and the importance of the ac-
THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION tors increased. By the fourth century BCE, the actor
Throughout this era of shifting political fortunes, ar had become the focus of the drama.
tistic and intellectual life flourished. The polis contin- Because the focus of tragedy was originally the
ued to be a fertile and dynamic institution. Athens chorus, the need for a space to accommodate their
bursting with energywas the jewel of the Greek dancing and singing determined the theaters shape. S
world. Atop its Acropolis, perfectly proportioned mar- The chorus performed in a circular area called an N
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62 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

Erechtheum

Statue of
Athena Old Temple of Athena
Promachus

ce walls
or terra
Propylaea Precinct

Sanctuary of
Artemis
Brauronia

Nike Temple
Mycenean
fortification Cha
lcot
heca enon
Parth

0 30 60 120 m

0 150 300 feet

Figure 3.5 Plan of the Acropolis. This plan shows the sites of the major temples: the Parthenon
(Figure 3.13), Athena Nike (Figure 3.14), and the Erechtheum (Figure 3.15). For an overall view,
compare Figure 2.7.
mat76620_0307
size 39p6 w x 26p6 d

Figure 3.6 Athletes in the Palaestra. Second quarter of the fifth century BCE. Marble, ht. 121/2.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece. This low-relief sculpture depicts athletes warming
up in the open-air exercise area (gymnasium) where spectators would congregate to urge on their favorites.
The youth on the left is preparing for a footrace, and the one on the right tests his javelin. The pair in the
center have just begun to wrestle. This relief was originally part of a sculptured base built into a wall that the
S Athenians constructed after the Persian Wars.
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Figure 3.7 Theater at Epidaurus. Ca. 300 BCE. The best-preserved
theater in Greece is the one at Epidaurus. Although tragedy was created
only in Athens, the popularity of the art form led to the construction of
incest, suicide, rape, mutilationthe attitude of the
theaters all over Greecea telling index of Athenss cultural imperialism. play toward these events was deeply moral. And vio-
The acoustics in this ancient auditorium were remarkable. Performers lence was never depicted onstage.
voices could be heard clearly throughout the theater even though it is in The tragedies were primarily based on the legends
the open with fifty-four rows of seats accommodating fourteen thousand of royal familiesusually the dynasties of Thebes,
spectators.
Sparta, and Argosdating from the Age of Heroes
of which Homer sang in his epics. Since the audience
orchestra, or dancing place, in the center of which already knew these stories, their interest focused on
was a functioning altar, serving as a reminder that the playwrights treatment of a familiar tale, his ideas
tragedy was a religious rite. The audience sat around about its moral significance, and how his language
two-thirds of the orchestra on wooden bleachers or shaped those ideas. The plots dealt with fundamen-
stone seats under the open sky. The other third of the tal human issues with no easy solutions, such as the
orchestra was backed by a wooden or stone building decrees of the state versus the conscience of the in-
called the skene [SKEE-nee], which could be painted dividual or divine law versus human law. Humans
to suggest a scene and through which entrances and were forced to make hard choices without being able
exits could be made (Figure 3.7). to foresee the consequences of their decisions. None-
Such simple set decorations may have provided a theless, the dramatists affirmed that a basic moral
slight bit of realism, but Greek theater was not con- order existed underneath the shifting tide of human
cerned with either realism or the expressiveness of affairs. The political leaders of Athens recognized and
individual actors. Instead, ideas and language were accepted tragedys ethical significance and educative
crucial. The actorsall men, even in the female function and thus made the plays into civic spectacles.
roleswore elaborate masks designed to project their For example, the audience was composed of citizens
voices, platform shoes, and long robes, which helped seated according to voting precincts, and Athenian
give the dramas a timeless, otherworldly quality. warriors orphans, who were wards of the polis, were
Plays were performed in tetralogies (sets of four) honored at the performances.
on successive days of the Great Dionysia. Each com- According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose
peting playwright offered three tragedies (a trilogy), immensely influential theory of tragedy, the Poetics,
not necessarily related in theme or subject, that were was based on his study of the dramas of the Hellenic
performed during the day, and a satyr-play that was Age, the purpose of tragedy was to work a cathartic, or
performed later. A satyr-play usually featured the purging, effect on the audience, to arouse pity and ter-
indecent behavior and ribald speech of the satyrs ror so that these negative emotions could be drained
sexually insatiable half-men, half-goatswho followed from the soul. The tragic heroes were warnings, not
Dionysus. That the Greeks liked to watch three deeply models; the spectators were instructed to seek modest
serious dramas followed by a play full of obscene high lives and not aim too high.
jinks demonstrates the breadth of their sensibility.
Aeschylus Aeschylus [ES-kuh-luhs] (about 525about
Tragedy The essence of Greek tragedy is the deeply 456 BCE), the earliest of the three dramatists whose
felt belief that mortals cannot escape pain and sorrow. plays survive, won first prize in the Great Dionysia thir-
The dramatists shared with Homer the insight that we teen times. He composed about ninety plays of which
men are wretched things, and the gods . . . have woven only seven are extant. He is believed to have added a
sorrow into the very pattern of our lives. Although second actor. His masterpiece, the Oresteia, is the only
terrible things happened in the tragediesmurder, trilogy that has survived, and even here the satyr-play S
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64 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

is missing. The framing plot is the homecoming from well as stylistic power. By transforming the Furies,
Troy of the Greek king Agamemnon, who had sinned the blind champions of vengeance killing, into the
by sacrificing his daughter to gain military success; his Kindly Ones (Eumenides), Aeschylus, in effect, af-
murder by his vengeful and adulterous wife, Clytem- firmed the ethical superiority of the rational Olym-
nestra; and the dire consequences of this killing. pians over the earthbound chthonian divinities (see
Aeschyluss treatment of these terrible events in Chapter 2). The Eumenides was topical, too, since the
the Oresteia embodies some of the principles of clas- Athenians were reorganizing their courts of law at the
sicism. In the first place, Aeschylus shows great sim- time of its first presentation. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus
plicity by avoiding distracting subplots: The first play, confronts and resolves the opposition between several
Agamemnon, tells the story of the kings death and seemingly irreconcilable polaritiesOlympian and
Clytemnestras triumph; the second, the Libation Bear- chthonian gods, divine and human justice, religious
ers, relates the vengeance murder of Clytemnestra by cult and civic ritual, and fate and free will (Figure 3.8).
her son, Orestes; and the third, Eumenides, haltswith
the help of the Olympians Athena and Apollothe Sophocles Sophocles [SOF-uh-kleez] (about 496406 BCE),
cycle of revenge by instituting an Athenian court the most prolific of the great tragedians, wrote about
to try such cases. The trilogy is symmetrical in that 125 plays (only 7 survive) and he added a third actor.
Agamemnons murder in the first play serves as pun- Popular among the Athenians, he won first prize in
ishment for the sacrifice of his daughter, Clytem- the Great Dionysia twenty-four times. Sophocles An-
nestras death in the second avenges her slaying of tigone (442 BCE) expresses beautifully the principles of
Agamemnon, and the courtroom drama of the third classical tragedy. The simple plot treats the conflicts
absolves Orestes of the crime of matricide. between King Creon and his niece Antigone. The
Finally, Aeschylus shows great restraint inasmuch principal, although not the sole, philosophical issue
as all deaths occur offstage, and the chorus or mes- explored by the play is whether human or divine law
sengers only describe them. However, for the Athe- should take precedence. Antigones two brothers have
nian audience, the Oresteia had moral significance as killed each other in a dispute over the Theban crown.

Figure 3.8 Orestes Slaying Aegisthus. Ca. late sixth century BCE. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
This red-figure vase painting presents a different version of events in Argos from that given by Aeschylus in the
Libation Bearers, the second play of the Oresteia. The vase painter portrays Clytemnestra bearing an ax (left),
S a detail Aeschylus omitted, and the sister between Orestes and his mother is not named Electra as she is in the
N Oresteia. However, painter and playwright agree that Orestes killed Aegisthus, his mothers lover.
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THE ARTS OF HELLENIC GREECE: THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION 65

Creon decrees that Eteocles, who died defending the to their liking. Among the extant works, The Bacchae
city, be buried with honor but that the body of the [BACK-kye] is his masterpiece, a gruesome tale about
rebel Polyneices be left as carrion for wild beasts. An- the introduction of the worship of Dionysus into
tigone, whose name in Greek means born to oppose, Thebes. In this play, the bacchae (another name for
defies his order and buries her brother in compliance the drunken followers of Dionysius), blinded by reli-
with religious teachings. Arrested and imprisoned, gious frenzy, kill the king of Thebes under the delu-
Antigone hangs herself, and Creons son and wife kill sion that he is a wild animal. Euripides dark tragedy
themselves. Too late, King Creon sees the light; he may have been a warning to the citizens of Athens
gives up his throne, saying, There is no man can bear about the dangers of both excess and repression in re-
this guilt but I. ligion and politics.
Several tensions are at issue here. Creon represents Euripides followed classical principles in The Bac-
the typical tyrant, concerned only with law and order. chae, using a single plot, offstage violence, and well-
His son, Haemon, is the voice of democracy, opposing defined conflict, but he also extended the range of
the tyrannical will of his father. Creon believes in the classical drama with his unorthodox, even roman-
superiority of public power over domestic life, in the tic, language and his skeptical treatment of familiar
necessity of the state to seek power for its own sake, in themes. Whereas Aeschylus and Sophocles presented
the priority of war over the commands of love, and in clear but difficult moral dilemmas, Euripides stance
the right of men to control women. When the king tries was morally vague and ambiguous. Moreover, Eurip-
to persuade his son to renounce his love for the disobe- ides pointed the way toward a different sort of the-
dient Antigone, they argue about all four of these is- ater by having the severed head of the hero brought
sues. Whether the Athenian citizens sided with Creon onstage at the end of the tragedy. With Euripides, the
or Haemon is unknown, but Antigone has become the creative phase of classical theater came to an end.
classic example of a tragic dilemma wherein two rights
confront each other. In his desire for balance, Sopho- Comedy Comedies were performed in the Great
cles gives equally powerful arguments to the plays op- Dionysia just as the tragedies were, and they were also
posing characters. entered in contests in another festival, known as the
Sophocles returned to the history of the Theban Lesser Dionysia, celebrated in late winter. Comedies
dynasty in later plays about Antigones ill-fated father, refused to take anyone or anything seriously, and they
Oedipus. In Oedipus the King, he tells how the The- blended exquisite poetry with coarse language. They
ban ruler unwittingly kills his father and marries his featured burlesque actions, buffoonery, slapstick, ob-
mother and later blinds himself to atone for his guilt. scenity, and horseplay, and actors wore grotesque
Though fate has a pivotal role in Oedipuss story, the costumes with padded bellies or rumps to give a ridic-
playwright also emphasizes the part the heros weak- ulous effect (Figure 3.9). Comic playwrights invented
ness plays in his downfall. Aristotles Poetics held up their own plots and focused on contemporary matters:
this work as a model of Greek tragedy. In Oedpius at politics, philosophies, the new social classes, and well-
Colonnus, his last play, Sophocles portrays the former known personalities. Even the deities were ridiculed
king at peace with himself and his destiny. and portrayed in embarrassing situations.
The freedom of the comic playwrights could exist
Euripides By the time Euripides [yu-RIP-uh-deez] only in a democracy. And yet the freedom was limited
(about 480406 BCE) was writing for the stage, Ath- to a highly ritualized settingthe drama festivals
ens was fighting for its existence in the Peloponnesian which allowed, even encouraged, the overturning of
War. Euripides was in tune with the skeptical mood of rules and the burlesquing of traditions. This controlled
the later years of this struggle, and, by presenting un- expression of the unspeakable provided a catharsis
orthodox versions of myths and legends, he exposed that strengthened communal bonds in the polis. At the
the foolishness of some popular beliefs and, some- same time, the comic playwrights demonstrated their
times, the emptiness of contemporary values. When faith in the basic good sense of the average citizen.
he staged The Trojan Women in 415 BCE, the Athenians The comedies of Aristophanes [air-uh-STOF-uh-
could not have missed the parallel between the cruel neez] (about 445about 388 BCE) are the primary
enslavement of the women of Troy after the Greeks source for what is known as Old Comedy, comic Greek
destroyed their city and the fate of the women on the plays with a strong element of political criticism. Aris-
island of Melos, which Athens had just subjugated. tophanes composed forty-four works (eleven survive).
For his ninety or more tragedies (eighteen survive), Like Euripides, he wrote his plays for war-torn Athens,
the Athenians awarded the first prize to Euripides and he satirized famous contemporaries such as the
only five times, perhaps because his unorthodox plays thinker Socrates, depicting him as a hopeless dreamer.
angered the audience. But later ages, far removed from Aristophanes must have offended many Athenians, S
the stresses of Hellenic times, found his dramas more for they awarded him first prize only four times. N
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66 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

along with art, literature, theater, and philosophy. Mu-


sic became a form of expression subject to rules, styles,
and rational analysis. One reason for this was that the
Greeks believed music fulfilled an ethical function
in the training of young citizens. They also believed
that music had divine origins and was inspired by Eu-
terpe, one of the nine muses (thus the word music).
The vast repertoire of Greek music has vanished.
Greek music apparently followed the diatonic system,
which had been invented by Pythagoras (fl. 530 BCE),
using a scale of eight notes, each of which was deter-
mined by its numerical ratio to the lowest tone. The
Greek composers also devised a series of scales, called
modes, which functioned roughly like major and mi-
nor keys in later Western music. The modes, however,
were not interchangeable the way keys are, because
the Greeks believed that each mode produced a differ-
ent emotional and ethical effect on the listener. Thus,
the Dorian mode, martial and grave in its emotional
impact, was thought by the Greeks to make hearers
brave and dignified; the tender and sorrowing Lydian
mode, to make them sentimental and weak; and the
Figure 3.9 Detail, Scene from a Comedy. Midfourth century BCE.
Ht. of vase 152/3. British Museum, London. This scene, painted on
passionate and wild Phrygian mode, to make them ex-
a mixing bowl, portrays a situation from a Greek comedy. The actors on cited and headstrong. Believing that such emotional
the right and left are outfitted in the grotesque costume of comedy with manipulation made free citizens difficult to govern,
padded rumps and genitals. That these characters are onstage is indicated Plato banished virtually all music from his ideal re-
by the decorations at the bottom of the frame. public. Modern research has been able to reproduce
all the Greek modes, but otherwise this music remains
a mystery.
In Lysistrata, Aristophanes transcended the limita-
Despite musics high ethical status in Greece, it had
tions of the comedic form and approached the timeless
no independent role in Hellenic culture. Instead, mu-
quality of the tragedies. A sexually explicit and hilari-
sic was integrated with verse, notably in epic and lyric
ous comedy, Lysistrata points out the absurdity of the
poetry and in tragedy and comedy, with either the
prolonged Peloponnesian War and, by implication, all
lyre (a handheld stringed instrument) or the aulos (a
war. In the play, Lysistrata, an Athenian matron, per-
wind instrument) providing accompaniment.
suades the women of Athens and Sparta to withhold
sex from their husbands until the men sign a peace
treaty. Filled with sexual innuendos, obscenities, and HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY,
ridiculous allusions to tragic dramas, the play ends
with stirring reminders to the Greeks of their common SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE
ancestry, their joint victory over the Persians earlier The finest poetry of the Hellenic period is to be found
in the century, and their reverence for the same gods. in plays. However, new literary forms, especially in
First staged in 411 BCE, seven years before Sparta won prose, became the hallmarks of the age. Historical
the Peloponnesian War, this play commented on but writing emerged and writers achieved a high level of
failed to derail Athenss headlong rush to disaster. skill. Philosophy soared far above the achievements
After the Peloponnesian War and the restoration of the Archaic period and began to differentiate itself
of a restricted democracy in 403 BCE, free speech was from natural science. Medical writers produced works
severely repressed in Athens. Comedies still relied on that would be influential for nearly two millennia.
burlesque and slapstick, but their political edge was
blunted. The great creative age of Greek theater was History
now over.
The study of history began in the fifth century BCE,
when Greeks started to analyze the meaning of their
Music immediate past and to write down in prose the re-
Like other peoples of the ancient Near East, the Greeks sults of their research, or historiathe Greek word
S used music both in civic and religious events and in for inquiry. The Greeks before the classical period
N private entertainment. But the Greeks also gave mu- had only a dim sense of their past; what they knew
L sic a new importance, making it one of the humanities came from Homer, local traditions, and mysterious
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HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE 67

Mycenaean ruins. Herodotus [he-ROD-uh-tuhs] (about who continued the inquiries of Thales and the Mile-
484 BCEabout 430 BCE) was the first to approach sian school, believed that the world is made of some
history as a distinct subject and to practice historical basic physical thing. The idealists, in contrast, whose
writing in anything like the modern sense. He was thought stemmed from Pythagoras and the Sicilian
motivated by the belief that the present has its causes school, were nonmaterialists, reasoning that the phys-
in the past and could be a guide for the future. His His- ical world is illusory and that behind it lies a realm
tories recorded and analyzed the Persian Wars, which accessible only by contemplation.
he interpreted as Europe versus Asia, or West versus By the midfifth century BCE, this simple pattern
East. In his desire to be fair to both sides, Herodotus was being challenged by new philosophies, and by
traveled to Persia and recorded what he learned there. 400 BCE, a revolution in thought had occurred that
The Histories have been criticized for implausible overshadowed everything that had gone before. The
and inaccurate information, but Herodotuss clear first assault came from Sicily, where a new school of
prose style, masterful storytelling skills, concern for thinkers proposed to reconcile materialism and ideal-
research, impartiality, belief in cause and effect, and ism. Then, in Athens, a group of teachers called the
desire to leave a record of the past as a legacy to future Sophists questioned philosophical inquiry itself and
generations have justly earned him the title father of the notion of absolute truth. The corrosive ideas of
history. these figures provoked Socrates, the most revolution-
Yet, for all his excellence, Herodotus pales in com- ary thinker of the entire ancient world, to respond
parison with Thucydides [thew-SID-uh-deez] (died to their claims. Socrates life marked a watershed in
about 401 BCE), whose subject was the Peloponnesian Greek thought. All Greek thinkers before him are now
War, in which he fought. Thucydides was much more known as Pre-Socratics, and those who came after
skeptical and analytical than Herodotus, and al- himchiefly Plato and Aristotle in Hellenic Greece
though he had reservations about democracy, he ad- followed his lead in studying the human experience
mired Pericles and strove to be completely fair in his (Table 3.1).
account of Periclean Athens. He saw the weaknesses
of his beloved polis and realized the baleful effects of The Pre-Socratics The major Pre-Socratic think-
imperialism. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, he ers tried to determine the nature of the physical
even wrote objectively of his own role as the losing ad- world. For Parmenides [par-MEN-uh-deez] (fl. after
miral in a naval battle. 515 BCE) and his followers in the polis Elea, for ex-
Thucydides also used ordinary events to illuminate ample, the world was a single, unchanging, unmoving
human motives and fundamental causes and effects object whose order could be known through human
in history. Like the Greek dramatists, he showed that reason. This attempt to reconcile materialism and ide-
human weaknesses and flaws created the real-life alism was modified by Parmenides student Emped-
tragedies he observed around him. His insight into ocles [em-PED-uh-kleez] (about 484about 424 BCE),
human nature was penetrating as he chronicled how who claimed that everything, animate or inanimate,
individuals shift loyalties and redefine their values to
justify their actions. Like a medical writer, he explored
the health of the body politic. He rose above his nar- TABLE 3.1 PHILOSOPHY IN THE HELLENIC AGE
rative to give lessons to future generations. He argued
that events that happened in the past would recur in PHILOSOPHY EMPHASIS
some wayhe did not say they would simply repeat
Pre-Socratic The physical world; nature; debate
themselvesand thus history, carefully studied, can
over materialism and idealism
teach the future.
Sophist Humanistic values; practical skills,
such as public speaking and logic
Philosophy, Science, and Medicine Socratic Enduring moral and intellectual
order of the universe; the psyche
During the Hellenic Age, philosophy and science
(mind/soul); Virtue is Knowledge
experienced a radical transformation. Both types of
Platonist Ideas (Forms) are the basis of
learning came to focus on the place of humans in so-
every thing; dualism, the split
ciety, rather than concentrating on the composition between the world of Ideas and the
of the natural world. Increasing attention was dedi- everyday world; rationalism; severe
cated to ethics, right conduct, and epistemology, the moderation in ethics
branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge and Aristotelian Natural world is the only world;
cognition. empiricism, using observation,
When the Hellenic Age opened, natural philosophy classification, and comparison; S
remained divided into two major camps: the material- golden mean in ethics N
ists and the idealists (see Chapter 2). The materialists, L
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68 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

originated in the four elements of earth, water, fire, Socrates method for arriving at true moral and
and air. These elements were unchanging, but the op- intellectual values was deceptively simple yet mad-
posing forces of love and strife could combine them in deningly elusive. At the heart of his thinking was the
different ways, to the detriment or benefit of humans. psyche (mind, or soul); being immortal, the psyche was
This explanation of change is metaphysical, which deemed more important than the mortal and doomed
means that it is based on abstract and speculative rea- body. Those who want wisdom must protect, nourish,
soning, not on empirical observation. and expand their psyches by giving their minds the
The atomists, another school of Pre-Socratic think- maximum amount of knowledge. The knowledge the
ers, believed that everything is composed of atoms psyche acquired had to be won through stimulating
eternal, invisible bodies of varying size that, by conversations and debates as well as by contemplation
definition, cannot be divided into smaller unitsand of abstract virtues and moral values. Only then could
the void, the empty space between the atoms. Atomic the psyche approach its highest potential.
theory was developed most fully by Democritus [de- Virtue is Knowledge, claimed Socrates; he meant
MOK-ruht-us] of Thrace (fl. after 460 BCE). The move- that a person who knows the truth, acquired through
ment and shape of the atoms were sufficient to explain personal struggle for self-enlightenment, will not com-
not only physical objects but also feelings, tastes, sight, mit evil deeds. And this moral dictum may be reversed:
ideasin short, every aspect of the physical world. those who do wrong do so out of ignorance. If people
used their psyches to think more deeply and clearly,
The Sophists The Sophistsfrom the Greek word they would lead virtuous lives. Socrates belief in the
sophia, or wisdomscorned Pre-Socratic speculation essential goodness of human nature and the necessity
about atoms and elements as irrelevant and useless. of well-defined knowledge became central tenets of
These traveling teachers claimed to offer their stu- Western thought.
dents (for a fee) knowledge that guaranteed success in After having pointed out the proper path to wis-
life. Their emphasis on the development of practical dom, Socrates left the rest up to his students. Bombard-
skills, such as effective public speaking, led their crit- ing inquiring youths with questions on such topics as
ics to accuse them of cynicism and a lack of interest in the meaning of justice, he used rigorous logic to refute
higher ethical values, but the Sophists were deeply se- all the squirming students attempts at precise defini-
rious and committed to humanistic values. Protagoras tion. Thenas shown by Platos dialogues, the prin-
[pro-TAG-uh-ruhs] (481411 BCE), the most renowned cipal source for what we know about Socratesthe
of the Sophists, proclaimed that man is the measure students, collapsing into confusion, admitted the se-
of all things. This summed up the Sophists argu- rious gaps in their knowledge. Socrates step-by-step
ment that human beings, as the center of the universe, questions, interspersed with gentle humor and ironic
have the power to make judgments about themselves jabs, honed his students logical skills and compelled
and their worldthat they naturally see everything them to begin a quest for knowledge in light of their
in relation to themselves. The Sophists helped free the self-confessed ignorance. Many teachers in Greece and
human spirit to be critical and creative. If there was Rome adopted the Socratic method, and it remains an
a danger in their teaching, it was a tendency toward honored pedagogical device.
unrestrained skepticism. By stressing that human The Athenians of this era began to perceive Socrates
beings have the power to shape the world, the Soph- as a threat to their way of life. This short, homely, and
ists opened themselves to charges of impiety and un- rather insignificant-looking manas surviving statues
dermining traditional values, because the traditional revealaroused suspicion in the polis with his public
Greek view was that the gods controlled everything. arguments (Figure 3.10). When Athens fell to the Spar-
The Sophists denial of norms, standards, and absolutes tans in 404 BCE, opposition to Socrates swelled. Many
registered with the populace because the dramatists citizens now found subversion or even blasphemy in
responded to them. Sophocles condemned the Soph- his words and in the behavior of his followers. Five
ists while Euripides embraced many of their ideas. years after the end of the Peloponnesian War, Socrates
was accused of impiety and of corrupting the Athe-
The Socratic Revolution Socrates [SAH-kruh-teez] nian youth; a jury declared him guilty and sentenced
(about 470399 BCE) launched a new era in philoso- him to die. Plato, a former student, was so moved by
phy. Given his passionate conviction that an enduring Socrates eloquent, though ineffective, defense and by
moral and intellectual order existed in the universe, the injustice of his death sentence that the younger
he opposed almost everything the Sophists stood for. man dedicated the remainder of his life to righting the
But Socrates shared certain traits with them, such as wrong and explaining the Socratic philosophy. Indeed,
his rejection of philosophizing about nature, his focus Plato devoted four works to the last days of Socrates
S on human problems, and his desire to empower indi- including the Phaedo, which is a deathbed scene with
N viduals to make their own moral choices. an argument in support of immortality.
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HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE 69

Figure 3.11 Roman Copy of a Bust of Plato. Ht. 13 3/4. Staatliche


Antikensammlung und Glyptothek, Munich. A copy of the original
portrait bust of Plato by the famous portrait sculptor Silanon. Supposedly,
King Mithridates of Persia commissioned the image for the Academy, but it
was not installed until after Platos death in 348. Plato means the broad.
Note the broad forehead, the broad, flat nose, and the austere, far-gazing
countenance. Compare this image with those of Socrates (p. 69) and
Aristotle (p. 56).

world of the Forms, which it inhabited before birth


Figure 3.10 Socrates. Ca. 200 BCE100 CE. Ht. 101/2. British
and after deaththe time when the psyche was lost in
Museum, London. This Roman marble copy of the original Greek statue
supports the unflattering descriptions of Socrates by his contemporaries. wonder among the eternal Ideas. In contrast, the body
By portraying the philosopher with a receding hairline and a dumpy body, lived exclusively in the material world, completely ab-
the anonymous sculptor has made one of the worlds most extraordinary sorbed by the life of the senses. Once trapped inside
human beings look very ordinary. the body, the psyche could glimpse the higher reality,
or Forms, only through remembrance.
Nonetheless, Plato thought that through a set of
Plato The spirit of Socrates hovers over the rest of mental exercises the psyche would be able to recall
Greek philosophy, especially in the accomplishments the Ideas to which it had once been exposed. The best
of his most famous student, Plato (about 427347 BCE) training for the psyche, provided in Platos school, the
(Figure 3.11). Platos philosophy is the fountainhead of Academy, was the study of mathematics, since math-
Western idealism, a thought system that emphasizes ematics required signs and symbols to represent other
spiritual values and makes ideas, rather than matter, things. After the mastery of mathematics, the student
the basis of everything that exists. Platonism arose proceeded, with the help of logic, to higher stages of
out of certain premises that were Socratic in origin abstract learning, such as defining the Forms of Justice,
the concept of the psyche and the theory of remem- Beauty, and Love. By showing that wisdom came only
brance. Like Socrates, Plato emphasized the immortal after an intellectual progression that culminated in an
and immutable psyche over the mortal and changeful understanding of the absolute Ideas, Plato refuted the
body. But Plato advanced a new polarity, favoring the Sophists, who claimed that knowledge was relative.
invisible world of the Forms, or Ideas, in opposition A major implication of Platos idealism was that S
to the physical world. The psyches true home was the the psyche and the body were constantly at war. The N
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70 CHAPTER THREE: ClAssICAl GREECE

psyches attempts to remember the lost Ideas met re- classification, and comparison of data from the physi-
sistance from the bodys pursuit of power, fame, and cal worldthat is, through the empirical method.
physical comforts. This dualism especially plagued Aristotle rejected the world of the Forms because
the philosopher, the lover of wisdom; but the true phi- he believed that Form and Matter were inseparable,
losopher took comfort in recognizing that at death the both rooted in nature. Each material object contained
psyche would return freely to the world of the Forms. a predetermined Form that, with proper training or
Plato identified the Form of the Good, the ultimate nourishment, would evolve into its final Form and ul-
Idea, with God, yet the Platonic deity was neither the timate purpose. This growth process, in his view, was
creator of the world nor the absolute and final power. potentiality evolving into actuality, as when an em-
Instead, Platos deity was necessary for his idealism bryo becomes a human or a seed matures into a plant.
to function; in his thought, God was the source from Thus, the philosopher could conclude that everything
which descended the imperfect objects of the natural has a purpose, or end.
world. In a related theological notion, he, like socrates, Aristotles thought rested on the concept of God,
attributed the presence of evil to ignorance; but Plato which he equated with the First Cause. Aristotles God
added the psyches misdirected judgment and insatia- was a logical necessity not a supernatural figure. Re-
ble bodily appetites as other causes of evil. jecting Platonic dualism and its exclusive regard for
socrates death provoked Plato to envision a perfect the psyche, Aristotle devised a down-to-earth ethi-
state where justice flourished. The book that resulted cal goala sound mind in a healthy bodythat he
from Platos speculationsthe Republicsets forth his called happiness. To achieve happiness, he advised, in
model state and, incidentally, launched the study of his Nicomachean Ethics, striking a mean, or a balance,
political philosophy in the West. Plato thought that a between extremes of behavior. For example, courage
just state could be realized only when all social classes is the mean between the excess of foolhardiness and
worked together for the good of the whole, each class the deficiency of cowardice. Noting that actions like
performing its assigned tasks. Because of the impor- murder and adultery are vicious by their very nature,
tance of the psyche, social status was determined by he condemned them as being unable to be moderated.
the ability to reason, not by wealth or inheritance. A Although Aristotle disavowed many of Platos ideas,
tiny elite of philosopher-kings and philosopher-queens, he agreed with his former mentor that the cultivation
who were the best qualified to run the state, reigned. of the higher intellect is more important than that of
Possessing wisdom as a result of their education in the the body.
Platonic system, they lived simply, shunning the crea- Aristotles ethics were related to his politics, for he
ture comforts that corrupted weaker rulers. taught that happiness finally depended on the type of
The two lower ranks were similarly equipped for government under which an individual lived. Unlike
their roles in society by their intellects and their train- Plato, who based his politics on speculative think-
ing: a middle group provided police and military pro- ing, Aristotle reached his political views after careful
tection, and the third and largest segment operated research. After collecting 158 state constitutions, Ar-
the economy. In Platos dream world, both the indi- istotle, in his Politics, classified and compared them,
vidual and the society aimed for virtue, and the laws concluding that the best form of government was a
and the institutions ensured that the ideal would be constitutional regime ruled by the middle class. His
achieved. preference for the middle class stemmed from his be-
lief that they, exciting neither envy from the poor nor
Aristotle socrates may have been revolutionary; contempt from the wealthy, would honor and work for
Plato was certainly poetic; but Aristotle [AIR-us-tah- the good of all.
tuhl] (384322 BCE) had the most comprehensive mind Aristotles influence on Western civilization is im-
of the ancient world. His curiosity and vast intellect measurable. In the Middle Ages, Christian, Muslim,
led him into every major field of inquiry of his time and Jewish scholars studied his writings, regarding
except mathematics and music. Born in Macedonia, he them as containing authoritative teachings on the nat-
was connected to some of the most brilliant person- ural world. Today, Aristotelianism is embedded in the
alities of his day. He first studied philosophy under official theology of the Roman Catholic Church (see
Plato in Athens and then tutored the future Alexander Chapter 10), and Aristotles logic continues to be taught
the Great. After Philips conquest of Greece, Aristotle in college philosophy courses.
settled in Athens and opened a school, the lyceum,
that quickly rivaled the Academy, Platos school. Medicine little is known of the life of Hippocrates
Although his philosophy owed much to Platonism, [hip-OCK-re-teez] (about 460377 BCE), the major fig-
Aristotle emphasized the role of the human senses. ure in classical Greek medicine. In his own lifetime,
S To Aristotle, the natural world was the only world; he was highly regarded and apparently traveled ex-
N no separate, invisible realm of Ideas existed. Nature tensively through Greece and Asia Minor, healing the
L could be studied and understood by observation, sick and teaching aspiring physicians.
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HIsTORY, PHIlOsOPHY, sCIENCE, AND MEDICINE 71

SLICE OF LIFE
Secrets of a Successful Marriage in Ancient Greece

Xenophon
FROM OECONOMICUS
It is not surprising that the Greeks were concerned with how but to be well aware of this: that the better partner is
to have a good marriage. Xenophon (about 445355 BCE), the one who makes the more valuable contribution. . . .
a famous military commander, historian, essayist, and stu- Because both the indoor and the outdoor tasks
dent of Socrates, discussed marriage in his essay on domes- require work and concern, I think the god, from the
tic economy, or home life. It is a fairly accurate depiction of very beginning, designed the nature of woman for the
the marital ideal among well-to-do Greeks of the time. The indoor work and concerns and the nature of man for
dialogue form was common in works like this. the outdoor work. For he prepared mans body and
mind to be more capable of enduring cold and heat
I [socrates] said, I should very much like you to tell and travelling and military campaigns, and so he as-
me, Ischomachus, whether you yourself trained your signed the outdoor work to him. Because the woman
wife to become the sort of woman that she ought to was physically less capable of endurance, I think the
be, or whether she already knew how to carry out her god has evidently assigned the indoor work to her. . . .
duties when you took her as your wife from her father Because it is necessary for both of them to give
and mother. and to take, he gave both of them equal powers of
[Ischomachus replied,] What could she have memory and concern. so you would not be able to dis-
known when I took her as my wife, socrates? she was tinguish whether the female or male sex has the larger
not yet fifteen when she came to me, and had spent her share of these. And he gave them both equally the abil-
previous years under careful supervision so that she ity to practise self-control too, when it is needed. . . .
might see and hear and speak as little as possible. . . . [B]ecause they are not equally well endowed with
[A]s soon as she was sufficiently tamed and do- all the same natural aptitudes, they are consequently
mesticated so as to be able to carry on a conversation, more in need of each other, and the bond is more ben-
I questioned her more or less as follows: Tell me, wife, eficial to the couple, since one is capable where the
have you ever thought about why I married you and other is deficient.
why your parents gave you to me? It must be quite ob- Interpreting This Slice of Life
vious to you, I am sure, that there was no shortage of
partners with whom we might sleep. I, on my part, and 1. Based on this selection, what was the role of women
your parents, on your behalf, considered who was the in marriage in Hellenic Greece?
best partner we could choose for managing an estate 2. At what age was the wife in the selection married?
and for children. And I chose you, and your parents, 3. What impact would the wifes youth have on the
apparently, chose me, out of those who were eligible. dynamics of the marriage?
Now if some day the god grants us children, then we
4. Discuss the role of material matters (money, prop-
shall consider how to train them in the best way pos-
erty, and other forms of wealth) in Greek marriage,
sible. For this will be a blessing to us both, to obtain
as depicted here.
the best allies and support in old age. But at present
we two share this estate. I go on paying everything I 5. What attitude does the speaker, Ischomachus, have
have into the common fund; and you deposited into it toward male and female intellectual abilities?
everything you brought with you. There is no need to 6. Compare and contrast modern attitudes toward mar-
calculate precisely which of us has contributed more, riage with those represented in this selection.

Hippocrates was born on the island of Cos in the commencement of their medical careers. This oath,
Aegean sea and probably taught at the medical school which he certainly did not compose, spells out the du-
located there. In the second and third centuries CE, ties and responsibilities of a physician and sets ethical
scholars collected about seventy works attributed standards and personal behavior practices.
to him, the Hippocratic Collection, which ensured Regardless of how little is known of Hippocrates,
his future reputation. Today, Hippocrates is still the he is still recognized as one of the first physicians to S
father of medicine and identified with the Hippo- reject supernatural explanations as causes of illness. N
cratic oath, which most medical students take at the Instead, he observed and studied the body and its L
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72 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

parts from a scientific and clinical point of view. Most


specifically, Hippocrates believed that diseases were
caused by imbalances of the four humors, which
he identified as the four fluidsblood, phlegm, black
bile, and yellow bilewithin the physical body. He as-
serted that disease was not the invasion of evil spir-
its or controlling deities. If these humors were kept in
balancesuch as by administering drugs, prescribing
diets, or removing excess blood or other humors
then the body would heal itself and the patient would
recover.
In one of the works attributed to him, Hippocrates
discusses the sacred disease, now known as epi-
lepsy. At the time, conventional wisdom explained
epilepsy as a divine affliction, a sign that the patient
was favored by the gods. In contrast, Hippocrates ar-
gues that epilepsy has natural causes that can be iden-
tified and treated. He also comments on the brain,
terming it the source of all emotions and senses and
the most powerful organ in the human body.

THE VISUAL ARTS


In architecture, sculpture, and painting, Greeks of
the Hellenic Age outstripped their Archaic forebears. Figure 3.12 Second Temple of Hera at Paestum. Ca. 450 BCE.
Doric architecture was brought to a peak of perfec- Limestone. This temple of Hera is among the best-preserved structures
tion and then surpassed by a new order, the Ionic. The from the ancient world. Since Hera may have been a chthonian goddess
before becoming consort to Olympian Zeus, it is appropriate that this Doric
emerging humanism of the kouroi and korai yielded temple, with its ground-hugging appearance, be her monument.
to classical sculpture of almost inexpressible beauty
and naturalism. Finally, the gorgeous black-figure and
red-figure ware of the Archaic period was comple- of limestone in about 450 BCE (Figure 3.12). The best
mented by exquisite white-ground ware. preserved of all Greek temples, this Doric structure
does not have the harmonious proportions of the east-
ern version of this style. Although the Second Temple
Architecture of Hera owed much to eastern influences, including
The temple was the supreme expression of Hellenic the six columns at the ends and the porches, it had
architecture. By Hellenic times, the Greek world was too many (fourteen) columns on the sides, its columns
polarized between eastern (the mainland and the Ae- were too thick, and the low-pitched roof made the
gean Islands) and western (Magna Graecia) styles of building seem squat.
temple design, although in both styles the temples Between 447 and 438 BCE, the architects Ictinus
were rectilinear and of post-beam-triangle construc- [ik-TIE-nuhs] and Callicrates [kuh-LICK-ruh-teez] per-
tion. Influenced by the Pythagorean quest for harmony fected the eastern-style Doric temple in the Parthenon,
through mathematical rules, the eastern builders had a temple on Athenss Acropolis dedicated to Athena
standardized six as the perfect number of columns for (Figure 3.13). When completed, this temple established
the ends of temples and thirteen, or twice the num- a new standard of classicism, with eight columns on
ber of end columns plus one, as the perfect number the ends and seventeen on the sides and with the
of columns for the sides. These balanced proportions, numeric ratio 9:4 used throughout, expressed, for ex-
along with simple designs and restrained decorative ample, in the relation of a columns height to its diam-
schemes, made the eastern temples majestically ex- eter. Inside, the builders designed two chambers, an
pressive of classical ideals. east room for a forty-foot-high statue of Athena and
Architects in western Greece, somewhat removed a smaller room housing the Delian League treasury.
from the centers of classical culture, were more ex- The rest of the Acropolis project, finally finished in
perimental than those in the Greek mainland. Their 405 BCE, included the Propylaea, the gate leading to
S buildings deviated from the eastern ideals, as can be the sanctuary; the temple of Athena Nike, a gift to
N seen in the Second Temple of Hera at Paestum, built Athenss patron goddess thanking her for a military
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Figure 3.13 ICtinuS AnD CALLiCRAteS. The Parthenon, Athens. Third
quarter of the fifth century BCE. Pentelic marble. A great humanistic
icon, the Parthenon has had a long history since its days as a Greek
temple. It served successively as a Christian church, a mosque, and an
ammunitions depot, until it was accidentally blown up at the end of the
seventeenth century CE. Today, concerned nations are cooperating with the
Greek government through UNESCO to preserve this noble ruin.

victory (Figure 3.14); and the Erechtheum, a temple


dedicated to three deities.
Ictinus and Callicrates introduced many subtle
variations, called refinements, into their designs so
that no line is exactly straight, horizontal, or perpen-
dicular. For example, the stepped base of the temple
forms a gentle arc so that the ends are lower than the
middle; the floor slopes slightly to the edges; and the
columns tilt inward away from the ends. These and
other refinements were no accidents but, instead, were
intended to be corrections for real and imaginary
optical illusions. The Parthenons fame exerted such
authority in later times that these refinements, along
with harmonious proportions, became standardized
as the essence of Greek architecture.
The second order of Greek architecture, the Ionic,
originated in the late Archaic Age and, like the Doric,
came to flourish in Hellenic times. The Ionic style,
freer than the Doric and more graceful, reflected its Figure 3.14 CALLiCRAteS. Temple of Athena Nike, Athens. Late fifth
origins in the Ionian world; traditionally, the Ioni- century BCE. Marble. Designed by Callicrates, one of the Parthenons
ans contrasted their opulence with the simplicity of architects, this miniature temple was begun after 427 BCE and probably
the Dorians. In place of the alternating metopes and completed before 420 BCE. Like the Parthenon, it was dedicated to the
triglyphs of Doric buildings, the Ionic temple had a citys patron goddess, Athena, though here she was honored as Nike,
goddess of victory. This temples simple plan includes a square cella
running frieze to which sculptured figures might with four Ionic columns at the front and back and a sculptural frieze,
be added. More decorated than the plain Doric, the devoted to scenes of mythic and contemporary battles, encircling the S
Ionic columns had elegant bases, and their tops were upper exterior walls. N
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74 CHAPTER THREE: Classical Greece

Figure 3.15 Mnesicles. The Erechtheum, Athens. View from the


west. Ca. 410 BCE. Marble. The Erechtheum was probably built to
quiet conservatives who rejected Athenas new temple, the Parthenon,
as a symbol of Athenian imperialism. Reflecting its ties with the past,
the Erechtheum housed the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena, which
pious Athenians believed had fallen from the sky. Its Ionic porches set the
standard for the graceful Ionic order. The Porch of the Maidens (above),
which was inaccessible from the outside, fronted the southern wall.

crowned with capitals that suggested either a scrolls


ends or a rams horns. What solidified the Ionic tem-
ples impression of elegance were its slender and deli-
cate columns.
The Athenians chose the Ionic style for the exqui-
site, though eccentric, Erechtheum, the last of the great
buildings erected on the Acropolis (Figure 3.15). The
artistic freedom associated with the Ionic style may
have led the architect, Mnesicles [NES-uh-kleez], to
make the floor plan asymmetrical and to introduce so

Figure 3.16 Kritios Boy. Ca. 480 BCE. Ht. 310. Acropolis Museum,
Athens. This statue is carved from marble probably mined at Mount
Pentelicus in Attica. Two featuresthe treatment of the eyes, which were
originally set with semiprecious stones, and the roll of hairshow that
the Kritios sculptor was accustomed to working in bronze. The figures
beautifully rendered muscles and sense of inner life announce the arrival
S of the Hellenic style; the contrapposto, used sparingly here, foreshadows
N later developments in Greek sculpture.
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THE VISUAL ARTS 75

many design variations, but a more likely explanation mouth severely and altered the frontality, a feature
was Mnesicles need to integrate three existing shrines of the Archaic style, by tilting the head subtly to the
into a single buildingthose of the Olympians Athena right and slightly twisting the upper torso. The flat-
and Poseidon and the mythical king Erechtheus [eh- footed stance of the Archaic kouros has given way to
RECK-thee-us], who introduced the horse to Athens. a posture that places the bodys weight on one leg and
Mnesicles took the unusual step of stressing the sites uses the other leg as a support. This stance is called
unbalanced nature by adding two Ionic porches and contrapposto (counterpoise), and its invention, along
the temples crowning feature, the Porch of the Maid- with the mastery of the representation of muscula-
ens. With his bold design, Mnesicles created a marvel- ture, helped to make the classical revolution. There
ous illusion of harmony that was in keeping with the after, sculptors were able to render the human figure
Hellenic Ages classical ideals. in freer, more relaxed poses.
The central panel of the so-called Ludovisi Throne,
Sculpture another sculpture from the same period, conveys an
Equally impressive is the Greek achievement in sculp- air of quiet gravity (Figure 3.17). The subject is prob-
ture. Believing that the task of sculpture is to imitate ably the birth of Aphrodite as she rises from the sea,
nature, the Greeks created images of gods and god- indicated by pebbles under the feet of her attendants,
desses as well as of men and women that have haunted the stooping figures on either side. This relief reflects
the Western imagination ever since. They not only a perfect blending of late Archaic grace (Aphrodites
forged a canon of idealized human proportions that stylized hair and the hint of Archaic smile) with the
later sculptors followed but also developed a repertoire dignity of the Severe style (the delicate transparent
of postures, gestures, and subjects that have become draperies and the convincing realism produced by
embedded in Western art. foreshortening the arms of the three figures).
During the Hellenic Age, classical sculpture moved In contrast to the Severe style, which accepted re-
through three separate phases: the Severe style, which pose as normal, the high classical style was fascinated
ushered in the period and lasted until 450 BCE; the with the aesthetic problem of showing motion in a
high classical style, which coincided with the ze- static medium. The sculptors solution, which became
nith of Athenian imperial greatness; and the fourth- central to high classicism, was to freeze the action, re-
century style, which concluded with the death of sisting the impulse to depict agitated movement, in
Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. much the same way that the tragic playwrights ban-
Sculpture in the Severe style, inspired perhaps ished violence from the stage. In effect, the high clas-
by its association with funeral customs, was charac- sical sculptors stopped time, allowing an ideal world
terized by a feeling of dignified nobility. The Kritios to emerge in which serene gods and mortals showed
Boyshowing a figure fully at restis an elegant ex- grace under pressure. A striking representation of
pression of this first phase of classicism (Figure 3.16). this aspect of high classicism is the bronze statue of
Kritios [KRIT-ee-uhs], the supposed sculptor, fixed the Poseidon, or Zeus, found in the Aegean Sea off Cape

Figure 3.17 The Birth of Aphrodite. Ca.


460 BCE. Ht. 29. National Museum of the
Terme, Rome. The Ludovisi Throne, with its
three relief panels, is a controversial work,
because scholars disagree about its original
function, the interpretation of its panels, and
even its date. Discovered in Rome in the late
nineteenth century, it probably was carved
in Magna Graecia, perhaps for an altar, and
brought to Rome in antiquity. The figure of
Aphrodite was one of the first nude women
depicted in large-scale Greek sculpture. The
goddess is rendered in softly curving lines
a marked deviation from the Severe style and
a forecast of the sensuous tendency of later
Greek art.

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76 CHAPTER THREE: ClAssICAl GREECE

Figure 3.18 Poseidon (or Zeus). Ca. 460450 BCE. Bronze, ht. 610. National
Museum, Athens. The Greek conception of the nobility of their gods is nowhere
better revealed than in this magnificent bronze sculpture of Poseidon (or Zeus). Grace,
strength, and intellect are united in this majestic image of a mature deity. Poseidons
eyes originally would have been semiprecious stones, and the statue would have been
painted to create a more realistic effect. If Poseidon, he hurls a trident; if Zeus, a
thunderbolt.

Artemision. It captures to perfection high classicisms


ideal of virile grace (Figure 3.18). The god (whose ma-
turity is signified by the beard and fully developed
body) is shown poised, ready to hurl some object. In
such sculptures as this, the Greeks found visual meta-
phors for their notion that deities and mortals are kin.
High classical sculptors wanted to do more than
portray figures in motion; some, especially Polykleitos
[pol-e-KlITE-uhs] of Argos, continued to be obsessed
with presenting the ideal human form at rest. In his
search for perfection, Polykleitos executed a bronze
male figure of such strength and beautythe Dory-
phoros (spearbearer)that its proportions came to
be regarded as a canon, or set of rules, to be imitated
by other artists (Figure 3.19). In the Doryphoros canon,
each of the limbs bears a numeric relation to the bodys
overall measurements; for example, the length of the
foot is one-tenth of the figures height. Other princi-
ples of high classicism embodied in the Doryphoros in- Figure 3.19 Doryphoros. Ca. 440 BCE. Marble copy of a bronze
clude the slightly brutal facial features, typical of this original by Polykleitos, ht. 66. Museo Nazionale Archeologico,
styles masculine ideal; the relaxed contrapposto; and Naples. The Doryphoros expresses the classical ideal of balanced repose.
the controlled muscles. The nude figure rests his weight upon the right leg. The left arm, extended
Greek architecture reached its zenith in the Parthe- to hold the now-missing spear, balances with the right leg. The left foot,
barely touching the ground, balances with the relaxed right arm. Besides
non, and, similarly, classical Greek sculpture attained representing idealized repose, the Doryphoros was also recognized as the
S its height in the reliefs and sculptures of this celebrated embodiment of human beauty with its ordered proportions, well-toned
N temple. Under the disciplined eye of the sculptor musculature, and rugged features.
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THE VIsUAl ARTs 77

Interpreting Art
Religious
Influence Supposedly
Perspective
the most famous statue
Aphrodite presides over
in antiquity, more than a
sexuality and reproduction.
dozen copies survive today.
Young women about to
Later painters imitated the
be married sacrificed to
statue as well, for example,
Aphrodite so that their first
the Italian master Sandro
sexual experience would be
Botticelli (Figure 12.5).
pleasant and productive.
She was also associated
Composition The with fertility of the earth.
first known full-sized Men worshiped her as the
female nude executed in goddess of seafaring.
Greece, the figure stands in
contrapposto and exhibits
the Praxitelean curve.
Political
Showing no rigidity, the Perspective In
body works exactly as it Athens especially, Aphrodite
should. The statue was was called pandemos (the
carved so as to be viewed whole people), meaning
from all sidesas it was in that she was worshiped as
a temple. the protectress of all the
people who were seafarers
Female Body and farmers and who hoped
Previously, women had to reproduce.
been depicted in revealing
garments but never nude. Subject Aphrodite
People were allegedly drops her clothes on a
shocked by this statue hydria (a Greek vessel for
but came from all over carrying water) before
Greece to see it. Its ancient stepping into her bath. The
nickname was Venus Pudica model may have been the
(Modest Venus) because sculptors lover Phyrne.
she shields her genitalia
with her right hand. In later
copies she raises her left
hand to cover her breasts.
The figure is true to life,
graceful, and sensuous. In
one Greek poem, the poet
portrays Aphrodite asking
When did Praxiteles see
me naked?

PraxIteles. Aphrodite of Knidos. Ca. 350 BCE. Roman copy. Marble, ht. 68. Vatican Museum.
Created for a temple on the island of Knidos, this statue became a kind of tourist attraction as
people came from all over Greece to see it. To appreciate the sculptors exquisite style, compare this
statue with the Hermes on page 79.

1. Subject What characteristics does this statue share with 4. Religious Perspective How does this statue both reveal
other Greek statues and with Praxiteles Hermes? and hint at the power of Aphrodite?
2. Composition Compare this statue with the other represen- 5. Political Perspective Why was Aphrodite suitable for wor-
tations of females in Chapters 1, 2, and 3. ship by all the people?
3. Female Body Perspective Given that male nudes appeared 6. Influence Why do you suppose this was the most famous
very early and apparently elicited no criticism, why do you statue in antiquity?
think the female nude was so slow to appear?

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Figure 3.20 Centaur Versus Lapith.
Metope XXX, south face of the Parthenon.
Ca. 448442 BCE. Marble, ht. 56. British
Museum, London. This struggling pair was
designed to fit comfortably into the metope
frame, and thus the proportions of the figures
in relation to each other and to the small
space were worked out with precision. The
intertwined limbs of the warrior and the
centaur visibly demonstrate the new freedom
of high classicism. The anguished countenance
of the lapith, however, is almost unique in
high classicism and is a portent of the more
emotional faces of the Hellenistic style, the next
major artistic development.

Pediment

Metopes
Ionic
Frieze

Doric
Frieze

Figure 3.22 Grave Stele of Hegeso. Ca. 410400 BCE. Ht. 59.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Grave markers like this one
were produced in profusion in Athens and probably helped to disseminate
the Phidian style. Hegeso was a noble lady and this tomb marker was
Figure 3.21 The Location of the Sculptures on the Parthenon. This cutaway probably erected by her husband. As Figure 3.20 shows a lapith in agony,
S view shows the metopes on the Doric frieze, the Ionic frieze, and the pediments of the so this stele reveals tenderness, attentiveness, and intimacy. Here is Greek
N Parthenon, which were covered with sculptures celebrating the glory of Athens. humanism at its most humane.
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THE VISUAL ARTS 79

Phidias [FIHD-e-uhs], craftspeople carved patriotic


and mythological subjects destined for various parts
of the building. Taken as a whole, the sculptures re-
vealed the Parthenon to be a tribute to Athenian impe-
rialism as much as to the goddess Athena.
On the Parthenons metopesthe rectangular spaces
on the Doric friezesculptors portrayed scenes in the
prevailing high classical style. In panel after panel,
the metope sculptors depicted perfect human forms
showing restraint in the midst of struggle, such as
Amazons against men, Greeks against Trojans, and
gods against giants. The south metopes portrayed
the battle between the legendary lapiths and the half-
men, half-horse centaurs (Figure 3.20). For the Greeks,
the struggle between the human lapiths and the bes-
tial centaurs symbolized the contest between civiliza-
tion and barbarism or, possibly, between the Greeks
and the Persians.
Inside the columns, running around the perimeter
of the upper cella walls in a continuous band, was a
low-relief frieze (Figure 3.21). Borrowed from the Ionic
order, this running frieze introduced greater liveliness
into high classicism. The 525-foot-long band depicts
the Panathenaea festival, Athenss most important civic
and religious ritual, which was held every four years.
This panoramic view of the procession concluded with
a stunning group portrait of the twelve gods and god-
desses, seated in casual majesty, awaiting their human
worshipers. The entire Parthenon frieze was the most
ambitious work of sculpture in the Greek tradition.
The beautiful grave stele of Hegeso (Figure 3.22)
is in the Phidian style, the presumed style of Phidias.
The deceased lady has selected a necklace from a jewel
box held by her attendant. The billowing garments re-
veal arms, legs, and breasts. These are real people. The
figures themselves merge into the background as if
it were empty space. Sculptors had by now mastered
form and could concentrate on interpretation.
The transition to fourth-century style coincided
Figure 3.23 Praxiteles. Hermes with the Infant Dionysus.
with the end of the creative phase of tragedy and the
Ca. 350340 BCE. Marble, ht. 85. Archaeological Museum, Olympia,
disintegration of the Greek world as it passed into the Greece. In this statue of Hermes, Praxiteles changed the look of classical
Macedonian political orbit. Sculpture remained in- art with his rendering of the gods body. For example, Hermes small head
novative, since each generation seemed to produce a and long legs contributed to the Praxitelean canon for the male figure.
master who challenged the prevailing aesthetic rules, The sculptor has also created a dramatic contrast between Hermes well-
muscled body and his soft face. As a direct result of Praxiteles new vision,
and free expression continued as a leading principle
sculptors in the Hellenistic Age would become interested in more frankly
of fourth-century style. But sculptors now expressed sensual portrayals of the human figure, both male and female.
such new ideas as beauty for its own sake and a de-
light in sensuality. Earlier classicism had stressed the
notion that humans could become godlike, but the last a casual yet dignified pose, probably dangled grapes
phase concluded that gods and mortals alike reveled before the attentive baby god. The contrapposto pos-
in human joys. ture, beautifully defined in Hermes stance, became
This new focus is apparent in Praxiteles [prax-SIT- widely imitated as the Praxitelean curve. Praxiteles
uhl-eez] Hermes with the Infant Dionysus. This sculpture, treatment of the male figure had superseded the more
perhaps the only original work by a known sculptor rugged Doryphoros canon. Hermes sensuous body, his
that survives from Hellenic Greece, portrays two gods intent gaze, and his delicate features are hallmarks of S
blissfully at play (Figure 3.23). Hermes, lounging in fourth-century classicism. N
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80 CHAPTER THREE: ClAssICAl GREECE

Painting
In the Hellenic period, red-figure ware was more
popular than black-figure ware, but both styles con-
tinued to be produced (see Figures 3.8 and 3.9). New
toward the end of the fifth century was white-ground
ware. surviving examples are almost all painted on le-
kynthoi (oil jugs, for funeral offerings). Two features
of this new style are striking. First, the white-ground
ware style shares traits with the periods sculpture,
but it is unclear which came first. A look at the He-
geso stele (see Figure 3.22) and the Mistress and Maid
by the so-called Achilles Painter (Figure 3.24) shows
the same melancholy scene interpreted in almost the
same way. second, the white background in the white-
ground ware gave the painter the opportunity to draw
and color freely, allowing the figures to emerge from
seemingly empty space. The painters command of
spatial effects creates a powerful three-dimensionality.
In painting, this command of space is corollary to the
sense of movement in sculpture.

Figure 3.24 tHe sO-called acHIlles PaInter. Mistress and Maid. Ca.
440430 BCE. Ht. 16. Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek,
Munich. Probably made in Athens, this white-ground vessel has perhaps
the most refined, delicate surviving painting from ancient Greece. Compare
the Hegeso stele (Figure 3.22).

SUMMARY
After leading the Greeks to victory over Persia, Athens was shocked by the sophists teachings. He believed
tried but failed to dominate the Greek world. For the deeply in truth, and in peoples ability to know and to
next two centuries, no other polis achieved a domi- communicate what was true. But his relentless ques-
nant position although several tried. Domination fi- tioning of everything brought his downfall. His most
nally came from the barbarian north, from Macedon. famous pupil, Plato, looked for truth in the realm of
Political and military failures notwithstanding, Ideas beyond the illusory world of daily life. Platos
Greece, and especially Athens, soared to new cul- pupil Aristotle sought reality in daily life and expe-
tural heights. Aeschylus, sophocles, and Euripides rience and called for careful observation and serious
improved the form and refined the content of Greek attention to language. In architecture, experimenta-
theater. They established tragedy as an art form. tion with the Doric form eventually resulted in the
Their contemporary Aristophanes brought comedy Parthenon in Athens, one of the greatest buildings
to a new peak of perfection. Herodotus invented his- ever erected. sculpture passed through three phases:
torical writing as a distinct intellectual exercise, and severe, high classical, and fourth century. sculpture
Thucydides added to it rigorous analysis and interpre- decorated buildings in friezes and graced many set-
tation. Hippocrates set medicine on a scientific path. tings as freestanding figures. In sculpture, as in all the
Philosophers turned from the natural world to hu- arts and letters of the Hellenic Age, the hallmark was
manity itself. sophists denied all eternal, immutable greater and greater humanisma sensitivity to and
S standards. They did not teach people how to discern celebration of human beings.
N right and wrong but, instead, how to prevail. socrates
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KEY CUlTURAl TERMs 81

The Legacy of Classical Greece


Modern debts to Hellenic Greece are too numerous to
count here. Athenian demokratiarule by the people
has been a constant ideal and inspiration. In the Arab
spring of 2011, people all over the Middle East and
North Africa rose up to defend their right to partici-
pate in public life. students of politics and political sci-
ence may not realize that the very subjects they are
studying and the language they use to do so are Greek
inventions. Classical revivals several times pre-
ceded the modern architecture that was in many ways
a rejection of classical norms, but postmodern build-
ings often artfully combine the austerities of modern-
ism with decorative details drawn from the classical
repertoire. Hellenic classicism continues to shape the
way we perceive beauty. Greek literature remains an
integral part of school and college curriculums; its
form and messages retain their attraction. like some
Greek thinkers we prize empirical study of the world
around us, but like others we ask whether what we
perceive constitutes all there is.
sometimes the influence of classical Greece is seen
in American popular culture. People speak of Pla-
tonic relationships when they want to characterize
close relationships that are not romantic. sigmund
Freud taught us to think about Oedipus complexes.
law students everywhere are taught by the socratic
method. In late 2011 lysistrata Jones opened on
Broadway. In this retelling of Aristophaness tale, the
girlfriends of some really bad college basketball players
withhold sex until the guys start winning. Aristoph-
anes comedy and the Broadway play both have their
goofy side while dealing with important and sensitive
subjects, ending a foolish war in one case and getting carlO FranZOnI (1789-1819). The Car of History. Marble, 1819. National
rid of a losing mentality in the other. The long-running Statuary Hall, Washington, D.C. Clio, the Muse of History, stands in a
show Saturday Night Live mocks our contemporary winged chariot representing the passage of time and records events as
they occur. The car rests on a marble globe around which the signs of the
world the way Aristophanes mocked his. Every four
zodiac are carved. The clock, whose works were executed by Simon Willard
years the worlds athletes assemble in Olympic games. (17531848), forms the wheel of the chariot. The Car of History is in the
In the Halls of Congress Greek-inspired sculpture and neoclassical stylethe preferred style of the founders of the American
themes instruct and inspire tourists and our solons. republic who saw it as representing democracy and freedom.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Hellenic skene idealism contrapposto
classic (classical) satyr-play Platonism Praxitelean curve
tragedy Old Comedy Ionic humanism
chorus modes severe style
Dionysia epistemology high classical style
orchestra metaphysical fourth-century style
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Old Market Woman. Third or second century BCE. Marble copy of bronze original, ht. 49.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Whether she was a poor peddler or an affluent
shopper, this old woman would never have appeared in Hellenic art. She would have violated
the quest for the good, true, and beautiful. Yet, in Hellenistic times, ordinary people and
S everyday scenes had their value and beauty.
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The Hellenistic World
4
Preview Questions The Hellenistic Age extended from the death of Alexander the
1. How were the Great in 323 BCE to the definitive triumph of Rome in the Mediterranean
Hellenistic monarchies world in 31 BCE. The period is called Hellenistic to signal that it was dif-
alike, and how did they ferent from the Hellenic Age yet very much its heir and beneficiary. in-
differ from the Hellenic
poleis? stead of being purely Greek in culture, the period might be described as
Greekish. The chief dynamic of the Hellenistic world was a remarkable
2. What evidence
do you find for the blend of Greek and local cultures from Persia to the western Mediterra-
cosmopolitan character nean. Hellenic Greeks could not imagine life outside a polis. Hellenistic
of Hellenistic life?
Greeks were citizens of the world and did not even have to be Greek.
3. What values do While the Greek element was everywhere dominant, and gave coherence
Hellenistic literature,
philosophy, and art and unity to the age, Hellenistic culture was cosmopolitan, a word that
share, and how do they imagines the world (cosmos) as a city (polis) and the city as a world. The
differ from Hellenic Hellenistic Age was multicultural, open, and tolerant in ways that no pre-
achievements in these
areas? ceding cultures had been and that no future ones would be until late in
the twentieth century. The Hellenistic world also created the framework
within which Roman and then islamic empires and cultures would spread
and take root. indeed, the end of the Hellenistic period corresponds with
the ascendancy of Rome (see Chapter 5).
The statue of an old woman to the left symbolizes many aspects of
the Hellenistic world. First, there was a greater acceptance of all kinds of
peopleyoung and old, rich and poor, powerful and peasant. Second,
the artistic skills attained in the Hellenic period had by no means deterio-
rated. The old woman is not beautiful but her statue is beautifully done.
Third, there is a certain ambiguity. Some think the statue represents a
poor woman who peddled her waresshe is holding chickens and fruit
in the market square. Others think she is a respectable old lady who is
on her way to a Dionysiac festival. She wears an elegant chiton (a kind of
draped tunic), a himation (a cloak), and dainty sandals, and she has an
ivy wreath in her hair. Status was not so clear and sharply defined as in
Hellenic Greece. Statues like this were offered to the gods, in this case

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84 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

probably to Dionysius. Personal and participatory cults


were more prominent in Hellenistic times than in the
Hellenic era.
The Hellenistic world extended over a vast geogra-
phy from the western Mediterranean world to central
Asia. The cultural tone was still set in cities but now
Antioch and Alexandria, not Athens and Sparta, were
the key centers. Work in mathematics and science
took several leaps forward. Philosophy continued to
develop in the classical Greek tradition, but new phi-
losophies put greater emphasis on ethical problems
than ever before and on providing guidance for daily
living. Literature was not as rich, on the whole, as in
the Hellenic period. The arts remained faithful to the
technical standards of the classical world but added
new aesthetic sensibilities (Figure 4.1).

THE CHANGING
FRAMEWORK OF POLITICS
Alexander the Great died suddenly in 323 BCE without
having made any provision for his succession. Within
a few decades, three of his chief generals carved up
the vast realm that had been conquered, but never re-
ally governed, by Alexander. They built large, reason-
ably successful kingdoms that eventually fragmented
and then succumbed to Romes legions (Timeline 4.1).
Several smaller kingdoms emerged too in the Helle-
nistic world and they also fell to Rome.

The Major Hellenistic Monarchies


Following a civil war, three resourceful military
commandersAntigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy
eventually divided Alexanders empire among them-
selves. Antigonus and his successors took many years
to secure control of Macedon and Greece. Even then
they had to share rule with the Greek cities that had
banded together in two confederations. Seleucus took
southern Anatolia, Palestine and Syria, Mesopotamia,
and the former Persian Empire. Ptolemy took Egypt
and the adjoining coast of North Africa.
The Antigonid rulers of Macedon and Greece
aimed at absolute rule but always had to share power
with the Aetolian League in northern Greece and the

Figure 4.1 Black Youth. Third to second century BCE.


Bronze. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Beginning
in the Archaic Age, Greek artists occasionally depicted black
Africans in their works. During the Hellenistic Age, with the migration of
peoples and the increased use of slaves, sculptors frequently chose black
Achaean League in southern Greece. Technically their
rule lasted from 272 BCE to 146 BCE, when they and
their allies were defeated for the third time by Rome.
These leagues managed to attain a stability in Greece,
figures as subjects. This small bronze statue of a young African is an albeit under the watchful eye of Macedon, that eluded
illustration of the racial diversity of the Hellenistic world. Despite the figures the classical Greeks. Athens retained a functioning
exaggerated half-crouch, the statuette is probably not meant to represent democracy until almost 200 BCE. Sparta collapsed at
an athlete, as he is not depicted fully nude. Note the sash around the waist,
with the end draped down the upper thighs. The figure more likely was
the end of the classical period and then revived some-
intended to represent a worker engaged in some task, as reflected in the what in Hellenistic times as people were won over to a
S object or objects (now lost) that he was holding in his hands. revived form of the ancient Spartan system.
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The Changing Framework of Politics 85

Timeline 4.1 THE HELLENISTIC AGE All dates BCE

323 307 215 148 133 31

Disinte-
gration Founding and Rome
Roman Incursion
of Rise of Macedonian Conquers
into
Alexanders Successor Wars Greek
Hellenistic States
Empire States Peninsula

Death of Pergamum 65 Rome


Alexander ceded to Rome defeats
Rome conquers Cleopatra
Seleucid empire

Learning Through Maps

Aral
Sea

Black Sea

Ca
sp
ian
ONIA Constantinople PONTUS
ED
MAC
Pergamum
GALACIA
CAPPADOCIA
ARMENIA Sea
Athens
GREECE MEDIA
SYRIA
Antioch Euph
Tigris

SAMOS
MELOS rat
RHODES es PARTHIA
CRETE Ri BACTRIA
Ri

CYPRUS v
ve

Mediterranean Sea
er

er
Babylon

Riv
Seleucia
Alexandria

Indus
ARACHOSIA
ARABIA Persepolis
EGYPT PERSIS
Nile River

Pe
rs
ian CARMANIA
Gu GEDROSIA
l
f
Red

Arabian
Sea

Kingdom of Macedonia Sea


Kingdom of the Ptolemies (Egypt)
0 500 1000 mi
Kingdom of the Seleucids (Syria)
0 1000 2000 km

MAP 4.1 THE SUCCESSOR STATES AND THE HELLENISTIC WORLD


This map MHS63
shows the100Hellenistic world and the successor states, which emerged after the breakup of Alexander the Greats empire.1. Notice the differing
mat76620_m0401.eps
sizes of the successor
First proof states and the respective region controlled by each. 2. Consider the impact of geography and regional cultural traditions on the three
kingdoms. 3. Locate the major cities of these kingdoms. 4. How did Alexandrias location in Egypt help to make it the dominant city of the Hellenistic world?

Seleucid rule extended from 312 BCE, when they Macedonians, thus spreading Greek culture into what
wrested Babylon from the Antigonids, to 64 BCE, is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.
when Syria became a Roman province. The Seleucids Ptolemy I seized Egypt almost immediately after
warred often on their eastern frontier and gradually Alexanders death and his successors ruled until the
lost control of Parthia and Bactria (Map 4.1). They last of them, Cleopatra, became embroiled with Rome
ruled from Sardis in Asia Minor, Antioch in Syria, and committed suicide in 31 BCE. The Ptolemies
and Seleucia in Mesopotamia. The Seleucids created established by far the richest, most powerful, and
dozens of colonies mainly made up of Greeks and most stable of the main Hellenistic kingdoms. They S
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86 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

boasted a splendid palace, a library second only to Al-


exandrias, and a marble temple to Athena. Scattered
on the hillside beneath the acropolis were shrines,
markets, and private dwellings of prosperous citizens.
At the base of the hill, the merchants, artisans, and
slaves lived crowded together (Figure 4.3).

The Nature of Government


The primary form of government in the Hellenistic
world was theocratic kingship. This institution ranged
from a mild form in Macedon, where neither Mace-
donian nor Hellenic sensibilities were sympathetic to
divine rulers, to an extreme form in Ptolemaic Egypt
where the kings gradually came to be seen as gods,
as the pharaohs had before them. The Seleucids were
heirs to the semi-divinized monarchy of the Persians.
Theocratic kings either were regarded as gods or were
thought to be answerable only to the gods. Philoso-
phers equated the happiness and stability of realms
and peoples with the fortunes of the kings.
In the major Hellenistic kingdoms, government and
military posts were initially reserved to Macedonians
and Greeks. As time passed and the newcomers as-
similated to the natives, the resulting cultural blend
opened opportunities for at least local elites to secure
prime positions. Because the monarchies frequently
fought against each other and then against Rome, na-
Figure 4.2 Rosetta Stone. Ca. 197196 BCE. British Museum,
tive peoples also obtained significant places in the
London. Scholars were unable to decipher hieroglyphics until the military.
nineteenth century. Napoleons soldiers found this inscribed stone in the
Rosetta branch of the Nilehence its namewhen they invaded Egypt
in 1799. The text at the bottom is in Greek, which scholars could read. THE TENOR OF LIFE
Guessing that all three texts recorded the same event, scholars first
solved the hieratic (priestly) cursive in the middle and then moved on to This creation of large-scale states under kings destroyed
the hieroglyphic at the top. Modern Egyptology began with this discovery. the Hellenic political order in which poleis were guided
The stone bears a decree issued by priests at Memphis in 196 BCE by their citizens. Throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms,
establishing the divine cult of King Ptolemy V.
citizens became subjects. The Hellenistic economic or-
der rested on specialized luxury crafts and professional
occupations, international trade and banking, and an
harnessed the immense wealth of Egypt and gener- abundant and cheap supply of slaves. Large ports such
ally treated the local population well. By the time of as Carthage, Syracuse, Alexandria, Tyre, and Athens
Ptolemy V (r. 210180 BCE) these Macedonian kings exported and imported basic agricultural commodities
had become Egyptianized, representing themselves as such as grain, olive oil, wine, and timber, exchanging
pharaohs (Figure 4.2). them for expensive goods like pottery, silks, jewelry,
The large kingdoms could not prevent the emer- and spices.
gence of some smaller ones. The most prominent of Class divisions in Hellenistic society were pro-
these were Epirus in western Greece and Pergamum nounced. For the rich, urban life was often luxurious
in western Asia Minor. Epirus was first a kingdom al- and cosmopolitan, but most of society remained pro-
lied to Philip II of Macedon. Under kings and then as vincial. Those in the middle social ranks, primarily
a federal league, the Epirots led an uncertain life until merchants and skilled artisans, struggled to keep
the Romans conquered them in 167 BCE. The Attalids, ahead and hoped to prosper. However, for the poorest
the ruling dynasty of Pergamum, achieved freedom free classeslaborers, unskilled workers, and small
from the Seleucids in 263 BCE. In 133 BCE King At- landownerslife offered little. Slaves, whose numbers
talus III died, willing his kingdom to Rome. Reflective grew during the wars of this period, were expected to
S of Attaluss scholarly interests, Pergamums acropolis bear the brunt of all backbreaking labor.
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THE TENOR OF LIFE 87

Figure 4.3 Acropolis at Pergamum. Second century BCE. Reconstruction by H. Schlief.


Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Pergamum architecture was in the Hellenic style,
but the citys mixed population and economy made it the commercial and political hub of a Hellenistic
kingdom. Under Eumenes II, the capital and the country reached their height of power around 160 BCE.

The Experiences of Women men did, they made charitable bequests and erected
impressive gravestones. Despite these changes, Helle-
Hellenistic women were affected by the periods grow-
nistic society was dominated by men. The surest sign
ing cosmopolitanism. Women, along with men, moved
of womens subordinate role was that the Greek prac-
to the newly conquered lands and created new lives for
tice of infanticide, which was as old as Greek civiliza-
themselves in frontier towns. In Alexandria and other
tion, continued as a way for families to rid themselves
large cities, some restrictions of Hellenic Greece were
of unwanted females.
maintained, but others were relaxed or discarded. For
example, royal and non-Greek women were able to
conduct their own legal and economic affairs, though Urban Life
non-royal Greek women were still forced to use a male Alexanders most enduring legacy to the Hellenistic
guardian in such cases. Dowries remained the cus- world was his new image of the city. The city is as
tom among Greek families, but unmarried respectable old as civilization, since urban life is by definition a
women now had the option of working in the liberal component of civilized existence. For Alexander, cities
arts, as poets and philosophers, and in the professions, were keystones holding together his diverse and vast
as artists and physicians. Alexanders mother, Olym- empireserving as centers of government, trade, and
pias, was a powerful, influential woman, and several culture and radiating Greco-Oriental civilization into
times women of the Ptolemaic family ruled Egypt. Un- the hinterland. Alexander is reputed to have founded
married women who were unconcerned about their more than seventy cities during his conquests, many
reputations served as courtesans and prostitutes, liv- of which were named for him.
ing outside the norms of respectable society. Hellenistic The burgeoning cities of the Hellenistic world ac-
literature reflects changed mores, portraying women centuated the periods growing class divisions. As ru-
in carefree situations apart from the gaze of their hus- ral folk flocked to the cities seeking jobs and trying
bands or fathers. In economic matters, some women to better their economic condition, some succeeded
became prosperous in their own right, and, just as while others slipped into poverty and despair. Their S
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88 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

failures divided the rich from the poor, thus inten- weather, thus ensuring the importance of Coptos, a
sifying class conflicts. As rural migrants adjusted to city on the upper Nile, as the western terminal for this
urban ways, they affected the values and beliefs of overseas trade.
the times, in particular, the various philosophies and The premier Hellenistic city was Alexandria at the
religions (see the section Philosophy and Religion). mouth of the Nile in Egypt, founded by Alexander in
And, in everyday life, a new survival strategy arose 331 BCE (Figure 4.4). Under the Ptolemies, Alexandria
among upwardly mobile city folk as a way to avoid grew to be a world city that attracted both the ambi-
class conflict. These people chose to shed their provin- tious who sought opportunities and the apathetic who
cial ways and ethnic identities and to adopt the ideal wanted to be left alone. Every desired attraction is
of the cosmopolitanthe Greek term for a person with said to have existed here, just as in the teeming cit-
a universal or worldwide view. ies of the twenty-first century. By the end of the first
Greek migrants constituted a special challenge to century BCE, Alexandrias population rose to perhaps
Hellenistic culture. Greeks who left their home city- one million and the city was divided into five sections,
states to seek their fortunes in the successor states including one reserved for royalty and separate resi-
of Alexanders empire impacted every phase of life. dential quarters for the Egyptians and the Jews, the
Drawn to cities and ports across the eastern Mediter- latter of whom were attracted by the citys opportu-
ranean, Greek would-be traders, bankers, and seamen nities and tolerant atmosphere. Whereas the polis of
arrived, spreading their way of life and influencing the Hellenic Age was self-contained, with a relatively
the local culturethus further blending the societies homogeneous population, Alexandrias racially and
of the period. Many became government officials ethnically diverse groups were held together by eco-
bureaucrats, advisers, diplomatsor soldiers and sail- nomic interests. With busy harbors, bustling markets,
ors. Most, however, pursued business and professional and international banks, Alexandria became a hub of
careers or found work in the visual and performing commercial and financial enterprises, similar to mod-
arts. Their numbers and high-profile presence en- ern port cities.
sured that Greek culture and values would play a pre- Alexandrias economic vitality was matched by the
eminent role in Hellenistic thought and art. splendor of its cultural achievements. The worlds first
The expansion of trade within this diverse culture research institutea museum, the house of the muses
benefited Greek and non-Greek alike. The periods (see Table 2.1)was built here as a place for scholars to
kings, seizing the opportunity to enrich themselves study and to exchange ideas (Figure 4.5). Nearby was
and their states, lengthened and improved existing the famed library, whose staff of poets and scholars
overland trade routes and linked up with routes to In- aimed to collect one copy of every book ever written.
dia and into parts of Africa. After Egypts king learned At the time of the Roman conquest in the late first cen-
about the monsoon season in the Indian Ocean, regu- tury BCE, the library contained nearly seven hundred
lar sea trade with India began during periods of good thousand volumes, the largest collection in the ancient

Mediterranean Sea
Lighthouse Cape
Cleopatras
Lochais
Tomb
Palace ER Hippodrome
Palace Harbor ART
H QU
WI S
The Great JE Gate of
Port Public Canopus
Gardens
Pharos Island Port Market
Theater Gymnasium
Gate of the Sun
Agora Figure 4.4 Plan of Ancient Alexandria.
Third century BCE. Designed by Deinocrates
Western
Port
Museum of Rhodes, Alexanders personal architect,
St.
pu s
Alexandria was laid out in a grid formed by
o
Gate of the Moon Can intersecting avenues and streets. The entire
city was enclosed by a wall, accessible by
four massive gates at the ends of the major
N
avenues. To the north lay two harbors that
made the city the most vital port in the
Serapeion Mediterranean. The harbors were protected
by an outer island, at the point of which
Ca

Lake Port
na

stood the lighthouse of Pharosnow lost.


l

0 1 Mile
Lake Mareotis Remarkable for its colossal size, the lighthouse
S 0 1 Kilometer was considered one of the wonders of the
N ancient world.
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Matthews/Platt Figure 4.4

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HELLENISTIC CULTURES 89

Nevertheless, the values of Hellenistic culture did


not so much replace the standards of Hellenic classi-
cism as they enriched and elaborated the older ideals.
Hellenistic artists and authors agreed with their Hel-
lenic forebears that art must serve moral purposes,
revealed through content and formal order. Greek
became the major language across a vast expanse of
lands and peoples. Scholars speak of the Koin (com-
mon) Greek language of the time. The Koin was a
somewhat simplified version of the Attic (i.e., Athe-
nian) Greek that had become dominant in the Hellenic
period.

Drama and Literature


In the Hellenistic Age, Greek comedy began to resem-
ble modern productions. The grotesque padding worn
by the actors gave way to realistic costumes; masks
were redesigned to be representative of the charac-
ters portrayed; and the actors assumed a dominant
status over the chorus. Comedies became a form of
popular amusement, and Hellenistic playwrights de-
veloped a genre known as New Comedy to appeal to
the pleasure-seeking audiences who were flocking to
the theaters. Avoiding political criticism and casual ob-
scenity, New Comedy presented gently satirical scenes
from middle-class life.
The plays were generally comic romances on such
Figure 4.5 Muse Melpomene (or Polyhymnia [?]). Roman copy, themes as frustrated first love or marital misunderstand-
probably of a midsecond century BCE original by Philiskos of ings, and although the endings were inevitably happy
Rhodes. Ht. 411 without plinth. Capitoline Museum, Rome. The and there was much formula writingsomewhat like
sculptor has portrayed the muse in a simple but dignified poseleaning todays situation comedies on televisionthe plays re-
forward on a support, left foot upturned, chin resting on a curved right
handand swathed in a thin mantle of fabric that falls into rhythmic
flected the comprehensive range of the Hellenistic style.
folds. The contrast between the serenely meditative face and the dynamic The characters, for example, were familiar types drawn
drapery pattern is characteristic of Hellenistic art (see pp. 96100). from the rich diversity of Hellenistic societythe cour-
tesan, the grumpy old man, the slave, the fawning par-
asite. New Comedy remained steadfastly middle class,
world. By then, Alexandria had become a beacon for however, for the traditional social order always pre-
great minds, attracted by the citys rich intellectual life vailed in the end. For example, a favorite plot device of
and cosmopolitan atmosphere. New Comedy hinged on discovering that a seemingly
lowborn character was actually from a respectedand
often wealthyfamily.
HELLENISTIC CULTURES Both ancient and modern critics tend to regard
Hellenistic culture reflected the tastes and needs of Menander [muh-NAN-duhr] (about 343291 BCE) as
the periods diverse states. Greek tragedy lost its vital- the leading author of New Comedy. He wrote more
ity when separated from its roots in the independent than one hundred plays for the Dionysia festival in
polis, but comedy appealed to sophisticated urban Athens, winning first prize for comedy eight times, and
audiences who were seeking diversion. Nondramatic is credited with perfecting the comedy of manners, a
literature, chiefly poetry and romance, was competent humorous play that focuses on the way people interact
and entertaining but more artificial than profound. in a particular social group or class. The play reminds
New philosophies and religions arose in response to us of the Hellenistic focus on ordinary scenes from
the urban isolation and loneliness that many people daily life (Figure 4.6).
experienced. And, finally, grandiose architecture ad- The Woman from Samos is a robust example of Me
dressed the propaganda needs of autocratic rulers, and nanders work. Dating from about 321 BCE, this com-
realistic sculpture reflected the tastes of an increas- edy concerns the identity of an orphaned baby and S
ingly cosmopolitan, secular culture. features stock characters: a courtesan, a young lover, an N
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90 CHAPTER FOUR: THE HELLENiSTiC WORLD

Figure 4.6 The Street Musicians. Ca. 100 BCE. 167/8 161/8. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
This mosaic may portray a scene from a comic play. Two masked figures dance and play the tambourine and
the finger cymbals while a masked female figure plays the tibia, or double oboe. This mosaic was found in the
so-called Villa of Cicero at Pompeii.

old lover, a humorous neighbor, and two comic slaves. way. Theocritus drew his images from the memory
Menander first presents a household in which the fa- of his earlier years in rural Sicily, and his charming,
ther believes that he and his son are wooing the same nostalgic verses appealed to many country folk who
woman, when, in actuality, the son is involved with had also left the quiet rustic life for the excitement of
the girl next door. Then, when a foundling appears, the Hellenistic cities even though pastoral poetry of-
absurd misunderstandings arise and false accusations ten deprecated urban life. Theocritus also wrote what
are made. The play ends happily with all characters he called idylls (from the Greek word meaning little
reconciled, the son wed to his true love, and the father picture), which offered small portraits, or vignettes,
and mistress married in a joyous ceremonya typi- of Hellenistic life. Some of these poems reveal much
cal New Comedy resolution. Western comedy would about everyday affairs, noting the common concerns
be inconceivable without Menander. His style was as- and aspirations of all generationslove, family, reli-
similated into Roman comedy, which passed the spirit gion, and wealth. Theocritus created especially sym-
of his work into the dramas of the italian Renaissance pathetic portraits of a womans love for a man.
and from there into the comedies of Shakespeare and Apolloniuss most famous work is the verse romance
Molire and in situation comedies on television. The Argonautica, a tale of Jason and the argonauts
Two Alexandrian writers stand out: the poets The- quest for the golden fleece. The story is rich with fan-
ocritus [the-OCk-ruht-us] (about 310250 BCE) and tasy, adventure, battles, and love. Jasons lover Medea
Apollonius [ah-po-LOW-nee-us] (third century). The- is in many ways the most compelling character in the
ocritus created a new poetic form, the pastoral, which story, and Apollonius sets off her brains against Jasons
would influence later classical and modern European brawn. Apollonius in effect created the romance as a
S literature. Pastoral poems describe the lives of shep- literary genre. The Argonautica was immensely popu-
N herds and farmers in a somewhat artificial, idealized lar in Rome.
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HELLENiSTiC CULTURES 91

SLICE OF LIFE
Street Scene in Hellenistic Egypt

Theocritus
FROM IDYLLS, THIRD CENTURY BCE
In Hellenistic Egypt, two society matrons, Gorgo and my good man, dont tread on me.
Praxinoa, each with her maid in tow (Eutychis and Eunoa, That brown ones reared right up!
respectively), make their way through the crowded streets Look how wild he is! Hell kill his groom!
of Alexandria, on their way to the palace of Ptolemy II to Eunoa, you fool, get back!
hear a singer perform at the festival of Adonis. Thank God i left that child at home.
GORGO: Dont worry, Praxinoa.
[GORGO:] [C]ome, get your dress and cloak on, and Weve got behind them now.
lets go to king Ptolemys palace and take a look Theyre back in their places.
at this Adonis. The Queen, i hear, is doing things PRAXINOA: im all right now.
in style. Ever since i was a girl, two things
PRAXINOA: Oh, nothing but the best. Well, they can have always terrified mehorses,
keep it. and long, cold snakes. Lets hurry.
GORGO: But when youve seen it, just think, you can This great crowd will drown us.
tell those who havent all about it. Come on, its

time we were off.
PRAXINOA: Every days a holiday for the idle. GORGO: Look, Praxinoa! What a crowd at the door!
PRAXINOA: Fantastic! Gorgo, give me your hand.

And you, Eunoa, hold on to Eutychis.
[Out in the street.] Take care you dont lose each other.
Ye Gods, what a crowd! The crush! We must all go in together. Stay close by us.
How on earth are we going to get through it? Oh no! Gorgo! My coat! its been ripped
Theyre like ants! Swarms of them, beyond clean in two! My God, sir, as you hope
counting! for heaven, mind my coat!
Well, youve done us many favours, Ptolemy,
since your father went to heaven. Interpreting This Slice of Life
We dont get those no-goods now, sliding up to us 1. What is the plot in this story of life in the big city?
in the street and playing their Egyptian tricks.
2. What is the mood of the women in the story?
What they used to get up to, those rogues!
A bunch of villains, each as bad 3. Based on this vignette, what appears to be the posi-
as the next, and all utterly cursed! tion of women in Alexandrian society?
Gorgo dear, what will become of us? 4. Who was the audience for this poem?
Here are the kings horses! Take care,

Philosophy and Religion Philosophies and religions offered answers that


As life in Hellenistic cities became more multicultural, seemed as contradictory as the problems themselves.
the sense of belonging that had characterized life in One philosophy urged a universal brotherhood of all
the Hellenic poleis was replaced by feelings of isola- human beings, united regardless of race, status, or
tion, of loneliness, even of helplessness. As a conse- birth; another, despairing of the world, excluded most
quence, two seemingly contradictory points of view people and appealed to a chosen few. Religions, simi-
emerged: individualism and internationalism. Those larly, provided varying answers. One faith preached
who held these attitudes were searching for continuity salvation in a life after death, and another turned to
in a rapidly changing world; were seeking identity for magic to escape Fatethat blind force that controlled
the individual through common interests, values, and human life. The most enduring of this periods philos-
hopes; and were striving to understand events that ophies were Cynicism, Skepticism, Epicureanism, and S
seemed unpredictable and beyond human control. Stoicism (Table 4.1). N
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92 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

Figure 4.7 Diogenes and Alexander


the Great. First century CE. Villa Albani,
Rome. This Roman relief shows that Diogenes
and Alexander the Great, two figures of the
Hellenistic Age, were living presences for the
Romans. The philosopher Diogenes is carved
sitting in his famous tub, a symbol of his
contempt for creature comforts. The world
conqueror Alexander is on the right, pointing his
finger at the Greek thinker. The dog portrayed
on top of the tub is a reference to Cynicism (the
word cynic is from the Greek word for dog).
Diogenes asserted that humans should live
simplylike dogs.

Cynicism Of the four schools, Cynicism had the


least impact on Hellenistic civilization. The Cynics,
TABLE 4.1 PHILOSOPHY IN THE HELLENISTIC AGE believing that society diverted the individual from the
more important goals of personal independence and
PHILOSOPHY EMPHASIS
freedom, denounced all religions and governments,
Cynicism True freedom arises from realizing shunned physical comfort, and advocated the avoid-
that if one wants nothing, then ance of personal pleasure. In the Cynics logic, true
one will never lack anything; freedom came with the realization that if one wanted
autarky (self-sufficiency) is the nothing, one could not lack anything. By isolating
goal.
themselves from society, they sought a type of self-
Skepticism Nothing can be known for certain; sufficiency the Greeks called autarky [AW-tar-kee].
question all ideas; autarky is the
The most prominent Cynic, Diogenes [die-AHJ-uh-
goal.
neez] (about 412323 BCE), openly scorned the ordinary
Epicureanism Only the atoms and void exist;
values and crass materialism of his society. His con-
pleasure is the highest good;
trary personality so fascinated Alexander the Great
death is final in its extinction of
consciousness; the gods play no
that the ruler, upon being insulted by the Cynic, is
active role in human affairs. reported to have said that if he were not Alexander,
Stoicism The world is governed by the
he would prefer to be Diogenes (Figure 4.7)! The prin-
divine logos, or reason, or nature; ciples of Cynicism offended the educated, and its pes-
wisdom and freedom consist of simism offered no hope to the masses.
living in harmony with the logos;
all humans share in the divine Skepticism The proponents of Skepticism argued
logos; autarky is the goal. that nothing could be known for certain, an extreme
S conclusion they were led to by their belief that the
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HELLENISTIC CULTURES 93

senses were unreliable sources of knowledge. Think-


ing that everything was relative, the Skeptics main-
tained that all ideas must be questioned and that no
single philosophy was true. When their critics pointed
out that such unrelenting questioning was clearly not
a practical answer to lifes uncertainties, the Skeptics
replied that certainty could be achieved only by admit-
ting that truth was unknowablea circular response.
The Skeptics thought that if they recognized that in-
tellectual inquiry was fruitless, then they too could
avoid frustration and achieve autarky. The Skeptics,
even though they attracted a smaller audience than the
Cynics, had a greater impact on Western reasoning.

Epicureanism The strict and quiet way of life ad-


vocated by Epicureanism appealed to aristocrats who
were more interested in learning than in politics. It be-
gan as the philosophy of the Greek thinker Epicurus
[ep-uh-KYUR-uhs] (about 342270 BCE), who founded
a school in Athens where pupils, including slaves and
women, gathered to discuss ideas (Figure 4.8). For Epi-
curus, the best way to keep ones wants simple, and
thus to achieve happiness, was to abstain from sex and
focus instead on friendship. Friendship was a mystic
Figure 4.8 Epicurus. Ca. 290280 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum
communion, based on shared need, in which men and of Art, New York. This marble bust of Epicurus, discovered in southern
men, men and women, rich and poor, old and young, Italy and inscribed with his name, is a copy of the original bronze sculpture.
of all nationalities and any class supported each other Many busts and likenesses of Epicurus have been found, indicating the
in trusting relationships. This vision guided Epicuruss popularity of his philosophy in Hellenistic times, especially during the
Roman era.
school, where life became a daily exercise in friend-
ship. It was an ideal that appealed to women since, in
making them mens equals, it showed that there was
more to their lives than bearing children and raising Another characteristic of Epicurean happiness was
families. freedom from fearfear of the gods, of death, and of
Epicurus based his ethical philosophy on the atomic the hereafter. Although Epicurus believed that the
theory of those Greek thinkers who saw the universe gods existed, he also believed that they cared noth-
as completely determined by the behavior of atoms ing about human beings, and therefore no one needed
moving in empty space (see Chapter 3). Epicurus ac- to be afraid of what the gods might or might not do.
cepted this picture, but with one significant modi- As for death, there was, again, nothing to agonize
fication: he argued that because atoms on occasion over because when it did occur, the atoms that made
swerved from their set paths and made unpredictable up the soul simply separated from the bodys atoms
deviations, it was possible, even in a deterministic uni- and united with other particles to create new forms.
verse, for humans to make free choices. Like the atom- With death came the end of the human capacity to feel
ists, Epicurus also believed that the senses presented pleasure or pain and thus the end of suffering. Con-
an accurate view of the physical world. Thus, by using sequently, death, rather than being feared, should be
the mind as a storehouse for sense impressions and by welcomed as a release from misfortune and trouble.
exercising free will in their choices, individuals could Pleasure, in the Epicurean view, was the absence of
reach moral judgments and ultimately live by an ethi- pain. The happy Epicurean, standing above the cares
cal code. of the world, had reached ataraxia, the desire-less state
For Epicurus, the correct ethical code led to happi- that the Hellenistic Age deemed so precious.
ness, which was realized in a life of quietseparated
and withdrawn from the trying cares of the world. Stoicism Both Epicureanism and Stoicism claimed
Furthermore, those who would be happy should keep that happiness was a final goal of the individual, and
their wants simple, not indulge excessive desires, and both philosophies were essentially materialistic, stress-
resist fame, power, and wealth, which only brought ing the importance of sense impressions and the natu-
misery and disappointment. ral world. The Stoics, however, identified the supreme S
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94 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

deity with nature, thus making the natural world di- Numerous chthonian cults spread from the Seleu-
vine and inseparable from the deity. The supreme be- cid kingdom and Egypt to the Greek mainland, where
ing was also another name for reason, or logos, and they were combined with local beliefs and rituals to
hence nature was also rational. The Stoics God was create religions that fused different beliefs and prac-
law and the author of law, which led to the notion that tices. By the second century BCE, converts were be-
the workings of nature were expressed in divine laws. ing attracted from all over the Hellenistic world to the
The Stoics likewise discovered God in humanity. well-established mystery cults of Orpheus and Dio-
The Stoics God, being identical with reason, gave a nysus in Greece and to the new religions from Egypt
spark to each mortals soul, conferring the twin gifts and the old Persian lands. The growth of these cults in
of rationality and kinship with divinity. The Stoics turn sparked an increase in religious zeal after about
thus believed that reason and the senses could be used 100 BCE, resulting in more ceremonies and public fes-
jointly to uncover the underlying moral law as well as tivals and the revival of older faiths.
Gods design in the world, proving Gods wisdom and The Egyptian mystery cults grew, becoming popu-
power over human life and nature. lar across the Hellenistic world. The goddess Isis, long
There was in Stoicism a tendency to leave every- known to the Egyptians, became especially promi-
thing up to God. Stoics came to accept their roles in nent. The Egyptians worshiped Isis as the great lady
life, whether rich or poor, master or slave, healthy or who watched over the Two Lands of Egypt and the
afflicted, and such a resigned and deterministic out- home. In legend, Isis brought her murdered husband-
look could (and did) lead to apathy, or unconcern. brother, Osiris, back to life with her unwavering love.
However, the ideal Stoic, the sage, never became apa- Osiriss resurrection symbolized to the faithful the
thetic. The sage escaped Stoicisms fatalistic tendency new life awaiting them at death. Isis herself was iden-
by stressing a sense of and dedication to duty. Doing tified with the annual flooding of the Nile, thus assur-
ones duty was part of following the deitys plan, and ing the Egyptians of another year of survival. Like the
Stoics willingly performed their tasks, no matter how pharaohs, the Ptolemies claimed to be the incarnation
onerous or laborious. The reward for living a life of of Isiss son, Horus (Harpocrates) (Figure 4.9).
duty was virtue. Having achieved virtue, the Stoics The secret rites of the mystery cults, which com-
were freed from their emotions, which they thought municated the thrill of initiation and the satisfaction of
only corrupted them. The Stoics had thus achieved au- belonging, answered deep psychological needs in their
tarky, the state of self-sufficiency sought by many Hel- Hellenistic converts. This universal appeal cut across
lenistic philosophers. class and racial lines and attracted an ever-widening
Stoicism was unique among the Hellenistic philoso- segment of the populace. With their promise of im-
phies in holding out the promise of membership in a mortality, these rituals contributed to the atmosphere
worldwide brotherhood. Perhaps inspired by Alexan- of the Roman world in which Christianity would later
der the Greats dream, the Stoics advocated an ideal be born.
state, guided by God and law, that encompassed all of
humanity of whatever race, sex, social status, or nation-
ality in a common bond of reason. As humans carried Science and Technology
out their duties in this larger community, they would While Hellenistic scientists owed much to their Hel-
rise above local and national limitations and create a lenic predecessors, they were more practical and less
better world. theoretical than the followers of Plato and Aristotle.
Religion had a firmer hold on most people than They were interested in methodologies more than in
philosophy. The belief in Fate, a concept borrowed speculation, and they tended to question, observe,
from Babylonia, gripped the lives of many people in and experiment rather than to offer explanations and
the Hellenistic world. To them, Fate ruled the universe, quarrel over abstract issues. They focused on day-to-
controlled the heavens, and determined the course of day matters, such as measuring distances, calculating
life. Although no one could change the path of this navigation routes, designing war machines, and solv-
nonmoral, predestined force, individuals could try to ing mathematical problems. And, finally, scientists
avoid the cruel consequences of Fate by various meth- and philosophers worked in isolation, having little
ods. The pseudoscience of astrology, also from Baby- contact either as individuals or in groups. They were
lonia, offered one alternative. Magic was now revived, nonetheless able to make scientific advances and dis-
and many people tried to conjure up good spirits or to coveries unequaled in any other ageuntil Europes
ward off evil ones. Nevertheless, it was the mystery Scientific Revolution in the 1600s (see Chapter 16).
cultsspringing from the primitive chthonian reli- The astronomer Aristarchus of Samos [air-uh-STAR-
gions of Greece (see Chapters 2 and 3) and elsewhere kus] (fl. about 270 BCE) maintained that the sun was
S that eventually emerged as the most popular and the center of the universe and that the earth rotated
N effective response to Fate. on its own axis. His conclusions, though considered
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HELLENISTIC CULTURES 95

correct today, were rejected by other ancient astrono-


mers, who thought his views contradicted common
sense. Another astronomer, Eratosthenes [er-uh-TAS-
thuh-neez] (about 276194 BCE) of Cyrene, who at one
time headed the library in Alexandria, measured the
circumference of the earth by creating a mathematical
formula based on the differing angles cast by the suns
rays on the earth, when observed from two sites, sepa-
rated by a known distance. He also devised a grid for
measuring the circumference of the earth, using lines
running from north to south and east to westa sys-
tem implying that the earth was round.
Euclid [YU-klehd] (fl. about 300 BCE), the most
influential mathematician of his time, gave the clas-
sic formulations of both plane and solid geometry.
His writings laid out mathematical theorems, axioms,
propositions, and definitions. He was known as the
father of geometry, and Euclidean geometry became
the basis of mathematical studies until the nineteenth
century.
The best-known Hellenistic scientist, Archimedes
[are-kuh-MEED-eez] (about 287212 BCE) was a math-
ematician, astronomer, and inventor. He made signal
contributions in geometry, but he is best remembered
for his studies in gravity, mechanics, hydrostatics, the
principle of buoyancy, and for his many inventions.
Among his inventions were the Archimedean screw
for raising water; improved compound pulleys; and
engines of war, including catapults and ramming
towers. Many legends accrued to Archimedes life, in-
cluding the famous story, undoubtedly apocryphal, in
which he discovered the principle of buoyancythe
relation of fluid loss to weight displacementwhile
seated in his bath. Excited by the discovery, he leaped
from his tub and ran naked down the street, shouting Figure 4.9 Isis with Her Son Harpocrates (left) and God Anubis
Eureka!Greek for I have found it. (right). First century CE. Terra-cotta, ht. approx. 7. British Museum,
London. This small terra-cotta figurineprobably used as a votive
blends Greek sculptural style with Egyptian symbolism. The goddess is
Architecture portrayed wearing an Egyptian headdress and is flanked by her son and
the jackal-headed Anubis, the god of the dead. Greek features include
As in Hellenic times, architecture in the Hellenistic the goddesss tightly curled hair, her slightly contrapposto pose, and the
Age reflected the central role that religion played in graceful drapery of her dress. The statue, fired on the Italian peninsula in
peoples lives. Public buildings served religious, cer- the first century CE, testifies to the goddesss popularity throughout ancient
times and across the Mediterranean world.
emonial, and governmental purposes, but the temple
continued as the leading type of structure. Hellenistic
architects modified the basic temple and altar forms
inherited from Hellenic models to express the gran- and more ornamented, with its lush acanthus-leafed
deur demanded by the ages rulers. The altar, which capital, than either the Doric or the Ionic column, the
had originated in Archaic Greece as a simple struc- Corinthian column was now used on the exterior of
ture where holy sacrifices or offerings were made, temples erected by Hellenistic builders for their kings.
now became a major structural form, second in im- In time, Hellenistic taste decreed that the Corinthian
portance only to the temple, because of its use in state column was appropriate for massive buildings. The
rituals. Corinthian order later became the favorite of the Ro-
The Corinthian temple embodied Hellenistic splen- man emperors, and it was revived in the Renaissance
dor. The Corinthian column had first appeared in and diffused throughout the Western world, where it
the Hellenic period, when it was probably used as a survives today as the most visible sign of Hellenistic S
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96 CHAPTER FOUR: The Hellenistic World

The most outstanding Corinthian temples com- Before there were temples, there were altars, the
bined grandeur with grace, as in the Olympieum in oldest religious structure in the Greek world. The ear-
Athens, now a ruin (Figure 4.10). Commissioned by liest altars were simple slabs, made wide enough to al-
the Seleucid king Antiochus IV [an-TIE-uh-kuhs], the low sacrificial animals to be slaughtered. During the
Olympieum expressed his notion of a diverse, inter- Hellenistic Age, the altars were substantially enlarged.
national culture united under Zeus, his divine coun- The biggest appears to have been the 650-foot-long
terpart and the lord of Mount Olympus. The temple, altar, permitting the sacrifice of more than one hun-
the first to use Corinthian columns, was constructed dred cattle at one time, funded by the ruler of Syra-
during three different and distinct historical eras. The cuse in the third century BCE.
stylobate, or base, was laid in the late Archaic Age but The magnificent altar of Zeus at Pergamum has
then abandoned; the Corinthian columns were raised been reassembled in Berlin. It is easy to see why an-
by Antiochus IV in about 175 BCE, after which work cient travelers called it one of the wonders of the world
was suspended indefinitely; it was finally completed (Figure 4.11). The actual altar, not visible in the photo-
in 130 CE under the Roman emperor Hadrian, a great graph, stands lengthwise in a magnificent Ionic colon-
admirer of Greek culture. The temple is stylistically naded courtyard. The courtyard itself is raised on a
unified, however, because it was finished according to podium, or platform; below the courtyard, the sides
the surviving plans of its second-century BCE archi- of the structure are decorated with a sculptured frieze
tect. Despite its massive size and lack of mathematical depicting the deities at war. The overall designwith
refinements, the Olympieum presented an extremely the frieze below the columnsappears to be an inver-
graceful appearance with its forest of delicate Corin- sion of the usual temple plan. This altar was but one
thian columns, consisting of double rows of twenty part of a concerted effort to transform Pergamum into
columns each on the sides and triple rows of eight on another Athens. Thus, the idea of a new Athensa
the ends. recurrent motif in the humanistic traditionhad al-
ready been formulated by the Hellenistic Age.

Figure 4.10 The Olympieum, Athens. Various dates: late sixth Sculpture
century BCE; second quarter of second century BCE; completed, Like Hellenistic architects, Hellenistic sculptors adapted
second quarter of second century CE. The thirteen standing Corinthian
many of the basic forms and ideas of the Hellenic style
columns were part of the original plan of the Olympieums architect. After
the temporary cessation of building in 164 BCE, some of this temples to meet the tastes of their day. The Hellenistic sculp-
unfinished columns were transported to Rome and reused in a building tors retained such Hellenic principles as contrapposto
there. Their use in Rome helped to popularize the Corinthian style among
political leaders and wealthy tastemakers.

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Figure 4.11 Altar of Zeus at Pergamum. (Reconstruction.) 170s BCE.
Pergamon Museum, Berlin. This masterpiece of Hellenistic architecture
was erected in the 170s BCE by Eumenes II, the king of Pergamum, to
commemorate his victories over various barbarian states in Asia Minor.
Eumenes believed himself to be the savior and disseminator of Greek
culture, and this altar with its giant frieze was meant to suggest Hellenic
monuments, such as the Athenian Parthenon.

and proportion as well as the Hellenic emphasis on


religious and moral themes. But Hellenistic art in-
creasingly expressed a secular, urban viewpoint, and
Hellenic restraint often gave way to realism, eroticism,
theatricality, and violence, expressed and enjoyed for
their own sake. Some of these Hellenistic qualities are
apparent in two refreshingly naturalistic sculptures
Boy Struggling with a Goose (Figure 4.12) and Sleeping
Eros (Figure 4.13). These images show an interest in
children, a rare subject in Hellenic art. The figures are
genre subjects, artistic renderings of subjects from
daily life. But the boy struggling with the goose also
represents a mock-heroic battle and its playfulness
masks a sense of violence. The earth-bound, innocent,
and sleeping Eros contrasts with his normal flying
and capricious nature.
A taste for the theatrical is also evident in one of
the most famous images of the age: The Nike of Samo-
thrace, sometimes called the Winged Victory because
Nike was the Greek goddess of victory; Nik in Greek
means victory (Figure 4.14). Nike appears to be sail-
ing into the wind. Her clothing is beautifully rendered
but clings so tightly to her body as to evoke sensuality. Figure 4.12 Boy Struggling with a Goose. Roman copy of a Greek original,
Between 230 and 220 BCE, King Attalus I of Perga- dating from second half of second century BCE. Marble, ht. 331/2. Staatliche
mum dedicated in Athens a group of bronze sculp- Antikensammlung und Glyptothek, Munich. When Hellenistic sculptors freed
tures that celebrated his recent victory over the barbar- themselves from the ideals of Hellenic art, one of the results was the production of
works on unhackneyed themes, as in Boy Struggling with a Goose. So popular was this
ian Gauls. By donating these bronzes to Athens, which genre scene that several versions of it are known from antiquity. Its popularity reflects
was outside of Pergamums political orbit, the Attalid the ages delight in childhood and its joysperhaps an outgrowth of the rising status S
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98 CHAPTER FOUR: THE HELLENiSTiC WORLD

Figure 4.13 Bronze statue of Eros sleeping.


3rd century B.C.early 1st century A.D. Greek
or Roman; Hellenistic or Augustan period.
Bronze, length 33 9/16. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. This plump,
sleeping baby with tousled hair is not only
supremely naturalistic but also a good
example of the power of bronze to capture
life. The stature seems to be based on close
observation. Only the tiny wings differentiate
this god from a human baby. Archaic depictions
of Eros made him a handsome youth. Images
like this one show the brave experimentation
of the Hellenistic period.

Figure 4.15 Dying Gaul. Ca. 230220 BCE. Roman marble copy of a bronze
original, ht. 3. Capitoline Museum, Rome. The rulers of the Hellenistic kingdom
of Pergamum preferred art that was showy and overwrought, a taste that perhaps
stemmed from their insecurity at being a new dynasty. A Pergamene style of sculpture
developed under these kings, in which gestures were theatrical and anatomical
features were portrayed in exaggerated depth. The Dying Gaul is a superb example
of this style.

defender of Greek culture and thus further his claims


to rule over the entire Hellenistic world.
One of these pieces, Dying Gaul (which survives
Figure 4.14 Nike of Samothrace. Ca. 190 BCE. Marble, ht. 8. Louvre. only in a Roman marble copy), shows a mortally
The wildly agitated draperies and soaring wings embody exuberant action,
a defining characteristic of this turbulent age. The statue was part of a
wounded barbarian warrior (Figure 4.15). The torque,
S group that included a war galley. Victory was indeed a constant quest of or twisted necklace, he wears identifies him as a Gaul.
N the Hellenistic Age. Lying close by are his sword and trumpet. The sculptor
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HELLENiSTiC CULTURES 99

Interpreting Art
Moral Perspective
Literary Source In Virgils Virgils story of Laocon had two
Aeneid, Laocon (lay-OK-ooahn) different morals: (a) Apollo, whose
warns the Trojans not to bring the cult demanded priestly chastity, sent
wooden horse inside Troy, even the serpents to punish the priest and
though he did not know it was full of his sons; and (b) Athena, who favored
Greek soldiers, hence the famous line the Greeks in the Trojan War, sent
Beware Greeks bearing gifts. Two the serpents to silence Laocons
serpents emerged from the sea and warnings about the horse.
killed Laocon and his sons.
Context The dynamic, agitated,
Form The sculptural group brims theatrical figures in this group reveal
with energy, as may be seen in the the ways in which the arts of the
tormented faces of the victims, in Hellenistic era jettisoned the stately
their twisted, muscular bodies, in the grace and reserve of the Hellenic
serpents coils that frame the scene, period.
and in the deep folds of the draperies.
Influences This sculptural
Composition Laocon and his group vanished in antiquity and
sonsdepicted larger than lifeare was rediscovered in 1506, when it
being crushed and perhaps devoured profoundly influenced Michelangelo
by two huge serpents. The sculptors and the subsequent rise of baroque
have made an extraordinarily close art (see Chapters 13 and 15).
study of human anatomy.

HAGESANDROS, POLYDOROS, AND ATHANADOROS. The Laocon Group. Ca. 50 CE. Roman copy
(?) of a Hellenistic work. Marble, ht. 8. Vatican Museum. This statue is probably a
Roman copy of the original executed on the island of Rhodes.

1. Literary Source What is the literary source for the subject 3. Religious Perspective What are two different ways in
of this sculpture and what does this tell us about Hellenistic which this image can be given a religious interpretation?
culture? 4. Context How does the Laocon Group conform to the tastes
2. Composition What are the dominant visual characteristics and styles of the Hellenistic world?
of this sculptural group? 5. Audience What inferences can you draw about the tastes
and interests of the audience for art like this?

demonstrates his keen eye for realistic details in the fighter possesses a kind of nobility (Figure 4.16). After
open wound oozing blood from the warriors rib cage 146 BCE, an outstanding sculptural school flourished
and by the blank stare as he faces death. The Hellenis- on the island of Rhodes for more than two hundred
tic styles appreciation of the melodramatic is evident years. Probably the most stunning sculpture of Rho-
in the tension between the warriors sagging body and dian and Hellenistic art is The Laocon Group (see in-
his efforts to prop himself up. But by treating a foreign terpreting Art).
enemy with such nobility, the anonymous sculptor if Hellenistic artists took delight in old ladies
perpetuated the deep moral sense that was central to (p. 82), children, warriors, and athletes, then there
Hellenic art. Like the Nike of Samothrace and the Dy- was no less appreciation of female beauty, a famous
ing Gaul, the Bronze Boxer exhibits a certain theatrical- example of which is the Aphrodite of Melos, perhaps S
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100 CHAPTER FOUR: THE HELLENiSTiC WORLD

Figure 4.16 Bronze Boxer. First century BCE. Bronze, 42. National
Museum of the Terme, Rome. The artist spares the viewer no ugly detail:
battered face, broken nose, cauliflower ears, missing teeth, scars. Ancient
boxers did not bob and weave but instead stood fairly still and exchanged
blows until one of them succumbed. Did this man win or lose? Either way,
he is not a loser. He retains a certain dignity.

original sculpture, carved from Parian marble, shows


many borrowings from the tradition of Praxiteles (see
Figure 3.23). Both Aphrodite and Hermes exhibit ex-
aggerated contrapposto; a sensuous, even erotic, mod-
eling of the body; and a serene countenance with an
unmistakable gaze. However, the Hellenistic sculptor,
demonstrating a playful flair with the rolled-down
draperies, calls attention to Aphrodites exposed lower
torso. The Aphrodite of Melos was part of the growing
influence of neoclassicism, which swept the disinte- Figure 4.17 Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo). Ca. 160150
grating Hellenistic world in the wake of Romes rise to BCE. Marble, ht. 610. Louvre. This celebrated statue represents the
greatness. Neoclassicism, developing first in Athens classicizing tendency, derived from Greek tradition, in Hellenistic art.
The head is executed in the pure Hellenic style, as seen in the serene
in the late third century BCE and later in Pergamum countenance, the exquisitely detailed hair, and the finely chiseled features.
and other cities, was a kind of nostalgia for the Athe- However, the body, with its frank sensuality and its rumpled draperies, is
S nian Golden Age of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. clearly in the Hellenistic style.
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SUMMARY
Hellenistic is the name for the period that followed the tolerant, and experimental. Successful in many ways,
death of Alexander the Great. The term suggests that the Hellenistic monarchies ultimately succumbed to a
the culture of this world was everywhere deeply in- resourceful, determined foe: Rome.
fluenced by the Greeks (the Hellenes) but that it was The arts in the Hellenistic world both continued and
not a purely Greek culture. As in Hellenic times, cities departed from Hellenic norms. in philosophy, ethics
were the great cultural and economic centers, but now and the problems of daily existence took precedence
many of the greatest cities, Alexandria and Antioch, over the nature of matter and the locus of reality. Re-
for example, were far from Greece. instead of numer- ligion was more personal, less civic than in Hellenic
ous autonomous poleis, as in the Hellenic period, the times. Practical science took several leaps forward. Ar-
Hellenistic era was marked by several huge kingdoms chitecture tended toward the opulent and ostentatious.
and a number of smaller ones. The major kingdoms Sculpture maintained the superb skills of the Hellenic
were created by some of Alexanders generals: the An- period but sometimes abandoned the calm and re-
tigonids in Macedon, the Seleucids in Mesopotamia straint of that earlier time to add more human, expres-
and Syria, and the Ptolemies in Egypt. The culture of sive, diverse touches.
the Hellenistic era was cosmopolitan, multicultural,

The Legacy of the Hellenistic World


Our world is certainly full of skeptics and cynics. We which was the writing material used in and thus
call people who are courageous in the face of disas- named after Pergamum. Ptolemaic support for Alex-
ter stoic. Divine-right kingship in the West can be andrias Museum set a precedent for state support of
traced to Hellenistic roots, and it lasted in some areas cultural and intellectual activity. Most college students
until quite recently. Hellenistic science was both in- have done honorable battle with Euclids geometry.
novative and foundational. A recent book claims that Even high school physics replicates the experiments
the rediscovery of Lucretius in the fifteenth century of Archimedes. The insouciant youthful Whatever!
launched the modern world. Hellenistic art and ar- would delight the cynic Diogenes.
chitecture were flourishing when
Romes legions marched into the
Mediterranean world. Romans cop-
ied and transmitted what they saw. DUANE HANSON, Young Shopper. 1973. Polyester
As in Hellenistic times, todays art and fiberglass, polychromed in oil, with
is not confined to representations of accessories. Life size. The Saatchi Gallery,
London. Hanson (19251996) was an American
the rich and the mighty. Our call for
master of pop art or of what some called
multicultural tolerance and under- hyperrealism. He produced countless images
standing would have made sense in that are eerily true to life. Of this one, he said,
Alexandria. Globalism today pro- I like the physical burdens this woman carries.
vokes anxieties similar to those of She is weighted down by all of her shopping bags
and purchases, and she has become almost a
the cosmopolitan Hellenisitc world.
bag herself. She carries physical burdensthe
Students go to college to get their burdens of life, of everyday living. But initially,
parchment. Parchment is actually a its quite a funny sculpture. Compare the market
French rendering of Latin pergamenum woman on page 82.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Hellenistic New Comedy Skepticism podium
cosmopolitan comedy of manners Epicureanism genre subject
Antigonids pastoral ataraxia neoclassicism
Seleucids idyll Stoicism
Ptolemies Cynicism logos
koin autarky Corinthian S
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A scene along the Appian Way south of Rome. Named for the statesman Appius Claudius,
the road was begun in 312 BCE. It consisted of a level earthen surface, over which were laid
small stones and mortar, heavier gravel, and then interlocking paving stones. The road was
slightly crowned to facilitate drainage.

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Classical Rome
5
From Republic to Empire

Preview Questions There is an old saying:All roads lead to Rome. The Romans
1. What were the conquered their neighbors in Italy, then achieved domination in the west-
major stages in the ern Mediterranean, and finally created an empire that extended from Scot-
political and military land to Mesopotamia. Eventually, indeed, all roads led to Rome. And for
development of the
Roman Republic? two millennia people in the West have had the sense that their culture
traced a path back to Rome.
2. What were the essential
characteristics of the One of those roads, the Appian Way, is pictured to the left. Begun in
Augustan Principate? 312 BCE, the Appian Way originally extended about 130 miles from Rome
3. What were the most to Cumae and was finally stretched to Brindisi, a major port on Italys east
important aspects of coast, a total distance of almost 350 miles from Rome. As Rome extended
the Roman ethos?
its conquests, the Romans built roads and bridges. They also built cities
4. How did Golden
or added typical Roman amenitiesbaths, theaters, forumsin the lands
Age and Silver Age
literature differ? they conquered, and also built vast aqueducts to bring water to cities.

5. What were the The poet Virgil, whom we will meet again later in this chapter, said to
domestic, civic, and his countrymen, Remember, Romans, these will be your arts: To rule the
propagandistic aspects people under law, to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer, to spare
of Roman art?
defeated people, to battle down the proud. Virgil explicitly admitted that
othershe meant Greekswere more skilled than Romans in the arts
and in science. But he put his finger on precisely what people have always
recognized as Romes great talents and great gifts to posterity. No legal
system has been more influential than the Roman. Roman government has
been adopted and adapted for centuries. Roman imperialismfor good
or illhas captured the fancy of countless would-be Caesars. Moreover,
as this simple picture of a haunting stretch of road suggests, the Romans
were intensely practical. War, law, and government were indeed their arts.
But the Romans were also among the greatest civil engineers of history.
Rome arose in the Hellenistic world and, for a very long time, Roman
arts and letters were Hellenistic in form and substance. The Romans were
great imitators: most great works of Greek art adorning museums the

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104 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Timeline 5.1 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, 50931 BCE


509 264 133 31

Early Republic Middle Republic Late Republic

Rome establishes republican 264241 219201 149146 133 31 44


form of government, First Second Third Rome acquires Julius
subdues Italian peninsula Punic War Punic War Punic War Hellenistic Caesar
kingdoms; assassi-
social, political nated
unrest 4431
Civil war

world over are in fact Roman copies, and Roman po- artifacts demonstrate intense connections with south-
ets and playwrights adapted Hellenistic models. But ern Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. The Etrus-
before the Romans could imitate Hellenistic artists cans occasionally fought with the Greeks of southern
and writers, they had to encounter them. The Romans Italy and by the seventh century BCE they dominated
did this first in Italy and then, battle by battle, across Latium. A series of early Roman kings were actually
the Mediterranean world. In one of those battles the Etruscans.
Romans captured the Greek historian Polybius, who The Etruscans built temples but none has survived.
wondered how a people so recently barbarian had Apparently they modified the Doric order by putting
managed to conquer the known world. columns on bases and omitting flutes. They created
elaborate tombs of which a number survive. Some
tombs have rectangular chambers hewn into solid
THE RISE OF ROME rockalbeit the rock is tufa, a soft stone that hardens
The ancients told a complex story about Romes foun- when exposed to air. Others are round, half sunken
dation. Aeneas [uh-NEE-us], whose mother was the into the ground, and then walled, and then covered
goddess Aphrodite and whose father was related to with soil. Both kinds of tombs were elaborately deco-
the Trojan royal family, escaped after the Mycenaeans rated with sculpture and fresco (Figure 5.1). Etruscan
captured Troy. He wandered for many years and fi- sculpture has a pleasing, lifelike quality reminiscent
nally landed on the shore of Latium [LAY-shum], the of Greek Archaic sculpture (Figure 5.2). Tomb paint-
plain in central Italy where Rome would rise. King ings are vivid, colorful, and expressive; Egyptian in-
Latinus gave his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas in mar- fluences are easy to see. Etruscan art provides keen
riage. Several generations later Aeneass descendant insights into the visual environment as Rome was tak-
King Numitor was overthrown by his brother who, to ing shape.
eliminate rivals, exposed Numitors grandsons Rom Magna Graeciasouthern Italy and Sicilywas
ulus and Remus on the bank of the Tiber. Legend colonized by Greeks beginning in the eighth cen-
holds that they were rescued by a she-wolf who suck- turyBCE. The Romans traded, and eventually fought,
led them until a shepherd found and raised them. The with these Greeks. But from Greek language, art, and
boys displayed great leadership qualities but quar- architecture, the Romans learned a great deal too.
reled and Romulus killed Remus. The legend goes on
to say that Romulus founded Rome. The Romans al- The Roman Republic
ways believed that their city had been founded in the According to tradition the Romans rose up in 509 BCE,
year we call 753 BCE. overthrew the last of the seven Etruscan kings who
had ruled them, and created a republic. The Latin res
Etruscans and Greeks publica means simply a public thingsomething
The earliest influences on Rome were exerted by the that was the concern of the people, not merely of the
Etruscans. These fascinating people are of mysteri- ruler. For about two centuries after the overthrow of
ous origins. More than 13,000 scraps of their writing the monarchy, Rome was violent and volatile. A small
survive but cannot be read because their language has number of patricians (from Latin patres, fathers)
not been deciphered. Some ancient writers believed dominated a much larger number of plebeians. The
the Etruscans migrated to the west coast of central origins of these two groups are obscure. The patricians
Italy from Lydia in Asia Minor, but others believed were large landowners, whereas the plebeians were
S they were native to Italy. They lived in ten or so cit- small farmers, laborers, artisans, and perhaps mer-
N ies located in a triangular area bounded by the rivers chants. A small number of patricians controlled the
L Arno and Tiber and the sea (Map 5.1). Etruscan art and senate (from Latin senex, old man), and all patricians
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THE RISE OF ROME 105

Learning Through Maps


MAP 5.1ITALY BEFORE
0 100 200 mi
THE ROMANS
0 200 400 km This map shows the major cities of both
Etruriathe land of the Etruscansand of
Magna Graecia. Some modern Italian cities are
shown to provide a frame of reference.1. Note
the position of the major Greek sites and their
openness to the Mediterranean. 2. Observe
the relatively dense concentration of Etruscan
Arno Florence A
dr sites. 3. Consider how early Romes neighbors
Volterra ia
ti exerted influenceby land and sea.
ETRURIA Perugia c
Chiusi Se
a
Vulci Tib
er ITALY
CORSICA Tarquinia Veii
Cerveteri Rome
Ostia LATIUM

Capua Naples Brindisi


Pompeii Taranto
Paestum
SARDINIA Figure 5.1 Tomb of the Leopards.
Ty r r h e n i a n MAGNA Thurii Tarquinia. 480470 BCE. Fresco. This scene
Sea from an Etruscan tomb depicts a banquet.
GRAECIA Croton Reclining on couches, male and female diners
talk and share food and drink, as two male
waiters serve the party. Because of such
Messina joyous scenes, the Etruscans are thought to
Segesta
have been optimistic in the face of death. The
SICILY scenes in the tombs and the objects placed
in them suggest a happy continuation of
Syracuse earthly existencean attitude similar to that
Carthage
of the Egyptians. Egyptian artistic influences
AFRICA Mediterranean Sea are evident in the contrasting skin tones of
the figures, with women paler than men.
Greek influence can be seen in the dining
arrangement and in the modeling of the bodies.

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106 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Figure 5.2 Sarcophagus. Cerveteri. Ca.


520 BCE. Terra-cotta. Length 67. Museo
Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome. This
husband and wife are portrayed as if reclining
at dinner (compare Figure 5.1), but they also
display intimacy in touching each other. The
scene is opulent and optimistic: eternity will
be a wonderful banquet. The bodies are similar
to those in Archaic Greek sculptures but are
perhaps more supple, graceful. The Archaic
smile is, however, unmistakable.

participated in an assembly that could pass laws bind- (319-272 BCE) invaded Italy and battled with the Ro-
ing on the whole population. The plebeians had an as- mans twice. Though he was victorious, his victories
sembly too, but its laws were binding only on them. cost him so dearly that he said if he kept winning like
The patricians needed plebeian manpower to fight that he was bound to lose. Thus we still speak of a
their wars. The plebeians realized that this put them Pyrrhic victory. Having become embroiled with the
in a strong bargaining position, and three times they Greeks of southern Italy, the Romans also got involved
seceded from the statein effect, went on striketo with the Greeks of Sicily and, more importantly, with
demand political concessions. By 287 BCE all formal, the mighty Carthaginians, who claimed a kind of
political distinctions between the patricians and the protectorate over the island. Carthage was originally
plebeians were gone. All Romans could vote for of- a Phoenician colony, and the Carthaginians were the
ficials and all Romans (with insignificant exceptions) dominant commercial and military power in the west-
could be elected to any office. Rome was governed by ern Mediterranean. The Romans fought three Punic
two annually elected consuls who had both executive (the Roman name for the Carthaginians; it means the
and military power. Other annually elected officers purple people because of the purple dye for which
included praetors [PREE-tors], who were judicial offi- Phoenicians were famous) Wars (261241, 218201, and
cers, and various financial and public works officers. 149146 BCE). These wars were long, brutal, costly
Ten tribunes continued to look out for the interests and full of famous characters and incidents as well.
of the plebeians. All Romans belonged automatically For example, the Carthaginian general Hannibal de-
to two assemblies. The senate, once a body reserved cided in the Second Punic War that Rome might be
for patricians, became instead a body of former office more effectively attacked by land than by sea. Accord-
holders. The senate, interestingly, could issue opinions ingly he marched an army from Spain over the Alps
but could not pass laws. Membership in one assembly into Italy and brought along elephants, partly to trans-
was regulated by wealth and, in the other, by resi- port his matriel and partly to terrify the Romans. In
dence. In the early third century BCE, therefore, Rome the end, determination carried the Romans to victory
was technically a democracy. and hence to hegemony in the western Mediterranean.
While the Second Punic War was still raging, a
The Rise of the Roman Empire Macedonian king lent Pyrrhus some aid. The Romans
Warlike and ambitious, the Romans campaigned for considered this a cause for war and began a series of
two centuries against their neighbors in Italy, includ- wars that eventually brought them control of the east-
ing the Greeks of Magna Graecia. When the Romans ern Mediterranean. The future of the whole Medi-
began to fight with the Greeks, the latter called in out- terranean basin became clear when in 133 BCE King
S side reinforcements. The first of these came from the AttalusIII of Pergamum died without heirs and willed
N Kingdom of Epirus, whose King Pyrrhus [PEER-us] his kingdom to Rome. At the battle of Actium in 31BCE
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THE RISE OF ROME 107

Timeline 5.2 PRINCIPATE AND PAX ROMANA


31 BCE 68 CE 69 96 180

Julio-Claudian Year of the


Emperors Four Emperors Flavian Emperors Five Good Emperors

31 BCE 4154 Galba 6979 9698 161180


14 CE Claudius Otho Vespasian Nerva Marcus
Augustus Vitellius Aurelius
5468 Vespasian 7981 98117
1437 Nero Titus Trajan
Tiberius
8196 117138
Domitian Hadrian
3741 138161
Caligula Antoninus
Pius

the Romans defeated the forces of Cleopatra, the last of they turned into political power in Rome. Sometimes,
the Ptolemies, and secured definitive control of the Hel- army veterans supported their upstart commanders,
lenistic world. In the meantime, various Roman gener- while lesser generals became faction leaders. Viewed
als undertook the conquest of Spain and Gaul, the latter a little differently, many New Men, as the Romans
triumph being the work of Julius Caesar (10044BCE). called them, rose to prominence. They came from ob-
In five centuries a tiny city-state won an empire that scure families with no experience of Roman politics.
stretched from the Atlantic to Mesopotamia. New Men, old soldiers, and numerous immigrants
from all over the Hellenistic world had neither an un-
The Decline of the Roman Republic derstanding of nor a loyalty to the old-fashioned Ro-
Polybius [PUH-libb-ee-us] (about 200118 BCE) be- man way of doing things. Between 133 and 31 BCE, the
lieved the secret to Romes success was to be found in Roman Republic collapsed amid frequently violent po-
its balanced political system: the consuls bore as- litical strife in which politicians murdered each other
pects of monarchy, the senate of oligarchy, and the as- and their followers. Men stood for office repeatedly
semblies of democracy. As a Greek, Polybius was struck whereas, traditionally, offices were held for only one
by the apparent stability of the Roman system. But that year. Faction leaders got laws passed in the assemblies
stability was more apparent than real, and in the later to reward their followers and strengthen their groups.
decades of the second century it came unraveled. So-called popular leaders battled Optimates, who
The Roman system depended on social and po- insisted they alone stood for the good, traditional Ro-
litical deference. A handful of families dominated all man values. The cycle of violence finally left only one
the elective offices for some 350 years. The senate, as man in charge: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, who
noted, could only issue opinions, but its opinions were was Julius Caesars adopted nephew.
deeply influential. In the senate itself, the oldest mem-
ber always spoke first. In the voting assemblies, young The Augustan Principate
and old caucuseda good Roman word still used! The reign of Octavian (r. 31 BCE14 CE) inaugurated
together, but the old voted first. Roman speeches of- a new phase of Roman history. Wearied by decades
ten began with a recitation of the mos maiorumthe of unrelenting strife, what was left of the senate con-
customs of our ancestorswhich inevitably set a ferred almost complete power on Octavian in 27 BCE
conservative tone. In the Roman household, the pater and called him Augustus. The regime he inaugu-
familias (the father of the family) had virtual life rated, called the principate [PRIN-chuh-pate] (from
and death authority over the entire household. Roman Latin princeps, first citizen), lasted until the death of
historians tended to write serial biographies of great Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE. These two centuries were
and virtuous leaders. marked by institutional stability, imperial expansion
Romes incessant warfare brought huge territorial and then consolidation, and widespread prosperity.
gains but serious problems as well. Simultaneous wars After a century of civil war, the genius of Augustus
on several fronts put too many men in charge of armies. brought order out of chaos. He used his power with S
Victorious commanders secured wealth and fame that discretion and was content to be hailed as princeps, N
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108 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Figure 5.3 Head of Augustus. Bronze, ht. 18.2 (46.2 cm).


British Museum, London. This head is all that remains of a
complete statue erected on the frontier between Egypt and
Nubia (modern Sudan) in about 27 BCE, shortly after Augustus assumed
power. Portrayed with short, curly hair, the statue conveys youth and
authority, beauty and power. In about 25 BCE the ferocious, one-eyed
Queen Candace of Mero raided the Roman frontier and hauled away the
statue. She placed it under the steps to her royal palace so that those who
entered would trample on Caesar. Rome never avenged this affront.

first citizen. He sometimes held one of the republican


magistracies (consul, praetor), but usually let others
hold them, thereby satisfying ambitious individuals
and creating the impression that power was shared. Au-
gustus permitted the senate to control many provinces,
but he retained control of the militarily threatened and
economically prosperous ones (especially Egypt) (Fig-
ure 5.3). Above all, he controlled the military; he was
the imperator, the commander, hence the emperor. In
truth, the principate was a thinly disguised military
dictatorship, but Augustus made it look like a largely
civilian regime with military backing (see Map 5.2).

Learning Through Maps


Roman Empire by death of Augustus, 14 CE
Hadrians Wall
122 CE Roman territory added by death of Hadrian, 138 CE
Nort h Sea
Eburacum B alt ic
(York) S ea
Don

BRITAIN Camulodunum El b
Londinium (Colchester) eR
.
R.

(London) LOWER
GERMANY
Colonia Claudia Agrippinensis (Cologne) Vo
ATL ANTIC l ga
Rhi

Lutetia Parisiorum GERMANY R.


OCEAN (Paris) Moguntiacum Dn
ne R

iepe D
O

Casp
LUGDUNENSIS (Mainz) D r R. G
UPPER an KI
N
.

GAUL GERMANY ube N


R. RA
AQUITANIA
e R. Vindobona PO ian
Burdigala Lugdunum n S Aquincum BO
S
(Bordeaux) LP (Vienna) (Budapest) ea S

(Lyon) A Mediolanum NORICUM


Rh

NARBONENSIS (Milan) PANNONIA D A C I A C AU C A SUS M


Eb Nemausus Po R. TS .
ro (Nmes) Massilia CISALPINE Singidunum
SPAIN Narbo (Marseille) GAUL (Belgrade)
l a c k S e a
Ad

B
R.

TARRACONENSIS Arretium DALMATIA


Tiber
ri

MOESIA
Tarraco
at

LUSITANIA ARMENIA
CORSICA Rome c S
i

THRACE D PONTUS
Emerita Augusta (Merida)
Ostia ITALY e a AN
Byzantuim IA
YN
Corduba (Cordoba) MT. VESUVIUS Brundisium BITH
Pompeii ASSYRIA
BAETICA BALEARIC IS. MACEDONIA
Thessalonica GALATIA CAPPADOCIA Tig
PA

SARDINIA EPIRUS Pergamum


M
ris

ANAT O L I A
RT
Ae ge

ed ASIA MESOPOTAMIA
R

it Athens PAMPHYLIA Tarsus Euphr


.

IA

ate
e r SICILY Syracuse Corinth Ephesus CIA sR
an

L I
MAURITANIA Carthage ACHAEA LYCIA CI Antioch .
Se

Seleucia
ra

n SYRIA Palmyra Ctesiphon


a

NUMIDIA MALTA RHODES


ea
AFR

n CYPRUS Damascus
Se
I

CRETE
CA

a
PR

JUDAEA
Leptis Magna Cyrene
O

O Jerusalem
C

NORTH AFRICA NS
UL
AR CYRENAICA Alexandria Petra
IS
0 250 500 mi EGYPT ARABIA
ARABIAN
le R .

SAHARA Bahriya Oasis D E S E RT


0 500 1000 km
Ni

MAP 5.2 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE TIME OF HADRIAN (117138)


S MHS63 147
This map presents the Roman Empire at its greatest territorial extent. Compare this map to Map 5.1.1. Where had the Roman Empire expanded
mat76620_m0601.eps
N after
FirstAugustus?
proof 2. What major cultural zones can you identify within this empire? 3. What major strategic problems did this empire present?
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Figure 5.4 Timgad, Algeria. Ca. 100 CE. Timgad, strategically located
at the intersection of six Roman roads in North Africa, was typical of
the towns built by the Romans during the Pax Romana and populated by and Danube Rivers as the frontiers in the west, the
ex-soldiers and their families. The town was planned as a square with two northern edge of the Sahara Desert in the south, and
main avenues crossing in the middle where the forum stood and all other Mesopotamia in the east. Rome briefly pushed north
streets intersecting at right angles. The so-called Arch of Trajan in the
of the Danube into Dacia. It is important to remem-
foreground marked one of the main thoroughfares, which was lined with
columns. Temples, baths, fountains, markets, a theater, and private homes ber that Roman Peace is how the Romans looked at
made the city a pleasant place to live. things. Those millions of people did not ask to be con-
quered. The wily historian Tacitus (discussed later in
the chapter) said the Romans made a vast desert and
For two centuries the principate worked remarkably called it peace.
well. Some emperors were gifted while others were The world-historical significance of the Pax Romana
feckless and foolish. The senate was at once presti- may be grasped by thinking of it as the Hellenistic
gious and powerless. The emperors effected a working world with several key differences. Geographically,
compromise with the urban elites of the empire. The Romes empire extended vastly farther to the west but
Herods of Judea (see Chapter 6) are a good example: somewhat less far to the east. The Hellenistic world
they went Roman not because of coercion but be- was, however, a collection of political entities whereas
cause it was in their interest to do so. Rome propped the Roman Empire was one. The Hellenistic world was
them up and they served Roman interests. The entire prosperous but unevenly so. All evidence suggests
empire was governed by a few hundred aristocratic that the Roman Empire was more prosperous and
amateurs who served brief tenures as provincial gover- more widely so. Hellenistic culture was fundamen-
nors. Rome required little from its citizens: peace, good tally Greek; indeed, even Roman Republican culture
order, and taxes. was Greek at its roots. Imperial culture added Latin
Augustus and his successors down to Trajan [TRAY- as an essential component. The Romans added urban
jun] (r. 98117) basically rounded off the conquests of amenitiesaqueducts, baths, theaterswherever they
the late republic and ushered in the Pax Romana, the went (Figure 5.4). The ease with which Christianity
Roman Peace, an age of public order and military sta- spread is one excellent gauge of the effectiveness of S
bility. They added Britain while establishing the Rhine the Pax Romana. N
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110 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

THE ROMAN ETHOS


The Romans thought of themselves as simple, practi-
cal people. The ideal Roman was the citizen farmer
who, when necessary, took up arms to defend himself,
his household, or his state. Romans professed to dis-
like everything foreign although they owed immense
debts to the peoples and cultures of the Hellenistic
world as well as to the Greeks of Magna Graecia and
the Etruscans.

Roman Values
By Athenian standards, the Romans were a dull
lot who lacked intellectual brilliance, were too self-
controlled, and were fearful of the imagination. Like
the Spartans, they cultivated a virile moral sense that
prized self-reliance. The great Roman statesman Cato
the Elder (234149 BCE) taught his son agriculture, law,
and the history of Rome and of his family. A closely
related set of values describes the ideal Roman citizen:
Pietas, piety, but actually loyalty, dependability
Gravitas, or gravity, meaning a deep-seated
seriousness
Constantia, constancy, perseverance, dedication
Magnitudo animi, or magnanimity, greatness of
soul, a lack of concern for wealth and status
To sum up: Duty, discipline, and sacrifice character-
ized the ideal Roman. Unfortunately, these values no
longer guided public or private conduct in the last de-
cades of Romes republic.

The Roman Family


Latin familia means more than our word family. The
Roman familia was not just a closely related group of
people living together but, rather, included the entire
household and other living relatives as well. The old-
est living male was the paterfamilias (Figure 5.5), the
father of the family, but really more than that for he
had virtual life and death authority over his house-
hold. Patrician families were especially aware and
proud of their descent. As a rule, Romans had three
names. Take Gaius Julius Caesar, for example. Gaius
was the name his family would have called him, as
one of us today might be called John or Robert. There
were only about a dozen male names in Rome. Julius
was his gens name, that is, the name of his tribe, the
Julians. Caesar was the name of the particular clan
within a tribe. Daughters generally were named after
their fathers tribes. The first daughter of Julius Cae-
Figure 5.5 Patrician with Busts of Ancestors (Barberini Togatus). sar would have been called Julia, the second daughter,
Early first century CE. Marble, ht. 55. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Julia Secunda. Roman families tended to have just a
Rome. The stern and wrinkled faces of the anonymous patrician and
his ancestors convey the quiet dignity and authority of the typical
few sons and rarely more than one daughter. Women
S paterfamilias. Some scholars think that these portrait busts, with their at Rome enjoyed considerable autonomy in law and Ro-
N unflattering realism, were modeled on death masks. man literature is full of influential women (Figure5.6).
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THE ROMAN ETHOS 111

Perhaps because women already enjoyed a measure Powerful men always had many clients. Patrons might
of equality in Etruscan times, Roman women were look out for the legal, economic, or political interests of
not secluded and invisible the way Athenian women their clients, who could be expected to support their
tended to be. patrons politically, for example, by voting their pref-
Patronage, another word that derives from pater erences in the assemblies. Patron-client bonds were
(father) means protector. Patrons and clients con- another aspect of the culture of deference that charac-
stituted another kind of Roman family. Generals were terized Roman society.
patrons to their soldiers, as we have seen. Wealthy land-
owners were often patrons to their peasant neighbors. Roman Religion
Roman religion began in the household, in the familia.
Janus was the god of the doorway and became the god
Figure 5.6 Eumachia. Midfirst century CE. Marble. Museo of the gates of the city. Vesta was the goddess of the
Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. This statue of Eumachia, which was domestic hearth and became the goddess of the civic
found at Pompeii, shows that Roman matrons were involved in public life.
hearth. Early Roman religion probably owed a lot to
The inscription on the statues base praises Eumachia for having donated a
building in the towns forum for the use of the fullersworkers involved in the Etruscans but is almost completely obscure to us.
making woolen cloth. Her statue was paid for by the fullers association in By the time we have abundant source material, the
gratitude for her gift. Her idealized face reflects the Hellenic ideal preferred Romans themselves had encountered the Greeks of
during the reign of Augustus in the first century CE. Magna Graecia and of the Hellenistic world. Hence
the familiar Roman gods and goddesses are the Greek
Olympians with Roman names and sometimes with
slightly adjusted areas of responsibility (Table 5.1). As
they fought and traded, the Romans met other reli-
gions too and brought them home. From Egypt they
imported the cult of Isis and from Asia Minor, Cybele.
In other words, and as elsewhere in the Hellenistic
world, mystery cults (see Chapter 4) supplemented
civic religion in the daily experience of most people.
For Romans, religion was fundamentally civic. Re-
ligio, whence our word religion, basically means to
bind. Roman religious rites were intended to bind the
gods and goddesses, to get them to deliver abundant
crops, healthy childbirths, or victory in war. In order
to bind the gods, the Roman had countless rituals
throughout the annual calendar. One group of Roman

TABLE 5.1THE CHIEF ROMAN GODS AND


GODDESSES AND THEIR GREEK
COUNTERPARTS

ROMAN GREEK

Jupiter Zeus
Juno Hera
Neptune Poseidon
Pluto Hades
Vesta Hestia
Apollo Apollo
Diana Artemis
Mars Ares
Venus Aphrodite
Vulcan Hephaestus
Minerva Athena
Mercury Hermes S
N
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112 CHAPTER FIVE: CLASSICAL ROME

Interpreting Art
Social
Composition A rare
Perspective
double portrait of a man
Marriage was central to the
and his wife, small in size
Roman ethos. Note how
but rich in meaning.
the wife lays her hand on
her husbands shoulder, a
Subject A scene of a touching gesture of support
married couple as revealed and care.
by their joining right hands,
the key symbolic act in a
Roman marriage ceremony.
Moral
Perspective
Style Hellenistic, or The figures communicate
Roman, realism contrasts a strong bond, fidelity,
sharply with Hellenic and the harmony of an
idealism. These are fully old married couple. The
realized figures. The quality husbands impassive
of the work is very high; countenance suggests
note the deep folds in the experience and maturity.
clothing, the lines in the The wifes gaze is serene.
mans face, and his pinkie
ring. Context Images
like this one, which
communicates intimacy
and domesticity, would
have adorned the homes
of prosperous Romans.

Double Portrait of Marcus Gratidius Libanus and Gratidia. Late first century BCE. Marble with traces of color,
ht. 231/4. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican City.

1. Subject What features of this sculpture tell you that this is a 4. Moral Perspective How do you read the faces in this
married couple? sculpture?
2. Style Compare and contrast this figures style with Figure5.2 5. Context What might a sculpture like this have meant to a
and with the Old Market Woman on page 82. Roman family?
3. Social Perspective Identify and explain the gestures in this
sculpture.

priests, the pontiffs, held responsibility for rites dealing Romans and as Rome conquered lands that had long
with war and peace, agriculture, and domestic life. The experienced theocratic kingship, the divinization of
chief priest, the Pontifex Maximus, was an elected of- the emperors was irresistible. Across the empire, the
ficial. Pontifex [PON-tee-feks] means bridge builder. cult of the emperor provided a bond of focus and
Romes first civic priest supposedly built the very first unity. How seriously did the Romans take the divinity
bridge over the Tiber. Another group of priests, the of their emperors? When the rather austere emperor
augurs [AWE-gurs], observed the flight of birds or the Claudius was on his deathbed (54 CE), he is reported
entrails of sacrificed beasts to see if the gods were fa- to have said, I think I am becoming a god.
vorable to a particular course of actionsay, starting
or ending a war or passing a law. As the hearth fire in ROMAN LITERATURE
a home was never to die out, so too Romes civic hearth
was kept burning by the Vestal Virgins. AND PHILOSOPHY
Imperial Rome added a feature to Roman religion, Except for some scraps of legal material and a few in-
the cult of the emperor. Republican officials had never scriptions, the earliest Roman writing was in Greek
S been viewed as divine. As the emperors differenti- because Latin was as yet too poor for high art. Gradu-
N ated themselves more and more from the rest of the ally the Romans encountered, assimilated, and then
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ROMAN LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY 113

contributed to Hellenistic literature in their own in- Cicero (10643 BCE), who dominated Roman letters in
creasingly polished language. Latin literature began his own day so much that his era is often labeled the
to flourish in the middle years of the republic with his- Age of Cicero (Figure 5.7). By translating Greek trea-
tory, lyric and epic poetry, comedy, and tragedy, ini- tises into Latin, Cicero created a philosophical vocab-
tially in the Greek style but gradually in a distinctive ulary for the Latin language where none had existed
Roman style. This period also saw the rise of a Roman before. For centuries, his collected speeches served as
theatrical tradition influenced both by roots in bois- models of both public oratory and written argument.
terous Etruscan religious celebrations and by contact Todays readers rank Ciceros collection of letters, most
with the Greek theater. by him, some addressed to him (a few written by his
son), as his masterpiece. These nearly nine hundred
The Literature of the Republic letters, frank in style and language, offer a unique
The oldest Latin text is a treatise on agriculture by Cato self-portrait of a major public figure in ancient times.
the Elder but Plautus [PLAW-tuhs] (about 254184BCE), Cicero also wrote extensively on law and politics. As
a plebeian, launched Romes great age of comic theater, a public figure he attained high office but failed in his
indeed of literature, with his almost 130 plays. His effort to achieve the concordia ordinum, the concord of
genius lay in breathing fresh life into the stale plots the orders, that is, peace and understanding among
and stock characters borrowed from Menander and Romes warring factions.
other Hellenistic, New Comedy playwrights. In Plau-
tuss hands, the mistaken identities, verbal misunder-
Figure 5.7 Cicero. First century BCE. Capitoline Museum, Rome.
standings, and bungled schemes seemed brand new.
The anonymous sculptor of this bust of Cicero has caught the character of
Romes other significant comic playwright was Ter- the man as recalled in literary sources. Honored as one of Romes finest
ence [TAIR-ents] (about 195159 BCE), a Carthagin- intellectuals and a patriot devoted to rescuing the state from chaos, he is
ian slave who was brought to Rome, educated, and depicted deep in thought with stern and resolute features. This idealized
set free. Although he wrote only six plays, Terence portrait contributed to the mystique of Cicero as a hero of the Roman
Republic.
won the acclaim of Romes educated elite, perhaps be-
cause of the pure Greek tone and themes of his works.
Romes stodgy aristocrats decreed that the earliest the-
aters have no seats. If people were going to enjoy that
sort of thing, they would have to do it standing up.
Plautus and Terence had no real successors as play-
wrights, but in the first century BCE Roman poetry
began to flourish. Two major poets with distinctively
different personalities and talents appeared: Lucre-
tius and Catullus. Both were heavily influenced by
Greek literature. Lucretius [lew-KREE-shuhs] (about
9455BCE) stands in the long line of didactic literary
figures dating from Homer. A gifted poet, with his
well-turned Latin phrases and imaginative and vivid
language, Lucretius wrote De Rerum Natura (On the
Nature of Things) to persuade the reader of the truth
of Epicureanism, the philosophy based on scientific
atomism that denied divine intervention in human af-
fairs (see Chapter 4).
In contrast to Lucretiuss lengthy poem, the verses
of Catullus [kuh-TUHL-uhs] (about 8454 BCE) are
characterized by brevity, one of the hallmarks of the
Alexandrian school of the Hellenistic Age. Catullus is
best remembered for his love poems, which draw on
the lives of his highborn, free-spirited circle in Rome
and express his innermost feelings of desire, disap-
pointment, and jealousy. As a typical Hellenistic au-
thor, Catullus wrote poems whose language ranged
from sublime to coarse and whose themes extended
from the sensual to the frankly erotic.
The efforts of Lucretius and Catullus pale, how- S
ever, when placed beside those of their contemporary N
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114 CHAPTER FIVE: CLASSICAL ROME

SLICE OF LIFE
A College Students Letter Home

MARCUS, SON OF CICERO


Ciceros son Marcus, having spent all his money, wrote in he often strolls in upon us when we least expect him
44 BCE to his fathers secretary Tiro. Because of the press and are at dinner, and throwing to the wind all aus-
of public life, Cicero often relied on Tiro to handle his cor- terity as a philosopher, he bandies jokes with us in the
respondence. Knowing that Tiro will relay a message to most genial manner possible.
his father, Marcus offers assurances that he has mended As to Bruttius, why should I mention him at all?
his ways and describes his schoolwork. There is never a moment when I allow him to leave my
side. He leads a simple and austere life, but that the
same time he is a most delightful man to live with. For
That the rumors, which reach you about me, are grati-
there is no ban upon merry talk in our literary discus-
fying and welcome to you, I have no doubt at all, my
sions and our daily joint researches. I have hired lodg-
dearest Tiro; and I shall make every effort to guaran-
ings for him next door, and, as far as I can, alleviate
tee that this opinion of me which is springing up more
his penury out of my own narrow means.
distinctly every day becomes twice as good. For that
Besides all this I have begun to practice declaiming
reason you may with unshaken confidence fulfill your
in Greek with Cassius; but I like practicing in Latin
promise of being the trumpeter of my reputation. For
with Bruttius.
the errors of my youth have caused me such grief and
I beg of you to see that a secretary is sent to me as
agony that not only do my thoughts shrink from what
quickly as possiblebest of all a Greek; for that will re-
I have done, but my very ears shrink from hearing it
lieve me of a lot of trouble in writing out lecture notes.
talked about.
I must tell you that my close attachment to Cratip- Interpreting This Slice of Life
pus is not so much that of a pupil as that of a son. For
1. How was education conducted in Greece and Rome?
not only do I attend his lectures with enjoyment, but I
am greatly fascinated also by the charm of his person- 2. How credible does Marcuss letter to his father
ality. I spend whole days with him, and often a part of strike you?
the night. Indeed, I implore him to dine with me as of- 3. Compare and contrast the life of a typical student to-
ten as possible. Now that we have become so intimate, day with that of Marcus.

The Golden Age Western heritage. But Virgil is best known for the Ae-
The reign of Augustus marked the Golden Age of Ro- neid, an epic poem in twelve books that he wrote in
man letters. This periods three greatest poets, Virgil, imitation of Homer. In this work, infused with Roman
Horace, and Ovid, captured the ages euphoric mood values and ideals, Virgil gave full voice to his love
as peace and stability once more returned to Rome. Of of country, his respect for Augustus, and his faith in
these three writers, Virgil best represented the times Romes destiny.
through his vision of Rome and his stirring verses. In The Aeneid tells of Aeneas, the legendary Trojan
prose, Livy captured the spirit of the age with his in- hero who wandered the Mediterranean before found-
spiring tales of Romes greatness. ing Rome. In the first six books, Virgil models his tale
The works of Virgil [VUR-jill] (7019 BCE), a mod- on the Odyssey, writing of travel and love. The second
estly born Italian from Mantua, were inspired by Greek half is modeled on the Iliad, stressing fighting and
literary formsidylls (or vignettes), didactic (instruc- intrigue. The Aeneid became Romes bible and its lit-
tive) poems, and epicsyet his use of native themes erary masterpiece. Children were often required to
and his focus on the best traits in the Roman people memorize passages from the poem to instill in them
give an authentic Roman voice to his work. Deeply the values that had made Rome great. Aeneas served
moved by Augustuss reforms, he put his art in the ser- as the prototype of the faithful leader who would not
vice of the state. Virgils pastoral poetry, the Eclogues be diverted from his destined path. The works rich
S and Georgics, celebrated rural life and urged readers language led later poets to mine the Aeneid for expres-
N to seek harmony with nature in order to find peace sions and images. As Homer inspired Virgil, so Virgil
L advice that became a significant moral theme of the became the model for Western poets.
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ROMAN LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY 115

The second major poet of the Golden Age was Hor- An outstanding Silver Age talent was Seneca [SEN-
ace (658 BCE), another humble Italian who welcomed e-kuh] (4 BCE65 CE). Born into a wealthy family in
Augustus as Romes savior and offered patriotic senti- Spain, Seneca became a powerful senator and the ages
ments in his verses. His poems, which were written chief Stoic thinker. He is best remembered as a dra-
to be read aloud, use Alexandrian forms such as odes matist, though his works failed to measure up to the
and letters in verse. A master and even innovator with Greek heritage. His ten extant plays relied on emotion-
poetic forms, Horace was playful and creative with alism, rhetorical excess, and stage violencethe peren-
language. He helped to create a new literary genre, the nial traits of Roman tragedy. After his day, the staging
satire, which rebuked the manners of the age. Horace of tragedies ceased, not to be revived for more than fif-
was at his best in addressing the heartbreaking brev- teen hundred years.
ity of life: what has been, has been, and I have had The Silver Age produced several Latin poets, chief
my hour. among them Juvenal [JOO-vuh-nall] (about 60140CE),
Ovid [AHV-uhd] (43 BCEabout 17 CE), the third who trained his censorious gaze on the follies of the
voice of the Golden Age, was a wealthy Italian who empire. Juvenal expressed his outraged observations
did not devote his verses to patriotic themes or pay lip in sixteen satires, the literary form originated by Hor-
service to conventional morality. Ovids love poems ace and others. The voice that speaks in Juvenals sat-
speak of the purely sensual and fleeting quality of sex ires is embittered, perhaps a reflection of his obscure
and ignore the enduring value of committed love. His social origins. But the carefully crafted language
Art of Love offers advice, in a manner bordering on obscene, bilious, funny, and evocative but always just
the scientific, on how to seduce women. Such advice rightmade him the master of this genre in Rome, if
contrasted with Virgils and Horaces attempts to raise not in world letters.
the moral level of the Romans. The austere Augustus The leading historian of the Silver Age was Tacitus
exiled Ovid. [TASS-uh-tus] (about 55117 CE), famed also as an ora-
Ovids masterpiece was the Metamorphoses, or Trans- tor and politician. Like the greatest of Greek histori-
formations. Somewhat irreverently, Ovid breathed new ans, Tacitus was a superb stylist, wrote about his own
life into more than two hundred Greek and Roman times, and stressed human responsibility. But the val-
myths and legends that centered on the transforma- ues he stressed, and often found lacking, were wholly
tion of people into other forms. This work is the source Roman. Tacitus acquired his knowledge of statecraft
of our knowledge of many classical myths, and medi- as the governor of the province of Asia (present-day
eval and Renaissance poets turned to it continually for southwestern Turkey). Among his works are two that
inspiration. have earned him the front rank among Roman histo-
A fourth writer, the historian Livy (59 BCE17 CE), rians. The Annals focus on the rulers after the death of
also embodied the spirit of the times. He wrote a mas- Augustus in 14 CE until the murder of Nero in 68. The
sive history of Rome in 142 books of which only 35 sur- Histories then pick up the story of Rome and carry it
vive, basically telling in prose the story Virgil told in through 96, when the tyrannical Domitian was assas-
verse. But where Virgil ended with the age of Aeneas, sinated. A master of the Latin language, Tacitus had a
Livy came down to his own times; albeit all the con- flair for dramatic narrative. Like other Roman histo-
temporary material has disappeared. An accomplished rians, he wrote history with a moral purpose, but his
Latin stylist, Livy tells stories about Romes real or leg- critical spirit set him apart from those who had nothing
endary heroes to instruct his contemporaries about but glowing praise for Rome. Tacituss perspective was
proper beliefs and conduct. that of a proud senator who could not conceal his dis-
taste for Romes loss of political freedom. He concluded
that tyranny was an innate flaw in the imperial system.
The Silver Age
The literary period from the death of Augustus to the
end of the second century is called the Silver Age. Philosophy
In this period, the patriotic style of the previous era The major Hellenistic philosophies came to Rome in
was replaced by the critical views of writers who of- the second century BCE. Chief among these was Sto-
ten satirized Roman society and the state. Lacking the icism but its greatest influence was achieved later,
originality of the Golden Age, the writers of this era through the teaching of Seneca, Epictetus, and the em-
looked to their predecessors for models while they peror Marcus Aurelius. Senecas fame as a philosopher
polished their phrases and reworked earlier themes. rests on his Moral Letters. These letters, usually writ-
This shift in literary taste reflected a new educational ten in response to pressing ethical problems, are filled
ideal, which stressed skills in debate and oratory. As a with good advice, even though they break no new phil-
result, moral considerations became secondary to aes- osophical ground. In one letter, for example, Seneca S
thetic effects, with writers using rhetorical flourishes counseled a grieving acquaintance to maintain dignity N
and exaggerated literary conceits. and inner strength in the face of a loved ones death. L
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116 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Epictetus [ep-ik-TEET-uhs] (about 55115 CE) not instruments, borrowed from across the Mediterranean
only preached but also lived his Stoic creed. According world, can be identified with some certainty. From
to tradition, Epictetus, though a slave in Rome, won Greece came the stringed instruments, the lyre and
his freedom because of his teachings. He subsequently the kithara, along with such woodwinds as the single
founded a school in Asia Minor and attracted enthusi- aulos, or oboe, and the double auloswhich the Ro-
astic converts. He did not write anything, but Arrian, mans called the tibia. From the Etruscans came the
a pupil, composed the Discourses and the Handbook, brasses. The Romans delighted in the harsh sounds
both in Greek, which together preserved the essence made by these instruments, incorporating them into
of his masters ideas. Epictetuss philosophy reflected their military music just as the Etruscans had done.
his own victory over personal misfortune. He advised The hydraulic organ, or water organ, was probably
patience in the face of trouble, indifference to mate- perfected in Hellenistic Alexandria, but in imperial
rial things, and acceptance of ones destiny. Although Rome it became a crowd-pleaser, adding deep, volu-
these ideas represented a rehash of basic Stoic beliefs, minous sounds to the pantomimes. The taste of the
his moral wholeness gave them a special appeal. imperial Roman audience is evident in the water or-
Stoicisms finest hour arrived in 161 CE when Mar- gan, impressive not for its musical qualities but as a
cus Aurelius became emperor. Converted to Stoicism feat of engineering expertise.
in his youth, the emperor wrote an account (in Greek)
of his daily musingscalled Meditationswhile he was
engaged in almost continuous warfare against barbar- THE VISUAL ARTS
ian invaders. His journal came to light after his death Architecture and sculpture dominated Romes visual
and was soon recognized as a masterpiece of Stoicism. arts, but they were pressed into the service of practical
Like all Stoics, Marcus Aurelius admonished himself needs. The Romans commissioned buildings and stat-
to play with dignity the role that providence had as- ues to serve the state, religion, or society, but they rec-
signed: if a divine plan guides the universe, then ognized that the practical did not exclude the beautiful
he must accept it; if, however, the world is ruled by and that the functional did not rule out the elegant. The
chance, then a well-regulated mind is the best defense. wealth generated by the empire made possible build-
Such reasoning enabled him to avoid moral confusion. ing on a scale never before matched. Augustus is said
His death in 180 signaled the end of ancient Stoicism. to have found a city of brick and left a city of marble.

Architecture
MUSIC Over the years, the Romans used many types of mate-
The Greek tradition in music was so powerful that for rials in their public and private buildings. The archi-
a long time Roman music simply perpetuated Greek tects of the early republic built with sun-dried bricks
forms and ideas. And yet the Romans originally used and used terra-cotta, a fired clay, for roofs and decora-
music only for practical purposes and rejected the tions. As Romes wealth grew and new materials were
Greek notion that music performed an ethical role in imported, the bricks retained an important though
educating the soul or mind. less visible role in buildings, chiefly in foundations and
Not until imperial times did music come to play an walls. By the late republic, two new products had been
important role in Roman life. Under the emperors, mu- adapted from the Greeks, mortar and ashlars (massive
sic became wildly popular, as all classes succumbed to stones hewn into rectilinear shapes with even surfaces
its seductive charms. Pantomimesdramatic produc- and square corners), which, in time, revolutionized
tions with instrumental music and dancesbecame the face of Rome.
the spectacle favored by the Roman masses. In the Much of the impetus for the building revolution
long run, the pantomimes became a symbol of musics sprang from the Romans improvement of mortar.
decadent trend under the empire. The largest of these They produced a moldable concrete by mixing lime,
productions featured three thousand instrumentalists sand, small rocks, and rubble, but because the concrete
and three thousand dancers, but the more common was visually unappealing, the builders began to cover
size was three hundred performers in each category. it either with slabs of expensive and highly polished
A more serious sort of music was kept alive by the marble and granite or with the off-white, marble-like
wealthy classes, who maintained household orches- travertine easily available around Rome.
tras and choruses for their private amusement. An The Romans most significant innovations in ar-
even more cultivated audience encouraged poets such chitecture were made with the rounded arch, which
as Horace to set their verses to music, thus continuing already had a long history by the time they began to
the Greek tradition of lyric poetry. experiment with it. The Mesopotamians probably in-
S Although what Roman music actually sounded vented this arch, the Greeks knew about it, and the
N like remains a subject of conjecture, Roman musical Etruscans used it in their drainage systems. The archs
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THE VISUAL ARTS 117

(a) (b)

(e)

(c) (d)

Figure 5.8 Structures Used in Roman Architecture. Beginning with


the basic arch (a), the Romans created the barrel vault (b) and the cross
incorporated Etruscan and Greek ideas (Figure 5.9).
vault (c). These structural elements, along with the dome (d), which they Raised on a platform in the Etruscan manner, this
formed by rotating a series of arches around a central axis, and the dome temple shows other Etruscan borrowings in the central
on a drum (e), gave the Romans the architectural elements they needed to stairway, the deep porch, and the engaged columns
construct their innovative temples and monuments. that is, the columns built into the walls of the cella, the
inner sanctum housing the cult statue. Greek influ-
ences are visible in the low gablethe triangular end
basic round form is created with wedge-shaped stones of the buildings roofand the Corinthian columns.
called voussoirs. A keystone at the center of the semi- The Greek notion that beauty lies in mathematical har-
circle locks the arch in place. The installed arch is mony is also expressed in the predetermined ratio of
amazingly strong, diverting the weight of the upper the area of the cella to the area of the temples porch.
walls both outward and downward onto columns or Besides perfecting their version of the rectilinear
other supports (Figure 5.8). temple, the Romans invented the round temple, as seen
The Romans demonstrated their inventive genius in the Pantheon, a sanctuary dedicated to all their dei-
by creating ceilings, or vaults, from archesby trans- ties. The Pantheon consists of three different units: the
forming the simple rounded arch into barrel vaults, entrance porch, or portico, with its supporting columns;
groined vaults, and domes. They created the barrel the huge drum, housing the sanctuary proper, which is
vaultnamed because it looks like a barrel divided attached to the porch; and the dome, set on top of the
lengthwiseby building a series of contiguous arches. drum (Figure 5.10). This design showed the Romans
They intersected two barrel vaults at right angles to reliance on a native heritage, because the rounded
produce a groined, or cross, vault. Finally, the dome, shape was probably inspired by the circular religious
the crown jewel of Romes architectural vocabulary, shrines of the pre-Romans, as modern archaeology has
was constructed essentially by rotating an arch in a shown. The Pantheon also combined a religious with a
full circle. It was then placed on a drum or enclosed secular image: the dome symbolized both the heaven
cylinder. The Romans were also able to build arches of the deities and the vastness of the empire.
more safely after they discovered the correct math- But the Pantheon did more than reflect the deep
ematical ratio (1:2) between the height of an arch and longings of the Roman people; its rich interior illus-
the width of its base. trated the Roman genius for decoration (Figure 5.11).
The prototype of imperial temples is the well- A polychrome marble floor and a dome with recessed
preserved Maison Carre in Nmes, France, a major panels created a dazzling interior, and statues, decora- S
provincial city. Built in about 16 BCE, the Maison Carre tive columns, triangular pediments, niches, and other N
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118 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Figure 5.9 Maison Carre. Ca. 16 BCE.


Base 1044 4810. Nmes, France.
This temple was probably modeled on temples
in Rome, since buildings with Corinthian
columns and similar overall designs were
being constructed in the capital at this time.
Reproducing architecture in the provincial cities
was another way in which the Romans spread
civilization throughout their conquered lands.

Figure 5.10 Pantheon Exterior. 126 CE. Rome. In modern Rome, the Pantheon is crowded into a piazza
where it faces a monument topped by an Egyptian obelisk. However, when built under the emperor Hadrian, the
Pantheon was part of a complex of structures that complemented one another, and the temples facade faced a
set of columns in an open forecourt. Its original setting reflected the Roman sense that urban space should be
organized harmoniously.

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Figure 5.11 Pantheon Interior. 126 CE.
Rome. The inner diameter of the dome is 144
feet. The height of the dome is 72 feet, or one-
half of the total height (144 feet) of the building.
The sunlight sweeps around the interior and
plays on the domes decorations as the earth
turns, creating constantly changing patterns of
light and design.

architectural details alternated around the circular The exterior of the Colosseum was formed by stack-
room. The most unusual effect of all was the round ing three tiers of rounded arches on top of one another;
hole, thirty feet in diameter, called the oculus, or eye, Greek columns were then inserted between the arches
which opened the dome to the sunlight and the ele- as decorationsDoric columns on the first level, Ionic
ments. The Pantheon is the oldest standing domed on the second, and Corinthian on the third. A concrete
structure in the world. and marble block foundation supported this immense
Romes architecture consisted of more than beauti- amphitheater. The playing area, or arena (Latin for
ful temples. The city of Rome was the center of gov- sand), was made of wood and usually covered with
ernment for the Mediterranean world, the nucleus of sand. A honeycomb of rooms, corridors, and cages ran
the states religious system, and the hub of an inter- underneath the wooden floor. The Colosseums vast
national economy. And at the heart of the city was its sizeit could seat eighty thousand peopleand un-
forum, which functioned like the agora of Greek city- usual features, such as its retractable overhead awning,
states. In the forum, citizens conducted business, ran made it one of the triumphs of Roman engineering, but
the government, and socialized among the complex the spectacular and brutal contests between men, and
of public buildings, temples, sacred sites, and monu- sometimes women, and wild beasts, in varied combi-
ments. As part of his reforms, Augustus rebuilt and nations, that took place there symbolized the sordid
beautified much of the republican forum. side of Rome.
In addition to forums, columns, and arches, the em- Like modern urban centers, Roman towns needed a
perors commissioned amphitheaters as monuments continuous supply of water. In meeting the water de-
to themselves and as gifts to the citizens. The amphi- mands of the cities, the Romans displayed their talent
theaters were the sites of the gladiatorial contests and for organization and their preference for the practical
other blood sports that were the cornerstone of popu- by creating an elaborate network of aqueducts, sluices,
lar culture in the empire. The most famous of these and siphons that ran by gravity from a water source
structures was called the Colosseum, actually the in nearby hills and culminated in a towns reservoirs
Flavian amphitheater, named in honor of the dynasty and fountains.
that built it (Figure 5.12). The name Colosseum, dat- The Romans started building underground aque- S
ing from a later time, referred to a large (i.e., colossal) ducts in about 300 BCE and constructed the first el- N
statue of the emperor Nero that stood nearby. evated aqueduct in 144 BCE. Under Augustus, they L
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Figure 5.12 Colosseum. Ca. 7280 CE. Ht. 1666. Rome. Although
the Flavians were a short-lived dynasty, starting with Vespasian in 69 CE
and ending with Domitian in 96, they left Rome this structure, one of its
most enduring landmarks. The Romans created the oval amphitheater
(literally, theater on both sides) by joining two semicircular Greek
theaters, another example of their ingenuity and practicality.

completed an aqueduct to serve the city of Nmes that


crossed the Gardon River in southern France (Fig-
ure5.13). Known as the Pont du Gard, this section of
the aqueduct has a beautiful and functional design.
Six large arches form the base, and above them are
eleven smaller ones supporting a third tier of thirty-
five even smaller arches. Atop the third tier is the
sluice through which the water flowed, by gravity, to
Nmes. This graceful structure is a reminder of how
the Romans transformed an ordinary object into a
work of art.

Sculpture
The reign of Augustus was important in the develop-
ment of Roman sculpture. Under his rule, imperial
portraiture reverted to the idealism of Hellenic Greece,
displacing the realistic art of the Hellenistic era, or late
republic in Roman terms. But Augustuss pure ideal-
ism did not prevail for long, for under his successors
sculpture became more propagandisticthat is, more

Figure 5.13 Pont du Gard. Ca. late first century CE. Ht. 161. Gardon River, near Nmes, France.
This aqueduct spanning the river was only one segment of the 50-mile system that supplied water to Nmes.
Between 8,000 and 12,000 gallons of water were delivered daily, or about 100 gallons per inhabitant.

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THE VISUAL ARTS 121

Figure 5.14 Augustus, from Prima Porta. Ca. 14 CE. Marble,


ht. 671/2. Braccio Nuovo, Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican Museums.
This statue of Caesar Augustus (r. 31 BCE14 CE), the founder of the
Roman Empire, was uncovered at Prima Porta, the villa of his wife, Livia.
The statue closely resembled the ruler yet presented him as godlike.
Augustuss imperial successors commissioned similar sculptures to convey
a sense of their dignity and power.

symbolic of imperial power. This move to symbolic


idealism reflected the later emperors need to find a
highly visible way in which to overawe, and thus draw
together, Romes increasingly diversified masses.
Two major sculptural works associated with Au-
gustus, the Prima Porta portrait and the Ara Pacis,
or the Altar of Peace, helped to popularize the ideal-
istic style. Augustuss statue, commissioned after his
death, stood in a garden on his widows estate, Prima
Porta, just outside Rome (Figure 5.14). The pure Hel-
lenic style is evident in Augustuss relaxed stance and
idealized face, both of which were modeled on the Do-
ryphoros by Polykleitos (see Figure 3.19). However, the
accompanying symbols reveal the propagandistic in-
tent of the sculpture and were portents of the path that
imperial portraits would take. For example, the cupid
represents Venus, the mother of Aeneas, and thus Au-
gustus is symbolically connected to the legendary ori-
gins of Rome.
The second idealistic sculpture, the marble Ara Pa-
cis, was funded by the senate as an offering of thanks
to Augustus for his peacekeeping missions. The entire
structure was set on a platform and enclosed by three
walls. On the fourth side, an entrance with steps led to
the altar (Figure 5.15). Relief sculptures decorated the

Figure 5.15 Ara Pacis. 9 BCE. Marble,


width 35. Rome. Like the Prima Porta
statue, the Ara Pacis became a model for
later emperors, who emulated its decorations,
symbols, and size. The altar was rediscovered
in the sixteenth century, excavated in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and S
restored in 1938. N
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Figure 5.16 Family of Augustus, Ara Pacis relief. 9 BCE. Marble,
ht. 63. Rome. The figures in low relief, moving from right to left, are
separated yet linked by their placement and clothing. The child to the right Figure 5.17 March of the Legions, from the Arch of Titus. Ca. 81 CE.
of center is given great prominence: he faces right while all the adults in the Marble relief, approx. 6 121/2. Rome. This rectangular marble relief
foreground are looking left and a man places his hand on the childs head. occupies the south side of the Arch of Titus. It commemorates the Roman
This singling out of the child may be an act of endearment or of recognition victory in the Jewish War of 6670 CE, when the Romans put down a
that he is to be the emperor. rebellion by the Jews in Judea and subsequently dispersed them across
the Roman world. In the relief, the Roman soldiers hold aloft the Jewish
holy relics from the Temple as they seem to press forward and pass under
the arch on the right.

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THE VISUAL ARTS 123

interior and exterior walls, some in an idealized style


and others in a realistic style (Figure 5.16). The result-
ing tension between realism and idealism marked this
altar as an early work in the imperial style.
This type of sculpture reached its highest poten-
tial as a propaganda tool on triumphal arches and vic-
tory columns, such as the Arch of Titus and Trajans
Column. One of the reliefs from the Arch of Titus, the
March of the Legions, portrays the armys victory march
into Rome after the destruction of the Temple in Jeru-
salem in 70 CE (Figure 5.17). Trajans column portrays
his campaigns in Dacia (roughly modern Romania)
(Figures 5.18 and 5.19). The equestrian statue of Mar-
cus Aurelius (Figure 5.20) represented a new departure
in Roman sculpture and propaganda that would have
many imitators from later antiquity to the recent past.

Painting and Mosaics


Murals, or wall paintings, the most popular type of
painting in Rome, have been found in private dwell-
ings, public buildings, and temples. Surviving works
hint at a highly decorative, brightly colored art. Origi-
nally the Romans applied tempera, or paint set in a
binding solution, directly onto a dry wall. However,
this quick and easy method produced a painting that
soon faded and peeled. Later they adopted fresco
painting (see Chapter 2) as the most practical and last-
ing technique. The Romans were drawn to many sub-
jects: Greek and Roman myths, architectural vistas,
religious stories, ritual performances, genre scenes
(everyday events), and landscapes.

Figure 5.19 Detail of Trajans Victory Column. Ht. of relief band


approx. 36. Wrapped around the column is the 645-foot relief carving
with 2,500 figures. Color was applied to heighten the realistic effect.
Trajan placed this column in a massive new forum he erected, and the
column itself was readily visible from the first and second stories of the
forums library.

Figure 5.18 Trajans Victory Column. 106113 CE. Ht. 125,


including base. Rome. Borrowing the idea of a victory column from
Mesopotamia, the pragmatic Trajan used art to enhance his power in the
eyes of the citizens. This work commemorated his conquest of Dacia
present-day Romania. The marble column, set on a foundation, enclosed a
winding stairway that led to an observation platform and a statue of Trajan.
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124 CHAPTER FIVE: Classical Rome

Among the many landscapes painted by Roman


artists are the splendid garden frescoes from the Villa
of Livia at Prima Porta (Figure 5.21). This fresco, de-
picting a distant garden, is framed by twin horizontal
walls at its bottom and a jagged border at the top. Ro-
man artists never mastered mathematical perspective;
instead, they used the placement of objects, animals,
and human figures to create a sense of space, as in
this fresco. The patterned fence (foreground) and the
stone wall (in the rear), with a walkway in between
and a tree in the center, create the illusion of depth.
The placement of the bushes, smaller trees, shrubs,
fruits, and flowers behind the walls further augments
the frescos perspective. The vast array of identifiable
plants and birds typifies two themes of Augustan art,
as the art of the reign of Augustus is called. Those
themes are prosperity and peace, thus suggestive of
the propagandistic nature of the art of the period.
A more vital art form was the mosaic. The Romans
learned to make mosaics, assemblages of tiny bits of
stone, glass, or metal, from the Hellenistic Greeks in
the third century BCE, but by the third century CE,
several local Roman mosaic styles had sprung up
across the empire. Although subjects varied, certain
ones seemed always to be in vogue, such as still lifes,
landscapes, Greek and Roman myths, philosophers
and orators, and scenes from the circus and amphithe-
aters. A mosaic from Tunisia (North Africa) shows the
intricacy of design and variety of color that artisans
achieved even in the Roman provinces (Figure 5.22).

LAW AND WAR: ROMES ARTS


As Virgil said, it was Romes task to rule the world
under law. Fundamentally, Roman law aimed to give
every man his due. From Hellenistic philosophy, espe-
Figure 5.20 Marcus Aurelius. Ca. 173 CE. Bronze, ht. 168. Piazza cially Stoicism, Roman law inherited the idea of natu
del Campidoglio, Rome. The unknown artist has represented Marcus
Aurelius as a warrior-emperor, but the militaristic image is offset somewhat ral law, that is, the idea that there is somehow a law
by the Stoic rulers face. Here we see a human being lost in thought and far woven into the fabric of the universe that is indepen-
removed from pomp and power. dent of any rules proposed by human agents. Roman

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LAW AND WAR: ROMES ARTS 125

Figure 5.21 Garden Scene. Villa of Livia, Prima Porta. Ca. 20 BCE. Fresco. Museo di Palazzo,
Massimo, Rome. This garden scene represents a particular style of Roman fresco painting that began
in the first century BCE and was still popular in the Age of Augustus. Labeled architectural, these paintings
were often divided into three horizontal planes and framed by columns to give the sense of a wall opening
or looking through a window onto a bucolic view of the world beyond the villa or house.

law developed over many centuries. The first written pikes, spears, maces, and bows. Defensively, Roman
code, the Twelve Tables, dates from about 450 BCE. soldiers sported shields, helmets, and body armor
During the course of the Roman Republic, the assem- consisting of woven iron mail. The Romans used two
blies passed many laws that became part of the Ro- types of artillery: one hurled huge spears and the
man tradition. Every year, the praetors issued an edict other stones.
that specified what they would address in their year of Romes greatest advantage, however, came from
service. Together these sources built up a body of law its deployment of manpower. The Greek phalanx met
that, eventually, came to be interpreted and explained the enemy as one massed unit. Roman legions were
by jurisconsults, men learned in the law. divided into thirty maniples (handfuls) that were
Romes army was second to none in antiquity. It subdivided into sixty centuries. The Roman army was
never lost a battle in which it faced an enemy on even adaptable and maneuverable regardless of the terrain
terms. Romes weapons included swords, daggers, or the disposition of the enemy.

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Figure 5.22 Calendar Mosaic. Late second to early third century CE. From the Maison des Mois at El
Djem. Detail of 5 4 mosaic. Sousse Museum, Sousse, Tunisia. The El Djem Calendar comprises twelve
small scenes, each representing a month, the name of which is inscribed in Latin. The Roman year began with
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SUMMARY
The Romans conquered Italy, next the western Medi- Roman culture grew slowly from native roots and
terranean region, and then the Hellenistic East. Their Hellenistic fertilization. The earliest Roman drama
progress was slow and steady and not without set- and poetry was decidedly Hellenistic, but by the time
backs. While building a vast empire, the Romans also of Augustus the Roman voice was increasingly heard.
developed a democratic, republican constitution. For The Roman ethos fancied itself stern, austere, serious,
more than three centuries that constitution proved and purposeful. All of this was true to a degree, but
stable and workable, but eventually war, New Men, the Romans knew how to enjoy themselves and their
and foreign ideas weakened the traditional Roman taste for satire proves that they liked a good joke. Cit-
system and, amid civil wars, the republic collapsed. ies, roads, and aqueducts put Roman skill and prac-
Into the breach stepped Augustus Caesar, who inau- ticality on display. The Romans did, however, have a
gurated a new regime, the principate, that gave the fine aesthetic sense as their eager imitation of the best
Roman world two centuries of peace, good govern- in Greek art readily demonstrates. For centuries all
ment, and prosperity. Augustuss genius was cloaking roads did indeed lead to Rome, although one Roman
a military dictatorship in a mantle of republican insti- comic complained that the worlds scum washed up in
tutions and values. the Tiber!

The Legacy of Classical Rome


The Greeks gave us the words politics and political, but Poe, and Twain. Classic films, such as Three Coins in
most of the rest of our political vocabulary is Roman: the Fountain and Roman Holiday, take the eternal city as
senate, caucus, committee, and quorum, for example. their background. But ancient Rome inspired Cleopatra
Russian czar is simply Caesar. What Polybius called a in the 1960s and in Gladiator and Spartacus recently. PBS
balanced or mixed constitution, we call the separation ran a popular series on Rome in 2005. Patronage retains
of powers. Where the Declaration of Independence says its place in both arts and politics.
we hold these truths to be self evident, that is natu-
ral law, Roman style. Fascists took their name from the
fasces, the bundle of rods surmounted by an ax carried
in front of Roman politicians in public processions.
Modern states, for example Hitlers Germany at the
Nuremberg rallies, imitated Roman triumphal proces-
sions. Thomas Jeffersons love for all things Roman can
be seen to this day on the Grounds of his University
of Virginia and in Virginias state capitol. St. Peters ba-
silica in Rome and St. Pauls in London are based on
the Pantheon. Virtually all the autoroutes or autostrade
what we call interstatesin modern Europe sit on top
of Roman roads. The sublime poet Dante took Virgil
as his guide and Tennyson, who knew a thing or two
about poetry, called him wielder of the stateliest mea-
The Rotunda, University of Virginia, 18221826. Designed by Thomas
sure ever molded by the lips of man. Seneca influenced Jefferson, the Rotunda was the last building constructed in the original
Shakespeare. Romes satires inspired, to name just a few Academical Village. It is a one-half scale model of the Pantheon in Rome,
authors, Erasmus, Cervantes, Molire, Swift, Voltaire, 72 feet in diameter. It even has a 14-foot oculus.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Etruscans principate keystone mural
res publica Pax Romana vault tempera
patricians satire barrel vault mosaic
plebeians pantomime groined vault (cross vault) natural law
senate ashlar oculus S
paterfamilias voussoir forum N
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Christian Good Shepherd. Second century CE. Marble, ht. 39. Vatican Museum.

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Judaism and the Rise of Christianity
6
Preview Questions The Egyptians, Mesopotamians,Greeks, and Romans made
1. What were the major significant and enduring contributions to the unfolding Western tradition.
stages in the historical At the height of their power, they were often identified by their political
development of ancient and governmental structureskingdoms, city-states, or empiresand
Israel?
historians have described them in terms of their states. However, the West-
2. How do written and
ern tradition has also been shaped and enriched by peoples who did not
material evidence
combine to reveal establish kingdoms or empires, but whose ideas and beliefs have survived
the history of Israel? to the present day. The first of these people were the Hebrews, the second,
3. What were the early Christians. Henceforth, the Western humanities constitutes a blend of
central teachings the Greco-Roman and of the Judeo-Christian traditions.
of Christianity?
In comparison to their surrounding neighbors, the Hebrews were, in-
4. How do written and
deed, small in number and exerted little political or economic dominance.
material evidence
reveal Christianitys Yet they formulated and preserved a unique religious experience and tra-
relationship to classical dition that has been active and influential for nearly three thousand years.
culture?
The early Christians emerged in a Jewish milieu, spread across the Roman
world, and came to be the single official faith of the empire in the fourth
century CE.
Judaism, the religion of the Hebrews, was affected by nearby tribes and
kingdoms while Christianity, original in many ways, owed much to Juda-
ism and to its surrounding classical world. Their similarities and differ-
ences regarding depictions of God can be seen in the image of the Good
shepherd. Hebrews were absolutely forbidden to depict their God. Early
Christians inherited this Jewish prohibition, but soon began to circumvent
this aversion by adopting symbolic images. The Good shepherd clearly
represented Christ but certainly was not meant to be him. The image is a
metaphorical, not a physical, representation. The Hebrew scriptures often
refer to God as a shepherd, and the Christians, who retained those scrip-
tures as the Old Testament, frequently referred to Jesus Christ as a shep-
herd in their scriptures, the New Testament. The statue is of high quality.
Its patron is unknown but must have been a person of some standing and

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130 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

Timeline 6.1 JEWISH CIVILIZATION


2000 BCE 1500 1250 1020 926 586 538 168 63 70 CE
Division of Baby- Macca-
Hebrews United Kingdom and Postexilic Period, Roman
Hebrews in Hebrews lonian bean
Return Mon- Wars with Reestablishment Rule in
Canaan in Egypt Cap- King-
to Canaan archy Neighboring of Jewish State Judea
tivity dom
Empires

Moses 722 BCE Babylo- 332 BCE Romans


Assyrians nians Alexander the destroy
destroy conquer Great conquers Jerusalem
Israel Judah Judah Pompey
conquers Judah

substance to commission the work. The image is remi- Abraham to protect his family and bring prosperity
niscent of the works of Praxiteles, the renowned Greek to his offspring if they agreed to obey his divine com-
sculptorin sum, a biblical image in classical form. mands. Although this Hebrew deity was associated
The Jews and the early Christians were also con- with nature, he differed from other Mesopotamian
nected in their use of a common languageGreek. deities in his commitment to justice and righteous-
The Jews adopted the Greek of the Hellenistic world ness. He was an ethical god and sought to impose
to communicate with one another after being scattered ethical principles on humans (Map 6.1).
by their political foes. Early Christians used Greek
from the start to disseminate their message across the Egypt, Exodus, and Moses The Hebrews pros-
Roman Empire. Jewish and Christian writings reveal pered for decades in Canaan, but around 1500 BCE,
evident borrowings of both words and ideas from their in a time of famine, a group migrated south into the
surrounding world. Like the statue as a connection more prosperous Egypt, which had recently been over-
of the two faiths, Judaism and Christianity speak old run by the Hyksos, a Semitic people with whom the
words in a new world and new words in an old world. Hebrews shared language and cultural traits. The He-
brews thrived over the next few centuries, until the
Egyptians overthrew the Hyksos and enslaved the
JUDAISM Hebrews. In about 1250 BCE, the extraordinary leader
Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world. Moses rallied the Hebrews and led them on the Exodus
It originated in the third millennium BCE among a from Egyptone of the most significant events in Jew-
tribal Middle Eastern people who placed themselves ish history. As the Hebrews wandered in the desert on
at the center of world history and created sacred texts the Sinai peninsula, Moses molded his followers into a
for passing on their heritage. Unlike the history and unified people under a set of ethical and societal laws,
religion of other ancient peoples, the history and re- which they believed were received from God. After
ligion of the Jews are so inextricably connected that forty years of wandering, followed by Mosess death,
they cannot be separated. the Hebrews finally returned to Canaan, the Promised
Land pledged by Yahweh to their forefathers.
The laws of Moses were unique among ancient
The People and Their Religion peoples because they were grounded in the covenant
Around 2000 BCE, Akkadian rule collapsed and Bab- between the Hebrews and God and because no dis-
ylonian power slowly emerged. Among many dis- tinction was made between religious and secular of-
placed tribes the Hebrews were the most significant fenses. All crimes were seen as sins and all sins as
historically. Under their patriarch Abraham, the oldest crimes. Those who committed crimes could not sim-
and most respected male leader, they migrated from ply make reparation to their victims; they also had to
Sumer to the land of Canaan, which included parts of seek forgiveness from God. There were some crimes,
what are now Israel and Lebanon. Abraham and his such as murder, that were so offensive to God that
people were primarily pastoralists but also engaged they could not be forgiven by human beings alone.
in some trade (Timeline 6.1). The Hebrews considered Furthermore, human life was seen as sacred because it
themselves unique, a belief based on the relationship was given by God, who created and owned all things;
between Abraham and a supernatural being who individual humans were precious because they were
S spoke to him and whom he obeyed. This deity made made in Gods image.
N a covenant, or solemn agreement (the outward sign of The core of Mosaic law was the Ten Command-
L which was the circumcision of all male children), with ments, which set forth the proper behavior of human
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Judaism 131

Learning Through Maps TABLE 6.1 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS


ASIA MINOR
1. You shall have no other gods before me.
0 50 100 mi 2. You shall not make for yourself a graven
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in
0 100 200 km heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth. . . .
CYPRUS
To Babylon 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your
God in vain. . . .
PHOENICIA 4. Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the
Lord your God commanded you. . . .
Mediterranean Sidon 5. Honor your father and your mother. . . .
Sea
Damascus 6. You shall not kill.
Tyre
7. Neither shall you commit adultery.
Sea of Galilee
ISRAEL 8. Neither shall you steal.
Samaria Jordan River
9. Neither shall you bear false witness against
Jericho your neighbor.
Jerusalem
JUDAH 10. Neither shall you covet your neighbors wife . . .
Gaza Dead Sea or anything that is your neighbors.
Beer-sheba
Source: The Bible, Revised Standard Version, Deuteronomy
5:621.
To Egypt

EGYPT

SINAI To Elath
PENINSULA

The United Kingdom under David


and Solomon, ca. 1000 BCE ARABIAN DESERT
Trade route

MAP
MHS636.1
123 ANCIENT ISRAEL
mat76620_m0501.eps
This
Firstmap
proofshows the Hebrews ancient kingdom, known as the United
Monarchy, forged by the rulers David and his son Solomon. The map
also shows the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the two Hebrew states
that emerged when the United Monarchy split on the death of Solomon,
in 926 BCE.1. Locate the capitals of these two kingdoms. 2. How was
the cultural life and religious faith of the nation of Israel influenced by foreign
neighbors? 3. What impact did Israels size and location have on its history
Figure 6.1 Stone Menorah. Second century CE. Ht. 18. Israel
and religious faith? 4. Notice the scale of the map and compare it to the
Museum, Jerusalem. Although this particular menorah dates from the
scale of Map 5.2, The Roman Empire under Hadrian.
second century CE, the seven-branched candelabrum had been in use
as a religious symbol for centuries. According to Jewish beliefs, God
gave Moses explicit instructions on how to craft the menorah, which was
beings (Table 6.1). The commandments became the ba- made for the tabernacle, or house of prayer. Later the menorah came
to symbolize knowledge and understanding as well as the light of God
sis of a renewed covenant. The Hebrew God tolerated
protecting the Jews.
no rivals; he was seen as the sole, omnipotent creator
and ruler of the universe. If individuals followed his
laws and worshiped him alone, they would be re- As they wandered through the Sinai desert, the He-
warded, and if they strayed, they would be punished. brews carried with them a sacred decorated box called
Likewise, if the people followed the divine commands, the Ark of the Covenant. Within it were the stone tab-
they would prosper, and if they disobeyed, they would lets on which the Ten Commandments were carved.
meet with adversity. As the mediator of the covenant Details of how to craft the Ark and all the other sacred
between God and the Hebrew people, Moses played a objects used in worship were dictated to Moses by God
crucial role in shaping Judaism into a comprehensive (Figure 6.1). In the desert, the deity also revealed a new
system of ethical monotheism, the belief that there is name for himselfYHWH, a name so sacred that pious S
only one God and that God demands a high standard Jews never speak or write it. In the Middle Ages, Euro- N
of personal and societal behavior. pean scholars rendered YHWH as Jehovah, but today L
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132 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

TABLE 6.2 HISTORICAL STAGES OF THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

NAME CONSTRUCTION DETAILS DATE DESTROYED

Solomons Temple. Also called Completed under King Solomon, 587/586 BCE, by the Babylonians.
First Temple. 957 BCE.
Second Temple. Also called Completed 515 BCE. Rebuilt at 70 CE, by the Romans. A section of the
Herods Temple after being order of King Herod (d. 4 BCE) Western Wall (also called the Wailing Wall)
rebuilt in 26 CE. between 20 BCE and 26 CE. survived; it was incorporated into the wall
around the Muslim Dome of the Rock and
al-Aqsa mosque in 691 CE.

this term is generally considered a false reading of the


sacred letters. In modern English, YHWH is usually
rendered as Yahweh. In biblical times, Jewish priests
called the deity Adonai, the Semitic term for Lord.

The Kingdom of Israel In about 1000 BCE, the He-


brews established a monarchy, and from the late elev-
enth century to the end of the tenth century BCE, the
nation flourished under a series of kingsSaul, David,
and Solomon. The people called themselves Hebrews to
distinguish themselves from others while others called
them Israelites. The popular king David centralized the
government and shifted the economy away from herd-
ing and toward commerce, trade, and farming.
Solomon, Davids son, brought the Hebrew, or Isra-
elite, kingdom to its pinnacle of power and prestige.
He signed treaties with other states, expanded Israels
trade across the Middle East, and raised the standard
of living for many of his subjects. He completed the
building of Jerusalem begun by David, which, with
its magnificent public structures and great temple,
rivaled the glory of other Middle Eastern cities. The
Temple of Solomon, also known as the First Temple,
housed Israels holy relics, including the Ark of the
Covenant, and became the focal point of the nations
religion, which required pilgrimages and rituals,
based on the religious calendar (Table 6.2; Figure 6.2).
The Hebrew religion required ritual offerings (sac-
rifices of animals on large altars and wine, incense,
and grain mixed with oil on small altars) twice daily.
These offerings were conducted by priests in the Tem-
ple in Jerusalem as a community ritual for the entire
Hebrew nation; individuals could also arrange for sac-
rifices to be made on their own behalf.

Figure 6.2 Horned Altar. Tenth century BCE. Carved limestone,


ht. 261/2. The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago. Middle
Eastern peoples made sacrifices to their deities on altars, but the small
horned altar, as pictured here, was unique to the Hebrews. Horned altars
are described in the Bible, especially as a ritual object in the Temple in
Jerusalem, built in the tenth century BCE. However, this horned altar was
S discovered at Megiddo, one of the cities of the Hebrew kingdom. Originally,
N then, sacrifices could be performed away from the Temple in Jerusalem.
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Judaism 133

northern and southern tribes. When Solomon died in


926 BCE, the tensions between the regions intensified
and the United Monarchy separated into two states:
Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria, and Ju-
dah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem.
During the period of the two Hebrew kingdoms,
a new type of religious leader, known as a prophet,
appeared. The prophets warned of the fatal conse-
quences of breaking Yahwehs commandments. They
also demanded social justice for the helpless and the
downtrodden. In the face of a widening gulf between
rich and poor, the prophets predicted that if the well-
off did not aid the less fortunate, Yahweh would bring
down the evil rulers and, in the future, punish the
selfish and reward the sufferers. But the words of the
prophets, such as Hosea and Amos in Israel and Isaiah
and Jeremiah in Judah, seemed to go unheeded.

The Babylonian Captivity and the Postexilic


Period In 722 BCE, the tiny nation of Israel was de-
stroyed by the Assyrians. Judah, to the south, endured
for another one hundred fifty years, but in 586 BCE,
the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroying Solo-
mons Temple in Jerusalem and deporting most of the
Hebrews to Babylonia. The approximately forty years
of exile, known as the Babylonian Captivity, became
Figure 6.3 Torah Scroll of the Pentateuch. Nuremberg, 17001751. one of the major turning points in Jewish history.
Johann Conrad Weiss. Ink on vellum, staves, wood with silver, cast At the end of the sixth century, the Jews ( Jew
and engraved. The Jewish Museum, New York. The ancient Hebrews
comes from Hebrew yehudi [yeh-HU-dee] meaning
recorded their scriptures on parchment scrolls. The scroll of the Pentateuch
was wound on two staves. The scrolls were not decorated or illuminated Judaean via the Greek iudaios and Latin Judaeus; af-
with designs, animals, or humans because the Bible forbade any likeness ter the exile, Jew tended to displace both Israelite and
of Yahweh and artistic expressions were not encouraged. However, some Hebrew) were freed by the triumphant Persians, who
sacred books were illustrated and ornamented at various stages of Hebrew were sweeping across the ancient world under Cyrus
history. The carved staves on which the Pentateuch was wound were
(see Chapter 2). Returning to Judah, the Jews rebuilt
often embellished. Evidence exists that by the fifth century CE, the scrolls
might have been encased in a container of precious metal, and by the Jerusalem including their Temple, now known as the
fifteenth century, they were enclosed in containers adorned with reliefs Second Temple. Believing that God had rescued them,
and Hebrew lettering. they established a theocratic statea government ruled
by those who are recognized as having special divine
guidance and approvaland dedicated themselves to
King Solomon was a patron of literature and the the correct formulation and observation of their reli-
arts, and under his rule Hebrew culture expanded, gious beliefs. Many exiles remained outside the home-
notably in law, writing, music, and dance. As the He- land and became known as Jews of the Diaspora, or
brews oral traditions gave way to written records, the Dispersion.
Hebrew authors wrote down their laws and their ear- After their return from Babylon, the Jews expanded
liest histories, which are preserved in the first books their views of Yahweh. Some of them at least came to
of the Bible (Figure 6.3). These Hebrew works pre- view their faith as universal and not restricted to the
date by five centuries the writings of the great Greek Jews. The Hebrews earlier perception of themselves
historians Herodotus and Thucydides, but, unlike as a chosen people under a universal deity was rein-
the Greek writers, the Hebrew historians made God forced as they concluded that Yahweh had used the
the central force in human history and thus trans- Persians to free them. Furthermore, the Jews started
formed the unfolding of earthly events into a moral to incorporate two new features into their religion:
drama portraying Gods relationship with his chosen eschatology, or the concern with the end of the world,
people. and an interest in apocalypse, prophecies about the
Solomons achievements came at a heavy price, for coming of God and a day of judgment. This future
they undermined his peoples religious foundations, world would be led by a Messiah, or Anointed One, S
intensified class divisions, and tended to divide the who would bring peace and justice to all. Perhaps N
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134 CHAPTER SIX: JUdAISM And THE RISE oF CHRISTIAnITY

influenced by the dualism of Persian Zoroastrianism,


Jews began to differentiate heaven and hell as places
of reward and punishment.

The Hellenistic and Roman Periods Alexander


the Great conquered Judah in 332 BCE, and after his
death the area became part of the Seleucid kingdom,
centered in Syria. Hellenistic culture and ideas prolifer-
ated and deeply affected Jewish life. Growing tensions
between the Jews and the Hellenistic leaders erupted
in 168 BCE when the Seleucid king AntiochusIV tried
to impose the worship of Greek gods on the Jews, plac-
ing a statue of Zeus in the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
Antiochuss violation of the sacred place enraged the
Maccabean clan, whose inspired leadership and brav-
ery led to a successful revolt and the recapture of the
Second Temple. The Maccabean family ruled Judah
as an independent commonwealth for approximately
one hundred years. Then, in 63 BCE, the Romans con-
quered most of the Middle East. They subsequently in-
corporated Judah (in what was now called Palestine)
into their empire as Judea and placed the Jewish lands
under client kings (loyal, pliable dependents).
The Romans ruled through the Jewish Herodian
dynasty. Herod the Great, who ruled from 37 to 4 BCE,
rebuilt Jerusalem, including the Second Temple, and
promoted Hellenistic culture (Figure 6.4). But condi-
tions under the Romans became unbearable to the
Jews, and in 66 CE a rebellion broke out. After the First
Jewish War (6670), the Romans captured Jerusalem
and destroyed the Second Temple. The Western Wall,
Figure 6.4 Model of the Reconstructed Second Temple (Herods
Temple) in Jerusalem. This model of the Second Temple shows the or Wailing Wall, of the Second Temple in Jerusalem re-
strong influence of Hellenistic-style architecture, particularly in the mained standing and came to symbolize the plight of
colonnaded arcades, the decorative frieze, and the tall, slender Corinthian the Jewish people (Figure 6.5). A revolutionary group
columns flanking the main entryway. The Second Temple was destroyed known as Zealots held out until 73 at Masada, a sheer-
by Roman legions in 70 CE, but one wall was left standing.
sided mesa on the shores of the dead Sea (Figure 6.6).

Figure 6.5 The Western Wall today. The


Western Wall, sometimes called the Wailing
Wall, is the sole remaining structure of the
temple erected by Herod the Great. When
Muslims conquered Jerusalem in the seventh
century, the Western Wall became the buttress
of the former temple mount, the Haram
es-Sherif (the Noble Sanctuary), on which
S two important mosquesMuslim houses of
N worshipwere constructed. Jews from all over
L the world come to pray at the Western Wall.
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JUdAISM 135

SLICE OF LIFE
A Jewish Eyewitness to the Destruction of the Second Temple

Flavius Josephus
A JEWISH SOLDIER IN THE ROMAN ARMY
The Jewish historian Josephus (about 37100 CE) was an Most were driven on by the hope of loot, for they
eyewitness to one of the darkest days in Jewish history: the thought that the inside of the building must be full of
destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem on Septem- money if the outside, which they could see, was made
ber 8, 70 CE. He became an admiring, though sometimes of gold. one of those who had got in forestalled the
reluctant, soldier in the Roman cause. Assigned to General attempts of Titus, who had rushed in to check them,
Titus, he was among the troops that sacked and burned the and hurled a brand against the hinges of the door.
temple on that fateful day. The following account is taken Suddenly flames appeared from within, which forced
from Josephuss History of the Jewish War (7579 CE). back Titus and his officers, leaving those outside to
kindle the blaze unhindered. In this way, though
At this moment one of the [Roman] soldiers, not wait- much against Tituss will, the Temple was burnt. . . .
ing for orders and without any dread of such an act
but driven on by some frenzy, snatched a brand from Interpreting This Slice of Life
the blazing fire and, lifted up by a comrade, hurled 1. What was the source of conflict between the Ro-
the torch through the golden door which gave access mans and the Jews?
to the buildings of the Temple Precinct from the north 2. Do you find Josephuss account credible, given that
side. As the flames surged up, a great cry to match he was both a Jew and a Roman soldier?
their feelings arose from the Jews, and they rushed
3. What role does General Titus play in the assault?
to the defence, reckless of their lives and prodigal of
their strength once they saw that the purpose of their 4. How are the Roman soldiers depicted?
previous watch was gone. . . . 5. How does Josephus depict the Jewish rebels?
As the fire gained strength, Titus found that he could
not restrain the surge of his enthusiastic soldiers. . . .

Figure 6.6 Masada, Israel. This outcropping of rock in the forbidding terrain outside Jerusalem was a
natural fortress. King Herod had built one of his palace-fortresses here in the years just before the birth of
Christ. For three years the Zealots occupied its ruins, holding out against the Romans after the end of the First
Jewish War in 70 CE.

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136 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

When their cause became hopeless, they committed Another important development in the transmis-
suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. sion of the Hebrew scriptures was their translation
To make sure the Jews would no longer be a problem into other languages. In the third century BCE, after
for the Romans, the Roman government in the late first many Jews had been influenced by Hellenistic culture,
century CE ordered the dispersal of the Jews through- a group of Alexandrian scholars collected all the au-
out the empire. However, this second Diaspora did thenticated Jewish writings and translated them into
not end the Jews cultural, intellectual, and religious Greek. This Hebrew Greek Bible was called the Sep-
existence. On the contrary, the Jewish way of life con- tuagint, from the Latin word for seventy, so named
tinued, though it changed. With the fall of the Temple because of the legend that it was translated by seventy
in Jerusalem, Jews worshiped in synagogues, or con- scholars.
gregations, which eventually were headed by rabbis, The final version of the Hebrew Bible is divided
or teachers. Over the centuries, the rabbis teachings into three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writ-
evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, based on the Torah and ings (Table 6.3). (Christians divide the Old Testament
the Talmud (from Hebrew, learning), a collection of into four parts.) The Law, also called the Torah (from
legal rulings and commentaries. Rabbinic Judaism es- Hebrew, instruction), recounts the story of Gods
tablished a mode of worship and moral code that Jews creation of the world and the early history of the He-
worldwide have followed down to modern times. brews. More important, it details the establishment
of the covenant and the foundation of the moral and
Societal and Family Relationships To be a Jew ritualistic codes of personal and societal behavior that
one had to be born of a Jewish mother, yet Hebrew underlie Judaism.
society was patriarchal. Of 1,426 people named in the The Prophets recount a good deal of historical
Hebrew Bible, 1,315 are male. Only males could bear material but above all are full of moral and spiritual
the sign of Gods covenantcircumcision. Women instruction. They reflect constantly on the Torah and
could not own or inherit property, sue in court, or initi- reminded the Hebrews when they failed to keep their
ate a divorce. Women could not enter the temple; they covenant with God and where they treated each other
worshiped in a courtyard outside. The Hebrew religion poorly. Disasters, the Prophets say, are divine rebukes.
had no goddesses. Nevertheless, the Bible recounts sto- The Writings reflect diverse viewpoints and contain
ries of numerous brave, clever, and wise women. Men many types of literature, including poetry, wise say-
were in principle equals but there is plenty of evidence ings, stories, and apocalyptic visions of the end of
for wide divisions in wealth, status, and power. Gener- time. Some of these books, such as Job, Ecclesiastes,
ally, Hebrew society had much in common with that and Proverbs, reflect in both style and content the in-
of its neighbors. It was in religion where the Hebrews fluence of other cultures on Jewish beliefs.
were different. There is also a body of Jewish literature outside
the canon. The Apocrypha are books written between
The Bible 200 BCE and 100 CE that include wisdom, literature,
The Jews enshrined their cultural developments in the stories, and history, including the history of the Mac-
Bible, their collection of sacred writings, or scriptures. cabees. Though not part of the Jewish canon, these
Known as the Old Testament to Christians, the He- books were included in the Septuagint, the Greek
brew Bible (from the Greek word for book) contains translation of the Hebrew Bible, and accepted by the
history, law, poetry, songs, stories, prayers, and philo- Roman Catholic Church as part of the Christian Old
sophical works. Evolving out of a rich and long oral Testament.
tradition, parts of the Bible probably began to assume
written form during the United Monarchy in the tenth Early Jewish Architecture and Art
century BCE. By then the Hebrews had an alphabet, The description of the Temple in 1 Kings makes it
which, like that of the Greeks, was probably derived sound similar to the long-house temples found in
from the Phoenicians. Having acquired a written other civilizations of that time and probably indicated
language and a unified political state, the Hebrews the influence of foreign neighbors. According to the
shared a consciousness of their past and desired to Bible, Solomons Temple was a rectangular building
preserve it. They assembled and recorded various his- comprising a porch; a sanctuary, or main hall; and an
torical accounts, songs, and stories, plus the sayings of inner sanctum that housed the Ark of the Covenant.
the prophets. Sometime in the fifth century BCE, Jew- Artists and craftspeople decorated the interior with
ish scholars and religious leaders canonized (declared carvings of floral designs and cherubs, highlighting
official) parts of these writings as divinely inspired. these with gold. The building was made of ashlars,
They became the first five books of the Bible, known and two large freestanding columns were placed at
S as the Torah or the Pentateuch. The Hebrew Bibles ul- the entryway. The Temple may have been raised on a
N timate form was reached in 90 CE when a council of platform. A court surrounded the Temple, and a large
L Jewish rabbis added a last set of writings to the canon. altar stood inside the court.
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Judaism 137

TABLE 6.3BOOKS OF THE HEBREW BIBLE


AND THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE OLD TESTAMENT

CHRISTIAN BIBLE
HEBREW BIBLE OLD TESTAMENT

The Law (Torah) The Pentateuch


Genesis Numbers Genesis Numbers
Exodus Deuteronomy Exodus Deuteronomy
Leviticus Leviticus

The Prophets The Historical Books


(Early Prophets) Joshua 2 Chronicles
Joshua 2 Samuel Judges Ezra
Judges 1 Kings Ruth Nehemiah
1 Samuel 2 Kings 1 Samuel Tobit*
(Later Prophets) 2 Samuel Judith*
Isaiah Micah 1 Kings Esther
Jeremiah Nahum 2 Kings 1 Maccabees*
Ezekiel Habakkuk 1 Chronicles 2 Maccabees*
Hosea Zephaniah
Joel Haggai The Poetical or Wisdom Books
Amos Zechariah Job
Obadiah Malachi Psalms
Jonah Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
The Writings Song of Solomon (Songs)
Psalms Esther Wisdom*
Proverbs Daniel Sirach*
Job Ezra
Song of Songs Nehemiah The Prophetical Books
Ruth 1 Chronicles Isaiah Obadiah
Lamentations 2 Chronicles Jeremiah Jonah
Ecclesiastes Lamentations Micah
Baruch* Nahum
Ezekiel Habakkuk
Daniel Zephaniah
Hosea Haggai
Joel Zechariah
Amos Malachi
*Roman Catholics include these books in the canon and refer to them as deutero
canonical (secondary canon); Protestants sometimes place them in an appendix
with other Apocrypha.

When the Jews were released from the Babylonian constructed a fortress-palace at present-day Araq el
Captivity by the Persians, they returned to their home- Emir in Jordan that shows this influence clearly. The fa-
land and built the Second Temple in the late sixth cen- cade of the palace blended Greek columns and oriental
tury BCE. It exhibited a simpler design and decoration carvings, typical of the Alexandrian architectural and
scheme than did Solomons Temple. Meanwhile, the decorative style. The edifice and its carvings were prob-
Jews of the Diaspora gathered in Hellenistic cities to ably similar to the Second Temple in Jerusalem. One of
read the Torah and to pray in buildings that became the few decorations remaining from this palace is a lion
synagogues, or houses of worship. No record survives fountain (Figure 6.7). Carved in high relief, the lion is
of how these synagogues looked or how they might well proportioned and conveys a sense of power with
have been decorated until the third century CE. its raised front paw and open mouth.
Greek influences became apparent in Jewish ar- The lingering influence of late Greek architecture S
chitecture during Hellenistic times. One Maccabean on Jewish structures is also seen in a set of tombs dug N
ruler, John Hyrcanus [hear-KAY-nuhs] (135106 BCE), out of the soft limestone rocks east of Jerusalem in the L
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138 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

Kidron Valley. According to the inscription on them,


these tombs contain the remains of priests from the
Hezir family (Figure 6.8). The tomb on the left displays
Doric columns, and the one in the center fuses Greek
Ionic columns and an Egyptian pyramidal roof. Sev-
eral other tombs in the vicinity reveal a similar meld-
ing of styles.
During the reign of King Herod the Great
(r. 374BCE), architecture in Judea exhibited a further
mix of Greek styles with Jewish motifs. King Herods
magnificent fortress-palace at Masada may have been
a conscious blending of the two cultures in an effort to
bridge the gap between the Roman and Jewish worlds
(see Figure 6.6). The various buildings in Herods com-
plex contained many representative Greco-Roman fea-
tures, including fluted Corinthian columns and marble
Figure 6.7 Lion Fountain at the Palace of John Hyrcanus. Second facings (Figure 6.9).
century BCE. Araq el Emir, Jordan. This lion, Greco-Oriental in style, The Second Commandment forbade graven images,
was carved deeply into the stones surface to create a high-relief work.
which meant cult images that could be worshiped.
The lions tail, wrapped around its right rear leg, is balanced by the raised
left front leg, creating a feeling of strength and agility. Jews always observed this prohibition strictly. The
commandment also forbade likenessesa prohibi-
tion that has been understood in different ways from
antiquity to the present. Clearly, no cult images were
permitted in any circumstances. But as noted there
were images in the Temple and, in several places in the
Figure 6.8 Tomb of Bene Hezir. Early first century BCE. Kidron Hebrew Bible, God commanded images to be made.
Valley, Israel. The tomb of Bene Hezir (on the left) shows the influence The surviving lion from John Hyrcanuss palace can-
of Greek architecture in its post-and-lintel construction and its Doric
columns. Even though the area was subject to Roman impact at this
not have been the only likeness in that place. Whatever
time, Roman influence is not apparent in the architecture. Priests from else there may have been has vanished along with
the Hezir family, as recorded in 1 Chronicles 24, were buried in what has everything else from earlier centuries. The palace of
been determined to be the oldest tomb in Israels Kidron Valley. Scholars Herod at Masada had beautiful geometric designs
disagree over whether the structure in the center with the pyramidal roof
belonged to the tomb of Bene Hezir.

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Judaism 139

Figure 6.9 Hall of Herods North


Palace. Late first century BCE. Masada,
Israel. These Corinthian columns were
originally plastered over and painted. Carved
directly out of the hills rock, they formed a
natural corridor around the banqueting hall.
Herod built this and other splendid palaces
to impress the Jews and win their political
sympathy, but he failed to do either.

(Figure 6.10), but no likenesses of humans or animals the end of the fifth century CE, a floor mosaic from the
survive. From the middle of the third century, how- synagogue Hammam Lif in Tunisia shows in another
ever, at Dura Europos in upper Mesopotamia, there medium the capacity of Jewish artists to create images
survive the ruins of a magnificent synagogue that had that were beautiful, inspiring, and related to the scrip-
beautiful figural images depicting many scenes from tures (Figure 6.13). The so-called Exodus Prohibition
the scriptures (Figures 6.11 and 6.12). A Jewish cata- may have put a damper on Jewish figural art but did
comb in Rome has images from the same period. By not completely prevent it.

Figure 6.10 Mosaic from


Herods Palace. Late first
century BCE. Masada, Israel.
The Greek practice of mosaic
making was adopted by both
the Romans and the Jews. The
patterned designs around the
borders of this mosaic from
Herods Palace are typically
Greek, and the organic image S
in the center is typically Jewish. N
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140 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

Figure 6.11 Moses Giving Water to


the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Fresco.
Synagogue. 240s CE. Dura Europos, Syria.
Reconstructed in the National Museum,
Damascus, Syria. This fresco is from a
house-synagogue (a place of worship set up
within a private residence) that was discovered
in the early twentieth century, after having
been filled with rubble in 256 CE, as part of
a defense plan for the city of Dura Europos.
Only sections of the walls survive. The room
featured benches running around the walls and
a niche for the Torah scrolls in the western wall.
The paintings depict various events from the
Hebrew Bible, most having to do with national
salvation, such as Samuel Anointing David, the
Ark Brought to Jerusalem, and the Exodus from
Egypt. Painted by anonymous artists, these
works were executed in tempera, a medium
made of pigments blended with egg yolks and
water, applied to dry plaster. This fresco was
part of the Exodus group and was based on
Numbers 2:212. It portrays Moses seated and
holding a staff, as he delivers life-giving water
(via tubes) to the tribes, symbolized by twelve
huts, each with a single figure. A menorah
stands in the center rear.

Figure 6.12 Scenes from the Western Wall, Synagogue of Dura Europos, Syria. 240s CE. National
Museum, Damascus. In the center of the wall is the Torah shrine, the place where the Torah rolls were
kept, above which is a representation of the Templelong since destroyedand of a menorah (left) and the
sacrifice of Isaac (right). Spreading across the whole wall is a beautiful, and exceedingly well accomplished,
set of images representing key scenes from the Hebrew Bible.

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Christianity 141

began within the Jewish faith among the followers of


Jesus, a deeply pious and charismatic Jew who ended
up founding a dynamic new religion instead of re-
newing Judaism.
Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Judea in about
4 BCE (a date that reflects errors in early Christian time-
reckoning). After narrating the events surrounding his
birth, the accounts of Jesuss life are almost silent until
he reaches the age of about thirty, when he commenced
a teaching mission that placed him squarely in conflict
with prevailing Jewish beliefs and authorities. Jews of
various social classes heard Jesuss message, and he
soon had a small group of followers who believed that
he was the Messiah, the Anointed One who would de-
liver the Jews, promised by God to the prophets. He
was also termed the Christ, taken from the Greek for
the anointed one. Performing miracles and healing
the sick, he preached that the Kingdom of God was at
hand. Neither then nor now has it been easy to say just
what Jesus meant by Kingdom of God, but to pre-
pare for it he urged his followers to practice a demand-
Figure 6.13 Mosaic of a Duck Enclosed in a Vine Scroll. Fourth
ing and loving ethic.
to fifth century CE. 341/2 331/16. From the Floor of a Synagogue
at Hammam Lif, Tunisia. Brooklyn Museum. Ducks could symbolize Growing discord between the Jewish establishment
wealth, good fortune, or a clever person. This image represents one panel and this messianic band caused Roman leaders to clas-
from a floor mosaic that had numerous images of plants, birds, other sify Jesus as a political rebel. In about 33 CE, he was
animals, and Jewish symbols, such as a menorah. crucified by the Romans (Timeline 6.2). Three days
later, some of his followers reported that Jesus had
risen from the dead and reappeared among them. His
CHRISTIANITY resurrection became the ultimate miracle associated
The rise of Christianity was as surprising in the short with his teachings, the sign that immortal life awaited
term as it was important in the long term. The wan- those who believed in him as the son of God and as the
dering teacher Jesus Christ was neither rich nor pow- Messiah. After forty days, Jesus ascended into heaven,
erful, but he attracted followers who eventually took though not before pledging to return when the world
his teachings throughout the Roman world and be- came to an end.
yond. Originally a sect within Judaism, Christianity The outline of Jesuss life is set forth in the first three
gradually emerged as a distinct religion. One measure books, called Gospels, of the Christian scriptures. The
of the historical impact of Christianity lies in the way early Christian community believed that the writers,
dates have been marked in the Western world. known as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were witnesses to
The period before Jesuss birth is known as BC, or Jesuss message; hence they were called evangelists af-
before Christ, and the era after his birth is termed AD, ter the Greek word evangelionfor those who preached
or anno Domini, Latin words meaning in the year of the the gospel, or the good news. The Gospels, although
Lord, the title of respect given to Jesus by Christians. providing evidence for the historical Jesus, were not in-
Although Christianity and the church have declined tended as histories in the Greco-Roman sense because
from their zenith in the Middle Ages, the Christian they were addressed to Christian converts. Marks Gos-
calendar remains in effect throughout the West as well pel was the earliest, dating from about 70; the Gospels
as in many other parts of the worlda symbol of the of Matthew and Luke are dated a little later. They
continuing power of this creed. In this textbook, reflect- made use of Marks narrative and added the logoi, the
ing todays multicultural world, the term BCE, before sayings of Jesus. These three works are known as
common era, replaces BC, and the term CE, common the synoptic Gospels (from the Greek words syn, for
era, replaces AD. together, and opsis, for view) because they take es-
sentially the same point of view toward their subject.
The Life of Jesus Christ Between 90 and 100, a fourth, and somewhat different,
and the New Testament Gospel appearedthat of Johnwhich treats Jesus as
The surviving primary sources for the origin of Chris- a wisdom teacher, a revealer of cosmic truths. The au-
tianity are writings in Greek by early believers who thor of the Fourth Gospel has Jesus teach the possibil- S
were openly partisan. According to them, Christianity ity of being born again to eternal life. N
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142 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

Timeline 6.2 CHRISTIANITY TO 284 CE


4 BCE 30 CE 70 100 284

Life of Age of Scriptures Age of the Church Fathers


Jesus Apostles Written (to 476)

38 65 200 250
Pauls missionary Tertullian Persecutions
travels and letters flourished by Decius;
Origen flourished

Despite their similarities, the synoptic Gospels re- and Thessalonica (Macedonia), Corinth (Greece), and
flect a schism, or split, in the early Christian church. Rome (Map 6.2).
Peter, one of Jesuss original disciples, headed a Juda- Pauls interpretation of the life of Jesus was based
izing group that stressed the necessity of first becom- on the Suffering Servant section of the book of Isaiah
ing a Jew before becoming a Christian. Paul, a Jew in the Old Testament. The Suffering Servant was de-
who converted to Christianity after the death of Je- scribed as noble and guiltless, but misunderstood and
sus, led a group that welcomed gentile, or non-Jewish, suffering on behalf of others. Paul set forth the doc-
members. Marks Gospel was written in part to sup- trine of the Atonement, whereby a blameless Christ
port Pauls gentile faction and therefore takes a nega- suffered on the cross to pay for the sins of humankind.
tive tone toward Jews. Matthew was written in part Christs life and death initiated a new moral order by
as a corrective to Mark and made Peter, according to offering salvation to sinful human beings who other-
Roman Catholic doctrine, the rock on which the wise were doomed to eternal death and punishment
church was foundedthe biblical source for the belief by Adams first sin. But, according to Paul, human
that Peter was the first pope. redemption was not automatically given, for a sinner
Lukes Gospel was an effort by the early Roman must have faith in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.
church to deny, after the fact, that a schism had ever Pauls teachings also stressed that Christs resurrec-
existed. Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, the tion, which guaranteed everlasting life for others, was
earliest account of the fledgling Christian commu- the heart of Christian beliefs, an argument echoed
nity. This work records the activities of Jesuss fol- in the synoptic Gospels. Pauline Christianity made a
lowers immediately after his resurrection and defines radical break with Judaism by nullifying the old laws
some of the churchs first rituals and beliefs, includ- authority and claiming that the true heirs of Abraham
ing a rejection of Jewish dietary laws and the practice were not the Jews but the followers of Christ. Paul also
of circumcision. The Acts also affirmed the opening affirmed that obedience to Christ led to righteousness,
of Christianity to gentiles, a policy that in the future which demanded ascetic living, with particular stress
would aid in the spread of Christianity. At the time on sexual chastity.
the Acts was written, however, Paul and other mis- The final section of the Christian scriptures was the
sionaries were preaching mainly to Greek-speaking book of Revelation, dating from about 95. This apoca-
Jews and Jewish converts scattered across the Roman lyptic scripture projected the end of the world and the
Empire. Pauls Roman citizenship enabled him to institution of a new moral order on the occasion of Je-
move about freely. suss return and final judgment. Revelations picture
The meaning of Jesuss life and teachings was fur- of Rome as a corrupt Babylon destined for destruc-
ther clarified by Paul, who had persecuted the Chris- tion reflected the early churchs hatred of the exist-
tians of Judea before joining the new faith. Between ing political and social order. But the book, filled with
50 and 62, Paul, who was familiar with Greek philoso- enigmatic sayings and symbols, proved controversial,
phy, addressed both local issues and broader theologi- and not all ancient church communities accepted its
cal concerns in epistles, or letters, the earliest writings authority.
among the Christian scriptures, although only seven By the midsecond century, the four Gospels, the
of the fourteen so-called Pauline epistles are gener- Acts of the Apostles, the fourteen Pauline epistles, the
ally recognized as having been written by him. These seven non-Pauline epistles, and Revelation were ac-
epistles constitute Christianitys first theology, or cepted as the canon of Christian scriptures, or the New
presentation of religious teachings in a reasonably Testament (Table 6.4). Believing themselves to be the
S organized fashion. Paul directed his letters to com- new Israel, the early Christians also retained the He-
N munities he either founded or visited across the Ro- brew scriptures, called the Old Testament. Although the
L man Empire: Ephesus and Colossae (Galatia), Philippi spoken language of the Jews in Palestine was Aramaic,
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Learning Through Maps
Milan

Pisa

Black Sea

Ad
tic

ri
a
Rome Se
MACEDONIA

a
Puteoli Thessalonica Philippi
Constantinople
Beroea
BITHYNIA
Aegean
CORCYRA Pergamum
Sea
SICILY Smyrna GALATIA
Carthage Corinth Athens Ephesus Colossae
Syracuse Tarsus
Antioch

Knossos CYPRUS SYRIA


Medi CRETE
terranea Damascus
n Sea Tyre
Tripoli
Caesarea Nazareth
Cyrene
PALESTINE Samaria
Joppa Jerusalem
Bethlehem
Alexandria
Dead
EGYPT Sea
Memphis

0 125 250 mi
Major church at the end of
Pauls ministry, ca. 62 0 125 250 km Red

N
R. Sea

MAP 6.2
MHS63 138THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WORLD ile
mat76620_m0502.eps
This map shows the spread of Christianity after the death of Jesus.
First proof
TABLE 6.4 BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
1. Identify the major churches in existence by the end of Pauls ministry.
2. Which of these churches did Paul found or visit? 3. Which church
Gospels
was best positioned to become the mother church of Christianity? Why?
4. Consider the impact of geography on the location of these churches. Matthew Luke
5. Is there a connection between the major cities on Map 5.2, the Roman
Mark John
Empire under Hadrian, and the location of the Christian churches on
this map? Acts of the Apostles
Acts

a Semitic tongue, the Christian canon was composed in Epistles


Koin Greek, like the Hebrew Septuagint. The use of Romans Titus
Greek reflected the triumph of Paul and the gentiles as
1 Corinthians Philemon
well as the pervasive Hellenistic culture.
2 Corinthians Hebrews
Galatians James
Christians and Jews Ephesians 1 Peter
Despite the distinctive features of early Christianity, Philippians 2 Peter
many Jewish ideas and rituals contributed to the new Colossians 1 John
religion. The Christian vision of Yahweh was rooted in 1 Thessalonians 2 John
Judaism: a single, creating, universal God who spoke 2 Thessalonians 3 John
through sacred texts (the canon) and who demanded 1 Timothy Jude
moral behavior from all humans. Both Jewish and 2 Timothy
Christian ethical standards required social justice
for individuals and for the community. Likewise, the Apocalypse S
Christian image of Jesus as Messiah was framed within Revelation N
the context of Jewish prophetic literature. Christian L
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144 CHAPTER SIX: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity

apocalyptic writing, such as Revelation, also shared a taught the kinship of humanity, and the Neoplatonists
common literary form with Jewish models such as the praised the spiritual realm at the expense of the physi-
book of Daniel. cal world.
Even when Christians rejected specific Jewish ideas,
such as the sanctity of the Mosaic law, the early church
continued discussions on human righteousness and Christians in the Roman Empire
sin in terms familiar to Jews. The Christians probably The Romans initially regarded the Christians as a
adapted their rite of baptism from a ceremony simi- Jewish sect, but during the First Jewish War, the Chris-
lar to that of the Jews of the Diaspora. Christians also tians evidently held themselves aloof. The Christian
kept the idea of the Sabbath but changed it from Sat- attitude seemed to be that the Jews had brought ca-
urday to Sunday, and they transformed the festival of lamity upon themselves through their rejection of
Passover (a celebration of the Hebrews escape from Christ. Similarly, Christians remained untouched dur-
Egypt) to Easter (a festival celebrating Jesuss resurrec- ing later persecutions of Jews by Romans in 115117
tion). The church sanctuary as a focal point for prayer and in 132135. As their faith expanded during the
and learning evolved out of the Jewish synagogue, as first century, individual Christians encountered spo-
did Christian priests from the Jewish elders. And the radic persecution, though there was no state policy of
Christian liturgy, or the service of public worship, bor- persecuting Christianity.
rowed heavily from the Jewish service with its hymns, As the empire descended into chaos in the third
prayers, and Bible reading. century, Christians were sometimes blamed for its
Judaism also influenced Christian thought by trans- troubles. The emperor Decius [DEE-see-us] (r. 249251)
mitting certain ideas from Zoroastrianism, including mounted a wide-ranging political test that required all
such dualistic concepts as Satan as the personification citizens (men, women, and children) to make a token
of evil, heaven and hell as the two destinies of human- sacrifice to him. When the Christians refused to honor
kind, and a divine savior who would appear at the end the emperor in this manner, hundreds of them were
of time. killed, including several of their local leaders, or bish-
Despite the common heritage of Christians and ops. Deciuss sudden death ended this assault, but in
Jews, relations between them were stormy. After the 257 Valerian (r. 253260) renewed it, which resulted in
Council at Jamnia in Judea in 90, when the Jews es- the martyrdom of the bishop of Rome and the leading
tablished the final version of their sacred canon, there intellectual, Cyprian. The killings eventually ceased,
was no place in Judaism for the Christian message. but for the rest of the century the survival of the Chris-
As revealed in Pauls letters, the Jews viewed the fol- tian church was uncertain and depended on a muted
lowers of Jesus Christ as apostates, people who had existence.
abandoned or renounced their true religion. Accord- Despite persecutions by the authorities, the Christian
ingly, the Jews tried to deny the Christians the protec- church drew much sustenance from Roman culture.
tion that Jewish leaders had negotiated with Roman The language of the church in the western provinces
authorities regarding their distinctive religious be- became Latin, and in the eastern provinces the religious
liefs. For example, Jews were not required to worship leaders adopted Greek. The canon law that governed
the emperor as a god. Until the end of the second cen- the church was based on the Roman civil law. Most im-
tury, Jews and Christians occasionally engaged in vio- portant, the church modeled itself on the Roman state:
lent clashes. bishops, the chief Christian officers in cities, had juris-
diction over territories called dioceses just as the secu-
lar governors controlled administrative dioceses.
Christianity and Greco-Roman In addition, the church was moving toward a mo-
Religions and Philosophies narchical form of government. Because the authority
Christianity also benefited from its contacts with Greco- of the officeholders was believed to descend from Je-
Roman mystery cults and philosophies. Whether or not suss faithful supporters, those bishoprics (territories
the rituals of the cults of Cybele, Isis, or Mithra directly ruled by bishops) established by apostlessuch as the
influenced Christianity, they did share religious ideas one in Rome that tradition claimed was founded by
for example, salvation through the sacrifice of a savior, both Peter and Paulemerged as the most powerful.
sacred meals, and hymns. Christianity, as a monothe- From an insignificant number of followers at the end
istic religion, paralleled movements within the cults of of the first century, the church had attained a member-
the second and third centuries that were blending all ship of perhaps five million, or about a tenth of the pop-
deities into the worship of a single divinity. Among the ulation of the empire, by the end of the third century.
Greco-Roman philosophies, both Stoicism and Neo The smallest communities were scattered along the
S platonism influenced Christianity as the church shifted frontiers, and the largest congregations were in Rome
N from its Jewish roots and became hellenized; the Stoics and the older eastern cities. Social composition of the
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Christianity 145

church came to include progressively higher classes. diatribes against the pleasures of the theaters and are-
By the late second century, the middle classes, espe- nas and his intense denunciation of women as sexual
cially merchants and traders, were joining the church. temptresses became legendary. In the severest terms,
Aristocratic women sought membership, but men of Tertullian rejected the Greco-Roman humanistic heri-
the highest classes tended to remain unconverted. tage, preferring the culture of Christianity.
Christianitys appeal to women was complex, though Origen of Alexandria shared Tertullians puritani-
all seemed to respond to its promise of salvation and cal zeal, but he did not repudiate humanistic learning.
the apostle Pauls egalitarian vision (Galatians 3:28): In his mature writings, composed in Greek, Origen
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond brought Christian thought into harmony with Pla-
nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all tonism and Stoicism. Origens Jesus was not the re-
one in Christ Jesus. Female converts also found the deemer of the Gospels but, rather, the logos of Stoicism
Christian community to be a refuge from the anonym- (see Chapter 4). The logos, or reason, liberated the hu-
ity and cruelty of Roman society; the church formed a man soul so that it might move through different lev-
secret underworld of close relationships among people els of reality to reach God. Origens Platonism led him
drawn together by an ascetic but loving way of life. to reject the notion of the resurrection of the body as
Christianity offered power by allowing them to influ- described in the Gospels and Pauls letters and to as-
ence others by their faith; it widened their horizons sert instead that the soul is eternal. Although some
through intimate contacts with spiritual leaders; it gave of Origens ideas were later condemned, his philo-
them new identities through foreign travel and involve- sophic writings, which were read secretly, helped free
ment in a cause that was life sustaining; and, for those Christianity from its Jewish framework and appealed
who chose lives of chastity, it could serve as a means of to intellectuals. Origen also initiated the allegorical
birth control and freedom from the constraints of mar- method of reading the scriptures. Behind the plain
riage and family life. words on the page, Origen taught, there were layers
upon layers of deeper meaning.
Christian women writers in this earliest period were
Early Christian Literature very rare, because intellectual discourse was domi-
By the late second century, the status of the church nated by men. Women did play important roles in the
had attracted the attention of leading Roman intellec- new faithsuch as Mary Magdalene, who waited at Je-
tuals, such as the philosopher Celsus [KEL-suhs] and suss empty tomb, and Lydia and Priscilla, whom Paul
the physician Galen [GAY-len]. Celsus ridiculed the met on his travelsbut their voices are almost always
Christian notion of the resurrection of the body and heard indirectly. In their theoretical writings, men of-
the new religions appeal to women and slaves. On the ten addressed womens issues, such as Tertullians The
other hand, Galen found merit in Christianity because Apparel of Women. Nevertheless, the voice of one
of its philosophical approach to life and its emphasis Christian woman from this period has come down to
on strict self-discipline (see Chapter 7). us: that of Vibia Perpetua (about 181203 CE) of Car-
In the second century, postbiblical Christian litera- thage in North Africa, one of the first female saints. An
ture, generally unremarked by the secular world, took anonymous account of the Christian martyrs struggles
two forms. Apologists, vigorous, principled defenders includes a verbatim reproduction of Perpetuas writings
of Christianity, offered arguments that Christians were in prison. Filled with heartbreaking detail, the account
loyal, dependable subjects of Rome; that Christianity describes her prison ordeal as she awaited death while
and Judaism were different; and that living a Chris- nursing her child. The sentence was imposed because
tian life in a pagan world was difficult, but possible. she refused to renounce her faith (see Slice of Life).
Theologiansfor example, Tertullian [tehr-TULL-ee-
un] (about 160230) and Origen [OHR-uh-juhn] of Alex-
andria (about 185254)began to define basic Christian Early Christian Art
teachings, to create a distinctive Christian vocabulary, Although some early Christian writers, including Ter-
and to relate Christian thought to classical learning. tullian and Origen, condemned the depiction of re-
Tertullians life and writings showed the uncom- ligious subjects as blasphemous, pious Christians,
promising nature of Christianity. Trained in Stoic attracted by the pull of humanism, commissioned fres-
philosophy in Roman Carthage, Tertullian later con- coes for underground burial chambers and sculptures
verted to the new faith after he witnessed the serenity for their sarcophagi, or marble tombs. Christian paint-
of Christians dying for their religion. The strength of ers and sculptors slowly fused their religious vision
his beliefs made him a spokesperson for North Africa, with the Greco-Roman tradition, a style that would
where a cult of martyrs made the area the Bible belt dominate the art of the late empire. Religious values
of the Roman world. Writing in Latin, he helped to and themes were central to Western art for more than S
shape the western churchs voice in that language. His a thousand years, until the Italian Renaissance. N
L
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146 CHAPTER SIX: JUdAISM And THE RISE oF CHRISTIAnITY

SLICE OF LIFE
A Christian Mother Faces Death from Roman Authorities

Vibia Perpetua
A MARTYR IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Vibia Perpetua, an educated young woman from a wealthy wished. I gave suck to my starving child. . . . I was
Carthaginian family and a convert to Christianity, defied permitted to keep my child with me in prison. His
an edict against proselytizing issued by the non-Christian strength came back quickly, which alleviated my pain
emperor in 202. She was jailed and died in the arena of and anguish. The prison was suddenly like a palace; I
Carthage in 203. This excerpt is part of her personal ac- felt more comfortable there than anywhere else.
count of her last days before martyrdom.
Interpreting This Slice of Life
A few days later we were moved to a prison [in Car- 1. Why was Vibia Perpetua being held captive by the
thage]. I was frightened, because I had never been in Romans?
such a dark place. A sad day! The large number of pris- 2. Since the Roman guards were eager for bribes,
oners made the place stifling. The soldiers tried to ex- what does this reveal about their attitude toward
tort money from us. I was also tormented by worry for Christians?
my child. Finally, Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed
3. How does Vibia Perpetuas faith sustain her in
deacons responsible for taking care of us, bribed the
prison?
guards to allow us a few hours in a better part of the
prison to regain our strength. All the prisoners were 4. Compare and contrast the religious conflict depicted
released from the dungeon and allowed to do as they here with religious conflicts in modern times.

In imperial Rome, citizens had the legal right to bury


their dead in catacombs (underground passageways
and chambers) alongside the roads leading out of Rome
(Figure 6.14). Many catacombs had arcosoliums, square
or rectangular arched rooms cut into the rock to serve
as chapels or burial vaults. By the late second century,
some of the tombs displayed Christian symbols and
subjects. Some images were purely symbolic, for ex-
ample, crosses, chi-rhos, evangelist symbols, and fish
(ichthus, the Greek word for fish, makes an anagram
interpreted as Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior) (Fig-
ure 6.15). In the catacomb of Priscilla, a third-century
fresco depicts a shepherd as a symbol of Jesus (see In-
terpreting Art). This depiction, one of the most popu-
lar figural image in early Christian art, is based on the
idea of Jesus as the shepherd of his flock of followers.
Even though the shepherd and sheep convey a Chris-
tian message, the image adapts a familiar Greco-Roman

Figure 6.14 The Roman Catacombs: A Narrow Corridor with Niches


for Burials. Because of their belief in a bodily resurrection, proper burial
loomed large in the minds of early Christians. Roman Christians joined
with other citizens in burying their dead along subterranean passages
underneath the city. In 400, when Christianity triumphed in Rome, the
S custom of catacomb burial ceased. Knowledge of the catacombs passed
N into oblivion until 1578, when they were rediscovered and became subjects
L of study and veneration.
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Interpreting Art
Context Priscilla was a
Literary Source The Bible Roman woman of senatorial rank
refers to shepherds many times, but who donated the land where the
Luke 15: 45 is almost certainly the catacomb that bears her name
source here: Who among you, if he is located. She may have been
has a hundred sheep and loses one Christian.
of them, does not leave the ninety-
nine in the wasteland and follow Religious Perspective
the lost one until he finds it? And Shepherds are mentioned often in
when he finds it, he puts it on his both the Jewish and Christian Bibles
shoulders in jubilation. and stand for the loving care of God
for his people. It is a metaphor that
Composition A very simple spawned not only art but also poetry
image comprising a shepherd, two and song.
sheep, two trees or bushes, and
two birds. Cultural Perspective
The shepherd image was originally
Style A limited color scheme, secular and symbolized either a king
and faint, almost fuzzy, illusionistic and his people or a teacher and his
figures float in space. This style was pupils. Christianity took over the
common in late Hellenistic times. image. Tombs in antiquity had often
been decorated, but in Egypt the
images were intended to delight the
dead person in the next life whereas
Christian images were meant to
inspire and comfort the living.

Christ as the Good Shepherd. Third century CE. Fresco. Catacomb of Priscilla,
Rome. This fresco was painted on the ceiling of an arcosolium in the catacomb beside
the Via Salaria.

1. Literary Source What is the source for the Good Shepherd 4. Context Define catacomb and arcosolium.
image? 5. Religious Perspective What is the significance of a shep-
2. Composition Where is this image located and why is it there? herds image?
3. Style What are the chief stylistic features of this image?

themeknown in both art and literaturethat identi-


fied such diverse figures as the philosopher Pythagoras
and the orphic cult leader orpheus with shepherds.
The pose of the youth carrying an animal on his shoul-
ders appeared in Archaic Greek sculpture as early as
the sixth century BCE (Figure 6.16). The painter of the
Good Shepherd ceiling fresco portrays the shepherd as
a beardless youth without distinctive, godlike traits.
The second-century statue of a shepherd depicted as

Figure 6.15 Symbolism and Early Christian Art. Christ monogram


in a wreath. Central panel of a sarcophagus, marble bas relief, Early
Christian, 4th century CE. Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican Museums.
Early Christians had some aversion to figural representations and used
symbols, such as chi-rho and alpha-omega. Chi and rho are the first two
letters of Christ in Greek. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters
of the Greek alphabet, signifying God as the beginning and the end. The
evangelist symbolsman, lion, bull, and eaglewere derived from the
S
book of Revelation; however, the four symbols have numerous antecedents, N
for example, in Assyrian iconography. L
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Figure 6.17 Scenes from Chamber (Arcosolium) of the Velata,
Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome. Ca. 250300. The deceased woman is
depicted in the center in an orans (praying) position. Presumably she
is ascending to heaven. This would be a standard image in Christian art
until modern times. At the figures right (the viewers left), a bishop is
blessing the womans wedding. The bride holds a scroll, the Roman tabula
nuptialis, a document that spelled out the wifes duties. A youth presents
the wedding veil. To the figures left (the viewers right), the woman is
depicted with an infant child. Such depictions of mother and child would
soon be appropriated by Christian artists for the standard depiction of Mary
and Jesus. In fact, the oldest surviving image of Mary and the baby Jesus
stands on another wall of this same arcosolium.

the chapter-opening image (see page 128) attests to the


widespread use of this image. By such representations
as these, the artists in effect declared the limits of their
art in penetrating the mystery of Jesus as both God
and man. That is, they confined themselves to sym-
bolic images.
In the catacomb of Priscilla, in the same arcosolium
whose ceiling is graced by the Good Shepherd, a late
third-century image reveals scenes from the life of a
Figure 6.16 Calf Bearer. Ca. 570 BCE. Marble, ht. 65. Acropolis dead woman buried there (Figure 6.17). Christian art
Museum, Athens. This sixth-century BCE Greek statue shows a young was beginning to gain some narrative sophistication
man carrying a calf probably intended for a ritual sacrifice. The statue is
executed in the kouros style, popular in the Archaic Age, as indicated by the and its production values were getting higher and
frontality, stiffness, and stylized beard. The shepherd image later became higher. This may point to greater wealth in the Chris-
associated with Jesus in the early Christian period. tian community.

SUMMARY
The historical experience of the Hebrews was relent- their own failures. The Hebrews wrote down a vast
lessly difficult. They were always surrounded by more library of religious literature, some of which was es-
powerful peoples who attacked and conquered them. sentially historical and spelled out the formulation of
They lived in a tiny land from which it was hard to the covenant and Gods ongoing relationship with his
scratch a bare existence. However challenging their people. Some of it was prophetic and constantly called
lives may have been, the Hebrews clung tenaciously people to believe and to behave. Some of it was beauti-
to their covenant with Yahweh that obliged them to ful literature, such as the Psalms. And some of it was
believe in only one God, to worship him in specifi- homey, practical advice for daily living.
S cally defined ways, and to promote justice among during Augustuss reign over the Roman world, a
N themselves. Viewing God as just and righteous, the young Jew, Jesus, arose and began calling on people
L Hebrews believed that their calamities resulted from to repent and hear the good news, the gospel, that he
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was professing. Jesus attracted a band of loyal follow- writings that they called the new Testament, to dif-
ers and taught them by means of inspiring stories. His ferentiate those writings from the Hebrew Scriptures,
message was simple, and in a Jewish context, ancient: thereafter called by Christians the old Testament.
love God and love your neighbor. But Jesus, who called Christianity spread throughout the Roman world
himself the son of God, also relaxed the requirements despite occasional persecution. Christians began to
of the countless rules under which Jews had always develop a church with regular officials and to write
lived. The Romans saw Jesus as a troublemaker and works of theology, books that sought to interpret and
executed him. His dispirited followers rallied and a explain the Christian message. And, finally, Christi-
Jewish convert, Paul, joined their number. Gradually, anity began to adapt the arts of antiquity to its own
they spelled out the Christian message in a body of purposes.

The Legacy of Judaism and Early Christianity


not a day goes by when Israel is not in the news. Sur- indeed weakened Christianitys influence but has by
rounded by hostile people, the Jews in that country no means eradicated it. The Religious Right and the
maintain confidence in their right to the land God Catholic Church remain major players in American
promised Abraham. In antiquity, Jews were dispar- politics, although religious influences in European
aged because they got in the way of imperialists or society are increasingly weak; for example, topics like
because they were a small minority practicing what abortion and evolution are prominent in America. But
seemed to others strange religious rituals. Eventually, religious schools continue to educate numerous pu-
anti-Jewish prejudices turned into malevolent anti- pils, and the Vienna Boys Choir still attracts packed
Semitism, the hatred of Jews as a people. In Hitlers houses eager to listen to stirring renditions of Latin
Germany an attempt was made to eliminate the Jews chants from the Middle Ages. The bishop of Rome
as a people. But alongside prejudice and persecution, the poperemains the most visible and in many
there are other stories. To be inclusive, people today ways the most respected religious leader in the world.
speak of the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christian- And a recent pope, John Paul II (19782005), initiated
ity, and Islam. It is crucial to remember that Judaism a long-overdue process of healing relations between
was the source for the other two. From both Judaism Jews and Christians.
and Christianity, the West has inherited a moral and
an ethical code. Pick up an American coin and see
stamped on it In God we trust. The prodigious learn-
ing of the ancient rabbis has been retained and revived
down through the centuries. Since the eighteenth cen-
tury, Jews have made fundamental contributions to the
western humanities in almost every area of life. The
modern world would be inconceivable without Itzhak
Perlman or George Gershwin, Albert Einstein or Betty
Friedan. Readers of this book probably grew up read-
ing books by Judy Blume and Shel Silverstein.
For centuries Christianity had a privileged place in
the West. The Romans made Christianity the state re-
ligion of the empire, and during the Middle Ages the
culture was fundamentally Christian. The church was
the great patron of builders, artists, and musicians
Pope John Paul II visiting the chief rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff, on April 13,
into the modern world. The Protestant Reformation 1986. This marked the first time a pope had ever visited a synagogue or
sundered Christendom but hardly diminished Chris- embraced a rabbi. John Paul would go on to visit synagogues in Poland and
tianitys cultural influence. Modern secularization has Israel.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


covenant apocalypse Gospels apologists
monotheism Messiah evangelists catacomb S
diaspora scripture theology arcosolium N
eschatology canon liturgy L
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The Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill in Rome. The church was consecrated by
Pope Celestine (422432). sabina was an obscure Roman martyr who allegedly suffered death
in 126.

S
N
L
150
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Late Antiquity
7
The Transformation of the Roman Empire
and the Triumph of Christianity

Preview Questions A historian once saidthat the mystery of Romes empire is not
1. What were the most that it fell, but that it lasted so long. Indeed, Rome acquired its first prov-
important changes inces in 241 BCE and the empire continued expanding until 117 CE. The
in the structure and western empire disappeared in 476 but an eastern empire lasted until 1453.
organization of the
Roman Empire from It is important to realize that scholars no longer talk about a catastrophic
the reign of Augustus fall of the Roman Empire but, instead, speak of a transformation of the
to that of Justinian? Roman world. This transformation took a long time and manifested itself
2. What were the most in numerous ways. It is more usual now to speak of late antiquity, a pe-
important aspects
riod from about 200 to about 600, and to see that period as having its own
of the growth of the
Catholic Church as characteristics and integrity. The Roman Empire itself nearly collapsed in
an institution in the the third century, was reformed in the fourth, and divided forever in the
Roman world?
fifth (Timeline 7.1). The western empire vanished as barbarian kingdoms
3. What did the church replaced it but the eastern empire continued in various forms for another
fathers have in
common with each millennium. The truly dynamic development in late antiquity was the rise
other? What did they of the Catholic Church as an institution and the elaboration of a rich and
have in common with widespread Christian culture as the last stage of ancient civilization.
the secular writers
who preceded them? The image to the left is a view down the nave of the basilicaa rect-
angular structure that dated back to the second century BCE and, by the
4. What did the Christian
visual arts owe to early empire, was often built to house marketplaces or public assembly
pagan art? In what hallsof Santa Sabina in Rome that reveals much about late antiquity and
ways did Christian
the transformation of the Roman Empire. Previously, basilicas served as as-
and pagan art differ?
sembly halls, law courts, and markets. Santa Sabina, however, is a Christian
church. Under the empire new basilicas were usually named for emperors;
this one is named for a Roman Christian martyr. The building was built
just twenty years after the Visigoths sacked Rome, which shows that even
in a time of crisis the ancient world still had the resolve and resources to
build major buildings. The twenty-four beautiful Corinthian columns that
flank the nave of the church were appropriated from a temple of the Ro-
man goddess Juno showing that Christianity had superceded Romes pa-
S
gan religion. Romes first great Christian buildings were patronized by
N
L
151
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152 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

Timeline 7.1 THE WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY


180 CE 284 395 476 565

The Crisis of the The Dominate The Divided Empire The East Roman Empire and
Third Century the Barbarian Kingdoms

313 378395 410 476 Creation of Vandal,


Christianity Reign of Sack of Rome Deposition of Ostrogothic,
made Legal Theodosius by Visigoths Romulus Frankish, and
323
284305 Foundation of 380 Augustulus other kingdoms
Reign of Diocletian Constantinople Christianity 412418 527565
300350 350450 Made Creation of Reign of
Beginnings of Christian Age of State First Barbarian Justinian
Monasticism Church Fathers Religion Kingdom
306337
Reign of Constantine

emperors but this one was built by Romes bishopa and gold in coins. Debasement of the coinage merely
symbol of the churchs growing power. The fascina- worsened the inflationary spiral: prices went up and
tion and enigma of late antiquity is that everything money bought less. Disparities between rich and poor
changed while much remained the same. were growing greater by the year. The uncertainty of
the military situation led farmers to leave exposed, but
fertile, territories for cities where there was no work
THE TRANSFORMATION for them.
There was a spiritual and cultural crisis too. The
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE government lashed out against Christians as never be-
After two centuries of effective rule, Romes vast em- fore, casting about for scapegoats. The literature of the
pire plunged into a continuing state of crisis in the age, and there is not much of it, is grim and pessimis-
third century that had political, military, and economic tic. Almost no major buildings were built but cities ev-
dimensions. The emperors Diocletian and Constantine erywhere were enclosed in massive walls (Figure 7.1).
addressed each challenge. While they braked Romes Despair reigned.
slide into chaos, they also transformed the Roman re-
gime in basic respects. Ultimately, their reforms proved
more durable in the East than in the West. The Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine
During more than fifty years of rule, Diocletian
(284305) and Constantine (306337) completely trans-
The Crisis of the Third Century formed the Roman state. They responded to the central
Between 235 and 284, Rome had twenty-two emper- issues in the third-century crisis and laid the founda-
ors. Many reigns lasted only a year or two, and few tion on which the late Roman Empire stood.
emperors died a natural death. The military side of the To address the irregularity in the imperial succes-
principate had completely trumped the civilian side. sion, Diocletian instituted the tetrarchy, or the rule
Civil war was endemic, with one military commander by four (Figure 7.2). The empire was divided into two
after another trying to get his troops to back his claim halves, East and West, each half to be ruled by an Au-
on the imperial office. gustus with a subordinate Caesar. The senior Augus-
Institutional chaos could not have come at a worse tus was to have ultimate authority, and the Caesars
moment. For the first time, Rome faced threats along were to gain experience and then succeed the Augus-
multiple frontiers simultaneously. A revived Persian tuses. Constantine, however, shared rule with three of
Empire threatened Mesopotamia, Germanic peoples his sons, and for the rest of Roman history the tetrar-
pressed hard against the Rhine and Danube, and Ber- chal and dynastic systems coexisted. Diocletian and
ber tribesmen raided the North African frontier. Constantine also created an elaborate administrative
The economy was in shambles. Inflation was ram- hierarchy in the empire with four prefectures, fourteen
S pant and the governments usual response was to de- dioceses, and more than one hundred provinces. The
N base the currencyto reduce the amount of pure silver number of imperial officials rose from a few hundred
L
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Figure 7.1 The Aurelian Walls, Rome.
271275. Fearing a barbarian attack,
the emperor Aurelian constructed a huge
fortification for the city of Rome. The
original Aurelian Wall was 21 feet high to its
battlements and extended for 11.5 miles. The
wall sported 381 rectangular projecting towers
and, originally, seventeen gates through which
passed the major roads to and from Rome.
The emperor Maxentius (306312) doubled
the height of the walls. Long stretches of the
Aurelian Walls and some of the original gates
survive today.

to tens of thousands. Both emperors substantially in-


creased the size of the Roman army. Constantine devel-
oped flexible mobile field armies stationed near cities
behind the frontiers to meet threats more effectively.
Both emperors also took steps to get control of spiral-
ing prices and to stabilize the currency. Constantine,
finally, created a new capital for the East. He chose the
old Greek colony of Byzantium, which he renamed for
himself, Constantinople (Constantines polis). Across
the fourth century, emperors built Constantinople into
the greatest city in the empire, more important even
than Rome, although Rome kept much of its historical
and psychological significance (Map 7.1).
Diocletian and Constantine, and their successors,
abandoned the idea of the principate in favor of a re-
gime called the dominate, from dominus (lord and
master). They increasingly adopted Persian and Hel-
lenistic customs such as sprinkling gold dust in their
hair, appearing infrequently in public, and requiring
people to bow before them. These rulers unquestion-
ably enhanced the power and prestige of the imperial
office, but they did so at a cost: there was no longer
any pretense that the emperor was a magistrate who
ruled with the consent of the people and senate.
The two reformers treated Christianity very differ-
ently. In 303, Diocletian launched the last and greatest
persecution of Christianity. At Milan in 313, Constan-
tine issued an edict that made Christianity a legal
faith, on a par with all other faiths. Near the end of his
life, Constantine openly embraced the new faith. Dur- Figure 7.2 Diocletians Tetrarchy. Ca. 300. Porphyry, approx. 51.
ing his reign, however, he conferred privileges on the St. Marks cathedral, Venice. In this group portrait of the tetrarchs, the
church, for example, freeing the clergy from military four rulerstwo Augustuses, or leaders, joined by their two Caesars, or
service and some taxes. In addition, he facilitated the successorsstand clasping shoulders to signify their unity and loyalty. By
construction of major Christian churches in Rome: the this time, the political leaders were no longer wearing imperial togas, as
seen in the figures cloaks, tunics, and hats; but the eagle-headed swords
Lateran Basilica and St. Pauls Outside the Walls along and decorated scabbards show that fine workmanship in armor was still
with, aided by his mother Helena, the Church of the practiced in late Rome. Despite the solidarity suggested by the sculpture, S
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. the tetrarchy was not a successful reform of the imperial administration. N
L
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154 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

Learning Through Maps


DIOCESE
OF BRITAIN
London Rh
E O
de

i ne R

lbe
R

r
Ri
Se er
ATLANTIC

iv

iv
ver
i ne

er
Rive
OCEAN

r
Loire R
iver Da
nube R
ive r Ca
DIOCESE DIOCESE sp
OF GAUL OF ITALY ia n
Lugdunum
Milan S
Eb

ea
oR r Danu
Dour iver be
Ravenna River Black Sea
oR
i ve

DIOCESE DIOCESE
r

DIOCESE OF DACIA OF THRACE


OF SPAIN Rome Constantinople
Dyrrhachium Nicomedia
DIOCESE OF ROME Nicaea
Thessalonica SASSANIAN
DIOCESE OF DIOCESE EMPIRE
MACEDONIA DIOCESE OF PONTUS

ST
Athens OF ASIA Antioch Eu
phr

E EA
DIOCESE OF AFRICA Carthage ates R Tigris R
i i

ve

ve
F TH

r
Mediterranean Sea Damascus

EO
CES
Jerusalem

DI O
Prefecture of Gaul Alexandria
Prefecture of Italy DIOCESE OF EGYPT
Prefecture of Illyricum

Nile
Prefecture of the East 0 250 500 750 mi

Riv
Line of division between East and West

er
0 500 1000 2000 km

MAP 7.1 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY


MHS63 12
This map shows the Roman Empire after the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.1. Notice the role of rivers and bodies of water mat76620_m0101.eps
in determining
the empires frontiers. 2. What was the impact of geography on establishing the pattern of governmental dioceses? 3. Notice also theFirst
dividing
proof line
between the eastern and western halves of the empire. 4. Compare the location of the Hellenistic kingdoms in Map 4.1, The Hellenistic World, with
the location of the same regions in this map.

The Later Roman Empire in West and East and other names, but each group was a loose band of
The western empire eventually vanished while the different peoples organized under a leader usually
eastern empire reformed once again. Except for a few called a king. In 300 CE all of these peoples were out-
years in the 390s, the Roman Empire was never again side Romes frontiers, but by 500 several of them had
ruled by a single emperor. The western court was occa- secured kingdoms inside the former western provinces.
sionally at Rome but more often at Milan, Arles, Trier, There was never a single, coordinated movement that
or Ravenna. The eastern court was always at Constan- can be called the barbarian invasions. Some people
tinople. And the courts were often fierce rivals. did indeed invade the empire, but most were settled
Although the western empire in late antiquity gen- by the Romans themselves inside the empire. One his-
erally had less effective leadership than the eastern torian spoke of an imaginative experiment that got a
empire, the Wests great challenge came from the bar- little out of hand.
barians. Who were these people and how did Rome Beginning with Constantine, emperors often made
try to deal with them? treaties with barbarian groups. Usually the aim was to
Barbarians is a catch-all term for a host of Germanic have these federates (from foedus, treaty) defend a sec-
peoplesso called because they spoke Germanic tion of the frontier. Building on this model, the Romans
languageswho lived beyond the Rhine and Dan- allotted some barbarians lands inside the empire and
ube frontiers. The barbarian peoples were not coher- assigned them specific taskspolicing brigands, de-
ent ethnic groups but, instead, loose confederations. fending frontiers, guarding coastlines, administering
Through diplomacy, war, and commerce, the Romans territory. The Visigoths, as an example, crossed the Dan-
had dealt with these peoples for centuries. Contempo- ube in 376, defeated a Roman army in 378, and threat-
S raries called them Franks, Lombards, Goths, Vandals, ened Italy for a generation in a complex game aimed at
N
L
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The Transformation of the Roman Empire 155

Learning Through Maps


North
Sea

AN
GL
NS

ES
London SAXO 0 125 250 mi
SAXON
S S
S LAV 0 250 500 km
Cologne
ATLAN TI C
O CEAN FRANKISH KINGDOM NS
B R ET IN G IA
ONS Paris UR
. TH
Loi
re R

R
ine
. L I DS
GEP

Rh
AQUITAINE U
A KINGDOM
G OF OSTROGOTHIC
Gar
BURGUNDY KINGDOM
SUEVIC BA
SQU on Milan
PANNONIA
KINGDOM E S Toulouse ne Po R.
R.
Ravenna
D an ube R.
VISIGOTHIC KINGDOM
ITALY
Toledo CORSICA Rome

SPAIN
e a
ea n S SARDINIA
ran
iter
Med VANDAL KINGDOM
(to 534)
SICILY
Carthage

MHS63 152
MAP 7.2 THE ROMAN WEST CA. 500
mat76620_m0603.eps
First
This map proof
represents the former western provinces of the Roman Empire after the end of direct imperial authority. Compare this map to Map 7.1.
1. What had changed? 2. Had anything remained the same?

securing them official recognition. They sacked Rome Constantinople was primarily provisioned by Egypt, so
in 410 and, in the end, received most of southern Gaul. controlling that province was critical. A stunning sym-
Later, the Ostrogoths held Italy under nominal Roman bol of the Easts resolve and resources is the vast set of
authority. The Vandals, on the contrary, forcibly seized landward walls built by Theodosius II (r. 408450) to
North Africa. The system worked reasonably well for a protect Constantinople (Figure 7.3).
time. A coalition of barbarians in Gaul serving under Most of Romes eastern rulers were hardened
a Roman general defeated the invading Huns in 451. military men. In Justinian (r. 527565) the greatest of
By the middle of the fifth century, however, the west- them took the throne. Called the emperor who never
ern government lost virtually all of its territory and tax sleeps, Justinian launched a series of wars to recover
revenues. By 476, the traditional date for Romes fall, Romes former western provinces. His generals recap-
the western empire had no meaningful authority and tured North Africa and Italy and took a strip of land
a barbarian general sent the imperial insignia to Con- on Spains Mediterranean coast. Justinian substan-
stantinople, saying that there was no longer any need tially revised the imperial administration, jettisoning
for an emperor in the West. The key point is that the the traditional split between military and civilian con-
western empire gradually shifted from provinces to trol in favor of a system that placed most authority in
kingdoms in a process which, for a long time, the Ro- military hands. He also issued the definitive codifica-
mans thought they controlled (Map 7.2). tion of Roman law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis (529532), and
Ruling from Constantinople, the eastern emperors built the vast and magnificent church of Hagia Sophia
had two fundamental objectives: to defend the em- (Figure 7.4).
pires Balkan and Mesopotamian frontiers; and to en- By the middle of the sixth century, the western half
sure tax revenues and food supplies. The Balkans were of the Roman Empire was gone forever but the eastern
threatened by Germanic peoples and by Slavs, whereas half appeared to be a going concern. As the Byzantine
Mesopotamia stood face-to-face with a revived Persia. Empire, the Roman East survived for a millennium, S
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156 CHAPTER SEVEN: LATE ANTIqUITy

Figure 7.3 The Theodosian Walls. During the reign of Theodosius II (408450), massive brick and
masonry walls were erected across the landward side of the peninsula at whose end Constantinople is sited.
Outside the walls there was a complex network of moats and ditches. The city withstood all attacks until
western crusaders took it in 1204.

although it would experience several major transfor- civilization for centuries. East or West, however, the
mations. The slowly transforming western empire Roman Empire of late antiquity knit together the peo-
provided a stable framework for the emergence of ples and cultures of the ancient world, gave definitive
the successor kingdoms, and the eastern empire re- shape to a new late antique culture, and transmitted
mained a bulwark of Hellenistic and of Greco-Roman that culture to the Middle Ages.

Figure 7.4 ISIDORE OF MILETUS AND ANTHEMIUS


OF TRALLES. Hagia Sophia, Exterior. 532537.
270 long 240 wide, ht. of dome
180. Istanbul. The Byzantine emperors
transformed their capital into a glittering
metropolis that easily outshone ravaged
Rome. The most magnificent building in
the city was Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom),
originally built by Justinian as a church. The
buildings 101-foot-diameter dome makes
it the largest domical structure in the world.
Two half-domes at either end double the
interior length to more than 200 feet. The
S beauty of Hagia Sophia made the domed
N church the ideal of Byzantine architecture.
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THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITy 157

SLICE OF LIFE
A Roman Delegate at a Barbarian Banquet

Priscus

In the fifth century, the Roman world was ravaged by At- for us . . . but Attila ate nothing but meat on a wooden
tila the Hun, the barbarian king who ruled a vast state in trencher. In everything else, too, he showed himself
central and southeastern Europe (r. 434453). Demand- temperate; his cup was of wood, while to the guests
ing tribute and holding prisoners for ransom, Attila and were given goblets of gold and silver. His dress, too,
his fierce army invaded the Balkans and Greece in the was quite simple, affecting only to be clean. The sword
east, and Italy and Gaul in the west. In 448, Theodosius II he carried at his side, the latchets of his . . . shoes, the
(r. 408450), emperor of Romes eastern empire, sent am- bridle of his horse were not adorned, like those of the
bassadors to Attilas court to address certain issues, such other[s] . . . with gold or gems or anything costly. . . .
as subsidies. The Greek historian Priscus (fl . 450475), When evening fell torches were lit, and two barbar-
who was part of the Roman delegation, gives an eyewit- ians coming forward in front of Attila sang songs they
ness account of a banquet meeting. had composed, celebrating his victories and deeds of
valour in war. When the night had advanced we re-
When [three oclock] arrived [Maximin, the head am- tired . . . , not wishing to assist further at the potations
bassador and I] went to the palace. . . . [A]ll the chairs [drinks].
were ranged along the walls of the room. . . . Attila sat
in the middle on a couch; a second couch was set be- Interpreting This Slice of Life
hind him, and from it steps led up to his bed, which 1. Why was Priscus able to observe Attila the Hun in
was covered with linen sheets and wrought coverlets such an intimate setting?
for ornament. . . . The places on the right of Attila were 2. Describe the seating arrangement at the banquet.
held chief in honour, those on the left, where we sat,
3. Why do Attilas personal dress and accessories differ
were only second. . . . [A] cup-bearer . . . handed At-
from those of the other barbarians?
tila a wooden cup of wine. He took it, and saluted the
first in precedence, who . . . stood up, and might not 4. Is there any evidence in this account of Attilas taste
sit down until the king, having tasted or drained the for personal luxury?
wine, returned the cup to the attendant. All the guests 5. Contemporaries of Priscus greatly feared Attila
then honoured Attila in the same way. . . . [T]ables, the Hun, giving him the nickname the Scourge of
large enough for three or four . . . were [then] placed God, because of the savagery of his military cam-
next [to] the table of Attila. . . . A luxurious meal, served paigns. Why does Priscus portray him differently?
[by attendants] on silver plates, had been made ready

THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY partly a function of his growing social prominence.


For a long time bishops were men of obscure or mid-
The Roman administration persecuted, then tolerated, dling status, but by the fifth century it was common
and finally supported both the Christian faith and the for them to have aristocratic backgrounds. As Chris-
church. The most influential bequest of the Roman tians gradually became the majority of the population
Empire to the subsequent history of western civiliza- in all towns and increasingly in the countryside too,
tion was Christianity and the Catholic Church. bishops came to have influence over and responsibil-
ity for more and more people. They looked out for the
The Growth of the Catholic Church poor, and for widows and orphans, and in some cit-
After Constantine granted toleration to Christianity ies they had thousands of people on their charity rolls.
in 313, the church could function as a legal, public Bishops intervened in legal disputes between citizens
institution with visible leaders and structures. As an and interceded with the state for Christians caught
institution, the church developed an empire-wide in the web of judicial conflict. Especially in the West,
structure that no pagan religion had ever possessed. where the imperial regime was slowly disappear-
In virtually every significant city of the empire, the ing, they looked after urban amenities and tended S
Christian bishop became a prominent local figure, to the food supply. On numerous occasions, bishops N
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158 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

assembled from throughout the empire in councils to and went into the desert to live as a solitary, to pray,
debate points of theology and to settle matters of daily and to discipline his bodily desires. Gradually he at-
religious practice. tracted followers who wanted to learn from his aus-
Among all the bishops, the bishops of Rome gradu- tere way of life. Somewhat later, Pachomius (292348)
ally achieved a leading position. In Rome, the bishops, also went into the desert. A convert to Christianity
called popes, based their claims to authority on two and a former soldier, he too attracted followers. Un-
key ideas. First, they believed, Christ has uniquely like Anthony, however, Pachomius organized his fol-
assigned leadership among the apostles to Peter. Sec- lowers into communities that ate, worked, and prayed
ond, Christian communities everywhere tried to trace together. Such communities were called monasteries
their origins to one of the apostles in order to claim an where, ironically, groups of men or women lived alone
authentic tradition of teaching and authority. Apos- together. The leaders of such communities were called
tolic succession, the idea that the authority of bishops abbots or abbesses.
descended from the authority of the apostles, was in
Rome coupled with the Petrine Idea, the doctrine that
special authority fell to Peters successor. Peter died as Christianity and the Roman State
bishop of Rome, so it was believed that Peters succes- Relations between the Roman state and the Catholic
sors continued to possess his authority over the church. Church were complex. Roman officials executed Jesus
Leo I (pope, 440461) was the greatest exponent of the but Constantine made Christianity legal. Theodosius I
idea of Roman leadership in the church. (378395) passed laws that effectively made Christian-
The root meaning of catholic is universal. In 325 ity in the Roman form the state religion of the empire.
the bishops gathered at Nicaea to define a creed, an But emperors meddled in the selection of bishops and
authoritative and uniform statement of belief. With intervened in the increasingly bitter doctrinal quar-
minor modifications that creed is still recited in many rels that cropped up among rival Christian groups.
Christian churches to this day. The need for a creedal At the end of the fifth century, Emperor Anastasius I
statement arose because of the teaching of an Alexan- (r. 491518) issued a decree to settle a doctrinal quar-
drian priest, Arius (about 250336), who taught that rel. Gelasius I [juh-LAY-zee-us] (pope, 492496) wrote
Jesus Christ was not consubstantial with the Father him a letter saying that emperors had power whereas
as the creed still has it and, to preserve strict monothe- priests had authority. These words had powerful reso-
ism, that there was when he [Christ] was not. The nance in Latin language and Roman culture. Gelasius
larger problem was that Christians were arguing over argued that the authority of priests was superior to the
how God could be a Trinity, three personsFather, power of emperors because priests were concerned
Son, and Holy Spiritin one. Ariuss teachings were with immortal souls but emperors only with mortal
accepted by many people, including a Gothic priest, bodies. Whatever his authority, Gelasius did not have
Ulfilas (311383), who converted many barbarians to the power to coerce the emperor. But Leo I within
Arian Christianity. the church and Gelasius within the Roman Empire
In the fifth century, another ferocious quarrel arose had made claims that would echo down through the
over how to explain that Jesus Christ was true God and centuries.
true man, as Catholic Christianity taught. Miaphysites
(literally, one-nature-ites) held that Christ was funda-
mentally divine. Arianism and Miaphysitism were the Varieties of Christian Experience
most significant heresies of antiquity, beliefs chosen by Christianity spread through a Roman world that was
large numbers of people despite official condemnation. astonishingly diverse in languages and cultures. One
reason for Christianitys success was its ability to adapt
to and assimilate the local cultures it encountered. In
Christian Monasticism the Roman East, centering on Constantinople, Chris-
A fascinating and durable achievement of late antique tians used the Greek language and the Septuagint
Christianity was monasticism. There was always a ten- version (see Chapter 6) of the Old Testament. From An-
sion in Christianity between those who wished to flee tioch to the east into Mesopotamia and beyond a Chris-
the world and those who wished to change it. Some tian community used the Syriac language for worship
Christians after 313 felt life had become too pleasur- and scholarship (Figure 7.5). In Egypt Christians used
able. Whatever their motivations, in the fourth century, the local Coptic language. Syriac and Coptic Christians
first in Egypt and then everywhere, thousands of men quarreled with both Rome and Constantinople on theo-
and women abandoned city, family, jobs, sex, food logical issues. In the West, Latin was the dominant lan-
indeed, all lifes pleasuresto join monasteries. guage. Each of these Christian communities believed
S Anthony of Egypt (251356) came from a wealthy, itself to be the heir to and representative of the authen-
N Christian family. Around 270 he gave up all he had tic catholicuniversaltradition.
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The Secular Culture of Late Antiquity 159

Figure 7.5 The Rabbula Gospels. 586. Laurentian Library,


Florence. Cod. Plut. I, 56, folio 4v. Written in a monastery in northern
Mesopotamia, this famous gospel book, named after its scribe, has
beautiful images in vibrant colors and energetic lines. It is written in Syriac,
the major language of Eastern Christianity. The folio reproduced here
shows the Syriac script between the columns of the canon table. Canon
tables were often included in Christian gospel books to display the chapters
of the individual gospels side-by-side for easy reference.

The Romans never gave much thought to the


peoples living beyond their frontiers as long as
they did not have to fight with them. Christians
were different. They had been told by Christ to go and
teach all nations. Missionaries such as Ulfilas, a Gothic
convert, spread the faith among the barbarians living
along the Danube. In the fourth century two young
Christians, Edesius and Frumentius, who were mer-
chants from Tyre, were captured on a trading venture
to Nubia, todays Ethiopia. They were taken to the royal
palace, eventually entered the kings service, and be-
gan preaching Christianity. Frumentius later traveled
to Alexandria, where he was made a bishop. More mis-
sionaries followed in later years and by the sixth cen-
tury northern Ethiopia was a major Christian power,
the only one in sub-Saharan Africa. Also in the sixth
century, Cosmas Indicopleustes (the India-explorer)
traveled to the subcontinent and, to his considerable
surprise, found large communities of both Greek- and
Syrian-speaking Christians already living there.
was Neoplatonism, a school of thought founded pri-
marily by Plotinus [plo-TIE-nuhs] (205270). Neopla-
THE SECULAR CULTURE tonism was the last major school of philosophy in the
ancient world. The movement began as an attempt to
OF LATE ANTIQUITY correct the problem at the heart of Platos systemthe
The rich and diverse culture of the Golden and Sil- seemingly irreconcilable split between the absolute
ver Ages (see Chapter 5) ended amid the difficulties world of Ideas and the perishable material world. This
of the third century. Not much poetry or history sur- Platonic dualism could and did lead to the notion that
vives. The brief efflorescence of pagan culture in the the everyday world has little purpose in the overall
late fourth century had no lasting influence. There scheme of things. Plotinus now succeeded in bridg-
were only a few significant philosophers but their re- ing the two worlds with his theories, and his writings
interpretation of Platonism would be influential for later influenced Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages
centuries. Ancient medicine reached its high point and the Italian humanists of the Renaissance.
in late antiquity, and both of Romes greatest legal Plotinus resolved Platonic dualism not with logi-
codifications date from this period. The key cultural cal analysis but with mystical insight, claiming that
development of the era began in the background and the union of the physical and spiritual worlds could
then burst into full view: the rise of a rich and diverse be grasped only through an ecstatic vision. His retreat
Christian culture. from philosophy into mysticism occurred during the
crisis of the third century, when many people fled
from urban violence to the relative peace of their villas
Philosophy and estates in the countryside.
Some late antique thinkers adopted the Stoicism that
had been dominant in the principate in either its
Greek or Latin manifestations; others were interested Science and Medicine
in blending the various Greek schoolsPlatonic, Aris- Unlike the Greeks, the Romans made few original
totelian, and Stoic, among othersinto a philosophic contributions to science. However, in medicine the Ro- S
synthesis. The outstanding example of this latter trend mans made some original contributions. The scientific N
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160 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

aspect of Roman medicine went through three stages. the jurisconsults, or jurisprudentes, became more promi-
The first stage grew out of Romes agricultural heri- nent. These were specialists in the theory and science
tage: remedies for sick farm animals, such as applying of the lawwhich is what jurisprudence means. Third,
salves soaked in wool, had been widely used on hu- Theodosius II (in 438) and then Justinian (from 529 to
mans for generations. The powerful paterfamilias acted 532) codified Roman law by gathering and systematiz-
as a physician, using ancestral expertise and home ing the writings of the jurisconsults and the legislation
remedies. Roman medicine entered its second stage of earlier emperors.
when Greek doctors finally gained acceptance among The Theodosian Code, intended to be a collection
the Romans, many of whom harbored suspicions of all of all Roman law down to his reign, appeared just as
things Greek. By the start of the empire, in 31 BCE, Ro- Romes western provinces were being carved up into
man medicine had entered a third stage, as Greek and kingdoms. By means of that code, the barbarian peo-
Roman medicine merged into a hybrid formranging ples learned Roman law and incorporated it into their
from diagnostic procedures to pharmacology. The Ro- own legal traditions. But it was Justinians Corpus Iuris
man army, with its hospitals and surgeons, carried Civilis that proved to be the most influential law book
Roman medicine throughout the empire. in human history. Its three major parts are the Codex, a
Based on their lasting influence, the two most collection of all laws issued since Theodosius; the Di-
important doctors from this period are Celsus and gest, a systematic collection of the writings of the juris-
Galen. The reputation of Celsus (fl. first century CE) consults, which made their opinions easy to reference;
as a knowledgeable philosopher was enhanced by the and the Institutes, basically a textbook for law schools.
encyclopedia he compiled, which included articles on
philosophy, agriculture, and the military, as well as
medicine. Much of what is known about early medi- FROM THE SECULAR
cal history and Roman medicine, such as surgical pro- TO THE SPIRITUAL:
cedures, hygienic practices, and treatment of various
diseases, is found in this work. It was rediscovered CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
in the early Renaissance (see Chapter 12) and was in- Christian writers looked to the future and a new
fluential for several centuries, but only the section On world to come. With their eyes firmly fixed on heaven,
Medicine has survived into modern times. they were indifferent to Rome or to any worldly state.
Galen of Pergamum (129about 216 CE) was Romes They believed in eternal life but not, like Virgil and his
most famous medical authority. After studying medi- readers, in Romes eternity. After Constantine decreed
cine in Pergamum, Smyrna (modern Izmir, Turkey), and toleration for Christians in 313, these authors moved
Alexandria, Galen settled in Rome. He soon became a into the mainstream and slowly began to overshadow
fashionable physician, catering to Romes elite. Several their pagan rivals. The bitter differences of opinion be-
emperors, including Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, tween them and the pagans, which characterized the
made Galen their court physician. Galen wrote more late fourth century, faded in the early fifth century. By
than five hundred medical treatises, covering such top- then Christian literature had triumphed, though it re-
ics as anatomy, physiology, hygiene, exercise and diet, mained deeply indebted to Greco-Roman thought and
and pharmacology. In general, he followed scientific letters. Christian literature represented the last great
guidelines: collecting data, relying on experience and achievement of ancient literature.
observation, and keeping to a set of general principles.
His vast erudition and imperious writing style made
him the Wests chief authority on medicine, until about The Fathers of the Church
1650. Later, his commanding status became a burden, By about 300, Christian writers began to find a large
when some of his findings on human anatomy, based audience as their religion continued to win converts
on his dissection of dogs rather than humans, impeded among the educated. Although they extolled the vir-
the progress of medical knowledge. tues and benefits of the new faith, they did not neces-
sarily abandon classical philosophy and literature; they
believed that some of these writings conveyed Gods
Law veiled truth prior to the coming of Christ, and thus they
Under the empire, there were three important develop- combined classical with biblical learning. Revered later
ments in the history of Roman law. First, the emperors for their personal lives and public deeds, superior tal-
themselves could make law; that is, law no longer had ents, resolute convictions, and commanding personali-
to be made in assemblies. What pleases the prince has ties, the fathers, as these Christian writers were known,
the force of law was a favorite motto of imperial sup- not only were powerful figures within the church but
S porters. Second, building on republican precedents, also often intervened in secular matters, instructing the
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From the Secular to the Spiritual: Christian Literature 161

local authorities and even the emperors. Moreover, their


writings laid the foundation of medieval Christian doc-
trine and philosophy. The three most renowned were
Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.
Ambrose (about 339397), the son of a high Roman
official, embarked on what would doubtless have been
a distinguished public career. Unexpectedly, however,
the citizens of Milan elected him bishop. Ambrose
vigorously opposed the Arian heresy, and as bishop of
Milan he aided the urban poor and the victims of bar-
barian assaults. In scholarly sermons, he condemned
the emperors for the social injustices of their reigns.
His letters shed light on problems of church govern-
ment, and his treatises analyzed controversies divid-
ing the church. His biblical commentaries brought
Origens allegorical method to the West and to Latin
(see Chapter 6). Ambroses hymns, perhaps his most
memorable contribution, introduced to the Western
church another way for Christians to praise their God
and enrich their ceremonies (Figure 7.6).
Ambroses involvement in two controversies un-
derscores the tensions of the age as a secular classical
world gave way to a Christian one. The first contro-
versy arose when the troops of Emperor Theodosius I
slaughtered a great many people in Thessalonica
(Greece). In response, Ambrose compelled the em-
peror to do public penance for this horrific act. Am-
broses position was that the emperor was a member
of the church, not its master. The second controversy
was over the altar to the goddess Victory housed in
Romes senate house. It was removed and replaced sev-
eral times in the fourth century, and when Symmachus
(about 345402), the leader of Romes remaining pa-
gans, restored it once again, claiming that it was an es-
sential symbol of Romes identity, Ambrose prevailed
upon the emperor to remove itthis time for good.
The second major church father, Jerome (about
345420), wrote extensively on religious issues, but
his most enduring work was his preparation of the
Vulgate (from vulgus, common people) Bible. Jerome
used his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew to revise the
existing Latin texts and to translate anew many bibli-
cal books. The mark of his Bibles success is that, with
some revisions, it remains the standard of the Roman
Catholic Church today. Like Ambrose, Jerome received
a classical education. Later, after settling in Bethlehem,

Figure 7.6 Ambrose. Ca. 470. Church of SantAmbrogio, Chapel of


San Vittore in Ciel dOro, Milan. This portrait of Ambrose conveys some
of the spiritual intensity of the powerful fourth-century bishop of Milan.
The work is one of few mosaics that survived the destruction brought by
Germanic assaults in northern Italy. Although the artist shows some feeling
for the shape and movement of the body, the mosaic strongly reflects the
artistic ideals developing in the eastern provinces: frontality, flatness,
enlarged eyes, and stylized pose. S
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162 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

he founded a monastery, where he devoted most of his Shortly after the Visigoths sack of Rome in 410,
days to his biblical studies. His reclusive habits and his Augustine began The City of God, a theological inter-
harshly critical opinions of Roman society made him pretation of human history. In this work Augustine
controversial. addresses the central question confronting the Ro-
Of all the church fathers, Augustine (354430) mans of that generation: Why was their empire sub-
exercised the greatest influence on Christianity. In jected to so many catastrophes? To those who blamed
his youth in North Africa, he studied classical litera- the Christians, he replied that the decline of Rome
ture and thought, including Neoplatonism. Augustine was part of Gods plan to prepare the world for the
then journeyed, via Rome, to Milan, where he met coming of a divine kingdom on earth. If the city fell,
Ambrose, whose persuasive sermons assisted in his it was best for the human race. Augustine expounded
conversion. Augustine, convinced of Christianitys and reinforced this argument in the first ten books of
intellectual integrity and spiritual vitality, retired to The City of God as he attacked Greco-Roman philoso-
North Africa and dedicated himself to spreading his phies and religions.
new faith. However, his commanding personality and In the concluding twelve books of the work, Augus-
administrative skills soon propelled him into church tine elaborated his view of world history, which relied
politics. on the Hebrew experience and Christian sources. At
Augustine joined the debates raging in the church. the heart of his argument lay what he called the two cit-
During his lifetime, his writing came to represent the ies in history, the City of God and the City of Man. The
voice of orthodox beliefs. He opposed the Donatists, City of God was the realm of the redeemed. The course
who claimed that a priests sin would make the sac- of history traced the slow redemption of the City of
raments invalid. Augustines positionthat each sac- Man, the realm of sinful humans, by the City of God.
rament worked in and of itself and depended on the History would end when the City of God triumphed.
grace of God, not the worthiness of the priestbecame In the City of God, the saved would enjoy an eternal
the churchs official stance. But his greatest fury was happiness that paganism had promised but could not
against Pelagianism, which asserted that good works deliver. Augustine also abandoned the cyclical view of
alone could earn salvation for a sinner and that peo- history in favor of a linear, providential version: his-
ple had it within themselves to do good. Augustines tory had a purpose, it was going somewherenamely,
argumentthat salvation can be achieved only by to Gods final judgment.
Gods gracerested on his rejection of free will and
his insistence on original sin, the belief that all hu-
mans are tainted by a sin inherited from Adam. Church History
During a long, active life, Augustine wrote many In addition to theology, early Christian writing in-
kinds of religious works, but his two major achieve- cluded a new literary genrechurch history. Eusebius
ments are The Confessions and The City of God. The [you-SEE-be-uhs] (about 260340), bishop of Caesarea
Confessions, written at the end of the fourth century, in Palestine from 314 until his death, made no claims
traces his search for intellectual and spiritual solace to impartiality in his Ecclesiastical History. It makes the
and details his dramatic conversion. In this spiritual bishops the heroes, for Eusebius believed that they en-
autobiography, Augustine castigates himself for living sured the truth of Christianity. His story is organized
a sinful, sensual life. Although he was remorseful and church by church and bishop by bishop, revealing
guilt-ridden for not having found God sooner, he came the importance then attached to apostolic succession.
to believe that his efforts to understand the world by He also charted the churchs spiritual, intellectual,
studying Greco-Roman philosophy, literature, and re- and institutional life in its martyrs, thinkers, and
ligion affirmed his desire to search for lifes ultimate leaders from its earliest days until 324. When his ac-
truths. count can be corroborated, Eusebius has been found
Augustines conversion occurred in a garden in Mi- to be reliable. Written in Greek, and soon translated
lan, where a childs voice commanded him to read the into Latin, Eusebiuss influential history was inspired
scripture. Opening the Bible at random, he read from a by the secular Greco-Roman historians, and he fol-
letter of Paul, which directed him to arm himself with lowed them in quoting from written sources. He con-
Jesus Christ as a way of combating the sins of the flesh. sulted both the Old and the New Testaments, Christian
Upon reading this passage, Augustine wrote: The scholars, and the Greek classics, including Homer and
light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the Plato.
darkness of doubt was dispelled. Now certain of his Christian writers also developed two other kinds
faith, he dedicated himself to his new mission, adopted of historical writing. In the passion narrative, authors
an ascetic style of life, and, ultimately, accepted church provided accounts of the final torments and death
S leadership as the bishop of Hippo, in North Africa. of the martyrs. These texts were both inspiring and
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The Visual Arts 163

comforting in the age of persecution and then instruc- each, was sung antiphonally, with half the congrega-
tive thereafter. In the other, hagiography, authors tion singing one stanza and the other half singing the
wrote biographies of especially holy men and women next one.
as guides to Christian living for later generations.

THE VISUAL ARTS


Poetry Architecture and sculpture dominated Romes visual
During the fourth and fifth centuries, a number of arts, but they were pressed into the service of practi-
Christian poets showed how this most typical of an- cal needs. The Romans commissioned buildings and
cient literary arts could be adapted to Christian pur- statues to serve the state, religion, or society, but they
poses. The Roman senator turned monk, Paulinus of recognized that the practical did not exclude the beau-
Nola (342431), was born in Gaul but lived much of tiful, and the functional did not rule out the elegant.
his life in southern Italy. He was taught by Romes last When Christianity became free and public, the church
great pagan poet, Ausonius (310395), who became adapted basic Roman styles and techniques for its
Christian at the end of his life. Paulinus is best known churches and for its sculpture. Through the church,
for a series of poems on the life of St. Felix of Nola therefore, Roman architecture and sculpture were
and on the monastic life. Prudentius (348about 413), transmitted to succeeding centuries.
a Spaniard who wrote theological works, hymns, and
many poems, was a master of the poets art. His Psy-
chomachia is an allegory in which Christian virtues and Architecture
human vices wage a cosmic battle for souls. Caelius After the third-century crisis, Diocletian revitalized ar-
Sedulius (fl. early fifth century), a third Christian poet, chitecture. To help restore centralized rule, he used art,
had learned his Virgil at school and took it to heart. specifically architecture, as a sign of his new power. He
His Paschal Song is a retelling in epic verse of the story constructed the last great public baths in Rome, large
of Christs life and crucifixion. enough for thousands of people to use at one time. As
part of his imperial reformsindeed, as a propaganda
statement that all was well againDiocletian built a
MUSIC palace on the Dalmatian coast (modern Croatia), where
While the pagan music of late Rome was in decline, he spent his last twelve years. Strategically located
Christian music was just beginning to take shape. halfway between the western and eastern centers of
The Christians took the principles of Greco-Roman power, his residence resembled a Roman camp in its
music and integrated them into the Jewish tradition symmetrical layout. The palace serves as a fitting mon-
of singing the psalms and the liturgy to make music ument for this soldier who restored law and order to a
a dynamic part of their worship. In later times, this world racked by civil war and incompetent rulers.
Christian practice gave birth to a rich body of sacred Visitors entered the palace by the main gate on
music that utilized both singers and instrumentalists. the north side and walked along a path lined with
In late antiquity, however, evidence for instru- columns across the central intersection and into the
ments is scarce and sacred music seems to have been peristyle, or colonnaded courtyard (Figure 7.7). Those
limited to chanting and unaccompanied singing. Per- who traveled this far would be reminded of Diocle-
haps inspired by the congregational singing in Jew- tians presence by such architectural features as the
ish synagogues, Christians everywhere developed a long entryway, the domed vestibule, and the grandi-
new musical genre, the hymn, a song of praise to God. ose courtyard. Beyond the vestibule, on the south side
Ephrem the Syrian (306373) wrote verses that, as bordering the sea, were the imperial apartments, the
hymns, were set to complex melodies. He composed guards barracks, rooms for private audiences, and
verses consisting of four to ten half-lines sung by a banquet halls. This residence incorporated nearly all
soloist. A choir or the congregation then responded the major designs and techniques, including the arch
with a single, simple verse called an antiphon. Much and mortar mixtures, known to Roman builders. More
the same kind of singing was also done in Coptic important, its impressive splendor symbolized divine
Egypt and beyond in Ethiopia, and Romanos the Me- authority combined with secular political power.
lode (c. 540) developed antiphonal singing in Constan- Just as Diocletians palace was one of the last pagan
tinople. The hymns of Ephrem and Romanos remain edifices, the Arch of Constantine was the last pagan
influential in Syriac and Greek Christianity to today. triumphal arch (Figure 7.8), erected to celebrate the
The hymn tradition in the West begins with Ambrose, emperors victory in 312, which led to the issuing of
who wrote elegant verses set to melodies. An Ambro- the Edict of Milan. The Romans had built triumphal
sian hymn, consisting of eight stanzas of four verses arches since republican times, but they usually had S
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164 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

Figure 7.7 Diocletians Palace. Ca. 300. Split, Croatia. The peristyle, or colonnaded courtyard, screened
off the buildings on the left and right, enhanced the enclosed atmosphere, and focused attention on the
vestibule. Behind the peristyle, on the left, stood Diocletians tomb (now a church) and, on the right, the Temple
to Jupiter (now the Baptistery of St. John).

single openings whereas Constantines arch has three. Much of the archs decoration was borrowed from
The circular medallions set between the detached col- other monuments; for example, some of the reliefs
umns on the side arches help to balance these smaller and carvings came from works honoring the victories
arches with the central arch. The decorated attic, or of Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius; and where
crown of the arch, with its statues of barbarian peo- a likeness of the emperor is intended, the original
ples, blends well with the lower sections. The senate has been remodeled to resemble Constantine. Despite
and the Roman people, according to the inscription, Constantines celebrated conversion to Christianity,
gratefully dedicated this arch to Constantine for his however, the arch clearly reflects a strong pagan in-
deeds as their liberator from civil war and as their fluence. The symbols and figures stress human action,
new emperor. and only one small frieze hints at divine intervention.

Figure 7.8 Arch of Constantine. 312315.


Ht. 6810. Rome. The frieze that encircles the
monument narrates the emperors preparations
for war, his victory, and his triumphant entry
into Rome. The scenes depicted on the Arch
of Constantine, like those on Trajans Column
S (Figure 5.18), memorialized the Roman rulers
N presence at every stage of a military campaign.
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The Visual Arts 165

Figure 7.9 Floor Plan of Old St. Peters Basilica. Ca. 330s340s. Rome. Old St. Peters Basilica was
the most important structure in Christian Europe until it was demolished in the sixteenth century to make way
for the present St. Peters. Constantine, or perhaps his son Constantius II, dedicated Old St. Peters on the
spot that was believed to be the burial site of Peter, to whom Jesus had given authority over the church. Of the
original basilica nothing remains, but sixteenth-century drawings show that it was cruciform (cross shaped),
had a wide central nave with two aisles on either side, and was fronted by an atrium, where worshipers
washed their hands and faces before entering the sanctuary.

A shift from pagan to Christian architecture began sense of Old St. Peters by comparing an artists recon-
after 313 under Constantines inspiration and patron- struction of the Basilica Ulpia in the forum of Trajan
age. He ordered the building of churches as places of (Figure 7.10) with a much later drawing of the interior
worship for congregations and as memorials at holy of St. Peters (Figure 7.11). St. Peters Basilica, tradition-
places in Rome, Palestine, and other parts of the em- ally ascribed to Constantine but more likely erected
pire. Financed and supported by the state, this am- under his successor, built to mark the grave of the
bitious enterprise resulted not only in the spread of apostle who, by tradition, founded the church in Rome,
Christianity but also in the founding of new artistic included a transept, or crossing arm, that intersected
values and architectural forms. The basic design of the the nave at the apse end of the building, making it cru-
churches that Constantine had constructed was de- ciform (cross shaped). This first St. Peters Basilica at-
rived from the basilica. tracted pilgrims for centuries.
Although basilicas varied in detail, the basic floor
plan used for churches was simple: a rectangular hall
with an apse, or curved projection at the eastern end. Sculpture
Two or four rows of parallel columns usually divided During Diocletians reign and before Christianitys as-
the hall into a central area, or nave, and side aisles. The similation of the Roman arts, the late empire produced
roof was taller over the nave section with a clerestory some unique and monumental works, such as the
windows were set high in the outside nave walls to let group portrait of Diocletians tetrarchy, carved in por-
in light. The apse, where ceremonies were performed phyry (see Figure 7.2 ), Constantines triumphal arch
or where holy relicsphysical remains of martyrs and (see Figure 7.8), and the colossal statue of Constantine,
saintswere placed, was often screened off from the a composite of marble and metal (Figure 7.12). The
worshipers, who stood in the nave. In some structures generalized features of these figures show the trend to
there was an atrium, or open courtyard, in front of the symbolic representation characteristic of the art of the
main hall. late empire and the movement away from the ideal-
No fourth-century Roman basilica churches re- ized or realistic faces of classical sculpture.
main, but drawings, such as that of the floor plan of Christian sculpture was undergoing aesthetic
the basilica of Old St. Peters, suggest their appearance changes similar to those taking place in secular art. By
(Figure 7.9). The spacious atrium was surrounded by the end of the third century, Christian art was symbolic S
a colonnaded porticus. It is further possible to form a in content and impressionistic in style (see Chapter 6). N
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166 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

Figure 7.10 Basilica Ulpia, Forum of Trajan, Rome. Artists reconstruction. This huge basilica, the
largest in Rome, became a center of political life and the site of law courts upon its construction by the
emperor Trajan (98117). Unlike later Christian basilicas, this one had no religious significance.

Figure 7.11 Interior of Old


St. Peters, Rome (engraving),
English School, (18th century).
Private Collection. This drawing
was done before Pope Paul V
(16051621) ordered the destruction
of the interior of Old St. Peters
whose atrium and facade had
already been torn down. Comparing
this image with that of the Basilica
Ulpia and the floor plan of Old
S St. Peters makes the major
N architectural features clear to
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The Visual Arts 167

Simple representations of Jesus and the apostles had


become common in the underground church. After
313, artists began to receive the patronage of the Ro-
man state and also of bishops and wealthy Christians.
Christian Romes reshaping of the humanistic tra-
dition can be seen in the carvings on sarcophagi. The
growing acceptance of burial rather than cremation
and the resultant increased demand for sarcophagi
afforded many artists new opportunities to express
themselves. After the second century, rich Roman
families commissioned artists to decorate the sides of
these marble coffins and tombs with images of classi-
cal heroes and heroines, gods and goddesses, military
and political leaders, and scenes of famous events and
battles. Christians adapted existing funerary styles to
new subject matter with Christian themes (see Inter-
preting Art). The sculptors art could be employed in
wood as well. The doors of the church of Santa Sabina
in Rome have numerous panels depicting scenes from
the life of Christ, including the oldest known repre-
sentation of the Crucifixion (Figure 7.13).

Painting and Mosaics


In the fourth century, Christian frescoes flourished
Figure 7.12 Colossal Statue of Constantine. Ca. 313. Marble and in the Roman catacombs and continued the symbolic,
metal. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome. Like Diocletian, Constantine impressionist style of the previous era (see Chapter 6).
consciously nurtured the image of the emperor as a larger-than-life figure. Non-Christian paintings are extremely scarce from the
The head, itself about 8 feet high, was of white marble whereas the body
fifth century, except for a few works such as a collection
was a brick core with a wooden framework and a gold exterior. The whole
enthroned figure stood about 40 feet high. Constantine placed the statue in of miniaturessmall illustrationsfor Virgils Aeneid,
the basilica recently constructed by his rival Maxentius whom he defeated probably painted for a wealthy patron. This extensive
at the Milvian Bridge in 312. The emperor meets no ones gaze. If he is picture cycle (Figure 7.14), more than 225 scenes, recalls
not depicted as a god, then he surely is no mere man either. The statue the style of earlier paintings, but it is also an early ex-
symbolizes the simultaneously aloof and authoritarian ideology of the
ample of a new medium, the illustrated book. Books
regime called the dominate.

Figure 7.13 Crucifixion Scene. Main


door, Santa Sabina, Rome. Ca. 430. Cyprus
wood. Reigning opinion maintains that the
doors of the church are contemporary with
its construction which makes this image the
oldest known depiction of the Crucifixion. For
a very long time, Christians were reluctant to
depict the execution of the Son of God on a
cross; this image must therefore be considered
experimental. Note that Christ is larger than the
figures to his left and righta perspective that
is theological, not geometric. Christ is more
important so he is portrayed bigger. The three
figures are awkwardly posed in orant position
and there are no crosses, albeit there are nails
visible in the hands. Whereas Christ is depicted
as youthful and beardless on the sarcophagus
of Junius Bassus, he is here portrayed bearded
and older. In mosaics (Figures 7.17 and 7.18)
it will be seen that this would become the
S
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Interpreting Art
Pagan Elements
Style The sculpture Amid the Christian
is in late classical style, symbols, pagan remnants
with ideas of harmony remain. In the top center,
and balance. Some of Christ appears above
the deeply carved figures and with his feet resting
give the impression of on a personification of a
sculpture in the round. pagan sky god, implying
that Christ is now the
Subject The biblical ruler of the universe. He is
scenes depict (top, left depicted as a philosopher.
to right) Abraham and
the sacrifice of Isaac, Setting The
the arrest of Peter, Christ sarcophagus was created
enthroned between in that dynamic moment
Peter and Paul, Christ when Christianity was
as a prisoner, and Christ coming to dominate
before Pontius Pilate; the Roman world. The
(bottom, left to right) the wealthy could afford the
patience of Job, Adam and finest artists who adapted
Eve, Christs entry into classical modes to
Jerusalem, Daniel in the Christian subjects.
lions den, and Paul being
led to martyrdom. Symbolism
The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. After 359. Marble, 4 4 8. St. Peters Treasury, Vatican The sarcophagus shows
Theological City. Junius Bassus (d. 359), a Roman aristocrat, served as prefect of the city of Rome. His sarcopha- Christian beliefs in (on its
Perspective gus was discovered in 1595 under the floor of St. Peters near the tomb of the apostle. front) scenes from the Old
The Old Testament scenes and New Testamentsthe
are prophetic of the New two parts of the Christian
Testament events and all 1. Stylistic Influence In what respects 3. Cultural Influence How does the Bible; (on its ends) putti
(small children) harvesting
scenes point to Christ. are classical ideals evident in the sarcophagus reveal the blending of
Christian writers viewed grapes (left end) and grain
sculpture on the sarcophagus? classical and Christian ideals? (right end)symbols of
the entire Old Testament
as foreshadowing the 2. Biblical Influence What relationship 4. Symbolism Identify key aspects of bread and wine, elements
New Testament. Scenes in the Christian Eucharist,
can be seen between the Old and the symbolism in the sculptures. or Holy Communion.
of sacrifice dominate, but
Christs sacrifice on the New Testament scenes? 5. Context Why did Christians decorate
cross is not depicted. the sarcophagi of their dead?

Figure 7.14 Illumination from Virgils Aeneid. Ca. 400. 6 6.


Vatican Library, the Vatican. This page from an illustrated manuscript
of Virgils Aeneid shows Dido, the Queen of Carthage (center), flanked by
Aeneas (left) and a guest. The scene depicts the banquet, described at the
end of Book I, that Dido gave in honor of the newly arrived Trojans. After the
meal, Aeneas recounted his escape from Troy and seven subsequent years
of wandering. Faithful to the Aeneids description, the painting represents
Aeneas speaking to Dido while she appears to be calling for the attendant,
in the lower right corner, to wash the hands of the diners. Such works
derive from pagan circles in late fourth century Rome that were trying
S rather ostentatiously to assert Romes classical identity in an increasingly
N Christian world.
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THE VISUAL ARTS 169

were now written on parchment and bound in pages gymnasium, guest quarters, peristyles or open courts,
rather than written on scrolls. In the Middle Ages, this and long hallways. One of the hallways, the Corridor
type of decorated, or illuminated, book would become of the Great Hunt, over two hundred feet long, depicts
a major art form. the hunting, capturing, and transporting of wild ani-
In mosaics, subjects varied, although certain ones mals, which were typically found in the five provinces
seemed always to be in vogue, such as still lifes, land- of the empires diocese (administrative division) of Af-
scapes, Greek and Roman myths, philosophers and rica. These animalsantelopes, kids, lions, boars, and
orators, and scenes from the circus and amphitheaters. wild horseswere destined for Romes Colosseum
In late antique mosaics, the subject matter for pagan or arenas in other cities. Composed of two hunts, the
and Christian works stands in sharp contrast. Among narrative scene begins at either end of the corridor,
the many pagan mosaics that survive are those at the with scenes of the hunters trapping or caging their
Villa Romana del Casale, a Roman estate near the prey. Then there are scenes at the ports where soldiers
town of Piazza Armerina in central Sicily. The villa, and slaves load the animals onto a ship, which is laden
built in the early fourth century on the ruins of a with crates, and, in the center of the hallway, the same
second-century structure, was the residence of either ship is depicted as having arrived in Rome, where
a rich Roman aristocrat or a high-ranking Roman of- slaves unload the boxes and lead the animals away
ficial. The estate operated for more than one hundred (Figure 7.15). The soldiers, slaves, and officials can be
fifty years until the buildings fell into disuse when the clearly identified by their dress and armor and their
Vandals invaded Sicily. This partially restored villa roles in the narrative. Their diverse facial features and
contains the largest, most valuable collection of late multicolored skin tones indicate the diversity of the
Roman mosaics in the world. Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Over thirty-five thousand square feet of mosaic Among the many examples of life in the late Ro-
flooring covers a complex of rooms, including baths, a man Empire recorded in the pagan mosaics at the Villa

Figure 7.15 Loading the Wild Animals.


Detail from mosaic. Early fourth century.
Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza
Armerina, Sicily. This detail from the
Corridor of the Great Hunt expresses the
energy and activity found in nearly every
mosaic on this site. Two workers struggle
with the antelope on the gangplank, as sailors
on deck prepare for the sailing. These mosaics
were probably created by North African artists
whose skills were well known during the
late Roman period. Many motifs and scenes,
in particular those of the Great Hunt, were
standard design elements employed in North
Africa and across the Roman Empire. Given
the repetition of some of the decorations and
motifs, and the uniform quality of the mosaics,
the entire project was likely done over a five- to
ten-year period by the same design crew and
skilled workers. Some stones were quarried
locally, but the colored ones were imported S
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170 CHAPTER SEVEN: Late Antiquity

Figure 7.16 Putti Harvesting Grapes.


Mosaic. Fourth century. Church of
Santa Costanza, Rome. Besides alluding
to communion, this scene illustrates the
Christian scripture John 15:1, in which Jesus
says, I am the true vine, and my Father is
the vinedresser. Putti are depicted trampling
grapes and loading grapes into carts pulled
by oxen; the rest of the scene is a labyrinth of
vines, making up an arbor, amid which other
putti are gathering grapes. This scene hearkens
back to representations of the cult of Dionysus;
we know it is Christian only because it is in a
Christian church.

Figure 7.17 Christ in Glory. Mid to late fifth century. Mosaic. Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian,
Rome. The scene depicts Christs Second Coming wreathed in clouds of fire. The biblical text depicted here
is from the book of Revelation. Compare the representation of Christ here with the one on the sarcophagus of
Junius Bassus (see Interpreting Art figure). There, Christ is shown as an ancient philosopher. Here, he takes on
the Jewish features that would be common for a millennium: long dark hair, heavy beard, olive skin.

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The Visual Arts 171

Figure 7.18 The Good Shepherd. Ca. 450. Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy. The young,
beardless Christstill the accepted image of the Christian savior in the fifth centurysupports himself
with the cross and feeds the sheep, the symbol of the church, with his right hand. Foliage and plants in the
background tie in with similar decorations on the mausoleums ceilings and walls. Upon entering the small
tomb, worshipers would immediately be confronted with this large figure of Christ.

Romana del Casale were various scenes of children, of them depicting Christ. In Romes pagan basilicas the
including young boys hunting animals and young apse was often the site of a cult statue, so Christians
girls gathering roses. These scenes, found in a floor effectively repurposed this space in their churches.
decoration in the bedroom of the son of the owner, In Romes church dedicated to Saints Cosmas and
confirm that the pagans liked pictures of young chil- Damian, there is a particularly good example from
dren, or putti, in the role of adults at work or play or the fifth century (Figure 7.17). After Justinians recon-
even in religious scenes. In the very first Christian art, quest of Italy, Ravenna became a showplace for patrons
some artists adopted this playful genre for scenes of and mosaicists. In the small, cruciform mausoleum
grape harvesting, as in a mosaic from the Church of of Galla Placidia, a daughter of Emperor Theodosius I
Santa Costanza, Rome (Figure 7.16). In Christian art, (r. 378395), there is an especially attractive Good Shep-
however, the scene was a disguised representation of herd in the space above the entry door (Figure 7.18).
the Christian communion, in which wine made from The nearby church of San Vitale has numerous mosa-
grapes became the blood of Christ (see Interpreting ics. Flanking the altar are two, one depicting Justinian
Art figure). In effect, pagan art could be enjoyed and and his courtiers and the other depicting the emperors
reinterpreted at the same time. wife, Theodora, and her courtiers (Figure 7.19). These
In the fifth and sixth centuries, the apses of almost fifth- and sixth-century styles would have a long life in
all Christian basilicas acquired majestic mosaics, most medieval Rome and in the Byzantine Empire.

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172 CHAPTER SEVEN: LATE ANTIqUITy

Figure 7.19 Theodora and Her Attendants. Ca. 547. Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. This mosaic
featuring the empress Theodora faces a panel of her husband, Justinian, with his courtiers. Together, these
mosaics communicate the pageantry and luxury of this age. The man on Theodoras right draws back a curtain,
inviting the imperial party into some unseen interior. Note that Theodora offers a chalice. Opposite, Justinian
offers bread. They seem to be depicted in an offertory procession bringing the elements for communion.

SUMMARY
After a century of severe political, military, economic, and, especially in the West, parceled out their impe-
and spiritual crises two Roman emperors, Diocletian rial provinces into Germanic kingdoms. In the East, a
and Constantine, reformed the state and brought it Roman regime survived, albeit much reduced in size.
to another period of greatness. Their reforms mili- Constantine granted toleration to Christianity and
tarized the Roman Empire, thereby abandoning all later emperors patronized the church and churchmen,
pretense that the emperor was a magistrate. The Ro- even going so far as to make Christianity the only legal
mans recruited barbarians to fight other barbarians faithalongside Judaism. Having gained its freedom,

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KEy CULTURAL TERMS 173

the church developed sturdy institutional structures were no longer built but magnificent Christian ba-
and a flourishing culture. Some Christians fled the silicas grew up everywhere. In sculpture, fresco, and
world and joined monasteries in order to pursue God mosaic, classical styles and techniques were employed
more purely. Others, the church fathers, assimilated the to create a vibrant Christian art. Late antiquity was a
classical message and reinterpreted it in terms appro- world of interlocking and reinforcing continuities and
priate to Christianity. Late antiquitys innovative mu- changes.
sical form was the Christian hymn. Secular buildings

The Legacy of Late Antiquity


The Hellenistic world, and then the Roman Empire, monuments in Paris, the Arc de Triomphe, was con-
provided a stable framework for historical develop- sciously modeled on the triumphal arches of Roman
ment across a huge geography for more than eight emperors. In depicting hearty but naked French
centuries. This stability and longevity helps to explain youths fighting Germanic warriors in chain mail, the
why there are discernible similarities in art and archi- Arc even borrowed iconographic themes from Rome.
tecture in places ranging from Britain to Afghanistan.
Across that same span, boys once learned Greek and
Latin epics and later learned the Psalms. The laws and
institutions of every state that emerged within lands
that had once been Romes betray their origins in Ro-
man ideas and practices.
The impact of late antiquity has been both direct
and indirect. In law, for example, the deep imprint of
Rome can be discerned today in places as different as
France, Scotland, quebec, and Louisiana. The papacy
is the worlds oldest continuously functioning institu-
tion. In late antiquity, popes and emperors had a hard
time defining their respective spheres of authority.
People today still struggle to define the proper roles
of the church and the state. The church fathers remain
influential and the Catholic Mass, the form of worship
that took shape in late antiquity, continues to inspire Arc de Triomphe (Triumphal Arch). Ht. 164, w. 148. Paris. Begun
great music such as the Requiems by Ralph Vaughan by Napoleon in 1806, the Arc was not finished until 1836. It celebrated
the victories of Frances revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. The tomb
Williams (1936) and Maurice Durufl (1947). Mod-
of Frances unknown soldier lies beneath the Arc. For a detail of the
ern dictators learned from Roman emperors how to sculptures on the Arc, see Figure 19.1. When Hitlers Nazi army captured
put huge statues of themselves in prominent places Paris, in 1940, it deliberately humiliated the French by marching under
for propaganda purposes. One of the most famous their treasured emblem.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


basilica Neoplatonism apse transept
tetrarchy Vulgate nave cruciform
dominate antiphon aisles sarcophagus
apostolic succession peristyle clerestory miniatures
Petrine Idea medallions atrium mosaics
heresy attic porticus

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Silver Denarius of Charlemagne. Munzkabinett Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. This coin was
struck at Mainz about 812. The image is thought to depict Charlemagne reasonably accurately.
The legend reads KAROLUS IMP(erator) AUG(ustus): Charles Emperor Augustus.

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The Heirs to the Roman Empire
8
Byzantium and the West in the Early Middle Ages

Preview Questions If the late Roman worldwere envisioned as a long evening, the
1. What principal factors early Middle Ages might be seen as a long morning. The years between
contributed to the 600 and 1000 saw the eastern Roman Empire evolve into a Byzantine Em-
development of a pire that would last until Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman
Byzantine culture?
Turks in 1453. In the West, small kingdoms gave way to the huge empire
2. By what means did the
of Charlemagne, which, in turn, dissolved into the realms of France and
Carolingians attempt
to ensure uniformity Germany. The surprising development in the early Middle Ages was the
across their vast realm? emergence of the Islamic Caliphate, the subject of Chapter 9.
3. What similarities The small silver coingold coins then being scarcedepicts the em-
and differences do peror Charlemagne in profile, crowned with a laurel wreath and wear-
you observe in the
literary interests of ing Roman garb. Its diminutive size reveals a characteristic of the early
the Byzantines and Middle Ageseverything happened on a smaller scale than in Roman
western Europeans times. Regardless of the coins size, Charlemagne is portrayed as a pow-
during the early
Middle Ages? erful ruler; indeed, he had been crowned emperor in Rome in 800. Such
coins reminded Charlemagnes contemporaries who he was and what he
4. In regard to the figural
arts of the early Middle had accomplished. He had given Europe a sense of unity and purpose for
Ages, what carried over the first time in more than three hundred years. His court attempted to
from late antiquity and
recapture the Roman and Christian heritages of late antiquity. He sup-
what was new?
ported scholars who gave a distinctive identity to this new Europe; one
contemporary poet called Charlemagne the father of Europe. During his
reign artists and architects created and built more Romano (in the Roman
style), which would last to our days.
Governments employed fewer people, controlled smaller territories,
and provided fewer services. Population was contracting everywhere until
the ninth century, and cities were shrinking in both size and importance.
Rome, for example, probably had fifty thousand people in 600, a dramatic
drop from the roughly half-million in the time of Constantine. Govern-
ment was less bureaucratic and depended more on personal relation-
ships, but the economy remained overwhelmingly rural and agricultural.

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176 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Heirs to the Roman Empire

Timeline 8.1 THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE


476 641 867 1081 1261 1453

Withdrawal
Revival of The Golden The Challenge Palaeologian
and
Empire Age from the West Emperors
Renewal

Fall of 726843 1054 Fall of


Rome Iconoclastic Schism between Constan-
Controversy Orthodox and tinople
Roman churches

There was trade, but absent the command presence The Birth of Byzantium:
of the Roman Empire, commerce was restricted to
War and Government
local exchange and to a modest scale of trade in lux-
ury goods. After the death of Justinian in 565, the eastern Roman
Religion was a decisive feature of both East and world faced severe challenges. Persians threatened the
West in the early medieval world. The church helped east, while Slavs, Bulgars, and Avars pressed against
to stabilize political, social, and economic life. Church the Danube frontier. The Lombards conquered most
schools provided for the preservation of ancient of Italy. Berber tribesmen rendered the reconquest
learning and the training of the clergy. The church of North Africa almost meaningless. Until Heraclius
continued to function as a key patron for art and ar- [her-ah-KLI-us] came to the throne in 610, most emper-
chitecture, and Christian subject matter dominated ors were poor leaders.
the pictorial arts. During this period, moreover, East Heraclius (r. 610641) restored the treasury and
and West began to develop ever more distinctive pat- fought with Persia. In brilliant campaigns, he defeated
terns of religious life. By 1000 it is possible to speak of Romes old foe but suddenly faced a new threat from
Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic Christian- the Arabs (see Chapter 9). Exhausted from Romes wars
ity. In addition, warriors, merchants, and missionaries with Persia, Byzantium had no answer for the Arabs
carried Christianity far beyond the boundaries of the and lost Syria, Palestine, and most of North Africa.
old Roman world, especially to those areas that consti- Heracliuss successors in the eighth century created
tute Europe today. a shaky frontier with the Arabs in Anatolia (modern
Having moved from its classical to its late antique Turkey), which held until the lightning campaigns of
phase, the West now entered the Middle Ages. In the the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century. But Byzan-
seventeenth century, a Dutch scholar used the Latin tium could not prevent Avar raiding along the Dan-
phrase medii aevi, the Middle Ages, to define the ube, Slavic settlement in the Balkans, and the creation
period between the end of antiquity and the Renais- of a Bulgarian kingdom. Northern Italy was aban-
sance. Western civilization is still divided into three doned; no resources could be spared to hold it. After
periods: ancient, medieval, and modern. The term was years of gains and losses along the frontier with Bul-
once exclusively pejorative; medieval implied back- garia, Basil II the Bulgar Slayer (r. 9761025) elimi-
ward, ignorant, superstitious. Today the term is only a nated the first Bulgarian kingdom. Nevertheless, the
scholarly and academic label. basic geographic outline of the Byzantine Empire had
taken shape by 800 (Map 8.1).
Because of these wars, Byzantiums institutions
were reformed several times. Romes wars had been
THE BYZANTINE WORLD fought by professional standing armies financed by
Between the sixth and eighth centuries, the eastern tax revenues. With the exception of some troops in im-
Roman Empire evolved into a distinctive regime that mediate attendance on the emperor, Byzantium grad-
modern scholars call Byzantine (Timeline 8.1). The name ually developed armies that were settled on the land,
derives from Byzantium, the Greek colony on which in lieu of pay, under the leadership of local officers.
Constantine erected his new city, Constantinople. By The zones within which these armies were settled
zantines, however, always called themselves Romans, were called themes (see Map 8.1). The theme system
albeit they did so in Greek. Three themes dominated provided troops that could be mobilized locally to face
the history of Byzantium: foreign threats, institutional threats and did not constitute a continuous draw on
S reforms, and religious change. the treasury. Local military commanders combined
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The Byzantine World 177

Learning Through Maps


Dneip
er R .

M A G Y A R S KHAZAR
BOH E M IAN S
CA KHANATE
RP
M O R AV I A N S AT
HI
AN
CAUCASUS MTS.

S
FRANKISH R

M
A ABASSIA

TS
KINGDOM
V

.
A
BULGAR ck Sea
KHANATE Bla
KINGDOM OF S
ITALY CR L
A Danube R.
OA V
Ravenna TS Pliska Mesembria
S Euchaita
Ad OPTIMATES
SE Serdica Adrianople Claudiopolis ARMENIAC THEME TS
.
ia r Nicomedia M ARMENIA
PAPAL ti Ancyra

US
STATE DUCHY OF c S
BUCELLARIAN
R

THEME OF

UR
BS

SPOLETO ea THRACE THEME

TA
Rome OPSICIAN

TI-
THEME MESOPOTAMIA

AN
Amorium
TH

Benevento .
TS
E

Naples ANATOLIC THEME M LI C I A


SS

DUCHY OF EPIRUS THRACESIAN S I


AL

BENEVENTO RU

C
THEME Chonae
Y

U Antioch
Ionian

TA
Thebes Attalia
Sea Athens ABBASID
Corinth CIBYRRHAEOT THEME CALIPHATE
THEME OF Constantia
Panormus SICILY PELOPONNESUS THEME Rhodes
OF
HELLAS ARCHONTATE SYRIA
Syracuse
OF CYPRUS
CRETE Damascus
0 125 250 mi
Byzantine Empire Mediterranean Sea
0 250 500 km PALESTINE

MAP 8.1
MHS63 182 EARLY MEDIEVAL BYZANTIUM
mat76620_m0701.eps
This
Firstmap shows the Byzantine Empire as it existed from the eighth century until western crusaders captured Constantinople in 1204. In Anatolia the frontier
proof
often moved back and forth slightly according to the politics and diplomacy of the day. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered vast stretches of
eastern and central Anatolia. 1. Based on this map, why did Byzantium have little interest in the West?

civil and military authority in their hands. Justinian fact that only about one-third of Byzantiums popula-
had begun the process of joining civil and military tion were native speakers of Greek. Leos Ekloga, for
authority, and by the middle of the ninth century the example, was issued in Greek whereas Justinians code
process was complete. had been published in Latin. The emperors called them-
The large and intrusive late Romans government selves emperor of the Roman but did so in Greek,
was simplified. There were more branches of govern- Basileus ton Romaion.
ment, but they employed fewer men and the great of- From a territorial point of view, the Byzantine
ficials were less powerful and prestigious than their Church was smaller than the church of late Roman
predecessors had been. The emperors lived in a mag- times. The great cities of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and
nificent palace complex in Constantinople and rarely Antioch were in Muslim hands and thus were isolated
left the city. In the 720s Leo III issued a new law code, from Christian Constantinople. The patriarch of Con-
the Ekloga, which, as an abbreviation of Justinians code, stantinople often had trouble gaining assent from the
testifies to the empires contraction. bishops in the lands that remained to the empire. The
emperor was literally the patriarchs next-door neigh-
The Birth of Byzantium: Culture and Religion bor and frequently involved himself in church affairs.
A reduced geography and transformed institutions Monasticism was important in both East and West,
were not the only changes experienced by the eastern but in the East monks were often seen as counter-
Roman regime as it became Byzantine. At the most weights to the imperial regime. Monasteries had ac-
basic level, Greek replaced Latin as the underlying quired great wealth and immense prestige. Numerous
basis for culture. This happened notwithstanding the patriarchs came from the monastic order. Many bright S
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mat76655_Ch08_174-201.indd 177 11/26/12 2:28 PM


Figure 8.1 Mount Athos. In 963 Athanasius the Athonite founded a monastery on the Athos peninsula of
Chalcidice in the Greek part of Macedonia. Eventually, twenty monasteries clustered on the peninsula. The
buildings shown here date from various periods but reveal the isolated setting.

and capable young men were drawn to the monastic A famous incident in Byzantine religious history
life instead of to the imperial service. From its Egyp- reveals some of the tensions and characteristics of the
tian origins, monasticism had two prominent forms, age. In 726 Emperor Leo III began agitating against
eremitic and cenobitic. The former, from heremos, Greek icons. As small, detached, frontal, and timeless im-
for desert, was austere and solitary; think of her- ages, icons had a history reaching back to at least the
mits. The latter, from koinos bios, Greek for common fifth century. As images that were believed by some
life, was communal. Byzantine monasticism was pri- to have miraculous powers, icons were of much more
marily cenobitic with eremitic aspects. Monasteries recent vintage, no older than the seventh century. Leo,
could be found throughout the empire. In 963 a major a rugged military man, not an urban sophisticate, be-
monastic complex arose on Mount Athos, eventually lieved that icons violated the biblical prohibition of
comprising numerous monasteries and more than graven images and that their growing prominence
eight thousand monks (Figure 8.1). explained why God was punishing the empire. Leos
The manifestation of the Christian faith that can son Constantine V (741775) was a knowledgeable
be called Orthodoxy emerged over several centuries. theologian himself and persuaded a number of bish-
It was rooted in the Greek scriptures, the Septuagint ops to write against icons. Irene, serving as regent for
(see Chapter 6), and the writings of the Greek church her son Constantine VI, convoked a council at Nicaea
fathers (whereas the Vulgate and Latin fathers were in 787 and restored the veneration of icons. What did
predominant in the West). There were differences in this mean? It meant that people could kiss icons or
basic practices. For instance, Latin clergy were gener- approach them with candles and incenseand carry
ally celibate whereas Eastern clergy could marry. The them around as protection against demons or illness.
two communities celebrated Easter, the feast com- In 815 the emperor instituted a milder form of opposi-
memorating Christs resurrection from the dead, on tion to icons, but in 842 this was also overcome.
different days. There were theological differences too; This struggle over icons is called the Iconoclastic
East and West recited the Nicene Creed slightly differ- Controversy. Iconoclasts were those who broke, ef-
ently, for example. In 1054 the pope and the patriarch faced, or destroyed icons. Iconodules were those who
S excommunicated each other inaugurating a schism venerated icons. Almost all surviving evidence on
N a splitthat lasted a thousand years. the controversy comes from iconodules who had no
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The Early Medieval West 179

Timeline 8.2 THE EARLY MEDIEVAL WEST


476 751 900

Merovingians 481751 Ottonians in


Visigoths: In Gaul 418507 Germany, 9111012
Carolingians Capetians
In Spain 455711
Lombards 568774 in France,
9871328
Anglo-Saxons ca 4501066

End of 507 568 711 751 793 843


western Clovis Lombards Arabs Pippin III First Treaty of
Roman defeats invade conquer becomes Viking Verdun
Empire Visigoths Italy Spain king raids
481511 768814
Reign of Reign of
Clovis Charlemagne

interest in representing their opponents views fully West. Both the existence of icons and the controversy
or accurately. Even art was mobilized by the icono over them illustrate some of the ways in which Ortho-
dules. The Khludov [CLUE-doff ] Psalter, for example, doxy was tracing its own path.
has an image depicting a Roman centurion piercing
Christs side with a lance while, below, a figure is por-
trayed whitewashing an image of Christ. The message THE EARLY MEDIEVAL WEST
is clear: harming an image of Christ is like harming Most of the earliest kingdoms established within
Christ himself (Figure 8.2). In reality, little art was de- Romes former western provinces had relatively brief
stroyed and few people suffered physically although runs on historys stage. Justinian conquered the Van-
many were exiled. The controversy was a battle over dal kingdom in Africa and the Ostrogothic kingdom
how to read the Bible and how to understand the tra- in Italy as part of his effort to recapture Romes glori-
ditions of the church. The popes resolutely opposed ous imperial past (see Chapter 7).
Byzantine iconoclasm as did everyone else in the The Visigoths story is different. Settled in Gaul by
the Romans, the Visigoths created a successful king-
dom despite their Arianism. After the collapse of Ro-
man authority in the West, they found themselves
face-to-face with the Franks, who defeated them deci-
sively in 507 and confined them to Spain, where they
had been expanding their influence for decades. The
Visigoths built an impressive kingdom in Spain and in
589 embraced Catholicism. Unfortunately, the defeat
of 507 so damaged the prestige of the Visigothic mon-
archy that it was never able to create strong central in-
stitutions. As a result, between 711 and 716, Visigothic
Spain fell to a Muslim army from North Africa.
The future of the West fell into the hands of the
Anglo-Saxons and Franks (Timeline 8.2). The Anglo-
Saxons were a conglomeration of peoples from what
is today southern Denmark and northern Germany.
By 410 the Romans had withdrawn their troops from

Figure 8.2 Khludov Psalter, folio 51 verso. Ca. 843. Constantinople.


7.67 5.9. Moscow State Historical Museum. Most of the images in
this book of psalms pertain to standard theological issues, but some, like
this one, are polemical. The key verse here is (Septuagint or Vulgate 51.9
or RSV 52.7): See the man who would have none of Gods help but relied
on his store of riches and found his strength in his folly. A psalter like this
would have been a book for private devotions, so this one gives a sense of S
the depth of feeling surrounding the image debates. N
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180 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Heirs to the Roman Empire

Learning Through Maps


0 250 500 mi
Asturias Kingdom
0 500 1000 km
Frankish Kingdom, 768
Areas conquered by Charlemange

SCOTLAND
Tributary peoples
IONA
Aachen KINGDOM Byzantine territories
OF LOUIS
THE GERMAN
Paris Armagh Jarrow
Verdun TRIBUTARY DANISH
IRELAND
Strasbourg PEOPLES
NORTHUMBRIA MARCH
Dublin
KINGDOM OF York
CHARLES
THE BALD MERCIA
KINGDOM OF WALES EAST
LOTHAIR ANGLIA SAXONY
ESSEX
Utrecht 804
PAPAL
STATES CORNWALL WESSEX Canterbury
KENT ER S
ND
DEVON SUSSEX
F LA Fulda
Aachen AUSTRASIA
Rome

TR
Rouen Echternach

IB
Paris Mainz

UT
.
BRITTANY

AR
ine
NEUSTRIA Orleans Dan

Y
0 250 500 mi

Rh
u be R.

SL
Tours ALEMANNIA BAVARIA
788

AV
0 500 1000 km Poitiers

IC
BURGUNDY

PE
AQUITAINE
Bordeaux Lyon

OP
Milan VENETIA

e R.
ISTRIA

LE
GASCONY Pavia Venice

S
Rhn
Oviedo LOMBARDY D
ASTURIAS Aniane AL
Roncesvalles PAPAL Ravenna
M
AT
Marseille Lrins STATES IA
DUCHY OF
SPANISH MARCH Spoleto SPOLETO
Eb

811
ro

UMAYYAD SPAIN CORSICA Rome


Barcelona DUCHY OF
Toledo Monte BENEVENTO
Cassino
Salerno
SARDINIA
Cordoba
BALEARIC IS. BYZANTINE EMPIRE

SICILY

MAP 8.2
MHS63 THE
188 CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE, THE BRITISH ISLES, AND THE TREATY OF VERDUN
mat76620_m0702.eps
This map shows
First proofthree areas: (a) small kingdoms in the British Isles; (b) the vast extent of the Carolingian Empire,
including old Frankish territories and the new lands added by Charlemagne; and (c) the division of Charlemagnes
empire by his grandsons in 843. In comparing this map to Map 5.2:1. What lands did the Carolingians rule that
the Romans did not? 2. How does this map aid in understanding the Carolingian foundations of European civilization?
3. What is the significance of the location of Charlemagnes capital in Aachen rather than in Rome?

Britain to deploy them elsewhere. Within a generation, arrange a marriage between his son and Charlemagnes
bands of Angles and Saxons began settling in Britain. daughter.
They settled slowly and, for the most part, peacefully While political consolidation was slowly taking
across most of eastern and southern Britain. By 600 shape, ecclesiastical organization proceeded at a
there were several small independent Anglo-Saxon quicker pace. The British had been nominally Chris-
kingdoms (Map 8.2). For two or three centuries, lead- tian when the Romans departed, but their fate is diffi-
ership within Britain passed from one kingdom to an- cult to grasp. The Anglo-Saxons were pagan. Englands
other as aggressive kings expanded at the expense of conversion to Catholicism had two roots. Irish mis-
their neighbors. Anglo-Saxon kings issued law codes, sionaries from the Isle of Iona began working in the
held court in impressive wooden halls (Figure 8.3), and north, in what is now lowland Scotland. In 597 Greg-
adopted some of the symbolic trappings of rulership ory I (pope, 590604) sent Augustine (d. 604/09) and a
such as wielding scepters. The greatest of the early group of monks to evangelize the southern kingdom
kings, Offa of Mercia (757796), issued laws, presided of Kent. The king of Kent had a Catholic Frankish wife,
at church councils, and negotiated with the pope and so Christianity must have made some inroads. Augus-
with Charlemagne. In the latter endeavor he revealed tine and his successors established a base at Canter-
S his aspirations when he triedunsuccessfullyto bury and began pressing their missionary work to the
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The World of Charlemagne 181

a legendary ancestor, Merovech), embraced Catholi-


cism and collaborated with the influential bishops
of Gaul. On his death, he treated the kingdom as if it
were a personal patrimony and divided it among his
sons. For more than two centuries, there was rarely
a unified Frankish kingdom. Nevertheless, the idea
of a single kingdom of the Franks persisted. All the
Franks identified common enemies in the Saxons and
Bavarians, and common laws were observed. Royal
courts were centers of political action and intrigue.
Kings ruled, supported by aristocrats, whose privi-
leges were guaranteed in return. Factional squabbles
among the aristocrats finally led to a weakening of the
effective power of the Merovingian kings and the rise
to prominence of the Carolingian family. The name
Carolingian derives from Carolus, Charles, the name
of several members of the dynasty but especially of
Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great, or Charlemagne.

THE WORLD OF CHARLEMAGNE


The Carolingians rose to prominence by varied means.
Some members of the family were clever and ruthless.
Others had vast landholdingsland was wealth in
that worldand they made strategic marriage alli-
ances with other key families. And several members
of the family were great warriors. Charles Martel (the
Figure 8.3 Yeavering Hall. Ca. 600. Reconstruction. Kirknewton
Parish, Northumberland, England. Yeavering is the modern name for
Hammer) (about 684741) defeated near Poitiers in 733
Gefrin, a British word meaning hill of the goats. Archaeological excavations a Muslim raiding party that had originated in Spain.
beginning in 1953 and continuing to today have identified several buildings The victory vastly enhanced the Carolingians reputa-
and numerous burials on the site. The hall pictured here was in use around tion. For almost a century the Carolingians dominated
the year 600. From this site, kings ruled the surrounding territory. The the office of Mayor of the Palace, a sort of prime minis-
site overall reveals British, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and Roman influences.
Yeavering Hall is one of four nearly contemporary halls discovered in
ter to the Merovingian kings.
Northumbria. Readers of the Old English epic Beowulf (discussed later) In 749 Pippin III, son of Charles Martel and father
will be reminded of Heorot, the great hall of King Hrothgar, where powerful of Charlemagne, asked the pope if it were right that in
men drank and deliberated while Queen Waltheow passed out mead. the land of the Franks the one who had the royal title
had no power while the one who lacked the royal title
had real power. The pope said that this situation con-
north. All the while, Irish missions had been pressing travened the divinely instituted order, and in 751 the
south. In 664, at Whitby, a council decided in favor of Franks made Pippin their king. In 754 the pope visited
Roman over Irish practices. The archbishops of Canter- the Franks to enlist their help against the Lombards.
bury became the leaders of Englands church although Pippin defeated the Lombards and forced them to give
another archbishopric was set up at York in the eighth the pope all the lands they had, technically, conquered
century. England had a small number of rather large from Byzantium. In these actions lay the origins of the
bishoprics, so monks played a key role in evangelizing Papal States, then about one-third of Italy, but today
the countryside. only the 108 acres of Vatican City. The pope crowned
The Franks were a confederation of peoples first vis- and anointed Pippin, his wife, and their sons. Royal
ible in the historical record around 250 and, by about anointing, based on the anointing of Saul by Samuel
400, living along the Rhine in what is now the Neth- in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 10:1), was new here,
erlands. For two or three generations, they expanded although it had been widely practiced in the ancient
south across what is now Belgium and northern Near East. The rite of anointing added divine approval
France. Under their king Clovis (r. 481511), the Franks to that of the pope and the Franks. When Pippin died
consolidated their power in the Paris region and de- in 768, his two sons divided his kingdom. One of them
feated the Visigoths. Clovis, the most powerful and fa- died in 771 leaving the older brother, Charles, who
mous member of the Merovingian family (named for would be known to history as Charlemagne. S
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182 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Heirs to the Roman Empire

The Reign of Charlemagne characterized the age. The Renaissance was born in
the hearts and minds of the Carolingian rulers. Char-
The greatness of Charlemagne (r. 768814) is legend-
lemagne had both the vision and the resources to
ary. In the forty-six years of his reign, commanders
promote a mighty movement, and he saw himself in
acting in his name fought fifty-three campaigns. Yet
some ways as an Old Testament king. People around
Charles did not always accompany his armies and is
him compared him to David, the simple yet learned
not remembered as a brilliant strategist or charismatic
warrior, and to Solomon, the wisest of kings. Charles
leader. He was deeply pious but sired a dozen children
compared himself to Josiah in his duty to visit, to ad-
out of wedlock and slaughtered 4,500 Saxons in a fit
monish, and to correct, and also saw himself as some-
of rage. He could read and speak several languages
thing like a bishop. He was deeply influenced by a
but never learned to write. Nevertheless, Charles, who
book, The Pastoral Rule, written by Pope Gregory I. Al-
had a tidy, almost fastidious mind, fostered a massive
though Gregory had written it as a guide to bishops
program of educational renewal. He reformed secular
behavior, Charles took to heart the idea that rule was
and ecclesiastical institutions, took a keen interest in
not a privilege or a benefit to the ruler but, instead, a
theological controversies, and raised the intellectual
massive responsibility conferred on some by God for
level of his clergy.
the benefit of everyone else.
The most famous event in Charlemagnes reign was
As for resources, Charlemagnes wars brought plun-
his coronation as emperor by Leo III (pope, 795816)
der and tribute and also created peace and prosperity
on Christmas day in 800 at St. Peters Basilica in Rome.
in his lands. Charles did not hesitate to use his vast
The pope had been attacked by a Roman mob and fled
wealth to promote the church, which, in turn, became
to the Franks for protection. Charles traveled to Rome
the great patron of scholarship and the arts. In the
to investigate. For more than a decade, men around
Carolingian period, several dozen cathedral churches
Charles had been calling him emperor or insisting that
and more than three hundred monasteries were built
he deserved to be emperor. Some said that the imperial
or rebuilt. Charles also used his resources to attract the
throne was vacant because Irene, a woman, was ruling
best minds from all over Europe. About one of them,
in Constantinople. The coronation was Leos own idea
Alcuin, who came from England, a scholar said, He
and upset Charlemagne. Charlemagne never called
landed on the Continent with a bag of books and died
himself a Roman emperor, and in 813 he crowned his
the lord of twenty thousand men.
son Louis (r. 814840) as his successor in the chapel at
Charlemagne was concerned about the low level
Aachen, his capital, before the assembled Franks. After
of education that prevailed and the lack of teachers,
a lapse of more than three centuries, there was again
schools, and libraries. In capitularies, therefore, he com-
an emperor in the West (see Map 8.2).
manded that cathedrals and monasteries should estab-
Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis enjoyed almost a
lish schools (even sons of laymen not destined for clergy
century (751840) of unified rule over most of western
were permitted to attend). Only well-trained menthe
Europe. They laid the foundation on which European
schools were restricted to boys and menshould be
civilization would be built. Once or twice per year they
permitted to teach. Copies of important books were to
gathered the several hundred counts, the key local offi-
be secured and then multiple copies made for dissemi-
cials appointed by the ruler, in a great assembly where
nation. To avoid mistakes, only the most experienced
issues were debated and decisions made. The decisions
scribes were to be employed. By the middle years of
took the form of capitularies, edicts issued in chapters
Charlemagnes reign, a new script, Carolingian min
(capitula). Each year, officialsmissi dominici, envoys
uscule (Figure 8.4), began to spread from one church
of the lord kingwere sent two by two, one layman
or monastery to another. This was an extremely clear
and one cleric, through specified territories to investi-
and legible script characterized by simple letter forms.
gate whether the capitularies were being applied. Sons
So comprehensive and systematic were the efforts of
of powerful aristocrats regularly spent some time at
Carolingian scholars that the oldest surviving manu-
the royal court to learn the ways of the regime, and
script of over 90 percent of all Latin classical works is
great churchmen frequently gathered in councils that
Carolingian. Ironically, Renaissance humanists of the
legislated for the Frankish church as a whole. Char-
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries emulated this hand-
lemagne and Louis sought to impose uniformity in
writing because they mistakenly believed the manu-
canon law, monastic practices, and church worship on
scripts they kept finding were Roman.
all their lands.
The curriculum in Carolingian schools was the
same as in the schools of antiquity: the seven liberal
The Carolingian Renaissance arts. The arts were grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arith-
As long ago as 1839, a scholar spoke of the Carolin- metic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Grammar in-
S gian Renaissance. The phrase was intended to cap- volved the acquisition of basic skills in Latin. Rhetoric
N ture the spirit of rebirth, renewal, and reform that had for a long time been less focused on speaking well
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The World of Charlemagne 183

Figure 8.4 Carolingian Minuscule. Ninth


century. Bibliothque Nationale de France,
Paris. This text, a capitulary of Louis the
Pious now in the Stiftbiliothek of St. Gall in
Switzerland, exemplifies the key features of
the new script that dates from the reign of
Charlemagne. Earlier scripts had deteriorated
badly and both Charlemagne and Louis wanted
legible texts copied by experienced scribes.
They were concerned that poorly written texts
might lead to abuses in prayer, worship, and
government. In the example pictured here
you can see capital (majuscule) and small
(minuscule) letters, and spaces between
words. The lines of text are straight and well
spaced. The various little marks about the
letters in some words are abbreviations that
saved spaceand thus expensive parchment.

than on a kind of literary criticism, the ability to iden- In what was becoming France, the Carolingian fam-
tify and also to write figures of speech. Dialectic meant ily finally succumbed to a rival, Hugh Capet (r. 987996),
formal logic. Arithmetic and geometry were practi- who secured the throne definitively for his family.
cal, useful for doing sums, building, and measuring The Capetians would rule France until 1328. From one
property. Astronomy was useful for navigation but point of view, government was failing and anarchy
also included elements of astrology. Music was more was ascendant. From another point of view, however,
like musicology, the science of music, than the skill of small territorial principalitiesNormandy, Anjou,
performance. Champagne, for examplewere emerging on the local
Overall the Carolingian program was limited, prac- level with extremely effective government. Ironically,
tical, and functional. It was also intelligently designed these counties and duchies looked like miniaturized
and remarkably effective across Charlemagnes empire. versions of the former Carolingian state. They pre-
While the program was designed to achieve basic liter- served both memory and practices that later French
acy among the religious and secular leaders of society, kings would draw upon to rebuild the monarchy.
it also produced a number of astonishingly learned and In what was becoming Germany, the dukes of
gifted scholars. Saxony worked hard to create an effective state. They
controlled their own lands in Saxony with an iron
fist and led successful military campaigns against
The Post-Carolingian World the Slavs and the Magyars. The three greatest Saxon
The Carolingian Empire began breaking up in the kings, all named Otto, supported the church and
middle of the ninth century. One man ruled the realm drew it into their government. They were also great
from 751 to 840, but thereafter there were always rival patrons of culture. And in 962, Otto I was crowned
claimants. In 843 Charlemagnes grandsons divided emperor in Rome, which added great prestige to the
the empire with the Treaty of Verdun. Although no one dynasty.
could have seen it at the time, that treaty established In England, the Vikings first appeared in 793 and
the foundations for the later kingdoms of France and they were a real menace for a century after that. Ef-
Germany. In addition to familial strife, the sheer size fective government whether secular or ecclesiastical
and complexity of the Carolingian realm militated virtually ceased, and intellectual life ground to a halt.
against its long-term cohesion. Finally, the ninth cen- In 871 Alfred (r. 871899) became king of Wessex (see
tury saw a return of external attacks unseen since the Map 8.2). Although at that time he was confined to a
fifth century. Vikings, Magyars, and Muslims ravaged swamp in the south of England, little by little he ral-
Europes coasts and frontiers. These raids were psy- lied his forces and then went on the offensive. He faced
chologically damaging, economically disruptive, and a major threat: a Viking army was trying to conquer S
politically destabilizing. England. Alfred won several victories in the south and N
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Learning Through Maps
Aral T U R K E STA N
Sea

Ca
Black Sea M O N G O LIA

s pi
Turpan
Byzantium

an S
Bukhara KAN Dunhuang Yellow
AMA
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ea
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ris R R.
at
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r
rranea
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s
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.
Palmyra PE R S IA Taxila Changan
Tyre
(Chang iang)
R. J
zi

s R.
HI
MA

ng
du
In L A YA S

Ya
EGYPT G C H I NA
an
ges
Berenice Barbarikon R.
Guangzhou
Barygaza
R.

Red ARAB IA
Nile

Sea I N DIA
Arabian Bay
of South
Sea China
Arikamedu Bengal
(Pondicherry) Isthmus Sea
of Kra
Muziris

MA
LA
A

Y
INDIA N OC EA N Straits BORNEO
of Melaka
SUMATRA
Land route
0 500 1000 1500 mi
Sea route
JAVA
0 1000 2000 3000 km

MHS63 190MAP 8.3 THE SILK ROAD


mat76620_m0701.eps
This map represents the complex network of land and sea routes that connected the Mediterranean with China, Central Asia, and India.
First proof
1. Note the complexity of the road system that made up the Silk Road: one overland route and one via water, with various alternative paths
along each way. 2. Note also the Silk Roads end points. 3. Discuss the value of silk cloth and spices to the people in and beyond the Mediterranean.
4. Compare and contrast Chinas presence in the Silk Road economy with Chinas presence in todays global economy.

then marched north, rolling back the Viking forces as THE LITERARY ARTS
he did so. When he died in 899, the south of England
was entirely free of Viking threats and the tide had IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
turned. Alfred, who shared Charlemagnes interest Some early medieval writers were prodigiously learned,
in education and culture, attracted scholars and pa- and a few were capable of achieving real originality.
tronized churches and schools. He lamented the fact Most writers, whether from the East or West, devoted
that Charlemagne had turned to England for scholars prime energy to preserving and explicating the ancient
while he had to go to the Continent to find them. Al- heritage in both its secular and Christian forms. The
fred personally translated various works from Latin culture of Byzantium was almost exclusively Greek
into Old English so that their contents would be avail- and looked back to the Greek classics and the writings
able in a devastated England. of the Greek church fathers. Similarly, in the West, the
The Greek East and Latin West were not iso- culture was Latin and drew inspiration from the Latin
lated from each other. They traded with each classics and Latin church fathers.
other and with the Muslims who controlled the
eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean (see
Chapter 9). What is more, the Silk Road connected the Byzantine Writers
Mediterranean basin with the lands stretching across Throughout the early Middle Ages, Byzantine writ-
central Asia to India and China (Map 8.3). Raw silk ers sought to preserve a fragile heritage. For example,
and silk cloth became prized luxuries, and eastern John Moschus (550619) wrote The Spiritual Meadow as
spicesblack pepper and cinnamon to name but a collection of brief lives of famous eastern ascetics. He
twoenlivened the palates of people well beyond the tried to transmit a sense of their habits and customs
S Mediterranean. The Silk Road hinted at the vast inter- to later ages. The work was widely read both as a his-
N national commercial and cultural connections that torical guide and as spiritual instruction. In the ninth
L would mark later centuries. century, Photius [FOH-shus] (810893) compiled his
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The Literary Arts in the Early Middle Ages 185

Library, a collection of 280 extracts from a wide array valuable for Western readers is its portrait of the sol-
of classical authors. In many cases, the extracts found diers, saints, and hangers-on of the First Crusade
in the Library are all that survive of some ancient (1096) passing through Constantinople on the way
works. Photius, who was one of the great figures of his to Jerusalem. To Anna Comnenas non-Western eyes,
age and twice patriarch of Constantinople, seems to the European Crusaders were a crude, violent bunch,
have felt that a tradition was slipping away. more greedy for loot than concerned about salvation.
Two works had more practical aims. The Strategikon
[struh-TEE-juh-kon], a manual of military science, ap-
peared around 600. It was either written or commis- The Latin West
sioned by the emperor Maurice (r. 581602). In twelve Several figures stand out as preservers of the old Ro-
books, mainly on cavalry warfare, the book provides man ways and ideas. In Italy there were four. Boethius
strategic, tactical, and logistical details. In the tenth [BOW-ee-thee-us] (480525) hailed from an ancient Ro-
century, the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus man family and served the Ostrogothic king Theodoric
[PORE-fear-oh-gen-uh-tus] (905959) wrote two trea- until he was suspected of treason, imprisoned, and ex-
tises, On the Administration of the Empire and On Cere- ecuted. Versatile, Boethius wrote a treatise on music
monies. Designed as handbooks to guide governmental and planned to translate all of Aristotles works into
and court procedures, the books contain a great deal Latin. He managed only to finish some of Aristotles
of informationfor example, on officials and rituals logic treatises, and for the next several centuries the
that is invaluable to modern historians. logic taught in schools was based on these Boethian
Other writers produced works that were both origi- translations. While he was in prison awaiting death,
nal and influential. Maximus the Confessor (580662) Boethius wrote a work that was extremely popular and
was a profound theologian who wrote during the influential for centuries, The Consolation of Philosophy.
Christological controversies over Christs divine and Cast in dialogue form, this prosimetricsections al-
human natures in the seventh century. He was the ternate between verse and prosetreatise probes the
greatest Neoplatonist among Byzantine theologians. questions of why fortune seems so fickle, why good
John of Damascus (about 676749) is best known to- people are afflicted with misfortune, what consolation
day for Three Orations Against Those Who Attack Holy there may be for poor mortals. Boethius and Lady Phi-
Images, which he wrote after Emperor Leo III began losophy go back and forth, she saying to him at one
campaigning against icons. In the Byzantine tradition, point, No man can ever be truly secure until he has
however, Johns most important work was Fountain of been forsaken by Fortune. Happiness, in other words,
Knowledge, a compendium of theology organized by is a fleeting thing. Although deeply imbued with
means of acute dialectical reasoning drawn mainly Christian values, the text makes no explicit appeal to
from Aristotle. John laid down in this work a great Christian teachings. Happiness, the work suggests, can
deal of the technical terminology that was subse- be found only in philosophical contemplation.
quently used in Orthodox theology and philosophy. Cassiodorus [CASS-ee-oh-DOR-us] (about 490585)
And, as Maximus was the great Neoplatonist, so John was, like Boethius, a servant of Theodoric. Unlike the
was the great Aristotelian. philosopher, however, Cassiodorus was loyal to the end.
Byzantium produced two historians of note. Mi- He held high office three different times and, for some
chael Psellos [SELL-us] (1018about 1081) was a prolific years, kept the courts official records. These letters,
author who wrote on law, philosophy, theology, and the Variae, are written in an elegant Latin and provide
history. His Chronography is a history of the period crucial information for modern scholars. Cassiodorus
976 to 1078. Michael was an eyewitness to much of the had longed for a durable reconciliation between Goths
story he told and, as an adviser to several emperors, he and Romans, and, when that proved impossible, he
was unusually well informed. His account brims with retreated to his family estates at Squillace in south-
fascinating details, but its most memorable feature is ern Italy and established a school of Christian stud-
its credible character sketches of powerful Byzantines. ies. There, Cassiodorus wrote biblical commentaries
The other Byzantine historian of note was Anna and the work for which he is best known, Institutes of
Comnena [kawm-NEE-nuh] (1083about 1153), daugh- Divine and Human Readings. The divine institutes is ar-
ter of Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. Annas Alexiad was ranged according to the books of the Bible and lists the
one of the first known works of history by a woman. best commentators on each book. The human institutes
Joining Christian and classical knowledge and fol- is arranged according to the seven liberal arts and lists
lowing the rigorous method pioneered by the Greek the best manuals and commentaries on each art. This
historian Thucydides (see Chapter 3), the Alexiad is work of stupendous learning was in every medieval
a scholarly study of the reign of Annas father, Alex- library.
ius. Despite the authors obvious bias toward her fa- Pope Gregory Ione of two popes called the S
ther and confused chronology, the work is the best Greatcame from a senatorial family and served N
source for this period in Byzantine history. Especially as prefect of Rome. Later he retired from public life, L
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186 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Heirs to the Roman Empire

endowed several monasteries, and joined one. To his a body of original scholarship or beautiful literary
distress, he was elected pope in 590. In elegant, clas- works, he was supremely influential. Some two dozen
sical Latin he wrote a manual for bishops, the Pasto- of his pupils founded schools in the ninth century.
ral Care, which was one of the most frequently copied One individual above all others exemplifies the best
books in the Middle Ages. He wrote a long moral trea- of the Carolingian Renaissance: Theodulf of Orlans
tise based on the biblical book of Job and voluminous (about 750821), a Visigoth. Charlemagne called Theo
biblical commentaries. In his more than 860 surviving dulf to court in about 790. His first task was to write The
letters he showed himself to be an exceptional admin- Book of King Charles Against the Synod, which constituted
istrator. Gregory I truly was the ideal pastor. Charlemagnes official rejection of the Second Council
Contemporary with Boethius and Cassiodorus of Nicaea in 787. The work, a brilliant dismantling of
was the great monastic father, Benedict of Nursia every argument raised both for and against images at
(480ca. 545). Born into a family of modest means in Nicaea, argued the basic Carolingian position on sacred
Rome, Benedict withdrew from the secular world and art: it was legitimate to possess such art for commemo-
went out into the wilderness to live an ascetic life. ration or decoration and heretical to worship or destroy
Around 520, he established his own community about sacred art. His learning, particularly his command of
eighty miles from Rome at Monte Cassino. There he the Bible and the church fathers, was impressive, and
wrote a Rule for his monks. In seventy-three chapters, he knew Hebrew, which was unusual in his age. Theo
based largely on the Bible, Benedict set forth a com- dulf also wrote a treatise on baptism, a set of guidelines
prehensive guide to life with three guiding principles: for priests in his diocese, and an angry work deploring
obedience, stability, and conversion. The first involved the corruption of officials. He was also the finest poet
absolute obedience to the abbot, to the father figure in of his age, a craftsman with both form and language.
the monastery, a renunciation of the willfulness of the Moreover, he was a gifted architect and designed a
individual monk. Stability meant a pledge to remain in beautiful chapel at Germigny-des-Prs (Figure 8.5).
a monastery after one had entered; Benedict despised In a period when new states were being created
wandering holy men. Finally, monks were to under- and new peoples were being brought into the church,
take a complete change of their way of lifea conver- historical writing flourished. Writers tried their best to
sion. Benedict wrote his Rule for Monte Cassino alone, get a sense of where they themselves, or their peoples,
but Pope Gregory I admired it and wrote approvingly or their age, fit in the grand sweep of time. The idea of
about it. The Anglo-Saxons had a special fondness for history in Augustines City of God had made such ques-
Benedicts Rule, and Charlemagne considered it the tions urgent: if history had begun when God created
ideal expression of monasticism. He issued capitular- the world and would continue until God returned to
ies demanding that all monasteries adopt the Rule. judge the world, people wondered where they stood at
Ironically, Benedictine monasticism, although based the moment.
on Benedicts Rule, was actually created by men who Gregory (538594), the bishop of Tours, who came
came long after him. from an old, distinguished family, was a prolific au-
In Spain, the Bishop of Seville Isidore (560636) was thor. In addition to voluminous writings about the
a commanding figure. Highly educated, Isidore wrote lives of the saints, he wrote Ten Books of Histories. Greg-
histories, biblical commentaries, a book on offices and ory began at the beginningwith the Creationand
duties within the church, and his Etymologies in twenty quickly brought his account up to the Roman conquest
books. In this latter work, Isidores aim was to create an of Gaul and then to the rise of the Franks. He portrays
encyclopedia of all knowledge organized according to long-term historical continuities, not ruptures. The
the principle that the origins and meanings of words largest part, more than eight books, of Gregorys Histo-
reveal a tremendous amount of practical information. ries treats the sixth century, but it would be a mistake
Throughout the Middle Ages, Isidores book was cop- to say that Gregory was preoccupied with the Franks.
ied and studied. In fact, Gregory sketches out an implicit comparison
At the court of Charlemagne, Alcuin [AL-kwin] between his own world and the world of the biblical
(about 730804) was the architect of the academic kings. His overall intention is moral and didactic: he
and intellectual revival. Charlemagne attracted him aims to teach lessons about good and bad behavior
to court with a promise of support for a broad pro- and the consequences of each. His Latin is not ele-
gram of reform. He had been trained in the excellent gant and, by classical standards, is often clumsy, but
schools in the north of England and was one of the Gregory is a wonderful storyteller with a sharp eye for
most learned men of his time. Alcuin was a good poet, detail.
a sound theologian, and a solid biblical scholar, but he Bede [BEED] (672/3735) was a product of the cul-
is best remembered as a teacher who wrote elementary tural crosscurrents of northern England. That is, he
S texts and taught Charlemagnes children, including was heir to the Irish, English, and Roman traditions.
N his daughters. Although Alcuin did not leave behind From the age of five, he lived in the monasteries of
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The Literary Arts in the Early Middle Ages 187

Figure 8.5 Oratory, Germigny-des-Prs, France. 806. Theodulf designed this oratory as part of a palace
complex. Everything except this building was later destroyed by Vikings. Internally the building is a Greek cross.
Externally the building is almost square with single apses on the north, south, and west sides, and a triple apse
on the east side. A high tower covers the central bay while barrel vaults cover the N, S, E, and W side bays.
The corners have shallow domes supported by squinches (projecting arches placed diagonally at the internal
angles of towers to support round superstructures; compare pendentivessee Figure 8.13). Centrally planned
churches were rare in the Carolingian world. Theodulf adopted a style that would become normative later in
Byzantium but that had never previously appeared in the West.

Monkwearmouth and Jarrow. Bede was a prolific au- was trying to show how the City of God, at least in Brit-
thor who wrote on time reckoning, for example, and ain, was being built apart from the City of Man. Bedes
popularized the use of AD (anno Domini, in the year of Latin is clear, graceful, and correct.
the Lord) dating. He wrote many biblical commentar- Bede lived in a world where no one spoke Latinit
ies and was the first to use a system of references that had to be acquired in school. Consequently, Latin was
anticipates the modern footnote. Bede is best known for learned in Britain more precisely than it was in Greg-
his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a work mod- ory of Tours Gaul, where the Latin people spoke every
eled on Eusebiuss Ecclesiastical History (see Chapter 7), day was close to the written language. As the spoken
which he knew in Latin translation. For the English language was evolving into French, so too the written
People, Bede imagines a common history long before language looked less like old-fashioned Latin. It was
they had a common politythat history was religious. Alcuin, from Bedes England, who urged the reform of
Instead of beginning his history with the creation of language that Charlemagne implemented. Ironically,
the world, he starts with Christianitys first stirrings in by correcting Latin, the Carolingians killed it; they S
Britain. Here again was an homage to Augustine. Bede began turning it into a dead language. The Romance N
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188 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HEIRS TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE

SLICE OF LIFE
Marriage Diplomacy Nets a Diplomatic Insult

Liudprand of Cremona

Bishop Liudprand (about 920972) of Cremona, emissary It was our duty and our desire to give you a courteous
of the German ruler Otto I (the Great), traveled (968) to and magnificent reception. That, however, has been
Constantinople to arrange a marriage between Ottos son rendered impossible by the impiety of your master,
who in the guise of an hostile invader has laid claim to
and a Byzantine princess. Here, he describes his strained
Rome; . . . has tried to subdue to himself by massacre
meeting with the emperor to King Otto.
and conflagration cities belonging to our empire. . . .

On the fourth of June we arrived at Constantinople, To him I made this reply: My master did not in-
and after a miserable reception, meant as an insult to vade the city of Rome by force nor as a tyrant; he freed
yourselves, we were given the most miserable and dis- her from a tyrants yoke, or rather from the yoke of
gusting quarters. . . . many tyrants. . . . your power, methinks, was fast
On the sixth of June, which was the Saturday be- asleep then; and the power of your predecessors, who
fore Pentecost, I was brought before the emperors in name alone are called emperors of the Romans,
brother Leo, marshal of the court and chancellor; and while the reality is far different. . . .
there we tired ourselves with a fierce argument over
Interpreting This Slice of Life
your imperial title. He called you not emperor, which
is Basileus in his tongue, but insultingly Rex, which 1. What was the purpose of the mission of Bishop
is king in yours. I told him that the thing meant was Liudprand to the Byzantine court?
the same though the word was different, and he then 2. Why was a churchman entrusted with this mission?
said that I had come not to make peace but to stir up 3. Discuss church-state relations in both Byzantine
strife. Finally he got up in a rage, and really wishing and early medieval culture, based on the evidence
to insult us received your letter not in his own hand of this Slice of Life.
but through an interpreter. . . .
On the seventh of June, the sacred day of Pentecost, 4. Why was Liudprand insulted by being addressed
I was brought before Nicephorus himself in the pal- as the ambassador of a king?
ace called Stephana, that is, the Crown Palace. He is 5. What were the issues at stake in this argument be-
a monstrosity of a man. . . . He began his speech as tween Liudprand and the emperors brother Leo?
follows: 6. Speculate on the reaction of Otto to this report from
his ambassador Liudprand.

languagesFrench, Italian, Spanishcontinued to said that Ciceronian eloquence was necessary to the
evolve while Latin did not. It remained the language subject at hand. He used Stoic virtuesself-restraint
of learning, church, and government for a long time, and magnanimity, for exampleto craft his portrait
but it was no longer the language in daily use. of Charlemagne and took his basic structure from Sue-
Another highly regarded historian was Einhard tonius, the Roman historian who wrote The Lives of the
(about 770840), who came from a noble family in the Twelve Caesars. In consequence, Einhards portrayal is
Main River region of what is now western Germany. not chronological but instead thematicwars, private
His family sent him to a monastery for his education affairs, public affairs, personal qualities, and so forth.
but the abbot, recognizing his talent, sent him to court. Several things are striking about Einhards Life. First,
Although a generation younger than Charlemagne, its author was a layman. Second, learning was not ex-
Einhard became his good friend. Einhard wrote a clusive to the clergy. And third, the book was the first
good deal but is best known for the most successful secular biography; for the past five hundred years, all
and popular of all medieval biographies, The Life of the biographies had been about saints. Einhards learning
Emperor Charles. Einhard wrote this work about 828, and his literary aspirations reveal the achievements of
fourteen years after Charlemagne died, in a beauti- the Carolingian Renaissance.
S ful, classicizing Latin. Near the beginning, he pro- In the tenth century, one historian towered over all
N fessed his admiration for Cicero (see Chapter 5) and the othersand there were a good many. Liudprand
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THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE EARLy MIDDLE AGES 189

[LOOD-prand] of Cremona (922972) traveled widely and Terence (see Chapters 5 and 7). Taking Terence as
and observed much. He spent time in Constantinople, her model, Hrotsvitha wrote six plays, which survive.
where he learned Greek along with a sharp dislike for In these plays, she held up Christian womenvirgins,
all things Byzantine. Liudprand wrote accounts of his ascetics, and martyrsas exemplary figures in oppo-
journeys to Constantinople and the Deeds of Otto I. Al- sition to Terences fickle and immoral women. Hrots-
though an Italian, Liudprand admired Otto. Primarily, vitha is hailed as Germanys first woman poet.
however, he intensely disliked the petty squabbling
among the Italian princes of his day. A shrewd judge The Vernacular Achievement
of character despite a penchant for caricature, Liud- Vernacular writings are those written in a language
prand created memorable portraits of the characters other than Latin. The earliest vernacular writings ap-
who crossed his path. peared in lands outside the boundaries of the former
The one original philosopher in the early Middle Roman Empire. In Wales around 600, Aneirin [un-
Ages was an Irishman, John Scottus Eriugena [air-ee- NEE-run] wrote the Gododdin [guh-DOTH-un], which
oo-GAy-nuh] (815877), who accepted the invitation of is about a fierce battle between the advancing Saxons
Charles the Bald, one of Charlemagnes grandsons, to and the British. In Ireland, a great many legal, religious,
come to his court and pursue his studies. An excellent and literary works were written in Old Irish. One re-
Greek scholar, Eriugena translated works by Greek markable tale, the Tain [toyne], centering on the epic-
church fathers into Latin. His most important work, scale cattle raid of Cooley, was set down in its extant
the Periphyseon, was an attempt to reconcile Platonic form in the eighth century. In this tale, Queen Maeve
philosophy and Christianity. He argued that nature of Connaught [kuh-NOTT] raids Cooley to capture the
could be divided into four categories: brown bull, but the hero Cuchulian [KOO-hull-un] de-
feats her. Tain is a rich and intriguing tale full of uni-
Nature which is not created, but creates (God)
versal themes and Irish peculiarities.
Nature which is created and creates (the Platonic The Anglo-Saxons too were precocious in develop-
Forms or Ideassee Chapter 3) ing an impressive literature in Old English. In addition
Nature which is created and does not create to legal, historical, and religious material, there survive
(things perceived by the senses) thousands of lines of verse. Some of the lyric and ele-
Nature which neither creates nor is created (God, giac poetry of Anglo-Saxon England is beautiful and
to whom all must return) moving. Best known, however, is the extraordinary
anonymous epic Beowulf. Probably a work of the tenth
In the thirteenth century, Eriugenas work was declared century, this poem of 3,182 lines features a series of
heretical because he had not drawn sufficient distinc- verbal and physical combats. Men fight monsters and
tion between the Creator and his creation. His philo- one another, and loyalties are pledged and strained.
sophical achievement was nevertheless considerable. The work is set in a remote past but clearly deals with
Two women writers, working against overwhelm- contemporary issues. Although Beowulf makes no ref-
ing odds, left their mark on this virile age: Dhuoda erence to Christianity or the church, some scholars see
[DOO-oh-duh] (fl . 840s), a laywoman, and Hrotsvitha in it an implicit struggle between Christian and heroic
[RAWTS-vee-tuh] (935about 975), a nun. About Dhu- values. The poem is dominated by a sense of gloom
oda herself little is known. A noblewoman from the and forebodingperhaps a poignant comment on hu-
Rhineland, she married a Frankish count from the man life itself.
south of France. In the early 840s she wrote a manual of On the Continent the German lands of the Caro-
advice for his son William, whom his father had taken lingian world produced some interesting material in
to the Frankish court. While not particularly original, Old Saxon and Old High German. The most important
the work urges William to attend to religious duties, work in Saxon is the Heliand [HAy-lee-ahnd] (Savior),
honor family members, and learn the ways of the court. an imaginative recasting of the Gospels. Almost cer-
Of perhaps greater interest, the book shows Dhuoda in tainly this ninth-century work was intended as an aid
command of a fine Latin style in her prose and verse. in evangelizing the militant Saxons. In this version,
She knew the Bible, and also several texts by church Jesus and the twelve apostles form a war band and Je-
fathers, extremely well. Surely, Dhuodas learning and rusalem becomes a hill fort.
writing ability were not unique among laywomen in
her era, but only her book has been recovered. THE VISUAL ARTS
A century later, Hrotsvitha, who came from a noble
Saxon family and lived in a convent in Gandersheim, IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
made an even greater impression than Dhuoda. She Brilliant visual display was a constant feature of the
was an exceptionally skilled poet, well versed in the early medieval environment. Royal and imperial courts S
Bible, and familiar with Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Plautus, were major centers of patronage, but the church was N
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190 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HEIRS TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE

the most generous patron. Accordingly, most art had re- Byzantine Art
ligious themes and subject matter. If significant secular
Byzantine styles became relatively fixed in the age of
art existed, little has survived. Freestanding sculpture
Justinian. The Ravenna mosaics (see Chapter 7) are
became very rare, although relief sculpture sometimes
illustrative of the dominant style. Far off in the Si-
appeared in churches and some very fine ivory carv-
nai peninsula, however, monks at the monastery of
ings survive. Large-scale mosaics were less common
St.Catherine painted or imported stunning icons. The
than in late Roman times, but in a few places, works
of great beauty and high technical proficiency did ap-
pear. Painting regularly occupied two sites: the walls of
churches and the pages of books. Figure 8.7 Icon of the Crucifixion. Ca. 700. Monastery of
East and West, a blending of cultural traditions is St.Catherine, Sinai. Tempera, 18.25 10. The Virgin (left) and St. John
in evidence. In Byzantium, the late antique heritage (right, the beloved disciple) stand on either side of the crucified Christ and
in front of the two crucified thieves (the painting in its current state shows
mixed with the visual culture of frontier regions. In only the thief in the left rear). Beneath the cross, two Roman soldiers,
the West, late antique, barbarian, and Celtic traditions oblivious to the meaning of the Crucifixion, cast lots for Christs garments
fused in a new art of beauty, energy, and originality. upon his death. The diminished size of the soldiers in relation to the central
figures is typical of Byzantine style. This icon, based on John 19:1826,
represents a biblical narrative, unlike other icons that focus on a single,
isolated figure (see Figure 8.6).
Figure 8.6 Icon of Christ. Sixth century. Constantinople. Encaustic
on wood, 33 18. This icon, preserved in the extremely remote
monastery of St. Catherine on the Sinai peninsula, is an early example
of what became a traditional way of representing the mature Christ in
medieval art. Most icons were executed in an abstract, illusionistic style,
but this one has a high degree of naturalism. The unknown artist uses
naturalism to convey the religious message: this is both the son of God
(signaled by the golden halo) and the son of man (indicated by the precise
rendition of hand gestures and facial hair and features). The use of gold,
an artificial touch, is a defining feature of Byzantine style.

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The Visual Arts in the Early Middle Ages 191

majestic icon of Christ (Figure 8.6), perhaps painted But on the whole, the early Byzantine environment
in the sixth century in Constantinople, makes Christ was not as richly decorated as the post-iconoclastic
present to the viewer both immediately and time- world would be. In Hagia Sophia, for example, there is
lessly. The naturalistic style evokes a sense of real- very little evidence of pre-iconoclastic images. In 867,
ity: this is not a picture of Christ; this is Christ. The however, the patriarch Photius installed a large mosaic
picture attracts the reverence and awe of the viewer. of Mary and Jesus in the apse (Figure 8.8). There are
Perhaps painted in the early eighth century, the cruci- earlier examples of this particular imagefor exam-
fixion scene from St. Catherines is quite different (Fig- ple, the one commissioned by Pope Paschal I in Santa
ure 8.7). Here, Christ is erect and garbed like a royal Maria in Domnica in Rome in the 820s (Figure 8.9).
figure. His head is slightly tilted, he bears the crown Subsequently this became one of the two dominant
of thorns, and his eyes are closed. He has suffered and ways of depicting Mary with the baby Jesus. The Vir-
died. This picture both evokes reverence and teaches a gin of Vladimir, painted in Constantinople around
central truth of Christianity. 1100 (Figure 8.10), is the second. The former is called
The iconoclastic era was probably less damaging a hodegetria [hoe-duh-GEE-tree-uh], from Greek, one
to art than heretofore thought. Some images were re- who points the way, which means Mary essentially
moved, painted over, or replaced with simple crosses. presents Jesus to the viewer. The latter is an eleousa

Figure 8.8 Virgin and Child. Mosaic, Apse, Hagia Sophia, Figure 8.9 Virgin and Child. Mosaic, Apse, Santa Maria in Domnica,
Constantinople, 867. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, Hagia Rome, 817824. During his reign, Pope Paschal I donated several large
Sophia received a vast program of figural mosaics. It appears that the mosaics to Roman churches as one way of registering his disapproval of
church had mainly floral or geometric designs before that. The final victory Byzantine policies. This one has a special resonance. Since the seventh
of the iconodules in 842 may have encouraged them to begin putting century, both Constantinople and Rome had claimed Mary as their special
images everywhere. As Figure 8.9 indicates, Rome and Constantinople patroness. Here, Paschal presents himself as Marys humble attendant, and
may have been in some competition over claiming Marys patronage. he looks out to the assembly as if to remind them that he alone intercedes
for them with Mary. His square nimbus (or halo) signifies a living person,
and his face may reflect what he actually looked like.

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192 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Heirs to the Roman Empire

Figure 8.11 David Composing His Psalms, from Paris Psalter.


Ca. 950. Constantinople. 14.75 10.4. Bibliothque Nationale de
France, Paris. (Ms. Gr. 139 fol 1 v.) This most richly decorated of all
Byzantine psalters puts Byzantine classicism on vivid display. The scene
is portrayed in receding three-dimensionality. David sits with his harp, but
Melodiathe personification of songand the nymph Echo attend him.
Figure 8.10 Icon of the Virgin and Child. Ca. 1100. Constantinople. In the lower right, Bethlehem is personified as a classical river god. Davids
30.7 21.65. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. This icon depicts a loving presence in this painting has a dual purpose. First, in religious terms, he
moment between Mary and Jesus: their faces are pressed together, points to the coming of Christ (Matthew traces Christs lineage from David).
his face tilted upward and his gaze fixed upon her eyes. Painted in Second, David is the symbol of perfect rulershipa just and learned ruler
Constantinople, this icon was sent to Kiev as a gift to the new Russian (his learning based on his supposed authorship of the Psalms).
church. Later it was moved to Vladimir and eventually to Moscow. The
faces are original, but the rest of the work has been refurbished several
times. Legend attributed this painting to St. Luke, and the faithful believed
it to be miraculous.
nave was not so much started as perfected in Hagia
Sophia; there were earlier examples in Asia Minor. It
is the sheer scale of Hagia Sophia that is novel. The
[ELL-ay-oo-sah], from Greek, a tenderness, which Byzantines developed the pendentive (Figure 8.12),
means that the viewer sees Mary and Jesus in intimate an inverted concave triangle that permitted the
relation with each other. placement of a round dome over straight walls (Fig-
In the middle of the tenth century, amid other ure 8.13). Another critical feature of Hagia Sophia
historicizing and classicizing efforts, an anonymous and of churches influenced by it is that it is centrally
painter in Constantinople produced the magnificent planned. In other words, it abandoned the traditional
Paris Psalter. This book has fourteen full-page images Roman basilican plan.
(Figure 8. 11) that exude a classicizing style which con- With Hagia Sophia showing the way, the success of
trasts with the polemical messages and conventional the octagonal, or eight-sided, church of San Vitale in
style of the Khludov Psalter (see Figure 8.2). Ravenna helped to make the centrally planned church
the signature Byzantine style (Figures 8.14 and 8.15).
Byzantine Architecture Although quite different in feel and effect, both San
Justinians Hagia Sophia had a profound impact on Vitale and Hagia Sophia add a vertical dimension
all that would follow in Byzantium. Scholars now that further escapes the horizontality of the basilican
S know that placing a dome on a square or elongated form preferred in Rome and generally in the Catholic
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The Visual Arts in the Early Middle Ages 193

Dome

Pendentive

Figure 8.12 Pendentives. A pendentive is a triangular structure that


permits the placement of a dome over a square space. The triangular
arrangement receives the weight of the dome and transfers the thrust of
the domes weight to pier below the triangle.

West. The impact of this new style can be seen in the


eleventh century monastic church of Hosios Loukas
(St.Luke) (Figure 8.16).
Figure 8.13 ISiDoRe oF miLetuS AnD AnthemiuS oF TRALLeS. Hagia Sophia,
Western Art Interior. 532537. Istanbul. Hagia Sophia was the mother church of the
Orthodox faith. After the Ottoman conquest, the church became an Islamic
In the British Isles, images which artists saw in old books mosque, and some of the trappings, such as the calligraphic writings,
or perhaps during their travels combined with native survive from this stage of the buildings life. Today, Hagia Sophia is a
tradition to produce a style that was playful and pleas- museum, and its striking mixture of Byzantine and Islamic elements makes
ing. The Ardagh [ARR-daw] Chalicethe cup used for it a vivid symbol of the meeting of West and East. The pendentive is clearly
to be seen in the center of the picture.
the consecration of wine in Holy Communionis a
splendid example of Irish metalwork (Figure 8.17). The
plain surfaces show a restraint appropriate to a liturgi-
cal vessel, but handles, rim, edges, and medallions pro- The scene has an overall balance and harmony that is
vided the artist with an opportunity to give full vent to pleasing to the eye.
his flair for decoration. The extraordinarily intricate in- In England, in many manuscript paintings, the
terlace designs fashioned from thin gold wire are thor- Irish influence may be seen in decorative patterns,
oughly Irish in inspiration and exceptionally beautiful. along with other artistic and scholarly conceits, as in,
Manuscript illumination is another artistic realm for example, the Ezra Portrait from the Codex Amiati-
in which the Irish excelled. The astonishing Book of nus (Figure 8.19). Painted at the monasteries of Monk-
Kells, probably made at Iona around 800, has been wearmouth and Jarrow in northern England, this
called the chief relic of the Western world. In the painting is framed much in the manner of the Irish
page displayed in Figure 8.18, a Mary and Jesus scene, style. And its illusionistic appearancemodeled in
decoration and color are prominent. The elaborate light and dark and with naturalistic colorsis remi-
interlace border is full of animal heads. Within the niscent of late antique art. The subject matter is bibli-
image, there are interlaces, gemlike sections, and com- cal: Ezra, a Jewish prophet, copying the law after the
plex geometric designs. While the reds and greens exile. The setting, a library with books in a cabinet,
are vivid, blues are noteworthy too, along with gold. perhaps suggests the quest in early medieval Europe
The figures are delightfully abstract yet recognizable. to recapture the classical heritage. S
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Figure 8.14 San Vitale. 526547. Ravenna, Italy. The centrally
planned, octagonal church has antecedents in both East and West but, Figure 8.16 Hosios Loukas. Ca. 1020. Phokis, Greece. The
apart from Hagia Sophia, San Vitale is considerably larger than any Katholikon Church (the principal church in a monastery) was built on the
predecessors. The exterior creates visual interest and complexity. The site of the tomb of a local, wonder-working saint, Blessed Luke of Stiris.
cupola is octagonal on the outside but domed on the inside. Construction The use of pendentives and squinches creates a dome-over-square internal
was completed under Bishop Maximian (546557), and the building was space of elegance and fine proportions. The interior has a rich array of
financed by Julianus Argentarius, a local financier. The church was built mosaics and of decorative marble fittings.
over the presumed grave of St. Vitalis as a thank-offering for the defeat of
the heretical (Arian) Ostrogoths and the restoration of Justinians authority.

Figure 8.15 Plan of San Vitale. Ravenna, Italy. This ground plan
brings out the distinctive design elements of the church. The external
octagon envelops a series of internal semicircular bays. The aisle is
circular instead of horizontal. Above the aisle is a gallery, originally
reserved to women for worship. The mosaics portraying Justinian and
Theodora were on the sides of the apsidal sanctuary at the center right
(for the one depicting Theodora, see Figure 7.19).

Sanctuary
Nave Apse

0 5 10 20 m

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THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE EARLy MIDDLE AGES 195

Figure 8.17 Ardagh Chalice. Ca. 800. 7 high 7.67 wide 4


deep. National Museum of Ireland. This chalice was found by two boys
digging in a potato field in 1868 in the village of Ardagh in County Limerick.
Assembled from 254 separate pieces of silver, gold, bronze, brass, pewter,
glass, and enamel, this chalice is the supreme example of early Irish
metalwork. The artist combined several different techniques including
engraving, casting, filigree, cloisonn, and enameling. There are more than
forty separate designs on the chalice with motifs ranging from prehistoric
European, to Roman, Byzantine, and Celtic.

Figure 8.18 Virgin and Child, from Book of Kells. Ca. 800. 13 9.5.
Trinity College, Dublin. (Ms. 58 fol 34 r.) A mother holding an infant was
a common scene in classical art and one early adopted by Christian artists.
But here classical values have been left behind. The immobile faces and the
modeling of the figures are so stylized that it is difficult to see what space
they occupy. The painter took real delight in bright, arresting colors and in
amazingly complex geometric and animal designs. Pictures like this one
represent something new in medieval art. It is instructive to compare this
image with Figures 8.8, 8.9, and 8.10.

Figure 8.19 Prophet Ezra, from Codex Amiatinus. Before 716.


Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. 19.8 13.6. Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana, Florence. (Ms. Amiatinus 1 fol 5 r.) Bedes monasteries
produced three complete (that is, both Old and New Testaments) Bibles, of
which the Codex Amiatinus (so named because in the Middle Ages it was
kept at the monastery of Monte Amiata in Italy) alone survives. It is the
oldest surviving witness to Jeromes Vulgate. The portrait of Ezra copying
out the Law after the Jews returned from exile (see Chapter 6) was placed
at the front of the bookperhaps to symbolize the copying out of the Law S
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196 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HEIRS TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Figure 8.21 Presentation Miniature, from First Bible of Charles


the Bald (Count Vivian Bible). 845. Paris, Tours. 19.5 14.75.
Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris. (Ms. Lat. 1 fol 423 r.) This
presentation scene, depicting the Carolingian ruler, comes from one of four
Figure 8.20 Christ in Majesty, from Godescalc Evangelistary. complete Bibles produced by the monastery of Tours in the time of Charles
781783. 12.63 8.25. Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris. the Bald (r. 838877). While Charlemagne, the dynastys greatest figure,
(Ms. nouv. acq. Lat. 1203, fol 3 r.) Commissioned by Charlemagne as a left no contemporary portraits (except maybe on the silver denarius),
gift for Pope Hadrian I, this book of gospel readings is written in Carolingian his heirs fared much better, as can be seen in this splendid likeness.
minusculeone of the earliest surviving examples of this new script. The This vivid scene, with its natural colors, has a sense of depth, created
image of Christ in majesty portrays a youthful Christ, much as had been by the modeling in light and dark. The painter stresses the rulers status
done in early Christian art but unlike the mature, bearded Christ that was by enhancing his size at the expense of his officials. Thus, the seated
emerging in Byzantine art. Charles is as tall as Count Vivian of Tours, standing on the left.

On the Continent, in the Carolingian era, many in the Lorsch Gospels, an illuminated manuscript of
traditions flowed together not least because the kings the Gospels produced at the scriptorium of Lorsch (in
could attract the best scholars and artists to the royal modern Germany) around 800. The unknown artist
court from all over Europe. Book painting began under produced a series of arresting images, such as Christ in
Charlemagne with the Godescalc Evangelistary, an il- Majesty (see Interpreting Art).
luminated manuscript containing the Gospel readings Carolingian painting reached a glorious climax
for the Mass. Made between 781 and 783 by the court with the images in the spectacular Count Vivian Bible,
scribe and painter Godescalc, it contained five deco- produced by the monks at Tours (in modern France)
rated figures, including Christ in Majesty (Figure 8.20). and presented to Charles the Bald at Christmas, 845.
This figure, which became common in medieval art, The last image (Figure 8.21) in this Bible depicts the
shows Christ enthroned as the ruler of the world. In books presentation to Charlesone of the first por-
such figures as this one, local, Celtic, late antique, and trayals of an actual event in the Middle Ages. One of
Byzantine styles merge to make the Carolingian style. the arresting aspects of this image is its political and
Despite the otherworldly subject, the artist has given theological message: the right hand of God (above the
the scene a natural feel with his use of natural colors enthroned Charles) is a clear signal of the source of
and the sense of depth, which is conveyed by his use the kings authority to rule. The figures are arrayed
S of light and dark. A significant advance in artistic in a circle suggesting a procession (the artist had to
N technique and style appeared about twenty years later work within his space!). The faces in the picture have
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THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE EARLy MIDDLE AGES 197

Interpreting Art
Iconographic
Composition An enthroned
Perspective Christs left
Christ, floating in space signifying
hand touches a gospel book while
that he is eternalnot bound to
his right is extended in blessing.
any place or timeis encircled by a
Surrounding Christ are the four
circular band with eight angels and
evangelist symbols (see Chapter 6):
symbols of the four evangelists.
Matthew, the man; Mark, the lion;
Luke, the bull; and John, the eagle.
Context Few frescoes or Christs right foot extends slightly
mosaics survive from the early into the picture space signifying that
Middle Ages, so the majority of he shares heaven and earth.
extant paintings are in books. Such
paintings are called illuminations.
The Carolingian court had the
Religious Perspective
This image is called a maiestas,
resources to summon skilled artists
a majesty. Christ is depicted as
to produce at least a dozen books
the all-ruling king. The image was
like this one. This kind of art was
taken over from late antique and
private and devotional, not public.
Byzantine representations of Christ
as pantocrator, all ruler.
Aesthetic Perspective
The Christ figure is painted in a
classicizing style. The ground is
Ideological
purple, the imperial color. The page Perspective Although
was underlaid with gold, signifying Carolingian kings, especially
the richness of the offering. The Charlemagne, saw themselves as
circular and rectangular bands the embodiment of Old Testament
imitate the patterns of fine kings, they believed that the ultimate
metalwork with designs adapted source of their kingship was Christ
from Celtic and Germanic art. Along the King.
each band are cameos meant to look
like jewels.

Christ in Majesty, from Lorsch Gospels. Ca. 810. Middle Rhine. 14.625
10.625. Batthyaneum Library, Alba Julia, Romania. (Ms. R II 1 fol 18 v.) This
magnificent Gospel Book, prepared under the patronage of Charlemagnes court as
a gift for the monastery of Lorsch, contains this figure and a series of four, full-page
evangelist portraits. The manuscript was divided in the Middle Ages. The Gospels
of Matthew and Mark are now in Romania while Luke and John are in the Vatican.

1. Context Why is book art more likely to survive than wall art? 4. Religious Perspective What does Christ depicted in
2. Aesthetic Perspective Identify both classical and medieval majesty suggest?
elements in this image. 5. Ideological Perspective How might Carolingian kings have
3. Iconographic Perspective Why did artists develop certain based their authority on that of Christ?
stylized, repeatable ways of representing certain images?

a certain sameness about them but are nevertheless century Gospel Book, produced at the monastery of
lifelike. The king is flanked by two of his officials and Reichenau (in modern Germany), is the image that de-
then by two soldiers in Roman military gear. The ref- picts Otto enthroned (Figure 8.22). In the manuscript,
erences may be Roman or imperial or both. Charles, this image is one of two facing images. In the other
although enthroned, seems to float in space. The whole one, Otto is depicted receiving homage from the prov-
scene is bounded by an architectural frame. inces that comprised his realmSlavinia, Germania,
Another grand era in the history of book painting Gallia, and Roma. In contrast to the naturalism of Car-
happened during the reign of Otto III (r. 9821002). A olingian art, Otto is represented in a stiff, erect pose S
fine example of Ottonian art, taken from his tenth- that suggests eminence and power. Staring without N
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Figure 8.23 Model of Charlemagnes Imperial Complex at Aachen.
By Leon Hugot. Cathedral Museum, Aachen. This model makes clear
the basic components of the palace complex. The basilican royal hall
and octagonal chapel align north-south with the hall to the north. The
porticusbasically a covered passagewayjoins the two main structures.

Figure 8.22 Emperor Enthroned, from Gospels of Otto III, perhaps


Reichenau. 9971000. 13 9.375. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
extrusions) on each long side. Triconch buildings had
Munich. (Ms. Clm. 4453 fol 24 r.) The drawing and modeling of the
figures in this image are simple. The painter attains sophistication by become very prestigious in late antiquity. The porti
the use of brilliant colors and plentiful gold. The scale (as in Figure 8.21) cus, or covered gallery, ran more than 350 feet from
is hieratic, not natural; that is, figures are scaled according to their the hall to the chapel. The chapel was modeled some-
importance. what on San Vitale, or perhaps on the Lateran baptis-
tery in Rome (Figure 8.24). The exterior is sixteen sided
and the interior core is an octagon (Figure 8.25). The
seeing, he meets no ones gaze. Flanking Otto are massive piers and powerful arches create alternating
secular and ecclesiastical officials, the former holding triangular and rectangular bays in the ambulatory at
swords and the latter Bibles, symbolizing the dual na- ground level. The piers then rise to create a gallery
ture of Ottos imperial rule. That Ottos mother was twice as high as the main floor. The gallery is sur-
a Byzantine princess may account for the presence of rounded by slender columns brought from Rome and
Byzantine features in these paintings. Ravenna and by exquisite bronze balustrades, vertical
posts connected by metal grillwork, apparently cast
Western Architecture on the site. The piers reach to the base of the cupola,
For two hundred years, nothing was built in the which is octagonal like the central core of the build-
Christian West on anything like the scale of Hagia So- ing. The overall effect of the chapel is stunning: the
phia or San Vitale. Then, in the eighth century, the re- chapel is both massive and powerful, but, at the same
turn of peace and prosperity awakened aspirations. In time, it appears to spring from the ground and soar
the south of Italy at the monastery of San Vincenzo al vertically to the heavens.
Volturno and in England at Winchester, hugeabout Aachen was spectacular, but its centrally planned
300-foot-longbasilicas were built. In Rome, Pope design was not influential. The longitudinal basilica
Hadrian I (772795) built and rebuilt one church after triumphed in the Carolingian world and after. To the
another, and his successor, Leo III (795816), erected traditional rectangular Roman basilica, Carolingian
two large tricliniarectangular, multi-apsed ban- builders added two new features. At the monastery of
queting and reception hallsfor the papal court. At Fulda (in modern Germany) and at some other places,
Aachen, Charlemagne began building his palace com- for example, Cologne cathedral, basilicas were double
plex in about 788. He took up residence there in 794, apsedthey had an apse at each end (Figure 8.26). The
and the structures were largely completed by 806. Carolingian innovation with the brightest future how-
The essential components of the original palace ever was the westwork, a tall, multistoried structure
complex were a basilican hall, a long porticus, and a on the western end of a church. Divided into multiple
chapel (Figure 8.23). The hall, nearly 175 feet in length, interior chambers, westworks had both ceremonial
was two stories high and contained official and resi- and practical uses. Only one example of Carolingian
S dential quarters. The building was a triconch, that westwork survives, at the monastery of Corvey in Sax-
N is, with an apse at one end and conches (apse-like ony (in modern Germany) (Figure 8.27).
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The Visual Arts in the Early Middle Ages 199

Apse

Ambulatory

Nave

Stair tower

Figure 8.24 Palace Chapel. Aachen. Ca. 788806. This chapel is the
chief work of Carolingian architecture. The work is impressively complex
in its mathematical proportions. For instance, each of the octagonal bays
(vertical divisions of the interior or exterior of a building marked not by
walls but by architectural features such as windows, columns, or vaulting)
measures 18 feet across for a total of 144 feet, which is almost exactly
the width of the building. The building may imitate San Vitale, but it is
a significant reinterpretation. One late source says that the master
responsible for the building was the otherwise completely unknown Odo Figure 8.25 Ground Plan, Aachen Chapel. This plan illustrates the
of Metz. Most scholars think Einhard played a major role in its design and architectural complexity of the building. Comparing this plan with that of
construction. mat76620_0726
San Vitale in Ravenna (see Figure 8.15) reveals San Vitales influence and
shows how the Carolingian builders innovated.
size 19p0 w x 23p7 d

Atrium Church

0 25 50 m

0 50 100 150 ft.

Figure 8.26 Plan of the Monastic Basilica of Fulda. 791802. The


double apses are clearly visible in the plan.
mat76620_0727
size 19p0 w x 8p4 d

Figure 8.27 The Westwork of the Monastic Basilica of Corvey.


Saxony. 883885. This massive, yet flat, simple, and elegant western
entry to the monastic church of Corvey is the largest standing example of
Carolingian architecture. The rounded windows at the top with columns S
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200 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HEIRS TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE

TECHNOLOGY each year, usually one in spring and one in win-


ter crops, with one third lying fallow. Previously
The early Middle Ages saw some playful developments. it had been common to farm only half an estate
For example, Liudprand, the envoy of Otto I to Constan- per year.
tinople, tells of Byzantine thrones that rose hydrauli-
Heavy iron plows, with a mould board that
cally and of magical golden trees in which artificial
turned the soil dug up by the plowshare, were
birds sang pretty tunes. But practical advances were
used on large estates (but may not have spread
more important in the military and agricultural fields.
to ordinary peasants).

Military Technology: Byzantine


The Byzantine navy improved on Roman mod- MUSIC
els with the dromon, a warship manned by a
crew of up to three hundred men and capable Einhard reports that Charlemagne loved the old bar-
of carrying bowmen, catapults, and the metal barian songs. Unfortunately, neither he nor anyone
tubes for Greek fire (see below). else wrote them down. All the music that survives
from East or West is religious and, at that, connected
By 700 the lateen sail was in use, allowing ships
with the liturgy. Moreover, almost everything known
to be more responsive to the winds.
pertains to vocal music.
Greek fire, probably a mixture of crude oil, sul- Music became integral to the churchs liturgy dur-
fur, and resin, which would burn on water and ing the early Middle Ages and kept alive the Greek
stick to a surface, was first employed in 678 heritage of music as an art form. From this religious
against the Arabs at the siege of Constantinople. foundation ultimately arose all of the sacred and
Heated and then pushed through a metal tube, secular music of the modern West. The name of Pope
by means of a pump, or thrown from catapults Gregory the Great is preserved in the early medieval
in breakable containers, Greek fire became a musical form the Gregorian chant, which became the
very effective weapon in naval battles. official liturgical music of the early churchused in
the Mass (the celebration of the Eucharist) and other
Military Technology: Western European services of the yearly cycle of public worship. The
The war saddle was adapted from contacts with chants consisted of a single melodic line sung by male
invading peoples and provided greater stability voices in unisoncalled monophonywithout in-
for the rider. strumental accompaniment. They had an impersonal,
nonemotional quality and served religious rather than
The curb bit, inserted in the horses mouth, gave
aesthetic or emotional purposes. Notwithstanding
the rider greater control of his mount.
this aim, the chants cast a spell over their listeners,
The stirrup, probably borrowed from the Avars, evoking in them feelings of otherworldliness, peace,
further enhanced the riders stability and control. and purity.
The larger, more powerful warhorse was im- The ninth century saw two of the most important
ported from the Arab world, through Spain. advances in music history: the rise of polyphony
Mounted infantry, drawing on the technologies two lines of melody sounded at the same timeand
just listed, gave the Carolingians the capacity to musical notation. Polyphony, unlike the monophonic
move larger forces to more distant battlefields. Gregorian chants, gave music a richer, more textured
quality. Musical notation owed much to Charlemagnes
Agriculture desire for uniformity in worship. He sought to impose
Gregorian chant, but how might this be possible? The
The bipartite estate (later called the manor) di- transmission of melodies required a face-to-face en-
vided lands in such a way that 25 to 40 percent of counter between a trained singer and his pupils. Only
the land was reserved to a lord while the remain- by developing a system of written musical notation
der of the estate was worked by the peasants for could anything approaching uniformity be achieved.
themselves. This type of estate permitted lords First, at the monastery of Saint Amand in northern
to remunerate vassals, and vassals to support France, neumesa pattern of dots and squiggles
themselves profitably. began to be placed above the lines of text, to help sing-
Vastly more land was brought under cultivation ers follow the contour (up or down) the melody. Two
by clearing forests and draining marshes. later composers, Hucbald (d. 930) and Guido of Arezzo
Many areas switched from two- to three-field (d. 1050), created the staff, parallel lines running across
S systems: two thirds of an estate were planted a page and signaling pitch.
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KEy CULTURAL TERMS 201

SUMMARY
Rome had two heirs. One, Byzantium, the eastern Ro- its blend of Roman, Germanic, and Christian elements.
man Empire, gradually evolved into a new medieval In Britain, Roman collapse was followed in turn by
regime. Faced with severe military threats, this new small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, a unified kingdom, as-
Byzantine Empire reformed its military and politi- saults by Vikings, and a renewed England. In intellec-
cal institutions. Its Christian community developed a tual life, Byzantines and Europeans struggled to revive
distinctive religious tradition that we know as Ortho- an ancient Christian and classical heritage while also
doxy. In the West, small kingdoms on the Continent making contributions of their own. In art and archi-
coalesced into the Carolingian Empire, the largest tecture, local and ancient traditions were synthesized
western regime between Rome and Napoleon. That re- in new ways.
gime put a decisive stamp on European culture with

The Legacy of Byzantium and the West in the Early Middle Ages
Istanbul, since the Ottoman conquest of 1453 the name has not yet vanished. Students of the humanities owe
for Constantinople, remains the spiritual center of a debt to Alcuin and Charlemagne.
Orthodox Christianity as Rome remains the home of
Catholicism. Byzantium evangelized the Slavs and
eventually Moscow would be regarded as the Third
Rome. The popes once ruled much of Italy but today
preside over only a small enclave surrounded by mod-
ern Rome. The empire of Charlemagne constitutes the
foundation on which modern Europe was built. The
original European Economic Community of 1957 in-
cluded Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg,
and the Netherlandsexactly Charlemagnes Eu-
rope. Todays Eurozone encompasses seventeen
members. Every year since 1950, the city of Aachen
has awarded the International Charlemagne Prize
to a person who has made an outstanding contribu-
tion to European unity. Caroline minuscule forms the
basis for most modern typefaces, including the one in
this book. There are still communities of Benedictine Figure 8.28 Charlemagne Prize Medallion. Awarded every year by the
monks all over the world. Todays musical scores are Aachen city government on Ascension Thursdaythe Christian feast is
but modifications of the system created in the early a deliberate attempt to evoke Europes increasingly faint Christian past
Middle Ages. Todays churches no longer always point the Karlspreis, or Prix de Charlemagne, is meant to honor a distinguished
person in the name of the ruler deemed the founder of European culture.
their most prominent facade to the west, but to the
The gold medallion is reminiscent of gold medallions issued from time to
extent that they are vertical and prominent, they are time by Charlemagne himself but is actually an exact copy of Aachens
Carolingian. The Carolingians anchored the seven early-twelfth-century town seal. Its legend reads Charles the Great
liberal arts at the core of an educational system that Emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne would have rejected that title!

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


themes squinch conch monophony
capitularies vernacular porticus polyphony
Carolingian minuscule pendentive balustrade neumes
the seven liberal arts triclinia westwork
prosimetric triconch Gregorian chant S
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The Great Mosque of Mecca. The original mosque was built in the seventh century,
but the present one is essentially the Ottoman mosque of 1570. The mosque covers some
3,840,563 square feet. Its central courtyard, with the kaaba shrine, is the site of pilgrimage
for Muslims from all over the world.

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The Rise of Islam
9
6221520

Preview Questions The Islamic faithwith its new political regimes constituted a third
1. What forces contributed heir to the Roman Empire. The word Islam is Arabic for submission (to
to the cohesion and God); a Muslim is one who has surrendered, or accepted the beliefs and
to the disunity of the practices of Islam. At its largest, the Islamic Caliphate, or Empire, stretched
Islamic Empire?
from Spain to the frontiers of China (Map 9.1). The Islamic world built on
2. How can Islam be been
the culture of the Arabs, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the
called a religion of
orthopraxy (right traditions of many of the peoples folded into the caliphate. Creative and
conduct) more than international, Islamic culture was the source of both scholarly advances
of orthodoxy (right
and artistic achievements.
belief)?
The photograph shows thousands of pilgrims assembled in the court-
3. To what extent do
Western concepts such yard of the Great Mosque in Mecca, the most hallowed shrine in the Is-
as realism, illusionism, lamic world. The Great Mosque brackets this chapter: founded in the 630s
and naturalism apply and in its present form rebuilt by the Ottomans in 1570. Since the time of
to the Islamic arts?
Muhammad, every Muslim male is expected to make a pilgrimage to this
4. Describe the two main
mosque at least once in his lifetime. The Muslim community, the umma
kinds of mosques. How
are mosques like and Muslima, includes all those who have made the surrender. Although
unlike churches? it arose among the Arabs, Islam is no longer identified with a particular
country or region or with any one ethnic or racial group. The mosque is
not only a place of worship but also a school. Its architecture bears the dis-
tinctive characteristics of Islamic architecture all over the world.
The pre-Islamic Arabs inhabited the Arabian peninsula, a dry land
wedged between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Bedouin sheep and
goat herders and small farmers occupied the land while urban merchants
lived in the towns along the Red Sea coast. Neither the Romans nor the
Persians ever conquered the Arabian peninsula. By the early seventh cen-
tury, the Arabic language had spread throughout the peninsula, binding
the inhabitants with a common tongue and oral literary tradition. Jews
and Christians, lured by the prospects of wealth and trade, migrated into
southern Arabia. From them the Arabs acquired additional knowledge of

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204 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

Learning Through Maps


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Conquest of Muhammad 622632 A rab i an
Conquests 632661 YE M E N
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Byzantine Empire

MAP 9.1
MHS63 215 THE WORLD OF ISLAM, 622750
mat76620_m0801.eps
This map
First shows the successive expansion of the Islamic world between 622 and 750.1. Notice the three phases of expansion. 2. Consider how the
proof
expansion of Islam threatened the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of the Franks. 3. Identify the three successive capitals of the Islamic Empire. 4. What
problems would the Muslims face in conquering so much land so quickly and ruling such diverse peoples? 5. Compare the size of the Islamic holdings in
750 with the size of the Roman Empire under Augustus in Map 5.2, The Roman Empire in the Time of Hadrian.

weaponry, textiles, food and wine, and writing. In As his fame grew, he became known simply as the
Mecca, the leading commercial city on the southern Prophet.
trade route, Jews, Christians, and Arabs not only ex- At first, Meccas leaders paid scant attention to Mu-
changed products and wares but also shared ideas hammad. However, he became a controversial figure
and values. when, in the name of Allah, he declared that there was
only one God, attacked the polytheistic beliefs of his
fellow Arabs, and condemned as idolatrous the Kaaba
MUHAMMAD, THE PROPHET (cube), a local pagan shrine that housed a sacred
Muhammad, the founder of Islam and one of the most black rock. Since the Kaaba was not only a holy place
commanding figures in history, was born in the city but also a source of revenue generated by the thou-
of Mecca in 570. His father was from a minor but re- sands of pilgrims who visited it each year, Meccas
spected clan within the citys most powerful tribe, the leaders feared that they were in danger of losing one
Quraysh. Orphaned when quite young, Muhammad of their most profitable attractions. They also consid-
was reared by grandparents and an uncle. He entered ered Muhammad to be socially inferior and unedu-
the caravan trade, acquired a reputation for honesty, cated. Soon hostility turned to persecution. Fearing
and became financial adviser to a wealthy Quraysh for his life, Muhammad and a few followers fled, in
widow, Khadija [kah-DEE yah], whom he married. 622, to Yathrib, a neighboring city. This historic flight,
Their only surviving child, Fatima [FAT-uh-mah], was or Hegira (hijra), transformed Muhammads message
to become a revered religious figure (Figure 9.1). of reform into a call for a new religion. And the date,
In 610 Muhammad began to receive revelations 622 CE, marks the year 1 for Muslims.
from the archangel Gabriel that convinced him Allah According to tradition, Muhammad was welcomed
had called him to be his prophet to the Arab people. into Yathrib and quickly made a name for himself by
S Muhammad slowly gathered a small band of converts. settling several disputes that had divided its citizens.
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Muhammad, the Prophet 205

Figure 9.1 Fatima. Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Fatima, veiled and dressed in white, kneels beside
two of Muhammads wives. Although Fatima is not mentioned in the Quran, her reputation grew over the years
among the Shiite Muslims. She became the ideal woman, possessing extraordinary powers similar to those
of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism. Devout Shiite women appeal to her for guidance and protection, and
worship at her shrines. S
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206 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

He emerged as a judge and lawgiver as well as a mili- idols at the Kaaba, and he forgave his enemies who
tary leader. In Yathrib, Muhammad was able to found became Muslims. Nearby tribes sent delegations to
his ideal community, where religion and the state were Mecca, from which contacts Muhammad constructed
one. Yathrib became known as Medina, or the City, a network of personal and political alliances across the
a name that denoted its position as Islams model city. Arabian peninsula based on recognition of Meccas
Before the Hegira, Muhammad had formulated the power and agreement not to attack Muslims and their
basic doctrines of Islam. In Medina, he put them into allies. On the eve of his death in 632, Muhammad had
practice to solve social and legal problems and to of- achieved what no Arab leader before him had done: he
fer guidelines for everyday life and social interactions. had brought peace to Arabia and united its inhabitants;
Muhammad, it is believed, also drew up a charter de- and, at the same time, he had given the Arabs a new
fining relations among the Medinese people, his own faith based on revelation, an ethical code of conduct,
followers, and the Jews, who were influential in the and a monotheistic deity.
city. Most important, this charter established several
fundamental principles. Faith, not blood or tribe, uni-
fied the believers; Muhammad, as the voice of Allah, IMPERIAL ISLAM
was a ruler and not a consensus builder; and Islam Islam evolved through a series of dynasties in the first
was the only source of spiritual and secular authority. nine hundred years of its history. The dynasties can
Medina became a theocratic state as political and reli- be divided into five major periods, which sometimes
gious objectives blurred into one. Eventually, tensions overlapped (Timeline 9.1).
between the Jews and the followers of Muhammad
reached the point where Muhammad exiled the Jews. The Post-Muhammad Years
At the same time, he expunged any rituals that might
A leadership crisis followed Muhammads death un-
have had Jewish associations. Specifically, he changed
til the Meccan elite chose Abu Bakr [AH-bu BAK-er]
the direction for praying from Jerusalem to Mecca, he
(573643) as caliph (representative or successor).
called for pilgrimages to the Kaaba, and he moved the
Abu Bakr and his three successors were Meccans, early
day of collective prayer from Saturday to Friday.
converts to Islam, and relatives of the Prophet by mar-
While Muhammad held sway in his newly adopted
riage. Islamic tradition calls them the rashidun (rightly
home, conflicts between Medina and Mecca grew as
guided) to distinguish them from the caliphs of later
Medinese raiders attacked the caravans traveling over
dynasties. The first three rashidun caliphs were great
the trade routes from Mecca. Desert warfare soon
warriors; the last three were murdered. Ali, killed in
erupted. From 624 to 628, the two cities fought three
661, was Muhammads cousin and son-in-law, having
major battles, the last one resulting in a victory for Mu-
married the Prophets daughter, Fatima. Centuries later
hammads forces. Now in full control of Medina and
the Shia, the party of Ali, looked back to Ali as the di-
having repelled the Meccan army, Muhammad was
vinely appointed. To this day, that Islamic world is di-
ready to return to Mecca.
vided between the Shiites and Sunnis.
Muhammad and about one thousand of his follow-
During his brief rule, Abu Bakr suppressed a revolt
ers set out as pilgrims to the Kaaba shrine. Meccas
of Arab tribes and launched numerous raiding par-
Quraysh leaders faced a dilemma: If they attacked or
ties beyond the Arabian peninsulaa step that inau-
tried to prevent the pilgrims from worshiping, they
gurated Islams imperial period. Although the Arabs
would be violating their role as protectors of the shrine.
took their share of loot, they neither destroyed towns
But if they did nothing, they risked turning their city
or villagesindeed, they tended to build new ones
over to Muhammad and his supporters. As a way
nor tried to convert their new subjects to Islam. Peo-
out of this impasse, a Quraysh delegation negotiated
ple of the book (dhimmis)initially, Christians and
a treaty that allowed Muhammad to visit Mecca the
Jews but later Buddhists toowere allowed to keep
next year as a pilgrim in exchange for his returning to
their religion as long as they paid taxes and obeyed
Medina. This peaceful solution convinced many Arab
the local Muslim authorities.
tribes that Muhammads new faith and tactics were le-
gitimate, and they soon converted to Islam.
In 629 Muhammad made his pilgrimage, winning The Umayyad Dynasty
new converts during a three-day visit. The next year, Muawiyah [mu-A-we-ya] (about 602680) founded
when the Quraysh attacked one of Muhammads al- the Umayyad dynasty in 661, which lasted until 750.
lied tribes, he raised an army of ten thousand to march Muawiyah moved the capital of his new empire from
on Mecca. Faced with these odds, the Quraysh opened Medina to Damascusa cosmopolitan trade center
the city, their leaders accepted the new faith, and the located more centrally in the Middle Eastsignifying
S Prophet entered triumphantly. He destroyed the pagan an important shift in Arab politics and worldviews.
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Imperial Islam 207

Timeline 9.1 THE WORLD OF ISLAM, 6301517

632 661 750 1050 1250 1520

Post-
Muham- Umayyad
Abbasid Dynasty Imperial Decline
mad Dynasty
Years Seljuk Turk Empire

Capital 762 1258 Ottoman


moved to Capital Mongols Turks
Damascus moved to sack conquer
Muhammad Baghdad Baghdad Egypt
dies and Syria
1260
Defeat of
632641 the Mongols
The four
11691250
rightly guided
Saladin founds
caliphs
Ayyubid dynasty

Under this dynasty, territorial expansion continued. marauding Seljuk Turks invaded the caliphate in the
As more people came under Arab control and con- eleventh century, Abbasid rule ended, even though
verted to Islam, intense social and political conflicts there were caliphs until 1258. The Seljuks also dealt
arose in the caliphate. Old converts looked down on the Byzantines a crushing defeat in 1071 that resulted
new ones, and Meccan elites lorded it over everybody. in the emperors eventual request for Western assis-
tance; that assistance took the form of the Crusades.
The Abbasid Dynasty In their empire, the Seljuks generally ruled through
local sultans, and, as the central power weakened,
During the 740s, a series of uprisings by frontier peo-
some of the sultans became especially influential. One
ples and recent converts undermined the Umayyad re-
was the charismatic Saladin (11371193), a Kurd and
gime. In 750 an army led by a member of the Abbasid
the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty that ruled Egypt
clan defeated the last Umayyad ruler. The Abbasids,
as well as much of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq from 1169
who claimed to be descendants of Abbas, the uncle
to 1250. Saladin is best known for defeating the largest
of Muhammad, moved the capital from Damascus to
crusading army ever assembled in 1187, but he is more
Baghdad in modern Iraqan old trading city that now
important for his governmental acumen and his eleva-
became Islams cultural center and the home of the ca-
tion of Cairo into a center of learning. By the 1250s the
liphs. During the Abbasid period, Islamic peoples from
fearsome Mongols, who had been conquering Muslim
other traditions began to play prominent roles in gov-
lands in central Asia since the 1220s, reached Meso-
ernment, society, and culture. The Persians, a people
potamia and seized Baghdadthus putting an end to
with a centuries-old civilization, now exerted a strong
the Abbasids and to what was left of Seljuk power.
influence in the arts and learning and set the tone and
The idea of a caliphate, embracing the Muslim
atmosphere at the Abbasid court. Persians also staffed
world, reflected a central teaching of Islam: the umma
the state bureaucracy and ran the government. Persian
Muslimathe belief in a single community of believ-
prime ministers, who ruled in the name of the caliph,
ers. Until the 750s, the Umayyad Caliphate did realize
made day-to-day decisions. Turks, Kurds, and other
that dream. Fragmentation began with the Abbasids.
hired mercenaries gradually replaced Arabs in the im-
Spain was never part of the Abbasid Caliphate but
perial armies.
stayed loyal to its Umayyad conquerors. Then, in 956,
Spain emerged as the Western Caliphate of Crdoba,
The Fragmentation of the Caliphate a period of great intellectual achievement. Crdoba
The rulers in Baghdad proved incapable of holding the maintained unified rule only until 1031 after which
vast caliphate together. By the late ninth century, the date Spain broke down into numerous independent
Abbasids controlled a glittering court but had little ef- principalities. At the same time, North Africa was fall-
fective power elsewhere. They had gradually handed ing prey to a series of rival Muslim dynasties. And
military authority to Turkish mercenaries, and, when Egypt was ruled by no fewer than three dynasties in S
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208 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

this period: the Shiite Fatimids, the Ayyubids (just dis- expanded into central Asia as well as conquering Iran
cussed), and the Turkish Mamelukes. The Mamelukes, and Egypt. The Ottoman Empire became the premier
in turn, defeated the Mongols in 1260, causing further state in the eastern Mediterranean. Its dominations de-
splintering of the Islamic lands. pended on the control of vast trade routes (Figure9.2),
a huge and well-trained army, and the millet system
The Rise of the Ottomans which accorded considerable religious autonomy to
subject regions.
Anatolia (Turkey) fragmented into numerous small
states. The leader of one of them, Osman (12581326),
whose name means Bone Breaker, proved to be ambi- Islam as Religion
tious and capable. By 1300 he dominated Anatolia and Islams confession of faiththe shahadahis simple:
in 1302 he defeated a Byzantine army. He founded a There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His
dynastyOttoman derives from his namethat would prophet. Muslims worship the same God as Jews and
rule until the early twentieth century. In the fourteenth Christians, but Muslims believe Muhammad to be
and early fifteenth centuries, the Ottoman sultans ex- the final prophet in a tradition that dates from Abra-
panded their conquests in the Balkans. Mehmet the ham and Moses in Judaism, and that recognizes Jesus
Conqueror (r. 14511481) conquered Constantinople Christ, not as the son of God, but as the giver of the
and made it his capital. Sultan Selim (r. 15121520) Christian prophecy.

Figure 9.2 Courtyard and Mosque. Sultan Han Caravanserai. Aksaray, Turkey. 1229. Heavily restored.
This caravanserai, or way station for merchants, pilgrims, and other travelers, was built by the Seljuk sultan
Alaad-Din Kayqubad. Han is Turkish for caravanserai. Located along well-traveled caravan routes, at distances
about a days travel apart (about twenty-five miles), caravanserais were usually heavily fortified and offered
amenities, such as food and lodging for travelers, fodder and stables for the animals, and protection to all. The
courtyard of the Sultan Han caravanserai is surrounded by an arcade that opens to a series of rooms on one
side and covered places on the other. A small mosque stands in the center of the courtyard.

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Imperial Islam 209

Figure 9.3 Fragment from a Quran with


Kufic script, North African (vellum). African
School (10th century). Chester Beatty
Library, Dublin. Kufic calligraphy, which
originated in the city of al-Kufa in Iraq, was
used in mosque decoration and the writing
of early copies of the Quran. Because Islam
opposed the representation of figures in most
art, calligraphy was one of the major forms
available to Muslim artists.

Muhammads prophecies make up the text of the Quran, commentaries on the Quran, and the Arabic
Quran, a word that literally means recitation (Fig- language make up the core curriculum taught in Is-
ure 9.3). These prophecies were assembled in final lamic religious schools.
form in the generation after the Prophets death. Nev- In early Islam, two types of schools soon emerged.
ertheless, for pious Muslims, the Quran is the eternal The elementary school, maintained by a mosque (house
word of God revealed through the archangel Gabriel of worship), offered boys basic religious education,
to the Prophet. In the historical context, however, the along with training in how to read and interpret the
Quran was compiled by Muslim scholars between 640 Quran. Advanced learning took place in a madrasa,
and 650 on the orders of the caliph. Again on a caliphs the first of which was established in the ninth century
orders, all other collections of sayings were gathered in Fez, in modern Morocco. By the twelfth century,
in Mecca and destroyed. From the middle of the sev- these schools had spread to most major cities in the
enth century, there has been a single authoritative text. Islamic world. At first, their curriculum included only
Finally, the caliphs insisted that the language of the law, literature, philosophy, and theology, but, over time,
Quran be the Arabic dialect of the Quraysh tribe. mathematics, astronomy, and medicine were added
The text of the Quran consists of 114 suras (chap- (Figure 9.4). Some madrasas became famous for par-
ters) arranged from the longest to the shortest. Each ticular areas of study, and local rulers often supported
chapter is divided into ayas (verses). The whole collec- these schools in order to attract scholars and heighten
tion is about two-thirds as long as the New Testament. their own prestige.
The style resembles a type of rhymed prose. Muham- The Quran and the Hadith offer truth and guid-
mads utterances reveal him to be a master of literary ance to the faithful. However, the core of Muslim reli-
expression and rhetoric. Many converts came to Islam gious life rests on the Five Pillars, or Supports, of the
because they were swayed as much by the Qurans Faithwhich include the shahadah and four required
evocative language as by its message. Its elevated tone devotional practices. The four acts of devotion are to
and poetic qualities appeal to the faithfuls soul, or in- pray (salat) five times a day facing Mecca (Figure 9.5), to
ner being. fast (sawm) from dawn to sunset during the month of
Within a century of Muhammads death, a collec- Ramadan, to give alms (zakat) to the poor, and to make
tion of the Prophets sayings, proclamations, and in- a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once in ones life.
structions appeared in the Hadith, or the report (or Not one of the Five Pillars but central to the faith
narrative) of the prophets actions and sayings. Like- is the idea of jihad, which basically means to strive
wise, there emerged written collections of the Sunnah, or to struggle. Muslims struggle against sinning,
the religious customs and practices of the Prophet. or doing evil, and strive to follow the demands of the
Muslims use the Hadith and Sunnah as a supplement Quran and the Five Pillars of the Faith. Thus, jihad is
to the Quran and regard it as a source to explain their a moral or spiritual striving or fight within the indi- S
laws, rituals, and dogma. Today, the Hadith, Sunnah, vidual to do the right thing. However, jihad has other N
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210 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

Figure 9.4 Scene from a Madrasa.


Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris.
(Ms. Arabe 5847 fol 5v.) This manuscript
page, with Arabic writing at the top and bottom,
shows a Muslim scholar, the second person
to the right holding an open book, explaining
a particular text to his students. Behind the
students and teacher are stacks of books set
on open shelves, suggesting a library setting
for the classroom. All students are male and
have beardsas required by Islamic law.
Adorning the rooms upper level are typical
decorative motifs of Islamic art, such as
intricate foliage patterns and designs.

meanings, such as holy war, a definition often found of the faith. A majority rejected the Sunni position that
in the Western media. Many modern Muslims reject all revelations from Allah were now complete, for they
the linkage between jihad and holy war, but certain felt that religious truths were to be found in many
groups within Islam consider jihad to be a Sixth Pil- places, even in other faiths. The word Sufi derives ei-
lar of the Faith. The belief that jihad means holy war ther from Arabic safa, meaning pure, or from suf,
can lead, and has led, to military action on the part of meaning wool. So pure Muslims wore coarse woolen
individuals, of groups, or of states to protect the com- garments as a symbol of their ascetic life and in mem-
munity, to defend the faith, or to promote Islam. ory of the simple garb worn by Muhammad. In some
In the eighth century, Muslim orthodoxy, also ways, Sufism resembled Christian monasticism.
known as Sunni Islam, was challenged by the rise of Like most societies where codes of law are rooted
Sufism, a mystical movement. Sufism emerged as both in religious practice and tradition, the Muslim world
a reaction to the worldliness of the Umayyad dynasty established the holy law of Islamthe Shariaon
rulers and a desire, on the part of some especially their faith. For Muslims, this body of sacred laws was
dedicated Muslims, to return to what they perceived derived, in its earliest forms, from the Quran, Sun-
to be the simpler faith that Muhammad had taught nah, and Hadith. Although Muslim jurists, intellectu-
and practiced. Sufis rejected the legalism and formal- als, and scholars have added to the Islamic law over
ism that had crept into Islam, and they challenged the the centuries, the basic purpose remains the same: to
S power and influence of the ulama, or the learned elite tell the faithful what to believe and how to live their
N who interpreted the Quran and guarded the tradition daily lives.
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Figure 9.5 Kutubiyya Minbar. Ca. 11371145. Bone and colored
woods, ht. 1210, width 2101/4, depth 1141/4. Kutubiyya Mosque,
Marrakech, Morocco. Islamic. Three-quarter view from the right.
Richly decorated minbars, or portable pulpits, were used by local prayer
leaders to address worshipers during Friday services. A minbar is basically
a wooden staircase on wheels, with a seat at the top of the stairs for
the prayer leader. This intricately detailed example was assembled from
perhaps a million pieces of bone and fine African woods.

MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC CULTURE


From the ninth to the twelfth century, Islamic scholars,
intellectuals, and inventors made significant advances
in medicine; in the humanities, including mathematics,
philosophy, and history; and in technology. Muslim
scholars tended to be highly versatile, often making
contributions in more than one field of study.

Medicine
Muslim doctors, whose skills were superior to those of
their Western contemporaries, obtained their knowl-
edge from Greek texts that were translated into Arabic
about the middle of the ninth century. In addition, Is-
lamic medicine had a practical approach to the curing
of disease, namely, through the use of observation and
experimentation. Islamic medicine also made advances
in ophthalmology, formulated new drugs, stressed the
role of diet in the treatment of various maladies, and
made the first clinical distinction between measles and
smallpox. Surgeries, such as amputations, trepanning Figure 9.6 A Doctor Performing an Operation. Edinburgh University
(opening the skull), and cesarean sections, were occa- Library. Muslim physicians normally did not operate on patients, preferring
to use medicines and noninvasive procedures. Sometimes operations were
sionally performed (Figure 9.6). necessary, as in this illustration of a woman having a cesarean section.
The surgeon is helped by several attendants: the one on the right holds the
patients head, while the one on the left hands instruments to the doctor.

S
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212 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

Muhammad al-Razi [al-RAY-zee] (about 865 to be- and eclipses, in which he showed the possibility of so-
tween 923 and 935) set the standard for medicine, both lar eclipses, were translated by European scholars into
as a practicing doctor and as a scholar. A prolific writer, Latin, making him the best-known Arab astronomer in
he compiled a twenty-volume medical encyclopedia in medieval Europe (Figure 9.7). Both al-Khwarizmi and
which he noted his own findings and took issue with al-Battani were associated with the House of Wis-
the ancient Greeks and their medical tradition. Al-Razi dom in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid dynasty.
also treated childhood diseases and wrote a treatise Another scholar, Ibn al-Haytham [IB-en al-hi-THAM]
on them, earning the title Father of Pediatrics. Most (9651039), who spent his life in Cairo, studied the Ptol-
of his writings were translated into Latin and became emaic system of planetary motions, expanded on the
part of the curriculum in Western medical schools un- mathematical work of Euclid, and developed new ideas
til the nineteenth century. about optics and light rays. Through points of contact
in Sicily and Spain, Muslim mathematics and astron-
Mathematics and Astronomy omy were influential in the West until the seventeenth
century.
Al-Khwarizmi [al-KWAHR-iz-me] (780850) advanced
the field of algebra; he also introduced Hindu numerals,
which became known as Arabic numerals, and used Philosophy and History
them to make calculations. His near-contemporary al- The two most creative early Muslim thinkers were Ibn
Battani [al-ba-TAN-e] (about 858929) corrected errors Sina [IB-en SEE-nah] (9801037), known in the West
in the Ptolemaic planetary system and constructed an as Avicenna [av-ah-SEN-ah], and Ibn Rushd [IB-en
elaborate astronomical table. His writings on equinoxes RUSHT] (11261198), known in the West as Averros

Figure 9.7 Shahanshahnama (Book of the


King of Kings). 15811582. From historian
Lokman bin Seyyid Huseyin. Topkapi
Palace Museum, Istanbul. In the 1570s,
Arab astronomers, under the guidance of Taqi
al-Din, the head astronomer of the Ottoman
Empire, studied the heavens with various
instruments at an observatory in Istanbul. To
make their observations and calculations, they
used astrolabes, hourglasses, globes, and a
mechanical clock built by Taqi al-Din. Many
of their instruments were similar to those
S later used by Western astronomers in the
N explorations of the universe.
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Medieval Islamic Culture 213

[uh-VER-uh-weez]. Both were well educated in the lib- Ibn Khalduns fame rests on a multivolume history
eral arts, and although both were trained in medicine of the world, especially the Muqaddima or Prolegomena,
and became highly respected physicians, they wrote which serves as the introduction to his lengthy study.
extensively not only in medicine but also in metaphys- Ibn Khaldun examined ancient societies with an eye
ics, theology, and religion. to identifying their characteristics and the stages of
their evolution. He was one of the first thinkers to deal
Philosophy Avicenna and Averros served at the with supply and demand, the role and value of cur-
courts of Islamic rulers, where they engaged in heated rency, and stages of economic development as a soci-
controversies with other Muslim scholars. Avicenna, ety evolves from an agricultural to an urban economy.
a Persian, spent most of his life in present-day Iran. In Ibn Khalduns view, which echoes that of the Greek
By the age of twenty-one, he had mastered logic, writer Thucydides, the best historical studies down-
metaphysics, and Islamic law and religion as well as play the role of religion or divine forces and focus
medicine. Appointed court physician, he advised and on the role of human activity. Historians, by probing
served numerous Persian rulers. Over the years he beneath the surface explanations of human behavior,
wrote nearly two hundred works on medicine and would discover that humans are governed not by reli-
other sciences, languages, philosophy, and religion. gion or idealism but rather by status concerns and the
His Canon of Medicine, one of the most important books desire to identify with certain groups. Ibn Khaldun
in the history of medicine, surveyed the achievements also offered a theory explaining the rise and fall of
of Greek and Roman physicians, Arab doctors, and his civilizations: As a civilization decays, its social bonds
own findings. As Avicennas reputation grew, Arab weaken, and it falls victim to a more vigorous people
and Western medical schools used his encyclopedia from outside its frontiers. The outsiders overthrow the
of classical and Arab medicine as their authoritative weakened civilization, become powerful, and then cy-
source for centuries. His philosophical works ad- cle into a state of decay, to be invaded by more power-
dressed Aristotelian philosophy and Neoplatonism ful intrudersan outlook that reflected Ibn Khalduns
and attempted to reconcile both to Islam, including the knowledge of the dramatic impact of Seljuk Turk,
Quran and other holy writings. Through these works, Mongol, and other nomadic forces on Muslim life.
Avicenna strived to understand the essence of God in
the physical and metaphysical worlds. His writings on Technology
the nature of God later influenced Western medieval Islamic technology, like Islamic science and philosophy,
thought, especially Scholasticism (see Chapter 10). continued and expanded the Greco-Roman heritage. As
Averros, Islams foremost thinker and one of the Islamic culture spread from its Middle Eastern home,
worlds greatest minds, had even more of an impact its technology borrowed new features from the Far
on the West than did Avicenna. Born and reared in East, Iran, and India. While making no dramatic break-
Crdoba, Spain, in a distinguished family, Averros throughs, Muslim artisans were skilled at perfecting
held important government positions, including chief the achievements of others. And, over time, Muslim
judge of the judiciary system and personal physician technology served as a bridge to Western technology.
to the caliph. Among his vast works, which he wrote Muslims made noteworthy technological advances in
while performing judicial duties, were comprehen- three areas: papermaking, hydraulics, and mechanical
sive commentaries on Aristotles writings, effectively engineering.
reconciling the Greek thinkers ideas with Islamic
thought. Western scholars used his Arabic versions of Papermaking The art of papermaking originated
Aristotle, translated into Latin, to help reconcile Ar- in China, perhaps in the second century CE.
istotelian and Christian thought. Averros writings The first paper was made from old rags and or-
were studied in Western schools and universities until ganic fibers, softened by soaking in water, dried,
modern times. pressed, and cut into sheets.
China kept papermaking a royal monopoly and
History The study of history first played a role in
largely secret until the eighth century, when
Islamic thought because of the supreme significance
supposedly, a Chinese prisoner of war revealed
of Muhammads life to Islam. Biographies of the
the secret of making paper to his Islamic captors.
Prophet and histories of his time appeared soon after
his death. Later generations developed a taste for di- Paper mills began to be built on rivers.
verse historical genres, including accounts of territo- In 793, Baghdad became the site of the first paper
rial conquests, family genealogies, and town histories. mill in the Islamic world.
However, Islamic historyand, indeed, the study of In 1151, papermaking reached Muslim Spain.
historytook a giant step forward in the works of Ibn From Spain, European cities learned the art of S
Khaldun [IB-en kal-DOON] (13321406). papermaking. N
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214 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

Hydraulics From the Greek word meaning water rules of conduct, manners, or good habits. Adab
organ or water hollow tube, hydraulics is the branch first appeared in the eighth century as a literary genre,
of engineering concerned with water flow and the use with the translation into Arabic of a Persian work on
of liquids to power machines. It has been at the fore- statesmanship. Among the elite, adab came to mean
front of Muslim technology since the eighth century. refinement, which included having certain skills,
such as the ability to swim and to ride horses, and,
Hydraulics was important for irrigation, power-
especially, having deep knowledge of Islamic po-
ing mills (for grinding grain into flour, crushing
etry, prose, and history and of the Arabic language.
sugarcane, and sawing wood), and raising water
In modern Arabic, adab simply refers to the whole of
from a lower to a higher level.
literature.
Hydraulics enhanced prosperity; for example,
Baghdad had a system of dams, canals, and mills Poetry Pre-Islamic poetry did not disappear with
that tapped the waters of the Tigris River. the advent of Islam. The most famous surviving
A huge dam, 1,400 feet wide, at Crdoba, in Spain, works are al-Muallaqat (The Hanged Poems, or The
served an irrigation system and mills. Seven Odes), which, according to tradition, were sus-
Valencia, Spain, had an elaborate desilting pro- pended on the walls of the Kaaba while it was still a
cess for purifying water. pagan shrine. The Prophet, though rejecting the pagan
The water clockpowered by water moving themes, recognized the poetrys power and called for
through interlocking hollow tubes, which acti- poets to adapt the ode for religious ends.
vated cams, shafts, pulleys, wheels, and wheels Another genre that survived from pre-Islamic times
within wheelsbecame a hallmark of Muslim was the elegy, or lament, especially for the dead. Usu-
technology (erected in Toledo, Spain; Damas- ally composed by a woman, most often the dead heros
cus; Baghdad; and Fez, Morocco) in the eleventh sister, the elegy became a favorite of Islamic poets. The
through fourteenth centuries. best of these pieces were those by the female poet al-
Khansa [al-kan-SAH] (d. after 630), who lived into the
Mechanical Engineering Muslim artisans worked in early Islamic period.
two distinctly different areas of mechanical engineering: A new literary genre, the ghazal, a short lyric usu-
ally dealing with love, emerged in early Islamic Ara-
Development of utilitarian devices employed in bia. Composed in rhyming couplets, the ghazal often
daily life, such as pumps (to remove water from drew on the poets personal life. Of these early poets,
mines) and the astrolabe (for telling time and Jamil (d. 701) set the standard for later writers. His
navigationit permitted determination of the usual theme was impossible love: star-crossed lovers
position of the sun or stars relative to the horizon). devoted to each other unto death. Persian, Turkish,
Development of automata, self-regulating ma- and Urdu poets, adapting the ghazal into their lan-
chines, designed to entertain courtly audiences guages, made it a popular genre in the Islamic world.
by controlling fountains and clocks. Two centuries later in Islamic Spain, Ibn Hazm
[IB-en KAZ-um] (9941064) produced the highly influ-
Literature ential The Ring of the Dove, which blends poetry with
In pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabic was basically a spoken prose and focuses on the art of love. In this work, he
language, developed by desert Bedouins and spread argues that the true lover finds happiness in pursuit
into urban areas by traders, who adapted it to their of rather than in union with the beloveda central
needs. Within this tribal culture, poets played a criti- idea of Arabic poetry that may have influenced Pro-
cal role, because they were thought to be wizards in- venal poetry (see Chapter 10).
spired by a jinn, or spirit. They eventually created a The Persian-speaking region of the Islamic world
body of works that were transmitted orally by rawis, produced the gifted poet Rumi (12071273), active in
professional reciters of poetry. The preferred poetic Afghanistan, Persia, and Anatolia (modern Turkey). A
form was the qasida (ode), composed in varied me- Sufi mystic, Rumi greatly influenced Muslim ascetic
ters with a single rhyme. These poems, celebrating thought and writing and, most important, Turkish re-
tribal life, personal glory, and love and wine, helped ligious life. As part of prayer ritual, the Sufi order of
create a community identity and became the preferred Whirling Dervishes created a whirling dance. Rumis
model for poetic expression. Between 800 and 1300, literary legacy is twofold: the Diwan-e Shams, a collec-
Arabic became standardized as a written language. tion of poems addressed to a Sufi holy man and the
Called literary Arabic, or classical Arabic, it took the poets master; and the Masnavi-ye Manavi (Spiritual
basic form of the language of the Quran, though mod- Couplets), a complex work, part Sufi handbook, part
S ified to suit changing needs. anthology of proverbs and folktales. The theme of the
N Critical to understanding Islams literary culture is Diwan-e Shams is the poets deep love for his master, a
L the concept of adab, an Arabic word initially meaning metaphor for the Sufi idea of an all-consuming love for
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Medieval Islamic Culture 215

God. The Masnavi, written in rhyming couplets, a Per- has supplied the West with many legendary figures,
sian genre, presents the Sufi way through pointed such as Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sinbad the Sailor. In
stories and anecdotes. the Arab world, however, Islamic scholars have not
accepted The Thousand and One Nights as classical
Prose Literary prose in Arabic originated at the Ab- literature, criticizing it for colloquial language and
basid court in Baghdad, mainly as the creation of clerks grammatical errors.
and translators. A vast literature gradually emerged,
but the genres were limited because of Islams moral Art and Architecture
objection to drama and pure fictiondrama because Islamic art and architecture developed within a cul-
it represented reality and was thus not real, and fic- tural setting dominated by the Quranic ideal that re-
tion because it made no claim to truth. Early writings ligion should govern all aspects of living. In an effort
from the Abbasid court were collections of proverbs; to sanctify human life, this ideal made no distinction
tales of tribal warfare known as ayyam al-Arab, or The between the artistic and the practical, the private and
Days of the Arabs; and, especially, night conversa- the public, the secular and the divine. Thus, art and
tions, or musamarah, which evoked lively communal architecture, like the rest of Islamic culture, had no
evenings around desert campfires. Organized loosely purpose beyond serving religious faith.
about a well-worn theme, filled with puns, literary al- The Quran forbade the worship of idols. In time,
lusions, and colorful vignettes of tribal life, and, above this ban was extended to mean that artists were sup-
all, animated by love of the Arabic language, the posed to be prohibited from representing all living
night conversations reminded urban Arabs of their things. Nevertheless, figural images did appear all
past and inspired the maqamah genre, a major prose over the Islamic world at different times. Artists did
achievement. become abundantly inventive in the use of nonrepre-
The maqamah (assembly) genre was created by sentational forms. The arabesquea complex figure
al-Hamadhani [al-HAM-uh-tha-NE] (9691008). Blur- made of intertwined floral, foliate (leaf shaped), or
ring the line between fact and fiction, his maqamahs geometric formsemerged as a highly visible sign of
are entertaining works, focusing on rogues, dreamers, Islamic culture (Figure 9.8). Geometric shapes, floral
and lowlifes, written in rhymed prose to display his forms, and calligraphy, or beautiful writing, deco-
learning and literary art. rated walls, books, and mosaics (see Figure 9.3).
The foremost writer in the maqamah genre was Islamic tenets allowed borrowing from other cul-
al-Hariri [al-ka-RE-re] (10541122), a government of- tures, so long as what was borrowed was adapted to
ficial in Basra and a scholar of Arabic language and the teachings of the Quran. From Greco-Roman ar-
literature. Al-Hariris poems are noted for verbal fire- chitecture came the column and the capital, the rib
works, humor, and exquisite usage of Arabic language and the vault, and the arcade. From Byzantine archi-
and grammar. In the Maqamat, or The Assemblies of tecture came the dome, the most prominent feature
al-Hariri, he focuses on the adventures of the learned of the Islamic style, and the pendentive, the support
rogue and vagabond Abu Zayd, as reported by a nar- feature that made the dome possible. From Persian art
rator, al-Harith. Abu Zayd, who resembles the author and architecture came miniature painting, the vaulted
in his poetic powers and lively intelligence, repeatedly hall, the teaching mosque, the pointed arch, and flo-
uses his skills as a storyteller to charm presents from ral and geometric ornamentation. And from Turkish
wealthy victims. art and architecture came a grand artistic synthesis,
During this time, the collection of stories known which raised Persian influence to a dominant role in
as The Thousand and One Nights, first translated into Islamic art and architecture, in the zone stretching
Arabic from Persian, was circulating in the Muslim from Egypt eastward, after 1200.
world. It is perhaps the most famous example of the
tale within a framing tale literary genre in all of Architecture The oldest extant Islamic monument
literature. The framing tale, probably from an Indian is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a shrine for pil-
source, tells of the woman Shahrazad (Scheherazade), grims dating from between 687 and about 691 (Fig-
who devises a storytelling plan to keep the venge- ure9.9). Located in a city already sacred to Jews and
ful king Shahryar from his mad scheme of murder- Christians, and built over a rock considered holy by
ing a wife a day because an earlier wife had betrayed Muslims and Jews, the shrine proclaimed by its pres-
him. The tales come from many lands, including In- ence that Islam was now a world religion. For Mus-
dia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and possibly Greece, lims, the shrines rock marked the spot from which
and represent various genresfairy tales, romances, the founder of their faith, Muhammad, made his
legends, fables, parables, anecdotes, and realistic ad- night journey to heaven. For Jews, it was where
ventures. Originally, fewer than a thousand tales ex- Abraham intended to sacrifice his son Isaac. Because S
isted, but as the stories grew in popularity, new ones Muslims also claim Abraham as their ancestor, the N
were added to make the number exact. This collection site was thus given added meaning. Today, the Dome L
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216 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

Figure 9.8 The Ardebil Carpet. Formerly in the Mosque of Ardebil,


Iran. 15391540. Woolen knotted carpet, 3791/2 176. Victoria and
Albert Museum, London. Arabesque leaves fill the yellow medallion at
the center of this exquisite carpet. The medallion is surrounded by sixteen
ogees (pointed ovals), which also contain arabesques. A section of this
design is repeated in the corners of the interior rectangle. Praised as the
greatest example of carpet weaving in the world, this carpet of silk and
wool was woven for a Persian mosque. At least thirty-two million knots
were needed to complete it.

domes of Byzantine churches, this dome is made of


wood covered with gold. The domes splendor re-
flected the opulent aesthetic emerging in the Muslim
world, as well as the ambitions of the Umayyad caliph
who commissioned it.
The architectural aesthetic of the Dome of the
Rock is echoed in its art program. Unlike Byzantine
churches, whose plain exteriors contrasted with bril-
liant interiors, the Dome of the Rock is a feast for the
eyes throughout. Everywhere there are mosaics, tiles,
and marble, much of which was added later. In obedi-
ence to the Quranic ban, there is no figural art. Ara-
besques, foliate shapes, scrolls, and mosaics of purple
and gold, inspired by Byzantine and Persian designs,
animate the surfaces, and more than seven hundred
feet of Arabic scriptrepeating passages from the
Quranare written on both interior and exterior sur-
faces. Sixteen stained-glass windows allow muted day-
light to play across the interior surfaces.
The Dome of the Rock did not set the standard for
Islams dominant building type, the mosque, or, in
Arabic, masjid, place for bowing down. The Prophet
himself established the basic plan with the house of
worship he constructed in Medina. This first mosque,
now lost, reflected the simple values of early Islam. It
consisted of a rectangular courtyard, covered by a roof
resting on palm trunks and enclosed by walls made
of raw bricks. The wall facing Mecca, the direction
for prayer, was designated the qiblah wall, and a pul-
pit was erected from which Muhammad led prayers,
preached, decreed new laws, and settled disputes. The
courtyard also functioned much as the Greek agora and
the Roman forum, providing a public meeting space.
With its varied activitiesjudicial, political, social, and
religiousthis first mosque expressed the Islamic ideal
of the unity of life.
of the Rock remains one of Islams holiest places, after Later mosque builders followed the example set
Medina and Mecca. by the Prophet. Plain in exterior ornament and rect-
The architecture of the Dome of the Rock draws angular in shape, mosques were distinguished from
mainly on Roman and Byzantine sources, but the secular buildings by their interior features and spaces
aesthetic spirit reflects the new Islamic style. Its basic basins and fountains for ritual hand washing, porti-
planan octagon covered by a domewas rooted in coes for instruction, a screened enclosure to shield the
Roman and Byzantine tradition, and the domes sup- prayer leader, and an open area for group prayers (Fig-
port systema tall drum or wall, resting on an arcade, ure 9.10). Sometimes the mosque was crowned with a
S or a series of arches supported by columnswas de- dome, as in Byzantine churches, but the Islamic domes
N rived from Byzantine models. But, unlike the stone high melon shape distinguished it from the spherical
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Figure 9.9 The Dome of the Rock. Ca. 687691. Diameter of dome
approx. 60; each outer wall 60 wide 36 high. Jerusalem. This
Islamic shrine is filled with theological symbolism. The dome itself is a
symbol of the heavens, and the domes thrusting shape represents the
correct path for the faithful to follow. The eight-sided figure on which
the interior drum rests is an image of the earth, and the rock enclosed
within this sacred space is the center of the worlda traditional Islamic
belief. This belief arises, in part, because the Dome of the Rock stands on
the Temple Mountthe location of Solomons Temple and its successors.
Thus, this building symbolizes Islams claim to be the successor to and
fulfillment of the Judaic and Christian faiths.

Figure 9.10 The Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia. Ninth century.


Stone, approx. 395 230; ht. of minaret without finial 103. As in the
other civilizations of this period, the dominant building type in Islam was
the house of worship. This mosque, with its plain walls and square tower
for calling the faithful to prayer, reflects the simple style of early Islam. S
Inside the walls, a large unadorned courtyard serves as a praying area. N
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218 CHAPTER NINE: THE RISE OF ISlAM

SLICE OF LIFE
Fears of Assimilation in a Multicultural Society

Paul Alvar

In early-ninth-century Spain, the Umayyad rulers in nestly, and come together with immense eagerness,
Crdoba extended certain religious, legal, and civic rights after having joyfully shut down their own language
to Christians, known as Mozarabs, and to Jews, who as and, being ignorant of ecclesiastical beauty, condemn
dhimmis, or people of the book, shared some religious as most vile the rivers of the church flowing from par-
beliefs with the Muslim community. However, in the adise. For pitys sake, Christians are ignorant of their
850s, peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians own language . . . But countless men can learnedly ex-
broke down after the Umayyad government executed plain the ostentatious works of the Arabs . . . and they
about fifty Christians for disrespecting Islam. In a con- are more learned in the poems of that people and more
temporary account, the Christian layman Paul Alvar appreciative of their subtle beauty . . . .
laments how some young people in the Christian com-
munity were reacting to the governments crackdown. Interpreting This Slice of Life
His account reveals the fear of assimilation to another 1. Why were the Spanish Muslims tolerant of Jews
culture and faith, and the subsequent loss of cultural and and Christians?
religious identitya timeless issue in our multicultural
2. What was the background to the conflict between
society today.
the Muslims and the Mozarabs?
All the handsome young Christians, skilled in lan- 3. Why should we be careful in accepting Paul Alvars
guage, conspicuous in manner and action, distin- views on the Arabization of young Christians?
guished in gentile learning, accomplished in Arabic 4. Why were these young Christians attracted to Is-
eloquence, study most eagerly the books of the Arabs, lamic culture?
read them most intently, talk about them most ear-

Byzantine form. A tall, slender tower, or minaret, from example of the congregational mosque style. Con-
whose pointed top a Muslim official, the muezzin, called structed on the site of a Roman temple and a Chris-
the faithful to prayer five times a day, also identified the tian church, the mosque was laid out in the traditional
mosque. Inside the mosque, from the earliest times, rich rectangular plan. During the next century, local rul-
decorations reminded worshipers of the beauty of para- ers enlarged the Great Mosque four times to make it
dise: brilliant mosaics and oriental carpets emblazoned the largest sacred building in the Islamic world. The
the floors, facings and calligraphic friezes beautified second expansion added an elaborately decorated qi-
the walls, metal or ceramic lamps cast a twilight glow blah and three domed chambers of Byzantine-inspired
onto the faithful at night, and richly decorated minbars, mosaics and gold ornamentation. But the most strik-
or pulpits (see Figure 9.5), elevated the prayer leader ing feature of the Great Mosque is the row after row of
above the worshipers. The type of mosque inspired double-tiered horseshoe arches (Figure 9.11). The slen-
by Muhammads example is called the congregational der lower columns were salvaged from Roman build-
mosque, or Friday mosque, a horizontal structure that ings and Christian churches, and double-height arches
houses the Friday worshipers in a central courtyard were then placed on them. These rounded arches of red
with a domed fountain for ablutions. With the Arab brick and yellow stone produce alternating patterns of
conquests, mosques of this type were built across the light and color down the seemingly endless aisles.
Islamic world, from southern Spain and Morocco to The ninth-century Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo is
China. an imposing example of the congregational mosque
Early in the history of Islam, Abd al-Rahman (Figure 9.12). Four rows of arcades stand between the
(731788), a member of the umayyad dynasty who sur- faithful and the east wall (the direction of Mecca),
vived the Abbasid revolt, made his way to southern and portals of pointed arches open into the arcaded
S Spain, where he founded a new kingdom. In 786 he area. A minaret with a winding staircase rises just be-
N began to build the Great Mosquean awe-inspiring yond the mosque, which is built of brick faced with
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Figure 9.11 Arches of the Great Mosque. Stone and brick columns, ht. 99, exterior 590 425.
Eighth to tenth centuries. Crdoba, Spain. The Great Mosque, nearly as large as St. Peters Basilica in
the Vatican, contains 850 pillars with 19 aisles running north to south and 29 going east to west. Although
Spanish Christians, in 1236, converted it into a cathedral and constructed a high altar in the interior and, in the
sixteenth century, added chapels around the quadrangle, the Great Mosque still stands as a monument to the
Umayyad kingdom in southern Spain and a crowning achievement of Islamic architecture and decorative art.

Figure 9.12 Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo.


876879. Red brick covered with white
stucco, exterior 531 5321/2. The finest
surviving example of the congregational style,
the Ibn Tulun mosque was imitated throughout
the Islamic world. This view, from inside the
courtyard, shows a domed fountain used for
ritual washing. Outside the walls rises the spire
of a four-story minaret, set on a square base
with a cylindrical second story and an exterior S
staircase. N
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220 CHAPTER NINE: The Rise of Islam

stucco. In later Islamic mosques, the pointed arches The most famous example of a teaching mosque
and decorated stucco work became basic features of is the Masjid-i Jami, or Great Mosque, in Isfahan (in
this style. During the Christian Middle Ages, Western modern Iran), the capital of the Seljuk dynasty in the
architects borrowed the pointed arch and adapted it to eleventh and twelfth centuries (Figure 9.13). Four huge
their own needs, using it to perfect the Gothic style of vaulted halls, or iwans, open into a central courtyard.
architecture. Prayers are said in the iwan that opens toward Mecca,
In the twelfth century in the eastern Islamic lands and the other three serve as areas for study, school,
ruled by the Seljuk Turks, a new type of mosque, in- and rest. Viewed from the courtyard, the opening in
spired by Persian architecture but retaining the ba- each iwan constitutes a huge arch set into a rectangu-
sic rectangular plan of the Friday mosque, emerged. lar facade, faced with blue tilesa specialty of Persian
The new mosque type was called a teaching mosque, artisans and the signature color of the Seljuk rulers. At
because it provided distinctive areas for the madrasa, once conservative and adaptable, Islamic architecture
the religious school for advanced study. The teaching penetrated sub-Saharan Africa. In Djenne (JENN-
mosque proved to be a popular innovation, and, be- eh) in Mali, a major African kingdom that had con-
tween the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, architects verted to Islam by the ninth century, a Great Friday
built similar structures in Egypt, central Asia, and India. mosque was built in adobe in the thirteenth century
(Figure9.14).

Figure 9.13 Masjid-i Jami (Great Mosque). Eleventh and twelfth Painting Notwithstanding the Quranic prohibi-
centuries. Isfahan. The view of the central courtyard and iwan (vaulted tion, one branch of Islamic artbook painting, or the
hall) of this teaching mosque is framed by the arched opening of the facing
art of the bookusually depicted realistic scenes. A
iwan. Various mosque facilities, including living quarters for teachers and
students, are located in the areas around the iwans. few surviving examples show that the art of the book
was practiced in the early days of Islam. However, af-
ter 1100, in rapid succession, two brilliant schools of
book painting emerged, each devoted to representa-
tional scenes. Little known in the West, the first school
flowered in Syria and Iraq, and its artists were prob-
ably Arab, strongly influenced by Persian tradition.
The second was the world-famous school of Persian
miniatures, which flourished in Persia from the thir-
teenth to the seventeenth century.
Of the Arab painters whose works survive, Yahya
ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti [YAK-yah IB-en mak-MOOD
al-WAH-see-tee] (fl. 1230s) is generally recognized as
the best. Working in Baghdad, he illustrated al-Hariris
maqamat, a twelfth-century work. Each picture depicts
a colorful episode in the life of the con artist Abu Zayd,
rendered with an eye to detail (Figure 9.15). The typical
format of the page includes arranging the scenes focus
into the frontal plane, keeping the background neutral
in color, and creating a setting with the barest of de-
tails, such as a small hill or a single tree. Near Eastern
tradition is apparent in the very large eyes, the dark
outline of the figures, and the bunched drapery folds.
The Persian miniatures were produced under
the patronage of the Mongol sultans, who had
replaced the caliphs as rulers. Although the
Mongols brought Chinese influences to the Persian
miniatures, the Muslim artists rejected the openness
of Chinese space and created their own ordered real-
ity, as shown in a superb example from the early six-
teenth century (see Interpreting Art). Like all Persian
miniatures, this exquisite work is characterized by
fine detail, naturalistic figures and landscape, and
S subtle colors.
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Medieval Islamic Culture 221

Figure 9.14 Great Friday Mosque of Djenne, Mali. Thirteenth century. Adobe covered
with mud plaster. By the ninth century, a string of prominent Muslim states in West Africa had
commercial relationships with the Mediterranean world along the trade routes built up over millennia
by the Berber tribesmen of North Africa. Merchants brought salt, dates, copper, and gold, the latter in profusion,
to cities in North Africa and to Cairo in Egypt. Muslim traditions also passed back to the south. This mosque
with its three minarets was the center of a major school that disseminated Islamic teaching in Africa.

Music sequence, before the last two statements. The Islamic


call to prayer, in English translation, is
Music has historically been a controversial topic in
Muslim culture. Only a few musical genres have gained God is great (repeated four times)
universal approval, such as the call to prayer (adhan), I bear witness that there is no god except God
the chanting of the Quran, and the chanting of poems (twice)
and prayers during certain religious events, including I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger
the Prophets birthday, pilgrimages, and Ramadan. of God (twice)
Clerics often question other musical forms, especially Hasten to the prayer (twice)
instrumental music, claiming such music undermines Hasten to real success (twice)
faith. And yet, music traditionally has thrived in the
Allah is the Greatest (twice)
Muslim world.
There is none worthy of worship but Allah
Music was a constant presence in Muslim life, as
heard in the five daily calls to prayer, echoing loudly Early Islamic music employs a microtonal system,
from minarets in towns and cities across the Muslim in which the intervals, or distances between sounds
world. A single male voice chants the call to worship, (pitches) on a scale, are microtones, or intervals smaller
according to fixed rules, in which each phrase is fol- than a semitonethe smallest interval in mainstream
lowed by a longer pause. As the prayer unfolds, each Western music before jazz.
phrase grows progressively longer and more orna- Vocal music initially was dominant in Muslim cul-
mented in style. In each days first prayer, the phrase ture, with instrumental music used only to support
Prayer is better than sleep is inserted into the singing. Instrumental music later won its freedom S
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222 CHAPTER NINE: THE RISE OF ISlAM

Figure 9.15 YAHYA IBN MAHMUD AL-WASITI.


Abu Zayd Preaching. Book painting. 1237.
Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris.
Abu Zayd, here disguised as a religious official,
preaches to a group of pilgrims. Islamic touches
include the beards of male pilgrims and head
coverings of both men and women. The artist
creates a lively scene, in the manner of street
theater, in the way he shows the pilgrims
varied eye and facial movements, including an
exchange of glances, stares into the distance,
heads lifted upward, and a head looking down.

under Spains umayyad rulers, who were great patrons from the string group, the ud (lute), the pandore (a
of musicians and, most notably, of secular music. Mean- bass lute), the psaltery (a trapezoidal-shaped zither),
while, religious music was given a new direction by the harp, the qithara (guitar), and the rabab (rebec, a
the Sufi sect, who, in their pursuit of religious emotion, lute-shaped fiddle); from the wind group, the flute,
encouraged singing, chanting, and recitative, or vocal the reed pipe, and the horn; and from the percussion
passages delivered in a speechlike manner. A major group, tambourines (square and round), castanets,
change arose in Turkey, where the Sufi order of Whirl- and various drums, such as naqqara (nakers, or small
ing Dervishes introduced music into their mosques. kettledrums) and tabla (a pair of wooden drums). Most
Musicians across the Muslim world played many of these instruments were adopted into Western mu-
instruments, representing three groups of instruments sic, especially as a result of cultural encounters during
and drawn from varied traditions. These included, the Crusades.

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MEDIEVAl ISlAMIC CulTuRE 223

Interpreting Art
Cross-Cultural
Subject Quran 1:17 may be
Influences The buraq has
paraphrased: A journey of a single
parallels in the winged beasts of
night was made by a servant of God
ancient Mesopotamia and later
from the sacred place of worship
central Asian art. The biblical story
to the further place of worship.
of Elijah riding into the sky on a fiery
chariot (2 Kings 2:712) is also a
Theological source.
Perspective Traditionally, the
servant of God was Muhammad Style The image blends
and the sacred place of worship Christian, Persian, central Asian,
was Mecca. The early commentators and Chinese motifs. The faces
interpreted the further place of in particular betray Buddhist
worship as heaven (miraj ) and features, and the fiery halos around
believed that the ascension of the Muhammad and Gabriel are Chinese.
Prophet took place from Mecca. The image reveals superbly the
Under the Umayyads, the further extraordinary melting pot of Islamic
place of worship was interpreted culture.
as Jerusalem. The versions were
later reconciled such that the Isra Composition The surface
was taken to be a night journey to is virtually flat, the picture two-
Jerusalem with the ascension to dimensional. The absolute centrality
heaven occurring from there. of Muhammad to the scene creates
a sense of perspective that is not
Content Muhammad is geometric but is still effective. By
portrayed riding the buraq, a ringing Muhammad and Gabriel
mythical winged horse, and being with angelic figures, the artist
accompanied by the archangel achieves an effect of great energy
Gabriel amid a host of angels. and movement. The artist took sheer
delight in rich colors of many hues.

The Night Journey of Muhammad. Persia. Sixteenth century. British Li-


brary, London. This Persian miniature represents a key Muslim belief:
Muhammad made a night journey (Isra) from Mecca to Jerusalem before his as-
cension to heaven. His face was left blank because it was deemed blasphemous
to depict his visage. This painting was executed during the Mongol period, as
the Asian invaders, though converts to Islam, did not share the Arabs abhor-
rence of figural art.

1. Theological Perspective Why might different traditions 4. Style Identify Mesopotamian, central Asian, and Jewish
have developed about the Prophets ascension to heaven? traditions represented in this image.
2. Content What are the essential elements in this picture? 5. Composition Discuss the sense of perspective conveyed by
3. Cross-Cultural Influences Identify shared cultural tradi- this picture.
tions represented in this picture.

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224 CHAPTER NINE: THE RISE OF ISlAM

SUMMARY
Whereas the Roman Empire took four centuries to of Islam. Having enveloped diverse peoples and cul-
reach its zenith, the Islamic Caliphate reached a vast tures, Islamic culture was always open to many influ-
extent in merely a century. The caliphate itself proved ences. Muslims adapted the cultures of Greece and
unable to maintain unity but the Ottoman Turks reju- Rome, of Arabia and Persia, of India and central Asia.
venated the caliphate, which lasted until the twentieth Islamic science made breakthroughs in mathemat-
century. Although political, social, and military fac- ics and hydraulic engineering. Islamic philosophy
tors contributed to the emergence of the caliphate, the synthesized and reconciled Aristotelian and Platonic
key factor was the religion of Islam itself. Muhammad ideas. Islamic literature drew on classical, Arabic,
taught an uncompromising monotheism that blended and Persian traditions. Islamic architecture adapted
peoples and cultures in a community of believers classical and Byzantine forms and structures. In key
the umma Muslimawho recognized one holy book, respects the Islamic world was a bridge between the
the Quran, and a simple set of practices, the Pillars classical, the Asian, and the medieval worlds.

The Legacy of Medieval Islam


One of every five people on earth today is a Muslim. work Scheherazade on the storyteller from the Arabian
Of all the lands ever conquered by Islam, only Iberia Nights. And in the postmodern world, the poet Rumi
was ever reconquered by Christians. Only Arabic can has an international fan base because of the continu-
be used for Muslim worship, a powerful unifying ing appeal of his spiritual and love-struck lyrics.
force for more than a billion people, but only a mi-
nority of Muslims are Arabs or are fluent in Arabic.
Todays jihadists, radical Muslims bent on expanding
their faith and diminishing the impact of the West, are
a constant source of tension in the world. In western
Europe, some governments seeking to protect their
own identities pass laws denying Muslim women the
right to wear veils that cover their hair and neck, or
the chador, the garment that covers the entire body
with only a slit for the eyes. In 2011 parts of the Arab
world exploded in the so-called Arab Spring, when
people rose up against oppressive regimes from Tu-
nisia to Yemen to Syria. It remains to be seen whether
those lands will obtain Western-style democracies or
strict Islamic regimes. Most Westerners are not aware
that countless Arabic words have entered into com-
mon English usage: algebra, almanac, cotton, elixir,
saffron, and syrup to name just a few. Were it not for
the Arabs, we would be computing with cumbersome
Roman numerals instead of the elegant Arabic numer- Muslim Women Demonstrate in Favor of the Islamic Headscarf.
als to which we have become accustomed. There are In 2003 French Muslim women protested in Strasbourg against a series
of laws passed in France intended to maintain the strict secularity of the
also more subtle reminders of our inheritance from state. The law specifically banned public wearing of the hijab, the veil
medieval Islam. In 1888 the Russian composer Nikolai worn by pious Muslim women to cover their hair and neck. The sign the
Rimsky-Korsakov based his lyrical, allusive symphonic women are carrying reads Law Against the Veil or Law Against Islam.

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KEY CulTuRAl TERMS 225

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


madrasa maqamah mosque iwan
jihad arabesque qiblah Persian miniature
qasida calligraphy minaret microtone
adab drum minbar recitative
ghazal arcade congregational mosque
(Friday mosque)

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Nave, Amiens Cathedral. View from the west. Ca. 12201236. France. Maximum height
139. The morning sun exploded through the choir windows to make the end of the building
dissolve in light. In the Bible, there are many images and metaphors based on light.

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The High Middle Ages
10
10001300

Preview Questions Europe recovered slowlyfrom the crises of the late Carolingian
1. What are some of the period to begin one of the most dynamic, creative periods in its history.
chief signs that Europe If in the post-Roman world everything had shrunk, now everything ex-
was expanding in the panded. Europes population doubled between 1000 and 1300, reaching
High Middle Ages?
about seventy million. New states emerged in the slavic world and in
2. What roles did faith
scandinavia. Governments grew in scope, gaining greater competence
and reason play in the
intellectual life of the and authority. Cities grew larger and became increasingly important in
High Middle Ages? economic, political, and intellectual life. Latin literature flourished and
3. What traditions vernacular literature appeared in French, German, Italian, and spanish.
combined to form schools grew in size and sophistication, and a new kind of school, the
courtly love and why
is this important? university, assumed leadership in intellectual life. Romanesque and then
Gothic art, in painting, sculpture, and architecture, soaredliterally and
4. Discuss the relationship
of the Romanesque figurativelyto new heights.
style to the Gothic The nave of Amiens cathedral, one of the dozens of Gothic cathedrals
style, showing how
built in this era, is a testament in stone and glass to the ages spiritual and
the latter developed
from the former. substantive qualities. Carolingian exterior verticality has been brought in-
side. The ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and numerous windows are a trib-
ute to the rediscovery of ancient geometry. But there is also a calm logic
hereand the twelfth- and thirteenth-century schools were dominated by
logic. A building like this was very expensive, which reflected the eco-
nomic prosperity of the time. But after money, geometry, and logic, there
is also something mysterious, uplifting, spiritual about Amiens cathedral.
In a world of bureaucrats, merchants, and logicians, there were also mys-
tics who, in almost Platonic terms, imagined realities beyond those the eye
could see.

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228 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

POLITICS AND SOCIETY free himalmost without exception, only men were
involvedto perform his service (Figure 10.1).
King Alfred the Great of England (r. 871899) said that This was a violent society whose leaders were men
a kingdom needed men of war, men of prayer, and trained to fight, ideally their lords enemies but some-
men of work, and two French bishops spoke in the times each other. These warrior-aristocrats shared a
same terms. This tripartite scheme is helpful as a way guiding ethos: chivalry, from the French cheval, horse;
of thinking about how medieval society and politics so chivalrychevaleriemeans horsiness, the way
functionedand it is contemporary. Nevertheless, of life for men who fought on horseback
this view is too narrow. Those who work, for exam- The word also meant knighthood. The essential
ple, were, in this aristocratic way of looking at things, values of the chivalric knight were prowess (a knight
the peasants, but not the townspeople, who were in- who cannot fight is a contradiction in terms); courage;
creasingly numerous and prominent. In addition, the loyalty, an ideal that was often violated; and generos-
scheme did not include women and minorities, such ity, openhanded giving.
as Jews. Originally, chivalric values were male and martial
and did not pertain to relations between the sexes.
Later, in the twelfth century, female influences began
Lords and Vassals: Those Who Fight turning rough-and-ready warriors into gentlemen.
The term feudalism is almost synonymous with me-
dieval social and political practices, although the term
itself never appeared in the Middle Ages. Like all mod- Figure 10.1 A Vassal Paying Homage, from the Westminster Psalter.
ern words that end in ism, feudalism has been used in Ca. 1250. British Library, London. (MS Royal 2 A XXII, fol 220.) The
different ways. Feudalism can mean a kind of govern- image shows a decked-out warrior: sword, chain mail, banner and lance,
ment with shared, segmented power and authority; a and horse. He also bears crosses on his cloakhe is crucesignatus,
signed by the cross, that is, a crusader. Is he offering his hands in
set of relationships between free men bound to each
homage to his feudal lord or extending them in prayer to God? One cannot
other in both personal and material ways; or the ex- say. He seems the perfect knight in secular or spiritual terms.
ploitation of the peasantry by the nobility. While each
of these definitions grasps a part of the truth, none
grasps it whole, and it is impossible to speak about a
feudal system. People from Iceland, through Britain
and France, to Russia, over many centuries, had nu-
merous ways of organizing politics and government
that can be called feudal.
The best way to understand feudalism is to exam-
ine the mutual, honorable relationships between lords
and vassals. Lords were those who held both public
and private power in their hands. They could be kings,
or the powerful local officers of kings, or self-serving
regional leaders who profited from the breakup of the
Carolingian Empire. The great problem of government
in the Middle Ages was harnessing the numerous
lords to peaceful and productive purposes. Vassals,
who were the retainers of lords, swore homage and
fealty to a lord, and promised aid and counsel. Hom-
age involved a public, ceremonial acknowledgment
of allegiance, and fealty implied loyalty. Aid usually
took the form of military service, and counsel meant
giving advice, whether privately and intimately or
publicly in hall or court. Lords agreed to protect their
vassals in judicial disputes or against the attacks of
others and usually provided them with something of
material value, such as clothing and weapons, hous-
ing, money, or land. When land was involved, it was
called a fief ( feudum in Latin, whence feudalism). A
fief was an estatetypically of the bipartite kind (see
S Chapter 8)that was already developed and inhab-
N ited. The fief was supposed to support the vassal and
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Politics and Society 229

But as early as the tenth century, the church began to money to buy luxuries. To acquire such money, they
try to ameliorate and redirect the worst excesses of often permitted peasants to exchange labor services
the warriors behavior. In the Peace and Truce of God, for money payments. In general, the lot of the peas-
a movement that began in France and then spread ant in France and England improved while, in some
widely, the church tried to civilize violence. Fighting areas of central and eastern Europe, serfs continued to
was forbidden on religious feasts (more than 150days be exploited for centuries.
per year) or near churches, and noncombatants and
their property were to be protected. Framed more
positively, knights were to protect the weak and the
The Rise of Towns
poor, women, widows, and children. Instead of fight- (and the Rest of Those Who Work)
ing other Christians, knights were to direct their vio- Towns grew larger and assumed greater roles in me-
lence against pagans and infidels. Ironically, though, dieval life (Figure 10.3). Urban life became more com-
church teachings against violence served as one spur petitive and the residents formed associations, called
to crusading. guilds, to protect their special interests. The artisan
and craft guilds, for example, regulated working condi-
tions, created apprenticeship programs, and set wages;
Peasants: Those Who Work merchant and banking guilds developed new busi-
The routine of the serfs and the free peasantsrural nesses and supervised trade contracts. These guilds
slaves were comparatively rarewas dictated by cus- often quarreled over issues inside the town walls, but
tom and regulated by daily and seasonal events (Fig- they joined hands against the intrusions of the church
ure 10.2). Men and women worked together in the and the local nobility.
fields, eking out a bare subsistence from their tiny Because urban economic life often conflicted with
plots of land; they lived in wooden huts, reared their the interests of popes, bishops, kings, counts, and oth-
children, and found relief in the churchs frequent holy ers who dominated the towns, urban dwellers, led by
days (the source of the modern term holiday). Some of the guilds, founded self-governing regimes, called
the farming innovations (such as three-field crop rota- communes, often with written charters that specified
tion, which allowed the land to replenish itself, and their rights in relation to their various lords. Italy led
improved plows) introduced in the Carolingian pe- the way but, by about 1200, many towns in northern
riod began to be more widely used, and the plight of and western Europe had charters, and their political
the peasants improved. Increasing the productivity of independence spurred economic growth.
the soil brought economic benefits to the lord, who Artisans and merchants needed buyers, secure
could then, if he wished, pay the peasants in coin trade routes, and markets for their products. The ear-
and sell them tracts of land. Moreover, the expanding liest trade routes were the rivers and the old Roman
commercial economy led many lords to desire more roads, but as demand increased in the West for luxury

Figure 10.2 Agricultural Laborers at


Work. Aelfric writings, Canterbury. Eleventh
century. British Library, London, Cott Claud,
B IV f.79v. In the top panel, four men harvest
grain with various handheld tools, and, in the
lower panel, five men carry bundles of grain.
The scribe who painted these panels, as part
of his copying duties, must have witnessed
such scenes often in the harvest season. The
laborers costumea loose-fitting tunic or
gown, reaching below the knee, belted at
the waist, and with long sleeves and a round
neckwas typically worn by both sexes
in Europe, from the fall of Rome until fitted S
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230 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.3 AmBRoGIo LoRenZettI (active ca.


13191347). Street Scene in Medieval Siena.
Detail from Allegory of Good Government in
the City. 13381339. Fresco in the Sala della
Pace, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Although an
idealized image, this painting is nevertheless
an accurate representation of medieval Siena
as a bustling country town built on a hill. Signs
of prosperity abound. In the middle right and
center, farmers, perhaps from the nearby
countryside, lead pack animals loaded with
sacks of wool and other goods. Nearby, three
weavers are making textiles. On the lower
right, a goatherd coaxes his flock, probably to
the city market. In the middle left foreground,
a shopkeeper arranges his wares. Through the
large opening on the left may be glimpsed a
classroom, where a seated teacher addresses
his students. On the extreme right, two women,
perhaps servants, carry objects, one woman
with a large bundle balanced on her head.

items from the East, new trade routes opened. Italian In Europes growing towns, Jewish communities be-
cities led this international commerce, trading the lux- came more numerous and important. Often forbidden
urious woolen cloth of Flanders for the silks of China to own land, Jews specialized in commerce, banking,
and the spices of the Middle East (Map 10.1). Along and moneylending. Jewish scholars were sometimes
the overland routes in Europe, local lords guaranteed confidentially consulted by Christian schoolmen. The
traders safe passage through their territory for a fee. growth of Jewish communities led to an increase in
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the fairs of the anti-Semitism. In the twelfth century, mobs attacked
Champagne region in France brought virtually all of Jews and governments sometimes confiscated their
Europes commerce together. wealth. Atrocities were perpetrated on Jewish commu-
As on the estate, the position of women in the me- nities by crusading armies on their march to the East
dieval urban world was subordinate to that of men, (see Interpreting Art).
even though urban women often worked closely with
their husbands in trade or crafts. In this hierarchical
society, gender roles became increasingly differenti- Medieval Government
ated through custom and legislation. The few women During the High Middle Ages, four impressive govern-
with economic power, such as those directly involved ments emerged in western Europe: France, England,
in manufacturing and trade or the occasional rich Germany, and the papacy. However, their political for-
widow who kept her husbands business afloat, were tunes varied. Germany was the most powerful state
exceptions to this general exclusionary rule. Some as- in tenth-century Europe and the weakest in the thir-
pects of the cloth and brewing industries were such teenth. The papacy rose steadily in power and influence
S exceptions. to about 1200 and then declined. France and England
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Politics and Society 231

Learning Through Maps


Bergen
Principal trade routes FURS TIMBER
TAR COPPER
WOOL North
Sea
PITCH Novgorod
FLAX
LEATHER IRON
WOOL
SKINS
Riga WOOL

a
York

Se
FLAX rR.
Dublin
tic

D ni e pe
l
TIN Ba AMBER
WOOL
IRON Hamburg Lbeck Danzig PITCH
London Antwerp WOOD GRAIN
AT L ANT I C Cologne Leipzig
Bruges Ghent Sarai
OCE AN WOOLENS
WOOD GRAIN
Rouen Reims LINEN TAR PITCH Kiev
WINES Paris WINES
Prague
Strasbourg Nuremburg Cracow Lemberg GRAIN
Bourges Augsburg IRON LEAD COPPER Tana
Dijon Ulm
Vienna Budapest
Bordeaux WINES
GRAIN SLAVES
WINES Lyon Milan Kaffa
IRON
Carcassonne Genoa Venice LEAD
ALUM
LEAD Narbonne Marseilles Black Sea
WOOL CORK Florence
Ad D an ub e R .
SILK

Lisbon SILVER WOOD Siena ri


Toledo Barcelona PITCH Trebizond

at
CORK Rome Ragusa

ic
Se
Crdoba OLIVE OIL Valencia SALT
Naples Adrianople

a
Constantinople
Seville Granada
GRAIN OLIVE OIL GRAIN
SLAVES
Cadiz WINE
Cartagena OIL
Ceuta
SILK
Messina Smyrna SAFFRON
Fez Aleppo
WOOL WAX DATES WAX
Tunis SUGAR
GOLD PURPLE DYES
ALUM Tripoli
SALT CYPRUS Tyre Damascus
CRETE
Mediterranean Sea GLASSWARE
0 250 500 mi Jerusalem
Tripoli
0 500 1000 km Alexandria
FINE LINENS
COTTON Akaba
ALUM

N il e
MHS63 239
MAP 10.1 PRINCIPAL TRADING ROUTES AND TOWNS OF EUROPE, 1300
mat76620_m0901.eps
ThisFirst shows the major towns and trading routes in Europe at the end of the High Middle Ages.1. Note the important role played by sea trade.
mapproof
2. Identify some key crossroads of trade. 3. How did the location of the north Italian cities help to make them leaders in trade? 4. Consider the
extensive nature of the long-distance trade between Europe and its neighbors. 5. Consider also the impact of climate on the products made and
produced in various regions.

both developed strong, effective central governments During this time, the French established themselves
but took very different paths to that destination (Time- as the cultural leaders of Europe. France had the best
line 10.1). university and the most famous scholars. Its architec-
ture was dominant, and its literature was emulated.
The French Monarchy Patience, luck, fame, feu- The Capetians, alone among all their contemporaries,
dalism, and faith all contributed to the development produced a saint: King Louis IX (r. 12261270), or Saint
of the French monarchy. When Hugh Capet came to Louis, revered for his crusading zeal and personal pi-
the throne in 987, he established a dynasty that ruled ety. France and its monarchy were going to face severe
until 1328. The Capetians followed similar policies, challenges in the late Middle Ages, but in 1300 France
patiently wearing down and overcoming one rival af- was a formidable force in Europe and vastly stronger
ter another, first in northern France and then toward than it had been in 1000.
the south. They saw two-thirds of their land fall into
English hands and then got almost all of it back. They The English Monarchy Unlike the French, the
scrupulously insisted on feudal rights when it suited English suffered several invasions, their ruling fami-
their purposesseizing lands from recalcitrant vas- lies were short-lived, and their monarchs were forced
sals, for example, then retaining them. They also built to relinquish some of their power. In the tenth century
up effective institutions. By the end of the thirteenth the Vikings savaged England; in 1016 the country was
century, King Philip IV the Fair (r. 12851314) could overrun by Cnut of Denmark and, in 1066, conquered
issue laws for all of France. by William of Normandy (Figure 10.4). In 1135 and S
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232 CHAPTER TEN: THE HIGH MIddLE AGEs

Interpreting Art
Style and Influence
Subject Ecclesia (church) The sculptures, just over life-size,
lords it over Synagoga (synagogue). are credible human beings. They
Sculptures with this theme appeared conform to Romanesque historicist
on the facades of several cathedrals norms, deriving from ancient Roman
between 1225 and 1250. buildings where actual people were
portrayed. Later, on Gothic buildings,
Composition Ecclesia facade sculptures became elongated
stands erect, crowned, and holding and column-like.
a battle lance and a chalicea
symbol of the Eucharist. Synagoga Religious Perspective
droops, wears a blindfold, bears Ecclesia and Synagoga flank a
a broken staff, and appears to be sculpture of wise King Solomon
dropping the tablets of the Jewish surmounted by a figure of
law. Both personifications are lovely, Christ. Together the sculptures
but Ecclesia wears a gorgeous gown proclaim supercession: Grace
while Synagoga wears a plain shift has triumphed over law; the Old
that flops gracelessly over her feet. Testament has value only insofar as
it foretells Christ. Christianity has
Context The figures flank the triumphed over Judaism.
double doors of the south transept
of Strasbourg cathedral. The square Historical Perspective
in front of the south doors was a These dramatic figures reflect this
major public space in the city and periods growing anxiety about
the Jewish district was nearby. The Jewish wealth and influence and
sculptures proclaimed very publicly about Jewish refusals to accept
an anti-Jewish message. Christian teaching. Their placement
near Strasbourgs Jewish quarter
would have made them constantly
visible, and their meaning would
have been immediately grasped by
anyoneJew or Christian.
Figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga on the Facade of the South Transept of Strasbourg
Cathedral. Ca. 1225. Both Ecclesia and Synagoga ht. approx. 64.

1. Comparison Identify and compare the similarities and dif- 4. Symbolism Name various ways in which these figures
ferences between the two sculptures. communicate supercession.
2. Context What is significant about the placement of these 5. Historical Perspective What cultural impact would these
figures? figures have had in thirteenth-century Strasbourg?
3. Style and Influence Relate these images to those on Roman
monuments and buildings (Figures 5.15, 5.16, 5.17, 7.2).

1154 the crown changed hands, and in the thirteenth Henry II, especially after his marriage to Eleanor of
century the English experienced one domestic crisis Aquitaine (11221204), controlled directly or indirectly
after another. yet, in spite of the turmoil, Englands some two-thirds of France. Nominally he was a vassal
kings managed to construct an effective kingdom. of the French king, but the reality was not in French fa-
As conquerors, Cnut and William the Conqueror vor. King John (r. 11991215), a weak ruler, managed to
in the eleventh century, and later Henry II of Anjou lose most of Englands French holdings. With his pres-
(r. 11541189), possessed some political advantages: tige fatally damaged, Johns key vassals forced him to
they had opportunities to redraw the political map. sign the Magna Carta in 1215. The king was compelled
Each of these kings was politically astute, however, to admit that he was not above the law, had to observe
and managed to expand royal power while keeping due process of law, and had to take baronial advice.
the barons quiescent. Each had vast overseas interests One thing the English barons wanted to advise
S that were sometimes distracting but that also provided about was the stunning growth of royal institutions
N wealth for the rulers and outlets for restless nobles. across the twelfth century. Englands financial ministry
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POLITICs ANd sOCIETy 233

Timeline 10.1 THE MONARCHIES IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES


1000 1100 1200 1300

Capetian Line

Chivalric code Peace Courtly


elaborated of God love
FRENCH

1000 1100 1154 1200 1300

Anglo-Saxon Normans Rule Angevin


Kingdom England Line

1066 1215 Formation of


Battle of Magna Carta Parliament
Hastings

ENGLISH

1000 1039 1100 1125 1152 1200 1250 1273 1300

Saxon Salian Hohenstaufen Hapsburg


Line Line Line Line

1122
Concordat
of Worms
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

1000 1100 1200 1300

1073 1085 11981216 12941303


Gregory VII Innocent III Boniface VIII

1059 1122 1215 1302


College of Concordat Fourth Unam
Cardinals of Worms Lateran Sanctam
Council
PAPAL

was efficient and incorruptible and its judicial system, changes and conflicts with the church. In the tenth
effective and fair. Through a system of well-ordered century, the Ottonian kings built Europes strongest
courts, England began operating with a common law realm. These fierce warriors, the conquerors of the
a single law applicable to all. during the thirteenth cen- Magyars and of neighboring slavs, were, after 962,
tury, the barons and townsmen challenged the crown once again emperors. They controlled the church, with
over how to institutionalize criticism and dissent. The its substantial wealth and educated personnel, and
crisis was resolved with the founding of Parliament (a were heirs to the Carolingian ideology that they ruled
talking together, from the French parler, to speak), a by the grace of God and were answerable to God alone.
venue for the king and the elite to meet, negotiate, and In the eleventh century, under more peaceful condi-
make decisions. tions in the east, Germanys rulers no longer won pres-
tige and plunder, and could not distract the nobles with
The German Empire In contrast to France and profitable wars. There were also repeated changes of
England, the German Empire did not become unified dynasty. In 1056 a powerful king died and left a child S
but slowly disintegrated because of frequent dynastic as his heiralways a dangerous situation in a dynastic N
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234 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.4 These Men Wonder at


the Star. Harold. Panel from the Bayeux
Tapestry. Third quarter of the eleventh
century. Wool embroidery on linen,
ht. 20. Bayeux, France. Today housed
in the cathedral of Bayeux, this famous
embroidery provides an important historic
record of the events leading up to the Battle
of Hastings in 1066 and presents a justification
for the Norman conquest of England. Harold
is cast as a villain who breaks his oath of
allegiance to William and loses the English
crown as a result of this treachery. Halleys
comet, interpreted as an evil omen, appeared
over England in February 1066. The comet is
shown in the center of the upper border. On the
left, men point to the comet, and on the right
Harold also seems upset by the comet. Beneath
Harold and his adviser are outlines of boats,
implying a possible invasion by the Normans.

state. Unexpectedly, a major crisis in relations with the centurywhen France and England were achieving
church broke out. unityGerman rulers were more interested in Italy
The Investiture Controversy, ostensibly a strug- than in Germany. And, when they invaded Italy, they
gle over the right to investappoint and install found themselves facing the formidable Papal States,
churchmen by laymen, was one of the most significant which generated new struggles with the papacy. By 1300
events of the Middle Ages. For centuries, powerful Germanys once-powerful monarchy was shattered.
lords had been investing bishops and abbots with
their offices; this was a way to extend their authority The Papal Monarchy The medieval church was
through the church, and sometimes they received pay- a hierarchical institution, and in the High Middle
ments for making appointments. Where kings were Ages the popes reached the high point of their power
concerned, however, the matter was more complicated. and influence. Consequently, historians speak about
Insofar as they considered themselves Gods chosen the papal monarchy. Papal power rested on several
agents on earth, they imagined the clergy, even the foundations. In 910 at Cluny in Burgundy, William of
popes, to be their natural helpers and subordinates. Aquitaine founded a monastery, declared it free of all
The clergy came to regard its freedom from lay con- lay control, and placed it under the protection of the
trol as crucial and also to view the buying and selling pope (Figure 10.5). Over the next two centuries, Cluny
of church offices as a serious sin, called simony. And, became a powerful force for reform in the church as
finally, the papacy, which had reformed its worldli- its monks insisted on the moral and intellectual re-
ness, emerged under a series of resolute popes who form of the clergy, and on freedom for the church.
saw themselves as the chief earthly representatives of Eventually, Clunys zeal for reform penetrated Rome
heavenly power, and considered kings and other rul- and the papacy placed itself at the head of a broad re-
ers to be their helpers and subordinates. The Investi- form movementthe Investiture Controversy was but
ture Controversy raged for more than fifty years. In one aspect of this movement. In the curiathe papal
the end, secular rulers lost the right to invest clerics governmentthe papacy built complex institutions
with the symbols of their religious offices although and, during the High Middle Ages, the judicial and fi-
they could still draw them into their governments. nancial branches of the papal government expanded.
Germany suffered a damaging blow to its prestige By 1200 the popes had the most complex government
and power during the Investiture Controversy because in Europe. The legal system, the canon law, of the
several emperors who confronted the papacy had to church was unrivaled. The popes had disciplinary
make humiliating concessions. Simultaneously, the tools that gave them influence all over Europe. They
rulers faced a restless nobility that took advantage of could excommunicate an individualdeclare him out-
the situation to strengthen its political power. Finally, side the community of the faithful. They could impose
S the emperors, attempting to resurrect a new Roman an interdict on a regiona suspension of religious ser-
N Empire, became embroiled in Italy. By the thirteenth vices. They could send legates, in effect ambassadors,
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Medieval Christianity and the Church 235

Figure 10.5 Pope Urban II Consecrates


the Great Abbey Church of Cluny (III).
Book of Offices. Late twelfth century.
Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris.
In this small manuscript painting, Pope Urban II
(r. 10881099) consecrates the third version
of the Great Abbey Church at Cluny. In the
consecration service, the church is transformed
into sacred ground and thus dedicated to
the service of God. Framed by architectural
features suggestive of the churchs interior,
the pope (the large standing figure on the left)
offers a papal blessing before the high altar
(under the domed center section). The artist
has skillfully suggested a crowded church of
worshipers, including Cluniac monks and nuns
and various church officials. Pope Urban II,
a member of the Cluniac order, preached the
First Crusade in 1095.

to conduct inquiries or to represent them. And they art had Christian themes, and music lifted praises to
could institute courts of Inquisition, strict judicial fo- God. Neither before nor since the High Middle Ages
rums that operated on the basis of Roman law. Finally, have Christianity and the Catholic Church exercised
popes could call councils. In the Fourth Lateran Coun- so profound and pervasive an influence.
cil of 1215, the largest council since antiquity, Inno-
centIII (pope 11981216) presided like the uncrowned Christian Beliefs and Practices
king of Europe.
The immense authority of the church sprang from
By 1300 secular forces were gaining strength in Eu-
the belief shared by the overwhelming majority of
rope and many rulers thought the popes had claimed
medieval people that the church held the keys to the
too much. Both French and English kings defied the
kingdom of heaven and provided the only way to sal-
popes refusal to let them tax the clergy. The king of
vation. By attempting to adhere to the Christian moral
France summoned a French bishop before his court,
code and by participating in the rituals and ceremo-
much to the popes chagrin. Boniface VIII (pope,
nies prescribed by the church and established by tra-
12941303) issued a papal bull (from Latin bullum,
dition, Christians hoped for redemption and eternal
seal), Unam Sanctam, with a powerful affirmation
life after death.
of papal primacy in both church and state. However,
These rituals and ceremonies were inseparable from
very few rulers honored the bull and some reacted by
the religious doctrines. They derived from the teach-
force. For example, the king of France sent his lawyers
ings of Jesus and Paul, the church fathers, particularly
and a military force to arrest the pope. Boniface fled
Augustine, and were further defined by medieval theo-
but died soon thereafter.
logians. Finally, the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215,
under Pope Innocent III, officially proclaimed the sac-
MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY raments as the outward signs of Gods grace and the
only way to heaven.
AND THE CHURCH As established by the council, the sacraments num-
Christianity and the church touched every aspect of bered seven: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist
life in medieval Europe. Important moments of life (Holy Communion), penance, marriage, last rites, and
birth, marriage, deathwere attended by Christian ordination for the priesthood. Baptism, the Eucharist,
rituals, and the Christian calendar regulated life from and penance were deemed of primary importance.
farming to government. Rulers imagined themselves In baptism, the parents were assured that the infant S
to be divinely appointed and inspired. Literature and had been rescued from original sin. In the Eucharist, N
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236 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

the central part of the Mass, the church taught that a had elaborate and lengthy worship, the Cistercians
miracle occurred whereby God, through the priest, understood work as manual labor and simplified their
turned the bread and wine into the body and blood worship.
of Jesus. That the outer appearance of the bread and In convents, women could devote themselves to
wine remained the same while their inner substance Christ and follow ascetic lives filled with prayer, con-
changed was explained by medieval theologians in templation, and service. And they could live in commu-
the doctrine of transubstantiation. nity with other women, under the authority of women.
Penance evolved into a rather complicated practice. In some houses, they had opportunities for education.
First, sinners felt contritionsorrowand then they Convents had existed since late antiquity, although sel-
confessed their sins individually to a priest; the priest dom with the large endowments monasteries enjoyed
conveyed Gods forgiveness for the mortal penalties of or with as much influence in local affairs.
sin so that hell could be avoided; the priest then di- Convent life nurtured several gifted women who
rected that an earthly punishmentthe penancebe influenced this age, most notably Hildegard of Bin-
carried out in an effort to erase the effects of the sin. gen (10981179), founder and abbess of the Benedictine
Depending on the severity of the sin, penance could house of Rupertsberg near Bingen (modern Germany).
range from a few prayers to a pilgrimage or a crusade. Her writing and preaching attracted scores of support-
This sacrament was made even more complex by its ers in Germany, France, and Switzerland, including
association with purgatory. most of her male superiors. She was highly influential
With the groundwork laid by Augustine in the fifth with major figures of the time, as evidenced by her cor-
century and Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth cen- respondence with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the emperor
tury, the doctrine of purgatory was given more explicit Frederick Barbarossa, and various popes. Hildegard
form by thinkers of the High Middle Ages. Neither hell wrote on the medical arts, music, theology, and the his-
nor heaven, purgatory was a third place, where those tory of science, but her visionary tracts had the most
who had died in a state of grace could avoid damna- impact on her contemporaries. Her first book, titled
tion by being purged, or purified, from all stain of sin. Scivias (Know the Ways of the Lord), included descrip-
All souls in purgatory were ultimately destined for tions of her visions, the texts of liturgical songs, and
heaven; penance was a means of reducing time in pur- a sung morality play, Ordo Virtutum (The Company of
gatory. Thus the living could do penance on earth in the Virtues), the first of its kind. She also illuminated
hope of spending less time in purgatory. manuscripts (Figure 10.6) and composed sacred po-
etry, which has survived in monophonic musical set-
tings and has found new audiences today. Hildegard
Religious Orders and Lay Piety was a bold talent and left a superb legacy, especially
The clergy were the most visible signs of the churchs given the belief of the time that it was dangerous to
presence in everyday life. The secular clergy (from teach a woman to read and write, because it could lead
Latin saeculum, world) moved freely in society, and to independent-mindedness and thus upset the social
the regular clergy lived apart from the world in order.
monasteries under a special rule (regula, in Latin). The Another type of religious order appeared in the
monasteries served as refuges from the world, where thirteenth century with the rise of two major mendi-
men and women could seek salvation by daily rounds cant, or begging, orders, the Franciscans and the Do-
of prayer. minicans, whose members were called friars (from
As noted earlier, the Cluniac monks originated the Latin fratres, brothers). The Franciscans had an urban
reform movement that helped to establish the moral ministry, working among the poor and sick, and the
and political authority of the medieval church. Other Dominicans were preachers, working among heretics.
waves of reform followed, the most important of Although both orders made important contributions,
which was represented by the founding of the Cister- the Franciscans had a greater impact on medieval so-
cian order in the twelfth century. Bernard of Clairvaux ciety, largely because of the attractive nature of the
[klair-VOH] (10901153), a saint, a mystic, and one of orders sainted founder, Francis (11821226), and their
the most forceful personalities of the period, founded urban work. Franciss piety, selflessness, and legend-
over 160 Cistercian abbeys. The Cistercians believed ary humility remain inspiring (Figure 10.7).
that the Cluniacs were too rich and powerful and that Alongside monastic reform, in the thirteenth cen-
they failed to observe the Rule of St. Benedict strictly. tury a wave of lay piety swelled up from all ranks of
They adopted an austere life and often lived in iso- society, triggered by a mixture of religious fervor and
lated monasteries where the brothers worked with the social protest. Typical of these novel movements were
local peasants. Whereas the Cluniacs understood the the beguines, independent communities of laywomen
S Benedictine motto To Labor Is To Pray in such a way dedicated to good works, poverty, chastity, and reli-
N that they turned prayer into work and accordingly gious devotion. Unlike nuns, who isolated themselves
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Figure 10.6 Hildegards Awakening: A Self-Portrait from Scivias.
Ca. 1150. Hildegards description of the moment when she received
the word of God is effectively captured in this illumination: a burning
light coming from heaven poured into my mind. The Holy Spirit inflames
her mind as she etches the word of God on a tablet; Volmar, the priest
of the abbey and her loyal secretary, gazes at the event. The simplistic
sketch of the towers and building is typical of twelfth-century illuminated
manuscripts.

from the world, the beguines had regular contact with


societycaring for the sick at home and in hospitals,
teaching in both girls and boys schools, and working
in the textile industry. The beguines first established
themselves in northern France and then, along with
male lay brethren called beghards, spread to Ger-
many and the Netherlands, usually in proximity to
Dominican houses. Some members of these communi-
ties became influential spiritual guides. For example,
Mechthild of Magdeburg (about 12071282) wrote The
Flowing Light of the Godhead, a mystical account of her
religious odyssey. The beguine and beghard commu-
nities also provided the audience for medieval Germa-
nys finest devotional writer and a great mystic of the
Christian tradition, Meister Eckhart (about 12601328).

Figure 10.7 Attributed to Giotto. St. Francis


of Assisis Trial by Fire Before the Sultan.
Before 1300. Fresco. Basilica of St. Francis,
Assisi, Upper Church, nave. This painting,
from a cycle of twenty-eight frescoes detailing
the life and miracles of St. Francis of Assisi,
shows the saint (center, with a halo around his
head) preaching before the enthroned sultan
al-Malik Kamil (r. 12181238), the last of the
Ayyubid dynasty (right). The setting is Egypt,
the center of the sultans holdings, which
included Syria and Palestine. Trying to convert
the sultan to Christianity, St. Francis, backed
by a second Franciscan friar, challenges the
sultans Islamic clergy to join in a walk through
the blazing fire on the bottom left, as a test
of their respective religious faiths. The sultan
gestures toward the fire with his right hand, as
four Muslim clergy prepare to leave on the far
left. This fresco, completed perhaps seventy
years after the saints death, was painted
during a time when Franciscan missionaries
were active in Egypt and other Middle Eastern S
lands. N
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238 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Beguines, beghards, and mendicants won approval naries to help them recover their lost lands. After about
from religious authorities, but other lay groups were 1000, Italian merchants began expanding their com-
condemned as heretics because they refused to submit mercial enterprises in the Mediterranean at the expense
to ecclesiastical authority. The most prominent of these of the Muslims. The Peace and Truce of God may have
heretical sects was the Albigensian, which was centered diverted violence outside European society. Already in
at Albi in southern France. The Albigensians were also the tenth century a series of wars launched in Spain by
known as Cathars (from the Greek for pure). Their Christian rulers against Muslim authoritiescalled the
unorthodox beliefs were derived partly from Zoro Reconquista, the reconquestserved as a precedent
astrianism (see Chapter 1), the source of their concept for campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1095,
of a universal struggle between a good God and an evil with a powerful speech at Clermont in France, Pope Ur-
deity, and partly from Manichaeism, the source of their ban II tapped these forces to launch the movement we
notion that the flesh is evil. The Albigensians stressed now know as the Crusades.
that Jesus was divine and not human, that the wealth of The First Crusade did recapture Jerusalem and
the church was a sign of its depravity, and that the goal established several small, vulnerable crusader prin-
of Christian living was to achieve the status of Cathari, cipalities in the eastern Mediterranean. Subsequent
or perfection. Crusades were less successful. The Fourth Crusade in
These unorthodox beliefs spread rapidly across 1204 went terribly wrong for the papacy and the cru-
much of southern France, permeating the church and sading movement when the Venetians, who were to
the secular society. After they murdered his legate in transport the crusaders, hijacked it to attack enemies
1208, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against the in the Adriatic before a would-be Byzantine ruler per-
Albigensians. His call appealed to the nobles eager suaded the crusaders to attack Constantinople. From
to seize the heretics land, kings eager to extend their 1204 to 1261 the Byzantine Empire was in the hands of
authority in the south, and persons of faith who were western knights, a fatal blow to the empire. Later Cru-
offended by heresy. It took decades to root out the sades, even one led by Saint Louis, failed because the
Albigensians. The heretics were treated with cruelty, crusaders had no secure footing in the Muslim East. In
and, as the thirteenth century proceeded, many of 1291 Muslim forces captured the last crusader strong-
them were summoned before courts of Inquisition hold, Acre, and the movement effectively ended.
ecclesiastical tribunals charged with identifying her- The Byzantines had wanted soldiers to help them re-
esy. The crusade against the Albigensians reflected a capture Anatolia and watched helplessly as religiously
shared medieval belief: those who rejected Catholic inspired Westerners sought to liberate the Holy Land.
beliefs were traitors. Italian merchants gained valuable trade concessions
There were also groups that were less obviously un- all over the eastern Mediterranean, which they main-
orthodox. The Waldensiansfor example, followers of tained until modern times. Large numbers of landless
Valdes (or Peter Waldo; about 11801210), from Lyons young warriors sought their fortunes in the East, but
in Francewished to follow what they believed to be Europe did not become noticeably less violent. Women
the apostolic life: they wanted to embrace poverty and sometimes gained authority as they managed the lands
preaching. The church grudgingly accepted the former of their absent husbands. While the Crusades stand as
but refused the latter. Some Waldensians were recon- a symbol of the expansive energy and religious zeal
ciled but others were declared heretics. of high medieval Europe, their long-term impact was
a heightening of the already tense relations between
Christians and Muslims (Figure 10.8).
The Crusades
The Crusades were a defining event of the High
Middle Agesand like all defining events the Cru- Beyond the Boundaries
sades are and have remained controversial. To free The Crusades were not the only incidents of Europes
the Holy Land, or Palestine, from the Muslims, whom expansion beyond its traditional boundaries. A num-
Christians then regarded as unbelievers, the Christian ber of intrepid mendicant missionaries set out to con-
church preached nine Crusades between 1095 and 1272 vert the fearsome Mongols (see Chapter 9), who had
but many motives propelled the crusading movement. obliterated the remnants of the caliphate. Among
Modern scholars call these campaigns the Crusades them was William of Rubruck (12201293), a Flemish
because their soldiers were crucesignati, signed by Franciscan. He had accompanied Saint Louis on the
the cross (crusaders wore crosses on their clothing). Seventh Crusade (1248) but then set out from Con-
Scholars also enumerate the Crusades, First, Sec- stantinople to try to win the Mongols for Christianity.
ond, and so forth. He traveled more than six thousand miles and failed
S After their defeat by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in his mission because the Mongols eventually con-
N in 1171, the Byzantines appealed to the pope for merce- verted to Islam. Williams Itinerary, an account of his
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 239

Figure 10.8 Crusaders Attacking a Muslim Fortress. Twelfth


century. Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris. Crusaders, dressed
in chain mail, catapult severed enemy heads into a Muslim fortress. Note
the identifying cross on the banner at the top. Mutual atrocities, such as
depicted here, fueled horror stories of the Crusades and helped engender
a legacy of mistrust that still complicates Western and Muslim relations
today.

remarkable travels, circulated widely in Europe and


heightened interest in exotic lands and peoples. Wil-
liam sparked a correspondence between the Mongol
khans and the papacy.
More famous than William was the Venetian
merchant and traveler Marco Polo (12541324),
whose father and uncle set out into Asia and ap-
parently met Kublai Khan in 1269. A little later the
three of them began an epic journey that lasted twenty-
four years and ended at the imperial court in China.
Marcos Memoiresinterestingly, published in French,
then the international languageprovided Europeans
with an exciting and informative accounthow much
of it is strictly accurate will never be knownthat in-
spired people for centuries to explore the Orient on
their own. Not least among them was Christopher dral schoolsappealed to an age that was hungry for
Columbus. learning and set Europes intellectual tone until about
William and Marco opened the eyes of Europeans to 1200. During these two centuries, the only serious ri-
worlds they had scarcely imagined but with which they val to the schools was a handful of independent schol-
would have increasing relations until the present day. ars who drew crowds of students to their lectures in
Paris and elsewhere. By 1200 new educational insti-
tutions had arisenthe universitiesthat soon sur-
THE AGE OF SYNTHESIS: passed both the monastic and cathedral schools and
EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE the independent masters. Since then, universities have
dominated intellectual life in the West.
SPIRITUAL AND THE SECULAR
Between 1000 and 1300, Christian values permeated The Development of Scholasticism Scholasti-
European cultural life. The Christian faith was a uni- cism is a term applied to the style and substance of
fying agent that reconciled the opposing realms of learning in the High Middle Ages. The arts curricu-
the spiritual and the secular, the immaterial and the lum remained dominant in this period, but whereas
materialas symbolized in many cities and towns by grammar had been the focus in the Carolingian pe-
the soaring spires of the local cathedrala bishops riod, logic came to dominate after about 1100. During
church, named after his cathedra, or chair, the seat of the eleventh century, several thorny theological prob-
his authority (Figure 10.9). Medieval culture drew from lems had arisen and scholars began to approach them
the humanities of the classical world, the heritage of the in a new way. Instead of appealing to authorities
various European peoples, and, to a lesser extent, the the Bible, the church fathers, decisions of church
traditions of Byzantium and Islam. Because of these di- councils, papal decreestheologians began to apply
verse influences, the culture of the High Middle Ages logical analysis, human reasoning, to the solution of
was never uniform. What many writers, thinkers, and problems.
artists shared was a set of common sources, concerns, Across the High Middle Ages, more of the work of
and interests. Aristotle became available to scholars. Some of Aristo-
tles logical tracts had been available for a long time in
the translations of Boethius (see Chapter 8), but now
Theology and Learning more of his logical work plus a host of his other writ-
From about 1000 onward, scholars revived the school ings were accessible. Most of this work entered Europe
system that had flourished under the Carolingians. via Latin translations from medieval Arabic transla- S
These monastic schoolsalong with many new cathe- tions of the Greek originals. Aristotle was a pagan, so N
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240 CHAPTER TEN: THE HIGH MIddLE AGEs

SLICE OF LIFE
When Love Knows No Boundaries

Heloise
THE ABBESS OF LE PARACLETE, FOUNDED BY ABELARD
The letters of Abelard, a monk, and his student Heloise my own pleasures and wishes I sought to gratify, as
(about 11011164), who later became a nun, are still read you well know, but yours. The name of wife may seem
because they offer glimpses into the hearts of lovers whose more sacred or more binding, but sweeter for me will
devotion transcends any historical period or social con- always be the word mistress, or, if you will permit me,
text. In this letter, Heloise writes to Abelard after they have that of concubine or whore. I believed that the more I
been forced to separate. His scholarly reputation has been humbled myself on your account, the more gratitude
tainted, and, for his transgression, Abelard has been cas- I would win from you, and also the less damage I
trated by men in the hire of Fulbert, Heloises uncle and should do to the brightness of your reputation.
protector.
Interpreting This Slice of Life
you know, beloved, as the whole world knows, how 1. What are the relationships among Abelard, Helo-
much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of ise, and Fulbert?
fortune that supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed 2. What is the treachery to which Heloise refers in her
me of my very self in robbing me of you; and how my letter?
sorrow for my loss is nothing compared with what 3. In what ways does Heloise think Abelard can con-
I feel for the manner in which I lost you. surely the sole her?
greater the cause for grief the greater the need for the
4. How does Heloise describe her love and relationship
help of consolation, and this no one can bring but you;
to Abelard?
you are the sole cause of my sorrow, and you alone
can grant me the grace of consolation. . . . God knows 5. Why do we still read their correspondence and love
I never sought anything in you except yourself; I letters?
wanted simply you, nothing of yours. I looked for no 6. Does this letter have a modern tone and message?
marriage-bond, no marriage portion, and it was not Why or why not?

Figure 10.9 Auxerre Cathedral. Begun


ca. 1225. Auxerre, France. Looming over
the town and dominating the countryside for
miles around, the Gothic cathedral symbolized
the preeminent role of the Christian church in
medieval life. No other building could soar past
its spires, either literally or figuratively. People
worshiped inside it, built their houses right
up to its walls, and conducted their business
affairs within the shadows of its towers. Thus,
the cathedral also symbolized the integration of
S the secular and the sacred in medieval life.
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THE AGE OF syNTHEsIs: EqUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE sPIRITUAL ANd THE sECULAR 241

his immense learning posed an acute problem: How The Rise of the Universities The university
could the potentially competing claims of faith and called a studium generale because it was a place where
reason, of natural and of divine truth, be reconciled? almost everything could be studiedemerged around
The scholastic method used deductive logic to 1200 in the towns where numerous masters and pupils
clarify existing issues and to explore the intellectual converged. Imitating the practices of secular guilds,
ramifications of a topic. A scholastic thinker would the masters organized, in the north, and the students,
pose a problem, argue for and against various possible in the south, especially in Italy. Irrespective of who
solutions to the problem, and then draw a conclusion, organized the university, the central issues were fac-
which itself led to a new problem. The arguments de- ulty appointments, curricula, examinations, and fees.
ployed might come from Christian or pagan sources, The universities secured charters from both royal and
but the aim was to achieve synthesis and recon- ecclesiastical authorities. Universities typically had an
ciliation, not to prove that one kind of learning was arts faculty and then one or more higher faculties in
superior to another. Anselm (10331109), the most ac- law, medicine, and theology. Paris was especially fa-
complished logician since Aristotle and the formu- mous for theology, Bologna for law, Montpellier for
lator of an ingenious proof for the existence of God, medicine. students came from all over Europe to at-
expressed the early scholastic view this way: Faith tend universities and, as foreigners, life was often hard
seeking Understanding. for them; they were overcharged for food and housing
and were mistreated by the local townspeople. The
Peter Abelard Among the daring independent baccalaureate degree was earned after four to six years
masters who challenged the standing of the great ca- of intense engagement with the liberal arts. Higher
thedral schools, the greatest, and most controversial, degrees in specialized subjects could take years and
was Peter Abelard [AB-uh-lard] (10791142). Intellectu- followed upon the production of a serious piece of
ally gifted and instinctively argumentative, Abelard scholarship and a rigorous public examination.
quarreled with his own teachers and with other in-
fluential scholars. He quickly became the sensation of Intellectual Controversy and Thomas Aquinas
Paris and his words found eager listeners. The scholasticism of the thirteenth century differed in
What divided Abelard and his teachers was the degree, not in kind, from that of the twelfth. Resting
problem of universals, an intellectual issue that on systematization and controversy, it culminated in
arose between 1050 and 1150 and attracted attention the magisterial works of Thomas Aquinas.
for centuries. This controversy revolved around the Already in the twelfth century, some scholars had
question of whether or not universals, or general con- begun to organize learning across whole fields. Gra-
cepts, such as human being and church, exist in tian (d. by 1160), a monk from Bologna, produced the
reality or only in the mind. At stake in this dispute Decretum, a systematic manual of canon law contain-
between the two schools of thought, known as real- ing more than four thousand entries drawn from the
ism and nominalism, were basic Christian ideas, such Bible, church fathers, and conciliar and papal decrees.
as whether Jesuss sacrifice had removed the stain of It became the standard reference and textbook for
original sin from each individual. The realists, fol- canon law. Peter Lombard (11001160) wrote Four Books
lowing Plato, reasoned that universals do exist inde- of Sentences (a sentence is a conclusion in a scholastic
pendently of physical objects and the human mind. disputation) treating in thorough and orderly fashion
Hence, humanity, for example, is present, albeit im- virtually the whole of the Christian faith under the
perfectly perceived, in every individual. In opposition, headings the Trinity, the Creation and sin, the Incar-
the nominalists said that universals are merely names nation and the Virtues, and the sacraments. For cen-
(from Latin nomen, name) and claimed that only par- turies the Sentences was the standard text in theology.
ticular objects are real. Hence, church and human Islamic thinkers, among them Ibn Rushd [IB-en
being exist only in particular instances. RUsHT], known in the West as Averros [uh-VER-uh-
In these debates, Abelard showed that extreme real- weez] (see Chapter 9), contributed to the development
ism denied human individuality and was thus incon- of scholastic thought. Averros was a major Aristote-
sistent with church teachings. For his part, Abelard lian scholar who wrote vast commentariesdetailed
taught a moderate realism that held that the univer- explanations and interpretationson the masters
sals existed, but only as mental concepts and as men- writings. He took from Aristotle certain ideas such as
tal devices to sharpen and focus thinking. When new the eternity of matter and the denial of individual im-
translations of Aristotle became available, thinkers mortality. As more of Aristotles works became avail-
discovered that Abelard and the Greek genius agreed able, and as Averros commentaries circulated, some
in part about universals, a discovery that further en- scholars at the University of Paris, called Latin Aver-
hanced Abelards fame. roists, believed they could reconcile those writings S
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242 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

with Christian doctrines. Differences of opinion be- Science and Medicine


came more acute when in 1255 the Parisian masters
Medieval science inherited classical works and inter-
assigned the teaching of Aristotles Metaphysics and
preted them within the framework of Christian theol-
writings on natural science. The Latin Averroists
ogy. As noted above, by 1200, many Latin translations
wished to keep philosophy and theology distinct, and
of Arabic versions of Greek scientific and philosophi-
they were accused of teaching a double truth. When
cal works, as well as original writings by Muslim sci-
those in charge of the curriculum realized the chal-
entists and thinkers, were available in the West. Their
lenges posed by Averros and his disciples, they con-
arrival coincided with the birth of the universities.
demned many Averroist propositions.
The spread of these writings encouraged scientific-
Parisian theologians devised two ways to relate
minded scholars to explore the natural world. Once
the new learning to orthodox beliefs. The more tradi-
again, conflicts and differences arose as natural truths
tional view was set forth by the Franciscan Bonaven-
confronted Christian teachings.
ture [bahn-uh-VEN-chur] (12211274). Denying that
knowledge was possible apart from Gods grace, Bon Science Scholastic thinkers faced the daunting
aventure, following Augustines mode of reasoning, challenge of reconciling Aristotelian science and its
argued that truth had to begin in the supernatural Muslim commentaries with Christian thought. For
world and thus could not arise in the senses, as Aris- Thomas Aquinas, the study of nature was not an end
totle had argued. A new and brilliant theological view, in itself but a means to understand God and his cre-
and the one that prevailed, was set forth by Thomas ation. Thus, any question about the natural world,
Aquinas [uh-KWI-nus] (12261274), a Dominican friar such as motion, light, cosmology, or matter, would
who taught at the University of Paris for many years. include Aristotles and other thinkers explanations,
Avoiding the pure rationalism of the Latin Averroists but the reason to explore these topics was to discover
and the Augustinianism of Bonaventure, Thomas Gods purposes, such as for creating the universe (cos-
Aquinas steered a middle path, or via media, which mology) or living things (matter). Often the pursuits
gave Aristotle a central role in his theology while of medieval science were in direct relationship to their
honoring traditional Christian beliefs. This theologi- theological importance, such as studying light in or-
cal systemcalled Thomismin its complex design der to account for a particular characteristic of God
and sheer elegance remains one of the outstanding (God is Light) or trying to understand the process
achievements of the High Middle Ages. of creation found in the biblical book of Genesis. Even
Of Thomas Aquinass two monumental summas though the role of reason was carefully circumscribed
comprehensive summaries of human thoughtthe within the context of Christian thought and often had
Summa Theologica is his masterpiece. In this work, he to give way to revelation, a genuine rational tradition
showed that God had given human beings two divine persisted throughout this periodone that originated
paths to truth: reason and faith. Following Aristotle, in ancient Greece and passed through medieval Islam,
he made the senses a legitimate source for human then would be transmitted into Renaissance thought,
knowledgea bold step that sharpened the difference and, finally, would help bring about the Scientific Rev-
between reason and faith. At the same time, Thomism olution, which would inaugurate modern times.
escaped the strict rationalism of the Latin Averroists
by denying that philosophy, or reason, could answer Medicine Medieval medicine also inherited beliefs
all theological questions. Aquinas claimed that natu- and practices from the past while making significant
ral reason, based on sensory knowledge, could prove advances. The preservation of ancient medical texts
certain truthsthat God and the soul existbut that and the teaching of these works in the newly founded
spiritual reason (or revealed truth) alone could prove universities and hospitals paved the way for modern
that the soul was immortal, that Jesus had been born medicine.
of a virgin, and that God was Triune, or had three Included in the vast number of Greek and Roman
aspects. texts now made available to the learned were the writ-
Thomas Aquinass contributions to medieval thought ings of Hippocrates and Galen (see Chapters 3 and
extended beyond theology into political and economic 7). Their works, along with The Canon of Medicine, by
matters. He followed Aristotle in seeing the secular the Muslim scholar Avicenna (see Chapter 9), became
state as natural and necessary. For Aquinas, politics the basis of the curricula in the new medical schools.
and society had natural ethical roots, which allowed The first prestigious medical schools were in Salerno,
him to write about, for example, law, marriage, and Italy, dating from the ninth century, and Montpellier,
economic issues such as usury (the practice of charg- France, founded in about 1200; they were eclipsed in
ing exorbitant interest) and setting a just price for con- the late Middle Ages by new medical schools in Paris,
S sumer goods. and in Bologna and Padua, in Italy.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 243

In these schools, aspiring doctors read medical ary genre, the chansons de geste, or songs of brave
works, attended lectures by scholars and practicing deeds, the majority of which were composed in Old
physicians, dissected human bodies (after the mid French. The chansons de geste honored the heroic ad-
thirteenth century), and learned to identify and treat ventures of warriors who had lived in the time of
certain disorders and diseases. Students were taught Charlemagne and often memorialized a minor battle
that the body is composed of four humorsblack bile, or, more rarely, even a defeat. These epics were based
phlegm, blood, and yellow bilea belief of the ancient on Christian values, but supernatural and magical
Greeks. Patients who suffered from certain maladies elements were commonly a part of their plots. Of the
would be treated to correct the imbalance of humors many chansons de geste, the masterpiece is the Song of
by means of herbs, diet, or bleeding. Of the many Roland, which became the standard for the genre (Fig-
teachers in these schools, perhaps the most influential ure 10.10).
was William of Saliceto [sah-le-CHAY-toe] (12101277),
an Italian who taught at the University of Bologna
and, later, was city physician (appointed medical of- Figure 10.10 Charlemagne Panels. Ca. 12201225. Stained-glass
ficer) in Verona, Italy. In his book, Cyrurgia, or Surgery, window, Chartres cathedral. Chartres, France. The Song of Roland
the most advanced study on this subject in his day, he was so well known and well loved that scenes from the poem were
discussed surgical anatomy and advocated a union depicted in the stained-glass windows of Chartres cathedral, constructed
between medicine and surgerya view that ran con- in the thirteenth century. Even though the Charlemagne panels were
inspired by a secular poem, they were situated in the ambulatory behind
trary to the prevailing medical wisdom that relegated the main altar, one of the cathedrals most sacred areas. In one scene,
surgery to the status of a craft. In the twelfth century, Charlemagne is shown arriving too late to save Rolands life. Other panels
an anonymous author compiled three lengthy medical depict him donating a church and traveling to Constantinople.
texts that came to be called the Trotula. The second of
these treatises, On the Cures of Women, was probably
written by a woman named Trota.
The physicians formed guilds to set standards and
regulate the profession; many became rich. Cities also
built the first hospitals in the West, often founded by
religious orders or by secular guilds. These hospi-
tals were one of the few places women could be in-
volved in medicine as nurses, since they were barred
from medical school. Poorer city dwellers relied on
untrained doctors or barbers who performed simple
operations. Apothecaries sold drugs that were usually
herbal or derived from animals or from minerals be-
lieved to possess healing powers.

Literature
Latin remained the language of learning, but not all
Latin writings were confined to law, philosophy, and
theology. There were numerous histories treating the
ancient world or the age of King Arthur but more often
chronicling the contemporary period. Latin poetry
especially Latin lyric poetryflourished as well, rich
in metric subtleties, extremely learned in content, and
filled with classical and Christian allusions. Some
of the poets, the goliards, or roaming scholars, were
probably young clerics who addressed both church in-
tellectual and secular audiences with poems ranging
from sophisticated intellectual topics to lighthearted
themes of love.
The most surprising development of the High
Middle Ages was the explosion of writing in the ver-
nacular, or popular, spoken language. Lay poets at
the courts of northern France developed a new liter- S
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244 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Courtly Writing Inspired by Latin lyric verse, and


perhaps by the love poetry of Islamic Spain (see Chap-
ter 9), vernacular lyric poetry began to appear in the
eleventh century in the Provenal dialect of southern
France. Its supreme expression was the canzone, or
love poem, the ancestor of all later Western love po-
etry. At the cultured courts of southern France, profes-
sional minstrels, or entertainers, sang the songs before
the assembled court; the poems composers, called
troubadors (from Provenal trobar; compare French
trouver, to findthus troubadors were finders,
inventors) came from various social classes, includ-
ing nobles. Addressed to court ladies whose identi-
ties were thinly disguised in the poems, troubadors
made devotion to a highborn, probably unattainable,
woman the passionate ideal of the chivalrous knight.
In the mature Provenal lyrics, adulterous passion
was the central theme, and women were idolized and
made the masters over men. Where previously adora-
tion had been reserved for God, the troubadour lyrics
now celebrated the worship of women (Figure10.11).
After 1150, courtly romances replaced the chansons
de geste in popularity. The romances were long narra-
tives, usually in verse, of the chivalric and sentimental
adventures of knights and ladies. The name romance
arose from mettre en romanz, Old French for to put into
the vernacular. Their subjects derived from stories of
ancient Troy and Celtic legends from the British Isles,
the most enduring of which proved to be the stories of
King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
The first poet to make Arthur and his court his
Figure 10.11 Konrad von Altstetten Embracing His Beloved in the
Springtime. Manesse Codex, Zurich. Ca. 1300. Heidelberg University
subject was Chrtien de Troyes [KRAY-tyan duh
Library. (Codex pal. Germ. 848 fol 249 v.) 14 9 7/8. This manuscript TRWAH], who set the standard for later romances.
contains the largest collection of Middle High German love songs. The Chrtien (fl. 11651180) was the court poet of Marie de
charming and vivid scene shown here reveals love emerging in the Champagne, the countess of Champagne. His treat-
springtime. Konrad von Altstetten may have been the mayor of St. Gallen ment of the adulterous love of the knight Lancelot
in the early fourteenth century.
and Arthurs queen, Guinevere, is characteristic of the
way romances combined aristocratic, courtly, and reli-
gious themes. In this version, Lancelot rescues Queen
The basis for the Song of Roland was passed down Guinevere after experiencing many adventures and
orally for three hundred years and did not reach its personal humiliations for her sake; this humbling of
final written form until about 1100. The narrative is Lancelot is necessary to teach him to love Guinevere
based on a historical event, the destruction of a troop with unquestioning obedience. But Lancelot has to
of Frankish warriors, led by Count Roland (a vassal of cope with his loyalty to Arthur, his lord and Guinev-
Charlemagne) and of Charlemagnes revenge for this eres husband.
massacre. Superimposed on this supposedly Carolin- Another literary genre that flourished simultane-
gian tale are later chivalric values, militant Christian- ously with the romance was the lay (French, lai), a
ity, and primitive nationalism. For example, Roland short lyric or narrative poem meant to be sung to the
and his men are brave, loyal, pious, and honorable accompaniment of an instrument such as a harp. The
exaggerating the ideals of Charlemagnes day. Char- oldest lays are the twelve surviving by Marie de France
lemagne never fought Muslims in Spain, and Roland (fl. about 1170), a poet from Brittany who lived most
was killed by Basques in the Pyrenees, but the Song of of her life in England. Based on Arthurian stories,
Roland breathes the spirit of the First Crusade. Finally, Marie de Frances lays were stories of courtly love, of-
this poem portrayed the Franks as ready to die for ten adulterous (for instance, a young wife kept under
S sweet France, a notion unthinkable in Charlemagnes close watch by a jealous old husband), usually faced
N time but emerging in the twelfth century. with conflict, always with a moral lesson. Writing in
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 245

Old French, Marie addressed the French-speaking no- eternal female. With Beatrices guidance, Dante enters
bility of postNorman Conquest England, an audience paradise and rises to a vision of God, for him the love
that may have included King Henry II and Queen El- that moves the sun and all the stars.
eanor of Aquitaine. Maries lays were part of the out- The majestic complexity of Dantes monumen-
pouring of writing that made Old French literature the tal poem, however, can scarcely be conveyed by this
most influential in Europe until the rise of Italian lit- simple synopsis. Written as an allegory, the Divine
erature in the age of Dante Alighieri. Comedy was meant to be understood on several levels.
This vernacular literature gave rise to a new ethos Read literally, the poem bears witness to the authors
called courtly love. The product of courts, this ethos personal fears as a mortal sinner yet affirms his hope
envisioned fine love as the love of an unattainable for eternal salvation. Read allegorically, the poem rep-
lady and male refinement in manners and behavior. resents a comprehensive synthesis of the opposing
It is difficult to know how seriously to take the con- tendencies that characterized medieval culture, such
ventions of courtly love. Perhaps it was ironic or even as balancing the classical with the Christian, Aristo-
satirical: men became love vassals. Certainly, this tle with Aquinas, the ancient with the new, the proud
ethos flew in the face of Christian morality. It is not with the humble, the profane with the sacred, and the
clear that hearty lords and vassals became gentlemen. secular with the spiritual.
But courtly love marked medieval and later literature Of the great cultural symbols that abound in the
deeply. Divine Comedy, the richest in meaning are the cen-
tral figures of Virgil and Beatrice, who represent hu-
Dante Vernacular writing appeared in Italy in the man reason and divine revelation, respectively. In
thirteenth century, later than it had in France. But by the poem, Virgil is made inferior to Beatrice, thus re-
1300 Italy had produced the greatest literary figure of vealing Dantes acceptance of a basic idea of Thomas
the High Middle Ages, Dante Alighieri [DAHN-tay Aquinasreason can lead only to awareness of sin;
ah-legg-ee-AIR-ree] (12651321). A native of Florence, revelation is necessary to reach Gods ultimate truth.
in Tuscany, Dante was the first of a proud tradition Besides this fundamental Christian belief, the two
that soon made the Tuscan dialect the standard liter- figures convey other meanings: Virgil stands for clas-
ary speech of Italy (his impact is comparable to Lu- sical civilization and the secular literary life; Beatrice
thers Bible in German and the King James Bible in (Italian for blessing) symbolizes spiritualized love
English). and Christianized culture. By turning Beatrice into
Born into a minor aristocratic family, Dante gained an image of Gods grace and love, Dante revealed
a broad education in both Greco-Roman and Christian that the High Middle Ages were open to new paths to
classics but little is known about his schooling. At- Christian truth. Alongside faith and reason, pure love
tracted to the values of ancient Rome, he combined a might lead to God.
career in public office with the life of an intellectual Dantes vision of the afterlife underscored his be-
a tradition of civic duty inherited from the ancient lief that humans have free will. Predestination had no
Roman republic. When Dantes political allies fell place in his system, as his picture of hell shows. With
from office in 1301, he was exiled from Florence for one exception, all of the damned earned their fate by
the rest of his life. During these years, poor and wan- their deeds on earth. Excepted were the people con-
dering about Italy, he composed the Commedia, or signed to limbothe virtuous pagans who lived be-
Comedy, which stands as the culmination of the lit- fore Jesus and thus were denied his message of hope.
erature of the Middle Ages. As in antiquity, comedy Moreover, those in limbo, such as Aristotle and Plato,
means a story with a happy ending. The Comedys sub- were not subjected to any punishment other than be-
lime qualities were immediately recognized, and soon ing denied Gods presence.
its admirers attached the epithet Divine to Dantes The intricate structure of Dantes massive poem
masterpiece. owes much to numerology, a pseudoscience of num-
Divided into three book-length parts, the Divine bers that absorbed the medieval mind. The numbers
Comedy narrates Dantes fictional travels through three and nine, for example, occur prominently in
three realms of the Christian afterlife. Led first by the Divine Comedy. Three is a common symbol of the
the ghost of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, Dante Christian Trinity (the union of the Father, the Son, and
descends into hell, where he hears from the damned the Holy Spirit in one God), and the poem is written
the nature of their various crimes against God and in a three-line verse form called terza rima (a three-
the moral law. Virgil next leads Dante into purga- line stanza with an interlocking rhyme scheme, as aba,
tory, where the lesser sinners expiate their guilt while bcb, cdc, ded, and so on, ending in a rhyming couplet),
awaiting the joys of heaven. At a fixed spot in purga- which was Dantes invention. Dante identified the
tory, Virgil is forced to relinquish his role to Beatrice, number nine with the dead Beatrice, whose soul lived S
a young Florentine woman and Dantes symbol of the on in the ninth heaven, the one nearest to God. He also N
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246 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

divided hell, purgatory, and paradise into nine sec- the dominating physical presence of the church made
tions each. it a ubiquitous symbol in both the countryside and the
Despite its allegorical and theological features, the towns, architecture ranked higher than the other arts
Divine Comedy is a deeply personal poem. Dante re- in medieval life. Indeed, the arts lacked an indepen-
wards and punishes his Florentine friends and foes dent status, for they were regarded as mere auxiliary
by the location that he assigns each in the afterlife. sources of church decorationwall paintings, statues,
He also reveals his private feelings as he enters into and stained-glass windows, most of which portrayed
discussions with various saints and sinners along saints and biblical heroes (Figure 10.12). In this respect,
the way. Above all, he sought harmony between the these art forms conformed to the churchs teaching that
church and the secular state on earth and peace in his the purpose of art was to represent Christian truth.
beloved Florence. In about 1000, an international style called the Ro-
manesque emerged. The first in a succession of uni-
Architecture and Art form styles to sweep over Europe, the Romanesque
Just as scholars and writers devoted their efforts to ex- was carried along by the monastic revival until about
ploring religious concerns and Christian values, art- 1200. But by 1150, the Gothic style was developing in
ists, artisans, and architects channeled their talents Paris; it was to become the reigning style of the towns
into glorifying the Christian house of worship. Because for the remainder of the Middle Ages, succumbing fi-
nally to Renaissance fashion in about 1500.

Romanesque Churches and Related Arts Roman-


esque is a term invented in the nineteenth century to
describe the dominant architectural style after the Car-
olingian and before the Gothic. Although based on the
architectural language of ancient Rome, Romanesque
was not a pure Roman style but rather embraced ele-
ments inspired by Christianity, along with innovations
beginning in the Carolingian period and continuing for
some two centuries. Romanesque builders adapted the
Roman basilica plan, rounded arches, vaulted ceilings,
and columns for both support and decoration. Inspired
by Christian beliefs, they pointed the basilicas toward
Jerusalem in the east and curved each buildings east-
ern end into an apse to house the altar. A transept, or
crossing arm, was added at the churchs eastern end to
achieve a cross shape (Figure 10.13). Other Christian be-
liefs dictated such practices as having three doorways
in the western facadeto symbolize the Trinity. To
Roman and Christian elements, Romanesque builders
added innovative design features, such as the narthex

Figure 10.12 Scenes from the Life of Christ. Detail. Ca. 11501170.
Stained-glass windows, each panel 401/6 wide 411/3 high. West
facade, Chartres cathedral. The stained-glass windows of Chartres
cathedral are renowned as the most beautiful examples of this craft to
survive from the Gothic period. Of Chartres windows, those in the west
facade have been much praised for the brilliant effects created by their
jewel tones of red, blue, and gold, as well as white, with small areas
of green and lemon yellow. Taken from the central window of the west
facade, this detail shows eighteen of its twenty-four panels, treating the
life of Christ. Visible in the detail are panels depicting the annunciation
(bottom left row), the visit of the three wise men (left and right, third
row from bottom), and the flight into Egypt (left and right, sixth row from
bottom). In the design, square panels alternate with roundel forms to
frame each scene; red is the ground color for the squares and blue for
the roundels. The windows can be awe inspiring, as in the reaction of the
S scholar Henry Adams, who described the cathedrals interior as a delirium
N of coloured light.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 247

(a porch or vestibule, usually enclosed, leading into the Italy and Provence (southern France), to Catalonia
nave), vaulting techniques, and a wealth of ornamen- (northeastern Spain). Simple in design, the First Ro-
tal detail, to create the most expressive and disciplined manesque churches were built of stone rubble, a Ro-
architectural style since the fall of Rome. Romanesque man technique, and covered with flat, wooden roofs.
had many points of origin and spread through the in- With high walls and few windows, they resembled
ternational order of Cluny; along pilgrimage routes; fortresses, a trait that came to characterize both Ro-
and in imitation of Roman and German imperial manesque styles. The defining exterior features of the
churches. Comparatively few Romanesque churches First Romanesque churches were a web of vertical
can be viewed today in anything like their original bands or buttresses along the sides and a sequence of
condition. Some were torn down and replaced by later small arcades below the eaves (Figure 10.14). Because
styles, but most have been substantially modified. Ro- these features may have originated in Lombardy
manesque appears to have moved through two phases. (north central Italy), they are usually called Lombard
The First Romanesque style originated in Ger- bands and Lombard arcades. Later builders experi-
many and along the Mediterranean, in the zone rang- mented with the Lombard bands and arcades, creat-
ing from Dalmatia (modern Croatia), across northern ing spectacular churches, such as the Speyer cathedral
in Germany (Figure 10.15). At Speyer, Lombard bands
establish a rhythmic, vertical sequence on the walls
of the apse. Variations on the Lombard arcade form
Figure 10.13 Floor Plan of a Typical Romanesque Church. This include, on the lower part of the apse, the elongated,
floor plan identifies the characteristic features of a Romanesque church relatively windowless arcade attached to the wall; on
with its cruciform floor plan: (1) narthex, (2) towers, (3) nave, (4) side
the top part of the apse, the open, or dwarf, arcaded
aisles, (5) transept, and (6) apse.
gallery; and, on the wall above the apse, the arched

Figure 10.14 Santa Cruz de la Seros (Aragon), Church of San


Caprasio, Spain. View from the north. Last quarter of the eleventh
century. This church, though simple in the extreme, embodies the basic
6 elements of the First Romanesque style. These elements include stone
rubble walls, which have not been faced; a small number of windows; a flat,
wooden roof; and both Lombard bands and Lombard arcades.

5 5

4 4 3 4 4

1
2 2

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248 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.15 Speyer Cathedral. View from the east. Speyer,


Germany. Begun about 1030, completed before 1150. Speyer
cathedral, whose massive size rivals that of the great mother church
at Cluny, the home of the Cluniac order of monks, represents the
climax of the First Romanesque style.

niches arranged in stairstep fashion and the line of


Lombard arches below the roofline.
The Second Romanesque style derived from
Cluny III, founded 1088 and the third church built
on this site (see Figure 10.5). Cluny III (destroyed in
the 1800s) was greatly admired in its day for its vast
scale, including double transepts and crossing tow-
ers, towers at the ends of the transepts, a double-aisled
nave covered with a barrel vault, and a rich decora-
tive program of religious art, both inside and out. The
spectacular success of the Cluniac movement in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries led to the spread of the
Second Romanesque style throughout Europe (Fig-
ure 10.16). These churches were richly decorated and

earth hugging, with massive walls and few windows,


though more and larger windows than in the First Ro-
manesque. Their castle-like exteriors made them spiri-
tual fortresses. Many Second Romanesque churches
were pilgrimage churchesdestinations for pilgrims
traveling vast distances to see and venerate holy relics,
the supposed bones of saints.
A celebrated pilgrimage church in the Second Ro-
manesque style is Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Vzelay,
France. Attached to a Cluniac convent, this church at-
tracted penitents eager to view the bones of Mary Mag-
dalene. Vzelays builders followed a basilica design
with a cruciform floor plan. Inside, the most striking
feature is the nearly 200-foot-long nave, which could

Figure 10.16 Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, formerly Abbey Church of


the Virgin and St. John the Baptist, Paray-le-Monial, France. View
of nave, looking east. Begun 1110s1120s, completed midtwelfth
century. Nave height approx. 14771/2; length approx. 7221/8. The
monastery at Paray-le-Monial became part of the Cluniac system in 999.
Tradition links St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny (10491109), with the building
of the Paray-le-Monial basilica. As head of the Cluniac order, Hugh
commissioned Paray to be a scaled-down version of the great mother
church, Cluny III. It replicates Cluny IIIs vaulting techniques, using barrel
vaults in the nave and groin vaults in the aisles, combined with pointed
archesderived from Muslim architecture. (The pointed arches used
at Cluny III and Paray-le-Monial were not related to the development of
Gothic-style architecture.) As in Cluny III, the east end culminates in a
semicircular arcade resting on slender columns. The nave, consisting
of only three vaulted sections, is markedly shorter than Cluny IIIs nave,
S reflecting the lack of pageantry associated with the small monastic
N community at Paray-le-Monial.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 249

Figure 10.17 View of Nave, Looking East. Church of Sainte-Marie-


Madeleine, Vzelay, France. Ca. 10891206. Vzelays nave was made
unusually long so that religious pilgrims might make solemn processions
along its length. A reliquary, or an area for displaying holy relics, was later
set aside in the choir. Within the choir, the design of the ambulatory provided
ample space for masses of pilgrims to view all the relics at one time.

hold a large number of pilgrims and accommodate


religious processions (Figure 10.17). Typical of Roman-
esque architecture, the nave is divided into bays, each
framed by a pair of rounded arches constructed from
blocks of local pink and gray stones. These colors alter-
nate in the overhead arches and create a dazzling effect
for which this church is famous. The ceiling of each
bay is a groin vaulta Roman building technique. The
support system for the tall nave wallsan arcade, or
series of arches resting on clusters of columnswas
also taken from Roman architecture. Vzelays build-
ers used sculpture to provide sermons in stone to
remind illiterate visitors of the stories they heard in
sermons. Instead of copying Greco-Roman columns,
the artisans created their own style of decorated col-
umn. The capitals, or tops, of the interior columns are
sculptured with religious scenes and motifs, such as
one that shows Jacob, one of the Hebrew patriarchs (on
the left), wrestling with the angel (Figure 10.18). The
angel, clutching his robe in his left hand, raises his
right hand to bless Jacob. The simple figures with their
dramatic gestures and expressive faces accurately con-
vey the message in Genesis (32:2430) that Jacob has
been chosen by God to lead the Hebrew people. The art
is typically Romanesque: the feet point downward, the
limbs are placed in angular positions, and the drapery
folds are depicted in a stylized manner. Figure 10.18 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Decorated column
A more mature Romanesque style appears in the capital. Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Vzelay, France. Ca.
carvings on the tympanumthe triangular areaover 10891206. The Vzelay capitals survive in near-immaculate condition.
the south portal of the tower porch at Moissac, one of Late medieval moralists considered their vivacity and gaiety inappropriate
in Gods house, and the offending sculptures were plastered over. When
the two extant elements of the twelfth-century abbey they were uncovered during a nineteenth-century restoration of the
church. The other surviving element is a cloister, a churchs interior, the capitals were revealed in their charming originality.
covered arcade (where the monks walked to say their
daily prayers) surrounding a quadrangle, which origi-
nally connected the church to the monastic community.
The tympanum carvings probably depict a vision of the
Christian apocalypse, much of which is based on the
book of Revelation (Figure 10.19). Jesus is portrayed in
glory, indicated by the cross-shaped symbol behind his
head and the oval in which he sits enthroned, and he
wears a crown. Surrounding him are the four evangelist
symbols, namely, man (Matthew), winged lion (Mark),
winged bull (Luke), and eagle (John) (see Chapter 6). Je-
sus and the four symbols are, in turn, encircled by ten
of the twenty-four elders listed in Revelation 4, while
fourteen other elders sit in a line below, gazing up at the
Savior. The elders hold cups and musical instruments S
as described in Revelation 5. This tympanum sculpture N
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250 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.19 Christ in Glory with Four Evangelist Symbols and the Twenty-four Elders. Tympanum over
south portal. Church of St. Pierre, Moissac, France. Ca. 1125. The jam-packed imagery in this tympanum
and surrounding space is typical of the allover patterns used in the Romanesque style. Nevertheless, there
is artistic order here. Stylized floral forms are aligned rhythmically along the lintel and around the tympanum
frame, and human and animal shapes encircle the seated Jesus, who is rendered four times larger than the
elders. The tympanum itself is divided into three zones by the horizontal lines of clouds below Jesuss feet and
above the second row of elders.

served as a warning about lifes ultimate end to those the hanging draperies. The naturalness of these scenes
who passed through the south portal. presents a vivid contrast to the spirited agitation of
Besides church building and church decoration, the French Romanesque art.
Romanesque style was used in manuscript illumina-
tion, which had originated in late Rome and flourished Gothic Churches and Related Arts The word
in the early Middle Ages. During the High Middle Gothic was a critical term invented by later Renais-
Ages, new local styles arose, inspired by regional tastes sance scholars who preferred Greco-Roman styles and
and by a knowledge of Byzantine painting brought imagined that Gothic architecture was so ugly that
from the East by crusaders. English monks probably only the ferocious Goths could have been responsible
developed the finest of these local styles. for it. In fact, the Gothic grew out of the Romanesque
The Bury Bible, painted at Bury St. Edmunds mon- and was not a barbarian art. Today the term Gothic has
astery, reflects an English taste that is calmer and less no negative connotations.
exuberant than Continental styles. Two panels from the Gothic architecture sprang from multiple impulses.
Bury manuscript, set off by a border of highly colored Dawning Scholasticism, the recovery of Euclids geom-
foliage, show an episode in Mosess life (Figure10.20). etry, and faintly emerging Platonism induced build-
S Borrowings from Byzantine art may be detected in the ers to adopt extravagant geometrical designs and to
N elongated figures, the large eyes, the flowing hair, and incorporate light symbolism. Prosperous townsmen
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 251

joining of two arches of identical height but different


widths, which, in turn, permits complex shapes and
sizes. Second, the ribbed vault is lighter and more
graceful than the barrel and groin vaults characteristic
of Romanesque architecture; it also exerts less stress
and facilitates experimentation with shapes. Third,
point supportbasically, the support of structural
elements at only certain pointspermits the replace-
ment of heavy, stress-bearing walls with curtains of
stained glass. The points of support might be massive
internal piers or intricate skeletal frameworks, called
buttresses, on the outside of the church; elongated
and delicate buttresses are sometimes called fly-
ing buttresses. These three elementspointed arch,
ribbed vault, and point supportproduce a building
that is characterized by verticality and translucency
(Figure 10.21). The desired effect is one of harmony,
order, and mathematical precisionScholasticism in
stone.
The glory of the Gothic churchthe choirwas all
that remained to be built. The plan and inspiration for
the choir (the part of the church reserved to the clergy)
were the pilgrimage churches, such as Vzelay, that
had enlarged their apses by creating ambulatories,
zones where people could mill about without disrupt-
ing the services, to accommodate pilgrims. In Sugers
skillful hands, the east end of St. Denis was now elab-
orated into an oval-shaped areathe choirringed
with several small chapels (Figure 10.22). At the heart
of the choir was the apse, now arcaded; a spacious am-
bulatory area divided the apse from the chapels (Fig-
ure 10.23).
Figure 10.20 Moses Expounding the Law of the Unclean Beasts.
The Bury Bible. 11301140. Approx. 20 14. Bury St. Edmunds, Between 1145 and 1500, the Gothic style presented
England. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. These panels depict an overwhelming image of Gods majesty and the
Moses delivering the dietary laws to the ancient Hebrews. The responses power of the church. A Gothic exterior carried the eye
of his audience reveal the sure hand of the artist, known only as Master heavenward by impressive vertical spires. A Gothic
Hugo. For example, in the upper panel one figure pulls at his nose, while
interior surrounded the daytime worshiper with col-
a nearby companion looks skeptical. Mosess head is depicted with horns,
which reflected a biblical mistranslation of the term for the radiance that ored, celestial light; the soaring nave ceiling, some-
surrounded Moses after receiving Gods law. times rising to more than 150 feet, was calculated to
stir the soul. In its total physicality, the Gothic church
stood as a towering symbol of the medieval obsession
with the divine.
demanded larger, more magnificent churches. Increas- During the High Middle Ages, the Gothic style
ing wealth made larger projects possible. went through two stages, the Early and the High. The
Two problems with the Romanesque stood in the Early Gothic style lasted until 1194 and was best rep-
way: the groin vaults were so heavy that the nearly resented by Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The High
windowless walls had to be extremely thick to support Gothic style flourished until 1300 and reached perfec-
their great weight, and the rounded arches limited tion in the cathedral at Amiens, France.
the buildings height. Between 1137 and 1144, the
Gothic style was created by Suger [sue-ZHAY] (about Early Gothic Style, 11451194 The cathedral of Notre
10811151), the abbot of the royal Abbey Church of Dame (Our Lady, the Virgin Mary) in Paris made
St. Denis, near Paris. Sugers startling originality re- popular the Early Gothic style, making it a fashion for
sulted from his combining a number of elements other cities and towns. Begun in 1163, the cathedral was
that had long been in usethree in particular: First, the most monumental work erected in the West to that
a pointed arch (adapted from the Muslim world) is time. Its floor plan was cruciform, but the length of the S
more elegant than a round one; it also permits the transept barely exceeded the width of the aisle walls N
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252 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

(Figure 10.24). Part of Notre Dames beauty stems from


the rational principles applied by the builders, notably
the ideal of harmony, best expressed in the integra-
tion of sculpture and decorative details with build-
ing units. For instance, the west facade is divided into
three equal horizontal bands: the three doorways, the
rose window and blind arcades (walled-in windows),
and the two towers (Figure 10.25). Within each subdi-
vision of this facade, figurative sculpture or architec-
tural details play a harmonizing role, from the rows of
saints flanking each of the portals to the gargoyles, or
grotesque animals or humans carved in stone peering
down from the towers.

Figure 10.21 Principal Features of a Typical Gothic Church. In this


schematic drawing, the features are numbered from the nave outward:
(1) nave arcade, (2) pointed arch, (3) vault, (4) clerestory, (5) flying buttress,
(6) buttress, and (7) gargoyle.

Figure 10.22 Ambulatory. Church of St. Denis, Paris. Ca. 1145.


This view of the choir of St. Denis shows a portion of the ambulatory
that allowed pilgrims to view the chapels in the apse. The evenly spaced
support columns and the pointed arches create this flowing, curved space.
The ribbed arches in the ceiling are also central to the Gothic skeletal
construction.

5
5 5

3
5 5
3 3
2 1
5 3 3 5

3 2 3

4 4 4 4 4

Figure 10.23 Floor Plan, Ambulatory. Church of St. Denis, Paris.


Ca. 1145. This floor plan, based on a similar design used in the pilgrimage
churches, became the basis for the reordering of interior space in the
Gothic choirs. The features include (1) choir, (2) apse, (3) ambulatory,
S (4) transept, and (5) chapel.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 253

Inside Notre Dame, which can hold ten thousand


people, the spectacular nave reveals the awe-inspiring
effects of Early Gothic art at its best (Figure 10.26).
The strong vertical lines and the airy atmosphere
represent the essence of this style. With its ribbed
vaults and pointed arches, the nave rises to a height
of 115feet from the pavement to the vaulting. Like the
harmonious western facade, the nave is divided into
three equal tiers: the nave and double aisles, the open
5 spectator gallery above the aisles, and, at the top, the
clerestorythe luminous window zone.
Notre Dame reveals that the choir was coming to
4 dominate the Early Gothic church. Notre Dames choir
is almost as long as the nave, so that the transept vir-
tually divides the church into two halves. At first, the
choirs walls had no special external supports, but as
cracks began to appear in the choirs walls during the
thirteenth century, flying buttresses were added to en-
sure greater stabilitya feature that would later char-
acterize High Gothic churches (Figure 10.27).
3 3 The Gothic sculptures that decorate Notre Dame
differ from the exuberant Romanesque style. The Ro-
manesques animated images of Jesus have given way
to the Gothics sober figures. In addition, the Gothic
figures are modeled in three dimensions, and their
draperies fall in natural folds (Figure 10.28). At the
same time, the rise of the cult of the Virgin meant an
increased number of images of Mary as well as of fe-
male saints. The name Notre Dame itself testifies to
the appeal of the cult of the Virgin.
1 Before Notre Dame was finished, its architects be-
gan to move in new directions, refining the traditional
2 2 2 2

Figure 10.24 Floor Plan of Notre Dame. Paris. 1163ca. 1250. This
drawing shows the principal features of Notre Dame cathedral: (1) nave,
(2) aisle, (3) transept, (4) apse, (5) choir, and (6) narthex, or vestibule.

Figure 10.25 Western Facade. Notre Dame. Paris. 12201250. In


the gallery above the western portals are twenty-eight images of the kings
of Judah, including David and Solomon. These sculptures, typical of Gothic
churches, are more than decorations: they are reminders that Mary and
Jesus were descended from royalty. In the medieval mind, this religious
idea was meant to buttress the monarchical style of government. S
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254 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.26 Nave. Notre Dame. Paris. View from the height of
the western rose window. 11801250. Ht. floor to summit of roof,
115. The nave is clearly not aligned properly. The choir bends perceptibly
to the north, which probably reflects the different building times for various
parts of the cathedral. The transept and the choir were finished first, after
which the nave and the double aisles were added. The western facade was
completed last.

features into a new style, called Rayonnant, or Radi-


ant. In the Rayonnant style, the solid walls gave way
to sheets of stained glass framed by elegant traceries,
or rich ornamentation, of stone. This radiant effect
was especially evident in the north transept facade,
which was rebuilt in this new style. With the addition
of this transepts imposing rose window, designed to
suggest the rays of the sun, the cathedrals interior was
bathed in constantly shifting colors, giving it a mysti-
cal atmosphere (Figure 10.29).

High Gothic Style, 11941300 The High Gothic style


is a tribute to the growing confidence of the builders
of the thirteenth century, who took the Gothic ingredi-
ents and refined them, creating grander churches than
had been erected earlier. In comparison with Early
Gothic architecture, High Gothic churches were taller
and had greater volume; artistic values now stressed
wholeness rather than the division of space into har-
monious units. Rejecting the restrained decoration
of the Early Gothic style, the High Gothic architects
covered the entire surface of their churches western
facades with sculptural and architectural designs.
The cathedral in Amiens is a perfect embodiment
of the High Gothic style. Amiens was planned so that
flying buttresses would surround its choir and march
along its nave walls (Figure 10.30). Instead of trying to
disguise these supports, the architect made the exterior
skeleton central to his overall plan. As a result, more-
spacious window openings could be made in the nave
and the choir walls than had been the case in Notre
Dame. Furthermore, the design of Amiens nave was
also changed so that the entire space was perceived as
a homogeneous volume. The division of the nave walls
into three equal horizontal bands was eliminated,
and the system of arches and bays overhead became
less emphatic (see the chapter-opening photo, p. 226).
Amiens overall floor plan was conservative, however,
for it resembled that of Notre Dame; for example, its

Figure 10.27 Notre Dame. Paris. View from the east. 11631182.
Notre Dames choir, shown on the right, was originally built without chapels
and flying buttressesa sign of its Early Gothic origins. Pariss greatest
S church caught up with the High Gothic style in the fourteenth century, when
N these architectural features were added.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 255

Figure 10.28 The Last Judgment. Central


portal, western facade, Notre Dame,
Paris. Ca. 1210. This tympanum represents
Jesus enthroned and presiding over the Last
Judgment. Surrounding him are the apostles,
the prophets, the church fathers, and the
saintsarranged in descending order of their
importance in relation to Jesus. Like all the
sculptures of Notre Dames first story, the
entire scene was gilded with gold paint until
the midfifteenth century.

Figure 10.29 North Rose Window of Notre


Dame. Paris. Ca. 1255. This masterwork by
Jehan de Chelles is the only original of Notre
Dames three rose windows. The nineteenth-
century restoration genius Eugne Viollet-
le-Duc re-created the other two. Measuring
forty-three feet in diameter, the window was
installed after workers first removed sections
of the existing wall. The bits of predominantly
blue glass, encased in iron settings, were then S
placed inside the stone frame. N
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256 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.30 Amiens Cathedral. Amiens,


France. Ca. 12201270. This photograph
shows the brilliantly articulated exterior
skeleton of Amiens cathedral. Gothic churches
openly displayed the exterior support system
that made their interior beauty possible. In
the Renaissance, this aspect of Gothicism
was decried for its clumsiness. Renaissance
architects preferred classical structures that
hid their stresses and strains.

transept bisected a choir and a nave of equal length High Gothic painting survives best in the manu-
(Figure 10.31). script illuminations of the late thirteenth century.
The western facade of Amiens shows how decora- By that time, these small paintings were being influ-
tion changed in the High Gothic style (Figure 10.32). enced by developments elsewhere in Gothic art. The
Amiens western wall and towers are pierced with Gothic illuminators abandoned the lively draperies
rich and intricate openings. The elegant tracery has of the Romanesque and instead showed gowns hang-
the effect of dissolving the walls apparent solidity. ing in a natural manner. More important, they some-
What surface remains intact is covered with an elabo- times allowed the architectural frame to dominate
rate tapestry of architectural devices and sculptural the painting, as in the Psalter of St. Louis IX of France.
figures (Figure 10.33). Commissioned by the sainted French king, this book
The finest stained glass from the High Gothic era contains seventy-eight full-page paintings of scenes
is from the cathedral in Chartres, a town fifty miles from the Old Testament. Of these paintings, Balaam
south of Paris. Chartres has 176 windows, and most and His Ass is a typical representation of the anony-
are the thirteenth-century originals. Outstanding ex- mous painters style (Figure 10.34). The scene unfolds
amples of this art are the Charlemagne panels depict- before a High Gothic church; two gables with rose
ing scenes from the Song of Roland, illustrated earlier windows are symmetrically balanced on the page. Al-
in this chapter (see Figure 10.10). Each figure is pre- though this painting owes much to changes in Gothic
cisely rendered, though many are cropped at the edge sculpture, the animated figures of the men, the angel,
S of the pictorial space. The glass itself is brilliant, nota- and the ass are reminiscent of the exuberant Roman-
N bly in the dominant blue tones. esque style.
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 257

Figure 10.31 Floor Plan of Amiens Cathedral. Amiens, France.


Ca. 12201236. This drawing shows the principal features of
Amiens cathedral: (1) nave, (2) aisle, (3) transept, (4) apse, (5) choir,
and (6) narthex.

3 3

Figure 10.32 Western Facade. Amiens cathedral. Amiens, France.


Ca. 12201236. Comparison of Amiens facade with that of Notre Dame
in Paris (see Figure 10.25) shows how the High Gothic differs from the
Early Gothic. The basic form remains the same, but Amiens surface is
richer in detail and more splendid overall. The pointed features, such as the
arches over the portals and over the openings in the towers, are the most
1 characteristic visual element in the High Gothic style.
2 2

6 6

Music
As with the other arts, the purpose of music during
the High Middle Ages was the glorification of God. At
first, the monophonic (single-line) Gregorian chants
were still the main form of musical expression, but
two innovationsthe introduction of tropes and the
development of polyphonyled the way to a different
sound in the future.
Among the compositions of sacred music written
during this period, the works of Hildegard of Bingen
have a lasting appeal. Hildegard composed within the
tradition of Gregorian chant (see Chapter 8), though
she, a devout mystic, claimed ecstatic visions as the in- S
spiration for her musical ideas. The words for her texts N
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258 CHAPTER TEN: The High Middle Ages

Figure 10.34 Balaam and His Ass. Psalter of St. Louis IX. 12521270.
Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris. The architectural details
in this miniature painting show a correspondence with the Rayonnant
architectural style: the two gabled roofs, the two rose windows with
Figure 10.33 Golden Virgin. Amiens cathedral. Ca. 1260. Amiens, exterior traceries, the pointed arches, and the pinnacles. Just as Gothic
France. The Golden Virgin of Amiens, so called because it was originally architects emphasized the decorative aspects of their buildings, so did
covered with a thin layer of gold, is one of the most admired works of this anonymous painter of miniatures. The story of Balaam and his ass
Gothic art. The artist has depicted Mary as a loving earthly mother with (Numbers 22:2235 in the Old Testament) was a beast fablea popular
fine features, a high forehead, and a shy smile. This sculpture shows the literary genre in the Middle Ages. In the biblical story, the ass could speak
new tenderness that was creeping into art during the High Middle Ages and see things of which his master, Balaam, was ignorant. In the painting,
as part of the rise of the cult of the Virgin. the ass turns his head and opens his mouth as if to speak.

were drawn from the Bible, her theological writings, Lord for mercy) and an alleluia (a chant sung during
and the churchs liturgy. the Mass offering praise), as well as two longer works
Hildegards works were unusual not only because composed specifically for women, one dedicated to
they were written by a woman but also because they virgins and the other to widows.
were performed by women singers before audiences Hildegards O Pastor Animarum is one of the
of womenHildegards fellow nuns. Besides the pre- seventy-seven songs in the collection known as the
viously mentioned sung morality play Ordo Virtu- Symphonia (full title: Symphonia armonie celestium rev-
tum (The Company of the Virtues), Hildegard com- elationum, or Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Rev-
posed seventy-seven songs, chants, and hymns for the elations). Symphony here means simply collection and
churchs liturgy, including such works as O Pastor should not be confused with the modern symphony, a
Animarum (O Shepherd of Souls), Spiritui Sancto musical form. O Pastor Animarum is an antiphon, a
(To the Holy Spirit), and O Jerusalem. She also short prose text, chanted by an unaccompanied voice or
S wrote a kyrie (a chant sung during the Mass asking the voices during the liturgy. Addressed to God the Father,
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The Age of Synthesis: Equilibrium Between the Spiritual and the Secular 259

this antiphon reads, in Latin: O Pastor animarum, / et


o prima vox, / perquam omnes creati sumus, / nunc tibi, /
tibi placeat, / ut degneris nos liberare / de miseries et lan-
guoribus nostris (in English: O Shepherd of souls, /
and o first voice, / through whom all creation was sum-
moned, / now to you, / to you may it give pleasure
and dignity, / to liberate us / from our miseries and
languishing). Typically, Hildegards antiphon is com-
posed in plainsong (also called plainchant), the Chris-
tian chant that dominated the period. The music shows
her personal style: wide leaps of melody and ornamen-
tal features, especially melismas (groups of notes sung
to the same syllable) and, to a lesser extent, syllabic
singing (one note per syllable).
The tropes, or turns, were new texts and melodies
inserted into the existing Gregorian chants. Added for
both poetic and doctrinal reasons, these musical embel-
lishments slowly changed the plainchants into more
elaborate songs. Culminating in about 1150, this musi-
cal development coincided with the appearance of the
richly articulated Gothic churches. The tropes also gave
a powerful impetus to Western drama. From the prac-
tice of troping grew a new musical genre, the liturgi-
cal drama, which at first was sung and performed in
the church but gradually moved outdoors. From the
twelfth century onward, these works were staged in the Figure 10.35 Embellished Letter B. Psalter from Wrzburg-
area in front of the church as sacred dramas or mystery Ebrach. Early thirteenth century. Universitts Bibliothek, Munich.
plays (from Latin mysterium, secret or hiddeni.e., In illuminated manuscripts, the initial letter of a sentence was often
embellished with intricate details, drawn from the artists imagination
the plays revealed deep truths). As their popularity
and experience. In this example from a thirteenth-century German psalter,
increased, they began to be sung in the vernacular in- the letter B is interwoven with a band of musicians playing instruments
stead of Latin. Ultimately, the liturgical drama supplied typical of the era: organ (with bellows), bells, ivory horn, flute, stringed
one of the threads that led to the revival of the secular instruments, and an instrument for bows. The artist who painted this
theater. miniature scene has captured the liveliness of a musical performance,
depicting several players singing.
Gregorian chants were also being modified by the
development of polyphony, in which two or more
lines of melody are sung or played at the same time. In
the early eleventh century, polyphony was extremely the same courts where the chansons de geste and the trou-
simple and was known as organum. It consisted of a bador songs flourished in the twelfth century. At first,
main melody, called the cantus firmus, accompanied France was the center of this musical movement, but
by an identical melody sung four or five tones higher in the early thirteenth century, German poets took the
or lower. By about 1150, the second line began to have lead. At the same time, music began to be practiced not
its own independent melody rather than duplicating just by aristocratic poets but also by middle-class min-
the first. During the thirteenth century, two-voiced or- strels, and new musical instrumentssome, such as the
ganum gave way to multivoiced songs called motets, lute (a multistringed instrument with neck and sound
which employed more complex melodies. In the mo- box) and the bagpipe, banned by the churchstarted to
tets, the main singer used the liturgy as a text while up find their way into secular music (Figure10.35).
to five other voices sang either commentaries or ver-
nacular translations of the text. The result was a com-
plex blend of separate voices woven into a harmonious Technology
tapestry. By about 1250, the motet composers had laid Technology during the High Middle Ages recovered
the foundations of modern musical composition. many valuable techniques from ancient Rome, and,
Notwithstanding these developments in sacred mu- by improving on this heritage and borrowing from
sic, the church could not stop the rise of secular music Islam, the West was able to sustain Europes burgeon-
any more than it could prevent the spread of courtly ing economy and society, as well as, in a few cases, to
love. Indeed, the first secular music was associated with take steps forward. Among the largest steps forward S
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260 CHAPTER TEN: THE HIGH MIddLE AGEs

was the adoption of papermaking and the astrolabe, the introduction of gunpowder (probably from
both introduced from the Islamic world (see Chap- China), used mainly as an explosive in siege war-
ter9). However, the impact of these new technologies fare to topple walls.
was relatively limited. Technologys strongest impact
Advances in agricultural productivity included
on the wider culture was made by further advances
in warfare, the rise of watermills and windmills in the water-driven mills that significantly expanded
North, and new tools in farming. milling capacitymore grain could be milled
Advances in military technology included faster, producing more flour, and increasing food
supplies;
larger, more powerful warhorses, imported from
spain; the proliferation of windmills, probably intro-
duced from the Muslim world, perhaps by cru-
widespread use of better saddles, stirrups, and
saders; and
spurs, which enhanced the knights stability on
his mount; a widespread shift from the ox to the horse as
a plow and draft animal, facilitated by the horse-
better armor, including head-to-toe chain mail,
collar.
metal gauntlets (gloves), and helmets;
the introduction of the powerful, accurate cross-
bow; and

SUMMARY
Europe doubled in size and population in the High vernaculars appeared in quality and profusionsongs
Middle Ages. Intellectual life grew more intense, with of deeds, lays, lyrics, and romances. Vernacular litera-
more schools and more masters. Encounters with more ture reached its apogee in dantes Comedy. Architec-
classical texts and with Islamic learning pushed think- ture went through two distinct phases: Romanesque
ers to grapple with the relationship between faith and styles embellished Carolingian achievements and car-
reason. In the writings of Thomas Aquinas, people ried them into the twelfth century at which point the
learned to believe that some things could be known Gothic style took over, first in the region around Paris
by human reason alone while other things could be and then almost everywhere else in Europe. The beau-
known only through divine revelation. Not all writ- tiful but simple plainchants of the early Middle Ages
ing was theological or philosophical. Latin continued yielded to polyphony, to multiple voices.
to be used as a literary language, but writings in many

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


feudalism minstrel Lombard bands tracery
chivalry troubador second Romanesque style antiphon
Investiture Controversy romance tympanum plainsong
friars lay cloister melismas
Crusades vernacular language pointed arch syllabic
cathedral courtly love ribbed vault trope
scholasticism terza rima buttress liturgical drama
realism stained glass choir polyphony
nominalism Romanesque style rose window organum
via media Gothic style blind arcade motet
goliard narthex gargoyle lute
chanson de geste First Romanesque style gallery
canzone Lombard arcades Rayonnant style

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KEy CULTURAL TERMs 261

The Legacy of the High Middle Ages


In quentin Tarantinos 1994 film Pulp Fiction, one vio-
lent character says to a victim, Im gonna get medi-
eval on you. The popular image of the Middle Ages
may be one of violence, backwardness, and supersti-
tion. But that image is wrong in almost every way. Me-
dieval violence, in all its intensity and mayhem, was
not, like that of modern times, mechanized and tech-
nological. Modern ordered society under law is more
a medieval than a classical heritage; for example, the
United states archives in Washington display a copy
of the Magna Carta. Modern business rests on the
practices of Italian merchants. The popes have greatly
reduced power today, but there are still a billion Cath-
olics who look to them for guidance. And the theol-
ogy of Thomas Aquinas (Thomism) was official in
the Catholic Church until very recently. Cds of Grego-
rian chant and Paris polyphony sell remarkably well.
Nineteenth-century Romanticism revived Gothic ar-
chitecture, and many American cities and universities
have Gothic buildings. The university may be the most
enduring legacy of the Middle Ages. In popular cul-
ture, films like Braveheart and Beowulf keep medieval
themes alive. The beloved tales of The Lord of the Rings
and The Hobbit were written by an Oxford professor
of medieval literature, J. R. R. Tolkien. The immensely
popular Harry Potter books and films are filled with
medieval symbols and images. Chivalry is surely not
dead even if polite society is near its demise. There
is much to think about in the tendency of some radical
Islamists to call Westerners who dare to intervene in
the Middle East crusaders.

St. Patricks Cathedral, New York. Neogothic. Designed by James


Renwick and constructed between 1858 and 1878. Pope Pius IX made
New York an archbishopric in 1850 and Archbishop John Joseph Hughes
decided to build a new cathedral as a proud expression of American
Catholicism. To connect the American church with its European heritage,
he asked Renwick to build a Gothic building. It will amuse modern New
Yorkers to learn that what is now the corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street
was then out in the country.

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Master of the Cit des Dames, Christine de Pizan presenting her book to Queen Isabeau of
Bavaria (14101415). Illuminated manuscript, tempera and gold on vellum, 51/2 6 3/4. British
Library. (Ms. Harley 4431 vol. 1 fol 3r.). Images like this one proliferated in luxurious books
on both religious and secular subjects produced for elite owners.

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The Late Middle Ages
11
Crisis and Recovery
13001500

Preview Questions The Four Horsemenof the ApocalypseConquest, War, Famine,


1. Identify the major crises and Deathrode roughshod over Europe in the late Middle Ages. The
of the late Middle Ages. Black Death ravaged the population. The economy suffered one shock after
2. Discuss the differences another. The church had to relinquish its dream of a united Christendom
between high and late when faced with the reality of warring European states. New military tac-
medieval philosophy
tics and weapons rendered chivalry obsolete, and the chivalric code began
and theology.
to seem a romantic fiction. In the universities, new intellectual currents
3. What is new and
distinctive about late drove a wedge between philosophy and theology, which had been so care-
medieval literature? fully integrated by Thomas Aquinas. Vernacular literature took off in bold
4. Name several new directions. And the balanced High gothic style in art and architec-
differences between ture gave way to the florid late gothic style.
high and late medieval
This beautiful painting of Christine de Pizan presents a counterpoint
architecture and
painting. to the horrors of the age. It suggests wealth and luxury, which did indeed
mark the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The figures are all women,
a rarity in European art before this time, and the centerpiece is a book,
probably Christines Book of the City of Ladies. An Italian herself, Christine
wrote in French, which points to two trends in the age: the vernacular
was increasingly prominent in literature and the world of scholarship was
growing more international. Women were beginning to figure in art and
to practice one or another of the arts. That the image shown here features
a book is significant in another way as well: the production of books ex-
ploded in the fifteenth century, aided by the invention of the printing
press with movable type. From an artistic point of view, the image shows
the artist grappling with mathematical perspective. By the end of the fif-
teenth century, that problem would be solved.

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264 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Learning Through Maps


SWEDEN Partly or totally spared by the plague
Towns (e.g., Milan)

Decembe
350
Regions

June 1
Durham
DENMARK

r 135
Dublin Lancaster
349

0
er 1 York
mb
D ec e Leicester Norwich
9
34 Hamburg
e1 48 London
J un 13 Bristol
er Cologne
ce mb Calais
De Lige
Amiens Erfurt

Rh
NORMANDY

i ne
Wrzburg
Paris Seine

R.
Nuremberg
Angers
R.
Strasbourg BAVARIA
Vienna
Zurich HUNGARY
R.
Bordeaux
Rhne

BEARN Milan Caffa


CASTILE Avignon Venice 7
Montpellier 34
Pisa Dan ub e R. r1
Marseilles be
8

ARGON Florence em
13 4

Siena ec
e

D
Dubrovnik
Jun

Teruel Barcelona Rome


Valencia MINORCA Constantinople
Seville Naples
ANDALUSIA MAJORCA

Almeria
Messina De
cem
b er
134
7

0 250 500 mi

0 500 1000 km

MAPMHS63
11.1276PROGRESS OF THE BLACK DEATH ACROSS EUROPE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
mat76620_m1001.eps
This First shows the spread of the plague across Europe in the midfourteenth century.1. Notice how the dark lines mark the progress of the
mapproof
plague at a specific time. 2. Where and when does the Black Death appear in Europe? 3. Where and when does it end? 4. What regions and cities
were partly or totally spared the plague? 5. Consider the role of various types of travelers in spreading the Black Death.

HARD TIMES COME TO EUROPE which has become the common term. Scholars used
to think confidently that the Black Death was an in-
Shortly after the opening of the fourteenth century, stance of bubonic plague transmitted to humans by
Europe entered a disastrous period of economic de- fleas from infected rats, but they are no longer sure
pression, accompanied by soaring prices and wide- of this. Bubonic plague tends to spread slowly and
spread famine. Against the backdrop of the Hundred its typical mortality is far less than Europe experi-
Years War between England and France (13371453), enced at the time of the Black Death. So deadly was
social unrest increased and renegade armies ravaged the disease that more than a third of Europes seventy
much of western Europe. The church, in disgrace and million people died in the first epidemic alone. The
disarray for much of this period, was unable to pro- plague first appeared in Italy in 1347 (Map 11.1). From
vide moral or political leadership. As old certainties Italy, the disease spread rapidly over most of Europe,
evaporated, the optimistic mood of the High Middle halted by the frost line in the north. The mechanism
Ages gave way to a sense of impending doom. of disease transmission was not fully understood, and
the plague created panic.
Ordeal by Plague, Famine, and War The Black Death cast a long shadow over the late
Of all Europes calamities, the worst was the plague Middle Ages. Many writers and artists reflected the
that ravaged Europe from 1348 to 1351 and then inter- melancholy times, occasionally brightening their dark
mittently for another century. In the sixteenth century, works with an end-of-the-world gaiety. The ages lead-
S writers began to label the epidemic the Black Death, ing image became the Dance of Death, often portrayed
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The Secular Monarchies 265

Figure 11.1 The Dance of Death. Fifteenth


century. In the wake of the Black Death,
art and literature became filled with themes
affirming the biblical message that life is short
and death certain. A vivid image of this theme
was the Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death,
which took many artistic and literary forms.
In this example, a miniature painting taken
from a fifteenth-century Spanish manuscript,
the corpses are shown nude, stripped of their
human dignity, and dancing with wild abandon.

as a skeleton democratically joining hands with kings, fluctuated wildly as workers moved about in search
queens, popes, merchants, peasants, and prostitutes of opportunities and employers competed for their
as they danced their way to destruction. This symbol services. Between 1296 and 1381 in Flanders, Flor-
forcefully portrayed the folly of human ambition and ence, France, and England, workers and peasants rose
the transitory nature of life (Figure 11.1). up violently, albeit without durable effect (see Slice of
The plague was compounded by growing famine Life). Ironically, in the long term those who survived
conditions across the European continent. Starting in experienced an elevated standard of living. Political
1315, agricultural harvests failed with some regularity and social unrest did not, however, bring much real
for more than a century. These famines braked centu- change. Serfdom continued to decline in western Eu-
ries of steady population growth and weakened the rope, but in eastern Europe the lives of peasants grew
populace by making them more susceptible to diseases. worse. Urban middle classes still fought with each
War also disrupted the pattern of social and eco- other and with their royal and ecclesiastical overlords.
nomic life. Princes from France and Aragon (north-
eastern Spain) struggled to control southern Italy.
Northern Italian cities waged war among themselves THE SECULAR MONARCHIES
for commercial and political advantage. England and France and England maintained their leading posi-
France fought the seemingly endless Hundred Years tions in Europe, but they exhausted their economies
War, while the dukes of Burgundy attempted to carve with wasteful wars. The Hundred Years War, as the
out a middle kingdom between France and the Ger- group of conflicts between the midfourteenth and
man Empire. Farther east, from 1347 on, the Ottoman the midfifteenth centuries is called, had three root
Turks occupied Greece and the Balkan peninsula, con- causes: Englands conquest in 1066 by a Norman duke;
quered Constantinople in 1453, and menaced eastern Henry IIs (r. 11541189) Angevin Empire; and John
Europe. Amid all this constant warfare, bands of mer- of Englands defeat in 1212 by the French king Philip II
cenaries and marauding renegades only made things (r. 11801223) (Timeline 11.1). The war was fought en-
worse. tirely on French soil. The Valois dynastysuccessor to
Depopulation and disruption, therefore, were the the Capetians in 1328had to contend not only with
chief results of the plague and the wars that accompa- England but also with the dukes of Burgundy, who
nied it. Old areas, such as France, lost population and threatened to break their ties with the French crown
prosperity, while new areas, such as eastern Europe and establish an independent kingdom on Frances
and Scandinavia, gained population and prosperity. eastern border. The Burgundian court at Dijon was
Florence and Venice, which were initially devastated the most brilliant in northern Europe, attracting the
by the plague, rebounded by the fifteenth century. Dis- leading artists and humanists of the age. A heroic
parities between rich and poor grew greater. Wages figure who emerged from this war was Joan of Arc S
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266 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Timeline 11.1 ROYAL DYNASTIES IN LATE MEDIEVAL FRANCE AND ENGLAND


1300 1328 1500

9871328 13281589
Capetian Valois

FRANCE
13371453
Hundred Years War

1300 1399 1461 1485 1500

1154 1399 1485 1603


Lancastrian Yorkist
Angevin Tudor

ENGLAND

(14121431), who rallied the French to victory, only civil war kept central Europe and Scandinavia from be-
to be burned at the stake by the English; in modern coming strong and centralized. The Holy Roman Em-
times, she became one of Frances national heroines pire was the least successful of these political entities,
and a Roman Catholic saint. and Germany remained divided into combative states.
Despite the ravages of the Hundred Years War, the And, in the eastern Mediterranean, the Ottoman Turks,
Valois kings ultimately increased their territory. Except devout Muslims, posed a threat to Christian Europe.
for the port of Calais in northern France, England was
forced to cede its overseas lands to the French crown.
The dukes of Burgundy were brought under French THE PAPAL MONARCHY
control. And the northwestern region of Brittany, the Following its pinnacle of power and prestige in 1200
last major territory that had escaped the French crown, under Pope Innocent III, the church entered a period
was acquired through marriage. The contour of mod- of decline in about 1300, and for the next century it was
ern France was now complete (Figure 11.2). beset with schism and heresy. From 1309 to 1377, the
While the Hundred Years War raged on the Con- seat of the papacy was located in Avignon in France, a
tinent, life in England was disrupted by aristocratic papal fief on the Rhne River, chosen initially to allow
factionalism, peasant unrest, and urban strife. Like negotiations with the king of France after the disas-
France, England was emerging from feudalism, but it trous conflict between Boniface VIII and Philip IV (see
was moving in a different direction. The English Par- Chapter 10). Opponents of the relocation of the papacy,
liament, which represented the interests of the nobles, claiming the popes were in the pocket of the French
towns, and rural counties, gained power at the ex- king, tagged it the Babylonian Captivity (hearken-
pense of the king. ing to the captivity of the ancient Jews in Babylon).
When Henry VII (r. 14851509) became king, how- The Avignon popes were exceptionally effective ad-
ever, it became apparent that a key reason for the dom- ministrators, especially in the financial realm, but of-
inance of Parliament had been the weakness of the ten worldly and dissolute.
kings. This founder of Englands brilliant Tudor dy- The Avignon papacy had barely ended in 1378 when
nasty avoided the quarrels his predecessors had had a new calamity, the Great Schism, threw the church
with Parliament by abandoning foreign wars, living into even more confusion. Gregory XI (pope 13701378)
off his own estates, and relying on his own advisers. returned to Rome in 1377 but he died in 1378, and, in
Henry VIIs policies deflated parliamentary power and the ensuing election of an Italian pope, some French
made him as potent as his contemporaries in France. cardinals alleged intimidation and returned to Avi-
The success of the French and the English kings in gnon. When the French cardinals elected a new pope,
centralizing their states attracted many imitators. Their Western Christendom was divided with two popes,
ruling stylewith royal secretaries, efficient treasuries, two colleges of cardinals, and two papal courts. The
national judiciaries, and representative assemblies rising power of the secular states became evident
S was adopted in part by other states. Spain was the most as rulers cast their support for one side or the other:
N successful in achieving unity. Dynastic politics and France, Sicily, Scotland, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal
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Technology 267

Figure 11.2 An Archbishop before a King of France. The Grand


Coutumes of Normandy, the Coutumes of France. Fifteenth century.
Law Library, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. In addition to
wars and marriage, the kings of France consolidated their power by
establishing legal and judicial control over their newly acquired regions
and territories. One of their tactics was to collect and codify the coutumes,
or local customary laws. For centuries, provincial lawyers and regional
courts had formulated and interpreted these local laws, and, by the
fifteenth century, the coutumes had become the basis and structure
of the legal rulings and procedures in each province. Charles VII
(r. 14221461) ordered in 1453 that the coutumes be codified and
brought before him and his grand council for their examination and
approval. Unlike other compilations, The Grand Coutumes of Normandy
(ca. 14501470) were embellished with seven miniature paintings depicting
various examples of the application and execution of the laws, which were
common in Normandy and in England. In this example, the French king
gives a document or charter to the archbishop of Normandy. Since such
agreements between kings and church leaders were renewed many times
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, this miniature is likely symbolic,
not representing an actual event. However, its message is clear: the crown
holds the real power.

rallied behind the Avignon pope; England, Flanders,


Poland, Hungary, Germany, and the rest of Italy stayed
loyal to the Roman pope. The papal office suffered the
most; the popes authority diminished as pious Chris-
tians became bewildered and disgusted.
The worst was yet to come. In 1409 both sets of car-
dinals summoned a church council in Pisa to heal the
fissure. The Pisan Council elected a new pope and
called on the other two popes to resign. They refused,
and the church was faced with three rulers claiming
papal authority. The Great Schism was finally re-
solved at the Council of Constance (14141418), which
deposed the Avignon ruler, accepted the resignation
of the Roman claimant, ignored the Pisan Councils gunpowder, were improved in this age of rapid change.
choice, and elected a new pope, Martin V. However, the most significant technological innova-
With the success of the Council of Constance, con- tion of the late Middle Ages was the development of
ciliar rule (rule by councils) as a way of curbing the printing with movable metal type in the midfifteenth
power of the popes seemed to be gaining support in century.
the church. But Martin V (pope 14171431) rejected
this idea as soon as he was elected to the papal throne.
Nevertheless, the conciliar movement remained alive The Rise of Industries
until the midfifteenth century, when strong popes Hand-loomed textile manufacturing remained the
reasserted the monarchical power of their office. Al- leading industry, but its production and distribution
though powerful, these popes failed to address press- centers shifted. The greatest change in textile manu-
ing moral and spiritual concerns, for they were deeply facturing, however, was precipitated by Englands
involved in Italian politics and other worldly interests, shift from the export of raw wool to the export of fin-
ruling almost as secular princes in Papal States. ished cloth, a change that disrupted the traditional ru-
ral way of life.
Wool merchants organized the new textile industry
TECHNOLOGY in England. The merchants, who bought and owned
As farming life changed because of the growth of the raw wool, created the putting-out system, the as-
urban life, so did Europes fledgling industrial life, signing of tasks (shearing, carding, combing, spinning,
and new technology, for instance the suction pump, weaving, fulling, felting, dyeing, and cutting) to fami-
increased productivity in some industries. Older in- lies who worked at homewhich came to be defined as S
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SLICE OF LIFE
A Gossip Columnist of the Late Middle Ages

Henry Knighton
A VIEW FROM THE PROVINCES
The Chronicle of Henry Knighton (?1396) is an excel- on his back, and after rising to his hands and knees,
lent source for the late Middle Ages in England. An at- he died.
tentive observer of public affairs, Knighton recorded the
2
gossip about the political and religious unrest of his age.
A woman in London celebrates mass. At that time there
He lived mainly in Leicestershire, far from London, but
was a woman in the city of London who had an only
he had well-placed contacts and reliable sources. In the
daughter whom she taught to celebrate the mass; and
first excerpt, Knighton reports on the 1381 rebellion of
she privily set up and furnished an altar in her own
Wat Tyler. In the second excerpt, he passes along a rumor
bedroom, and there she caused her daughter on many
about religious unrest, which may be related to the Lol-
occasions to dress as a priest and in her fashion to cel-
lards, who believed that women could be priests.
ebrate mass, though when she came to the sacramen-
tal words she prostrated herself before the altar and
1
did not complete the sacrament. But then she would
The next day, which was Saturday [15 June 1381], they
rise for the rest of the mass and recite it to the end, her
all came together again in Smithfield, where the king
mother assisting her and showing her devotion.
[Richard II] came early to meet them, and showed that
That nonsense went on for some time, until it was
although he was young in years he was possessed of a
revealed by a neighbour who had been admitted to
shrewd mind. He was approached by their leader, Wat
the secret, when it came to the ears of the bishop of
Tyler, who had now changed his name to Jack Straw.
London. He summoned them to his presence and
He stood close to the king, speaking for the others,
showed them the error of their ways, and compelled
and carrying an unsheathed knife, of the kind peo-
them to display the childs priestly tonsure in public,
ple call a dagger, which he tossed from hand to hand
for her head was found to be quite bald. The bishop
as a child might play with it, and looked as though
greatly deplored and bewailed such misconduct in the
he might suddenly seize the opportunity to stab the
church in his time, uttering many lamentations, and
king if he should refuse their requests, and those ac-
put an end to it by enjoining penance upon them.
companying the king therefore greatly feared what
might come to pass. The commons asked of the king Interpreting This Slice of Life
that all game, whether in waters or in parks and woods 1. What particular demand did Wat Tyler make of
should become common to all, so that everywhere in Richard II, the English King?
the realm, in rivers and fishponds, and woods and for-
ests, they might take the wild beasts, and hunt the hare 2. Why do you think Knighton singled out this de-
in the fields, and do many other such things without mand in his account?
restraint. 3. Why might Wat Tyler have taken the pseudonym
And when the king wanted time to consider such a Jack Straw?
concession, Jack Straw drew closer to him, with men- 4. How reliable is Knighton as a reporter?
acing words, and though I know not how he dared,
5. Why were the unnamed mother and daughter pun-
took the reins of the kings horse in his hand. Seeing
ished by the bishop of London?
that, [William] Walworth, a citizen of London, fearing
that he was about to kill the king, drew his basilard 6. What bias may have motivated Knighton to report
and ran Jack Straw through the neck. Thereupon an- this London gossip to his patron?
other esquire, called Ralph Standish, stabbed him in 7. What modern parallel can you draw to Henry
the side with his basilard. And he fell to the ground Knighton and his Chronicle?

from China via the Middle East, perhaps during the constantly so as to create a continuous thread. Women
Crusadesstreamlined the spinning of wool into traditionally performed the spinning, hence the medi-
thread, or yarn. It replaced the ancient method, in- eval terms spinster and distaff side, meaning womans
volving two handheld sticks, called a distaff and a work.
spindle. With the spinning wheel the worker stretched In England, merchant entrepreneurs invested in
S wool from a distaff onto a spindle, turning the wheel sites based on available grazing land for sheep and
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THE CULTURAL FLOWERINg OF THE LATE MIDDLE AgES 269

access to fast-flowing streamsthe latter to power Global Encounter:


fulling mills, where wooden paddles washed and beat
The Dissemination of Technologies
the cloth before it was stretched to dry outdoors. In
some textile-producing areas, merchants recruited Neither the cloth nor the printing industries could
skilled workers from Flanders (modern Belgium). The have flourished in the late Middle Ages without two
importation of foreign workers could provoke social technologies that traveled from China across the Silk
unrest, as in 1381, during the Peasants Revolt, when Road (see Chapter 8) to the Mediterranean and then
the rioters massacred Flemish workers, accusing them to Europe. The spinning wheel was known in China
of taking work from the local populace. by the eleventh century, may have reached Europe in
Other new industries also emerged. Rag paper, a the thirteenth century, and proliferated in 1400s. This
Chinese invention improved by the Arabs, was manu- simple invention made it possible to turn vegetable
factured widely in Spain, Italy, France, and germany. (cotton) and animal (wool) fibers into thread or yarn in
Silk fabrics were woven in impressive patterns in Flor- vastly greater quantities than ever before. The Chinese
ence, Venice, and Lucca, from the 1300s and, in En- learned how to make paper from rags in, probably, the
gland and France, from the late 1400s. Salt was now second century BCE. For a long time the Chinese did
distributed by Venice and Lisbon and used in the in- not discern papers possibilities as a writing material.
dustries of tanning leather and preserving food. The They used it for wrapping material, for hygiene (rather
iron industry expanded to meet the demand for weap- like tissue), and for clothing. Legend has it that Arabs
ons, armor, and horseshoes. learned about papermaking from prisoners in Samar-
kand, discovered its utility for disseminating writing,
and retained the secret about how to make it and what
The Printing Press to use it for until Christian merchants stumbled upon
The german craftsman Johannes gutenberg (13971468) the substance in about 1100. Slowly the technique of
is often credited with the invention of the printing papermaking spread across the Christian world until,
press, in about 1450, even though his achievement rests in the late Middle Ages, it became a major industry
on numerous earlier developments. That is, the model in many parts of Europe. Paper was so much cheaper
for his printing press came from similar devices used than parchment that its spread complemented print-
to bind books and to make wine and paper. guten- ing as a feature of the dissemination of books and
berg also had knowledge of printing from woodblocks ideas in late medieval Europe.
(though without a printing press), invented in China
in perhaps the sixth century CE and developed in the
West after 1350, whereby pictures along with a brief THE CULTURAL FLOWERING
text could be impressed onto a paper surface (see the
section The Print, later in the chapter). OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
gutenbergs invention gave rise to the printing and The calamitous political, social, and economic events
publishing industries, with a host of related occupa- of the late Middle Ages were echoed in the cultural
tions, such as printers, engravers, compositors, type- sphere by the breakdown of the medieval synthesis
founders (designers of typefaces), booksellers, editors, in religion, theology, literature, and art. New secu-
proofreaders, and librarians. Because it was cheaper to lar voices began to be heard, challenging traditional
print a book than to have a text copied as a manuscript, views, and the interests of the urban middle classes
books became agents of democracy, with huge reper- started to influence art and architecture. Although
cussions for education, literature, and society. Hints the church remained the principal financial supporter
of the changes to come may be glimpsed in a survey of the arts, rich town dwellers, notably bankers and
of the perhaps twenty-eight thousand books, known merchants, were emerging as the new patrons of art
as incunabula (from the Latin, cradle), which were (Figure 11.3).
printed before 1500 in nearly three hundred cities
and in almost two dozen languages: a mass of Chris-
tian texts, especially Bibles, prayer books, and lives Religion
of saints, in both Latin and vernacular languages; a The waves of monastic reform that had repeatedly
flood of how-to manuals on topics such as etiquette; brought renewed life to the medieval church largely
a horde of fictional works calculated to appeal to liter- ceased in the late Middle Ages. Lay piety thus became
ate laypeople; a few books of music, showing lines and one of the most significant developments in the reli-
notes; and from Jewish-owned presses, an outpouring gious landscape. By 1400 the Brethren and Sisters of
of works in Hebrew, including Bibles, prayer books, the Common Life and the Friends of god were rising
and almanacs. in the Rhineland, the Low Countries, and Flanders. S
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270 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Figure 11.3 Jacques Coeurs House. 14431451. Bourges, France.


Coeur was an immensely successful entrepreneur who at one point
bankrolled the French kings. His magnificent mansion at Bourges spawned
many imitations among wealthy businessmen across Europe. The buildings
spiky turrets, fanciful balconies, and highly decorated windows are all
secular adaptations of the late Gothic style more commonly seen in church
architecture. Coeur conducted his Europe-wide financial and commercial
dealings from this house, sending messages by carrier pigeons released
through holes in the roof.

and common folk. Wishing to purify the church of


worldliness, Wycliffe urged the abolition of ecclesi-
astical property, the subservience of the church to
the state, and the denial of papal authority. The most
lasting achievement of Wycliffes movement was the
introduction of the first complete English-language
Bible, produced by scholars inspired by his teaching.
After his followers (known as Lollards, because dur-
ing religious frenzy, their tongues were said to loll
out of their mouths) were condemned as heretical, the
secular officials launched savage persecutions.
The Bohemian reformers in the Holy Roman Em-
pire were indebted to Wycliffe, whom some had met at
Oxford; but, more important, their strength was rooted
in the popular piety and evangelical preachers of mid-
fourteenth-century Prague. The heresy became identi-
fied with Jan Hus (about 13691415), a Czech theologian
who accepted Wycliffes political views but rejected
some of his religious teachings. Hus was invited to
the Council of Constance in 1415, where his ideas were
This lay movement constituted the devotio moderna, condemned, and he was burned at the stake by state
or the new devotion, with its ideal of a pious lay so- authorities. His death outraged his fellow Czechs,
ciety. Disappointed with traditionally trained priests, many of whom, including the powerful and wealthy,
members of these groups often rejected higher educa- now adopted his views. Hussite beliefs became a ve-
tion and practiced the strict discipline of the earlier hicle for Czech nationalism, as Huss ethnic comrades
monastic orders, but without withdrawing into a mon- fought against German overlords. Backed by powerful
astery. Among the most important expressions of this lay leaders, the Hussites survived into the next century.
new devotion was The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas They gained more followers during the Protestant Ref-
Kempis (13801471). His manual, with its stern as- ormation and exist today as the Moravian Brethren.
ceticism, reflected the harsh ideals of the Brethren Although the secular authorities, instigated by the
and Sisters of the Common Life, the group of which church, could usually be counted on to put down the
Thomas was a member. For other groups, however, so- heresies, the church had a more powerful internal
ber reflections on the life of Christ were not enough. weapon at its disposal: the Inquisition (from the Latin
The flagellants, for example, who regarded the plague inquisitio, inquiry). Created by the church to seek out
as Gods way to judge and punish an evil society, Albigensian heretics in the thirteenth century (see
staged public processions in which they engaged in Chapter 10), the Inquisition became an adjunct to state
ritual whippings in an attempt to divert divine wrath power in late medieval Spain, where Jews were most
from the general population (Figure 11.4). often targeted. Following the basic ideals of Roman
The flagellants managed to escape official censure, law, courts of inquisition allowed suspects to be con-
but those more openly critical of the church did not. demned without facing their accusers and accepted
The leaders who attempted to reform the church in evidence gained under torture. Forbidden by the Bible
England and Bohemia met stout resistance from the to shed blood, the leaders of the Inquisition turned
popes. The English reform movement sprang from the convicted heretics over to the state authorities, who
S teachings of John Wycliffe (about 13201384), an Ox- then executed them by burning. Hundreds of men
N ford teacher whose message attracted both nobility and women perished in this way.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 271

Figure 11.4 Flagellation Scene. Annales of Gilles Le Muisit. Bibliothque Royale de Belgique,
Brussels. This miniature painting represents a familiar scene across Europe during the plague years. The
penitents, depicted with bare backs and feet, marched through towns scourging themselves with whips. By
this self-punishment, they hoped to atone for their own and societys sins and thus end the plague.

Theology and Philosophy and reason be treated as complementary approaches to


Alongside all the strife in the wider world, scholars in divine truth. In contrast, the via moderna, or the mod-
Europes universities engaged in intellectual combat. ern way, made a complete separation of faith and rea-
The major disputes were over Thomism, the theologi- son. In time the via moderna prevailed, driving the via
cal system of Thomas Aquinas, which in the late Mid- antiqua underground until it was revived by the neo-
dle Ages was drawing increasing criticism. The old scholastics in the nineteenth century.
philosophical struggle between realism and nominal-
ism finally ended with a nominalist victory. Duns Scotus and William of Ockham The con-
flict between the via antiqua and the via moderna was
The Via Antiqua versus the Via Moderna The best exemplified in the writings of John Duns Sco-
opening round in the theological war against Thomism tus and William of Ockham, respectively. The first of
began soon after the death of Thomas Aquinas in 1274. these commentators was sympathetic to the theology
In 1277 church officials in Paris condemned the Latin of Thomas Aquinas, but the second scholar was un-
Averroists for their rationalism. As part of their at- mistakably hostile and tried to discredit Thomism.
tack on extreme rationalism, the church authorities Duns Scotus [duhnz SKOAT-us] (about 12651308),
rejected some of Aquinass arguments. The censure the most persuasive voice of the via antiqua, was a
of Thomism led to a heated controversy that raged Scottish thinker who was trained as a Franciscan and
among university scholars for much of the late Middle lectured at the universities in Oxford, Paris, and Co-
Ages. In particular, Thomass fellow Dominican fri- logne. Even though he was a supporter of Thomism,
ars waged an acrimonious battle with the Franciscan Duns Scotus unwittingly undermined Aquinass syn-
masters, their great rivals in theological studies. thesis by stressing that faith was superior to reason, a
During these theological debates, new labels were shift in focus that arose from his belief in Gods abso-
invented and assumed by the opposing sides. Aquinass lute and limitless power. Pointing out that Gods exis-
via media came to be termed by his opponents the via tence could not be proven either through the senses or
antiqua, or the old-fashioned way. Broadly speaking, by reason, he asserted that only faith could explain the S
the via antiqua followed Thomism in urging that faith divine mystery. Furthermore, Duns Scotus concluded N
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272 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

that because the theologian and the philosopher have


different intellectual tasks, theology and science (i.e.,
the study of nature) should be independent fields of
inquiry.
What Duns Scotus unintentionally began, William
of Ockham (about 13001349) purposely completed.
Under the assaults of Ockhams keen intellect, the
Thomist theological edifice collapsed. An Oxford-
trained theologian, he recognized the importance of
both reason and faith; but, like Scotus, he did not see
how reason could prove Gods existence. Both think-
ers believed that only personal feelings and mystical
experiences could reveal God and the divine moral
order. Yet Ockham went further than Scotus by as-
serting that reason, the senses, and empirical evidence
could enable human beings to discover and hence
understand the natural world. To Ockham, faith and
reason were both valid approaches to truth, but they
should be kept apart so that each could achieve its re-
spective end.
In the seemingly endless medieval debate between
the realists and the nominalists, Ockhams reasoning
swept nominalism to its final victory. Like the nomi-
nalists of the twelfth century, Ockham denied the ex-
istence of universals and claimed that only individual
objects existed. He concluded that human beings can
Figure 11.5 pAoLo uCCeLLo. Manuel Chrysoloras Teaching
have clear and distinct knowledge only of specific Greek in Florence. Drawing. Louvre. Uccello (13971475)
things in the physical world; no useful knowledge can was a mathematician as well as a painter and he was among the
be gained through reason or the senses about the spir- pioneers in the use of mathematical perspective in painting, but his
itual realm. Ockhams conclusion did not mean that discoveries are not particularly evident in this undated drawing. Although
human beings were cast adrift without access to the Chrysolorass classroom teaching techniques are not known, todays
scholars believe he would read aloud, in front of his students, a passage
world of God. A corollary of his approach was that un- in Greek from some classical text and then analyze the work, drawing
derstanding of the spiritual realm rested solely on the on sources from other Byzantine writers, a pedagogical device used
truths of faith and theology. in Constantinople.
In his reasoning, William of Ockham asserted a
principle of economy that stripped away all that was
irrelevant: arguments should be drawn from a mini-
mum of data and founded on closely constructed logic. Science
It is vain to do with more what can be done with Ockhams ideas broadened the path to modern sci-
fewer, he says in one of his works. Ockhams razor ence that had been opened by two thirteenth-century
of logic eliminated superfluous information that could thinkers. In that earlier time, Robert Grosseteste
not be verified, thus enabling a student to cut to the [GROSS-test] (about 11751253), a Franciscan at Ox-
core of a philosophical problem. The Ockhamites, fol- ford University, had devised a scientific method for
lowing their mentors logic and empiricism, challenged investigating natural phenomena; using step-by-step
the realists and dominated the intellectual life of the procedures, he employed mathematics and tested hy-
universities for the next two hundred years. potheses until he reached satisfactory conclusions.
Another key development found Greek scholars mi- Roger Bacon (about 12201292), another Franciscan
grating to Italy. For one example, Manuel Chrysoloras and a follower of Grosseteste, advocated the use of the
(13531415) settled in Florence on the invitation of the experimental method, which he demonstrated in his
city government and began to teach Greek (Figure11.5). studies of optics, solar eclipses, and rainbows and in
As another example, John Bessarion (14031472) settled his treatises on mathematics, physics, and philosophy.
in Rome in 1437, where he founded a school and taught In the fourteenth century, other thinkers, with
Greek, philosophy, and science. Greek was not yet Grosseteste and Bacon as guides and Ockhams logic
widely known in the West and as the ancient tongue as a weapon, made further contributions. Outstand-
S spread, Greek scholarship, and eventually the works of ing among these men was one bold Parisian scholar
N Plato, became widely known. who took advantage of the growing interest in the
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 273

experimental method, Nicholas Oresme [O-REM] Petrarch touched on religious themes in Secretum, or
(about 13301382). Oresme answered all of Aristo- Secret Book, which deals with the state of his soul. In this
tles objections to the idea that the earth moved. Us- dialogue, Augustinus, or St. Augustine, grills Fran-
ing pure reason and applying theoretical arguments, ciscus, or Petrarch, about his innermost thoughts and
he concluded that it was as plausible that the earth desires, charging him with all the deadly sins. Freely
moved around the sun as that it was fixed. Having admitting his moral lapses, Franciscus pleads that he is
used reason to show that the earth may move, how- the same as any other mandriven by a love of learn-
ever, Oresme then chose to accept church doctrine, ing, a weakness for fleshly attractions, and an appetite
denying what he had demonstrated. Nevertheless, for personal comforts. Despite this confession, with its
Oresmes arguments, along with Ockhams separation modern overtones, the dialogue shows that Petrarch
of natural philosophy from theology and Bacons for- could not liberate himself fully from medieval values.
mulation of the experimental method, foreshadowed Classicism inspired much of his scholarship, but Au-
the approaches of modern science. gustines Confessions called forth the Secretum.
Even more than his lifelong friend Petrarch, Gio
vanni Boccaccio [bo-KACH-e-o] (13131375) was a man
Literature of the world. The son of a banker, Boccaccio began his
The powerful forces that were reshaping the wider literary career by penning prose romances along with
culturethe rising new monarchies, the growing poetic pastorals and sonnets, many of which were
national consciousness among diverse peoples, the dedicated to Fiammetta, a young woman who was
emerging secularism, and the developing urban both his consuming passion and his literary muse.
environmentwere also transforming literature in His early efforts, however, are overshadowed by his
the late Middle Ages. The rise of literacy produced a Italian prose masterpiece, The Decameron. Written in
growing educated class who learned to read and write about 1351, this work reflects the grim conditions of
the local languages rather than Latin, and a shift to the Black Death, which had just swept through Flor-
vernacular literature began to occur (see Chapter 10). ence. In The Decameron (from the Greek words for ten
Two new groupsthe monarchs and their courts, and days), Boccaccio describes how ten young men and
the urban middle classjoined the nobility and the women, in their efforts to escape the plague, flee the
church as patrons and audiences. And, most impor- city to a country villa, where they pass the time, each
tant, printing enabled a wider and faster dissemina- telling a story a day for ten days. Most of their one
tion of knowledge than ever before. hundred tales were based on folk stories and popular
legends. Although some tales deal lightly with social
Northern Italian Literature: Petrarch and Boc- mores and a few contain moral messages, the majority
caccio Petrarch and Boccaccioboth Florentines, simply entertain. Boccaccio, speaking through a cross
like Dantegrew up in a Christian world that was section of urban voices and relying on well-known
urban, rapidly secularizing, and had little experience stories, helped develop a form of literature that even-
with chivalry. These two writers captured the mood tually led to the modern short story.
of this transition era as Florence and the other Italian
city-states shed their medieval outlook. Both authors English Literature: Geoffrey Chaucer Like its
looked back to the classical world for inspiration; yet Italian counterpart, English literature rapidly matured
both found, in the bustling world of the nearby towns, into its own forms during the late Middle Ages. Un-
the materials and characters for their stories. Of the til this time, most educated English people read and
two, Petrarch was the more dedicated classicist and spoke French, but a rising sense of national conscious-
often used ancient themes in his writings. ness, triggered by the Hundred Years War and an
Francesco Petrarch [PAY-trark] (Petracco in Ital- emerging educated urban class, hastened the spread
ian) (13041374), though Florentine by birth and in of English as the native tongue.
spirit, grew up in the south of France where his father After 1300 important works in English appeared,
worked at the papal court. As a diplomat for popes such as The Vision of Piers Plowman, a moral allegory, by
and Italian princes, Petrarch won fame and wealth, William Langland (about 13321400), that graphically
but his reputation arose from his career as a profes- exposes the plight of the poor and calls for a return to
sional man of letters. He unleashed a torrent of superb Christian virtues. This work provides insight into En
Latin scholarship on classical subjects and themes but glands social and economic system and, through the
also earned wide renown for a collection of 366 love authors anguish, reveals the social tension around the
lyrics and sonnets called Canzoniere, or Songbook, in time of the Peasants Revolt in 1381.
beautiful Italian. Petrarch, despite a clerical training, English literature was still establishing its own
reveals the complementary Latin and vernacular, sec- identity when Geoffrey Chaucer (about 13401400) S
ular and spiritual interests of his time. appeared on the scene. He wrote in an East Midland N
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274 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

dialect of English that became the standard form for


his generation as well as the foundation of modern En
glish. The son of a wealthy London merchant, Chaucer
spent his professional life as a courtier, a diplomat, and
a public servant for the English crown. The profession
of writer or poet was unknown in Chaucers day.
But his poetry brought him renown, and when he died
he was the first commoner to be buried in Westminster
Abbey, a favored burial spot for English royalty.
Chaucer began composing his most famous work,
The Canterbury Tales, in 1385. He set the tales in the
context of a pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas Becket,
the twelfth-century martyr. Even though the journey
has a religious purpose, Chaucer makes it plain that
the travelers intend to have a good time along the way.
To make the journey from London to Canterbury more
interesting, the thirty-one pilgrims (including Chau-
cer himself) agree to tell talestwo each going and
returningand to award a prize for the best story told.
Chaucer completed only twenty-three tales and the
general Prologue, in which he introduces the pilgrims.
Each person on the pilgrimage not only represents an
English social type but also is a unique and believable
human being. In this poetic narrative about a group of
ordinary people, the spiritual is mixed with the tem-
poral and the serious with the comic. Figure 11.6 The Wife of Bath. Ellesmere Manuscript. Early fifteenth
Chaucer drew his pilgrims from nearly all walks century. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. In
of medieval society. The Knight personified much the Ellesmere Manuscript, an early edition of The Canterbury Tales issued
that was noble and honorable in the chivalric code; soon after Chaucers death, each story was accompanied by a sketch of
the pilgrim who was narrating it. This portrait of the Wife of Bath shows
his bravery could not be questioned, but he was also
her riding an ambler, a horse that walks with an easy gait, and wearing a
a mercenary and cruel to his enemies. Certain repre- wimple, the typical headdress of nuns as well as laywomen of the period.
sentatives of the church are also somewhat skeptically
treated. The Prioress, the head of a convent and from
the upper class, is more concerned about her refined French Literature: Christine de Pizan Christine
manners and polished language than the state of her de Pizan [kris-teen duh PEE-zahn], among the lead-
soul. Similarly, the Monk lives a life of the flesh and ing French writers of the day, began to explore in her
enjoys good food, fine wines, and expensive clothing. works the status and role of women. She also contrib-
The Friar seems the very opposite of his sworn ideals; uted to the triumph of vernacular over Latin by writ-
he is eager to hear a confession for a fee, and he never ing in a graceful French with the learnedness of Latin.
goes among the poor or aids the sick. However, in the Christine de Pizan (1364about 1430) was by birth
country Parson, Chaucer portrays a true servant of an Italian from Pisa whose literary gifts blossomed
God who preaches to his parish, looks after the infirm under the patronage of the French kings and dukes of
and dying, and lives as simply as his church members. Burgundy. She began a life of study after the death of
Among the secular travelers, the most vivid is the Wife her husband, a royal official, in 1389, left her with a
of Bath. A widow five times over, this jolly woman is family to support. The first known Western woman to
full of life and loves to talk. She has been on many pil- earn a living through her writings, Christine blazed
grimages and not only knows about foreign places but the trail for women authors.
also has a keen insight into people (Figure11.6). Christine wrote on diverse topics, working within
As for the tales they tell, the pilgrims choices often the well-established literary genres of her day, includ-
reflect their own moral values. The worthy Knight tells ing love poems, lays, biography, letters, political tracts,
a chivalric love story, but the Miller, a coarse, rough and moral proverbs. Two themes dominate her writ-
man well versed in lying and cheating, relates how a ing: calls for peace and appeals for the recognition of
young wife took on a lover and deceived her husband. womens contributions to culture and social life. Both
Thus the pilgrims stories, based on folk and fairy themes reflect the era in which she livedan age beset
S tales, romances, classical stories, and beast fables, are by civil strife because of the Hundred Years War and
N entertaining in themselves and function as a kind of a time in which women were scarcely allowed to ex-
L summa of the storytellers art. press an opinion in public.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 275

The work of Christines that has generated the most were given willowy, swaying bodies, rendered in ex-
interest among modern readers is The Book of the City of quisite detail, and illuminated manuscripts and painted
Ladies (1405), which forcefully tries to raise the status wooden panels became more refined. At the same
of women and to give them dignity. Offering one of time, in Florence around 1300, Giotto was revolution-
the first histories of women and arguing that women izing art with a new approach to painting. The trend
have the right to be educated, based on her premise toward naturalism embodied in his works was the
that women are moral and intellectual equals of men, most significant new artistic development of this pe-
this book seems almost feminist in a modern sense; riod and was destined to be the wave of the future.
however, a close reading shows that Christine is writ-
ing within a medieval framework. Nowhere in this Late Gothic Architecture Francethe home of the
book or in any other writings does she advocate that Gothic styleremained a potent source of architec-
women abandon their traditional roles and strike out tural innovation. French architects now abandoned
on a new path. Nevertheless, Christine de Pizan is the balanced ideal of the High Gothic and made ex-
the first Western writer to raise the issue of womens travagance their guiding principle, creating a late
rights in society and culture. Gothic style typified by ever greater heights and elabo-
rate decoration. In the fifteenth century, this tendency
culminated in the Flamboyant style, so named for its
Architecture and Art flamelike effects. French churches built in this style
The Gothic style continued to dominate architecture had sky-piercing spires, and their facades were em-
(see Chapter 10), but the balanced and unified High broidered with lacy or wavy decorations that obscured
Gothic of the thirteenth century was now replaced the buildings structural components (Figure 11.7).
with the ornate effects of the late Gothic style. Vir- During the fourteenth century, the late Gothic spread,
tuosity became the chief aesthetic goal, as the archi- becoming an international style, although with almost
tects took basic forms and pushed them to the stylistic infinite local variations.
limits. Virtuosity bordering on excess marked paint- In England, the late Gothic was called Perpendic-
ing and sculpture too. Statues and sculptured figures ular because of its dramatic emphasis on verticality.

Figure 11.7 The Church of St. Maclou.


1435ca. 1514. Rouen, France. St. Maclous
exterior illustrates the ornate late Gothic style.
Its west facade, unlike a square High Gothic
front, fans out to form a semicircular entrance.
There are five portals (rather than the usual
three), two of which are blind, and set above
S
them are steeply pitched stone arches of N
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276 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

This Perpendicular style was characterized by an in-


creased use of paneled decorations on the walls and
overhead vaults, resulting in a variation of rib vault-
ing, called fan vaulting, in which stone ribs arch out
from a central point in the ceiling to form a delicate
pattern. This style also increased the number of win-
dow openings, which necessitated additional flying
buttresses. The best example of the English Perpen-
dicular is the cathedral in Gloucester. In the choir, the
vertical lines, extending from the floor to the ceiling,
where the tracery is interwoven, unite the buildings
interior into an upward-moving volume (Figure 11.8).
Just as impressive as the interior is the nearby cloister
with its fan vaulting that weaves a pattern overhead
while tying the walls and ceiling into a complex unit
(Figure 11.9).
A key example of the late Italian Gothic is the ca-
thedral in Siena. Filled with civic pride, Sienas citizens
urged their leaders to build a cathedral more splen-
did than those of their neighbors. Begun in the mid
thirteenth century, the cathedral was constructed over
the next one hundred fifty years, and, as a result, the
Figure 11.8 Choir of Gloucester Cathedral. Ca. 13301357.
Gloucester, England. The choir and apse of Gloucester cathedral building complex shows a mixture of styles: the cam-
were rebuilt in the Perpendicular Gothic style in about 1330, when King panile, or bell tower, is executed in the Italian Ro-
Edward III chose the church as the burial shrine for his murdered father, manesque, but the overall cathedral complex is Italian
Edward II. The architects made the earlier Norman apse into a square and Gothic (Figure 11.10). The facade, for the first time in
filled the east end with glass panels. Inside, the builders redesigned the
Italy, incorporated nearly life-size figures into the total
support system, using thin vertical piers; these piers were attached to the
walls and laced together on the ceiling, creating elaborate patterns that design, thus heightening its resemblance to the French
complemented the glass decorations. Gothic. However, many features distinguish the style of
Siena from the French style. For example, the decorative

Figure 11.9 South Cloister of Gloucester


Cathedral. Ca. 1370. Gloucester, England.
Fan vaulting, an intricate pattern in which ribs
arch out from a central point in the ceiling, first
appeared at Gloucester cathedral and inspired
many imitations. Although the ribs may appear
to be structurally necessary, they are really
a richly decorative device carved from stone.
In Gloucesters south cloister, the tracery
fans out from the top of each column and then
S merges in the center of the ceiling, giving the
N impression of a delicate screen.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 277

Figure 11.10 Siena Cathedral. 12501400. Siena, Italy. Extant records and floor plans show that the
Sienese changed their minds several times before deciding on the cathedrals final shape. At one time, in about
1322, a commission of architects advised that the existing cathedral be demolished because the foundations
and walls were not strong enough to support new additions. Nonetheless, construction went forward, and the
cathedral is still standing after more than six hundred years.

statues on Sienas facade were placed above the gables, first story of the bell towerwith its carvings, inter-
not set in niches. Furthermore, the Sienese builders put laced patterns of pink and white marble, and hex-
mosaics into the spaces in the gables and above the cen- agonal inlaysstill stands as conceived by Giotto
tral rose window. (Figure11.11). Giottos plan, as left in a drawing, called
Florence, Sienas greatest military and trade rival, for an open tower with a spire on top, as in a French
refused to be outdone by its nearby competitor. The Gothic tower. But later architects constructed a rect-
Florentine city fathers asked Giotto [JAWT-toe] (about angular top instead and decorated it with marble
12761337), the citys most renowned painter, to de- making it distinctively Italian rather than reminiscent S
sign a campanile for their own cathedral. Today, the of the French. N
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278 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Late Gothic Sculpture During the late Middle Ages,


sculpture, like architecture, continued to undergo sty-
listic changes, among which two general trends may
be identified. One trend centered in Italy, notably in
Siena, where the Pisano [pee-SAHN-o] family began to
experiment with sculptural forms that foreshadowed
Renaissance art, with its return to classical themes
and values (see Chapter 12). Outstanding among the
members of the gifted Pisano family was Giovanni
Pisano (12451314), who designed the intricate late
Gothic facade of the Siena cathedral (see Figure11.10).
Giovannis great artistic reputation is largely based on
the massive marble pulpit that he carved for the ca-
thedral at Pisa. Using classical themes derived from
Roman art (as Renaissance artists were to do), he de-
signed the pulpit to rest on acanthus leaves at the top
of eight Corinthian columns (Figure 11.12). The lions
that support two of the columns were modeled on
those on an ancient Roman sarcophagus. Just as late
Roman art blended Christian and classical symbols,
so Giovannis treatment of the pulpits base mixed im-
ages of the cardinal virtues, such as Justice and Tem-
perance, with the figure of the Greek hero Herakles.
Pisanos octagonal pulpit includes eight panels in
high relief that depict scenes from the lives of either
John the Baptist or Christ. Of these panels, the scene
depicting the Nativity ranks as his finest work. In this
scene, he portrays a natural vitality through the care-
ful balance and orderly spacing of the animals and
people (Figure 11.13). The placement and calm ac-
tions of the surrounding figures frame the Virgin and
child so that the viewers attention is focused on these
two central figures. Giovannis swaying figures with
their smooth draperies were rooted in late Gothic art,
but their quiet serenity attested to his classicizing
manner.
The other trend in sculpture during this time cen-
tered in Burgundy, where Philip the Bold (r. 13641404)
supported scholars and artists at his ducal court in Di-
jon. Preeminent among these was Claus Sluter [SLUE-
tuhr] (about 13501406), a sculptor of Netherlandish
origin who helped to define this last phase of Gothic
art. Sluters masterly sculptures are still housed in a
monastery near Dijon, and his most famous work, The
Well of Moses, was commissioned for the cloister of this
monastic retreat.
The Well of Moses, which was designed as a deco-
rative cover for an actual well in a courtyard, is sur-
rounded at its base with Old Testament prophets
Figure 11.11 Giotto. Campanile of the Florentine Cathedral. symbolizing the sacraments of communion and bap-
Ca. 13341350. Ht. approx. 200. Florence, Italy. Giottos Tower, as tism. The most beautifully rendered of the surviving
this campanile is known in Florence, is one of the citys most cherished life-size statues is Moses, encased in a flowing robe
landmarks. Today, its bells still toll the time. The two sets of windows in and standing erect with a finely chiseled head (Fig-
the central section and the taller openings at the top give the campanile
a strong sense of balanced proportion. Thus, despite being built in the ure 11.14). Sluters sense of the dramatic moment, of
S fourteenth century, the tower anticipates the classical ideal that was the prophets personal emotions, and of the individual
N revived in the Renaissance. features makes the statue nearly an individual portrait.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 279

Figure 11.12 Giovanni Pisano. Pulpit in the Pisa Cathedral. Ca. 13021310. Pisa, Italy. Pisano built and
carved this massive (17-foot-high) pulpit at the height of his reputation. A superb artist but a quarrelsome man,
Pisano recorded his frustrations in the lengthy inscription around the pulpits base. In it he claimed that he
had achieved much, had been condemned by many, and took full responsibility for this work of art. Pisanos
advance from anonymity to a position of great artistic repute was typical of a new breed of artist appearing in S
fourteenth-century Italy. N
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280 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Sluter rendered Mosess beard and the unfurled scroll new techniques for applying paint and mixing colors.
in precise detail and carved the figure with the head Stylistically, painters preferred to work in the extrava-
turned to the side, eyes looking into the future. gant late Gothic manner with its elegant refinement
and undulating lines. Nevertheless, Giotto and other
Late Gothic Painting and the Rise of New Trends Italian painters discovered fresh ways of depicting hu-
Of all the arts, painting underwent the most radical man figures that started to revolutionize art.
changes in the late Middle Ages. Illuminated manu-
scripts maintained their popularity, but included Illuminated Manuscripts The Burgundian court played
more secular themes under the patronage of titled a pivotal role in the production of one of the outstand-
aristocrats and wealthy merchants. At the same time, ing illuminated manuscripts of the medieval period,
painters of frescoes and wooden panels introduced the Trs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. This famous

Figure 11.13 Giovanni Pisano. Nativity Scene. Pulpit in the Pisa cathedral. Ca. 1302 1310. 331/2
441/2. Pisa, Italy. In this late Gothic sculpture, Pisano cut deeply into the marbles surface to give a nearly
three-dimensional effect. His many figures seem involved in their own tasks but are nevertheless linked with
one another around the Madonna and child. For example, the two shepherds (the head of one has been lost)
in the upper-right corner appear to be listening to the angels approaching from the left, while at the far right,
sheep rest and graze. Such balanced placements are evidence of Pisanos classicizing tendencies. Pisanos
relief retains a prominent Gothic feature, however, by presenting the Virgin and child twicein the central
scene and in the lower-left corner, where a seated Mary, balancing the baby Jesus on her right leg, stretches
her left hand to test the temperature of the water in an elaborate basin.

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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 281

collection of miniatures was painted by the three


Limbourg brothers for the duke of Berry, brother of
Philip the Bold of Burgundy. These illustrations stand
above the others of their time for their exquisite de-
tail, general liveliness, and intricately designed crowd
scenessome of the marks of the late Gothic style.
The Trs Riches Heures, or the Very Rich Hours, repre-
sents a type of small prayer book that was a favorite of
nobles and businessmen. These personal books of wor-
ship, with their litanies and prayers, were often hand-
somely hand-illustrated to enhance their value. The
duke of Berrys prayer book contained some 130min-
iatures, including scenes from the life of Christ and the
calendar cycle. In the calendar series, each tiny paint-
ing, finely detailed and colored in jewel-like tones,
notes a seasonal activity appropriate for the month.
Some represent the brilliant court life of the duke, and
others depict the drudgery of peasant life, sharply dif-
ferentiated from the court scenes by their action and
color. The illustration for January shows the duke of
Berry surrounded by his well-dressed courtiers and
enjoying a sumptuous feast (Figure 11.15).

The Print The print, a new artistic medium, devel-


oped in the late Middle Ages in the Austrian-Bavarian
regions, eastern France, and the Netherlands. Sparked
by the growth of lay piety, the earliest prints were
devotional woodcuts to be used as aids to personal
meditation. The prints initially featured scenes from
the lives of the Virgin and Christ. For the woodcut, the
artist drew an image on a woodblock, which was then
cut by a woodcutter and printed by the artist; some
were then hand-tinted by a colorist. By 1500 the new
techniques of engraving (using a sharp tool to draw
an image onto a metal plate overlaid with wax, dip-
ping the plate in acid, and then printing it) and dry-
point (marking an image onto a copper plate with a
Figure 11.14 Claus Sluter. Moses, from The Well of Moses.
metal stylus and then printing it) were becoming in- Ca. 13951406. Ht. of full figure approx. 6. Chartreuse de Champmol,
creasingly popular. Dijon, France. Sluter followed the allegorical tradition of medieval art
Probably the outstanding set of prints dating from in this portrait of the Hebrew prophet Moses. The book in Mosess right
this period was that in the Medieval Housebook, a late- hand and the scroll over his left shoulder symbolize the Word of God. Sluter
fifteenth-century German manuscript. The so-called also depicted Moses with horns growing out of his forehead, as was
characteristic in medieval representations.
Medieval Housebook was a gathering of 192 prints,
of which only 126 remain. Most of the prints are in
black and white, though a few are partially colored. showing hair and clothing styles. Others are lively
The printing techniques vary from drypoint and en- and playful, depicting relations between the sexes and
graving to simple drawings on vellum. Stylistic dif- the classes (Figure 11.16).
ferences indicate that at least three artists contributed
to the work, thus suggesting that the Housebook may New Trends In Italy: Giotto While the illuminated
have been produced in a workshop. For convenience, manuscript and the print were popular in northern
however, the artist is called simply the Housebook Europe, a revolution in painting was under way in
Master. Of the surviving 126 prints, the subjects range Italy. The paintings of Giotto are generally recognized
over late medieval life, from the workaday world to as having established a new direction in Western art,
jousting scenes to court life. Some prints offer realistic one that led into the Renaissance. In Giottos own day,
views of medieval buildings, including barnyards, pri- Dante praised him and the citizens of Florence hon- S
vate dwellings, and palaces; most are highly detailed, ored him. N
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282 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Figure 11.15 Limbourg Brothers. Month of


January, from the Trs Riches Heures du
Duc de Berry. 14131416. Approx. 81/2
51/2. Muse Cond, Chantilly, France. This
miniature painting provides insightful social
history in its exquisite details. The duke,
seated in the right center, is dressed in a blue
patterned cloak and is greeting his guests for
what was probably a New Years celebration.
Behind the duke stands a servant, over whose
head are written the words aproche, aproche,
a welcome that is the equivalent of come in,
come in. Above this festive scene, the zodiac
signs of Capricorn and Aquarius identify the
month as January.

Giottos revolution in painting was directed against nonmathematical perspective, or depth, Giotto was
the prevailing Italo-Byzantine style, which blended able to paint realistic-looking figures, rather than the
late Gothic with Byzantine influences. Giotto turned flat, ornamental depictions found in most illuminated
this painting style, with its two-dimensional, time- manuscripts or the Italian altar paintings.
less quality, into a three-dimensional art character- A painting by one of Giottos contemporaries, Ci-
ized by naturalism and the full expression of human mabue [chee-muh-BU-ay] (about 12401302), the Ma-
S emotions. Partly through the innovative use of light donna Enthroned, reveals the state of Italian painting
N and shade and the placement of figures so as to create at this time (Figure 11.17). The angels on the side are
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 283

Figure 11.16 Housebook Master. Leisure Time at the Bath. Ca. 14751490. Ink on vellum drawing,
partially colored. Private collection. This print reveals the upper classes at play as well as the strict social
order. On the left, young couples converse or flirt around a fountain in a courtyard; the pets (a falcon, two
dogs, and a monkey) are indicators of the high status of their owners; a lady-in-waiting holds the skirt of her
mistress. On the right, young aristocrats (a man and two women) enjoy bathing, while a third woman is entering
the bathhouse. A servant serenades the bathers on a stringed instrument, as another waits in attendance.
On the balcony, two servants enjoy a flirtatious moment. This Chaucerian-like scene, with its frank sensuality,
indicates that within the increasingly secular world of the late Middle Ages the pleasures of the flesh could
be a fit subject for an artist.

rendered stiffly, aligned vertically without any sense In contrast, Giottos Madonna Enthroned, painted
of space between them, and placed flat on the wood about thirty years after Cimabues, shows how Giotto
panel without any precise relationship with the fig- was transforming Florentine art (Figure 11.18). His
ures below them (the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah on Madonna seems to be actually sitting on her throne,
the outside and the Patriarch Abraham and King Da- and the four angels on either side of her chair are
vid under the throne). Although Cimabues angels are placed to give a sense of spatial depth, or perspective.
balanced in their placement and the depiction of the The angels distinctive gazes are highly expressive,
figures of the Madonna and Christ child offers some suggesting feelings of wonder. The Virgin resembles
sense of rounded form, the overall effect of the work an individual woman and Christ a believable child,
confirms its debt to the two-dimensional tradition of not a shrunken adult. Although Giotto uses Gothic S
Italo-Byzantine art. touchesthe pointed arch, the halos, and the applied N
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284 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

gold leafthe natural rendering of the figures fore- rendering space with a sense of depth and organiz-
shadows great changes in art. ing figures so as to create dramatic tension. An out-
Giotto was a prolific artist whose paintings standing scene from the Padua frescoes is the Piet,
adorned churches in Florence and cities all over Italy. or Lamentation (Figure 11.19). This scene, which por-
At the Arena Chapel in Padua, Giotto painted his trays the grief for the dead Christ, expresses total de-
masterpiece, two sets of frescoes, one of the life of the spair through the mourners faces and gestures, from
Virgin and the other of the life of Christ. These thirty- Mary, who cradles the body of Jesus, to John, who
eight scenes show Giotto at the height of his powers, stands with arms outstretched, to the hovering angels.

Figure 11.17 Cimabue. Madonna Enthroned.


Ca. 1280. Tempera on panel, 1271/2 74.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Although Cimabue
was experiencing the same desire for freedom
in art as the sculptor Giovanni Pisano, this
painting of the Madonna shows that he was still
strongly under the spell of the Italo-Byzantine
tradition. Rather than showing the intense
S feeling of Giottos portraits, Cimabues Virgin
N and Christ child remain medieval and mystical.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 285

In the frescos stark and rugged landscape, even na- Flemish Painting: Jan Van Eyck and Hans Memling
ture seems to mourn, notably in the barren tree that When Philip the Good (r. 14191467) became duke of
refers to the barren fig tree in Lukes Gospel (13:69) Burgundy, he expanded his territories to include the
which itself signified that no fruit, that is good works, wealthy counties of Holland, Zeeland, and Luxem-
are to be found in this world. After Giotto died in bourg, known as Flanders. Philip was the greatest
1337, no painter for the rest of the century was able to secular patron of the arts of his day. Of the artists en-
match his remarkable treatment of nature and human couraged by his patronage, the brothers Jan and Hu-
emotions. bert van Eyck are the most famous, and their religious

Figure 11.18 Giotto. Madonna


Enthroned. Ca. 1310. Tempera on
panel, 108 68. Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Giottos Madonna
Enthroned, so revolutionary
in its composition and spatial
dimensions, has been called the
most influential painting of the
fourteenth century. Especially
innovative in this altarpiece is
the realistic treatment of the
Virgins eyes: they are shaped
like ordinary eyes and peer out
at the viewer rather than gazing
into the distance, as in the Italo- S
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286 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

Figure 11.19 Giotto. Piet, or Lamentation. Ca. 13051310. Fresco, 77 79. Arena Chapel, Padua,
Italy. Such works gained Giotto his reputation as the modern reviver of realistic arta tradition that had
been lost with the fall of ancient Rome. In this fresco, he created three-dimensional space in ways that even
the Greeks and the Romans had not used. Giottos illusion of depth was conveyed by surrounding the dead
Christ with numerous figures and, in particular, by placing two mourners in the foreground with their backs to
the viewer. Giottos use of perspective was convincing to his generation even though it lacked mathematical
S precision.
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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 287

works and portraits established the Flemish style of elderly patron were laboriously and meticulously re-
art. Little is known of Hubert, but Jan van Eyck [YAHN corded. The Flemish style, with its close attention to
van IKE] (about 13701441) is considered the founder of detail, was widely appreciated and quickly spread to
the Flemish school. Italy and England.
As a general principle, Flemish art sought reality Jan van Eyck, probably with his brothers help,
through an accumulation of precise and often sym- painted an altarpiece for the cathedral at Ghent, Bel-
bolic details, in contrast to Italian art, which tended gium (Figure 11.20). This large workcommissioned
to be more concerned with psychological truth, as in for the main altarstill remains in its original place.
Giottos frescoes in the Arena Chapel. This national The twenty panels are hinged together so that when
style, expressed primarily through painting with oils opened twelve are visible. These twelve panels are di-
on wood panels, turned each artwork into a brilliant vided into two levelsheavenly figures and symbols
and precise reproduction of the original scene. The on the upper level and earthly figures on the lower
finest detail in a patterned carpet, the reflected light level. On the ends of the upper level are nude portraits
on a copper vase, and the wrinkled features of an of Adam and Eve, next to angels singing and playing

Figure 11.20 Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Ghent Altarpiece. Ca. 1432. Oil on panel, 113 145. St. Bavo
cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. This large altarpiece may seem to be a collection of separate paintings, but
the work is united in themes and symbolism. What links the panels is their portrayal of Christs redemption of
humanity. From The Sin of Adam and Eve to the mystic Adoration of the Lamb, all the paintings touch in some
manner on Christs sacrifice.

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288 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Late Middle Ages

musical instruments. Mary on the left and John the in Bruges. Long a northern commercial center, Bruges
Baptist on the right flank a portrayal of God the Father, was now entering a period of decline, hastened by the
resplendent in a jewel-encrusted robe and triple crown. displacement of the Burgundian ruling house by that
Below, on the lower level, are human figures who are of the Hapsburgs and the silting of the River Zwin,
depicted as moving toward the center panel. On the which shifted trade to Antwerp. Before settling in
left, knights and judges ride on horseback, while, on Bruges, the German-born Memling studied painting in
the right, pilgrims and hermits approach on foot. Cologne and the Netherlands, where he fully absorbed
The focus of the Ghent Altarpiece, when opened, is the northern tradition. Memlings painting style, which
the lower center panel, the Adoration of the Lamb. In borrowed heavily from that of Jan van Eyck and his
this work, the sacrificial death of Jesus is symbolized generation, was characterized by serenity and grace-
by the cross, the baptismal font in the foreground, and ful elegance, traits that stand in marked contrast to this
the blood issuing from the lamb into the communion turbulent era. After starting his workshop in Bruges,
chalice. The surrounding worshipers include holy Memling grew wealthy from commissions, mainly for
virgins, martyrs, and prophets, plus the four evange- altarpieces and portraits, paid for by church leaders,
lists and the twelve apostles, who stand and kneel in local businesspeople, and resident foreign merchants.
groups amid plants and trees (Figure 11.21). Besides More than eighty of his works survive.
mystical subjects, van Eyck could paint secular works, Memling was particularly celebrated for the piety
though still filled with symbolism, as in the Arnolfini of his Madonna paintings, such as the Madonna and
Wedding Portrait (see Interpreting Art). Child with Angels (Figure 11.22). Following the Flem-
A second outstanding artist working in Flanders ish tradition, this painting is filled with religious sym-
during the late Middle Ages was Hans Memling bolism, which reinforces the message that Christ died
(about 14301494), the most popular painter of his day to atone for the sins of humankind. The baby Christ

Figure 11.21 Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Adoration of the Lamb. Detail of the Ghent Altarpiece. Ca. 1432.
St. Bavo cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. This lower center section of the opened altarpiece dramatically shows
how the Flemish school could use religious symbolism to evoke a mystical effect. The refined details, which
derive from the tradition of manuscript painting, make this scene both credible and otherworldly.

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The Cultural Flowering of the Late Middle Ages 289

Figure 11.22 Hans Memling. Madonna and Child with Angels. After 1479. Oil on panel, 231/8 187/8.
Andrew W. Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1937.1.41). Memling, though part
of the Flemish tradition, appears to have been aware of developments in Renaissance Italy. He introduced some
Italian elements into this painting, such as the putti, or small angels (used as decorations on the columns and
arch), and the stringed musical instruments held by the angels. S
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290 CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE LATE MIDDLE AgES

Interpreting Art
Around the mirror are
Date The inscription on the medallions with scenes of
rear wall reads Johannes de Christs passionpromises
Eyck fuit hic [Latin for Jan van of salvation to the persons
Eyck was here] 1434. represented. The couple do
not wear shoesthey are
Subject Traditionally, this standing on holy ground.
painting was thought to portray The dog symbolizes (marital)
the 1434 wedding of Giovanni fidelity: the common dogs
Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami. name Fido comes from Latin
But this pair did not marry until fido, I trust.
1447. So, rival theories abound
over the paintings subject: the Secular Symbols
Arnolfinis at their betrothal or The lavish attire signifies
some other legal transaction; prosperity, but the bride wears
or Giovannis marriage to no jewelrya symbol of the
an undocumented wife; or a restraint of the merchant
memorial to Giovannis first classes as opposed to the
wife, Costanza Trenta (d. 1433). ostentatious display of the
nobles. The man raises his
Style Van Eyck used hand in a sign of authority; the
wet-on-wet paints to achieve womans hand is shown in a
subtlety and variety of color. submissive poseconforming
Layers of translucent glazes to the periods marriage roles.
cause the surface to shimmer
with light. The use of color, Historical Interest
light, and shadow creates This painting is the oldest
three-dimensionality, an effect extant representation of real
heightened by the way outside people in an authentic setting.
light streams into the room. A historic fashion note: The
Van Eyck was the first painter woman is not pregnant; she
to master photo-like realism. wears a stomachera fashion
of the era that emphasized a
Religious Symbols womans stomach. Other items
The single burning candle in the room exude wealth: the
functions as a sanctuary Turkish carpet on the floor; the
lamp in a church, signaling oranges, a rarity in this period;
the constant presence of God. and the intricate chandelier.

Jan van eyck. Arnolfini Wedding Portrait or Arnolfini Double Portrait. 1434. Oil on wood, 33 221/2.
National Gallery, London. The Arnolfinis, originally from Lucca (Italy), were agents of the Medici
family. The painting was executed in Bruges, where there was an Italian community. Flanders, like
Italy, had banking, commercial, and industrial centers. This work is an expression of the symbolic
realism that dominated northern European painting in the late Middle Ages.

1. Subject How might the subject of this painting be 4. Secular Symbols Identify and explain at least three secular
interpreted? symbols in the painting.
2. Style Discuss the most important stylistic feature of this 5. Historical Interest Discuss evidence for wealth and luxury
painting. revealed by this painting.
3. Religious Symbols What conclusions can be drawn from
the relative absence of religious symbols?

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THE CULTURAL FLOWERINg OF THE LATE MIDDLE AgES 291

reaches for an apple held by an angel, the fruit sym- particularly in Paris, the capital of polyphonic mu-
bolizing original sin. The second angel, dressed in a sic. The innovations included a new system of music
vestment associated with the High Mass, plays a harp, notation, along with new rhythmic patterns such as
possibly a reference to heavenly music. A carved vine isorhythmthe use of a single rhythmic pattern from
of grapes, depicted on the arch, is an emblem of Holy the beginning to the end of a work, despite changes
Communion. On the left column stands David, an an- in the melodic structure. The chief exponent of ars
cestor of Christ, and on the right column stands Isa- nova was the French composer and poet guillaume de
iah, a prophet who foretold the birth of the Messiah. Machaut [gee-yom duh mah-show] (about 13001377).
A particular feature of Memlings paintings is their in- Machaut, who trained as a priest and musician, first
clusion of Turkish carpetsas in van Eycks Arnolfini made his mark as a court official to the king of Bo-
Wedding Portrait (see Interpreting Art). hemia. For his services, he was rewarded with an ap-
The format and the details of Memlings enthroned pointment to the cathedral in Reims (1337), where he
Madonna hearken back to Jan van Eyck, but without worked for much of the rest of his life. His music circu-
the intensity or sense of reality. Memlings style is lated widely in his day, largely because he made gifts
static and somewhat artificial. The painting space is of his music manuscripts to wealthy patrons. Thus, he
clearly arranged, but the landscape and architectural became one of the first composers whose works have
background function as a stage set; the figures are survived. Reflecting the decline in church music, his
so composed that they constitute a veritable tableau output consists mainly of secular love themes. His
vivant, a staged scene in which costumed actors re- verses influenced Chaucer.
main silent as if in a picture. Each of the three figures Although Machaut was famous for secular mu-
is treated in similar fashionthin bodies; oval faces; sic, his reputation rests on his Notre Dame Mass, the
blank, emotionless stares. Adding to the air of artifi- first polyphonic version of the Mass Ordinary by a
ciality is the absence of shadows, for the painting is known composer. Ordinary refers to the five parts
bathed in unmodulated light. of the Mass that remain unchanged throughout the li-
turgical year, namely the kyrie (Lord, have mercy),
gloria (glory), credo (the Nicene Creed), sanctus
Music and benedictus (Holy and Blessed), and Agnus
The forces of change transforming Europe in the 1300s
also had an impact on the field of music (Figure 11.23).
Sacred music began to be overshadowed by secular
music, with the rise of new secular formssuch as the
ballade and rondeaubased on the chanson, a song
set to a French text and scored for one or more voices,
often with instrumental accompaniment. Polyphony
remained the dominant composing style, but compos-
ers now wrote secular polyphonic pieces that were
not based on gregorian chants. These changes were
made possible by innovations that coalesced into what
came to be called the new art (ars nova in Latin),

Figure 11.23 Music and Her Attendants. Fourteenth century. From


Boethius, De Arithmetica. Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples. This miniature
painting, using both secular and religious imagery, artfully surveys the state
of music in the late Middle Ages. Court music, which flowered during this
period, is represented by the seated lady playing a portable pipe organ, in
the center, while around her other ladies perform with various instruments,
including, starting from the top right and going clockwise: a lute; clappers;
trumpets; nakers, or kettledrums; a shawm, an ancestor of the oboe;
bagpipes; a tambourine; and a rebec, a precursor of the viol. Religious
music, which had kept the legacy of ancient music alive after the fall of
Rome, is represented by King David, visible in the circle at the top center,
who is depicted playing a psaltery, a handheld type of harp, which is named
after the Psalmsthe book attributed to his authorship. As to the source
of the instruments on view, Greco-Roman tradition supplied only the pipe
organ, clappers, trumpets, and bagpipes, while all the others, including the
psaltery, were imports from the Islamic world, either from Muslim Spain or S
from the Middle East during the Crusades. N
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292 CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE LATE MIDDLE AgES

Dei (Lamb of god). Written for four voices, some of cluding syncopationthe accenting of a weak beat
which may have been performed by instrumentalists, when a strong beat is expected. A prayer for mercy and
Machauts Mass made liberal use of isorhythm in most peace, Agnus Dei is highly repetitivea typical prac-
of its parts. Following his lead, composers for more tice in the Christian liturgy. And it is divided into three
than six hundred years made the Mass Ordinary the parts, the symbol of the Trinity. Thus, Agnus Dei fur-
central point of choral music. thers Christian beliefs through words, musical sounds,
A short analysis of Machauts Agnus Dei, from the and structure.
Notre Dame Mass, shows the new polyphonic style. Its Agnus Dei reads, in Latin, Agnus Dei, qui tollis pec-
complex compositionfour voices singing four parts cata mundi: misere nobis / Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata
simultaneously and using varied rhythmsmeans that mundi: Miserere nobis / Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi:
the lead melody (sung by the tenor and based on an dona nobis pacem, and, in English, Lamb of god, who
existing plainsong) is lost in a web of shifting sounds. taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us /
The two lower voices, including the tenor, provide the Lamb of god, who taketh away the sins of the world,
ground for this piece. The two upper voices are the have mercy on us / Lamb of god, who taketh away the
more inventive, ornamenting the text with melismas sins of the world, grant us peace.
and syllabic singing, along with shifting rhythms, in-

SUMMARY
Despite suffering a series of shocks, late medieval Eu- of the Common Life tapped reservoirs of devotion. Al-
rope made advances in many areas. The Hundred though philosophy and theology edged apart, brilliant
Years War was costly but left both France and En- work was done in both fields. Architects and sculp-
gland poised to strengthen their monarchies. The Black tors continued to work in the gothic mode, but their
Death was massively but unevenly disruptive and so work became exuberantly decorative without major
many parts of Europe actually prospered. The first structural breakthroughs. Painters expanded their
stirrings of industrialism emerged with textile manu- repertoire of traditionally religious subjects to treat
facturing, papermaking, bookmaking, and printing. secular themes, and they began to solve problems of
The Catholic Church lurched from crisis to crisis but mathematical perspective and photographic realism.
new religious movements like the Brethren and Sisters

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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 293

The Legacy of the Late Middle Ages


The Hundred Years War sealed a mortal enmity be-
tween France and England that was not healed until
the early twentieth century, although the two nations
still vie for European leadership. The modern world is
not threatened with pandemics like the Black Death
but has not eliminated war and famine. Nevertheless,
the Spanish flu after World War I, AIDs, the avian flu,
and botulism are reminders of what medieval people
experienced. The separation of philosophy and theol-
ogy hastened secularization as thinkers increasingly
abandoned religious explanations for physical reality.
So, philosophers today tend not to ask ethical ques-
tions about how we should live and theologians rarely
try to explain the universe. The new atheists claim
that science has answered all questions worth asking
while some religious believers try to impose creation
science on schools. The breakdown of the high medi-
eval synthesis that occurred in the late Middle Ages
has left people grasping for truth and reality. Wealthy
royals and churchmen were common throughout the
Middle Ages, but in the late medieval period fantas- The Biltmore Mansion, Asheville, North Carolina. 18891895. Built
tically wealthy laymen, who sometimes built them- for George Washington Vanderbilt by Richard Morris Hunt in the French
selves sumptuous houses, became more and more Renaissance style, this is still the largest private house in America at
important as patrons of artists, a tradition that is still 135,000 square feet. Such houses were meant to evoke the great chateaux
of Europe and to establish a kind of connection between American
prevalent today. Printing launched a media revolution plutocrats and European aristocrats.
that has been accelerated by the Internet.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


incunabula Flamboyant style engraving ars nova
devotio moderna Perpendicular style drypoint isorhythm
via antiqua fan vaulting Italo-Byzantine style syncopation
via moderna campanile perspective
late gothic style woodcut chanson

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DONATELLO. Erasmo da Narni, called Gattamelata. Bronze, approx. 12 13. Piazza del
Santo, Padua. Donatello adorned his figure with Roman armor but with a decidedly medieval
sword. His stern countenance represents the Renaissance ideal of the strong commander.

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The Early Renaissance
12
Return to Classical Roots
14001494

Preview Questions In 1860 the Swiss historianJacob Burckhardt published his


1. What connections can masterpiece The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Emphasizing the
be identified between themes of individualism, humanism, and classicism, Burckhardt attempted
Italys political and to capture the spirit of the Renaissance period in all its aspects. He be-
social life and the
styles and interests lieved that the Renaissance freed people from medieval shackles, that art
of early Renaissance became a key expression of life and not merely an aesthetic pleasure, and
architects and artists? that classical humanism, far from being an elitist and antiquarian exercise,
2. What were the changed people and states for the better. Decades later, the influential art
key intellectual
historian Erwin Panofsky claimed that people in the Renaissance looked
characteristics of the
early Renaissance? back [at the past] as from a fixed point in time. Believing themselves dif-

3. Identify both changes ferent from their medieval predecessors, they felt kinship with the people
and continuities of Greek and Roman antiquity, whom they sought to emulate. Curiously,
between the Middle then, Renaissance figures made something new out of their encounter
Ages and the early
Renaissance. with something old.
Since the nineteenth century, it has been customary to refer to the pe-
4. How did early
Renaissance painting riod from about 1300 to 1550 as the Renaissance (from a French word
evolve from Masaccio meaning rebirth). What was born again, in this reckoning, was the cul-
to Leonardo?
ture of classical antiquity. Nevertheless, there has been lively controversy
over how to interpret this period. Some scholars consider it as part of the
late Middle Ages, a time characterized by decline and calamity, and they
deemphasize any interest in the classical period. Other scholars view this
period as the beginning of early modern Europe. This early modern
view maintains that the Renaissance was a limited, elite movement and
that scholars should pay more attention to the experiences of ordinary
men and women than to those of artists and writers.
Pictured here is the equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni (13701443),
called Gattamelata (Honey Cat), who was a prominent soldier of fortune
in Renaissance Italy, where republican ideals were trumped by despots.
The sculptor Donatello, one of the most famous Renaissance artists, por- S
trayed Erasmo as a triumphant Roman. But he could as easily be seen as N
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Timeline 12.1 STAGES OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
1400 1494 1520 1600

Early High Late


Renaissance Renaissance Renaissance

a medieval warriorand he was a soldier by profes- EARLY RENAISSANCE HISTORY


sion. He rose from modest circumstances to serve the
Venetians whose Senate paid for this statue, which AND INSTITUTIONS
was erected in Padua, a mainland city dominated by Two great themes dominated the history of Italy dur-
Venice. Equestrian statues had all but vanished in ing the fifteenth century. One of these was the intense
the Middle Ages. In short, this exquisite monument and destructive, but sometimes creative, competition
signals the varied tendencies of Renaissance Europe. among several Italian powers. The other was a series
Today it is generally conceded that the late medieval, of international developments that had mainly nega-
or Renaissance, or early early modern centuries tive consequences in Italy. It is intriguing to think that
achieved few innovations in government or the econ- Italys spectacular cultural achievements took place
omy. The church, beset by turmoil, was criticized but amid war, political strife, and economic upheaval.
remained a powerful force. Ironically, despite human-
ism and classicism, many great Renaissance buildings
were churches, many churchmen patronized artists,
Italian City-States
and religious subjects still provided the majority of during the Early Renaissance
artistic themes. Intellectual and artistic life unques- During the early Renaissance, five Italian states com-
tionably took some steps forward. But Renaissance peted for dominance: the Republic of Venice, the Duchy
novelty emerged from a subtle blending of the forces of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Papal States, and
of continuity and change (Timeline 12.1). the Kingdom of Naples (Map 12.1). In the first half of

Learning Through Maps


HUNGARY
DUC

Milan Venice
E

DUCHY OF
HY

Padua
P

SAVOY ISTRIA
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
U
OF

Piacenza
L
B

DUCHY OF
M

LA DUCHY OF I
C
I

Asti N MODENA FERRARA


Bologna O
Genoa F
V DALMATIA
DUCHY OF Florence E
Pisa N
LUCCA Siena I C
REPUBLIC OF
GENOA REPUBLIC OF PAPAL A E
FLORENCE STATES dr
ia
ti
c
Se
a
CORSICA
(To Genoa)
Rome
KINGDOM
OF
Naples NAPLES MAP 12.1 THE STATES
OF ITALY DURING THE
Ty r r h e n i a n
SARDINIA Sea RENAISSANCE, CA. 1494
(To Spain) This map shows the many states and
principalities of Italy in the early Renaissance.
1. Consider how the size of each state affected
its role in competing for dominance of the
Italian peninsula. 2.Notice the large number
Palermo of states in the north compared to the small
0 100 200 mi number in the south. 3.Notice the four forms
SICILY
of governmentduchy, republic, kingdom,
0 200 400 km and papal states. 4.Identify the major ports
S of the Italian state system. 5.What geographic
N Me
dite advantage made the Papal States such a force
rranean Sea
L in Italian politics?
DF 296
MHS63 305
mat76620_m1101.eps
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Early Renaissance History and Institutions 297

the fifteenth century, the Italian states waged incessant naissance (Figure 12.1). One reason for the importance
wars among themselves, shifting sides when it was to these families gave to cultural matters is that they put
their advantage. high value on family prestige and on educating their
The continuous warfare, against a background of sons for their predestined roles as heads of family busi-
economic uncertainty, provided the conditions for nesses and their daughters as loyal wives and success-
the emergence of autocratic rulers called signori, who ful household managers (Figure 12.2). The courts of the
arose from prominent families or popular factions. local rulers, or grandi, became places where educated
Taking advantage of economic and class tensions, menand, on occasion, womencould exchange ideas
these autocrats pledged to solve local problems, and in and discuss philosophical issues.
so doing they proceeded to accumulate power. What Although the status of women did not improve ap-
influence the guilds, the business leaders, and the preciably, more were educated than ever before. Many
middle class had wielded in the thirteenth and four- ended up behind the walls of a convent, however, if
teenth centuries gave way to these despots, ending the their parents could not afford the costly dowry ex-
great medieval legacy of republicanism in Venice, Mi- pected of an upper-class bride. The few upper-class
lan, and Florence. women with an independent role in society were
Under the signori, the conduct of warfare also those who had been widowed young. The women at
changed. Technological developments improved weap- the ducal courts who exercised any political influence
onry, and battles were fought with mercenary troops
led by condottieri, soldiers of fortune who sold their
military expertise to the highest bidder. But the most
significant change in Renaissance warfare was the
emergence of diplomacy as a peaceful alternative to
arms, a practice that gradually spread throughout the
Continent. The Italian regimes began sending repre-
sentatives to other states, and it soon became custom-
ary for these diplomats to negotiate peace settlements.
In turbulent fifteenth-century Italy, these agreements
seldom lasted longwith the notable exception of the
Peace of Lodi. This defensive pact, signed in 1454 by Mi-
lan, Florence, and Venice, established a delicate balance
of power and ensured peace in Italy for forty years.
Before the Italian city-states were eclipsed by
other European powers, however, upper-class fami-
lies enjoyed unprecedented wealth, which they used
to cultivate their tastes in literature and art and thus
substantially determine the culture of the early Re-

Figure 12.1 peDRo BeRRuGuete (AKA pIetRo DI SpAGnA). Federico da


Montefeltro and His Son Guidobaldo. Ca. 14761477. Oil on panel,
451/8 257/8. Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino. Urbino,
under the Montefeltro dynasty, was transformed from a sleepy hill town
with no cultural history into a major center of Renaissance life. Federico,
the founder of the dynasty and one of the greatest condottieri of his
day, was named duke of Urbino and captain of the papal forces by Pope
Sixtus IV in 1474. Federico then devoted his energies to making Urbino a
model for Italian Renaissance courts. In this portrait, the seated Federico
wears the armor of a papal officer while reading a booksymbols
that established him as both a soldier and a scholar, later the ideal of
Baldassare Castiglionis (14781529) Courtier (1528). At the dukes right
knee stands his son and heir, Guidobaldo, wearing an elaborate robe and
holding a scepter, a symbol of power. Federicos dream ended with his
son, the last of the Montefeltro line. At the Urbino court, artists combined
Flemish and Italian styles, as in this double portrait. The internal lighting,
emanating from some unseen source on the left, is adopted from the
tradition pioneered by Jan van Eyck; the profile portrait of the duke follows
the Italian practice, based on portrait heads rendered on medals. This
double portrait was probably painted by Pedro Berruguete, Spains first
S
great Renaissance artist, who studied painting in Naples and worked briefly N
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298 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

Figure 12.2 Domenico Ghirlandaio. Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni.


Ca. 14891490. Tempera and (?) oil on panel, 291/2 191/4. Madrid,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. This likeness of Giovanna degli Albizzi
Tornabuoni (14681486) embodies the Florentine ethos of family, city,
and church. Her husband, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, a member of a prominent
Florentine family, commissioned it as a memorial. Probably painted
after his wifes death, it was much admired by Lorenzo, who, according
to household records, kept it hanging in his bedroom, even after his
remarriage. The subjects gold bodice is decorated with emblems
interlaced Ls and diamondswhich are symbolic of Lorenzo and his family.
The brooch, the coral necklace, and the prayer book allude to Giovannas
high social status and piety. In the background, the Latin epigram O Art,
if thou were able to depict conduct and the soul, no lovelier painting would
exist on earth evokes the Renaissance ideal that equates physical beauty
with moral perfection. It is based on a line from an ancient Roman poet.

of a wealthy oligarchy. This oligarchy, composed of


rich bankers, merchants, and successful guildsmen
and craftsmen, ruled until the early fifteenth century,
when the Medici family gained control. The Medicis
dominated Florentine politics and cultural life from
1434 to 1494.
The Medicis rose from modest circumstances. Gio
vanni di Bicci de Medici [jo-VAHN-nee dee BEET-chee
day MED-uh-chee] (13601429) amassed the familys
first large fortune through banking and close finan-
cial ties with the papacy. His son Cosimo (13891464)
added to the Medicis wealth and outmaneuvered
his political enemies, becoming the unacknowledged
ruler of Florence. He spent his money on books, paint-
ings, sculptures, and palaces, and, claiming to be the
common mans friend, he was eventually awarded the
title Pater patriae, Father of His Countrya Roman
title revived during the Renaissance.
Cosimos son, Piero, ruled for only a short time and
was succeeded by his son Lorenzo (14491492), called
the Magnificent because of his grand style of living.
did so because of their family alliances. One of the Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano controlled Flor-
most powerful of these women was Lucrezia Borgia ence until Giuliano was assassinated in 1478 by the
[loo-KRET-syah BOR-juh] (14801519), the illegitimate Pazzi family, rivals of the Medicis. Lorenzo brutally
daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Married three times executed the conspirators and then governed auto-
before the age of twenty-one, she held court in Ferrara cratically for the next fourteen years. His brutality
and was the patron of many writers and artists. Most notwithstanding, in some years Lorenzo spent half of
women, however, found real power unattainable. Florences budget buying books.
Within two years of Lorenzos death, the great power
and prestige of Florence began to weaken and the buoy-
Florence, the Center of the Renaissance ant spirit of the early Renaissance was eclipsed. Two
Amid Italys artistic and intellectual centers, Flor- events are symptomatic of this decline in Florences
ence, the capital of the Tuscan region, was the most spirit and authority. The first was the iconoclastic cru-
prominent. After 1300 Florences political system went sade against the city led by the Dominican monk Fra
through three phases, evolving from republic to oligar- Savonarola [sav-uh-nuh-ROH-luh] (14521498). He op-
chy to family rule. Despite political turmoil, however, posed the Medicis rule and wanted to restore a republi-
Florentine artists and writers made their city-state the can form of government. And he hated everything that
trendsetter of the early Renaissance (Timeline 12.2). the Renaissance stood for. In his fire-and-brimstone
S The republic, which began in the fourteenth century sermons, Savonarola denounced Florences leaders and
N with hopes for political equality, fell into the hands the citys infatuation with the arts. He eventually ran
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Early Renaissance History and Institutions 299

Timeline 12.2 THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN FLORENCE, 14001494

1400 1494

Early Renaissance

14031424 1425 14241452 14381445 1461 14731475 1480s 1483


Ghibertis Invention of Ghibertis Fra Angelicos Completion of Verrocchios Botticellis Leonardo
north doors, linear east doors, Annunciation Pazzi Chapel David Primavera da Vincis
Florentine perspective Florentine by Brunelleschi and The Virgin
Baptistery (Brunelleschi) Baptistery The Birth of the Rocks
1462 of Venus
14251428 14301432 Founding of
Masaccios Donatellos Platonic Academy,
frescoes for David Florence
Santa Maria
Novella 1435
Albertis
On Painting

afoul of the papacy and was excommunicated and pub- the Vatican Library, an institution virtually unrivaled
licly executed, but not before he had had an enormous today for its holdings of manuscripts and books (Fig-
effect on the citizensincluding the painter Botticelli, ure12.3). He also continued the rebuilding of Rome be-
who is said to have burned some of his paintings while gun by his predecessors. Pius II, often considered the
under the sway of Savonarolas reforming zeal. The most representative of the Renaissance popes because
second event was the destructive invasion of Italy by of his interest in the Greek and Roman classics and au-
Charles VIII of France (r. 14831498) in 1494. thorship of poetry, rose rapidly through the ecclesiasti-
cal ranks. This clever politician practiced both war and

The Resurgent Papacy, 14501500


The Great Schism was ended by the Council of Con-
stance in 1418, and a tattered Christendom reunited
under a Roman pope (see Chapter 11). By 1447 the so-
called Renaissance popes were in command and had
turned their attention to consolidating the Papal States
and securing their interests among Italys competing
powers. Like the secular despots, these popes engaged
in war and, when that failed, diplomacy. They brought
artistic riches to the church but also lowered its moral
tone by accepting bribes for church offices and filling
positions with kinsmen. But above all, these popes pa-
tronized Renaissance culture.
Three of the most aggressive and successful of these
popes were Nicholas V (pope 14471455), Pius II (pope
14581464), and Sixtus IV (pope 14711484). Nicholas V,
who had been librarian for Cosimo de Medici, founded

Figure 12.3 Melozzo da Forli, Pope Sixtus IV, Appoints Bartolomeo


Platina as Vatican Librarian. 1477. Vatican Museums. Although
the Vatican Library was founded by Pope Nicholas V in 1448, Platina
(14211481) was the first official Vatican librarian. A versatile scholar,
he published a cookbook but is best known for his history of the popes.
Caught up in the turmoil of the Renaissance, Platina was dismissed and
then recalled by Pius II and then charged by that pope with studying the
history of all papal privileges (documents according various rights). There is S
still today a prefect of the Vatican Library, always a distinguished scholar. N
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300 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

diplomacy with astounding success. As a student of the World. These events shifted the focus of international
new learning and as a brilliant writer in Latin, Pius II trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The fall
attracted intellectuals and artists to Rome. His personal of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 tem-
recollections, or Commentaries, reveal much about him porarily closed the eastern Mediterranean markets to
and his turbulent times. Sixtus IV came from a power- the Italian city-states. At the same time, by virtue of
ful family and increased his personal power through the wide-ranging global explorations they sponsored,
nepotism, the practice of giving offices to relatives. He some European powersmost notably Portugal and
continued the papal tradition of making Rome the most Spainwere extending their political and economic
beautiful city in the world. The construction of the Sis- interests beyond the geographic limits of continental
tine Chapel, later adorned with paintings by Botticelli, Europe.
Perugini, and Michelangelo, was his greatest achieve- Alone among Italian powers, the Venetians man-
ment (see Chapter 13). aged to negotiate the new realities. Within a few de-
cades of the fall of Constantinople, the Venetians
negotiated new and lucrative commercial privileges
International Developments with the Turks. Paintings by van Eyck and Memling
For Italy, the chief consequence of Charless invasion (see Chapter 11) included Turkish carpets, indicating
in 1494 was that it shattered the forty-year-old Peace an increasing European interest in the exotic. Influ-
of Lodi. Charles was pressing a somewhat dubious ences also traveled in the opposite direction. Sultan
hereditary claim to the Kingdom of Naples, where he Mehmet II Fatih (the Conqueror) (14321481) com-
was crowned in 1495. His invasion of the north owed missioned a portrait of himself by a major Venetian
much to the connivance of the ruling family of Milan, painter, Gentile Bellini (Figure 12.4). Thereafter, Eu-
the old enemies of Florence. ropean conventions in painting had a profound influ-
Outside Italy, three events further weakened ence on Turkish art.
the regions prospects for regaining its position
as a major economic power: the fall of Constanti-
nople in 1453, Portugals opening of the sea route THE SPIRIT AND STYLE
around Africa to India at the end of the century, and
Columbuss Spanish-sponsored voyage to the New
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE
Drawing inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman
models, the thinkers and artists of the early Renais-
sance explored such perennial questions as, What
is human nature? How are human beings related to
God? and What is the best way to achieve human
happiness? Although they did not reject Christian
explanations outright, they were intrigued by the
secular and humanistic values of the Greco-Roman
tradition and the answers they might provide to these
questions. They also rightfully claimed kinship with
certain fourteenth-century predecessors such as the
writer Petrarch and the artist Giotto (see Chapter 11).
Those artists, scholars, and writers who are identi-
fied with the early Renaissance and who embodied its
spirit were linked, through shared tastes and patron-
age, with the entrepreneurial nobility, the progressive
middle class, and the secular clergy. Until about 1450,
most artistic works were commissioned by wealthy

Figure 12.4 Gentile Bellini. Mehmet II. Ca. 1480. Oil on canvas,
273/4 20 5/8. National Gallery, London. Bellinis commission for
this portrait grew out of a diplomatic exchange between Venice and the
Ottoman Empire. As a condition of making peace with Venice after a war,
Mehmet II requested that a Venetian portrait painter be sent to his court.
Bellinis portrait blends Western techniquethe oil medium, the seated
subject in profile, and the perspectivewith Islamic touchesthe
S rounded arch with an elaborate design, the sumptuous fabric draped over
N the balustrade, the turban and fur-lined robe, and the black background.
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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 301

patrons for family chapels in churches and for public A little later, Guarino [gwa-REE-no] of Verona
buildings; later, patrons commissioned paintings and (13741460) stressed the importance of learning Latin
sculptures for their private dwellings. and Greek in their classical purity. He believed that
Even though artists, scholars, and writers stamped constant reading of and reflection on classical texts
this age with their fresh perspectives, some of the old would inculcate their values in modern people. He
cultural traits remained. Unsettling secular values also emphasized the importance of rhetoric, the art
emerged in the midst of long-accepted religious be- of speaking elegantly and persuasively, as opposed to
liefs, creating contradictions and tensions within the the stress on logic and grammar that had dominated
society. In other ways, however, the past held firm, in the Middle Ages.
and certain values seemed immune to change. For ex- Finally, Vittorino da Feltre [veet-toe-REE-no dah
ample, early Renaissance thought made little headway FEL-tray] (13781446) made the most significant contri-
in science, and church patronage still strongly affected butions. Vittorino favored a curriculum that exercised
the evolution of the arts and architecture, despite the the body and the mindthe ideal of the ancient Greek
growing impact of the urban class on artistic tastes. schools. His educational theories were put into prac-
tice at the school he founded in Mantua at the rulers
request. At this school, called the Happy House, Vit-
Humanism, Schooling, and Scholarship torino included humanistic studies along with the me-
Inspired by Petrarchs interest in Latin literature and dieval curriculum. A major innovation was the stress
language, scholars began to collect, copy, disseminate, on physical exercise, which arose from his emphasis on
and comment upon Roman texts uncovered in monas- moral training. At first, only the sons and daughters of
tic and cathedral libraries. There was a shift in empha- Mantuan nobility attended his school, but gradually
sis from the church Latin of the Middle Ages to the the student body became more democratic as young
pure Latin style of Cicero, the first-century BCE Roman people from all social classes were enrolled. Vittori-
writer whose eloquent letters and essays established nos reforms were slowly introduced into the new ur-
a high moral and literary standard (see Chapter 5). ban schools in northern Europe, and their modelthe
For centuries Greek works, if they were known at all, well-rounded student of sound body, solid learning,
were read in Latin translations. Petrarch, who knew no and high moralshelped to lay the foundation for fu-
Greek, sponsored a Latin translation of Homer. Gradu- ture European schools and education.
ally, however, the humanists studied Greek and began Two products of this educational program will
to acquire and study works in the original. Already in serve to illustrate its many effects. Leonardo Bruni
the 1300s, these scholars spoke of their literary inter- (13741444) typifies the practical, civic humanistthe
ests and new learning as studia humanitatis. They kind of man who believed that properly educated in-
coined this term, which may be translated as human- dividuals would make for a better civic community.
istic studies, and we call them humanists. A one-time chancellor, or chief secretary, of Florences
Humanism, as used in the Renaissance and even governing body, or signoria, Bruni also worked for both
today, is a multifaceted term. It may imply a concern the Medicis and the papacy and wrote History of the Flo-
with the literary culture of Greco-Roman antiquity. rentine People. This work reflected his humanistic val-
And it may suggest an interest in the humane disci- ues, combining as it did his political experience with
plines: history, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, for ex- his knowledge of ancient history. To Bruni, the study
ample. And it may connote a tendency to look for of history illuminated contemporary events. Bruni
natural as opposed to theological explanations. In re- and the other civic humanists, through their writ-
sponse to the demand for humanistic learning, new ings and their governmental service, set an example
schools sprang up in most Italian city-states. In these for later generations of Florentines and helped infuse
schools was born the Renaissance ideal of an educa- them with love of their city. Moreover, by expanding
tion intended to free or to liberate the minda liberal the concept of humanistic studies, they contributed
education. new insights to the ongoing debate about the role of
Coluccio Salutati [kuh-LOOTCH-ee-o sahl-u-TA-tee] the individual in history and in the social order. The
(13311406), who was chancellor of Florence, founded textual and linguistic interests of the humanists met
and endowed many schools; Florence had no univer- to perfection in Lorenzo Valla (14061457)the sec-
sity. He himself wrote letters, orations, and histories ond product of Vittorinos educational program. Valla
praising his citys past. He took Cicero as his ideal, ar- exposed the Donation of Constantine as a forgery by
guing that family life and public service, not penance noting that its vocabulary and grammar could not
and retreat from the world, should be held up as ex- date from the fourth century. Occasionally during the
emplary ideals. He also argued that the liberty of free, Middle Ages, this famous document, probably written
educated citizens created an environment in which in the eighth century, had been cited by the popes as S
people could flourish. proof of their political authority over Christendom. N
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SLICE OF LIFE
Battle of the Sexes, Fifteenth-Century Style

Laura Cereta
IN DEFENSE OF THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN
In this letter, dated January 13, 1488, eighteen-year-old higher things, harden the body with sobriety and trials,
Laura Cereta (14691499) responds fiercely to a male and curb their tongues, open their ears, compose their
critic whose praise she finds patronizing to her as a thoughts in wakeful hours, their minds in contempla-
woman. She then sets him straight about the intellectual tion, to letters bonded to righteousness. For knowledge
needs of women of that time. There were a few women is not given as a gift, but [is gained] with diligence. The
humanists, but the movements participants were over- free mind, not shirking effort, always soars zealously
whelmingly male, as were their interests. toward the good, and the desire to know grows ever
more wide and deep. It is because of no special holi-
My ears are wearied by your carping. you brashly and ness, therefore, that we [women] are rewarded by God
publicly not merely wonder but indeed lament that I the Giver with the gift of exceptional talent. Nature has
am said to possess as fine a mind as nature ever be- generously lavished its gifts upon all people, opening
stowed upon the most learned man. you seem to think to all the doors of choice through which reason sends
that so learned a woman has scarcely before been seen envoys to the will, from which they learn and convey
in the world. you are wrong on both counts. . . . its desires. The will must choose to exercise the gift of
I would have been silent, believe me, if that sav- reason. . . .
age old enmity of yours had attacked me alone. . . . I have been praised too much; showing your con-
But I cannot tolerate your having attacked my entire tempt for women, you pretend that I alone am admi-
sex. For this reason my thirsty soul seeks revenge, my rable because of the good fortune of my intellect. . . .
sleeping pen is aroused to literary struggle, raging Do you suppose, O most contemptible man on earth,
anger stirs mental passions long chained by silence. that I think myself sprung [like Athena] from the head
With just cause I am moved to demonstrate how great of Jove? I am a school girl, possessed of the sleeping
a reputation for learning and virtue women have won embers of an ordinary mind. Indeed I am too hurt,
by their inborn excellence, manifested in every age as and my mind, offended, too swayed by passions,
knowledge. . . . sighs, tormenting itself, conscious of the obligation to
Only the question of the rarity of outstanding defend my sex. For absolutely everythingthat which
women remains to be addressed. The explanation is is within us and that which is withoutis made weak
clear: women have been able by nature to be excep- by association with my sex.
tional, but have chosen lesser goals. For some women
are concerned with parting their hair correctly, adorn- Interpreting This Slice of Life
ing themselves with lovely dresses, or decorating their 1. Describe the ways Cereta responds to her critic.
fingers with pearls and other gems. Others delight in 2. What are some of the types of women she lists?
mouthing carefully composed phrases, indulging in
3. How does she portray herself?
dancing, or managing spoiled puppies. Still others
wish to gaze at lavish banquet tables, to rest in sleep, 4. According to Cereta, what are some of the talents
or, standing at mirrors, to smear their lovely faces. But God has given to women?
those in whom a deeper integrity yearns for virtue, 5. Compare and contrast Ceretas arguments with those
restrain from the start their youthful souls, reflect on used by modern feminists.

Supposedly, the Roman emperor Constantine, after he scholarly nets wider, Renaissance thinkers fell under
departed for Constantinople, gave the popes his west- the influence of a richer array of ancient authors than
ern lands and recognized their power to rule in them. had been known in the Middle Ages. Some Renais-
sance scholars advocated a more tolerant attitude to-
ward unorthodox religious and philosophical beliefs
Thought and Philosophy than in the past. A few Renaissance thinkers began to
The Italian humanists were not satisfied with medi- stress individual fulfillment instead of social or reli-
eval answers to the perennial inquiries of philosophy gious conformity. During the Renaissance, a growing
S because those answers did not go beyond Aristote- emphasis on the individual resulted in a more opti-
N lian philosophy and Christian dogma. Casting their mistic assessment of human nature and capability,
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THE SPIRIT AND STyLE OF THE EARLy RENAISSANCE 303

which led to a diminution of Christianitys stress on Ficinos most talented student, Pico della Mirandola
human sinfulness and weakness. [PEE-koh DELL-lah me-RAHN-do-lah] (14631494),
As noted in Chapter 11, a small number of Byzan- surpassed his masters accomplishments by the
tine scholars, living and working in Rome, Florence, breadth of his learning and the virtuosity of his mind.
and Venice, added an important new dimension to the Picoa wealthy and charming aristocratimpressed
Renaissance. As teachers of Greek, these scholars in- everyone with his command of languages, range of
troduced Italys first generation of humanists to many knowledge, and spirited arguments. His goal was the
ancient works not seen in the West for nearly a thou- synthesis of Platonism and Aristotelianism within
sand years. Then, in 1453, with the fall of Constanti- a Christian framework that also encompassed Jew-
nople to the Ottoman Turks, a fresh wave of Byzantine ish, Arab, and Persian ideas. Church authorities and
scholars, teachers, and intellectuals arrived in Italy, traditional scholars attacked Picos efforts once they
bearing countless manuscripts. Thereafter, the human- grasped the implication of his ambitious projectthat
ists began to focus increasingly on Greek language, lit- all knowledge shares basic common truths and that
erature, and, eventually, philosophy. The philosophy of Christians could benefit from studying non-Western,
Plato found a home in Italy in 1462 when Cosimo de non-Christian writings.
Medici established the Platonic Academy at one of his Picos second important contributionthe concept
villas near Florence. Here, scholars gathered to exam- of individual worthhad been foreshadowed by Fi-
ine and discuss the writings of Plato as well as those of cino. Picos Oration on the Dignity of Man gives the
the Neoplatonists, as Platos followers in late antiquity highest expression to this idea, which is inherent in
are called. The academy was under the direction of the the humanist tradition. According to Pico, human be-
brilliant humanist Marsilio Ficino [mar-SILL-e-o fe- ings, endowed with reason and speech, are created as
CHEE-no] (14331499), whom Cosimo commissioned a microcosm of the universe. Set at the midpoint in
to translate Platos works into Latin. the scale of Gods creatures, they are blessed with free
In two major treatises, Ficino made himself the lead- will, which enables them either to raise themselves to
ing voice of Florentine Neoplatonism by harmoniz- God or to sink lower than the beasts. This liberty to
ing Platonic ideas with Christian teachings. Believing determine private fate makes human beings the mas-
that Platonism came from God, Ficino began with the ters of their individual destinies and, at the same time,
principle that both thought systems rested on divine focuses attention on each human being as the mea-
authority. Like Plato, Ficino believed that the soul was sure of all thingsa classical belief now reborn. yet
immortal and that complete enjoyment of God would Picos magnificent Oration begins as a commentary on
be possible only in the afterlife, when the soul was Psalm8: What is man that thou art mindful of him?
in the divine realm. Ficino also revived the Platonic
notion of free willthe power of humans to make of
themselves what they wish. In Ficinos hands, free will Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting
became the source of human dignity because human It was in architecture, sculpture, and painting that
beings were able to choose to love God or to reject him. the Renaissance made its most dramatic breaks with
Ficino had the most powerful impact on the early Re- the medieval past. The early Renaissance style was
naissance when he made Platos teaching on love cen- launched in Florence by artists who rejected the ex-
tral to Neoplatonism. Following Platonism, he taught cesses of the late Gothic style (compare Figures 11.7
that love is a divine gift that binds all human beings and 12.6). Led by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi
together. Love expresses itself in human experience by [brun-uh-LESS-kee] (13771446), this group studied
the desire for and the appreciation of beauty in its myr- the ruins of classical buildings and ancient works of
iad forms. Platonic love, like erotic love, is aroused first sculpture to unlock the secrets of their harmonious
by the physical appearance of the beloved. But Platonic style. They believed that once the classical ideals were
love, dissatisfied by mere physical enjoyment, cannot rescued from obscurity, new works could be fashioned
rest until it moves upward to the highest spiritual level, that captured the spirit of ancient art and architecture
where it finally meets its goal of union with the Divine. without slavishly copying it.
Under the promptings of Platonism, the human form
became a metaphor of the souls desire for God. Many Artistic Ideals and Innovations Inspired by
Renaissance writers and artists came under the influ- Brunelleschis achievement, architects, sculptors, and
ence of Ficinos Neoplatonism, embracing its principles painters made the classical principles of balance, sim-
and embodying them in their works. Sandro Botticelli plicity, and restraint the central ideals of the early Re-
[baht-tuh-CHEL-lee] (14451510), for example, created naissance style. Sculpture and painting, freed from
several allegorical paintings in which divine love and their subordination to architecture, regained their an-
beauty are represented by an image from pre-Christian cient status as independent art forms and in time be- S
RomeVenusthe goddess of love (Figure 12.5). came the most cherished of the visual arts. Renaissance N
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304 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

Figure 12.5 Sandro Botticelli. The Birth of Venus. 1480s. Tempera on canvas, 58 91. Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. With the paintings of Botticelli, the nude female form reappeared in Western art for the first time
since the Greco-Roman period. Botticellis Venus contains many classical echoes, such as the goddesss lovely
features and her modest pose. But the artist used these pre-Christian images to convey a Christian message
and to embody the principles of Ficinos Neoplatonist philosophy.

Figure 12.6 Leone Battista Alberti. Tempio Malatestiano (Malatesta


Temple) (Church of San Francesco). Ca. 1450. Rimini, Italy. Although
unfinished, this church strikingly demonstrates the revolution in architecture
represented by early Renaissance ideals. Nothing could be further from
the spires of late Gothic cathedrals than this simple, symmetrical structure
with its plain facade, post-and-lintel entrance, rounded arches, and
classical columns. Designed by the leading theoretician of the new style,
S the Malatesta Temple served as a model for artists and architects of the
N later Renaissance.
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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 305

sculptors and painters aspired to greater realism than coincidentally, contributed to the enhancement of the
had been achieved in the Gothic style, seeking to de- status of the arts by grounding them in scholarly learn-
pict human musculature and anatomy with a greater ing). Brunelleschis solution to the problem of linear
degree of credibility. Whereas architecture and sculp- perspective was to organize the picture space around
ture looked back to ancient Greek and Roman tradi- the center point, or vanishing point. After determin-
tions, developments in painting grew from varied ing the paintings vanishing point, he devised a struc-
sources, including the Islamic world and the late medi- tural grid for placing objects in precise relation to each
eval world, though the most important inspiration was other within the picture space. He also computed the
the art of the Florentine painter Giotto. ratios by which objects diminish in size as they recede
Two technical innovationslinear and atmo- from view, so that pictorial reality seems to correspond
spheric or aerial perspectiveforever changed paint- visually with physical accuracy. He then subjected the
ing and, to a degree, architecture and sculpture too. design to a mirror testchecking its truthfulness in
The invention of linear perspective was another of its reflected image. Pietro Peruginos [pair-oo-GEE-no]
Brunelleschis accomplishments although his work (about 14501524) Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter is a
was anticipated by the mathematician and artist Paolo splendid example of the new technique (Figure 12.7).
Uccello (see Chapter 11). Using principles of architec- When the camera appeared in the nineteenth cen-
ture and optics, he conducted experiments in 1425 that tury, it was discovered that the photographic lens
provided the mathematical basis for achieving the il- saw nature according to Brunelleschis mathemati-
lusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface (and, cal rules. After the 1420s, Brunelleschis studies led

Figure 12.7 Pietro Perugino. Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter. 14801482. Fresco. North Wall,
Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Pope Sixtus IV renovated an old chapelnow known after him as Sistine
between 1477 and 1480. He attracted many of the best painters of the day to execute frescoes for the side
walls. They were first to make preliminary frescoes to see if their work and subject matter was satisfactory.
By early 1482, it was clear that the works were in fact excellent. Perugino took as his theme a topic of great
ideological interest to the papacy, namely the Petrine Text (Matthew 16:1618; see Chapter 7). Perugino not
only displays virtuosity in his ostentatious use of linear perspective, but he also combines this with ideological,
theological, and historical perspectives. Christ tells Peter he is the rock on which the church will be built. So
here the church is directly above Peter. The church itself stands between two triumphal arches inspired by the
Arch of Constantine (see Figure 7.8). The church has triumphed over the state, it seems. The vast expanse of
the background suggests that Peters authority, conferred by Christ, is limitless.

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306 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

to the concept of Renaissance space, the notion that a discovered scientific aspects of their craft, the leading
composition should be viewed from one single posi- architects were now grouped with those practicing the
tion. For four hundred years, or until first challenged learned professions of medicine and law. By 1450 Ital-
by Manet in the nineteenth century, linear perspective ian architects had freed architecture from late Gothi-
and Renaissance space played a leading role in West- cism, as well as from the other arts. Unlike Gothic
ern painting (see Chapter 19). cathedrals adorned with sculptures and paintings,
Atmospheric, or aerial, perspective was perfected these new buildings drew on the classical tradition
by painters north of the Alps in the first half of the fif- for decorative details. That is, Renaissance architects
teenth century, although the Italian painter Masaccio revived the practice of using simple architectural ele-
was the first to revive atmospheric perspective in the ments as parts of a buildings decoration but not of its
1420s, based on the Roman tradition. Through the use structure (see Figure 12.10 and compare Figure 5.12).
of colors, these artists created an illusion of depth by This transformation became the most visible symbol
subtly diminishing the tones as the distance between of early Renaissance architecture.
the eye and the object increased; at the horizon line, Although Brunelleschi established the new stan-
the colors become grayish and the objects blurry in ap- dards in architecture, most of his buildings have
pearance. When atmospheric perspective was joined been either destroyed or altered considerably by later
to linear perspective, as happened later in the century, hands. However, the earliest work to bring him fame
a greater illusion of reality was achieved than was still survives in Florence largely as he had planned
possible with either type used independently. itthe dome of the citys cathedral (Figure 12.8). Al-
Leone Battista Alberti [ahl-BAIR-tee] (14041472) though the rest of the cathedralnave, transept, and
published a treatise in 1435 that elaborated on the choirwas finished before 1400, no one had been able
mathematical aspects of painting and set forth bril- to devise a method for erecting the projected dome
liantly the humanistic and secular values of the early until Brunelleschi received the commission in 1420.
Renaissance. Alberti was an aristocratic humanist
with a deep knowledge of classicism and a commit-
ment to its ideals. In his treatise, he praised master Figure 12.8 Filippo Brunelleschi. Cathedral Dome, Florence.
painters in rousing terms, comparing their creativity 14201436. Ht. of dome from floor, 367. After the dome of the Florence
to Godsa notion that would have been considered cathedral was erected according to Brunelleschis plan, another architect
blasphemous by medieval thinkers. He asserted that was employed to add small galleries in the area above the circular
windows. But the Florentine authorities halted his work before the
paintings, in addition to pleasing the eye, should ap- galleries were fully installed, leaving the structure in its present state.
peal to the mind with optical and mathematical accu-
racy. But paintings, he went on, should also present a
noble subject, such as a classical hero, and should be
characterized by a small number of figures, by care-
fully observed and varied details, by graceful poses,
by harmonious relationships among all elements, and
by a judicious use of colors. These classical ideals were
quickly adopted by Florentine artists eager to estab-
lish a new aesthetic code.

Architecture The heaviest debt to the past was


owed by the architects, for they revived the classical
ordersDoric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The new build-
ings, though constructed to accommodate modern
needs, were symmetrical in plan and relied on sim-
ple decorative designs. The theoretician of early Re-
naissance style was Alberti, who wrote at length on
Brunelleschis innovations. Alberti believed that ar-
chitecture should embody the humanistic qualities
of dignity, balance, control, and harmony and that a
buildings ultimate beauty rests on the mathematical
harmony of its separate parts.
In the High Middle Ages, most architects were
stonemasons and were regarded as artisans, like shoe-
S makers or potters. But by the fifteenth century, the sta-
N tus of architects had changed. Because of the newly
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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 307

Figure 12.9 Filippo Brunelleschi. Design for Construction of Dome


of Florence Cathedral. Brunelleschi designed the dome of the Florence
cathedral with an inner and an outer shell, both of which are attached
to the eight ribs of the octagonal-shaped structure. Sixteen smaller ribs,
invisible from the outside, were placed between the shells to give added
support. What held these elements together and gave them stability was
the lantern, based on his design, that was anchored to the domes top
sometime after 1446.

Using the learning he had gained from his researches


in Rome as well as his knowledge of Gothic building
styles, he developed an ingenious plan for raising the
dome, which was virtually completed in 1436.
Faced with a domical base of 140 feet, Brunelleschi
realized that a hemispheric dome in the Roman man-
ner, like the dome of the Pantheon, would not work
(see Figure 5.10). Traditional building techniques could
not span the Florentine cathedrals vast domical base,
nor could the cathedrals walls be buttressed to sup-
port a massive dome. So he turned to Gothic methods,
using diagonal ribs based on the pointed arch. This
innovative dome had a double shell of two relatively
thin walls held together by twenty-four stone ribs,
of which only eight are visible. His crowning touch
was to add a lantern that sits atop the dome and locks
the ribs into place (Figure 12.9). The domes rounded
windows echo the openings in the upper nave walls,
thereby ensuring that his addition would harmonize
with the existing elements. But the octagonal-shaped
dome was Brunelleschis own creation and expresses a
logical, even inevitable, structure. Today, the cathedral
still dominates the skyline of Florence, a lasting sym-
bol of Brunelleschis creative genius.
Brunelleschis most representative building is the
Pazzi Chapel, as the chapter house, or meeting room,
of the friars of Santa Croce is called. This small church
embodies the harmonious proportions and classical
features that are the hallmark of the early Renaissance
style. In his architectural plan, Brunelleschi centered
a dome over an oblong area whose width equals the
domes diameter and whose length is twice its width
and then covered each of the chapels elongated ends
with a barrel vault. Double doors opened into the
center wall on one long side, and two rounded arch
windows flanked this doorway. A loggia [LOH-je-uh],
or open porch, which Brunelleschi may not have de-
signed, preceded the entrance (Figure 12.10). Inside the

Figure 12.10 Filippo Brunelleschi and others. Exterior, Pazzi Chapel,


Santa Croce Church. 14331461. Florence. The Pazzi Chapels
harmonious facade reflects the classical principles of the early Renaissance
style: symmetry and simplicity. By breaking the rhythm of the facade with
the rounded arch, the architect emphasizes its surface symmetry so that
the left side is a mirror image of the right side. Simplicity is achieved in
the architectural decorations, which are either Greco-Roman devices or S
mathematically inspired divisions. N
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308 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

chapel, following the classical rules of measure and a well-ordered building such as the Pazzi Chapel mir-
proportion, Brunelleschi employed medallions, ro- rors Gods plan of the universe.
settes, pilasters (or applied columns), and square pan- The other towering figure in early Renaissance ar-
els. In addition to these classical architectural details, chitecture was Alberti. Despite the influence of his
the rounded arches and the barrel vaults further ex- ideas, which dominated architecture until 1600, no
emplify the new Renaissance style (Figure 12.11). His completed building based on his design remains. A
classical theories were shared by Florences humanist splendid unfinished effort is the Tempio Malatestiano
elite, who found religious significance in mathemati- in Rimini (see Figure 12.6), a structure that replaced
cal harmony. Both they and Brunelleschi believed that the existing church of San Francesco. Riminis despot,

Figure 12.11 Filippo Brunelleschi. Interior. Pazzi Chapel, Santa Croce Church. Ca. 14331461. 599
long 358 wide. Florence. Decorations on the white walls of the Pazzi Chapels interior break up its
plain surface and draw the viewers eye to the architectural structure: pilasters, window and panel frames,
medallions, capitals, and dome ribs. The only nonarchitecturally related decorations are the terra-cotta
sculptures by Luca della Robbia (1399/14001482) of the four evangelists and the Pazzi family coat of arms,
mounted below the medallions.

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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 309

Sigismondo Malatesta (14171468), planned to have variety of techniquesexpressive gestures, direct ob-
himself, his mistress, and his courtiers buried in the servation, and mathematical precisionto reproduce
refurbished structure, and he appointed Alberti to su- what his eyes saw. Donatello accompanied Brunelles-
pervise the churchs reconstruction. chi to Rome to study ancient art, and he adapted linear
Albertis monument represents the first modern at- perspective as early as 1425 into a small relieffigures
tempt to give a classical exterior to a church. Aban- carved to project from a flat surfacecalled The Feast
doning the Gothic pointed arch, Alberti designed this of Herod (Figure 12.12). The subject is the tragic end of
churchs unfinished facade with its three rounded John the Baptist, Florences patron saint, as recounted
arches after a nearby triumphal arch. He framed the in Mark 6:2029. In Donatellos square bronze panel,
arches with Corinthian columns, one of his favorite the saints severed head is being displayed on a dish
decorative devices. Although the architect apparently to King Herod at the left, while the scorned Salome
planned to cover the churchs interior with a dome stands near the right end of the table. A puzzled guest
comparable to Brunelleschis on the Florentine cathe- leans toward the ruler, who recoils with upraised
dral, Malatestas fortunes failed, and the projected hands; two children, at the left, withdraw from the
temple had to be abandoned. Nevertheless, Albertis bloody head; and a diner leans back from the center
unfinished church was admired by later builders of the tableall depicted under the rounded arches of
and helped to point the way to the new Renaissance the new Brunelleschian architecture. The sculptures
architecture. rich details and use of linear perspective point up the
horror of the scene and thus achieve the heightened
Sculpture Like architecture, sculpture blossomed realism that was among the artistic goals of this era.
in Florence in the early 1400s. Sculptors, led by this The scenes vanishing point runs through the middle
periods genius, Donatello [dah-nah-TEL-lo] (about set of arches, so that the leaning motions of the two
13861466), revived classical practices that had not figures in the foreground not only express their in-
been seen in the West for more than a thousand years: ner turmoil but also cause them to fall away from the
the freestanding figure; the technique of contrapposto, viewers line of sight.
or a figure balanced with most of the weight resting Donatello also revived the freestanding male nude,
on one leg (see Figure 3.19); the life-size nude statue; one of the supreme expressions of ancient art. Dona
and the equestrian statue. Donatello was imbued with tellos bronze David, probably executed for Cosimo de
classical ideals but obsessed with realism. He used a Medici, portrays David standing with his left foot on

Figure 12.12 Donatello. The Feast of


Herod. Ca. 1425. Gilt bronze, 231/2 square.
Baptismal font, San Giovanni, Siena. The
first low-relief sculpture executed in the early
Renaissance style, The Feast of Herod is a
stunning example of the power of this new
approach to art. Its theatrical force arises from
the successful use of linear perspective and the
orderly placement of the figures throughout the S
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310 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

the severed head of the Philistine warrior Goliath


a pose based on the biblical story (Figure 12.13). This
sculpture had a profound influence on later sculptors,
who admired Donatellos creation but produced rival
interpretations of David (Figure 12.14). Donatello and
his successors used the image of David to pay homage
to male powera major preoccupation of Renaissance
artists and intellectuals.
The only serious rival to Donatello in the early Re-
naissance was another Florentine, Lorenzo Ghiberti
[gee-BAIR-tee] (about 13811455), who slowly adapted
to the new style of art. In 1401 he defeated Brunelles-
chi in a competition to select a sculptor for the north
doors of Florences Baptistery. The north doors consist
of twenty-eight panels, arranged in four columns of
seven panels, each depicting a New Testament scene.
These doors, completed between 1403 and 1424, show
Ghiberti still under the influence of the International
Gothic style that prevailed in about 1400. Illustra-
tive of this tendency is the panel The Annunciation
(Luke1:2638), which depicts the moment when Mary
learns from an angelic messenger that she will be-
come the mother of Christ (Figure 12.15). The Gothic
quatrefoil, or four-leafed frame, was standard for
these panels, and many of Ghibertis techniques are
typical of the Gothic stylethe niche in which the Vir-
gin stands, her swaying body, and the angel depicted
in flight. Nevertheless, Ghiberti always exhibited a
strong feeling for classical forms and harmony, as in
the angels well-rounded body and Marys serene face.
Ghibertis early work reveals the Renaissance synthe-
sis of the Christian and classical, of the classical and
the medieval.
The artistic world of Florence was a rapidly chang-
ing one, however, and Ghiberti adapted his art to
conform to the emerging early Renaissance style of
Donatello. Between 1425 and 1452, Ghiberti brought
his mature art to its fullest expression in the east
doors, the last of the Baptisterys three sculptured
portals. These panels, larger than those on the north
doors, depict ten scenes from the Old Testament. Most
of the Gothic touches have been eliminated, including
the framing quatrefoils, which are now replaced with
square panels (Figure 12.16).
One of the sublime panels from the east doors
depicts the story of the brothers Cain and Abel (Fig-
ure12.17), taken from Genesis 4:116. This panel shows,
in many ways, Ghibertis growing dedication to clas-
sical ideals, seen, for example, in the graceful contrap-
Figure 12.13 Donatello. David. Ca. 14301432. Bronze, ht. 621/4. posto of the standing figures and their proportional
Bargello, Florence. The David and Goliath story was often allegorized relationships. This work translates Albertian aesthetics
into a prophecy of Christs triumph over Satan. But Donatellos sculpture into bronze by creating an illusion of depth. According
undermines such an interpretation, for his David is less a heroic figure than to Ghibertis Commentaries, the sculptors purpose was
a provocative image of refined sensuality, as suggested by the undeveloped
but elegant body, the dandified pose, and the incongruous boots and hat.
not illusion for illusions sake but, rather, an articulate
S Donatellos David is a splendid modern portrayal of youthful male power, visual presentation of the biblical story. Five incidents
N self-aware and poised on the brink of manhood. from the story of Cain and Abel are illustrated: (1)Cain
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311

and Abel as children with their parents, Adam and


Eve, at the top left; (2)Cain and Abel making sacrifices
before an altar, at the top right; (3)Cain plowing with
oxen and Abel watching his sheep, in the left fore-
ground and left middle, respectively; (4)Cain slaying
Abel with a club, in the right middle; and (5)Cain be-
ing questioned by God, in the right foreground.

Painting In the early fourteenth century, Giotto had


founded a new realistic and expressive style (see Chap-
ter 11), on which Florentine painters began to build at
the beginning of the fifteenth century. Much of Giottos
genius lay in his ability to show perspective, or the ap-
pearance of spatial depth, in his frescoes, an illusion he
achieved largely through the placement of the figures
(see Figure 11.19). Approximately one hundred years
after Giotto, painters learned to enhance the realism of
their pictures by the use of linear perspective.
The radical changes taking place in architecture and
sculpture were minor compared with the changes in
painting. Inspired by classicism though lacking signifi-
cant examples from ancient times, painters were rela-
tively free to experiment and to define their own path.
As in the other arts of the 1400s, Florentine painters
led the way and established the standards for the new
stylerealism, linear perspective, and psychological
truth (convincing portrayal of emotional states). This
movement climaxed at the end of the century with the
early work of Leonardo da Vinci.
After 1450 Florences dominance was challenged by
Venetian painters, who were forging their own artistic

Figure 12.14 Andrea del Verrocchio. David. 14731475. Bronze, ht.


42. Bargello, Florence. Verrocchios David inaugurated the tradition in
Renaissance Florence of identifying the Jewish giant-killer with the citys
freedom-loving spirit. A masterpiece of bravado, Verrocchios boyish hero
stands challengingly over the severed head of Goliath. In its virility, this
work surpasses the sculpture that inspired it, Donatellos David (see Figure
12.13). Florences ruling council liked Verrocchios statue so much that they
placed it in the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government, where it remained
until Michelangelos David (see Figure 13.20) displaced it. Verrochios David
was restored in 2003, bringing back to the original the gold patina in the
locks of hair, the borders of the clothes and boots, and the pupils of the
eyes. With the restoration of the gold leaf gilding, restorers have concluded
that the statue originally was intended for display indoors.

Figure 12.15 Lorenzo Ghiberti. The Annunciation. Panel from the


north doors of the Baptistery. 14031424. Gilt bronze, 201/2 173/4.
Florence. Ghibertis rendition of the Annunciation was typical of his
panels on the north doors. Mary and the angel are placed in the shallow
foreground and are modeled almost completely in the round. The
background details, including a sharply foreshortened representation
of God on the left, are scarcely raised from the metal. The contrast S
between these design elements enhances the illusion of depth. N
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312 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 313

Figure 12.16 Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gates of Paradise. East doors of the contemporary dress, flank the holy trio. Mary points

Baptistery. 14241452. Gilt bronze, ht. approx. 17. Florence. The dramatically to the Savior. Just outside the chapels
ten scenes depicted on these doors are based on Old Testament stories, frame, the donors kneel in prayerthe typical way of
taken from the books of Genesis through Kings. Reading from top left to presenting patrons in Renaissance art.
right, then back and forth, and ending at bottom right, the panels begin
In the Holy Trinity fresco, Masaccio uses a variety
with an illustration of the opening chapters of Genesis followed by others
representing events in the lives of Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac of innovations. He is the first painter to show light
and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon. Taking heed of falling from a single source, in this instance, from the
medieval artistic tradition, Ghiberti placed several dramatic episodes from left, bathing the body of Christ and coinciding with
the life of each biblical character in a single panel. Each panel was formed the actual lighting in Santa Maria Novella. This real-
into a wax model, then cast in bronze, and gilded with gold. According to
istic feature adds to the three-dimensional effect of
Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance artist and writer, Michelangelo, on first
seeing the doors, described them as worthy of Paradisethe name the well-modeled figures. The use of linear perspec-
by which they are still knownthe Gates of Paradise. In 1991 Ghibertis tive further heightens the scenes realism. Finally, the
original doors were moved inside to Florences Duomo Museum and perspective, converging to the midpoint between the
duplicate doors replaced them on the Baptistery. kneeling donors, reinforces the hierarchy of beings
within the fresco: from God the Father at the top to
the human figures at the sides. In effect, mathematical
tradition. Venice, not having won its freedom from precision is used to reveal the divine orderan ideal
the Byzantine Empire until the High Middle Ages, congenial to Florences intellectual elite.
was still in the thrall of Byzantine culture (see Chap- A second fresco by Masaccio, The Tribute Money,
ter 8). As a result, Venetian painters and their patrons painted in the Brancacci Chapel of the church of Santa
showed a pronounced taste for the stylized effects and Maria del Carmine, Florence, is recognized as Masac-
sensual surfaces typical of Byzantine art. However, a cios masterpiece (Figure 12.19). This fresco illustrates
distinct school of Venetian painters emerged, which the Gospel account (Matthew 17:2427) in which Je-
eventually would have a major impact on the course of sus advises Peter, his chief disciple, to pay the Roman
painting in the West. taxes. Because this painting depicts a biblical subject
North of the Alps, a third early Renaissance devel- virtually unrepresented in Christian art, it was prob-
opment was taking place in Burgundy and the Low ably commissioned by a donor to justify a new and
Countries. There, compared with Italians, painters heavy Florentine tax. Whether the fresco had any ef-
kept more closely to religious themes and images and fect on tax collection is debatable, but other artists
departed less from the Gothic. The northern artists
concentrated on minute details and landscapes rather
than on the problems of depth and composition that
concerned Italys painters. Figure 12.17 Lorenzo Ghiberti. The Story of Cain and Abel. Detail from
the east doors of the Baptistery (the Gates of Paradise). 14241452.
The guiding genius of the revolution in paint- Gilt bronze, 311/4 311/4. Florence. This exquisite panel from the
ing in the earlier Florentine school was the youthful Florence Baptisterys east doors is a testament to Ghibertis absorption
Masaccio [mah-ZAHT-cho] (14011428), whose career of early Renaissance taste. Ghiberti followed Brunelleschis new rules for
was probably cut short by the plague. He adopted linear perspective by placing the vanishing point in the middle of the tree
trunks in the center of the panel, and he adhered to Albertis principle of
mathematical perspective in his works almost simul-
varied details by adding the oxen, sheep, and altar.
taneously with its elaboration by Brunelleschi. In the
history of Western painting, Masaccios Holy Trinity
fresco is the first successful depiction in painting of
the new concept of Renaissance space. His design for
this fresco in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Flor-
ence, shows that he was well aware of the new cur-
rents flowing in the art of his day. The painting offers
an architectural setting in the style of Brunelleschi,
and the solidity and vitality of the figures indicate that
Masaccio had also absorbed the values of Donatellos
new sculpture. Masaccios fresco portrays the Holy
Trinitythe three divine persons in the one Chris-
tian Godwithin a simulated chapel (Figure 12.18).
Jesuss crucified body appears to be held up by God
the Father, who stands on a platform behind the cross;
between the heads of Father and Son is a dove, sym-
bolizing the Holy Spirit and completing the Trini- S
tarian image. Mary and Saint John, both clothed in N
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Figure 12.18 Masaccio. The Holy Trinity. 1427 or 1428. Fresco,
21101/2 105. Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Masaccio achieved
a remarkable illusion of depth in this fresco by using linear and atmospheric
perspective. Below the simulated chapel, he painted a skeleton in a wall
sarcophagus (not visible in this photograph) with a melancholy inscription
reading, I was once that which you are, and what I am you also will be.
This memento mori, or reminder of death, was probably ordered by the
donor, a member of the Lenzi family. His tomb is built into the floor and lies
directly in front of the fresco.

were captivated by Masaccios stunning technical ef-


fects: the use of perspective and chiaroscuro, or the
modeling with light and shade.
The Tribute Money fresco follows the continuous
narrative form of medieval art. Three separate epi-
sodes are depicted at the same timein the center, Je-
sus is confronted by the tax collector; on the left, Peter,
as foretold by Jesus, finds a coin in the mouth of a fish;
and, on the right, Peter pays the coin to the Roman of-
ficial. Despite this Gothic effect, the frescos central
section is able to stand alone because of its spatial in-
tegrity and unified composition. Like Donatello, Ma-
saccio could synthesize several traditions masterfully.
Jesus is partially encircled by his apostles, and the tax
gatherer, viewed from the back, stands to the right. In
this central group, the heads are all at the same height,

Figure 12.19 Masaccio. The Tribute Money. Ca. 1425. Fresco,


823/8 1981/4. Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence. This fresco
represents the highest expression of the art of Masaccio, particularly
in his realistic portrayal of the tax collector. This official, who appears
twice, first confronting Christ in the center and then receiving money
from Peter on the right, is depicted with coarse featuresa typical man
of the Florentine streets. Even his posture, though rendered with classical
contrapposto, suggests a swaggera man at home in his body and
content with his difficult occupation.

Figure 12.18 Masaccio. The Holy Trinity. 1427 or 1428. Fresco,


21101/2 105. Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Masaccio achieved
a remarkable illusion of depth in this fresco by using linear and atmospheric
perspective. Below the simulated chapel, he painted a skeleton in a wall
sarcophagus (not visible in this photograph) with a melancholy inscription
reading, I was once that which you are, and what I am you also will be.
This memento mori, or reminder of death, was probably ordered by the
donor, a member of the Lenzi family. His tomb is built into the floor and lies
directly in front of the fresco.

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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 315

for Masaccio aligned them according to Brunelleschis paintings vanishing point is placed to the right of cen-
principles. Fully modeled in the round, each human ter in the small barred window looking out from the
form occupies a precise, mathematical space. Virgins bedroom. The loggia, or open porch, in which
Painters such as the Dominican friar Fra Angelico the scene takes place was based on a new architectural
(about 14001455) extended Masaccios innovations. fashion popular among Florences wealthy elite. Re-
Fra Angelicos later works, painted for the renovated ligious images abound in this painting; the enclosed
monastery of San Marco in Florence and partially garden symbolizes Marys virginity, and the barred
funded by Cosimo de Medici, show his mature blend- window attests to the purity of her life. Because of his
ing of biblical motifs in Renaissance space. The An- gracious mastery of form and space, Fra Angelicos in-
nunciation portrays a reflective Virgin receiving the fluence on later artists was pronounced.
archangel Gabriel (Figure 12.20). Mary and Gabriel are One of those Fra Angelico influenced was Piero
framed in niches in the Gothic manner, but the other della Francesca [PYER-o DAYL-lah frahn-CHAY-skah]
elementsthe mastery of depth, the simplicity of ges- (about 14201492), a great painter of the second Flo-
tures, the purity of colors, and the integrated scene rentine generation, who grew up in a Tuscan country
are rendered in the new, simple Renaissance style. The town near Florence. His panel painting The Flagellation

Figure 12.20 Fra Angelico. Annunciation. 14381445. Fresco, 76 105. Monastery of San Marco,
Florence. Fra Angelicos portrayal of the Virgin at the moment when she receives the news that she will
bear the baby Jesus is a wonderful illustration of the painters use of religious symbols. Marys questioning
expression and her arms crossed in a maternal gesture help to establish the paintings subject. Moreover,
the physical setting of the scene, bare except for the rough bench on which Mary sits, suggests an ascetic
existencean appropriate detail for the paintings original setting, a monastery.

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316 CHAPTER TWELVE: THE EARLy RENAISSANCE

Figure 12.21 Piero della FranceSca. The Flagellation. 1460s. Oil on panel, 23 32. Galleria Nazionale
della Marche, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino. A secondary religious message may be found in this work. In 1439
the Orthodox Church discussed union with Rome at the Council of Florence but later repudiated the merger
when the Byzantine populace rioted in favor of Turkish rule. The hats on Pilate (seated at the left) and the third
man from the right are copies of Greek headdresses that were worn at the council. In effect, these figures
suggest that the Greek Church is a persecutor of true Christianity, for the papacy regarded the Greek Orthodox
faith as schismatic.

shows the powerful though mysterious aesthetic ef- and unaware of his importance. The effect is distinctly
fects of his controversial style (Figure 12.21). The unsettling in a religious scene. The modern world,
sunlight flooding the scene unites the figures, but which loves conundrums, has developed a strong pas-
the composition places them in two distinct areas. At sion for the private vision of Piero della Francesca as
the extreme left sits Pilate, the judge, on a dais. The represented in his art.
paintings subjectthe scourging of Christ before his Botticelli is the best representative of a lyrical as-
crucifixionis placed to the left rear. Reinforcing this pect of this second generation and one of the most
odd displacement are the figures on the right, who are admired painters in the Western tradition. One of the
apparently lost in their own conversation. Aestheti- first Florentine artists to master both linear and at-
cally this strange juxtaposition arises because Piero mospheric perspective, he was less interested in the
has placed the horizon line around the hips of the technical aspects of painting than he was in depicting
figures beating Christ, causing the three men on the languid beauty and poetical truth.
S right to loom in such high perspective; thus the men Until the 1480s, Botticellis art was shaped by the
N in the foreground appear to be indifferent to Christ Neoplatonic philosophy of the Florentine Academy,
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THE SPIRIT AND STyLE OF THE EARLy RENAISSANCE 317

Interpreting Art
Subject The title of Philosophical
the painting, Primavera,
means spring in Italian.
Perspective
Thematically, from right to
The painting is an allegory
left, the painting contrasts
of the return of the bountiful
carnal sensuality with pure
fruits, flowers, and love
Platonic love.
that have always been
associated with springtime.
Historical
Composition To Perspective
the right, ominous Zephyr Many scholars think
grabs beautiful Chloris that Lorenzo de Medici
who, breathing flowers, commissioned the painting
is being transformed into as a wedding gift for
Flora (flower). To Chloris/ Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco
Floras left, crowned de Medici (who may be
Spring enters strewing represented as Mercury)
flowerssymbols of as a symbol of pure love
spring. Left and behind as described by Ficino, the
Spring, Venus, the goddess Neoplatonist thinker.
of love, presides. Above
Venus, Eros, portrayed as a Artistic
putto or as Cupid, draws his
bow and aims at the Three
Perspective
Despite its exquisitely
Graces (Beauty, Chastity,
and Pleasure). One of the Sandro Botticelli. Primavera. Ca. 1482. Tempera on panel, 68 104. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Botticellis accurate figures and as
lyricism is evident in his refined images of human beauty. His figures elegant features and gestures, such as the many as five hundred plants
graces gazes lovingly at the
sloping shoulders and the tilted heads, were copied by later artists. The womens blond, ropelike hair and transpar- and flowers, the painting
god Mercury, who seems
uses a medieval narrative
oblivious to the whole ent gowns are typical of Botticellis style.
techniquemultiple
scene.
scenes in the same plane

Mythological 1. Content Identify the figures in the paint- 4. Theme What message might his painting and does not array the
foreground and background
ing and explain their purpose. have communicated to a young couple
Sources The scene so as to create linear
may be based on Ovids 2. Cultural Why is it significant that an about to be married? perspective.
story of the harsh wind of early Renaissance artist turned to classi- 5. Style Compare and contrast Botticellis
March, Zephyr, who raped
the mortal Chloris but then cal mythology for his subject matter? use of perspective with that of Pietro
fell in love with her and 3. Philosophical Perspective How does Perugino (Figure 12.7) and Piero della
transformed her into the Francesca (Figure 12.21).
goddess Flora.
this painting reflect the philosophy of
Marsilio Ficino?

and thus he often allegorized pagan myths, giving who takes the universe of learning as his province.
them a Christian slant. Especially prominent in Neo- Not only did he defy the authority of the church by se-
platonic thought was the identification of Venus, the cretly studying human cadavers, but he also rejected
Roman goddess of love, with the Christian belief that the classical values that had guided the first genera-
God is love. Botticelli, with the support of his pa- tion of the early Renaissance. He relied solely on em-
trons, notably the Medici family, made the Roman god- pirical truth and what the human eye could discover.
dess the subject of two splendid paintings, The Birth of His notebooks, encoded so as to be legible only when
Venus (see Figure 12.5) and the Primavera. In this way, read in a mirror, recorded and detailed his lifelong cu-
female nudes once again became a proper subject for riosity about both the human and the natural worlds.
art, though male nudes had appeared earlier, in Dona- In his habits of mind, Leonardo joined intellectual cu-
tellos generation (see Figure 12.13). riosity with the skills of sculptor, architect, engineer,
In the 1480s, Florentine art was moving toward its scientist, and painter.
culmination in the early works of Leonardo da Vinci Among Leonardos few surviving paintings from
(14521519). Leonardo is the quintessential represen- this period, the first version of The Virgin of the Rocks S
tative of a new breed of artist: the Renaissance man, reveals both his scientific eye and his desire to create a N
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318 CHAPTER TWELVE: The Early Renaissance

this pyramid, Leonardo creates a dynamic tension by


using gestures to suggest a circular motion: The an-
gel points to John the Baptist, who in turn directs his
praying hands toward Jesus. A second, vertical, line of
stress is seen in the gesturing hands of Mary, the an-
gel, and Christ. Later artists so admired this painting
that its pyramidal composition became the standard
in the High Renaissance.
No prior artist had used chiaroscuro to such ad-
vantage as Leonardo does in The Virgin of the Rocks,
causing the figures to stand out miraculously from
the surrounding gloom. And unlike earlier artists,
he colors the atmosphere, softening the edges of sur-
faces with a fine haze called sfumato. As a result, the
painting looks more like a vision than a realistic scene.
Leonardos later works are part of the High Renais-
sance (see Chapter 13), but his early works represent
the fullest expression of the scientific spirit of the sec-
ond generation of early Renaissance painting.
While the Florentine painters were establishing
themselves as the driving force in the early Renais-
sance, a rival school was beginning to emerge in Venice.
The Venetian school, dedicated to exploring the effects
of light and air and re-creating the sensuous effects of
textured surfaces, was eventually to play a major role in
the history of painting in Italy and the West. Founded
by Giovanni Bellini, a member of a dynasty of painters,
the Venetian school began its rise to greatness.
Giovanni Bellini (about 14301516), who trained in
the workshop of his father, the late Gothic painter Ja-
copo Bellini (about 14001470), made Venice a center
of Renaissance art comparable to Florence and Rome.
Figure 12.22 Leonardo da Vinci. The Virgin of the Rocks. 1483. Oil on Ever experimenting, always striving to keep up with
panel, approx. 63 37. Louvre. Two slightly different versions of
this work exist, this one dating from 1483 and a later one done in 1506
the latest trends, he frequently reinvented himself.
and on view in the National Gallery in London. The Louvre painting, with its Nevertheless, there were constants in his approach to
carefully observed botanical specimens, is the culmination of the scientific painting. He combined the traditions of the Florentine
side of the early Renaissance. The paintings arbitrary featuresthe grotto school (the use of linear perspective and the direct ob-
setting and the unusual perspectivepoint ahead to the High Renaissance; servation of nature) and those of the Flemish school
the dramatic use of chiaroscuro foreshadows the night pictures of the
baroque period (see Figure 15.9).
(the technique of oil painting, the use of landscape
as background, and the practice of religious symbol-
ism). Made aware of the importance of atmosphere
haunting image uniquely his own (Figure 12.22). In this by the Venetian setting, Bellini also experimented
scene, set in a grotto or cave, Mary is portrayed with the with a range of colors, variations in color intensity,
infant Jesus, as a half-kneeling infant John the Baptist and changes in light. In particular, Bellini perfected
prays and an angel watches. The plants underfoot and the landscape format as a backdrop for foreground
the rocks in the background are a treasure of precise figures. A great teacher, Bellini founded a workshop
documentation. Nevertheless, the setting is Leonardos where his methods were taught to young painters, in-
own inventionwithout a scriptural or a traditional cluding Giorgione and Titian (see Chapter 13).
basisand is a testimony to his creative genius. An excellent example of Bellinis use of landscape
Leonardos plan of The Virgin of the Rocks shows the may be seen in St. Francis in Ecstasy (Figure 12.23). This
rich workings of his mind. Ignoring Brunelleschian work, which depicts an ecstatic St. Francis display-
perspective, Leonardo placed the figures his own way. ing the stigmata (spontaneous appearance of open
He also adapted a fairly standard medieval pyramid wounds, similar to those of the crucified Christ), shows
design for arranging the figures in relation to one an- Bellinis typical treatment of landscape: he divides the
S other; Marys head is the pyramids apex, and her seat painting surface into zones, beginning with the area
N and the other three figures anchor its corners. Within around the saint in the foreground, continuing through
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The Spirit and Style of The Early Renaissance 319

a second zone occupied by a donkey and a crane, to a with the opening of the fifteenth century. Working
third zone featuring Italian castles nestled into a hill- in England and in France, he wrote mainly religious
side, and concluding with a fourth zone marked by a worksmotets for multiple voices and settings for
fortress and the sky. To heighten the realism, Bellini the Massthat showed his increasingly harmonic ap-
uses both a rich palette of colors and numerous ob- proach to polyphony. The special quality of his music is
jects to lead the viewers eye into the vast distance. He its freedom from the use of mathematical proportion
adds to the realism by suffusing the scene with natural the source of medieval musics dissonance.
light. The landscape, with its vivid rendering of flora Dunstables music influenced composers in France,
and fauna, expresses the Franciscan belief that human- in Burgundy, and in Flanders, known collectively as
kind should live in harmony with the natural world the Franco-Netherlandish school. This school, which
(see Chapter 10). became the dominant force in fifteenth-century mu-
sic, blended Dunstables harmonics with northern Eu-
ropean and Italian traditions. The principal works of
Music this group were Latin Masses (Figure 12.24), or musi-
The changes affecting the cultural life of fifteenth- cal settings of the most sacred Christian rite; motets,
century Europe naturally also affected the music of the
time. The impetus for a new musical direction, however,
did not spring from classical sources, because ancient
musical texts had virtually perished. Instead, the new
music owed its existence to meetings between English
and Continental composers at the church councils that
were called to settle the Great Schism (see Chapter 11)
and the Continental composers deep regard for the se-
ductive sound of English music. The English composer
John Dunstable [DUHN-stuh-bull] (about 13801453)
was a central figure in the new musical era that began

Figure 12.23 Giovanni Bellini. St. Francis in Ecstasy. 1470s. Oil in


tempera on panel, 49 557/8. Frick Collection, New York. In the
foreground, Bellini renders his vision of the grotto at Alvernia, a mountain
retreat near Assisi, where St. Francis went to pray and fast for forty days,
in imitation of Christs forty days in the wilderness. The artist reinforces
the scenes religious significance through various symbols, such as
the grapevine and the stigmata, alluding to the sacrifice of Christ, and
the donkey (in the middle distance), emblematic of Jesuss entry into
Jerusalem before the Crucifixion.

Figure 12.24 Mass at the Court of Philip the Good in Burgundy.


Bibliothque Royale de Belgique, Brussels. Fifteenth century. This
miniature painting shows a Mass being conducted at the court of Philip the
Good of Burgundy (r. 14191467). Philips patronage of the arts and music
attracted leading painters and musicians to his court, which he conducted
in cities across his holdings in modern-day Holland, Belgium, and France.
John Dunstable, a composer of the Franco-Netherlandish school, was,
on occasion, at the dukes court. In the painting, the priest prepares the
sacraments at the altar, with his attendant behind him. On the right, the
choir, dressed in white robes and gathered in front of the music stand,
sings the Latin Mass. In the center background, dressed in black, stands a S
member of the Burgundian royal court, attended by two servants. N
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320 CHAPTER TWELVE: THE EARLy RENAISSANCE

or multivoiced songs set to Latin texts other than the Josquins motet Ave Maria . . . Virgo Serena (Hail,
Mass; and secular chansons, or songs, with French Mary . . . Serene Virgin; 1502), a musical setting of a
texts, including such types as the French ballade and prayer to the Virgin Mary, shows the new expressive
the Italian madrigal, poems set to music for two and Renaissance style as it breaks away from the abstract
six voices, respectively. Together, these polyphonic music of the Middle Ages. Based on a Gregorian chant,
compositions established the musical ideal of the early the opening section quickly gives way to an innova-
Renaissance: multiple voices of equal importance tive melody. Divided into seven sections, the motet
singing a cappella (without instrumental accompani- employs shifting voice combinations in each part. The
ment) and stressing the words so that they could be opening section uses polyphonic imitation, a musical
understood by listeners. technique that functions like a relay race. The soprano
Between 1430 and 1500, the Continents musical begins with the phrase Ave Maria, which, in turn, is re-
life was guided by composers from the Franco- stated by the alto, tenor, and bass. Next, there follows
Netherlandish school, the most important of whom the second phrase, gratia plena (full of grace), sung
was the Burgundian Josquin des Prez [zho-SKAN day to a different melody, which is also repeated among
PRAy] (about 14401521). Josquin was influential in his the voices. The musical effect in the first section is to
day and is now recognized as one of the greatest com- create an overlapping tapestry of sound. The second
posers of all time. He was the first important composer section uses a duet of two upper voices, which is then
to use music expressively so that the sounds matched imitated by the lower voices. Next, there is a four-voice
the words of the text, thereby moving away from the ensemble, using expressive music that reflects the text,
abstract church style of the Middle Ages. One of his nova laetitia (new joy). Then, there follow four sec-
motets was described at the time as evoking Christs tions that shift voice groupings along with alterations
suffering in a manner superior to painting. Josquin also in rhythms, ending with a brief pause. The motet ends
began to organize music in the modern way, using ma- with the group singing together in sustained chords:
jor and minor scales with their related harmonies. All O mater Dei / memento mei. Amen, or O Mother of
in all, he is probably the first Western composer whose God / remember me. Amen.
music on first hearing appeals to modern ears.

SUMMARY
Renaissance politics, like all politics, were messy. sponsors and religious topics, and the popes brought
England and France struggled to recover from the the Renaissance to Rome. Architects looked to classical
Hundred years War. The papacy combated the con- antiquity for inspiration in style, technique, and subject
ciliar movement (see Chapter 11) but failed to attain a matter. Artists captured the natural world as never be-
high spiritual standard. The Italian cities trumpeted fore. Music grew more harmonic as it moved away from
humane and republican values but degenerated into the abstract style practiced by medieval composers.
despotisms. Plato supplanted Aristotle as a guide for philosophers.
Politics notwithstanding, humanism triumphed in Philosophers and other writers explored the unlimited
scholarship and the arts. Civic leaders and rich families potential of free people endowed with free will.
weaned artists from exclusive dependence on clerical

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KEy CULTURAL TERMS 321

The Legacy of the Early Renaissance


Renaissance education continued, as in the Middle as the model, is still held up as an idealthe person
Ages, to be based on the seven liberal arts. Whereas (man or woman to be sure) accomplished in every sort
the content and purpose of medieval education was of knowledge.
religious and aimed at salvation, the new learning
aimed to improve human beings in this world, to make
them free, responsible and accountable, which has
been the goal of liberal education until today. The Re-
naissance put the classics, not the Bible or the church
fathers, at the heart of the curriculum, and until quite
recently the classics have maintained that honored
place in colleges and universities. When the great poet
Alexander Pope (16881744) said, The proper study
of mankind is man, he was uttering a sentiment dear
to Renaissance humanists. The Renaissance revival of
classical architecture spawned a series of neoclassical
revivals that have transformed cities, campuses, and
private residences. When people speak of Platonic re-
lationships, they may not be aware that they are not
referencing Plato himself but instead his Renaissance
interpreter Marsilio Ficino. How many children who
grew up watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
knew that the peaceful one, Donatello, was named for
a Renaissance sculptor? In the 1920s and 1930s, African
American artists and musicians in New york created a
movement that came to be known as the Harlem Re-
naissance. In the 1970s General Motors erected a com-
plex of buildings in Detroit called the Renaissance
Center, intending to convey the rebirth of a de-
pressed city. In 1981 Philip Lader, former U.S. ambassa-
dor to England, launched the Renaissance Weekends
designed to bring together men and women distin-
guished in every walk of life for discussions on topics
of universal significance. Nobel Prizewinning author The Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan. 19771981. John
Orhan Pamuks beautiful novel My Name Is Red (1998) Portman, principal architect. Despite its modernist architecture, the
seven buildings that comprise the Center, essentially a towering hotel
has as one of its central themes the tensions in Turkish
and six office buildings, were labeled the Renaissance Center with the
culture generated by the adoption of Western styles. explicit intention of bringing a new birth to downtown Detroit. The very
So the Renaissance Man, with Leonardo da Vinci label signals the enduring significance of the word Renaissance.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Renaissance early Renaissance style relief Mass
studia humanitatis vanishing point chiaroscuro a cappella
humanism pilaster sfumato imitation

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MICHELANGELO. Dying Slave. 15131516. Marble, approx. 75. Louvre, Paris. Michelangelos
Dying Slave was commissioned by Pope Julius II as part of an ensemble of sculptures for his
tomb. The slaves appearanceclosed eyes and tilted headsuggests that he is in his death
throes. Two symbols convey a moral lesson about the dangers of the earthly passions: the band
around the chest and a barely sketched figure of a monkey, grasping the left shin.
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The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism
13
14941564

Preview Questions Between 1494 and 1564,two cultural styles flourished in Italy,
1. What were the making this one of the Wests most brilliantly creative periods. In the High
major political Renaissance, 14941520, classical principles reached a state of near perfec
developments of the tion. After 1520, however, the Renaissance veered away from the human
High Renaissance and
early mannerism? istic values of classicism toward an antihumanistic vision of the world,
labeled mannerism, because of the selfconscious, or mannered, style
2. What longterm
economic and social adopted by its nonconformist artists and intellectuals. Mannerism contin
trends were under ued to evolve until 1600, but its first phase ended in 1564, with the death of
way in the High
Michelangelo.
Renaissance and early
mannerism, and how This twostage cultural flowering occurred as Western life was under
did they help reshape going rapid changes. Italys citystates fought one another or fended off
Western life and
foreign invaders, making the Italian peninsula a battle zone. France, En
culture?
gland, and Spain emerged as modern nationstates, with only one major
3. Compare and contrast
the High Renaissance powerthe Hapsburg Empireretaining its feudal nature. Rising pros
and mannerist perity, technological changes, and new social trends added to the turbu
styles in the arts lence of this period.
and humanities.
Michelangelos Dying Slave embodies many of the trends between 1494
and 1564. The statues idealized traitsthe perfectly proportioned fig
ure, the restrained facial expression, and the gentle Scurve of the body
are hallmarks of the High Renaissance. But the figures overall sleekness
and dramatic arm movementsprobably based on one figure in the first
century CE Laocon Group (see Interpreting Art on page 99), newly redis
covered in 1506were portents of early mannerism. The medium in which
this statue is carved, Carrara marble from northern Italy, was highly prized
by Michelangeloa taste he shared with ancient Roman sculptors. Dying
Slave, commissioned for Pope Julius IIs tomb, ended up in the possession
of the French king, Francis I, with Michelangelos blessingthus under
scoring another trend of this period: the rise of the modern nationstate.

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324 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

THE RISE OF THE MODERN ereign monarchs gained power, the medieval dream of
a united Christendompursued by Charlemagne, the
SOVEREIGN STATE popes, and the Holy Roman emperorsslowly faded
The most important political development during this away. These new states were strong because they were
period was the emergence of powerful sovereign states united around rulers who exercised increasing central
in France, England, and Spain. This process, already control. Although most kings claimed to rule by divine
under way in the late fifteenth century (see Chapter 11), right, their practical policies were more important in
now began to influence foreign affairs. The ongoing ri increasing their power. They surrounded themselves
valries among these three states led to the concept of with ministers and consultative councils, both depen
the balance of powera principle that still dominates dent on the crown. The ministers were often chosen
politics today. from the bourgeois class, and they advised the rulers
From 1494 to 1569, Europes international political on such weighty matters as religion and war and also
life was controlled, either directly or indirectly, by ran the developing bureaucracies. The bureaucracies in
France and Spain. Frances central role resulted from turn strengthened centralized rule by extending royal
the policies of its strong Valois kings, who had gov jurisdiction into matters formerly administered by the
erned since the early 1300s. Spains fortunes soared feudal nobility, such as the justice system.
during this era, first under the joint rule (14741504) The crown further eroded the status of the feudal
of Ferdinand V and Isabella and then under Charles I nobles by relying on mercenary armies rather than on
(r. 15161556). In 1519 Charles I was elected Holy Ro the warrior class, a shift that began in the late Middle
man emperor as Charles V (he was of the royal house Ages. To pay these armies, the kings had to consult
of Hapsburg), thus joining the interests of Spain and with representative bodies, such as Parliament in En
the Holy Roman Empire until his abdication in 1556. gland, and make them a part of the royal government.
England did not get involved in Continental affairs
during this time.
After 1591 the French and the Spanish rulers increas The Struggle for Italy, 14941529
ingly dispatched their armies into the weaker states, Italys relative tranquility, established by the Peace of
where they fought and claimed new lands. As the sov- Lodi in 1454, was shattered when the French invaded
in 1494 and asserted a hereditary claim to land. For the
next thirty-five years, Italy was a battleground where
France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire fought
among themselves, as well as with the papacy and
most of the Italian states. The French repeatedly in
vaded Italy in these years, only to be repelled by varied
combinations of local states and foreign rulers. Ironi
cally, the French kings, during these campaigns, grew
enamored of the Italian Renaissance, bringing its ar
tistic and intellectual ideals to their court (Figure 13.1).
A far-reaching political effect of this fight for Italys
future was to launch a series of wars between France
and the Holy Roman Empire, a struggle that pitted the
old Europe against the new. The Holy Roman Empire,
ruled by Charles V of the Hapsburg line, was a de
centralized relic from the feudal past. France, led by
the bold Francis I (r. 15151547) of the royal house of
Valois, was the epitome of the new sovereign state.
The first Hapsburg-Valois war (15221529) was the
only one fought in Italy. In 1527 the troops of Charles

Figure 13.1 JeAn CLouet. Francis I. Ca. 1525. Oil on panel, 373/4
291/8. Louvre, Paris. During his thirty-two-year reign, Francis I embarked
on an extensive artistic program, inspired by the Italian Renaissance, to
make his court the most splendid in Europe. Under his personal direction,
Italian artworks and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, were imported
into France. Ironically, this rather stylized portrait by Jean Clouet, Franciss
S chief court artist, owes more to the conventionalized portraits of the Gothic
N style than it does to the realistic works of the Italian Renaissance.
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The Rise of the Modern Sovereign State 325

V ran riot in Rome, raping, looting, and killing. This


notorious sack of Rome had two major consequences:
(1) it cast doubt on Romes ability to control Italylong
a goal of the popesfor it showed that secular leaders
no longer respected the temporal power of the papacy;
and (2) it ended papal patronage of the arts for almost
a decade, thus weakening Romes role as a cultural
leader. It also had a chilling effect on artistic ideals
and contributed to the rise of mannerism.
In 1529 the Treaty of Cambrai ended the first phase
of the Hapsburg-Valois rivalry. And, after years of
warfare, Italy was divided and exhausted. Some cit
ies suffered nearly irreparable harm. The Florentine
republic fared the worst; in the 1530s, its Medici family
resumed control of the city, but they were little more
than puppets of foreign rulers who now controlled
much of the peninsula. The only Italian state to keep
its political freedom was Venice, which became the
last haven for artists and intellectuals in Italy for the
rest of the sixteenth century.

Charles V and the Hapsburg Empire


By 1530 the struggle between the Valois and the Haps
burgs had shifted to central Europe. The French felt
hemmed in by the Spanish to the south, the Germans
to the east, and the Dutch to the northpeoples all
ruled by the Hapsburg emperor Charles V. In French
eyes, Charles had an insatiable appetite for power and
for control of the Continent. In turn, the Hapsburg
ruler considered the French king a land-hungry up
start who stood in the way of a Europe united under a
Christian prince. In 1559, after a number of exhausting
wars and a series of French victories, the belligerents
signed the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrsis, which ushered
in a brief period of peace (Map 13.1).
Charles V, the man at the center of most of these
events, lived a life filled with paradoxes (Figure 13.2).
Because of the size of his empire, he was in theory one
of the most powerful rulers ever to live; but in actual Figure 13.2 Titian. Charles V with a Dog. Ca. 1533. Oil on canvas,
ity, again because of the vastness of his lands, he never 63 38. Prado, Madrid. Titians full-length, standing portrait of
Charles V was painted when the Hapsburg emperor was at the height
quite succeeded in gaining complete control of his em of his power. By rendering the ruler of the world in contrapposto, his
pire. In some ways, he was the last medieval king; in fingers casually holding the collar of his dog, Titian endows the emperor
other ways, he foreshadowed a new age driven by sov with a natural grace. The lighting that illuminates Charles from the dark
ereign kings, standing armies, diplomatic agreements, background and the breathless hush that seems to envelop the man and
and strong religious differences. dog are trademarks of Titians style.
Charles Vs unique position at the center of Eu
ropes political storm was the result of a series of timely
deaths and births and politically astute arranged mar of the New World. By 1519 Charles Vsimultaneously
riages. These circumstances enabled the Hapsburg Charles I of Spainruled the largest empire the world
rulers to accumulate vast power, wealth, and land. has ever known.
Charles was born in 1500 to a German father and a For most of his life, Charles traveled from one of
Spanish mother, and he was the grandson of both the his possessions to another, fighting battles, arranging
Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I and the Spanish peace treaties, and attempting to unify his empire of
king Ferdinand V. He held lands in present-day Spain, disparate holdings. His attention was often divided, S
France, Italy, Germany, and Austriaalong with much and he found himself caught between two powerful N
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Learning Through Maps
Lands inherited by Charles V
Lands gained by Charles V, 15191556 N ort h
a
Enemies of Charles V Sea Se
ic
States favorable to Charles V B alt
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
NETHERLANDS
ENGLAND Hamburg
IRELAND
Amsterdam
HESSE- BRANDENBURG POLAND
London
KASSEL
Antwerp
LUSATIA SILESIA
ATLANTIC RHINE
PALATINATE
OCEAN UPPER
BOHEMIA
MORAVIA
LORRAINE PALATINATE
Paris
WRTTEMBERG HUNGARY
BAVARIA
Vienna
SALZBURG
FRANCHE
COMT TYROL
SWISS
FRANCE CONFEDERACY AUSTRIA

CHAROLAIS
REPUBLIC
Milan
SAVOY OF VENICE
MILAN OTTOMAN
Ferrara EMPIRE
GENOA MODENA
NAVARRE ANDORRA
Florence Urbino
Ad
PAPAL ri
STATES at
PORTUGAL ARGON CORSICA ic
(Genoese) Se
Madrid a
Rome
Lisbon NAPLES
CASTILE Naples
BALEARICS
SARDINIA

Seville
GRANADA Mediterranea
n Sea
Tangiers SICILY
Algiers
Bona
Oran Bugia Tunis
Melilla

OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
NORTH AFRICA 0 150 300 mi

0 300 600 km

MAP 13.1
MHS63 403 EUROPEAN EMPIRE OF CHARLES V, CA. 1556
mat76620_m1201.eps
This map shows the extensive holdings of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, also known as King Charles I of Spain.1. Notice the lands inherited and
Second proof
the lands gained by Charles V. 2. Identify the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire. 3. Who were Charles Vs enemies within the Holy Roman Empire and
elsewhere? 4. Consider the challenges Charles V faced in governing his widely scattered and culturally diverse empire. 5. What impact did geography have
on Frances attitude toward Charles Vs empire?

foesespecially the French to the west and the Otto own position by his contradictory policies: at times he
man Turks to the eastwho drained both his personal angered the disaffected German princes by meddling
energies and his imperial resources. in their affairs and condemning Lutheran doctrines,
Within the Holy Roman Empire, the princes of the and at other times he angered the popes by making
German principalities often took advantage of Charless concessions to the Protestants.
prolonged absences and his preoccupation with the Exhausted and disillusioned by his inability to pre
French and the Turks. Their ability to gain political vail in Europe, Charles abdicated in 1556 and retired
S power at the emperors expense increased after Martin to a monastery. His brother Ferdinand (r. 15581564)
N Luthers revolt and the beginning of the Protestant Ref took control of the German-Austrian inheritance and
L ormation (see Chapter 14). Charles also weakened his was elected Holy Roman emperor. His son Philip
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THE RISE oF THE ModERN SoVEREIgN STATE 327

Figure 13.3 Siege of Vienna. British Library. In spring, 1529, Sultan Suleyman launched an assault against
Christian Europe from Muslim-dominated Bulgaria. Marching through Hungary and eastern Austria, the Ottoman
army was finally stopped at the gates of Vienna in late September 1529. As news of the Turkish invasion spread
across Europe, German and Spanish troops poured into Vienna, shoring up its walls, while the Viennese prepared
for a long siege. Twenty-five days later, in mid-October, the Turks abruptly retreated. This failed siege marked
the Turks deepest advance into central Europe. It also led to a 150-year struggle between the Ottomans and the
West, years filled with mutual suspicion and reciprocal attacks. In this battle scene, the unknown artist depicts
both the Turks and the Western forces armed with the latest firearms and military equipment.

(r. 15561598) assumed control of the Spanish Haps of ottoman rulers deftly reworked the decaying and
burg holdings, including Spain, the New World ter splintered Muslim world into a wellordered military
ritories, and the Netherlands. Thus ended Charless and political power. After conquering the feeble Byz
vision of a united Christendom, which had turned into antine Empire in 1453, Sultan Mehmet II moved his
a nightmare of endless meetings, gory battles, and false capital to Constantinople and assumed a new title,
hopes of peace and unity. Kayser-I Rum (Roman emperor)thereby asserting his
claim over the collapsed Roman world.
Under Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 15201566), the
The West and Islam: ottoman Empire reached its zenith, as it expanded
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire from its base in Anatolia into central Europe. With
As the High Renaissance dawned in 1494, Islams much of mainland greece already under ottoman
presence in Western Europe had just ended, with the rule by 1500, Suleymans troops marched into and
surrender of the last Muslim state in granada, Spain. conquered the modern states of Bulgaria, Romania,
Southeastern Europe was a different situation. There, and Hungary, before being stopped at Vienna in 1529 S
the ottoman Turks had been expanding their territory (Figure 13.3). N
since the founding of their empire in 1399. A series L
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328 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

The defeat at Vienna weakened the Ottoman Em and religious issues that intensified long-standing re
pire and inaugurated its more than 150 years of bit gional and local differences.
ter rivalry with the West. In 1571 the European Holy Yet the boom offered economic opportunities to
League, a coalition of Roman Catholic powers, defeated some. Many merchants made fortunes and provided
a Muslim fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, off western employment for others. These merchants and the
Greecea victory that blocked Ottoman advance into bankers who offered loans were also accumulating
Italy. In 1583 the British signed the first trade treaty capital, which they then invested in various commer
with the Ottoman Empirea potent symbol of the cial activities. The wars of Charles V were financed by
new economic reality. The Western European states, wealthy bankers operating in a well-organized money
with overseas coloniesnotably, England, France, the market. The amassing of surplus capital and its rein
Netherlands, Portugal, and Spainwere now the lead vestment ushered in the opening phase of commercial
ers in world trade. Further weakening the states on capitalism, which laid the foundation for Europes fu
the periphery of the new economy was the discovery ture economic expansion.
of gold and silver in the New World, thus causing an
upward price spiral. Unsurprisingly, after 1600, the
Ottoman Empire was beset by declining prosperity,
Global Encounter:
a weakened central government, and ethnic unrest The First European Explorers
among its peoples. Spurring on this rising prosperity were the abun
dant raw materials overseas along with potential mar-
kets for Europes finished products. Portugal sent out
ECONOMIC EXPANSION the first wave of explorers under the patronage of
AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS Prince Henry the Navigator (13941460). As governor
By 1500, Europe had nearly recovered from the plague; of the Algarve region in southern Portugal, he founded
the sixteenth century continued to be a time of grow a school of navigation, encouraged voyages and trade
ing population and increasing prosperity. The center down the west coast of Africa, and hoped to convert the
of trade shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlan natives to Christianity. By 1487, Portuguese ships had
tic coast, making cities like London and Antwerp fi rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498, Vasco da
nancial and mercantile capitals. Skilled craftspeople Gama [VAS-co da GAH-ma] (about 14601520) sailed
turned out quality products, and enterprising mer up the east coast of Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean
chants distributed these finished goods across much with the aid of a Muslim marinerand landed at Ca
of northwestern Europe. The daring sailing expedi licut (modern Kolkata, formerly Calcutta) India. Da
tions of this period provided new raw materials from Gama returned to Portugal two years later, his ships
America. Innovative manufacturing methods spurred laden with spices and pepper. During the 1500s, the
economic growth and expanded worldwide markets. Portuguese conquered towns along Africas east coast
and established trading posts on the coasts of modern
Indonesia and China and in Nagasaki, Japan. They mo
Demographics, Prosperity, nopolized the spice and pepper trade, tried to control
and the Beginning of a Global World the sea routes between Europe and the Far East, and
Modern research indicates that the population of Eu extended their holdings into the New WorldBrazil.
rope increased from about forty-five million in 1400 Although da Gamas achievements were overshad
to sixty-nine million in 1500 and to about eighty-nine owed by those of later explorers, he was immortalized
million by 1600. Society grew more urban, as people in Portugals national memory by its first great poet,
migrated from the countryside to urban areas and the Luis Vaz de Cames [LU-ees VAZH th KAE-moish]
number of cities with populations over one hundred (about 15241580) (Figure 13.4). Cames modeled his
thousand rose from five to eight between 1500 and epic poem, The Lusiads (named for Lusus, the mythi
1600. Rome, for example, grew from about fifty thou cal founder of Portugal) on Virgils Aeneid. As in the
sand in 1526the year before the sackto one hun Aeneid, Cames portrays da Gama as he encounters
dred thousand by the end of the century. enemies (usually Muslims), meets a friendly king to
Prosperity that resulted from economic expansion whom he recounts the glorious history of his land,
brought a higher standard of living for the urban mid and returns home a hero. In Camess poem, Portugal
dle class, but throughout much of the century prices is now a great power, a harbinger of Europes future,
rose faster than wages. Those who were not profiting a savior of Europe from foreign enemies, and a global
from increased economic growth, such as poor peas missionary for the Christian faith.
ants and impoverished nobles living on unproductive
S farms, suffered the most. In areas of Europe hardest hit
N by inflation or agricultural and commercial stagnation, Portugals day in the sun was brief. In 1580 the Por
L economic crises often became intertwined with social tuguese Empire began to decline when it passed under
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Economic Expansion and Social Developments 329

Sailing Europe, starting in 1492, began to explore


and then conquer much of the world. The pretext was
the spread of the Christian faith, but the motivation
was gold, commodities, and other riches. Based on
knowledge of the sea and the winds, sailing technol
ogy was now advanced for navigational instruments,
ships, and sails. Europe had entered the Age of Explo
ration and, in rapid order, came to dominate the globe
until the midtwentieth century.
The historic developments in navigational instru
ment technology and seamanship were

the magnetic compass, to determine direction,


the astrolabe, to determine latitude, and
an increased understanding of the path of pre
vailing winds and currents in the ocean.

These advances empowered mariners to sail farther


and farther from Europe. In 1522 a heroic milestone was
reached when the first Westerners circumnavigated the
globe: the surviving crew of the ships commanded by
the Portuguese navigator Fernao de Magalhaes [mah-
GAHL-yeesh] (in English, Ferdinand Magellan) (about
14801521).
The dramatic innovations in sailing ship tech


nology included the following:
Figure 13.4 Portrait of Luis Vaz de Cames. 16th17th
century. Oil on canvas. Portuguese School. Museu Nacional
de Arte Antigua, Lisbon, Portugal. In this anonymous portrait, The galley (a long warship powered by oars and
Luis Vaz de Cames is dressed as a soldier and wears the laurel crown of sails; loaded with armed boarding parties) be
the poetan honorific symbol from classical culture. The loss of his eye, came dominant in naval warfare, after 1400.
he wrote, taught him about the expense of war and reminded him of the
price he paid for his personal heroism and his countrys empire. The galley was modified into a square-rigged
ship fitted with deck cannons, after 1450.
The Portuguese and the Spanish perfected a
cargo carrying galley called the caravel (a three-
Spanish rule, until 1640. At the same time, Spain, the
masted vessel with a small roundish hull and a
Netherlands, England, and France commenced a bitter
high stern and bow).
rivalry, competing for overseas markets and colonies.
The caravel was replaced by the larger galleon,
After 1650, this rivalry had a dramatic impact on the
with greater maneuverability and firepowerthe
European economy and social life. The influx of gold
mainstay of Europes global commerce and na
and silver into Europe from Spains mines in Central
vies, from 1550 to 1700.
and South America began to drive prices up. And the
introduction of New World farm products led to new
So successful were the galleons that the outcome of Eu
manufactured goods, for example, cotton and the rise
ropes wars was often determined by battles at sea, as
of the textile industry, while tobacco, cocoa, the to
in Englands triumph over the Spanish Armada in 1588.
mato, and the potato altered consumer habits.

Warfare One of the most far-ranging agents of tech


Technology nological change occurred with firearms, including
The High Renaissance was a period of economic and
social transformation, stimulated by advances in tech the cannon (early 1300s); first, as siege cannons,
nology. Two groups who contributed to this dynamic packed with gunpowder and stones or bits of
period were the inventors and tinkerers whose devices metalused to batter down walls of castles and
and discoveries opened the world for exploration. An towns,
especially powerful agent of change was improved the lightweight, rustfree bronze cannon, which
firearms, which rendered old forms of warfare obsolete quickly replaced the iron cannon, and S
and, gradually, altered the balance of power among the arsenals and foundries, turning out guns and N
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330 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

As these advances unfolded, Europes first arms


race began: the Spaniards held the lead, from about
1500, but the Dutch and English moved ahead after
1600. Amassing weapons became a central need for
each sovereign state, while new strategies and tactics
were reshaping the nature of warfare.
Among those who understood how new weap
onry was transforming warfare was the artist-scientist
Leonardo da Vinci (see the section Painting on page
334). He designed catapults, giant crossbows, and can
nons. He calculated the trajectories of missiles fired by
mortars and cannons and drew plans for armed land
vehicles, underwater craft, and flying machines. As a
military engineer, he advised city planners on fortifi
cations. Leonardos quest for knowledge led him not
only to invent engines of war but also to speculate on
how these destructive devices brutalized humans and
destroyed nature (Figure 13.5).

Science and Medicine


While less pronounced in their immediate impact
than the technological innovations, advances in sci
ence during this age would have long-lasting effects.
In the natural sciences, Leonardo again led the way,
in observation, practices, and understanding. His ge
nius was directed toward the study of nature in all
of its forms, especially the human body. In what he Figure 13.5 Leonardo da Vinci. Men Struggling to Move a Large
learned, he perhaps surpassed all those innovators Cannon. Ca. 1488. Pen and ink, drawing. Windsor, Royal Library.
Leonardos drawing is more than just a scene of a sixteenth-century iron
who had gone before him. He dissected human ca
foundry. While much can be learned from its detailsthe use of winches
davers and took meticulous notes, describing organs, and pulleys, the tools and equipment, and the differing types of cannons
bones, and muscles, and drawing detailed anatomi the artist is also showing how machines are coming to control human life.
cal studies. Although his writings and anatomical Leonardo was fascinated by the machines of war, but he also understood
drawings were not made public during his lifetime, their destructive force, as when he wrote: With its breath it will kill men
and ruin cities and castles.
Leonardos contributions to the understanding of the
human body and the function of its skeleton, muscles,
and organs reflected the Renaissances desire to un
derstand ourselves and the world.
diseases. Although lacking knowledge of the germ
Between 1400 and 1600, Italys schools of medicine
theory of disease, the health boards could build on
continued to be among the best in Europe. During
practices that had worked in the past. For example,
this time, Italy took another innovative step in medi
starting in the 1400s, they used controls and quaran
cal care through the creative work of local adminis
tines to isolate plague and prevent the spread of this
trators in the largest cities, officials who personified
and other contagious diseases among the populace.
another characteristic of the Italian Renaissance,
The new city health boards had jurisdiction over such
civic humanism. Civic humanism was an outgrowth
matters as keeping records of each death and its cause,
of the Renaissances cultivation of the culture of an
inspecting food markets, regulating city health condi
cient Greece and Rome. Italys civic administrators
tions, and supervising burials, cemeteries, hospitals, and
dedicated men who were trained in the Greek and
even beggars and prostitutes.
Latin classicssaw themselves as modern equivalents
of civil servants in an ancient polis, or city. As such,
they tried to establish responsible and efficient city FROM HIGH RENAISSANCE
governments. One of their projects, for example,
which had a strong impact on medical care, was the TO EARLY MANNERISM
setting up of citywide health boards composed of The characteristics of High Renaissance style were
S physicians and medical personnel, to deal with public largely derived from the visual arts. Led by paint
N health issues, especially plague and other contagious ers, sculptors, and architects who worshiped ancient
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 331

Timeline 13.1 ITALIAN CULTURAL STYLES BETWEEN 1494 AND 1564


1494 1520 1564

High Renaissance Early Mannerism

French 15081512 1519 1532 15361541 1550 1564


invasion Michelangelos Death of Publication of Michelangelos Palladios Death of
of Italy Sistine Chapel Leonardo Machiavellis Last Judgment Villa Rotonda Michel-
ceiling frescoes da Vinci The Prince fresco angelo
1520
Death of Raphael

classical ideals, notably those of late-fifth-century BCE patronage of the arts and letters. After the disasters of
Greece, the High Renaissance was filled with images of the fourteenth century, the papacy seemed to have re
repose, harmony, and heroism. Under the spell of clas stored the church to the vitality that it had enjoyed in
sicism and the values of simplicity and restraint, artists the High Middle Ages. In reality, however, the popes
sought to conquer unruly physical reality by subjecting of the early sixteenth century presided over a shaky
it to the principle of a seemingly effortless order. ecclesiastical foundation. To the north, in Germany, a
The visual arts dominated the High Renaissance, theological storm was brewing that would eventually
but literary figures also contributed to this era. From split Christendom and destroy the papacys claim to
classicism, the High Renaissance authors appropri rule the Christian world. This religious crisis, coupled
ated two of their chief aesthetic aims, secularism and with increasing tendencies to exaggeration in High
idealism. Like their ancient predecessors, historians Renaissance art and with the sack of Rome in 1527,
showed that contemporary events arose from human contributed to the development of mannerism and its
causes rather than from divine actionunmistakable spread through Italy and later across western Europe
evidence of a mounting secular spirit. Actually, sec (Figure 13.6).
ularism more deeply affected the writing of history Mannerist painters, sculptors, and architects aban
than it did the arts and architecture, where church pa doned two of the guiding principles of the High Re
tronage and religious subjects still held sway. A rising naissance: the imitation of nature and the devotion to
secular consciousness can also be seen in the popular classical ideals. In contrast to High Renaissance mas
handbooks on manners that offered advice on how to ters, mannerist painters deliberately chose odd perspec
become a perfect gentleman or lady. Although they tives that called attention to the artists technical effects
have no counterpart in ancient literature, these books and their individual points of view. Mannerist sculp
have the classical quality of treating their subject in tors, rejecting idealism, turned and twisted the human
idealized terms. figure into unusual and bizarre poses to express their
What distinguished the High Renaissance preoc own notions of beauty. Likewise, mannerist architects
cupation with the classical past from the early Renais- toyed with the emotions and expectations of their audi
sances renewed interest in ancient matters was largely ence by designing buildings that were intended to sur
a shift in creative sensibility. The early Renaissance prise. Behind the mannerist aesthetic lay a questioning
artists, in the course of growing away from the late or even a denial of the inherent worth of human beings
Gothic style, had invented new ways of recapturing and a negative image of human nature, along with a
the harmonious spirit of ancient art and architecture. sense of the growing instability of the world.
The geniuses of the next generation, benefiting from
the experiments of the early Renaissance, succeeded
in creating masterpieces of disciplined form and ide Literature
alized beauty. The High Renaissance masters superb The leading writers of the High Renaissance in Italy
confidence allowed them to produce works that were drew their themes and values from the Greco-Roman
in harmony with themselves and the physical world classics. Their artistic vision sprang from the classical
a hallmark of classical art. virtue of humanitasa term coined by Cicero in antiq
In spite of its brilliance, the High Renaissance ex uity that can be translated as humanity, meaning the
isted for only a fleeting moment in the history of wisdom, humor, tolerance, and passion of the person
Western culturefrom the French invasion of Italy in who has good sense. With some reservations, these
1494 until the death of Raphael in 1520 (preceded by writers also believed in classicisms basic tenet that
the death of Leonardo in 1519) (Timeline 13.1). In this human nature is inherently rational and good. One of S
era, the Renaissance popes spared no expense in their the finest expressions of High Renaissance literature N
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Figure 13.6 Pope Clement VII Besieged
in Castel SantAngelo. 1554. Engraving,
61/6 9. Kunsthalle, Hamburg. This
engraving shows the imperial army of Charles V
besieging Castel SantAngelo, one of the popes
palaces, during the sack of Rome in 1527.
The engravers sympathies with the pope are
revealed by the huge statues of St. Peter (with
keys, on the right) and St. Paul (with sword,
on the left), who look on disapprovingly. Pope
Clement VII, imprisoned in his own fortress,
peers down on the scene from a balcony at the
center top.

was the poetry of the artist Michelangelo, whose love Castiglione The reputation of Castiglione [kahs-teel-
poems and other lyrical verses adhered closely to the YOH-nay] (14781529) rests on The Book of the Courtier or,
classical tradition. But, even as High Renaissance lit simply, The Courtier, one of the most influential books of
erature was enjoying its brief reign, the mannerist the High Renaissance. Intended for Italian court soci
works of the Florentine author Niccol Machiavelli ety, The Courtier was published in 1528. Translated into
began to appear, and at the heart of his thought is an most Western languages, it quickly became the bible
anticlassical spirit. Despite his education in classicism of courteous behavior for Europes upper classes until
and his strict rationalism, Machiavelli concluded that about 1800.
the human race is irremediably flawed. The contrast A Mantuan by birth, Castiglione (Figure 13.7) based
between the idealizing spirit of the High Renaissance his guide to manners on life at the north Italian court
and the antitraditionalist views of mannerism can be of Urbino, where, between 1504 and 1517, he lived un
clearly seen by placing the work of the diplomat and der the patronage of its resident duke, Guidobaldo da
courtier Baldassare Castiglione beside that of Machia Montefeltro (see Figure 12.1). Impressed by the grace
velli. Each wrote a book that can fairly be described as ful conversations of his fellow courtiers and especially
a manual of behaviorbut there the resemblance ends. taken with the charms of Urbinos duchess, Elisabetta,
Castiglione was moved to memorialize his experi
Michelangelo Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo ences in writing. The Courtier is composed as a dia
embodied the Renaissance man, the well-rounded logue, a literary form originated by Plato and favored
cultural ideal of this period. Along with remarkable by Cicero. Castigliones dialogue is set in Urbino and
achievements in architecture, painting, and sculpture, peopled with actual individuals for whom he invents
Michelangelo was a dedicated poet. More than three urbane and witty conversations that suit their known
hundred of his short (usually fourteen-line) poems characters. Despite this realistic touch, his books over
survive, written mainly between 1532 and 1548. His all tone is definitely idealistic and hence expressive of
poems, although virtually unknown in his day, did High Renaissance style.
circulate among friends and patrons. In one instance, Castigliones idealism shines forth most clearly in
one poem reached a larger audience, when it served the sections in which the invited company try to de
as the focus of an admirers address to the Florentine fine the perfect courtier, or gentleman. Under Duch
Academy, in 1547. ess Elisabettas eye, the guests debate which aspect of
In his poetry, Michelangelo adopted either the Pe the ideal gentlemans training should take precedence:
trarchan sonnet (see Chapter 12) or the madrigalan education in the arts and humanities or skill in horse
irregular verse form, not to be confused with the En manship and swordplay. Eventually, both sides agree
glish madrigal (see Music in Late-Sixteenth-Century that the ideal courtier should be proficient in each of
Italy and England, Chapter 14). Classicism in his these areas. A sign that the Renaissance had raised
High Renaissance style included the Petrarchan son the status of painting and sculpture was the groups
net and the Neoplatonic philosophy that he had ab expectation that a gentleman be knowledgeable about
sorbed as a youth in Florence, at the Medici court. In both of these art forms.
his verses, Platonic love, while originating in physical The Courtier also describes the perfect court lady.
S beauty, ultimately leads to the divine. A product of his In the minds of the dialogue participants, the ideal
N era, Michelangelo also wrote verses about his life as a lady is a civilizing influence on men, who would oth
L working artist and as a man facing aging and death. erwise be crude. To that end, the perfect lady should
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 333

Figure 13.7 Raphael. Baldassare Castiglione. 1514. Oil on canvas,


321/4 261/2. Louvre, Paris. Castiglione, author of The Book of
the Courtier, was memorialized in this handsome portrait by the High
Renaissance painter, Raphael. Elegantly groomed and completely at ease,
Castiglione appears here as the ages ideal courtieran ideal that he
helped to establish.

be a consummate hostess, charming, witty, graceful,


physically attractive, and utterly feminine. She ought
to be well versed in the same areas as a man, except
for athletics and the mastery of arms. With these so
cial attributes, the cultivated lady can then bring out
the best in a courtier. But she must not seem his infe
rior, for she contributes to society in her own way.
Castigliones book turned away from medieval val
ues and led his followers into the modern world. First,
Castiglione argued that social relations between the
sexes ought to be governed by Platonic lovea spiritual
passion that surpassed physical conquestand thus he
rejected medieval courtly love and its adulterous focus.
Second, he reasoned that women in society should be
the educated equals of men, thereby sweeping away the
barrier that had been erected when women were ex
cluded from medieval universities. In the short run, the
impact of Castigliones social rules was to keep women
on a pedestal, as courtly love had done. But for the fu
ture, his advice allowed women to participate actively
in every aspect of society and encouraged their educa
tion in much the same way as mens.

Machiavelli In contrast to Castigliones optimism, the 1513, he served the newly reborn Florentine republic
Florentine Machiavelli [mak-ee-uh-VEL-ee] (14691527) as a senior official and diplomat, learning statecraft
held a negative view of human nature and made hu firsthand. During these turbulent years, he was par
man weakness the central message of his writings. If ticularly impressed by the unscrupulous Cesare Bor
The Courtier seems to be taking place in a never-never gia, Pope Alexander VIs son. In 1513, after the fall of
land where decorum and gentility are the primary in the Florentine republic to the resurgent Medici party,
terests, Machiavelli returns the reader to political re Machiavelli was imprisoned, tortured, and finally ex
ality. His mannerist cynicism about human weakness iled to his family estate outside the city. There, in exile,
sprang from wounded idealism, for life had taught him he wrote the small work known as The Prince (1513),
that his early optimism was wrong. In his writings, the which circulated in manuscript until after his death.
bleak view of human nature is meant to restore sanity In 1532 it was finally published.
to a world that he thought had gone mad. Machiavelli had several motives in writing this
Except for Martin Luther (see Chapter 14), Machia masterpiece. Despairing over Italys dismemberment
velli left a stronger imprint on Western culture than by the French and the Spanish kings, he hoped the
any other figure who lived between 1494 and 1564. Ma book would inspire an indigenous leader to unify the
chiavellis most enduring contribution was The Prince, peninsula and drive out the foreigners. Enlightened
which inaugurated a revolution in political thought. by his personal experience in Florences affairs, he
Rejecting the medieval tradition of framing political wanted to capture in writing the truth of the politics
discussions in Christian terms, Machiavelli treated the to which he had been a witness. And, of equal impor
state as a human invention that ought not necessarily tance, by dedicating The Prince to the restored Medici
conform to religious or moral rules. He began the mod ruler, he hoped to regain employment in the Floren
ern search for a science of politics that has absorbed tine state. Like other writers in this age, Machiavelli
political thinkers and policymakers ever since. could not live by his wits but had to rely on secular or
Machiavellis career in sixteenth-century Italy, like religious patronage. S
that of many writers in antiquity, was split between a Machiavellis work failed in its immediate objectives: N
life of action and a life of the mind. Between 1498 and the Medici despot brushed it aside, and Italy remained L
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Figure 13.8 Leonardo da Vinci. The Last Supper. (Restored.) 14951498. Oil-tempera on wall,
1511/8 28101/2. Refectory, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Classical restraint is one of the defining
characteristics of this High Renaissance masterpiece. Instead of overwhelming the viewer with distracting
details, Leonardo reduces the objects to a minimum, from the austere room in which the meal is being
celebrated to the simple articles on the dining table. The viewers gaze is thereby held on the unfolding human
drama rather than on secondary aspects of the scene.

fragmented until 1870. But as a work that exposed to maintain power and to ensure peacethe two basic
the ruthlessness needed to succeed in politics, The goals of any state. By appearing virtuous and upright
Prince was an instant, though controversial, success. while acting as the situation demanded, the prince
The book was denounced by religious leaders for its could achieve these fundamental ends.
amoral treatment of political power and read secretly
by secular rulers for its sage advice. In the prevailing
worldview of the 1500s, an era still under the sway of Painting
Christian ideals, the name Machiavelli became syn In the arts, the period between 1494 and 1564 was pre
onymous with dishonesty and treachery, and the word eminently an age of painting, though several sculptors
Machiavellianism was coined to describe the amoral and architects created major works in their respective
notion that the end justifies the means. fields. The classical values of idealism, balance, and re
From the modern perspective, this negative valu straint were translated by High Renaissance painters
ation of Machiavelli is both too simplistic and too into harmonious colors, naturally posed figures with
harsh. Above all else he was a clear-eyed patriot an serene faces, realistic space and perspectives, and per
guished by the tragedy unfolding in Italy. The Prince fectly proportioned human bodies. After 1520, manner
describes the power politics that the new sovereign ist tendencies became more and more evident, reflected
states of France and Spain were pursuing in Italian in abnormal subjects, contorted figures with emotion
affairs. Machiavelli realized that the only way to rid ally expressive faces, and garish colors.
Italy of foreigners was to adopt the methods of its
successful foes. Seeing his countrymen as cowardly Leonardo da Vinci The inauguration of the High
and greedy, he had no illusions that a popular upris Renaissance in painting is usually dated from Leo
ing would spring up and drive out Italys oppressors. nardos The Last Supper, completed between 1495 and
Only a strong-willed monarch, not bound by a too- 1498 (Figure 13.8). Commissioned by the Dominican
restrictive moral code, could bring Italy back from po friars of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in
litical chaos. Milan, The Last Supper heralded the lucidity and har
The controversial heart of Machiavellis treatise mony that were the essence of High Renaissance style.
was the section that advised the ruler on the best way In executing the fresco, Leonardo unfortunately made
S to govern. Machiavelli counseled the prince to prac use of a flawed technique, and the painting began to
N tice conscious duplicity, since that was the only way flake during his lifetime. Over the centuries, the work
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 335

has been touched up frequently and restored seven


times, with the most recent restoration completed in
1999. Nevertheless, enough of his noble intention is
evident to ensure the reputation of The Last Supper as
one of the best-known and most beloved paintings of
Western art.
Leonardos design for The Last Supper is highly
idealizeda guiding principle of the High Renais
sance. The fresco depicts the moment when Jesus says
that one of the twelve disciples at the table will betray
him (Matthew 26:21). Ignoring the tradition that in
tegrated this symbolic meal into an actual refectory,
Leonardo separated the scene from its surroundings
so that the figures would seem to hover over the heads
of the clergy as they ate in their dining room. Idealism
is also evident in Leonardos straightforward perspec
tive. The artist makes Jesus the focal center by framing
him in the middle window and locating the vanishing
point behind his head. In addition, the arrangement
of the banqueting partyJesus is flanked by six fol
lowers on either sidegives the painting a balanced
effect. This harmonious composition breaks with the
medieval custom of putting the traitor Judas on the
opposite side of the table from the others.
A final idealistic touch may be seen in the way that
Leonardo hides the face of Judas, the third figure on
Jesuss right, in shadow while illuminating the other
figures in bright light. Judas, though no longer seated
apart from the rest, can still be readily identified, sit
ting cloaked in shadows, reaching for the bread with
his left hand, and clutching a bag of silversymbolic
of his treasonin the other hand. For generations, ad
mirers have found Leonardos fresco so natural and
inevitable that it has become the standard version of Figure 13.9 Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa. 1503. Oil on panel, 301/4
this Christian subject. 21. Louvre, Paris. Leonardos Mona Lisa, a likeness of the wife of the
Leonardos setting and placement of the figures in wealthy Florentine merchant Giocondo, illustrates the new status of Italys
The Last Supper are idealized, but his depiction of the urban middle class. This class was beginning to take its social cues from
individual figures is meant to convey the psychologi the fashionable world of the courts, the milieu described by Castiglione.
Leonardo treats his middle-class subject as a model court lady, imbuing
cal truth about each of them. Jesus is portrayed with her presence with calm seriousness and quiet dignity.
eyes cast down and arms outstretched in a gesture of
resignation, while on either side a tumultuous scene
erupts. As the disciples react to Jesuss charge of trea (Figure 13.9). As the fame of this work spread, other
son, Leonardo reveals the inner truth about each one painters (and, later, photographers) adopted Leonardos
through bodily gestures and facial expressions. Be half-length model as a basic format for portraits. Avoid
neath the visual tumult, however, the artistic rules of ing the directness of The Last Supper, Leonardo hints at
the High Renaissance are firmly in place. Since neither the sitters demure nature through her shy smile and
biblical sources nor sacred tradition offered an order the charmingly awkward gesture of having the fin
ing principle, Leonardo used mathematics to guide his gers of her right hand caress her left arm. In her face,
arrangement of the disciples. He divides them into four celebrated in song and legend, he blends the likeness
groups of three figures; each set in turn is composed of of a real person with an everlasting ideal to create a
two older men and a younger one. In his conception, miraculous image. Further heightening the paintings
not only does each figure respond individually, but eternal quality, the craggy background isolates the fig
also each interacts with other group members. ure in space and time, in much the same way that the
Besides mastering a narrative subject like The Last grotto functioned in Leonardos Virgin of the Rocks (see
Supper, Leonardo created a new type of portrait when Figure12.22). Finally, he enhances the Mona Lisas mys S
he painted a half-length view of the seated Mona Lisa tery by enveloping the subject in the smoky atmosphere N
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336 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

called sfumatomade possible by the oil medium was beginning a career that would propel him to the
which softens her delicate features and the landscape forefront of first the Florentine and later the Roman
in the background. Renaissance, making him the most formidable artist
During the High Renaissance, Leonardos great of the sixteenth century. Michelangelos initial fame
works contributed to the cult of geniusthe high re rested on his sculptural genius, which manifested it
gard, even reverence, that the age accorded to a few self at the age of thirteen when he was apprenticed to
select artists, poets, and intellectuals. The Last Supper the early Renaissance master Ghirlandaio and then,
earned Leonardo great fame while he was alive. The one year later, taken into the household of Lorenzo
history of the Mona Lisa was more complicated, since the Magnificent, the Medici ruler of Florence. In time,
it was unseen while he lived and found among his ef Michelangelo achieved greatness in painting and ar
fects when he died in 1519. After his death, as the Mona chitecture as well as in sculpture, but he always re
Lisa became widely known, first as a possession of the mained a sculptor at heart.
king of France and later as a jewel in the Louvre collec Michelangelos artistic credo was formed early, and
tion, Leonardo was elevated to membership among the he remained faithful to it over his long life. Sculp
immortals of Western art. ture, he believed, was the art form whereby human
figures were liberated from the lifeless prison of their
Michelangelo While Leonardo was working in Mi surrounding material. In this sense, he compared the
lan during most of the 1490s, Michelangelo Buonarroti sculptors creativity with the activity of Goda no
[my-kuh-LAN-juh-lo bwo-nahr-ROH-tee] (14751564) tion that would have been judged blasphemous in

S
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 337

prior Christian ages. Michelangelo himself, unlike the ing that he was a sculptor and without expertise in
skeptical Leonardo, was a deeply pious man given to frescoes, but the pope was unyielding in his insis
bouts of spiritual anxiety. His art constituted a form of tence. The chapel had been built by Julius IIs uncle,
divine worship. Pope Sixtus IV (pope 14711484), in the late 1400s, and
Central to Michelangelos artistic vision was his most of the walls had already been covered with fres
most celebrated image, the heroic nude male. Like coes. Michelangelos frescoes were intended to bring
the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors whose works the chapels decorative plan closer to completion.
he studied and admired, Michelangelo viewed the The challenge of painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling
nude male form as a symbol of human dignity. In the was enormous, for it was almost 70 feet from the floor,
High Renaissance, Michelangelos nudes were based its sides were curved downward, necessitating numer
on classical models, with robust bodies and serene ous perspective changes, and its area covered some
faces. But in the 1530s, with the onset of mannerism, 5,800 square feet. Michelangelo overcame all these diffi
the growing spiritual crisis in the church, and his own culties, teaching himself fresco technique and working
failing health, Michelangelos depiction of the human for four years on scaffolding, to create one of the glories
figure changed. His later nudes had distorted body of the High Renaissance and unquestionably the great
proportions and unusually expressive faces. est cycle of paintings in Western art (Figure13.10).
In 1508 Michelangelo was asked by Pope Julius II Michelangelo, probably with the support of a papal
(pope 15031533) to decorate the Sistine Chapel ceiling. adviser, designed a complex layout (Figure 13.11) for
Michelangelo tried to avoid this commission, claim- the ceiling frescoes that combined biblical narrative,

Figure 13.10 Michelangelo. Sistine Chapel


Ceiling. (Restored.) 15081512. Full ceiling
45 128. The Vatican. Michelangelos
knowledge of architecture prompted him
to paint illusionistic niches for the Hebrew
prophets and the pagan sibyls on either side of
the nine central panels. Neoplatonism inspired
his use of triangles, circles, and squares, for
these geometric shapes were believed to hold
the key to the mystery of the universe. These
various framing devices give visual order to
the more than three hundred figures in his S
monumental scheme. N
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338 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE HIgH RENAISSANCE ANd EARLy MANNERISM

Moses

Delphica

Cumaea

Libyca
Daniel
Isaiah
Judith Josiah Ezekias Asa Jesse and the
and Serpent
Holofernes of Brass

Drunkenness

Separation of
from Water
Temptation

Sun, Moon,
Creation of
Separation

Light from
The Flood

Expulsion

of Adam
Creation

Darkness
Creation
Sacrifice
of Noah

of Noah

of Land

Planets
of Eve
and
Zechariah Jonah

David The

Erythraea

Jeremiah
Death

Ezekiel

Persica
and
Joel

Goliath Zorobabel Ozias Roboam Salmon of Haman

Figure 13.11 Plan of Ceiling Frescoes, Sistine Chapel. 15081512. The paintings on the Sistine
Chapel ceiling may be grouped as follows: (1) the central section, which presents the history of the world
from the Creation (called The Separation of Light from the Darkness) through the Drunkenness of Noah;
(2) the gallery of portraits on both sides and at either end, which depict biblical prophets and pagan oracles;
and (3) the four corner panels depicting Jewish heroes and heroines who overcame difficulties to help their
people survive.

theology, Neoplatonist philosophy, and classical allu soul with his divine touchan illustration of the Neo
sions. In the ceilings center, running from the altar to platonic idea of flesh yearning toward the spiritual.
the rear of the chapel, he painted nine panels that il By the 1530s, Michelangelo was painting in the
lustrate the early history of the world, encompassing mannerist style, refl
Mayfield Publishing ecting his disappointment with
Company
the creation of the universe, the fall of Adam and Eve, Florences loss of freedom
Matthews/Platt Title and his own spiritual tor
and episodes in the life of Noah. Framing these bibli M# 304
ment. In this new style, Fig#he
12-9replaced his heroic vi
cal scenes are nude youths, whose presence shows Mi Same
sion size
with a fearful 100%
view Black
of the world. A compelling
chelangelos belief that the male form is an expression example of this transformation is The Last Judgment,
of divine power. painted on the wall behind the Sistine Chapels al
on either side of the center panels, Michelangelo de tar. This fresco conveys his own sense of sinfulness
picted Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls, or oraclesall as well as humanitys future doom (Figure 13.13). Ex
foretelling the coming of Christ (see Interpreting Art ecuted twentyfive years after the ceiling frescoes, The
photo). The pagan sibyls represent the Neoplatonist Last Judgment, with its images of justice and punish
idea that gods word was revealed in the prophecies ment, also reflects the crisis atmosphere of a Europe
of preChristian seers. At the corners of the ceiling, divided into militant Protestant and Catholic camps.
he placed four old Testament scenes of violence and In the center of the fresco, Michelangelo depicts Jesus
death that had been allegorized as foreshadowing the as the divine and final judge, with right arm raised in
coming of Christ. Michelangelo unified this complex a commanding gesture. At the bottom of the fresco,
of human and divine figures with an illusionistic ar the open graves yield up the dead, and the saved and
chitectural frame, and he used a plain background to the damned (on Jesuss right and left, respectively) rise
make the figures stand out. to meet their fate.
The most famous image from this vast work is a In The Last Judgment, Michelangelo abandons the
panel from the central section, The Creation of Adam architectural framework that had given order to the
(Figure 13.12), based on a passage in the book of gen ceiling frescoes. Instead, the viewer is confronted with
esis. Michelangelo reduces the scene to a few details, a chaotic surface on which a circle of bodies seems to
in accordance with the High Renaissance love of sim swirl around the central image of Jesus. Michelangelo
plicity. Adam, stretched out on a barely sketched bit elongates the bodies and changes their proportions
of ground, seems to exist in some timeless space. de by reducing the size of the heads. There is no classi
picted as a pulsing, breathing human being, he pos cal serenity here; each figures countenance shows the
sesses wondrous vitality in human flesh, the likes of anguish provoked by this dreaded moment. Faced
which had not been seen in Western art since the an with judgment, some figures gesture wildly while
cient greeks. In a bold move, Michelangelo ignored others look beseechingly to their Savior. In this man
S the genesis story that told of gods molding Adam nerist masterpiece, simplicity has been replaced by
N from dust. Instead, the artist painted Adam as half exuberant abundance, and order has given way to rich
L awakened and reaching to god, who will implant a diversity.
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FRoM HIgH RENAISSANCE To EARLy MANNERISM 339

Interpreting Art
Anatomy Michelangelo was
Composition Three figures fascinated by the way muscles
(a female, in foreground, and two and bones interacted beneath the
boys, in midground), a draped chair, skin. In this image, he presents the
and a large open book are crowded sibyl, with her back to the viewer,
into an illusionistic niche. her upraised arms holding her book
of sayings, and her lower body
Architectural Elements balanced on her toes.
The niche, defined by decorated
columns on either side and a running Religious Perspective
band of lines in the rear, provides a Michelangelos overall plan, blending
space to frame the central figures. Christian theology and Neoplatonic
thought, is meant to validate the
Female Body The muscular Christian view of creation and human
shoulders and back reflect history.
Michelangelos practice of using
male models for female subjects. Color Color is used to heighten
The resulting image deviates from the images three-dimensional look,
classical ideals of feminine beauty. by using primary colors for the
bodies, clothing, and draperies so
that they will stand out against the
muted hues of the background.

MiChelangelo. The Libyan Sibyl. (Restored.) Detail of the Sistine Chapel


ceiling. 15081512. 12111/2 126. The Vatican. Michelangelos sub-
jectthe Libyan Sibylwas an ancient oracle, based in Libya. Neoplatonic
thoughtwhich contributed to the plan for the Sistine Chapel ceiling
taught that God, however imperfectly, spoke to all peoples. Thus, the voice
of God could be heard in the sibyls utterances. By 1500 the church had
accepted the Libyan Sibyl, along with eleven other pagan seers, as divinely
inspired prophetesses foretelling the coming of Christ.

1. Composition How does Michelangelo place the Libyan Sibyl 4. Economic Perspective Discuss the role played by wealth in
within the architecture of the Sistine Chapel? the creation of this painting.
2. Context Discuss the ways this painting is representative of 5. Cultural Perspective What does this painting suggest
early-sixteenth-century Rome. about Michelangelos attitude toward women and his rela-
3. Religious Perspective Why is a pagan figure included tionship with them?
within this Christian artwork?

Raphael The youngest of the trio of great High the ideals of this style better than did those of any
Renaissance painters is Raphael [RAFFeeuhl] Santi other painter. Trained in Urbino, Raphael spent four
(14831520). Lacking Leonardos scientific spirit and years (15041508) in Florence, where he absorbed S
Michelangelos brooding genius, Raphael nevertheless the local painting tradition, learning from the public N
had such artistry that his graceful works expressed works of both Leonardo and Michelangelo. Inspired L
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340 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

Figure 13.12 Michelangelo. The Creation of Adam. Detail (restored) of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 1511.
95 188. The Vatican. One of the most celebrated details of this fresco is the outstretched fingers of
God and Adam that approach but do not touch. By means of this vivid symbol, Michelangelo suggests that a
divine spark is about to pass from God into the body of Adam, electrifying it into the fullness of life. The image
demonstrates the restraint characteristic of the High Renaissance style. The Vaticans restoration of the Sistine
Chapel frescoes has revealed the brilliant colors of the original, apparent in this detail.

by what he saw, Raphael developed his artistic ideal of arch Cynics contempt for his fellow man. In the right
well-ordered space in which human beauty and spa foreground, Euclid, the author of a standard text on ge
tial harmony were given equal treatment. ometry, illustrates the proof of one of his theorems. In
Moving to Rome, Raphael had an abundance of his careful arrangement of this crowd scene, Raphael
patrons, especially the popes. The secret of Raphaels demonstrates his mastery of ordered space.
success was his talent for blending the sacred and the The School of Athens has a majestic aura because of
secular, and in an age when a pope led troops into bat Raphaels adherence to classical forms and ideas. The
tle or went on hunting parties, this gift was appreciated architectural setting, with its rounded arches, medal
and rewarded. Perhaps Raphaels most outstanding lions, and coffered ceilings, is inspired by classical
work in Rome was the cycle of paintings for the stanze, ruins and also perhaps by contemporary structures.
or rooms, of the Vatican apartmentone of the finest Perfectly balanced, the scene is focused on Plato and
patronage plums of the High Renaissance. Commis Aristotle, who stand under the series of arches at the
sioned by Julius II, the stanze frescoes show the same paintings center. Raphael reinforces their central po
harmonization of Christianity and classicism that Mi sition by placing the vanishing point just above and
chelangelo brought to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. between their heads. The two thinkers contrasting
Raphaels plan for the four walls of the Stanza della gestures symbolize the difference between their phi
Segnatura in the papal chambers had as its subjects losophies: Plato, on the left, points his finger skyward,
philosophy, poetry, theology, and law. Of these, the suggesting the world of the Forms, or abstract thought,
most famous is the fresco devoted to philosophy called and Aristotle, on the right, motions toward the earth,
The School of Athens (Figure 13.14). In this work, Raphael indicating his practical and empirical method. Ra
depicts a sober discussion among a group of ancient phael also uses these two thinkers as part of his or
philosophers drawn from all periods. Following Leo dering scheme to represent the division of philosophy
nardos treatment of the disciples in The Last Supper, into the arts and the sciences. On Platos side, the po
Raphael arranges the philosophers in groups, giving etic thinkers are gathered under the statue of Apollo,
each scholar a characteristic gesture that reveals the es the Greek god of music and lyric verse; Aristotles half
S sence of his thought. For example, Diogenes sprawls on includes the scientists under the statue of Athena, the
N the steps apart from the othersa vivid symbol of the Greek goddess of wisdom.
L
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Figure 13.13 Michelangelo. The Last Judgment. 15361541. 48 44. Sistine Chapel, the Vatican.
This Last Judgment summarizes the anticlassicism that was sweeping through the visual arts. Other painters
studied this fresco for inspiration, borrowing its seemingly chaotic composition, its focus on large numbers
of male nudes, and its use of bizarre perspective and odd postures as expressions of the mannerist sensibility.
This fresco has been restored, its colors returned to the vivid primary colors of Michelangelos original design S
and the draperies removed (they had been added during the Catholic Reformation). N
L
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Figure 13.14 Raphael. The School of Athens. 15101511. Fresco,
18 26. Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican. Much of Raphaels
success stemmed from the ease with which he assimilated the prevailing
the Virgin to be aware of her sons future sacrifice
ideas of his age. For instance, the posture of the statue of Apollo in the helps explain this paintings alternate title, Madonna
wall niche on the left is probably derived from Michelangelos Dying Slave of Humility.
(see the chapter-opening photo). For all his borrowings, however, Raphael
could be very generous, as indicated by the conspicuous way he highlights The Venetian School: Giorgione and Titian Ven
Michelangelos presence in this fresco: the brooding genius sits alone in
the foreground, lost in his thoughts and oblivious to the hubbub swirling
ice maintained its autonomy during the High Renais
about him. sance both politically and culturally. Despite the artistic
pull of the Roman and Florentine schools, the Vene
tian artists stayed true to their Byzantine-influenced
Of even greater fame than Raphaels narrative tradition of sensual surfaces, rich colors, and theatri
paintings are his portraits of the Virgin Mary, or his cal lighting. The two greatest painters of the Venetian
Madonna seriesadmired for their exquisite sweet High Renaissance were Giorgione [jor-JO-na] (about
ness and harmonious composition. Raphaels Madon 14771510), who was acknowledged to be Venices pre
nas clearly show the influence of Leonardo, whose mier artist at the end of his life, and Titian [TISH-uhn]
Virgin and child paintings were well known by then (about 14881576), who in his later years was revered as
(see Figure 12.22). Like many of the Madonna series, Europes supreme painter.
Raphaels Alba Madonna (Figure 13.15) is composed Little is known of Giorgiones life until the last
in a low pyramidal shape, a design borrowed from years of his brief career. A student of the Bellini work
Leonardo. But, otherwise, The Alba Madonna differs shop, he won early fame, indicated by the rich private
from Leonardos approach, which placed the Virgin and public commissions he was awarded. Although
and child either enthroned or in an elaborate set- only a few of his works survive, Giorgiones influ
ting. Here, Raphaels figures are set within a plain ence on the course of European art was substantial.
Italian landscape, thus creating a sense of timeless His two major innovations, the female nude and the
ness. The Virgins head functions as the apex of a landscape, contributed to the growing secularization
pyramid, its left side defined by the leaning body of of European painting. These developments helped to
the infant John the Baptist, and its right side defined make Venetian art distinctive from that of Rome and
by the Virgins outstretched left arm and billowing Florence.
S cloak. Raphael adds a dash of mystery by having all The Tempest (Figure 13.16) is probably his best-
N three figures stare at the cross in Jesuss handthe known work. Breaking free of the Bellinis influence,
L symbol of crucifixion. This prophetic touchshowing Giorgione created a dramatic landscape, framed on
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 343

Figure 13.15 Raphael. The Alba Madonna.


Ca. 1510. Oil on wood panel transferred
to canvas, overall (diameter) 373/16.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The paintings provenance illustrates how
works of art survive. Paolo Giovio (14831552),
an Italian scholar and historian, commissioned
the paintinga tondo, or circular painting
which he planned to donate to a church. In
the eighteenth century, it was acquired by
the House of Alba, an aristocratic Spanish
family, whose ownership gave the painting
its designated name. In 1836, Nicholas I, the
Russian czar, bought the painting, which hung
in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg
until 1931, when the Soviet government sold it
to an American millionaire, Andrew Mellon. In
1937 Mellon donated it to the National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C.

Figure 13.16 Giorgione. The Tempest.


1505. Oil on canvas, 311/4 28 3/4. Galleria
dellAccademia, Venice. Giorgiones
mysterious painting evokes the moment
called an anxious hushthat sometimes
attends the prelude to a violent thunderstorm.
Giorgione creates this tense mood through
atmospheric effects that suggest a gathering
storm: billowing clouds; a flash of lightning
and its watery reflection; and, in particular,
the stark color contrasts between the harshly
lighted buildings and the somber hues of earth,
sky, and river. The mood is also heightened
by the presence of two vulnerable figures,
especially the nursing mother who gazes
quizzically at the viewer, about to be engulfed
by the storm. The painting has a typical
Venetian feature in its carefully rendered
S
texturesflesh, cloth, wood, stone, N
and foliage. L
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344 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

the Venetian Renaissancebut also for their dramatic


use of color (see Figure 13.2). Titians adherence to the
principles of High Renaissance style is evident in such
narrative paintings as his Martyrdom of St. Lawrence
(Figure 13.17). According to tradition, Lawrence, a
Spaniard, served as a deacon in charge of the churchs
treasures in Rome. When commanded to turn this
wealth over to the civil authorities, he instead assem
bled the poor and distributed the treasures to them.
For this act of defiance, the Romans condemned and
executed him in 258. Later, as St. Lawrence, he became
the patron saint of the poor and downtrodden.
Titians careful arrangement of this scene of tor
ture and martyrdom reflects his commitment to the
principle of simplicity. In the foreground, he shows
St. Lawrence being roasted on a grill; to the right, he
depicts a pagan temple, rendered in sharply receding
perspective, thereby framing the saints death scene.
The juxtaposition of the dying St. Lawrence and the
classical temple reminds the viewer that the pagan
Romans had failed to eradicate Christianity. Titians
subtle modulations of color, which create a sense of
harmony, made him a leading coloristan artist
concerned more with color than with formand an
inspiration to future generations of painters.

The School of Parma: Parmigianino Parma, in


northern Italy, was another center of High Renais
sance art, but the citys best-known artist is a founder
of mannerism, Parmigianino [pahr-mee-jah-NEE-noh]
(15031540). The Madonna with the Long Neck shows
Parmigianinos delight in ambiguity, distortion, and
dissonance and his love of eccentric composition (Fig
ure 13.18). Mary is portrayed with sloping shoulders
Figure 13.17 Titian. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. 1550s. Oil on
canvas, 1651/2 92. Chiesa dei Gesuiti, Venice. Even though and long arms in the manner of Botticelli, and her
Titian worked within the classical rules required by the High Renaissance sensuous figure is not quite hidden under diaphanous
style, he sometimes deviated from its strict regularity, as in this painting. draperiesa disturbing mix of sacred and profane
The temples columns recede along a diagonal line, creating a sense of love. A similar confusion exists in the depiction of the
deep space in the foreground; within this space, he arranged objects in
infant Christ: the bald baby Jesus appears more dead
a triangular outline with the celestial light source at the apex. By using
diagonal and triangular lines, as he often did in his religious works, Titian than alive, so that the subject invokes the Piet image
was able to achieve dramatic and emotional effects without forfeiting of the dead Christ stretched on his mothers lap along
coherence or meaning. He heightened this effect by bathing the human with the image of the Virgin and Christ child. On the
figures in the light from the sky and the glow from the torches and the fire left, five figures stare in various directions. In the back
underneath St. Lawrence.
ground, unfinished columns and an old man reading
a scroll, perhaps an allusion to biblical prophecies of
Jesuss birth, add to the feeling of multiple focuses and
the left by a soldier and on the right by a partly clothed contradictory scales. Unlike the art of the High Re
mother nursing a child, that did not allude to mythol naissance, which offered readily understood subjects,
ogy, the Bible, or allegorical stories. Whereas Bellinis this mannerist painting, with its uneasy blend of reli
St. Francis in Ecstasy (see Figure 12.23) made the saint gious piety and disguised sexuality, is enigmatic.
the focus of the painting, in The Tempest the framing
figures are overshadowed by the menacing storm.
Thus, Giorgiones landscape, freed of storytelling ele Sculpture
ments, becomes the subject and should be appreciated Michelangelos sculptures, just like his paintings,
S on its own terms. helped to define High Renaissance style. An early
N Titians paintings were prized not only for their sculpture that helped to inaugurate this style was the
L easy grace and natural lightingcharacteristics of Piet executed when he was twenty-one (Figure 13.19).
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Figure 13.18 Parmigianino. Madonna with the Long Neck. 15341540.
Oil on panel, 71 44. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. This Madonna by
Parmigianino is one of the landmark works in the mannerist style. Ignoring
classical ideals, Parmigianino exaggerates the Virgins body proportions,
especially the slender hands and long neck, and elongates the body of the
sleeping Jesus. This anticlassical portrait was greatly at odds with the
prevailing High Renaissance image of the Madonna established by Raphael.

The touching subject of the PietMary holding the


body of the dead Christstruck a responsive chord in
Michelangelo, for he created several variations on the
Piet theme during his lifetime.
The first Piet, executed in 14981499, about the
same time as Leonardos Last Supper, shows Michel
angelo already at the height of his creative powers. He
has captured completely a bewildering sense of loss
in his quiet rendering of Marys suffering. Everything
about the sculpture reinforces the somber subject: the
superb modeling of Jesuss dead body, with its heavy
head and dangling legs; Marys outstretched gown,
which serves as a shroud; and Marys body, burdened
by the weight of her son. Like some ancient funeral
monument, which the Piet brings to mind, this sculp
ture of Mary and Jesus overwhelms the viewer with
its sorrowful but serene mood.
In 1501, two years after finishing the Piet, Michelan
gelo was given the commission by the city of Florence

Figure 13.19 Michelangelo. Piet.


14981499. Marble, ht. 581/2. St. Peters,
the Vatican. This Piet is the only one of
Michelangelos sculptures to be signed. Initially,
it was exhibited without a signature, but,
according to a legend, when Michelangelo
overheard spectators attributing the statue to a S
rival sculptor, he carved his signature into the N
marble strap that crosses Marys chest. L
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346 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE HIgH RENAISSANCE ANd EARLy MANNERISM

SLICE OF LIFE
Artists and Their Critics: Michelangelos Strategy

giorgio Vasari
FROM LIFE OF MICHELANGELO
Medieval artists were guild members, that is, skilled justice. He began work on the statue in the office of
craftspeople with little social status. In the following vi- Works of Santa Maria del Fiore, erecting a partition of
gnette, Michelangelo is portrayed as one of a new breed: planks and trestles around the marble; and working
a proud Renaissance artist, ready to take on critics, even on it continuously he brought it to perfect completion,
the head of the Florentine republic. The vignettes author, without letting anyone see it. . . .
Giorgio Vasari (15111574), who studied painting with When he saw the david in place Piero Soderini
Michelangelo, is known today primarily as a biographer was delighted; but while Michelangelo was retouch
of Renaissance artists. ing it he remarked that he thought the nose was too
thick. Michelangelo, noticing that [Soderini] was
Some of his [Michelangelos] friends wrote to him standing beneath the giant and that from where he
from Florence urging him to return there as it seemed was he could not see the figure properly, to satisfy him
very probable that he would be able to obtain the block climbed on the scaffolding by the shoulders, seized
of marble that was standing in the office of Works. . . . hold of a chisel in his left hand, together with some of
The marble was eighteen feet high, but unfortunately the marble dust lying on the planks, and as he tapped
an artist . . . had started to carve a giant figure, and lightly with the chisel let the dust fall little by little,
had bungled the work so badly that he had hacked a without altering anything. Then he looked down at
hole between the legs and left the block completely [Soderini], who had stopped to watch, and said:
botched and misshapen. So the wardens of Santa Now look at it.
Maria del Fiore (who were in charge of the undertak Ah, thats much better, replied Soderini. Now
ing) threw the block aside and it stayed abandoned for youve really brought it to life.
many years. . . . However, Michelangelo measured it And then Michelangelo climbed down, feeling
again and calculated whether he could carve a satis sorry for those critics who talk nonsense in the hope
factory figure from the block by accommodating its of appearing well informed.
attitude to the shape of the stone. Then he made up
his mind to ask for it. Piero Soderini [the elected head
of the Florentine republic] and the wardens decided Interpreting This Slice of Life
that they would let him have it, as being something 1. Why was Michelangelo eager to work on this block
of little value, and telling themselves that since the of marble?
stone was of no use to their building, either botched 2. What does this story reveal about the character of
as it was or broken up, whatever Michelangelo made Michelangelo?
would be worthwhile. So Michelangelo made a wax
3. What trick did Michelangelo play on Soderini?
model of the young david with a sling in his hand;
this was intended as a symbol of liberty for the Palace, 4. Speculate as to the motive behind Michelangelos
signifying that just as david had protected his people behavior.
and governed them justly, so whoever ruled Florence 5. Do artists today show some of the same traits as
should vigorously defend the city and govern it with those of Michelangelo in this piece? Explain.

for the sculpture that is generally recognized as his adopted the statue as its civic symbol, placing the
supreme masterpiece, the David (Figure 13.20). He was work in the open square before the Palazzo Vecchio,
eager for this commission because it allowed him to the town hall. damage to the statue through weather
test himself against other great sculptors who had ing and local unrest caused the civic leaders eventu
tackled this subject, such as donatello in the early ally to house Michelangelos most famous sculpture
Renaissance (see Figure 12.13). Moreover, Michelan indoors, where it remains today.
gelo, a great Florentine patriot, identified david with Michelangelos David, rather than imitating dona
S the aggressive spirit of his native city. His David was tellos partly clothed and somewhat effete version,
N instantly successful, and the republic of Florence portrays the young Jewish warrior as a nude, classical
L
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FRoM HIgH RENAISSANCE To EARLy MANNERISM 347

Figure 13.20 MiChelangelo. David.


15011504. Marble, ht. 143. Accademia,
Florence. Michelangelos colossal David
standing more than 14 feet tallcaptures the
balanced ideal of High Renaissance art. The
closed right side with its tensed hanging
arm echoes the right leg, which supports the
figures weight; in the same way, the open
left side with its bent arm is the precise
counterpart of the flexed left leg. Further
tension arises from the contrast between
Davids steady stare and the readiness of the
right fist, which holds the stone. Through these
means, Michelangelo reinforces the image of
a young man wavering between thought and
action.

S
N
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348 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

Figure 13.21 Michelangelo. Piet. Before 1555. Marble, ht. 78.


Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. The rage that seemed to infuse
Michelangelos mannerist vision in The Last Judgment appears purged
in this Pietthe work he was finishing when he died at the age of
eighty-eight. Mannerist distortions are still present, particularly in the
twisted body of the dead Christ and the implied downward motion of
the entire ensemble. But the gentle faces suggest that serenity has been
restored to Michelangelos art.

Michelangelos later sculpture is mannerist in style,


as are his later paintings. A second Pietwith Christ,
Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Joseph of Arimathea
shows the change in his depiction of the human form
(Figure 13.21). In this somber group, Michelangelos
anticlassical spirit is paramount. Jesuss body is elon
gated and unnaturally twisted in death; the other
figures, with great difficulty, struggle to support Je
suss dead weight. But rather than detracting from
the sculptures impact, the awkward body adds to the
scenes emotional interestan aim of mannerist art,
which did not trust the viewer to respond to more or
derly images. Joseph, the rich man who, according to
the Gospel, donated his own tomb to Jesus, has Michel
angelos facea face that is more a death mask than a
human countenance.

Architecture
The architectural heir to Alberti in the early sixteenth
century was Donato Bramante [brah-MAHN-tay]
(14441514), who became the moving force behind the
High Renaissance in architecture. Trained as a painter,
Bramante rejected the reigning building style, called
scenographic, in which buildings are composed of
discrete, separate units. Instead, by concentrating on
space and volume, Bramante created an architecture
that was unified in all its components and that fol
lowed the rules of the classical orders.
The clearest surviving expression of Bramantes ar
chitectural genius is the Tempietto, or little temple, in
hero. Taking a damaged and abandoned block of mar Rome (Figure 13.22). This small structure was designed
ble, Michelangelo carved the colossal David as a mus both as a church, seating ten worshipers, and as a
cular adolescent with his weight gracefully balanced building marking the site of the martyrdom of St. Peter.
on the right leg, in classical contrapposto. The David Copied from the circular temples of ancient Rome, this
perfectly represents Michelangelos conception of small domed building became the prototype of the cen
sculpture; imagining a human figure imprisoned in tral plan church popularized in the High Renaissance
side marble, he simply used his chisel to set it free. and later.
Michelangelo also made minor deviations from Bramantes design for the Tempietto sprang from
classical principles in his rendition of David in the ancient classical principles. Foremost was his belief
name of higher ideals, just as ancient artists had done. that architecture should appeal to human reason and
Davids large hands, for example, are outside classical that a building should present a severe appearance,
proportions and suggest a youth who has yet to grow not seek to please through specially planned effects.
to his potential. And Davids furrowed brow violates Bramante also thought that a building should be uni
S the classical ideal of serene faces but reflects his in fied like a piece of sculpture and that ornamentation
N tense concentration. should be restricted to a few architectural details.
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 349

Figure 13.22 Bramante. Tempietto.


After 1502. Marble, ht. 46; diameter of
colonnade 29. San Pietro in Montorio,
Rome. Bramantes Tempietto is the earliest
surviving High Renaissance building and an
exquisite example of this style. Fashioned from
pure classical forms, the building is almost
devoid of decoration except for architectural
features, and the separate partsdome,
cylindrical drum, and baseare brought into
a harmonious whole.

In accordance with this artistic credo, the Tem Michelangelos sculptural approach to architecture
pietto functions like a work of sculpture; it is raised was similar to Bramantes. To integrate the dome with
on a pedestal with steps leading up to its colonnaded the rest of St. Peters, Michelangelo used double Corin
porch. In the absence of sculptural decorations, the thian columns as a unifying agent. Because the facade
temples exterior is accented with architectural details: was altered in the 1600s, Michelangelos dome is best
the columns; the balustrade, or rail with supporting observed from the southwest (Figure 13.23). Begin
posts; and the dome with barely visible ribs. The pro ning at ground level, the Corinthian order serves as
portions of its various features, such as the ratio of col an artistic feature that gives harmony to the building.
umn widths to column heights, were based on ancient Sometimes as columns, sometimes as pilasters, and
mathematical formulas. Unfortunately, the plan to in sometimes as ribs, the double Corinthian units move
tegrate the small temple into a circular courtyard of a up the walls, eventually up the domes drum, and up
nearby church was never completedthus deviating the dome itself.
from the classical rule that buildings should relate to St. Peters plan shows that Michelangelo the archi
their surrounding space. Despite the absence of this tect differed from Michelangelo the painter and sculp
crowning touch, the Tempietto is one of the jewels of tor. In painting and sculpture, he had by the 1530s
the High Renaissance. become a mannerist in his use of exaggeration and ex
Bramante had been commissioned by Pope Julius II pressive effects. But in architecture, he stayed faithful
to rebuild St. Peters Basilica, the worlds most famous to the High Renaissance and its ideal of harmonious
church, but he died before his plans could be carried design.
out. The supervision of the rebuilding of the church The preeminent architect of the mannerist style
fell to other architects; eventually Michelangelo, at the was Andrea di Pietro (15081580), known as Palladio
age of seventy-one, was given this vital task. From 1546 [pah-LAHD-yo], whose base was Vicenza, in northern
until his death in 1564, Michelangelo, among his other Italy. The name Palladio derives from Pallas, a name
artistic duties, was occupied with St. Peters, especially for Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Palladios artistic
with the construction of the dome. Although the dome creed was rooted in classicism, but his forte was the
was completed after his death and slightly modified, richly inventive way in which he arranged the classi
it remains Michelangelos outstanding architectural cal elements of a building to guarantee surprise. He S
monument and a splendid climax to his career. played with the effects of light and shadow, adding N
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350 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The High Renaissance and Early Mannerism

Figure 13.23 Michelangelo. Dome of


St. Peters. View from the southwest.
15461564. (Completed by Giacomo della
Porta, 1590.) Ht. of dome 452. Rome. Its
harmonious design and its reliance on classical
forms made Michelangelos dome an object of
universal admiration when it was completed in
1590, after his death. From then to the present
day, other architects have used his dome as a
model, hoping to reproduce its classical spirit.

feature on top of feature, to create buildings that pos the English-speaking world. English aristocrats in the
sess infinite variety in the midst of a certain decora 1700s commissioned country houses built on Palladian
tive solemnity. principles, as did plantation owners in Americas ante
Palladios most influential domestic design was the bellum South.
Villa Capra, more commonly called the Villa Rotonda
because of its central circular area and covering dome
(Figure 13.24). Inspired by ancient Roman farmhouses, Music
the Villa Rotonda is a sixteenth-century country house No radical break separates High Renaissance music
built of brick and faced with stucco and located on a from the music of the early Renaissance.
rise overlooking Vicenza. A dome provides a central
axis from which four symmetrical wings radiate. Choral Music Josquin des Prez, the leading com
Each of the four wings in turn opens to the outdoors poser of the dominant Franco-Netherlandish school,
through an Ionic-style porch raised on a pedestal. The had previously brought to a climax the early Renais
porticoes, or covered porches supported by columns, sance style while he was employed in Italy by the
then lead to the ground level through deeply recessed popes and the local aristocrats (see Chapter 12). His
stairways. Statues stand on the corners and peak of sixteenth-century pieces, which consist chiefly of reli
each of the four pediments, and others flank the four gious Masses and motets along with secular chansons,
stairways. or songs, simply heightened the ideal already pres
Palladios mannerist spirit can be seen at work in ent in his earlier works: a sweet sound produced by
the design of the Villa Rotonda. Although the coldly multiple voices, usually two to six, singing a cappella
formal porches are classical in appearance, no Greek and expressing the feelings described in the text. De
or Roman temple would have had four such identical spite his interest in musics emotional power, Josquin
porches, one on each side of the building (Figure13.25). continued to subordinate the song to the wordsthus
Palladios design incorporates the unexpected and the reflecting the needs of the church, the foremost patron
contradictory within an apparently classical structure. of the age. The clearly sung texts also show the clas
Besides designing buildings, Palladio wrote the sical restraint of his High Renaissance style. A strik
treatise Quattro libri dellarchitettura, or The Four Books of ing feature of this style was the rich multichoral effect
S Architecture. This work, in English translation, gained produced when the singers were subdivided into var
N wide currency and led to the vogue of Palladianism in ied groups of voices.
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From High Renaissance to Early Mannerism 351

Figure 13.24 Palladio. Villa Rotonda (Villa Capra). Begun 1550.


(Completed in about 1592 by Vincenzo Scamozzi [15481616].)
Ht. of dome 70; villa 80 square. Vicenza. Despite its classical elements,
the Villa Rotonda is a mannerist building. Unlike High Renaissance buildings,
which were designed to be integrated with their settings, this boxlike
country house stands in an antagonistic relationship to its surrounding
garden space. Furthermore, the mannerist principle of elongation is
apparent in its four long stairways. But the Villa Rotondas most striking
mannerist feature is the surprise inherent in a plan that includes four
identical porches.

Experimentation with choral effects was carried into


the next generation by Adrian Willaert [VIL-art] (about
14901562), a member of the Franco-Netherlandish
school and a disciple of Josquins. After the latters
death, Willaert became Europes most influential com
poser. Appointed the chapel master of the cathedral of
St. Marks in Venice, Willaert is considered the founder
of the Venetian school of music. Taking advantage of
St. Marks two organs and the Venetian practice of
blending instruments with voices, he wrote music for
two choirs as well. By various musical techniques,
such as alternating and combining voices, contrasting
soft and loud, and arranging echo effects, Willaert cre
ated beautiful and expressive sounds that were the an Figure 13.25 Palladio. Floor Plan of the Villa Rotonda. Palladio
cestor of the splendid church concertos of the baroque designed the Villa Rotonda to further the social ambitions of its wealthy
era. A benefit of Willaerts innovations was that the or Venetian owner, making its most prominent interior feature a central
gan was released from its dependence on vocal music. circular area, an ideal space for concerts, parties, and other gatherings.
He surrounded this space with four identically shaped sets of rooms on
Missa Christus resurgens (Mass, the Risen Christ, about two levelsto house family and guests. Passageways led to the four
1536), composed for four voices, shows Willaerts beau porches, where residents could obtain relief from the summers heat S
tifully expressive style. Based on a short polyphonic and enjoy diverting views of the countryside. N
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352 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE HIgH RENAISSANCE ANd EARLy MANNERISM

work by the FrancoFlemish composer Jean Richafort


(about 14801547), Willaerts Mass creates an appealing
tapestry of sound, using melismas and imitation, but
ensuring faultless understanding of the textthe es
sence of modern sacred polyphony, his legacy. The
short Agnus dei (Lamb of god) begins with all four
voices forming an evershifting ground, from which
the tenor voice emerges, soaring above the rest, giving
an ethereal sound and acting as a musical metaphor for
Christs rebirth.

Other Developments Instrumental music still played


a secondary role to the human voice. However, Josquin
and Willaert composed a few pieces for specific instru
ments, either transposing melodies originally intended
for singers or adapting musical forms from dance tunes.
Another important step forward occurred with the
birth of the violin, an instrument with strings and
a bow, which evolved from the Arabic rebec and the
medieval fiddle and its Italian cousin (Figure 13.26).
By 1600, Italian artisans had fixed the violins basic
size and shape, but the number of strings continued
to vary for decades. The tradition of making violins
of great distinction began with Andrea Amati (about
15201578), who founded a workshop in Cremona in
the midsixteenth century. Antonio Stradivari (about
16441737) and Andrea guarneri (about 16261698),
two of the most famous violin makers in history, were
apprentices of Niccol Amati (15961684), Andreas
grandson. Antonio Stradivari brought violin making
to its highest level of perfection, building 540 violins
along with many other string instruments. Today, a
Figure 13.26 gioVanni di l utero, K noWn aS doSSo doSSi. Apollo and Stradivari violin is considered one of the most pre
Daphne. Ca. 1538. Oil on canvas, 62 39. Galleria Borghese, cious musical instruments in the world.
Rome. Dosso Dossi (about 14901542) painted many allegorical and A further development, holding great future prom
mythological scenes. His sense of color and understanding of light
adapted from the Venetian art of Giorgione and Titianadded to the ise, was the invention of the consort, a set of musical
magic and fantasy of his works. In this painting, Apollo, the patron instruments in the same family, ranging from the low
of poetry and music and leader of the Muses, is placed in the foreground, bass to the high treble, initially made up of either re
while Daphne, whom he constantly chased, is in the middle ground, fleeing corders or viols. The consort represented the principle
from her pursuer. An Italian city, perhaps Bologna (identified by its Twin of the mixed instrumental ensemble, and from this
Towers), fills in the background. Apollo, rather than playing the lyre, an
ancient Greek string instrument, is holding a violin. This painting may be start would emerge the orchestra. And, when human
one of the first to feature the violin, since the violin did not appear until voices were added to the mixture, the conditions were
about 1510. ripe for opera.

SUMMARY
The High Renaissance and early mannerism flour remained stuck in the past with each of its vast territo
ished at the dawn of the modern world. ries governed according to local custom. Economically,
Politically, France, Spain, and England gradually demographic changes, rising prosperity, and techno
gave up feudal trappings to become the first modern, logical innovation triggered a wave of globalization,
S centralized nationstates, while the Hapsburg Empire as Portugal, followed by Spain, England, France, and
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KEy CULTURAL TERMS 353

the Netherlands, jockeyed to initiate contacts with non balance, proportion, and restraint. And the great Mi
Western peoples. Socially, two contradictory trends chelangelo pioneered early mannerisma variant of
emerged: the code of courtesy at the Italian courts, the High Renaissance stylein which classical forms
which created the social ideal of the gentleman and the were given exaggerated poses, odd perspectives, and
lady; and the idea of individualism, to be celebrated in a dash of playfulness. In philosophy, the mannerist
public and private life. thinker Machiavelli founded modern political thought,
Culturally, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael based on his bleak view of human nature.
perfected the High Renaissance style with its values of

The Legacy of the High Renaissance and Early Mannerism


The notion of nationstatehood evolved from being a franchise of comics, television, video games, clothing,
European ideal to becoming a political force across the toys, and other merchandise. In 2011, Mattel, the toy
globe, inspiring to this day both reform (currently 193 maker, introduced the Mona Lisa Barbie doll, in hom
states comprise the United Nations) and revolution age to Leonardo.
(the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East). Finally, the great Florentine writer, Machiavelli, in
The wave of globalization, launched during this spired later thinkers to invent other models of good
period, led to our interconnected twentyfirstcentury governmenta staple of the academic discipline, po
world. The code of courtesy was adopted by Europes litical science. And, in 2008, Machiavellis ideas were
elite and eventually trickled down to the Wests middle given a populist spin by the British writer Tim Phil
classes. Concurrently, individualism became a defin lips, who argued that The Prince could serve as a guide
ing theme of Western culture. The living embodiment to todays politics and business culture.
of individualism today is Lady gaga (Stefani Joanne
Angelina germanotta, b. 1986), with her talent for self
celebration. Nevertheless, Miss Manners (Judith Mar
tin, b. 1938)a syndicated columnist in newspapers
and on the Web (http://lifestyle.msn.com)remains a
pervasive force in contemporary culture.
Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael are titanic fig
ures in todays global culture. A newly discovered Leo
nardo painting, Salvador Mundi (Savior of the World) drew
crowds when it was exhibited at Londons National
gallery (2011), while fierce controversy surrounds the
plan in Florence, Italy, to excavate behind a mural
and thus destroy a Renaissance artworkin search of
a lost Leonardo fresco. Michelangelo, the quintessen
tial Renaissance man, has become the gold standard
against whom ambitious artists and humanists have Lady Gaga. Getty Images. Lady Gaga expresses both the truth of Andy
been compared for the past five hundred years. And Warhols famous dictum, that everyone in a media-saturated culture will
Raphael is a beloved figure in his own right, a tribute get fifteen minutes of fame, and the current craze for brandingthat
to his sweet madonnas and his singular mastery of is, to sell oneself as a unique commodity. In this photograph, Lady Gaga,
dressed in a billowing frock, blond wig, and Hollywood shades, is making
the High Renaissance style. In popular culture, these a pitch for her own recordings and, at the same time, drawing in potential
cultural icons are the names of three of the four Teen consumers to Barneys, the Manhattan fashion store, where this media
age Mutant Ninja Turtles (1984present), a mainstream event is taking place.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


High Renaissance madrigal Piet balustrade
mannerism Machiavellianism scenographic consort
civic humanism tondo S
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HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. Erasmus of Rotterdam. Ca. 15231524. Oil on panel, 161/2 12 5/8.
Louvre, Paris. This sensitive likeness of the great Dutch humanist was painted by one of the
most successful northern Renaissance portraitists, Hans Holbein. The realistic details (including
stage props, such as the wall hanging, open manuscript, and writing implement), warm
colors, and dramatic lighting are typical of Holbeins portraits.
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Northern Humanism, Northern Renaissance,
14
Religious Reformations, and Late Mannerism
15001603

Preview Questions As the High Renaissanceand early mannerism were unfold-


1. How did northern ing in Italy (see Chapter 13), the rest of Europe was being transformed by
humanism differ from three developments: a literary movement, two new artistic styles, and a re-
Italian humanism, and ligious crisis. Northern or Christian humanism, as scholars term the liter-
what are the main ideas
of Erasmus, the most ary movement, was inspired by both the Italian Renaissance, with its love
influential northern of classical studies, and the late medieval tradition of lay piety, with its
humanist? emphasis on simple Christianity. The northern Renaissance style, which
2. What was the northern originated in northern Europe, lasted from 1500 to about 1560. The second
Renaissance, its leading
of the two styles, late mannerism, which flourished mainly in Spain and
ideas, and major
achievements? Italy, endured until about 1600. The religious crisis began in Germany, in

3. What were the 1517, launching the Reformation, the movement that forever shattered the
causes of the religious religious unity of the West and deeply impacted the literary and artistic
reformations in scene (Timeline 14.1). Under siege from religious reformers across north-
sixteenth-century
Europe, and what ern Europe, the Roman Catholic Church struck back in the second half of
enduring changes did the 1500s with the Counter-Reformation. The two hostile groups became
these reformations what are known today as the Protestants, who wanted a complete renova-
bring about in religion
and culture? tion of the church, and the Roman Catholics, who were largely satisfied
with the church as it was. Unable to resolve their religious differences, the
4. What was late
mannerism, and two sides commenced a series of wars that lasted until about 1650.
how was it manifested The life of the Dutch thinker Desiderius Erasmus, the most outspoken
in Spanish and
of the northern humanists, embodies many of the crosscurrents at play in
Venetian painting?
these years. Unhappy as a cleric, Erasmus was granted papal dispensation
to pursue Greek and Latin studies. In his many published works, he stood
by his Christian faith, while calling for a commonsense approach to reli-
gious duties. His willingness to join the growing debate over the churchs
role in human affairs caused him to be identified with the early Protestant
leaders. In the end, he could satisfy neither the rabid reformers nor the
defenders of the status quo and, thus, lost favor with both sides. The Ger-
man artist Hans Holbein the Younger captures Erasmuss humanity and S
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356 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Timeline 14.1 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY


1500 1545 1563 1600

The Reformation
Council of The Counter-
and Founding of the
Trent Reformation
Protestant Order

1509 1517 1521 1533 1540 1564 1586 15921594


Erasmuss Luthers Independent Church of Jesuit order Death of El Grecos Tintorettos
The Praise Ninety-five Lutheran England founded Michelangelo Burial of Last Supper
of Folly Theses churches founded Count Orgaz
1541
founded
1513 Independent 1566 15901610
Drers Knight, Calvinist Bruegels Shakespeares
Death, and churches Wedding Dance plays performed
the Devil founded

intellectual authority in this classically simple portrait, in which he vigorously attacked the churchs abuses
which portrays the Dutch thinker engaged in writing and ridiculed the clergy and theologians. Beneath the
one of his many treatises. In the northern Renaissance, satire, Rabelais affirmed the goodness of human na-
portraits such as this were exchanged by humanists ture and the ability of men and women to lead useful
as tokens of mutual esteem. The choice of Holbein the lives based on reason and common sense. However,
Younger to paint this portrait reflects the fact that both his skepticism and secularism, as well as the ribald
Erasmus and the artist moved in the same world of humor, obscene references, and grotesque escapades
humanism and reform-minded thinkers. of his heroes, put Rabelais well outside the main-
stream of northern humanism.
Another northern humanist outside the main-
NORTHERN HUMANISM stream was Marguerite of Angoulme, queen of Na-
Northern humanism, also known as Christian hu- varre (14921549), sister of King Francis I. Her court
manism, shared some of the aesthetic values of the was a safe haven for Rabelais, Protestant reformers,
High Renaissance: idealism, rationalism, and a deep and other free spirits. Marguerite of Navarreher
love for classical literature. Unlike the Italian human- usual namewas associated with the Heptameron (from
ists, the northern humanists were preoccupied with the Greek word for seven), a collection of seventy
the condition of the church and the wider Christian frankly sexual tales in the style of Boccaccios Decam-
world. These northern thinkers researched and stud- eron (see Chapter 11). Whether or not Marguerite actu-
ied both Christian writings and the Greco-Roman ally wrote these tales is uncertain, although scholars
classics, and their scholarship was meant to further generally agree that the stories were written for the
the cause of ecclesiastical reform. French court. Based on the evidence of the stories, the
Like the lay pietists of the late Middle Ages (see French nobility welcomed outspokenness in sexual
Chapter 11), from whom they drew inspiration, the matters (the tales deal with rape, seductions bordering
northern humanists approached their faith in simple on rape, incest, and trespasses of the sexual and mari-
terms. They taught that any Christian who had a pure tal codes of aristocratic life) and condoned Protestant-
and humble heart could pray directly to God. These like religious views (the villains are often members of
scholars furthered the appeal of this simple creed by monastic orders who are portrayed as gluttons, para-
claiming that it was identical with Christs scriptural sites, and rapists). The social matrix that spawned the
message, which they were discovering in their vernac- Heptameron was northern humanism, a world hostile
ular translations of the New Testament. to the dying ethos of medieval monasticism.
The thinking of some German Christian human- The outstanding figure among the northern
ists was tinged with national feeling and hostility humanistsand possibly among all humanistsis
toward Italian interference in their local religious af- the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus (about
fairs. Their Christian humanism led them to believe 14661536) was fully prepared for the influential role
that by imitating the early churchfreed of corrupt that he played in the Christian humanist movement.
Italian leadersthey could revitalize Christianity and He studied in the pietistic atmosphere of a school run
restore it to its original purpose. by the Brethren and Sistersof the Common Life, where
S A notable French humanist, Franois Rabelais [RAB- he was introduced to the Greek and Roman classics,
N uh-lay] (about 14941553), wrote a five-part satire col- and later completed his education at the University of
L lectively titled The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel Paris. His training was supposed to lead to a church
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THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 357

career, but Erasmus never wore clerical garb or lived THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE
as a priest, although he was ordained. On the contrary,
with the aid of patrons he patiently pursued a writ- While Italy was experiencing the High Renaissance
ing career, enjoying the comforts of a scholarly life. and early mannerism, northern Europe was bursting
He also traveled widely throughout western Europe, with cultural vitality. The cultural scene was affected by
eventually finding a second home in England among events in and outside northern Europe and by the last
the intellectual circle gathered around Sir Thomas phase of the medieval era. The religious upheavalsthe
More, Englands lord chancellor and another well- Reformation and the Counter-Reformationsplit Eu-
known humanist. rope into two camps and triggered wars across the
As a humanist, Erasmus believed in education in Continent and within some of the emerging sovereign
the humanitas tradition advocated by Cicero, empha- states. Late medieval trends, such as Gothic forms
sizing study of the classics and honoring the dignity and mysticism, manifested themselves in art and re-
of the individual. As a Christian, he promoted the ligion, while northern humanism shaped the minds
philosophy of Christ as expressed in the Sermon on and hearts of many thinkers, writers, and artists. The
the Mount and in Jesuss example of a humble and vir- result of the religious and political conflicts and the
tuous life. Erasmus earnestly felt that the church could dissimilar artistic tendencies meant that the northern
reform itself and avoid division by adopting the mod- Renaissancethe term used to describe the culture
erate approach that he advanced. of sixteenth-century northern Europewas a period
Despite a prodigious output of books that include marked by competing styles. By midcentury, however,
treatises, commentaries, collections of proverbs, a early mannerism was encroaching on the ideals of Re-
manual for rulers, and a definitive edition of the Greek naissance painting and literature north of the Alps.
New Testament, Erasmuss fame rests on his most pop-
ular work, The Praise of Folly (1509). This lively book,
Northern Renaissance Thought and Science
filled with learned humor, captures the gentle grace
and good sense of the Christian humanists. Even this The northern Renaissance produced new attitudes for
works Latin title, Encomium Moriae, reflects a light- understanding the world, ranging from analyzing the
hearted spirit, for it is a punning reference to the name characteristics and functions of political institutions
of Sir Thomas Morethe English friend to whom the to analyzing the structure and organization of the hu-
book is dedicated. man body. Jean Bodins analysis of political systems
Erasmus pokes fun at the human race by making and Andreas Vesaliuss discoveries about the human
his mouthpiece a personified Follyan imaginary cre- body, while seemingly unrelated, were indications of
ation who symbolizes human foolishness. In a series of how the Renaissance was changing Europe. Both men
sermons, Folly ridicules every social group, from schol- were products of the new learning in the universities,
ars and lawyers to priests and cardinals. Erasmuss they shared the Renaissance goal of seeking to under-
satire, especially in its exposure of clerical hypocrisy, stand the worlds of nature and humanity, and they
struck a responsive chord among educated people. But were heavily influenced by the political and religious
with the rapid growth of Protestantism, such cultivated events occurring around them.
criticism got Erasmus into trouble. Roman Catholics
felt betrayed by his mild barbs, and Protestants ac- Jean Bodin Jean Bodin [ZHAHN bo-DAN]
cused him of not being critical enough. In the end, this (15301596), a French political philosopher and au-
mild reformer and gentle scholar sadly witnessed the thor, lived through eight civil and religious wars that
breakup of his beloved church while being denounced threatened to end the monarchy and to divide France
by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. into two religious factions. The Huguenots, or French
For a time, reformation leader Martin Luther had Protestants, who coalesced into a political union com-
hoped for the support of Erasmus in his reforming posed of some of the French nobility and the rising
crusade. But that changed in 1524 when Erasmus as- middle class, fought the Catholic faithful and those
serted, contrary to Luther, that the human will was loyal to the kingsmainly the peasants and the city
free; otherwise, according to Erasmus, the Bible would of Paris. The warscomplicated by royal marriages,
not have urged sinners to repent. Erasmuss argument dynastic rivalries, and shifting allianceslasted from
so enraged Luther that he countered with a tract in about 1562 to 1598.
which he declared that the human will was irrevo- Bodin studied philosophy in Paris and civil law
cably flawed; in Luthers view, only Gods free grace at the University of Toulouse. While teaching at that
could save any man or woman from the fires of hell. university, he came to appreciate and advocate an edu-
So intemperate was Luthers reply that the two schol- cation based on Renaissance humanism. Later, he re-
ars never communicated again. Erasmuss calm voice turned to Paris, where he entered royal government S
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mayhem that characterized this age. and political issues. In 1583 he moved to Laon, where L
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he worked for the municipal government and wrote contributions in the sciences, while Bodin furthered
his tracts on political systems. the study of political science (a term attributed to him).
As a participant in and observer of the periods Vesalius came from a family of physicians who
wars and as a student of history and law, Bodin made served at the court of the Holy Roman emperor. He
it his lifes mission to understand the ideal state, which studied at the elite universities of Europe: Louvain (in
he set forth in his masterpiece, Six Livres de la Rpub- modern Belgium), Paris, and Padua. The Paris years
lique (Six Books of the Commonwealth, or Republic) (1576). were critical, as he learned to dissect human cadav-
According to Bodin, the basic issue in politics is sover- ers and to analyze human bones. At the University of
eignty, that is, the political entity that controls a states Padua, he discovered errors in the teachings of Galen,
internal and external affairs. Sovereignty, he asserted, the renowned Roman physician whose findings in hu-
is absolute and perpetual and resides always in the man anatomy had been the standard in medical train-
office of the monarchy. By claiming sovereignty to be ing for the previous 1,300 years (see Chapter 7).
inalienablecannot be shared, given away, or lost The young Vesalius, convinced that Galens obser-
Bodin, in effect, made an argument for absolute mon- vations were incorrect and that humans and animals
archy. Within the context of absolute monarchy, Bodin do not share the same anatomy, first circulated some
allowed for three different forms of government: the of his classroom drawings. Later, in 1543, he published
rule of one, or monarchy; the rule of the few, or aris- his findings, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (The Seven
tocracy; and the rule of all, or democracy. Monarchs, Books on the Structure of the Human Body) or, as it was
by virtue of being naturally invested with absolute commonly known, Fabrica.
power, might choose those who were the richest and Fabricas detailed and accurate descriptions, espe-
from noble families to participate in governmentthus cially illustrations of the human body, which were
creating an aristocracy. Similarly, monarchs might give based on human dissections, transformed the study
certain rights, including the ability to hold public of- of anatomy (Figure 14.1). At the same time, Vesalius
fice, to all subjectsthus making a democracy. Never- stirred up a fierce controversy among two groups: fel-
theless, in both an aristocracy and a democracy, power low scientists who thought Galen was right; and Cath-
ultimately remained in the hands of the monarch. olic Church officials who believed dissection of human
According to Bodin, the absolute monarch, while not cadavers flouted canon law. By proving Galen wrong,
bound to the civil law, was bound to natural and divine Vesalius did for anatomy what Copernicus did for as-
law, and monarchs who went against those lawssuch tronomy in showing Ptolemy to be in error (see Chap-
as by enslaving a people or seizing subjects property ter 16). Within a short time, Vesaliuss writings were
were tyrannical and should be opposed. Monarchs rule accepted in nearly all European medical schools, and
by divine right, because the Divine is looking out for his work came to influence other sciencesphysiology,
the well-being of humanitytheir lives and their prop- biology, and the study of medicine.
erty. Having witnessed the wars between Huguenots
and Catholics, Bodin concluded that in a monarchy a
uniform religious faith would be best, because it would Northern Renaissance Literature
flourish and this would help ensure peace and har- The sixteenth century was an amazing period in lit-
mony in the state. He concluded that a unity of religion erature, for the vernacular languages now definitively
and of country was the only way for a people to live. showed that they were the equals of Latin as vehicles
Bodin, along with Machiavelli, was one of the first for literary expression. In the High Middle Ages,
political philosophers to focus on the ideal state in the Dante led the way with his Divine Comedy; now, other
modern world. While attacking the last vestiges of the authors writing in the vernacular found their voices.
feudal system that stand in opposition to royal power, Montaigne, writing in French, and Shakespeare, writ-
Bodins book is also forecasting the future debate ing in English, left such a rich legacy that, by common
about the meaning of sovereignty. Over the next two consent, each is revered as the outstanding writer of
centuries, until the Age of Democratic Revolutions his respective tradition.
(see Chapter 18), political thinkers made sovereignty
the central issue, raising questions about who pos- Michel de Montaigne Michel de Montaigne [mee-
sessed it and how best to use it in a civil society. SHEL duh mahn-TAYN] (15331592) balanced a public
career with a life devoted to letters. While serving as a
Andreas Vesalius Andreas Vesalius [va-SAIL-yas] judge and a mayor, he worked on his lifelong project,
(15141564), like Bodin, personified the humanistic which he called Essays. This collection of discursive
traits of the Renaissance. Both observed and analyzed meditations is the autobiography of his mind and is
the world around them, both looked to history for thus representative of the individualistic spirit of the
S guidance, and both offered new ways to understand Renaissance. A self-portrait emerges of a man who
N the human condition. However, Vesalius made his is intellectually curious and fascinated by his own
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THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 359

Figure 14.1 AnDReaS VeSaLIuS. Drawing from De Humani Corporis


Fabrica. 1543. Vesalius wrote, illustrated, and supervised the drawing,
engraving, and printing of the first comprehensive illustrated textbook
on anatomy. The drawings of his dissections were engraved on wooden
blocks and are considered to be some of the finest engraved art of the
sixteenth century. Fabrica exceeded all previous medical texts in its clear
and accurate illustrations, high standard of craftsmanship, and printing,
layout, and organization. Vesalius, following a tradition of Renaissance
anatomical drawings, placed his muscle-men in a landscapewith a
village or classical ruins in the background. He also gave each subject a
classical pose. None of his figures is a cadaver lying on a dissecting table.
By rendering the human body in such settings, Vesalius made it easier
for the viewer to accept what he had done, and, at the same time, these
drawings also demonstrate that even medical illustrations are subject to
the same cultural forces as the rest of a periods creative achievements.

mental processes and personality. He describes his


contradictions, accidental as well as deliberate, though
he writes that his loyalty is always to truth. What keeps
the Essays from falling into sterile self-absorption is
Montaignes firm sense that in revealing himself he is
speaking for others.
But the Essays are more than an early example of
confessional literature. They also constitute, in the
French tradition, the earliest work of moralisme, or
moralism, and the beginning of modern skepticism.
In terms of morality, Montaigne attached little impor-
tance to Christian ethics, since cruelty and barbarism
in the name of religion were justified equally by Prot-
estant and Catholic. His musings reflected Frances
chaotic condition during the religious wars, causing
him to question the Renaissances natural optimism.
Montaigne searched vainly for a moral code that was
centered on a human world and that no one could
deny. In his skeptical outlook, Montaigne rejected the
Renaissance view of humanity as a microcosm of the
universe. Indeed, he claimed that he saw nothing ex-
cept vanity and insignificance in human beings and prevailed in the West since the time of Augustine in
their reasoning. Montaigne, however, avoided total the fifth century (see Chapter 7). Christian scholars
skepticism, for although he denied that humans could had condemned the stage as wicked and immoral.
ever achieve perfect knowledge, he held that practical On occasion, medieval culture had spawned moral-
understanding was possible. ity plays and dramas with biblical themes, but those
edifying works remained primitive in form, with little
William Shakespeare Montaigne wrote during a attention given to language, character, or plot. The
period when religious wars were disrupting France, fifteenth-century play Everyman, for example, was in-
but England at the same time was enjoying a relatively tended mainly to reinforce Christian values and only
calm period of cultural exuberance, the Age of Eliza- incidentally to entertain or to provoke thought. Under
beth. Under Queen Elizabeth I (r. 15581603), London Elizabeth I, many able dramatists began to appear,
rose to an eminence that rivaled that of Florence of such as Thomas Kyd (about 15571595) and Christo-
the early Renaissance. English playwrights rescued pher Marlowe (15641593). These playwrights revolu-
tragedy and comedy from oblivion, and they again tionized drama in a single generation. However, first
became part of popular culture. A secular and com- honors must be given to William Shakespeare, the
mercial theater now emerged, with professional play- greatest dramatist in the English language.
wrights and actors, playhouses, and a ticket-buying Shakespeare (15641616) was born in Stratford-upon-
public (Figures 14.2 and 14.3). Avon, a market-town, and educated in its grammar
The revived popularity of the theater represented school. By 1590 his plays were being performed on the S
a dramatic reversal of a cultural outlook that had London stage, and his active public career continued N
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360 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Figure 14.2 Reconstruction of the Globe Playhouse, 15991613. When the Globe Playhouse of London
was razed in 1644 to make way for new buildings, one of the most significant monuments of Renaissance
England disappeared: the theater where most of Shakespeares plays were first performed. This cutaway
drawing, made by C. W. Hodges, a leading expert on the theaters of the period, attempts to depict the Globe
Playhouse as it appeared in Shakespeares day. As shown in the drawing, the Globe was a sixteen-sided
structure with the stage erected in an open courtyard bounded on three sides by three tiers of seats.

Figure 14.3 The Reconstructed Globe Playhouse. 1996. London.


Spurred by the vision of the American actor Sam Wanamaker, an international
effort resulted in the construction of a modern Globe Playhouse, near
the site of the original theater of Shakespeares time. This theater, which
staged its first performances in August 1996, is true to Elizabethan design
S and construction methods, including wooden nails and thatched roof.
N Performances are staged in the daytime, when weather permitsjust
as they were four centuries ago.
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THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 361

until 1610, when he returned home to Stratford to en- congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a
joy country life. His early retirement reflected the suc- man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty;
cess that he had achieved as an actor, a theater owner, in form and moving how express and admirable,
and a playwright. But he earned undying fame as the in action how like an angel, in apprehension how
ages leading dramatist, mastering the three different like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of
genres of history, comedy, and tragedy. His thirty- animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence
seven dramas constitute his legacy to the world. Just of dust? Man delights not me. (Act 2, Scene 2)
as tragedies ranked higher than comedies in ancient
In its construction, the tragedy of Hamlet is typical of
Greece, so have Shakespeares tragedies enjoyed a rep-
Shakespeares plays. All his dramas were written for
utation superior to that of his other writings. Of the
commercial theater troupes and were not intended es-
eleven tragedies, many are regarded as masterpieces;
pecially for a reading public. Only after Shakespeares
King Lear, Othello, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Romeo
death were his plays published and circulated to a
and Juliet are constantly performed on the stage and
general audience and thus regarded as literature.
often presented in films, in English as well as other
languages. Perhaps the Shakespearean tragedy that
stands above the rest, however, and that is reckoned Northern Renaissance Painting
by many to be his supreme achievement, is Hamlet.
The northern Renaissance emerged during an era of
Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, among the most popu-
cultural crisis. The late Gothic style of the Flemish
lar dramatic forms in the Elizabethan theater. The re-
school was losing its appeal, except for one extraor-
venge play had its own rules, consisting chiefly of a
dinary artist, Hieronymus Bosch. At the same time,
murder that requires a relative of the victim, usually
growing numbers of artists were attracted to the new
with the prompting of a ghost, to avenge the crime by
Italian art, especially to mannerism. In the 1520s, the
the dramas end. The origin of this type of play, with
influence of the Protestant Reformation also began
its characteristic violence and suspense, has been ob-
to become apparent in the arts. Individual tastes and
scured by time, although Senecas Roman tragedies,
styles became important, and secular subjects were
which were known and studied in England, are al-
acceptable, in part because some of the fervent Prot-
most certainly a source.
estants looked on enjoyment of the visual arts as a
The basic plot, characters, and setting of Hamlet are
form of idol worship. They destroyed some paintings,
drawn from a medieval chronicle of evildoings at the
statues, and stained glass that portrayed religious
Danish court. Elizabethan theatergoers had seen an ear-
subjects. The combined influences of mannerism and
lier dramatized version (now lost) before Shakespeares
Protestantism produced three artists of unique stature
play was performed in 16001601. Shakespeare thus
who reflected the turbulent world of post-Lutheran
took a well-known story but stamped it with his own
Europe in quite different ways: Drer, Grnewald,
genius and feeling for character. In its basic conception,
and Bruegel.
Hamlet is a consummate expression of mannerist prin-
ciples. Shakespeare presents Hamlet from shifting per-
Albrecht Drer Albrecht Drer [AHL-brekt DURE-
spectives, preferring ambiguity, rather than portraying
er] (14711528), the son of a goldsmith, pursued a ca-
him from a single vantage point in accordance with the
reer as an engraver and painter. After studying in
classical ideal. By turns, Hamlet veers from madman
Germany, he traveled throughout Italy to absorb the
to scholar to prince to swordsman so that a unified, co-
lessons of Renaissance art. Between 1510 and 1519,
herent personality is never exposed to the audience. Be-
he earned fame for the works that he executed for
cause of his elusive character, Hamlet has become the
the Holy Roman emperor, but he also discovered that
most frequently analyzed and performed of all Shake-
his true artistic talent was engraving, either on wood
speares heroes.
or on metal. The multiple editions of his engravings
Another aspect of this play reminiscent of the
enhanced his reputation, and as a result he received
mannerist aesthetic is the self-disgust that seems to
many commissions throughout Germany and the
rule Hamlets character when he is alone with his
Netherlands. Near the end of his life, Drer became
thoughts. Whereas the High Renaissance reserved its
a Lutheran, and some of his last paintings indicate his
finest praise for the basic dignity of the human being,
new faith.
Hamlet finds little to value in himself, in others, or in
Fully aware of himself and his place in the world,
life. Instead, he offers a contradictory vision:
Drer showed a Renaissance sensibility in intro-
It goes so heavily with my disposition that this spective self-portraits, especially in the famous work
goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile prom- in which he depicts himself as a Christ figure (Fig-
ontory; this most excellent canopy, the air . . . this ure 14.4). In this stunning imagethe intense stare
S
majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it ap- suggests he painted while looking in the mirror
N
pears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent Drer blends a dandified likeness of himself with a
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362 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Figure 14.4 Albrecht Drer. Self-Portrait. 1500. Oil on panel, Figure 14.5 Albrecht Drer. Knight, Death, and the Devil. 1513.
261/4 191/4. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. The northern Renaissance Engraving, approx. 9 5/6 77/12. The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
shared with the Italian Renaissance an emphasis on the individual, as University. Gift of William Gray from the Collection of Francis Calley
shown in this self-portrait by the German artist Albrecht Drerone of Gray. Drers plan for this work probably derived from a manual by
the first artists to make himself the subject of some of his paintings. In Erasmus that advised a Christian prince on the best way to rule. In his
a series of self-portraits, starting at the age of thirteen, he examined his version, Drer portrays the Christian layman who has put on the armor
face and upper torso and rendered them in precise detail, recording his of faith and rides steadfastly, oblivious to the various pitfalls that lie in
passing age and moods. An unusual aspect of Drers self-portrait is that his path. The knight is sometimes identified with Erasmus, whom Drer
it suggests he has taken on the role of artist in much the manner that venerated.
Jesus had taken on the role of Savior.

standard Flemish representation of Christ. Conflating Drers Knight, Death, and the Devil combines late
his artistic self with Jesuss divine power would have Gothic and Renaissance elements to make a disquiet-
been unthinkable before the Renaissance. Neverthe- ing scene. From the northern tradition are derived the
less, Drer incorporated the spirit of the Middle Ages, exquisite details, the grotesque demon, and the var-
for he was also following the tradition of mysticism ied landscape in the background. From Renaissance
in which he saw himself as striving to imitate the ex- sources comes the horse, which Drer copied from
ample of Christ. models seen during his travel in Italy.
Although Drers paintings brought him recogni-
tion and wealth in his day, his engravings constitute his Matthias Grnewald A second major German
greatest artistic legacy. At the time of Luthers revolt, artist in this period is Matthias Grnewald [muh-THI-
Drer engraved the Knight, Death, and the Devil (Fig- uhs GRU-nuh-vahlt] (about 14601528), who was less
ure 14.5). This magnificent engraving shows a knight influenced by Italian art and more northern in his
riding through a forest, ignoring both the taunts of techniques than Drer. His paintings represent a con-
Death, who holds up an hourglass to remind him of tinuation of the late Gothic style rather than a north-
his mortality, and the Devil, who watches nearby. The ern Renaissance tendency.
S knight is probably meant as a symbol of the Christian Grnewalds supreme achievement is the Isenheim
N who has to live in the practical world. Altarpiece, painted for the church of St. Anthony in
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THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 363

Figure 14.6 Matthias Grnewald. The Crucifixion, from the Isenheim Altarpiece. 1515. Oil on panel,
99 1/2 109. Muse dUnterlinden, Colmar, France. Jesuss suffering and death was a central theme
in northern European piety, particularly after the plague of the fourteenth century. Northern artists typically
rendered Christs death in vivid and gory detail. Grnewalds Crucifixion comes out of this tradition; Christs
broken body symbolizes both his sacrificial death and the mortality of all human beings.

Isenheim, Germany. The altarpiece includes nine The swaying bodies of these three figures reinforce
painted panels that can be displayed in three different their anguished faces. One Renaissance feature in this
positions, depending on the church calendar. When Gothic painting is the low horizon line, which shows
the Isenheim Altarpiece is closed, the large central panel Grnewalds knowledge of Italian perspective.
depicts the Crucifixion (Figure 14.6). In crowding the
five figures and the symbolic lamb into the foreground Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch [hi-uh-
and enlarging Christs body, Grnewald followed the RAHN-uh-muhs BOSH] (about 14501516), whose per-
late Gothic style. This style is similarly apparent in sonal life is a mystery, painted works that still puzzle
every detail of Christs tortured, twisted body: the modern experts. Treating common religious subjects
gaping mouth, the exposed teeth, the slumped head, in bizarre and fantastic ways, he earned a reputation
and the torso raked by thorns. And late Gothic emo- even among his contemporaries for being enigmatic.
tionalism is evident in his treatment of the secondary Much of Boschs distinctive art may be explained
figures in this Crucifixion panel. On the right, John by the changes under way in northern Europe. In the
the Baptist points toward Jesus, stressing the mean- late fifteenth century, political upheavals in Burgundy
ing of his sacrificial death. John the Baptists calmness caused aristocratic patronage to decline, and a feeling
contrasts with the grief of the figures on the left, in- of dread, born perhaps of the periodic ravages of the
cluding Mary Magdalene, who kneels at Jesuss feet, plague, stalked the land. In the early sixteenth cen- S
and the apostle John, who supports a swooning Mary. tury, serious religious trouble that would end with N
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364 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Figure 14.7 Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. Ca. 15101515. Oil on wood, center panel
86 5/8 76 3/4; each side panel 865/8 381/4. Prado, Madrid. Careful study of the minute details of this
triptych has uncovered the major sources of Boschs artistic inspirationnamely, medieval folklore, common
proverbs, exotic learning, and sacred beliefs. For example, folklore inspired the ravens and owl (left panel),
traditional emblems of nonbelievers and witchcraft, respectively; the Flemish proverb Good fortune, like glass,
is easily broken is illustrated by the lovemaking couple under the glass globe; allusions to exotic learning may
be seen in the egg shapes (all three panels), symbolic of the world and sex in the pseudoscience of alchemy;
and Christian belief is evident throughout the triptych, but especially in the right panel, showing the punishment
of sinners.

the revolt of Martin Luther was brewing. Influenced of the human race. The center and right panels are
by these forces and also perhaps subjected to his own crowded with tiny figuresmostly human, though
private demons, Bosch created a body of works that some are grotesquely monstrousperforming vari-
defies strict classification in the stylistic sense. ous peculiar acts. Although no scholarly consensus
In his paintings, Bosch seems torn between the exists as to the ultimate meaning of this work, certain
declining late Gothic style and the soon-to-be-born features can be identified and explained.
mannerist style. His addiction to precise detail and his The left panel of Garden of Earthly Delights shows the
frequent use of sweeping landscapes are clear signs of Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve in the foreground,
the debt he owed Flemish art and, in particular, illu- along with the first plants and animals (including nat-
minated manuscripts; but his tendency to endow his ural animals but also weird monsters). Contrary to
works with ambiguous, or even cynical, moral mes- the story in the Bible, Jesus holds Eves hand and intro-
sages foreshadows later Dutch artists, such as Pieter duces her to Adam. Many scholars interpret this panel
Bruegel the Elder. Perhaps the best way to look at as making Eve the source of original sin.
Bosch is as an artist whose originality has placed him The center panelthe focus of the triptychdepicts
outside any historical period. the sins of the flesh in lurid and metaphorical detail.
Of Boschs thirty or more paintings, the best known In the top horizontal band, the waters of the earth
and most controversial is Garden of Earthly Delights, converge to make a fountain, an image that has been
a work in oil on three hingedwood panels, called a identified as a false symbol of human happiness. In
triptych (Figure 14.7). When open, the triptych dis- the middle band, naked young women cavort in a pool
S plays three separate but interrelated scenes, organized while a parade of naked youths riding animalspartly
N around the theme of the creation, fall, and damnation realistic, partly fantasticencircles them. In the lower
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THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 365

band, naked men and women engage in various sex and their energetic partners. Typically, Bruegel adopts
acts or are involved with huge birds, fruits, flowers, or a high horizon and an elevated point of view so that
fish. The diverse images in this central panel symbol- the viewer looks at the scene from above. This effect,
ize Boschs perspective on the human condition: per- along with the crude faces of the peasants, underscores
petual enslavement to the sexual appetite unleashed the impression that these partying folks are types, not
by Adam and Eves first sin. This crowded scene also individuals. The paintings composition reinforces the
includes many black males and black females, an early sense of peasant types in the way that the swirling fig-
instance of nonwhites in Western art. ures in the foreground are repeated in the background
The triptychs right panel is a repulsive vision of in ever-diminishing size.
hell that details the pains human beings must suffer Bruegel is also known for his sixty-one drawings,
for their sins. In this horrific scene, the fiery ruins and which were devoted to either fantastic or naturalistic
grisly instruments of torture proclaim Boschs vision of subjects. About half of the drawings were made as
the futility of life on earth. For the artist, human beings preparations for engravings, and, as such, they estab-
cause their own destruction through wicked desires. lish Bruegel as the heir to the Netherlandish artists
Nowhere in the entire work is there a hint of salvation. who developed the print as a new artistic medium in
A few scholars reject this gloomy view of Boschs the late Middle Ages (see Chapter 11). One of his draw-
message by trying to link the triptych to the beliefs of ings, The Painter and the Connoisseur (Figure 14.8), which
the Adamites, an underground, heretical sect. If their was not intended for printmaking, pioneered a new
interpretation is correct, then the central panel may be subject in art: a satiric view of the relations between
understood as the Adamites unusual vision of para-
dise. Most scholars reject this view, however, and hold
instead that Bosch was a stern moralist, mocking the Figure 14.8 Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Painter and the Connoisseur.
corrupt society of his day. Mid-1560s. Pen and gray-brown ink, with touches of light brown ink,
10 81/2. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. Bruegels drawing
Pieter Bruegel the Elder The life and work of was probably intended as an inside joke about the artistic community, not
Pieter Bruegel [BREW-gul or BROY-gul] the Elder (about as an artwork to be engraved or sold. The painter, with his skullcap and
bushy hair and beard, is depicted as a dreamer, his mind lost in thought as
15251569) indicate the changes underway in northern he stares into the distance. Behind him stands an art expert, who clutches
European art by about 1550. The great German art- the money pouch at his waist and stares in a different direction from that
ists Drer and Grnewald were now dead, and Ger- of the painter.
man art, which had dominated northern Europe in
the early 1500s, was in decline. Protestant iconoclasm
had taken its toll, and the demand for religious art had
markedly diminished. Within this milieu, Bruegel, by
choosing a novel set of artistic subjectslandscapes,
country-life scenes, and folk narrativesbecame the
first truly modern painter in northern Europe. Brue-
gels subjects, rooted in the Flemish tradition, were
often devoid of overt religious content and presented
simply as secular art, although Bruegel painted a
number of pictures on standard religious themes such
as the adoration of the Magi.
Bruegels scenes of peasant life and folk narratives
are his most memorable works. In them, he always
depicted his peasant subjects in their natural settings,
neither romanticizing nor patronizing them. He por-
trayed the common folk as types, never as individuals,
and often as expressions or victims of the blind forces
of nature. His scenes of country weddings and dances
conveyed pessimism tinged with grudging admiration
about human nature, as reflected in the peasants sim-
ple, lusty behavior. Bruegel seemed more inspired by
the timeless attitudes of ordinary folk than by the pre-
vailing intellectual thought of his times. A classic of his
peasant-themed works is the lively Wedding Dance (see
Interpreting Art), a large painting, whose foreground S
is crowded with exuberant revelersfrolicking men N
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Interpreting Art
Composition Social
The high horizon line and
the tilted picture plane
Perspective
A wedding offered respite
create a broad vista for
from the drudgery of
the viewera format that
peasant life. At this outdoor
allowed Bruegel to give
wedding, the peasants
order to this tumultuous
drink, carouse, gossip,
scene.
and dance to the music
of a bagpipe (on the right).
Subject The bride
identifiable by her billowing
hairdances in the
Peasant Life
Bruegel accurately depicts
midforeground with a stoic
peasant dress (men: vests,
partner, the groom. Custom
leggings, codpieces; and
decreed that married
women: bonnets, skirts,
women cover their hair, as
aprons) and houses
have the rest of the women.
(thatched roof, wooden
The brides crown hangs on
cottages).
a sheet in the upper right
background
Humor Comic images
include couples kissing,
Color The somber
a drunken dancer (right
browns of the background
foreground), ceramic pots
suggestive of an autumnal
holding beer, and knives
settingare enlivened by
worn at the mens sides,
rich dashes of colors: reds,
mimicking the swords of
blues, whites, greens, and
noblemen.
blacks.

Pieter brueGel the elder. Wedding Dance. 1566. Oil on panel, 47 62. Detroit Institute of Arts. Bruegel
makes a sensuous arrangement out of the celebrants at this country wedding. The line of dancers and revelers
winds from the foreground back through the trees, where it reverses itself and returns to its original starting point.
The sense of lively movement is reinforced by the vivid red colors in the hats and vests and by the stomping feet
and flailing arms of the dancers.

1. Formal What does it mean that this genre scene is painted 3. Religious Perspective Why is there no evident religious
in a large format? [Hint: Large formats were principally used content to this wedding scene?
for historical paintings.] 4. Composition What ingredients make this a lively painting?
2. Contextual Show how this painting is representative of 5. Cultural Perspective What is Bruegels personal attitude
sixteenth-century Netherlandish life. toward peasant life: mocking or admiring? Explain. [Hint:
Bruegels patrons were almost exclusively Dutch merchants.]

an artist and an art expert. Bruegel depicts the painter that began about 1350 and the timeless spiritual yearn-
as an eccentric visionary, and the connoisseur as a self- ings of human beings. After 1500 these two forces
deluded ignoramus who wears glasses and a ridicu- came together in Germany to make conditions ripe for
lous cap that covers his ears. Other details confirm this religious revolution. What made changes inevitable
negative image of the connoisseur: the hairless face, were several historical trends under way since the late
the nonexistent lips, and the pinched expression. Middle Ages: the corruption inside the church, the be-
ginning of the sovereign state, the decay of medieval
thought, and the revival of humanism.
THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: The church had been in disarray since the Avignon
CAUSES OF THE RELIGIOUS papacy and the Great Schism of the fourteenth cen-
tury; corruption charges, doctrinal issues, and ques-
REFORMATIONS tions about papal authority were raised by heretical
Although the reasons for the breakup of Europes reli- groups like the Hussites (see Chapter 11). Many clergy
S gious unity are complicated, two basic causes are clear: led less than exemplary lives, particularly those in-
N the radical reshaping of Western society and culture side the monasteries. Lay writers, now unafraid of the
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THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: CAUSES OF THE RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS 367

Learning Through Maps


NORWAY
Roman Catholic Calvinist and Reformed Oslo
Lutheran Anglican Stockholm
SCOTLAND
North

Sea
Approximate extent of the revolt from the Roman church SWEDEN
Sea

tic
Edinburgh
N ort h DENMARK

al
Durham Copenhagen

B
IRELAND S ea
Dublin
Danzig
Hamburg LITHUANIA
ENGLAND NETHERLANDS
London Berlin Warsaw
Amsterdam
Canterbury HESSE Wittenberg
Brussels POLAND
AT L A N T I C Cologne SAXONY
Prague Cracow
Paris Worms
OCEAN BOHEMIA
Speyer
Strasbourg GREEK ORTHODOX
BAVARIA
Nantes SWITZERLAND
FRANCE AUSTRIA
Zurich Trent
Bordeaux Geneva
Milan HUNGARY
Genoa
Bologna MUSLIMS Sea
Marseilles ack
Florence Bl
SPAIN Ad
Madrid CORSICA ria

O
PORTUGAL tic T

T
Rome GREEK O
Toledo Se ORTHODOX M
a AN
Lisbon Naples EM MUSLIMS
SARDINIA PIR
E
Seville
Granada Mediterrane
a n S Palermo
ea
0 250 500 mi SICILY
0 500 1000 km

MAP
MHS6314.1
445 THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN EUROPE IN 1560
mat76620_m1301.eps
This map shows the religious divisions in Europe in the middle of the sixteenth century. 1. Notice the line that separates Protestant Europe from Catholic
First proof
Europe. 2. Which of the two areas is larger? 3. Identify the three major Protestant religions and their locations. 4. Which Protestant religion covered the
largest land area? 5. What region was the most likely battleground between Protestants and Catholics? 6. Which area of Charles Vs empire (see Map 13.1)
was most affected by the Protestant Reformation, as seen in this map?

church, delighted in describing clerical scandals, and ism and hatred of Rome. The German princes, already
the populace gossiped about their priests latest sins. struggling to be free from the control of Charles V,
Everywhere anticlericalism seemed on the rise. made church reform a rallying cry and turned against
Perhaps the church could have reformed the clergy Rome as well as the Holy Roman emperor. As events
and stemmed the tide of anticlericalism if the papacy unfolded, the popes were incapable of preventing these
had been morally and politically strong, but by 1500 princes from converting their lands into independent
the popes were deeply distracted by Italian politics states outside papal jurisdiction (Map 14.1).
and fully committed to worldly interests. The church
was also losing power to secular rulers, who were
striving to bring their subjects under state control. The Protestant Order
By 1500 the English and the French kings, to the envy Protestantism first appeared in Germany, where Mar-
of other European rulers, had made their national tin Luther led the founding of a new religious sect in
churches relatively free of papal control. the 1520s. In the 1530s a second generation of Prot-
In Germany, however, where no unified kingdom estants acted on the opportunity created by Luther.
was developing, the local secular leaders had no say John Calvin, a French scholar, formed an independent
about clerical appointments and were unable to control church in Geneva, Switzerland, and King Henry VIII
the ecclesiastical courts or prevent the church from col- removed the English church from the popes control S
lecting taxesconditions that intensified anticlerical- (see Timeline 14.1). N
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368 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Luthers Revolt One of the churchs more glaring munication in public, the church branded him a her-
abuses was the selling of indulgencespardons that etic and an outlaw. Luther survived because he was
reduced the amount of penance that Christians had to under the protection of his patron, Elector Frederick
perform to atone for their sinsa practice that dated the Wise of Saxony (r. 14861525), who had led the
from the High Middle Ages. In 1517, in response to German princes opposed to the Holy Roman emperor
the archbishop of Mainzs sale of indulgences to raise (Figure 14.10).
money, Martin Luther (14831546), a monk teaching at
nearby Wittenberg University, published his famous Luthers Beliefs Luthers attack on indulgences arose
Ninety-five Theses (Figure 14.9). These questions and from his spiritual quest to understand sin and salva-
arguments about the legitimacy of indulgences implic- tion that had led him to become a monk. Through
itly challenged the sacraments of confession and pen- long study of the scriptures, he reached the under-
ance and the authority of the pope. Luther had hoped standing that salvation comes not from good works
to arouse a debate in the university, but instead he ig- but from Gods unmerited love, or grace, or, as Luther
nited criticism against the church and placed himself phrased it, justification by faith alone. According to
in the vanguard of a reform movement. Luther, salvation is achieved by faith in Jesuss sacrifi-
The churchs response to Luther was initially hesi- cial death; thus, buying indulgences is trying to buy
tant, but in 1520 Pope Leo X excommunicated him. salvationa direct contradiction of the biblical truth
When Luther burned the papal document of excom- Luther had gleaned from his theological studies.
In his theology, which became known as Luther-
anism, he tried to revive a Christianity based on bib-
lical precedents and reminiscent of the early church.
Figure 14.9 Lucas Cranach the Elder. Martin Luther. 1533. Panel,
He believed that the sole source of religious author-
8 5 3/4. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden. This portrait
of Martin Luther, with its vivid rendering of his steel jaw and piercing ity was the Bible, not the pope or church councils, and
eyes, shows some of the qualities that made him such a force during that any Christian could lead a simple life of piety and
the Reformation. The admiring likeness was done by the German artist repentance, could be his or her own priest and, thus,
Lucas Cranach, a supporter of the new faith and a close friend of Luthers.
At the time of this painting, the Reformation was well under way.

Figure 14.10 Albrecht Drer. Elector Frederick the Wise. 1524.


Copper engraving, 73/8 4 3/4. Print collection, Miriam and Ira D.
Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, The New York
Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. Drers portrait
captures the princely bearing of Frederick the Wise, the ruler of Electoral
Saxony and Luthers great patron. Ironically, Frederick owned one of the
largest collections of relics in Christendom. It has been estimated that the
17,443 artifacts in Fredericks collection in 1518 could reduce the time in
purgatory by 127,799 years and 116 days.

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THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: CAUSES OF THE RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS 369

could mediate with God, without the need of a priest.


Luther also repudiated the mystical definition of the
sacraments, the notion of purgatory, the adoration of
the saints, and Masses for the dead; he retained only
baptism and the Lords Supper, as he called the Eu-
charist. Preaching in German became the heart of the
liturgy, replacing the Latin Mass.
Luthers voluminous writings constitute the largest
legacy of any German author. Of all his tracts, essays,
and letters, his German translation of the Bible has had
the most enduring influence. His biblical scholarship
was based on translating the original languages of the
scriptures, the technique that had been developed by
the northern humanists, particularly Erasmus. Luther
also set the path followed by subsequent Protestant re-
formers regarding what books to include in the Bible:
rejecting the Apocrypha of the Jewish Septuagint, he
chose the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible, or Old
Testament, and the New Testament. Luthers version
of the Bible outlived its competitors (nineteen by 1518)
and left its stamp on the German language. His pithy
style engaged the readers emotions with realistic im-
ages and idiomatic speech.

Social and Political Implications of Luthers Revolt


The Ninety-five Theses circulated widely throughout
Germany, and in 1521 Lutheran churches sprang up in
most German towns. Simultaneously, radical follow-
ers of Luther fomented new problems, causing riots,
driving priests from their homes, closing monasteries,
and destroying religious images. Luther rejected this
violence and advocated moderation. He did accept
the abolition of monasticism, however, dropping the
monks habit in 1523 and marrying Katherine von Bora
(14991552), a former nun, in 1525 (Figure 14.11). When
he and Katherine had children, they created a familial
tradition for Lutheran clergy. Lutheran women thus
seemed to make gains with the closing of convents
Figure 14.11 Workshop of Lucas Cranach. Katherine von Bora. Ca. 1526.
and the giving of new respectability to married life, Oil on panel, 71/2 5. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany.
but these steps proved illusory, since Luther affirmed Katherine von Bora was one of a dozen nuns liberated from a convent near
male rule and female submission within the family. Wittenberg in the heady days of 1523. She joined the mixed collection who
Another area altered by Luthers beliefs was educa- lived with Luther in the Black Cloisters, his old monastery given him by
Frederick the Wise. Despite Luthers protests, she determined to become his
tion. His supporters set up schools and universities,
wife, and she did. He treated her with great deference, calling her My lord
replacing Catholic foundations. Unlike church-run Kate, though he poked fun at her supposed greed for property. This small
Catholic schools, the Lutheran schools were financed portrait was executed in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, who was
by taxes, so that teachers became state employees also a witness to the marriage of Martin Luther and Katherine von Bora.
a reflection of Luthers belief that church and state
should work hand in hand. For Lutheran women, the
changes in education created a dilemma: women were suppression by the nobility, clearly showing his pref-
denied access to these schools, but they were expected erence for the status quo. His reliance on Saxonys
to know the Bible, in order to supervise their childrens rulers for protection set the model for his religion; in
moral education. the Lutheran faith, the church acted as an arm of the
Luther distanced himself from the antigovern- state. Luthers revolt did not embrace individual rights
ment political and social reforms espoused by some in the political or social arena; indeed, the Protestant
followers. In 1523 a brief Peasants War erupted un- princes were more powerful than their predecessors, S
der the banner of Luthers faith, but Luther urged its since Rome could not control them. N
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370 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

SLICE OF LIFE

Bartolom de las Casas


A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES
Bartolom de las Casas (14841576), a Dominican friar, request was that they should bring with them five or
was an eyewitness to Spains quest for empire. Outraged six thousand native bearers and these were mustered
by massacres committed in the 1502 conquest of Cuba, in the courtyards when and as they arrived. One could
he denounced Spains entire overseas mission as mis- not watch these poor wretches getting ready to carry
guided and even genocidal, in A Short Account of the the Spaniards packs without taking pity on them,
Destruction of the Indies (1542). By Indies, he meant stark naked as they were with only their modesty hid-
the Indian lands in the New World. In his book, las Casas den from view, each with a kind of little net on his
called for justice for indigenous peoples. shoulders in which he carried his own modest store
of provisions. They all got down on their haunches
New Spain [modern Mexico] was discovered in 1517 and waited patiently like sheep. Once they were all
and . . . great atrocities were committed against the in- safely inside the courtyard, . . . armed guards took up
digenous people of the region. . . . In 1518 the so-called positions covering the exits and Spanish soldiers un-
Christians set about stealing from the people and sheathed their swords and grasped their lances and
murdering them on the pretence of settling the area. proceeded to slaughter these poor innocents. Not a
And from that year until this . . . [1542] . . . the great single soul escaped. . . . The Spanish commander gave
iniquities and injustices, the outrageous acts of vio- orders that the leading citizens, who numbered over a
lence and the bloody tyranny of these Christians have hundred and were roped together, were to be tied to
steadily escalated, the perpetrators having lost all fear stakes set in the ground and burned alive.
of God, all love of their sovereign, and all sense of self-
respect. . . . This was . . . the pattern they followed . . . : Interpreting This Slice of Life
to stage a bloody massacre of the most public possi- 1. What is las Casass description of the indigenous
ble kind in order to terrorize those meek and gentle people?
peoples. . . . They requested the local lord to send for
2. What is his attitude toward the Spanish invaders?
all the nobles and leading citizens of the city and of
all the surrounding communities subject to it and, as 3. What appears to be las Casass motives for writing?
soon as they arrived and entered the building to begin Justify your answer.
talks with the Spanish commander [Hernn Corts 4. Why do you think las Casass call for justice went
(14851546)], they were seized without anyone outside largely unheeded in his lifetime?
getting wind of what was afoot. Part of the original

The Reforms of John Calvin Among the second God, which led him to make predestination (the be-
generation of Protestant reformers, the most influential lief that God predestines certain souls to salvation and
was John Calvin (15091564) (Figure 14.12). After earn- others to damnation) central to his faith. Calvin also
ing a law degree in Paris, he experienced a religious espoused a theocratic state in which the government
conversion and cast his lot with the Reformation. Com- was subordinate to the church. He favored strict ethi-
ing under the suspicion of the French authorities, he cal demands, regulating everything from laughter in
fled to Basel, Switzerland, a Lutheran center, where he church to public shows of affection between the sexes.
began to publish The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Because of such rules, which later became associated
Calvin, like Luther, advocated beliefs and practices with Puritanism, Calvinism acquired the reputation
having biblical roots. He differed from Luther over the for being a joyless creed.
nature of God, churchstate relations, and Christian Calvins theology also had an impact on political,
morals. Calvins religious thought, called Calvinism, social, and economic life. Calvinism encouraged thrift,
S rested on his concept of an awesome, even angry, industry, sobriety, and disciplinethe same traits that
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THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: CAUSES OF THE RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS 371

Figure 14.12 A nonyMous. John Calvin. 1550s. Bibliothque Publique


et Universitaire de Genve. This anonymous portrait of Calvin shows the
way that he probably wanted to be viewed rather than a natural likeness.
Still, the angular features, the intense gaze, and the set mouth suggest
that the reputation Calvin had for strict discipline was justified. The well-
trimmed beard and somewhat extravagant fur collar, although typical
of middle-class fashion of the era, create an ironic contradiction in this
otherwise austere portrait.

made for business success. Calvins teachings spurred


the Christian capitalist to accumulate wealth, so that
gradually there developed the idea that worldly suc-
cess was tantamount to Gods approval and that pov-
erty was a sign of Gods disfavor. Of all the new sects,
Calvinism was the most international, and reformed
congregations spread across Europe, especially in
Scotland and the Netherlands (see Map 14.1).

The Reform of the English Church A second


major religious reformer in the 1530s was Henry VIII
(r. 15091547), who founded the Church of England
(also called the Anglican Church). In 1529 Henry asked
the pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Ara-
gon, who, though she gave birth to a daughter, had
not produced a male heir. In more favorable times, the
pope might have given Henry a dispensation, but the
troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Catherines
nephew, had just sacked Rome and imprisoned the
pontiff. Charles also opposed any step that would nul-
lify his aunts marriage and make her daughter a bas-
tard. In 1533 Henry pushed through Parliament the
laws setting up the Church of England with himself
as the head and granting him a divorce (Figure 14.13).
Although Anglicanism was founded by Henry VIII,
the ground had been prepared locally by Christian
humanists and English Lutherans. The work of both

Figure 14.13 hAns holbein the younGer. Henry VIII. Ca. 1540. Oil on
wood panel, 34 3/4 291/2. Galleria Nazionale dArte Antica, Rome.
Hans Holbein the Younger, like Erasmus, established his reputation in
Europe before making his way to England. In 1537 Holbein became the
court painter to Henry VIII, for whom he executed murals (now lost),
designed jewelry, silver plate, and state robes, and painted easel portraits
of the court, including the king. In this portrait, Holbein captured the
power and majesty of his patron by centering him in a three-quarter,
frontal pose so that the kings figure completely fills the frame with no
props or objects to distract the viewer. The kings right upper arm is
pushed out in an assertive manner, and he holds a glove in his clenched
right hand. His Majestys direct gaze and assured stance radiate self-
confidence and speak of a sense of power and self-importance, reinforced
by the bejeweled coat, puffed sleeves, decorated hat, and elaborate chain
necklace. Holbeins painting sends a clear message about his subjects
personal authority and high status, which contrasts nicely with his intimate
portrait of Erasmus, the Dutch scholar and man of ideas (see the chapter-
opening photo). S
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372 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

The Counter-Reformation
Before Martin Luther took his stand in Germany, a
Roman Catholic reform movement had begun quietly
in isolated parts of Europe. Confronted with the sur-
prising successes of the various Protestant groups, the
Roman Catholic Church, as it was now called, struck
back with a Counter-Reformation. By 1600 this su-
perbly organized campaign had slowed Protestantism
and won back many adherents. The Catholics held on
to southern and most of central Europe, halting Prot-
estantisms spread in Poland, France, and Switzerland
and limiting the movement to northern Europe. The
Counter-Reformation, with a revitalized papacy, new
monastic orders, and a reforming council, confronted
the Protestant threat, purified the church of abuses,
and reorganized its structure.

The Revitalized Papacy With the reign of Paul III


(pope 15341549), a series of reform-minded popes re-
invigorated the church. To counter the inroads made
by Protestantism, Paul enlisted the support of the full
church by convening a council representing Roman
Catholic clergy from all over Europe and launched
new monastic orders.
Paul and his successors reclaimed the moral leader-
ship of the church and reorganized the papal bureau-
cracy so that discipline was now enforced throughout
the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Sensing that Protestant-
ism would not go away and recognizing the increas-
ing availability of written material due to the printing
Figure 14.14 Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Elizabeth I. Late press, these popes tried to isolate the church from de-
sixteenth century. Oil on panel, 711 5. National Portrait Gallery,
viant ideas. A committee of churchmen drew up an
London. The so-called Ditchley portrait presented Queen Elizabeth in all
her Renaissance finery. Following the Spanish fashion, the queen wears Index of Forbidden Books, which listed writings that
a neck ruff and yards of pearls, and she carries a fan. She stands atop a were off-limits to Roman Catholics because they were
map of England, which she ruled for forty-five years with compassion and considered prejudicial to faith or morals. The first Index
firmness, until her death in 1603. included the works of Luther, Calvin, and other Protes-
tants. This tactic failed to suppress threatening ideas,
groups led to the so-called Reformation Parliament but the Index continued to be updated until the 1960s.
(15291535), which had begun to reform the Catholic
Church in England even before Henry made the deci- New Monastic Orders Since the High Middle Ages,
sive break with Rome. monastic reform had played a small role in the life of
Religious turmoil followed Henrys death in 1547, the church. Suddenly, in the sixteenth century, new
and the fate of the English Reformation stayed in monastic groups arose to fill a variety of needs, such as
doubt until his daughter Elizabeth (r. 15581603) be- preparing men and women to minister directly to the
came queen and the head of the Anglican Church masses and reclaiming lapsed believers to the faith.
(Figure14.14). In 1559 Elizabeth I, with the aid of Par- Typical of monastic reform for women in Counter-
liament, steered a middle course between Catholi- Reformation Europe was the fate of the Company
cism and Calvinism, which had gained many English of St. Ursula, or the Ursulines, founded in 1535 in
converts. Anglican beliefs were summarized in the Brescia, Italy, by Angela Merici [ma-REE-chee] (about
Thirty-nine Articles, and those who wished to sit in 14701540). The Ursulines were named after a leg-
Parliament, earn university degrees, or serve as mili- endary British princess who, with eleven thousand
tary officers had to swear allegiance to them. Hence, virgin companions, was martyred on the way to her
Calvinists and Catholics were excluded by law from wedding. Reflecting the same ideals as contemporary
S English public life and remained so for about 275 years. early Protestantism in stressing individual grace and
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THE BREAKUP OF CHRISTENDOM: CAUSES OF THE RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS 373

keeping apart from clerical rule, the Ursulines were


originally intended to be for laywomen, without any
intrusion by male church officials. Mericis followers,
divided into daughters and matrons, were to live
in their own homes, practice chastity without taking
formal vows, serve the sick and the poor, and educate
the young. In 1540, after Mericis death and under pres-
sure from Protestantism, church leaders cloistered the
order and placed its members under male control.
The most significant new order was the Society of
Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits. Recognized by
Pope Paul III in 1540, the Jesuits had emerged by 1600
as the churchs leading monastic order. The dedicated
members helped to curb Protestantism in Europe, and
their missionary efforts abroad represented the first
steps in making Roman Catholicism a global faith. After
a shaky beginning, their rise to power was quick, and
their success was largely due to the orders founder,
the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola (about 14931556) (Fig-
ure 14.15).
Loyolas life was imbued with more than a touch
of medieval knight errantry. His first calling was as a
professional warrior, defending his country from in-
vaders. When in 1521 Loyola suffered a battle injury
that crippled him for life, he underwent a religious
conversion that led him to become a soldier in the
army of Christ. Eventually, he founded the Society of
Jesus, which resembled a military company in its rigid
hierarchy, close discipline, and absolute obedience to
the founder. Figure 14.15 Jacopino del Conte. St. Ignatius Loyola. 1556. Curia
The Jesuits were initially concerned with working Generalizia, or Headquarters, of the Society of Jesus, Rome.
among the unchurched and the poor. Because of their This portrait captures Loyolas humanness at the end of an active life.
His energetic youth a distant memory, he now wears a serene and
unique vow of loyalty to the pope, which set them contemplative countenance. Not a life portrait, Jacopino del Contes
apart from other monastic orders, and their emphasis work was painted soon after Loyolas death. The artist probably had
and expertise in education, the Jesuits soon became access to Loyolas death mask, so this portraitunlike many that were
the Roman Catholic Churchs chief weapon against the painted years lateris as accurate a likeness of the founder of the
Protestants. In their writings, the Jesuits answered the Society of Jesus that exists.
churchs critics, setting forth their orthodox beliefs
clearly and persuasively.

Spanish territories from the Isthmus of Panama into


what is now the southwestern United States, Califor-
Global Encounter: nia, and Florida, plus the Philippine Islands.
The Jesuits in the New World From the capital of New Spain, Mexico City, built
The Jesuits role in the Counter-Reformation ex- on the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitln, the
panded in the 1540s when, guided by the Spaniard viceroyalty imposed Western values and institutions
Francis Xavier (15061552), they established missions on the native peoples and, cooperating with Roman
in the Far East, converting thousands to the Roman Catholic missionaries, converted them to the Chris-
Catholic faith. Their missionary efforts in the New tian faith. The church, in strengthening its hold on the
World were even more successful due to the conver- converts, blended Western and local traditions, while
gence of church and state interests. In 1535, Spain embracing some practices of the indigenous peoples
organized its vast overseas holdings into four viceroy- religion. Notably, the conquerors dismantled the In-
alties, or regional governments, which welcomed and dian temples, recycled the stones into public and pri-
protected the Jesuits and other Roman Catholic orders. vate buildings, and constructed churches, monastic
New Spain, the northernmost viceroyalty, included all complexes, and schools for the converts. S
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374 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Figure 14.16 Anonymous. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our Lady of


Guadalupe has captured the imagination of the faithful, many of whom
crawl for miles on their knees to worship at her shrine. The images
meaning is twofold. For indigenous peoples, it represents the Virgin
Mary defeating the chief Aztec gods (symbolized by the sun behind her
and the moon at her feet). And for Christians, it depicts the Virgin as
the woman in Revelation 12:1: adorned with the sun, standing on the
moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown.

overtures to the Protestants and thus solidified the


split in Christian Europe. The council reaffirmed all
the practices condemned by the Protestants, such as
monasticism, the sale of indulgences, and the venera-
tion of holy relics, although mechanisms were set in
motion to eliminate their worst abuses. The council
also initiated some education and training reforms for
the clergy.
The councils unyielding position toward the Prot-
estants was based on its belief that both the Bible and
church traditionnot the Bible alone as advocated by
the Protestantswere the bases of authority and the
word of God. The only official Bible was the Vulgate
(including the Apocrypha of the Jewish Septuagint);
all other versions were rejected. The council reaf-
firmed that salvation should be sought by faith and by
good works, not by faith alone; it also reaffirmed the
seven sacraments. The councils doctrinal and disci-
plinary decisions laid the foundations for present-day
Roman Catholic policies and thought.

Warfare as a Response
to Religious Dissent, 15201603
As religious dissent spread, the secular rulers watched
with mounting concern. Until 1530, compromise be-
tween the Lutheran rebels and the dominant faith
Although the Roman Catholic Church imposed strict seemed possible, but with the constant growth of mu-
rules governing religious images, it, at the same time, tually hostile sects, secular rulers increasingly relied
embraced certain practices of pagan religion. For ex- on warfare to deal with the crisis.
ample, the church appropriated the hill of Tepeyaca War between Charles Vs armies and the Lutheran
holy site to the Aztecs, who believed it to be the home forces erupted on German lands in 1546, the year Lu-
of Tonantzin, Mother of the Gods. There, in 1531, a se- ther died, and lasted until 1555, when the Religious
ries of miracles took place, following an appearance Peace of Augsburg brought hostilities to an end. This
of the Virgin Mary to an Indian convert. On this site, agreement granted toleration to the Lutheran states,
the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe was soon built, but on strict terms. The rulers religion became the of-
transforming an Aztec holy site into a Christian shrine ficial faith of each territory; members of religious mi-
(Figure 14.16). norities, whether Roman Catholic or Lutheran, could
migrate and join their coreligionists in nearby lands.
But because the rights of other minority sects, such as
the Calvinists, were ignored, the Peace of Augsburg
The Council of Trent The Counter-Reformations contained the seeds of future wars.
third force was the council held at Trent in northern In 1556, Philip II (r. 15561598) inherited the Span-
Italy, over three separate sessions between 1545 and ish crown from Charles V and became the head of the
S 1563. Dominated by papal supporters, Italian dele Roman Catholic cause. Besides Spain, Roman Catho-
N gates, and the Jesuits, the Council of Trent offered no lic regimes now ruled Italy, Portugal, and Austria;
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Late Mannerism 375

Protestants reigned in Scandinavia. Elsewhere the re- a self-conscious vision that was elitist and deliberately
ligious rivals vied for supremacy. For the rest of the complex. Only with the rise of the baroque after 1600
century, until 1603, Germany was at peace, but west- was there a style that could conform to the churchs
ern Europe suffered religious violence. need for art with a mass appeal. In the meantime, the
Financed by gold and silver from Mexico and general effect of Trent on the last stage of mannerism
Peru, Philip dominated European politics. His well- was to intensify its spiritual values.
prepared armies enabled him to control much of Late mannerism, which emerged across Europe af-
Europe. He expelled suspected Muslims from Spain ter 1564, dominated Spanish painting, but it had little
and defeated the Turks in the Mediterranean; he in- influence on Spanish literature. Under the influence
vaded Portugal and joined that country to Spain. But of the Renaissance, Spanish literature flourished with
his fortunes declined when he launched a costly cam- the revival of the theater and the birth of new literary
paign against the United Provinces in the northern genres.
Netherlands. As the Dutch war was winding down,
Philip turned his attention to Protestant England, a
supporter of the Dutch revolt. In Philips eyes, only Spanish Painting
England stood between him and a reunited Christen- No Catholic artist expressed the spirit of the Counter-
dom; moreover, Spain and England were rivals for the Reformation better than El Greco (15411614) in his
precious metals of the New World. Philips attempt to Spanish paintings after 1576. These visionary works
invade England in 1588 ended in a disaster when the epitomize the spirit of late mannerism. El Grecos real
Spanish Armada was defeated by English sea power name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos [doh-me-NEEK-
and a violent storm. os TAY-o-toh-KOH-pooh-lohs]. A native of Crete, he
Philip IIs dream of a reunited Christendom had had lived in Venice, where he adopted the colorful
been impossible from the beginning. The Protestant style of Venetian painting. Unsuccessful in Venice,
faith was too entrenched, the growth of national con- he also failed to find rich patrons in Rome, though he
sciousness too widespread, and the rise of a system of learned from the works of Michelangelo and the man-
sovereign states too far advanced for any one monarch nerists. He arrived in Toledo, Spain, about 1576, where
to unify Europe under a single religious or political he found an appreciative public among the wealthy
system. When Philip died in 1598, Spain was declin- nobility. But he never became a favorite of the Span-
ing and Europe was divided into independent states ish ruler, Philip II, who faulted El Grecos works as too
and several religions. bizarre.
For his select audience of aristocrats and Roman
Catholic clergy, however, El Greco could do no wrong.
They believed that his paintings of saints, martyrs,
LATE MANNERISM and other religious figures caught the essence of
The strongest impact of the Counter-Reformation on Spanish emotionalism and religious zealthe same
the arts, architecture, and music began after the Coun- qualities that had led Loyola to found the Jesuits. El
cil of Trent, in 1563. Spain and the Italian states, the Grecos extravagant images gave visible form to his
areas least attracted to Protestantism, were greatly patrons spiritual yearnings. He rejected a naturalistic
influenced by the councils decisions. The council de- world with conventional perspective, and his spiritu-
creed that the arts and music should be easily acces- alized vision came to be distinguished by elongated
sible to the uneducated. In sacred music, for example, bodies, sharp lines in the folds of cloth, and luminous
the intelligibility of the words should take precedence colors.
over the melody, and in architecture the building El Grecos masterpiece is The Burial of Count Orgaz,
should create a worshipful environment. The church painted to honor the founder of the church of Santo
council also decreed that paintings and sculptures Tom in Toledo (Figure 14.17). This painting, designed
should be simple and direct as well as unobjectionable to fit into a special place beside the churchs high altar,
and decent in appearance. Guided by this principle, depicts the miraculous scene that, according to legend,
the Counter-Reformation popes declared that some of occurred during the counts burial, when two saints,
Michelangelos male nudes in The Last Judgment were Augustine and Stephen, appeared and assisted with
obscene and ordered loincloths to be painted over the last rites.
them. General church policy returned to the medieval The painting is divided into two halves, with the
ideal that the sole aim of art and music was to serve lower section devoted to the counts actual burial and
and clarify the Christian faith. the upper section focused on the reception of his soul
Since the Roman Catholic Church after Trent wanted in heaven. Except for a few men who tilt their faces
a simplified art that spoke to the masses, its artistic pol- upward, the town dignitaries seem unaware of what S
icy tended to clash with mannerism, which embodied is happening just above their heads. The dignitaries N
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376 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

Figure 14.17 El Greco. The Burial of Count


Orgaz. 1586. Oil on canvas, 16 1110.
Church of Santo Tom, Toledo, Spain. A
manneristic invention in The Burial of Count
Orgaz was the rich treatment of the robe of
St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr and, in
this painting, the beardless figure supporting
the body of the dead count. Sewn onto the
bottom of this robe is a picture of the stoning
of St. Stephen, an episode narrated in the
New Testament. By depicting one event inside
another, El Greco created an illusionistic
devicea typical notion of mannerist painters,
who were skeptical about conventional reality.

below are rendered in realistic terms, showing fash- by being burned at the stake. El Grecos likeness of
ions of El Grecos era, such as the neck ruffs, mus- Cardinal Guevara seems to suggest much about the
taches, and goatees. The heavenly spectacle is depicted inner man: an uneasy conscience, as betrayed by the
in the ethereal manner that he increasingly used in his shifty expression of his eyes, the left hand clutching
later works. El Greco had devised two distinct styles the chair arm, and the general sense that the subject is
to deal with these different planes of reality. restraining himself.
El Greco also painted several portraits of church of- Another mannerist artist-in-exile working in Spain
ficials; the best known is Cardinal Guevara (Figure 14.18). in the late sixteenth century was Sofonisba Anguis-
This painting portrays the chief inquisitor, dressed sola [an-gwee-SOL-uh] (about 15321625), a northern
in his splendid red robes. El Greco has captured the Italian from Cremona who, with El Greco, helped
personality of this austere and iron-willed church- introduce the Italian school of painting into Spanish
man who vigorously pursued heretics and sentenced culture. Praised and encouraged by the aging Michel-
them to die in an auto-da-f (act of faith)a public angelo, Anguissola began her rise to international
S ceremony in which heretics were executed, usually fame when Philip II of Spain chose her to be his court
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Late Mannerism 377

Figure 14.18 El Greco. Cardinal Guevara. 15961600. Oil on canvas,


671/4 421/2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. El Grecos painting
of Cardinal Guevara illustrates his mastery of mannerist portraiture.
Disturbing details are visible everywhere. Guevaras head is almost too
small for his large body, made even grander by the cardinals red robe,
and the divided backgroundhalf wooden panel, half rich tapestrysets
up a dissonant effect. Even the cardinals chair contributes to the air of
uneasiness, for its one visible leg seems barely to touch the floor.

painter from 1559 to 1579. She painted mainly por-


traits, including the Portrait of Don Carlos (Figure14.19).
In this three-quarter-length likeness of Spains crown
prince, Anguissola shows her mastery of the manner-
ist style, including the challenging gaze of the young
subject and the paintings highly polished surface and
dark olive background. Such portraits made Anguis-
sola a celebrity, the first internationally acclaimed Ital-
ian woman artist. Her painting career at the Spanish
court ended in 1580, when she married a Sicilian no-
bleman and moved to Palermo, Sicily, where she lived
and worked for much of the rest of her life.
Anguissolas international acclaim was due, in part,
to her aristocratic breeding and her education in Re-
naissance learning, rare for women of the times. Her
background, coupled with rich artistic gifts, enabled
her to overcome the prejudices and guild restrictions
that had previously kept women from pursuing ca-
reers in the arts. Sofonisba Anguissola was the ablest
of the women artists who began to emerge in sixteenth-
century Europe.

Spanish Literature
Known in Spanish as Siglo de Oro, or Golden Century,
the sixteenth century is the high point in Spains lit-
erary history. The writings, characterized by direct
observation of life, satiric treatment of earlier epics
and ballads, religious zeal, and Spanish themes, val-
ues, and subject matter, also reflected minor influence
from Renaissance humanism. Plays and novels were
the most popular forms of literary expression.

Figure 14.19 Sofonisba Anguissola. (Formerly attributed to Alonzo


Snchez Coello.) Portrait of Don Carlos. Ca. 1560. Oil on canvas,
4215/16 34 3/16. Prado, Madrid. This painting of Prince Don Carlos
shows typical features of the artists personal style. Like most women
of the period, Anguissola was skilled in the needle arts, and she reveals
this knowledge in the painstaking detail she has lavished on the princes
court costumeher trademark, according to one scholar. She also had
a signature way of rendering handsin a square-U shape so that the
index and little fingers are parallel and act as the raised portions of a
U connected by an imaginary linewhich may be seen in both of Don
Carloss hands. S
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378 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: NORTHERN HUMANISM, NORTHERN RENAISSANCE, RELIGIOUS REFORMATIONS, AND LATE MANNERISM

As in England, theater was now revived in Spain mannerism to a brilliant sunset. The leading exponent
for the first time in centuries. Spanish playwrights of late mannerism in Italy was Tintoretto [tin-tuh-RAY-
began to write dramas, including tragedies and com- toe] (15181594). With his feverish, emotional style
edies, and invent new dramatic forms, such as alle- that reflected impetuosity in its execution, Tintoretto
gorical religious plays. The dramatist Lope de Vega was reacting against Titian, who had been noted for
[BAY-gah] (15621635), author of 426 secular plays and extraordinary discipline. But in other respects, he fol-
42 religious dramas, is generally credited with al- lowed Titian, adopting his love of color and his use of
most single-handedly founding the Spanish national theatrical lighting. The special quality of Tintorettos
theater. art, which he achieved in his earliest paintings, was
The chivalric novel, a late medieval literary form his placement of human figures in arrangements that
that presented romantic stories of knights and their suggest a sculptural frieze.
ladies, was now challenged by the more realistic pi- Tintorettos rendition of the familiar biblical ac-
caresque novel. The picaresque novel (Spanish picaro, count of the Last Supper shows his feverish style (Fig-
rogue), which recounted the comic misadventures ure 14.20). Unlike the serene, classically balanced scene
of a roguish hero who lived by his wits, often at the that Leonardo had painted (see Figure 13.8), Tintoretto
expense of those above him in society, became im- portrays an ethereal gathering, illuminated by eerie
mensely popular in Spain. The first picaresque novel light and filled with swooping angels. The diagonal
was the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, published in table divides the pictorial space: on the left side is the
1554, in which the poor hero, Lazaro, encounters sev- spiritual world of Jesus and his disciples, and on the
eral masters, each of whom is a shady character suf- right is the earthly realm of the servants. Tintorettos
fering from self-deception. In translation, Lazarillo de depiction of the two levels of reality is reminiscent of
Tormes found a wider audience across Europe and in- a similar division in El Grecos Burial of Count Orgaz
fluenced the writing of novels in England, France, and (see Figure 14.17). Especially notable is Jesuss body, in-
Germany for about two hundred years. cluding the feet, which glows as if in a spotlight. The
The Spanish novel was raised to new heights by Last Supper, finished in Tintorettos final year, is a fit-
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [sir-VAN-tez SAH-uh- ting climax to mannerist painting.
VAY-drah] (15471616). Poet, playwright, and novelist,
Cervantes is the greatest figure in Spanish literature
and one of the most respected writers in the world. In
Music in Late-Sixteenth-Century
his masterpiece Don Quixote (part I, 1605; part II, 1615), Italy and England
he satirized the chivalric novel, mocking its anachro- Unlike painting, Italian music remained under the
nistic ideals. Although the long, rambling structure sway of High Renaissance ideals, keeping to the path
was borrowed from the chivalric novel, Don Quixote is pioneered by Josquin des Prez (see Chapter 13). How-
the prototype of the modern novel, with its psycholog- ever, the Council of Trent, along with other forces, led
ical realism, or probing into the motives of the main to the decline of the High Renaissance style and cre-
characters. These charactersthe hero, Don Quixote, ated the conditions for the rise of the baroque style.
and his servant, Sancho Panzawhose lives are inter For example, the council decreed that the Gregorian
twined, embody the major themes of the work. The chant was preferable to polyphony (two or more lines
tormented Don Quixote, driven half-mad by his un- of melody sung or played at the same time) for church
reachable quest, represents the hopeless visionary, liturgy and that the traditional chants should be sim-
while the plodding Sancho Panza, never taken in by plified to ensure that the words could be easily under-
his masters madness, stands for the hardheaded real- stood. Most composers, considering the chants to be
ist. At one level, the characters signify the dual nature barbarous, continued to use polyphony but pruned
of the Spanish soul, the idealistic aristocrat and the its extravagant effects. The best of these composers
down-to-earth peasant. At a higher level, the charac- and the chief representative of Counter-Reformation
ters personify a universal theme, that idealism and music was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina [pal-uh-
realism must go hand in hand. STREE-nuh] (about 15251594). His controlled style
established the Roman Catholic ideal for the next few
centuriespolyphonic masses sung by choirs and
Late Mannerist Painting in Italy: with clearly enunciated and expressive texts.
Tintoretto Nevertheless, the future of Italian music lay out-
With the death of Michelangelo in 1564, Venice dis- side the church as secular vocal music was moving
placed Rome as the dominant artistic center in Italy, toward an ideal in which the words took precedence
and until the end of the century, Venetian painters over the sound. But secular composers, unlike those
S carried the banner of the Italian Renaissance, bringing in the church, rejected polyphony because it did not
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Late Mannerism 379

Figure 14.20 Tintoretto. The Last Supper. 15921594. Oil on canvas, 12 188. San Giorgio
Maggiore, Venice. Nothing better illustrates the distance between the High Renaissance and mannerism than
a comparison of Leonardos Last Supper (Figure 13.8) with that of Tintoretto. Everything about Tintorettos
spiritualized scene contradicts the quiet classicism of Leonardos work. Leonardos painting is meant to appeal
to the viewers reason; Tintorettos shadowy scene is calculated to stir the feelings.

allow the text to be fully understood. The move to in England had to do with the popularity of Italianate
make the words primary in secular music was trig- things, as is evident from the settings and sources of
gered by Renaissance humanists who were convinced Shakespeares plays and the translation of Castigliones
that ancient musics power stemmed from the expres- The Book of the Courtier.
sive way that the setting suited the clearly articulated Englands leading madrigal composer was Thomas
words of the text. The most evident signs of this hu- Weelkes [WILKS] (about 15751623), whose works often
manistic belief were in the works of the Florentine made use of the technique called word paintings, or
Camerata, a group of musical amateurs. Rejecting po- word illustrations, a musical illustration of the written
lyphony, the Florentine musicians composed pieces text. For example, in the madrigal As Vesta was from
for a text with a single line of melody accompanied by Latmos hill descending, Weelkes uses a descending
simple chords and sung in a declamatory (speechlike scale for the word descending, an ascending scale
singing) style. for the words a maiden queen ascending, and a hill-
The trend to expressive secular music in Italy was shaped melodic phrase for the words Latmos hill
reflected most completely in the madrigal, a song descending. Such clever fusing of music and lyrics
for four or five voices composed with great care for appealed to listeners, many of whom, in the spirit of
the words of the poetic text. The novelty of this vo- the Renaissance, were amateur musicians themselves
cal music was that it vividly illustrated the meanings (Figure 14.21).
and emotions in the words, rather than the structure Madrigals eventually achieved a European-wide
of the music. Madrigals were first written in the 1520s, popularity, but they ended with the Renaissance. Nev-
but their heyday was the second half of the sixteenth ertheless, the technique of word painting continued to
century. They were imported to England and quickly be a favorite of composers, down through Bach and
became the height of fashion. The success of madrigals Handel in the baroque age (see Chapter 15). S
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Figure 14.21 hAns burGkMAir the elder.
Maximilian with His Musicians. Illustration
from Der Weisskunig. Sixteenth century.
Woodcut. This woodcut shows the Holy
Roman emperor Maximilian I being educated
in music and music-making by his court
musicians. The youthful emperor is surrounded
by ten musicians, either singing or playing
instruments, and eleven different types of
musical instruments are visible: organ, drum,
sackbut (an early trombone), tromba marina
(a one-stringed fiddle), lute, a keyboard
instrument, viola da gamba, recorder, cornet,
crumhorn, and flute. Burgkmairs woodcut
was part of a series used to illustrate Der
Weisskunig, an idealized biography of the
Hapsburg ruler.

SUMMARY
Cultural, religious, and political ferment character- Counter-Reformation, reached its zenith in the reli-
ized sixteenth-century life in the West. gious paintings of El Greco in Spain and of Tintoretto
Northern Europe was at the center of many of the in Venice. Despite the religious turmoil, Spanish lit-
epic changes now underway. Christian Humanism erature flourished in what scholars today call Spains
emerged there as the dominant literary movement, led golden age, the age of Cervantes.
by Erasmus of Rotterdam. The northern Renaissance At the same time as these events, Western mate-
also flourished there, in the art of Drer, Grnewald, rial culture was being reshaped by trends already in
and Bruegel and in the writings of Shakespeare. The place (see Chapter 13): rulers continued to centralize
Protestant Reformation began there, in 1517, leading to their states; the trading axis had now shifted from the
the breakup of Christendom and the resultant wars of Mediterranean to the Atlantic seaboard; and a global
religion that plagued the rest of this century. world existed in embryo, with many states exporting
Southern Europe, though still within the Roman people, religion, ideas, and technology to colonies in
Catholic fold, was also the center of important cul- Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
tural developments. Late mannerism, inspired by the

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Reformation revenge tragedy Puritanism chivalric novel
Counter-Reformation triptych Anglicanism picaresque novel
S Christian humanism Lutheranism Jesuits madrigal
N northern Renaissance Calvinism late mannerism word painting
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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 381

The Legacy of Northern Humanism, Northern Renaissance,


Religious Reformations, and Late Mannerism
A major political legacy of this period, the centralized especially admired Montaignes sly wit, skepticism,
sovereign state, was, in effect, a double-edged sword. and distrust of progress), and the English writer Vir-
One edge protected citizens against enemies at home ginia Woolf (Woolf declared of Montaigne: we can
and from foreign invaders, and the other edge spawned never doubt for an instant that his book was himself).
a group of warring states. The tensions among the And, in 2010, the English writer Sarah Bakewells book
states became entangled in the periods religious quar- How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and
rels. The legacy of suspicion and stereotyping sown Twenty Attempts at an Answer, renewed interest in this
between rival states remains a part of Western culture. French writer. For readers not attuned to Montaignes
A legacy of the religious reformations was the di- philosophical approach to living, the Sunday New York
viding of Christian Europe into Protestant and Catho- Times Book Review prints an Advice, How-To and Mis-
lic armed camps. As a result, religious wars remained cellaneous list of books, giving tips on what to eat,
a constant threat until about 1700. On a local level, re- how to lose weight, how to succeed in the workplace,
ligious differences led to intolerance and persecution. how to save a marriage, how to age gracefully, how to
Although Europes religious boundaries today remain be happy, and how to apply religion to ones life.
roughly the same as they were in 1600, it took more
than three hundred years for Protestants and Catho-
lics to accept that they could live together in harmony.
The reformations also left different cultural lega-
cies to their respective Christian denominations. From
Protestantism came a glorification of the work ethic,
Puritanism, and a justification for capitalism. At the
heart of the Protestant revolution, despite its insis-
tence on the doctrine of original sin, was the notion
that human beings can commune directly with God
without church mediation. Whereas Protestantism
tended to view human beings as adrift in the universe,
the Catholic Church tried to control the spiritual and
moral lives of its members and to insulate them from
the surrounding world. This policy eventually placed
the church on a collision course with the forces of mo-
dernity, but it nevertheless was followed by most of
the popes until after World II.
One of the highly visible legacies from this period
is the works of William Shakespeare. His plays have
a universal appeal, as evidenced by their being per-
formed around the world in hundreds of languages
and adapted into the films of various cultures. Shake-
speares life, perhaps because of its lack of full docu-
mentation, has become the subject of books and film,
as in the 1998 British film Shakespeare in Love.
Another lasting cultural legacy from this period is
the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Although Greek and
Roman writers, as well as the early church fathers, had
conducted self-analysis through their writings, Mon-
taigne, living through the destructive religious wars of Movie Poster for Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare in Lovea British-
his era, unashamedly exposed his inner life in a way American 1998 film, directed by John Maddenis a rollicking tale of the
lovesick English dramatist, as he struggles to write the tragedy of Romeo
that has resonated with fellow humanists ever since, in- and Juliet. This brilliant, fictitious tale is a comic tour de force, presenting
cluding the French novelist Gustave Flaubert (Flaubert the iconic writer as a mere mortala typical expectation in todays media-
dubbed Montaigne his pre nourricier, foster father), saturated culture. This posters dimensions, 27 41, have been the
the German thinker Frederick Nietzsche (Nietzsche standard for movie advertisements since the beginning of the film industry. S
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CHARLES LEBRUN AND JULES HARDOUIN-M ANSART. Hall of Mirrors, Palace at Versailles.
16781684. Versailles, France. In 2006 the Hall of Mirrors was restored to its seventeenth-
century appearance. From its opening, in 1684, until the outbreak of the French Revolution
in 1789, this room was the setting for royal family, state, and court functions.

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The Baroque Age I
15
glamour and grandiosity
16001715

Preview Questions A new European agethebaroquedawned in 1600. The Ro-


1. How did French man Catholic Church continued its march against Protestantism, and
absolutism differ powerful sovereign secular states became the norm across the land. Ba-
from English limited roque art and architecturedriven by the ideals of grandeur, opulence,
monarchy, and what
impact did these two and expanding horizonsprovided spectacular and compelling images
forms of government with which the church could reassert its presence and dazzle the faithful.
have on European The baroque also offered secular rulers a magnificence and vastness that
politics and culture?
enhanced their political power. As baroque culture took root across the
2. What are three
West, variations within this international style developed, based on politi-
variations of the
international baroque cal and religious considerations, as well as the strength of classical ideals
style, the characteristics in certain locales.
of each variation, and
The baroque period, though beset by almost constant warfare, was an
the ways that each
variation reflects its age of great scientific discoveries and intellectual ferment. Because the
historical setting? Scientific Revolution, as this intellectual movement is called, so keenly
3. What influence did influenced the making of the modern world, it is covered separately in
religion have on the Chapter 16, along with related philosophical ideas. This chapter focuses
baroque style, and what
elements of classicism on the art, literature, and music of the baroque age and their historical,
survived in baroque political, and social contexts.
culture? The word baroque was not commonly used in the seventeenth century.
4. What are the major It was coined in the next century by artists and scholars whose tastes were
achievements
attuned to classical ideals. And, to them, much of seventeenth-century cul-
in baroque art,
architecture, ture was imperfect, or baroque, a term probably derived from the Portu-
literature, and guese word barroco, meaning irregular pearl. Not until about 1850 did
music?
the word baroque acquire a positive meaning. Today, baroque is a la-
bel for the prevailing cultural style of the seventeenth century.
A fitting symbol of the baroque era is the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace at
Versailles, France. The Hall of Mirrors is baroque in its great length (about
240 feet), its elaborate design (seventeen arcaded mirrors on one side fac-
ing seventeen arcaded windows on the other, and the room covered with
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384 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Learning Through Maps

NORWAY

SWEDEN
RUSSIA
North

Sea
Sea
Edinburgh

tic
DENMARK

al
B
IRELAND
Dublin UNITED EAST
NETHERLANDS PRUSSIA
ENGLAND
BRANDENBURG POLAND
London Utrecht Berlin
Warsaw
AUSTRIAN Cologne
NETHERLANDS PALATINATE
AT L A N T I C Paris BOHEMIA
Donauworth
OCEAN
Rastadt BAVARIA
Strasbourg
Vienna Budapest
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA HUNGARY

MILAN REPUBLIC
OF VENICE
ea
Marseilles
ac kS
TUSCANY PAPAL Bl
PORTUGAL STATES
REPUBLIC O
Madrid OF GENOA TT
Rome O
Lisbon SPAIN M
AN
EM
PIR
SARDINIA KINGDOM E
MINORCA OF NAPLES
(English)

GIBRALTAR SICILY
(English)

House of Bourbon Mediterranean Sea


House of Hapsburg 0 500 mi
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
0 500 1000 km

MAP 15.1
MHS63 460 EUROPE IN 1714
mat76620_m1401.eps
This proofshows Europe in the early eighteenth century.1. Compare the lands of the Hapsburg dynasty in this map with the holdings of Hapsburg emperor
Firstmap
Charles V in Map 13.1. 2. Compare the Holy Roman Empires size in this map with its size on Map 13.1. 3. Which of the two dynastiesBourbon or
Hapsburghad the larger landholdings in 1714? 4. How did the size and location of England and the United Netherlands help make them major maritime
powers? Note the large number of small states in central Europe and northern Italy.

a barrel vault), and its luxurious decorations. French ABSOLUTISM, MONARCHY,


taste, which favored classical ideals, ensures that the
rooms appearance, while showy, is quietly refined. AND THE BALANCE OF POWER
The Versailles palace complex, which was constructed Although the baroque style originated in Rome and
at the command of King Louis XIV and which housed from there spread across the Continent, the Italian
about three thousand people, served as both the seat of city-states and the popes were no longer at the cen-
Frances government and the home of the royal court. ter of European political life. By the time Europe had
Versailles grandiosity was a symbol of Louis XIVs recovered from the first wave of religious wars in
absolutist political agendato wield supreme power 1600, a new system of sovereign states had replaced
S over the state, its people, and the overall culture. the old dream of a united Christendom. By 1715 there
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ABSOLUTISM, MONARCHY, AND THE BALANCE OF POWER 385

Figure 15.1 hYACInthe RIGAuD. Louis XIV.


1701. Oil on canvas, 92 7103/4. Louvre,
Paris. Hyacinthe Rigaud (16591743), a
master of the baroque style, painted this
theatrical portrait, when Louis XIV was sixty-
three years old. In the portrait, the monarch
wears his coronation robes, his ceremonial
sword at his side and the royal scepter in his
hand; the crown rests on the stool beside him.
Two details underscore the kings vanity: his
stocking-clad legs are exposed to midthigh
and he wears high-heeled shoes (about two
inches high) to compensate for his short
stature. Although commissioned as a gift of
a grandson, Philip V of Spain, the painting so
pleased Louis XIV that it became part of the
royal collection.

was a balance of power in Europe among five great example, administrative bureaucracies, which had ex-
military statesEngland, France, Austria, Prussia, isted since the High Middle Ages, were reformed to
and Russia (Map 15.1). The rise of these states was become the exclusive domain of university-trained
due to a new breed of ruler fascinated with power. officials drawn from the middle classes. These career
Known as absolutists, these rulers wanted complete bureaucrats began to displace the great lords who had
control over state affairs, unlike medieval monarchs, previously dominated the kings advisory councils.
who had to share authority with the church and As a consequence, the authority of the feudal nobility
the feudal nobles. Steeped in the ideas of Machia- began to diminish.
velli, the new monarchs buttressed their claims to The absolute monarchs also established permanent
power with theories of divine right and natural law. diplomatic corps to assist in foreign policy. The great
Frances greatest monarch, Louis XIV, was the most states of Europe set up diplomatic missions in the ma-
extreme in his claims, glorifying himself as the Sun jor capitals, staffed with trusted officials who served
Kinga title derived from the late Roman emperors as their rulers eyes and ears away from their home-
(Figure 15.1). lands. Another new institution was the standing army
In their bid for absolute power, these monarchs funded from state revenues, led by noble officers, and
founded new institutions and reformed old ones. For manned by lower-class soldiers. S
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386 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Timeline 15.1 RULERS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND DURING THE BAROQUE PERIOD
1589 1610 1643 1715

Henry IV,
First Bourbon Louis XIII Louis XIV
King

FRANCE 1624 1642 1661


Authority Death of Death of
passes to Cardinal Richelieu Cardinal Mazarin
Cardinal Richelieu

1603 1625 1649 1660 1685 1689 1702 1714

The William III


James I, James
Charles I Common- Charles II of Orange Anne
First Stuart King II
wealth and Mary II

Death of 1688
Elizabeth I Glorious
Revolution
ENGLAND

France: The Supreme Example When Mazarin died, Louis XIV, aged twenty-three,
of Absolutism decided to rule France in his own right. Throughout
As the seventeenth century opened, France was ruled his fifty-four-year reign, Louis made his private and
by Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon dynasty, who had public life the embodiment of the French state: Ltat
converted from Calvinism to Catholicism to restore cest moiI am the stateis what he allegedly said
peace to his largely Roman Catholic state. Like a me- about his concept of absolute government. Determined
dieval king, Henry shared authority with the feudal that nothing should escape his grasp, LouisXIV can-
nobles, though he began to reward middle-class sup- celed what freedom remained to the Huguenots,
porters with high office. A pragmatist, Henry felt no persecuting them until they converted to Roman Ca-
need to force his adopted faith on the Huguenots, as tholicism, fled into exile, or were killed. As king, he
the French Calvinists were called, and allowed them perfected the policies of his Bourbon predecessors,
limited freedom of worship. The atmosphere changed becoming the chief of a bureaucratic machine that
when Henry was assassinated in 1610. Between then regulated every phase of French life, from economics
and 1715, France became the model absolutist state to culture. His economic policy was called mercantil-
(Timeline 15.1). ism, a system that rested on state control. Through his
Henry IV was succeeded by Louis XIII, but real ministers, Louis XIV regulated exports and imports,
authority passed to Cardinal Richelieu [REESH-lew] subsidized local industries, and set tariffs, customs
(15851642), who was the virtual ruler of France from duties, and quotas.
1624 until his death. Gifted with political acumen, Louis XIV waged a spectacular campaign of self-
Richelieu worked tirelessly to wrest power from the glorification, and in so doing he made France the cen-
nobles. An opportunist in religious matters, Richelieu ter of European arts and letters. His palace at Versailles
restricted the freedom of French Protestants at home, became the symbol of his regal style (Figure15.2). He
but abroad he allied himself with Swedish Protestants. also encouraged the work of the emerging acade-
His pragmatic policies were continued by his protg mies, particularly the French Academy, founded in
and iron-fisted successor, Cardinal Mazarin [maz-uh- 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu to purify the French lan-
RAN] (16021661), who served as regent for the young guage and honor the states most distinguished liv-
Louis XIV. Mazarins rule, during the 1640s and 1650s, ing authors, and the Royal Academy of Painting and
moved France closer to absolutism, but it also coin- Sculpture, founded by Cardinal Mazarin in 1648 to
cided with the beginning of a golden age in France. recognize the countrys best artists. Frances academies
Until 1790, French politics and culture dominated Eu- became the models for similar institutions in other
S rope, and French became the language of diplomacy. Western states.
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ABSOLUTISM, MONARCHY, AND THE BALANCE OF POWER 387

Figure 15.2 Pierre Patel (called Le Pre). View of Versailles. 1668. Oil on canvas. Chteaux de
Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles, France. As the seat of government and the center of fashionable
society, Versailles was the greatest symbol of this age of kings. Here, nobles competed for Louis XIVs favors
and a royal post. He shrewdly rewarded them with menial positions and lofty titles and thus undermined their
political influence. At the height of Louis power, this complex of buildings could house ten thousand people
members of the royal court, hangers-on, and servants.

England: From Monarchy to Republic war, toppling the monarchy and setting up a repub-
to Limited Monarchy lic, called the Commonwealth, in 1649. But the Com-
Like France, England turned toward absolutism in monwealth lost its allure when its leader, the Puritan
the early 1600s. Following the death of Elizabeth I, the Oliver Cromwell, turned it into a military dictatorship
new Stuart dynasty assumed the throne. King JamesI in 1653.
claimed to rule by divine right, but certain aspects of After the failed republic, the English restored mon-
English life held royal power in check. Specifically, archy in 1660, recalling Charles Is son from exile in
the English property-owning classes served together France to become Charles II. During the Restoration
in Parliament, with the upper nobility in the House of as the period 16601688 is knownthe kings pow-
Lords and the lesser lords and middle-class members ers were hedged in by vague restrictions, but lack of
in the House of Commons; Parliament met regularly clarity about the arrangement soon led to renewed
and considered itself the kings partner rather than his conflicts between crown and Parliament. In 1688 King
enemy; and the countrys Calvinist minority, called James II, brother of Charles II, was expelled in a blood-
Puritans, were not despised by the Anglican major- less coup known as the Glorious Revolution, and his
ity, many of whom shared their religious zeal. When daughter and son-in-law, Mary II and William III of
England became embroiled in a constitutional crisis the Netherlands, became Englands joint sovereigns.
between Parliament and the headstrong Charles I, Englands constitutional crisis was finally resolved,
Puritan leaders in Parliament led a successful civil for William and Mary understood that they could S
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388 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE BARoquE AgE I

rule only if they recognized citizens rights and Par- showing that it had fallen from its peak in the 1500s. In
liaments power over most financial matters. By 1715, contrast, Sweden and the Netherlands gained advan-
England had become the classic example of limited tages that made them major powers for the rest of the
monarchy under written laws. In later years, political century (Figure 15.3). The Hapsburg rulers were forced
philosophers cited Englands experience as a success- to accept that Protestantism could not be turned back
ful example of the principle that government should in their german lands; henceforth they concentrated
rest on the consent of the people. on their Austrian holdings, ignoring the Holy Roman
Empire, which now seemed a relic of the feudal age.
France profited more than the other involved na-
Warfare in the Baroque Period: tions from the Thirty Years War. By shifting sides to
Maintaining the Balance of Power support first Roman Catholics and then Protestants,
Warfare was crucial in establishing the great power the French rulers demonstrated a particularly shrewd
system in Europe, because the most successful states understanding of power politics. Even after the reli-
were those in which the king could marshal his coun- gious wars were over, France continued to struggle
trys resources behind his military goals. Warfare and against Roman Catholic Spain until 1659. Having
diplomacy now became means for keeping the existing taken control of France in 1661, Louis XIV launched a
state system in checkthat is, using balance-of-power series of aggressive wars four years later against vari-
principles to prevent any state from controlling the ous coalitions of European states that lasted until 1713.
rest. A side effect of this system was to relegate many
countries, such as Spain and Poland, to secondary- The Wars of Louis XIV, 16651713 LouisXIV
power status and end any significant role for lesser used various means, including marriage and diplo-
states, such as Florence and Venice. macy, to assert French might on the Continent, but it
was chiefly through warfare that he left his enduring
The Thirty Years War, 16181648 While En- mark. In his own mind, he strove for la gloire (glory),
gland was distracted by its constitutional crises, the an elusive term that reflected his image as the Sun King
Continent endured the destructive Thirty Years War but that in practice meant the expansion of France to
(actually a series of four wars), the last great European- imperial status.
wide struggle between Protestants and Roman Catho- Louis XIV fought the states of Europe in four sepa-
lics. Besides the great powers of Austria, France, and rate wars and was finally defeated by a coalition that
Brandenburg (soon to be Prussia), states involved at included virtually all of Europes major and minor
one time or another in the war included Denmark, powers. Because of its wide-ranging nature, Louis
Sweden, Spain, Venice, the united Provinces of the last struggle, the War of the Spanish Succession, is
Netherlands, and Poland. germany suffered the most generally regarded as the first of the world warsa
because the war was fought largely on its soil, wiping new type of war. The Treaty of utrecht, signed in 1713,
out a generation of germans and inaugurating more not only settled this last war but also showed that the
than a century of cultural decline. great-power system was working.
The Treaties of Westphalia, also known as the Peace The peace constructed at utrecht was a reaffirma-
of Westphalia, which ended the war in 1648, forced tion of the balance-of-power principle. The victors set
Protestants and Roman Catholics to recognize each aside Louis most extravagant acquisitions of land, but
others existence and also created the conditions for they granted those additions that still serve as Frances
the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to great-power sta- borders today. Brandenburg-Prussia gained territory,
tus. germany itself remained divided; Calvinism was and England emerged with the lions share of the
now tolerated, but true religious freedom did not ap- spoils, acquiring gibraltar and the island of Minorca
pear, for the principle established at Augsburg in 1555 from Spain and areas of Canada from France. From
was retained: the religion of each state was to be dic- this augmented base, England became the leader of
tated by its ruler (see Chapter 14). A divided germany world trade in the 1700s.
served the interests of Brandenburg-Prussia and its
rulers. Commencing with the Treaties of Westphalia,
these Calvinist leaders began to amass additional ter-
The West and Islam:
ritories, becoming kings of Prussia in 1701 and finally The Austrian-Turkish Wars
emperors of a united germany in 1871. Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (see
The Thirty Years War also had major consequences Chapter 11), the Austrian Hapsburgs faced, on their
for the emerging system of great powers. The peace southeastern border, the perennial threat of the ot-
conference was the first in which decisions were ar- toman Turks. Bent on conquest, ottoman sultans led
S ranged through congresses of ambassadors. Both the armies into southern Europe and spread Islam among
N war and the conference revealed Spains impotence, the local Christians. During the 1600s, the two powers
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Figure 15.3 Gerard Ter Borch. The Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Muenster,
15 May 1648. 1648. Oil on copper, 177/8 255/16. National Gallery, London. The Treaty of Muenster,
part of the Peace of Westphalia, ended the eighty-year war between the Spanish crown and the Dutch people.
In the treaty, the United Provinces of the Netherlands was recognized as an independent republic, giving the
Dutch their freedom and strengthening their position as a maritime power. In the painting, the Dutch Protestant
delegates, left center, take the oath of allegiance by holding up their right hands, with two raised fingers,
while the Catholic Spanish, right corner, place their hands on the Bible and a cross. More than seventy people
are crowded into the foreground, which is enclosed by three walls, while above stand three other groups of
observers. The artist, depicted at the far left, gazes out to the viewer. Gerard Ter Borch [ge-RART ter BORK]
(15841662), a very successful Dutch portrait painter and a master of domestic life scenes, helped establish,
in this work, the tradition of painting contemporary historical events.

waged the Austrian-Turkish Wars, a series of border almost continuous between the Ottomans and the
skirmishes and isolated battles, with lands sometimes Hapsburgs, who often drew support from Venice and
changing hands. The century began auspiciously with Poland. The most famous battle of this period was the
the Treaty of Zsitvatorok (in modern Slovakia), in 1606, Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, which resulted in a
which ended fifteen years of struggle. This treaty was crushing defeat for the Turks. By 1699, the exhausted
a historic event: for the first time, a Turkish sultan rec- Ottomans signed the Treaty of Karlowitz, by which
ognized the Hapsburg ruler as an equal. The peace they ceded all of Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and
treaty came at a cost: the Hapsburgs accepted Otto- Slavonia (part of present-day Croatia) to Austria, with
man rule in Romania and a Turkish puppet regime in a few small holdings in the Balkans ceded to Poland
Transylvania, and the Ottomans agreed for the Haps- and Venice.
burgs to cease paying tribute for the Hapsburgs re- The retreat of the Ottomans from southeastern Eu-
gion of Hungary. rope reflected internal problems within their empire.
With the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the A line of ineffective and degenerate sultans weak-
Hapsburgs turned their attention once again to their ened the throne, while ambitious viziers, or advisers S
southeastern flank. From 1664 until 1699, warfare was to the sultans, scrambled for favor at a corrupt and N
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390 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE BARoquE AgE I

SLICE OF LIFE
Eyewitness to the Great Fire of London, the First Day

The Great Fire raged from September 2nd to 5th, 1666, King Charles IIs palace at Whitehallwere spared. Sam-
and destroyed the medieval City of London, housed uel Pepys (16331703), a member of Parliament, gives the
within the East Ends old Roman City Wall. The aristo- best contemporary account of this historic event in his fa-
cratic section in Londons West EndWestminster and mous Diary.

Samuel Pepys
DIARY
Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get to be pulled down, nothing could stop the fire. They
things ready against our [Sunday] feast today, Jane [a seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me
maid] called up about three in the morning, to tell us of to go to my Lord Mayor . . . and command him to spare
a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose, and slipped no houses. . . .[I hurried back] to [St.] Pauls; and there
on my night-gown and went to her window, and walked along Watling Street . . . every creature com-
thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the far- ing away laden with goods to save and, here and there,
thest . . . so went to bed again, and to sleep. . . . By and sick people carried away in beds. . . . At last [I] met my
by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above Lord Mayor in Cannon Street, like a man spent, with a
300 houses have been burned down tonight by the fire [handkerchief] about his neck. To the Kings message
we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, he cried, like a fainting woman, Lord, what can I do?
by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pull-
and walked to the Tower . . . [I heard] that it began ing down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than
this morning in the Kings bakers house in Pudding we can do it. . . . So he left me, and I him, and walked
Lane, and that it hath burned St. Magnuss Church home; seeing people all distracted, and no manner of
and most part of Fish Street already. So I rode down to means used to quench the fire. . . .
the waterside, . . . and there saw a lamentable fire. . . .
Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and Interpreting this Slice of Life
flinging into the river or bringing them into Lighters 1. Why is Pepyss account of the great Fire an impor-
[small boats] that lay off; poor people staying in their tant source for historians?
houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and 2. What role does Pepys claim that he played in deal-
then running into boats, or clambering from one pair ing with the disaster?
of stairs by the waterside to another. . . .
3. How does the behavior of the Londoners compare
Having stayed . . . an hours time . . . and nobody
with that of people facing similar disasters today?
to my sight endeavouring to quench it, . . . I [went
next] to Whitehall [in my boat] . . . and there up to the 4. Historians blame Londons Lord Mayor for his in-
Kings closet in the Chapel . . . word was carried into decisiveness in containing the fires damage. How
the King [Charles II] . . . so I was called for, and did tell does Pepys portray the Lord Mayor?
the King and Duke of York [later King JamesII] what I 5. What baroque figures of speech can you identify in
saw; and that unless His Majesty did command houses this diary entry?

scandal-ridden court. The once feared and powerful malcontents, restored order, reformed the tax system,
Turkish army began a slow decline, because it had lost and brought the army under control. But, finally, their
many officers and men in battle, and the Janissaries reforms could not prevent the Hapsburgs and their
or slave soldiers, who had been trained as elite fight- allies from regaining control of southeastern Europe.
erscreated dissension in the ranks. At the same time, Disorder at home and defeat on the battlefield ensured
the imperial administration began to falter. Taxes rose, the slow decline of the ottoman Empire. Also contrib-
the imperial treasury was being depleted, and some uting to this downward slide were the new Atlantic
provinces grew increasingly difficult to govern, as economy of western Europe and the spread of Euro-
S local officials gained power at the expense of Con- pean cultural influences across the ottoman world.
N stantinople. For a brief period, 16561678, two suc-
L cessive grand viziers purged the ottoman court of
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THE BARoquE: VARIATIoNS oN AN INTERNATIoNAL STYLE 391

Technology elite opted for formal interiors with high ceilings and
opulent displays, in effect, using their dwellings to as-
No dramatic technological breakthroughs occurred,
sert their social status, real or imagined. Louis XIVs
but the baroque period did witness a consolidation
Versailles palace is the best example of this periods
of inherited trends, along with a few important ad-
lavish baroque style. Lesser royalty, nobility, and the
vances. The ages innovations, especially in warfare
bourgeoisie followed Louis XIVs lead as befitting their
and household technologies, led to changes in both
wealth and status.
public and private life. While widespread, the scope of
Similarly, the baroque era brought changes in the
these changes was limited by climate, ingrained hab-
methods used to heat palaces, courts, and residences.
its, and availability of materials.
Taking a long viewfrom 1100 to 1700the follow-
ing list shows the heating options available in baroque
Warfare Technology By 1600, when the baroque times.
period began, the cannon had already revolutionized
artillery warfare (see Chapter 13). By 1700, when the until 1100: open hearths for cooking, located
period ended, a few new and/or improved firearms in the center of a room, thus making the kitchen
and a tactical strategy had done much the same for in- the center of family life in winter; braziers, or
fantry warfare, including charcoal-fired portable heaters, in other rooms.
After 1100: wood-burning fireplaces, built into
the arquebus, or harquebus, a shoulder-fired gun
walls, with chimneys to vent the smoke, intro-
(in Spain, after 1450);
duced in Venice; fireplace usage spreads across
the musket, a muzzle-loading shoulder gun (in Europe except to germany and Spain.
Spain, 1500s);
Early 1500s: shift to coal-burning fireplaces in
the riflean improved musket, using a flintlock England, because of a shortage of wood.
instead of a matchlock for ignition (about 1630);
Early 1600s: fireplaces with carved mantles be-
the paper cartridge, for holding the gunpower come furniture; used to display status objects.
(about 1670);
The 1630s: an improved fireplace, with air ducts
the tactic of affixing of bayonets to rifles (about and vents, invented in France.
1670)thus ending the medieval practice of em-
ploying pikemen for close combat. Despite these improvements, fireplaces remained no-
toriously inefficient, as a 1695 letter reports on condi-
As these advances were adopted across Europe, the tions inside Versailles Hall of Mirrors: At the kings
last vestiges of medieval warfare disappeared. The feu- table the wine and water froze in the glasses. The
dal host was replaced by standing armies, and these Hall of Mirrors being the periods most palatial room,
armies, fighting with rifles, bayonets, and small and it is no surprise that people living in cold climates
light artilleryall supplied by the rulersgrew more wore furs and heavy robes indoors in winter.
and more divorced from general society.

Household Technology In contrast to warfare tech-


THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS
nology, changes to household technology came about ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE
slowly. Yet between 1500 and 1700, significant innova- The baroque mentality originated in a search for sta-
tions occurred in the household interiorsdcor and bility and order in a restless age. Encouraged by the
furnishingsof wealthy people in the West, including Catholic Church, artists and writers sought to reveal
the replacement of a gothic lookrough, large the order they believed lay beneath the seeming chaos
scale, and painted in showy colorsby a refined of life. In this, they shared certain aims with the art-
Italian look, characterized by splendidly carved ists of the High Renaissance. But although both styles
and polished furniture in elegant shapes; were devoted to order, they differed in their concept of
a fashion for imported oriental products, such as how harmony was best achieved. High Renaissance
lacquered furniture and household goods (china, artists valued repose, a single, static perspective, and
vases, and precious objects); designs that were complete in themselves. Baroque art-
ists, on the other hand, created dynamic, open-ended
new furniture for specific purposes, such as
works that threaten to explode beyond their formal
wardrobes, for clothing; dressers, for displaying
boundaries. These exuberant works are characterized
valued objects; cupboards, for china and silver;
by grand, sweeping gestures; flowing, expansive move-
and small cabinets, for writing materials, play-
ment; and curving lines and oval and elliptical shapes.
ing cards, and jewelry.
Reflecting the excitement of overseas explorations and S
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392 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Despite religious differences among various re- The Florid Baroque


gions of Europe, the baroque style spread readily from
The most important formative influence on the evolu-
its origin in Rome to the entire Continent and to Eng-
tion of the baroque style in the arts and architecture
land. Lines of communicationthrough trade, diplo-
was the Council of Trent (see Chapter 14). In this series
macy, and marriagefacilitated its spread, as did the
of sessions held between 1545 and 1563, church leaders
persistence of Latin as the common language of schol-
had reaffirmed all the values and doctrines rejected
arly works and diplomatic exchanges (even as French
by the Protestants and called for a new art that was
was becoming increasingly influential). Travel was also
geared to the teaching needs of the church and that
a factor in the export of baroque ideals to the rest of Eu-
set forth correct theological ideas easily understood
rope. Many Protestant families in northern and western
by the masses. To achieve these goals, the popes of the
Europe sent their sons, and sometimes their daughters,
late sixteenth century began to hold a tighter rein on
on grand tours of the Continent to complete their edu-
artists and architects and to discourage the individu-
cation. English travelers to Rome and other Catholic
alistic tendencies of the mannerist style.
bastions included such faithful Protestants as poet
The seventeenth-century popes used their patron-
John Milton and architect Christopher Wren.
age powers to bring to life the florid baroque style.
Although the baroque was an international style,
Once again, as in the Middle Ages, aesthetic values
it was reinterpreted in different regions so that three
were subordinated to spiritual purposes. The popes
distinct manifestations of the style emerged. The florid
enlisted architects, painters, and sculptors to glorify
baroque, dominated by Roman Catholic religious
the Catholic message. Architects responded with grand
ideals and motivations, was a product of the Counter-
building plans and elaborate decorative schemes that
Reformation. This style developed in Italy and flour-
symbolized the power and richness of the church.
ished there and in Spain and central Europe. The
Painters and sculptors represented dramatic incidents
classical baroque, aristocratic and courtly, was a sub-
and emotion-charged moments, particularly favoring
dued interpretation of baroque ideals. This style was
the ecstatic visions of the saints and the suffering and
associated with French taste, which had been guided
death of Jesus. They portrayed these subjects with a
by the values of simplicity and harmony since the
powerful realism intended to convey the physical
early 1500s, when Renaissance culture was introduced
presence and immediacy of the churchs holiest fig-
into France. The French preference for the classical
ures. In everything, vitality and theatrical effects were
fit well with the absolutist policies of Louis XIV, who
prized over such classical elements as restraint and
promoted the adoption of strict rules in all aspects of
repose.
cultural life as a way to reinforce his own obsession
with order and control. The third manifestation of this
style, the restrained baroque, arose in the middle-class Architecture The church of St. Peters in Rome be-
United Provinces of the Netherlands and aristocratic came the ages preeminent expression of the florid ba-
England. Repelled equally by Catholicism and French roque building style. First conceived in the early 1500s
absolutism, the artists and writers of the restrained by Donato Bramante (see Chapter 13) as a High Renais-
baroque cultivated a style in keeping with their own sance temple in the shape of a Greek cross, St. Peters
Protestant values, a style simpler and less ornate than was now redesigned to conform to the ideals of the
either the florid or the classical baroque. Council of Trent. Rejecting the Greek cross as a pagan

Figure 15.4 Carlo Maderno and


Gianlorenzo Bernini. Plan of St. Peters
Basilica with Adjoining Piazza. 16071615
and 16651667. This plan of St. Peters
Basilica shows the design of Maderno for the
church (left), dating from 1607 to 1615, and
S the adjoining piazza and colonnade (right)
N by Bernini, dating from 1665 to 1667.
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Figure 15.5 Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Piazza of St. Peters. 16651667. The
Vatican. Berninis plan for the piazza leading
up to St. Peters was instrumental in making
exterior space a major concern of baroque
architects. The ancient Romans had integrated
buildings into their urban settings, as had High
Renaissance planners, but no architect had
ever achieved such a natural blending of a
monumental structure with its surroundings as
Bernini did in this design.

symbol, Pope Paul V commissioned Carlo Maderno was hastened by the Council of Trents advocacy of
[mah-DAIR-noh] (15561629) to add a long nave, thereby religious images to communicate the faith as well as
giving the floor plan the shape of a Latin cross (Fig- the need to decorate the niches, recessed bays, and
ure 15.4). Not only did the elongated nave satisfy the pedestals that were part of building facades in florid
need to house the large crowds drawn to the mother baroque architecture. The demand for sculpture
church of Roman Catholicism, but also the enormous called forth an army of talented artists, of whom the
size of the building signified the churchs power. most outstanding was Bernini, one of the architects of
St. Peters exterior was basically finished after Ma St.Peters.
derno designed and built the buildings facade, but the Bernini brought the florid baroque to a dazzling
popes wanted to integrate this huge church into its climax in his sculptural works. His pieces, executed
urban settinga classical ideal that was now adapted for such diverse projects as churches, fountains, and
to baroque taste. For this task, Pope Alexander VII piazzas, or squares, often combined architecture with
commissioned Gianlorenzo Bernini [bayr-NEE-nee] sculpture. His sculptural ideal was a dynamic compo-
(15981680). Berninis solution was a masterstroke of sition that used undulating forms to delight the eye.
florid baroque design in which he followed the prin- His sensuous sculptures with their implicit movement
ciple of abolishing all straight lines. He tore down the were the perfect accompaniments to florid baroque
buildings around St. Peters and replaced them with structures with their highly decorated walls.
a huge public square where the faithful could gather Berninis most famous sculptures are those he made
to see and hear the pope. Bernini then outlined this for the interior of St. Petersincluding altars, tombs,
keyhole-shaped space with a sweeping colonnade
reliefs, statues, and liturgical furnitureduring a fifty-
topped with statues of saints (Figure 15.5). For wor- year period, commencing in 1629. His masterpiece
shipers assembled in the square, the curved double among these ornate works is the baldacchino [ball-
colonnade stood as a symbol of the churchs welcom- duh-KEE-no], the canopy, mainly bronze and partly
ing arms. gilt, that covers the spot where the bones of St. Peter are
From its origin in Rome, the florid baroque style in believed to liedirectly under Michelangelos dome.
architecture spread to Spain, Austria, and southern Combining architectural and sculptural features, the
Germany. By 1650 this lush style had appeared in Span- baldacchino is supported by four huge columns whose
ish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas, where it convoluted surfaces are covered with climbing vines
flourished until well into the nineteenth century. (Figure 15.6). Bernini crowned this colossal work with
a magnificent display of four large angels at the cor-
Sculpture During the baroque period, sculpture ners, four groups of cherubs in the centers of the sides,
once again became a necessary complement to archi- and behind the angels four scrolled arches that rise to S
tecture, as it had been in medieval times. This change support a ball and cross at the top. N
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Figure 15.6 Gianlorenzo Bernini. The
Baldacchino. 16241633. Ht. approx. 100.
St. Peters, Vatican. This magnificent canopy
reflects the grandiose ambitions of its patron,
Pope Urban VIII, a member of the Barberini
family. The Barberini crest was the source
for the huge stylized bees displayed on
the flaps of the bronze canopy. In his desire
for worldly immortality, this pope shared
a common outlook with the secular rulers
of the baroque age.

The baldacchinos twisting columns were modeled agitation of the draperies, and the billowing clouds all
on the type that by tradition supported Solomons contribute to the illusion that the pair are sensuously
Temple in Jerusalem and had been used in the old real. By depicting St. Teresas supernatural experience
St. Peters Basilica. Thus, these columns symbolized in physical terms, Bernini intended to force the viewer
the churchs claim to be the true successor to the Jew- to suspend disbelief and accept the religious truth of
ish faith. So popular was Berninis Solomonic canopy the scene.
that in southern Germany it inspired many imitators
and became the standard covering for altars for the Painting In the baroque period, painting once
next two centuries. again became an essential part of church decoration.
The sculpture that marks the highest expression of In pursuit of church ideals, the painters of this tradi-
Berninis art is The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (Figure 15.7). Us- tion tended to use rich color and unusual lighting ef-
ing marble, metal, and glass, he portrayed the divine fects to depict spectacular or dramatic moments. They
moment when the saint receives the vision of the Holy represented nature and the human form realistically
Spiritsymbolized here by the arrow with which to make art intelligible and meaningful to the ordi-
the angel pierces her heart. In his conception, Ber- nary viewer.
nini imagines the pair floating on a cloud and bathed The earliest great florid baroque painter was Michel
by light from a hidden source; the light rays seem to angelo Merisi (15731610), better known as Caravaggio
S turn into golden rods that cascade onto the angel and [kahr-ah-VAHD-jo]. Caravaggio rejected the antinatu-
N the saint. The intensity of the saints expression, the ralism of mannerism in favor of a dramatic realism.
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 395

Figure 15.7 Gianlorenzo Bernini. The


Ecstasy of St. Teresa. 16451652. Marble,
glass, metal, life-size. Cornaro Chapel,
Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. Even
though this sculpture captures an ecstatic
vision, its portrayal reflects the naturalism
that was central to the baroque style. Bernini
based this work on the saints personal
account, in which she described how an
angel pierced her heart with a golden spear
a mystical moment the tableau faithfully
reproduces. The sculptures subject, St. Teresa
of Avila (Spain) (15151582), founded the
Carmelite order of nuns (1562); she recorded
her mystic visions in works such as Camino
de perfeccin (The Road to Perfection).

His concern with realism led him to pick his models for the groomsman, on the right, who holds the reins of
directly from the streets, and he refused to idealize his the horse. St. Pauls head is thrown toward the viewer,
subjects. To make his works more dramatic and emo- and his eyes are shut as he is blinded by the light of the
tionally stirring, he experimented with light and the presence of Jesus, who, as recorded in the New Testa-
placement of figures. His paintings offer startling con- ment (Acts 9:39), did not appear in human form but
trasts of light and darka style of chiaroscuro called only as light.
tenebrismin which he banished landscape from Caravaggio had an enormous influence on other
his canvases and focused on human figures grouped painters both in Italy and elsewhere, notably France,
tightly in the foreground. Spain, and the Netherlands. Perhaps the most original of
A superb example of Caravaggios work is The Con- Caravaggios Italian disciplesknown as Caravaggisti
version of St. Paul (Figure 15.8), which is paired with was Artemisia Gentileschi [ahrt-uh-MEEZe-uh jain-
his Crucifixion of St. Peter in a Roman church. The two teel-ESS-key] (15931653), his only female follower. Un-
works were part of a commission to paint the founders like most women artists of the early modern period,
of the Church of Rome, who, according to the New Tes- who limited their art to portraits, such as the late-
tament, preached in the city. Caravaggios revolution- sixteenth-century painter Sofonisba Anguissola (see
ary use of chiaroscuro emphasizes the dramatic event Chapter 14), Gentileschi concentrated on biblical and
of Pauls conversion. The light, coming from the upper mythical subjects, as many male artists did. Trained by
right, focuses on St. Paul and part of the horses body. her painter-father Orazio, himself a disciple of Caravag- S
This makes the background nearly indistinct except gio, Gentileschi adapted the flamboyant and dramatic N
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396 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Figure 15.8 Caravaggio. The Conversion of


St. Paul. 16001601. Oil on canvas, approx.
75 58. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del
Popolo, Rome. Caravaggios paintings made
monumentality an important feature of the
florid baroque. By presenting St. Pauls figure
in close-up, and giving full weight and presence
to both him and the horse, the artist filled the
canvas not only to capture a turning point in
St. Pauls life and in the history of Christianity
but also to teach the faithful a lesson about
forgiveness and the power of God. Saul of
Tarsus, the persecutor of Christians, will
now become St. Paul, the convert who has
been chosen to bring Jesuss message to the
Gentiles.

style of Caravaggesque realism and made it her own. Judith, often treated in Italian painting and sculpture
In almost thirty surviving paintings, she followed in the Renaissance and baroque eras, is a perfect sub-
this styles preference for night pictures, dark scenes ject for Gentileschi, since the biblical story describes a
whose blackness is illuminated by a single internal woman of destiny. In the story, Judith saves the Jew-
light source. ish people by beheading their enemy Holofernes af-
What distinguishes Artemisia Gentileschis art ter having seduced him. In the painting, Holofernes
from that of the rest of the Caravaggisti is its female bloody head, partly visible in the basket, starkly dra-
assertiveness, a highly unusual quality in the baroque matizes the point that Judith is a forthright woman
period, when women artists were still making their who plans and acts, just as men do. Gentileschis Ju-
way without guild support or access to nude model- dith typifies a heroic female ideal who is endowed
ing. Female assertiveness is expressed throughout her with the traits of that fuller humanity that by tradition
works in an androgynous (having female and male had been allowed only to male figures. Through such
characteristics) ideal, as may be seen in Judith and Her dramatic works as this, Gentileschi helped to spread
Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (Figure 15.9), the Caravaggesque style in Italy.
which depicts a scene from an apocryphal book of About the same time that Caravaggio was creating
the Old Testament, the book of Judith. The paintings his dramatic works, a new form caught the imagina-
central figureJudithis decidedly female (as shown tion of painters in the florid baroque traditionthe
S in the vulnerable throat and fleshy body) and yet ex- illusionistic ceiling fresco. In these paintings, artists
N hibits masculine strength (as shown in the command- constructed imaginary continuations of the architec-
L ing gesture accentuated by the firmly grasped sword). tural features already present in the room, expanding
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Figure 15.9 Artemisia Gentileschi.
Judith and Her Maidservant with the
Head of Holofernes. Ca. 1625. Oil on
canvas. 63/8 473/4. Detroit Institute
of Arts. Gentileschis style in this painting is
strongly indebted to the style of Caravaggio:
the natural background is painted black and
thus virtually eliminated, the central figures
are shown in tight close-up, and the action is
frozen like a single frame in a film sequence.
The aesthetic impact of this cinematic method
is to draw viewers into the scene and to
personalize the figures. The artists interest
in the personal psychology of her characters
is part of the trend toward naturalism that
characterized baroque culture.

up through layers of carefully foreshortened, sculp- the viewer. Illusionism, infinite space, and spectacular
tured figures and culminating in patches of sky. Look- effects make this a masterpiece of the florid baroque.
ing up as if at the heavens, the viewer is overawed by To see the dramatic differences between baroque and
the superhuman spectacle that seems to begin just High Renaissance ideals, compare this ceiling fresco
overhead. with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo
The superb example of this illusionism is the nave (see Figure 13.10).
ceiling of the church of SantIgnazio (St. Ignatius) in Outside Italy, the principal centers of florid baroque
Rome, painted by Andrea Pozzo [POE-tzo] (16421709). painting were the studio of Velzquez in Spain and
In this fresco, titled Allegory of the Missionary Work of the workshop of Rubens in Flanders (present-day Bel-
the Jesuits, Pozzo reveals a firm mastery of the tech- gium). Whereas Velzquez softened the florid baroque
nique of architectural perspective (Figure 15.10). The to his countrys taste, Rubens fully embraced this sen-
great nave ceiling is painted to appear as if the viewer sual style to become its most representative painter.
were looking up through an immense open colon- The work of Diego Velzquez [vuh-LAS-kus]
nade. Figures stand and cling to the encircling archi- (15991660) owes much to the tradition of Caravaggio
tectural supports, and, in the center, an expansive vista but does not have the intense drama of the Italians
opens to reveal St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit painting. Velzquez also used chiaroscuro, but he
order, being received by an open-armed Christ. The avoided the extreme contrasts that made Caravaggios
clusters of columns on either side are labeled for the paintings controversial. Velzquezs greatest work is
four continentsEurope, Asia, America, and Africa Las Meninas, or The Maids of Honor (Figure15.11). As of-
symbolizing the missionary zeal of the Jesuits around ficial artist to the Spanish court, Velzquez painted this
the globe. Pozzo was motivated by spiritual concerns group portrait of the infanta, or princess, surrounded
when he painted this supernatural vision. He believed by her maids of honor (one of whom is a dwarf). What S
that the illusion of infinite space could evoke feelings makes this painting so haunting is the artful play of N
of spiritual exaltation and even religious rapture in soft light over the various figures. In the background, a L
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398 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Figure 15.10 Andrea Pozzo. Allegory of the Missionary


Work of the Jesuits. Ca. 16211625. Ceiling fresco.
SantIgnazio, Rome. The meaning of Pozzos fresco is based
on ignus, Latin for fire, a pun on the name of St. Ignatius (Loyola), the
founder of the Jesuit order. In church tradition, the saint and the Jesuit
mission are linked with the power of fire and light. At the frescos center,
Christ, holding the cross, emits rays of light from his wounded side, which
pierce the figure of Ignatius (sitting on the cloud bank nearest Christ),
who acts as a mirror; from him the light then radiates to the four corners,
symbolic of the four continents. Thus, Ignatius and his missionary followers
mediate Christs saving light to the whole earth, as commanded by the
scriptures.

Figure 15.11 Velzquez. Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor). 1656. Oil
on canvas, 105 9. Prado, Madrid. Velzquez uses the mirror on the
back wall, reflecting the Spanish king and queen, to enhance the dynamic
S feeling of the scene. This illusionistic device explodes the pictorial space by
N calling up presences within and outside the painting.
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 399

man is illuminated by the light streaming through the


open door, and even more abundant sunshine falls on
the princess from the window on the right.
Velzquez also plays with space and illusion in this
painting. On the left side, he depicts himself, stand-
ing before a huge canvas with brush and palette in
hand. The artist gazes directly at the vieweror is he
greeting the king and queen, who have just entered
the room and are reflected in the mirror on the rear
wall? The princess and two of her maids also look
attentively out of the picture, but whether at the art-
ist painting their portrait, at the royal couple, or at
the viewer is left unclear. This fascination with illu-
sion and with the effects of light and shade reveals
Velzquezs links with Caravaggio and the art of the
florid baroque.
In contrast to Velzquezs devotion to the ideal of
grave beauty, the work of Peter Paul Rubens (15771640)
is known for its ripe sensuality and the portrayal of
voluptuous female nudes. Rubens had already forged
a sensuous style before he sojourned in Italy for eight
years, but his encounters with Caravaggios tradition
impressed him deeply, causing him to intensify his
use of explosive forms and chiaroscuro. From the Ve-
netian painters, especially Titian, he derived his love
and mastery of gorgeous color. In his mature works,
he placed human figures in a shallow foreground, Figure 15.12 Peter Paul Rubens. The Education of Marie de Medici.
bathed them in golden light with dark contours, and 16211625. Oil on canvas, 1211 98. Louvre, Paris. The Medici
painted their clothes and flesh in sensuous tones. cycle, of which this work is a superb example, not only established the
As the most sought-after artist of his day, Rubens artists European-wide reputation but also defined historical narrative
the combining of a historical event with mythological motifsas one of the
was often given commissions by the kings of the great
great themes of baroque art. By 1715 the French Academy had created a
states, and he produced works for royalty, the church, ranked set of painting subjects, of which historical narrative occupied the
and wealthy private patrons. As official painter to the highest level.
French court before the ascendancy of Louis XIV, who
preferred the classical style, Rubens was commissioned
to paint a cycle of works glamorizing the life of Queen
Marie de Medici, widow of Henry IV and powerful re- The Classical Baroque
gent for her son, Louis XIII. One of the typical works Although the Baroque originated in Rome, the pro-
from this series is The Education of Marie de Medici (Fig- nouncements of the church had little effect on the art
ure 15.12). In this huge canvas, Rubens used Roman and architecture of France. Here, the royal court was
mythological figures to transform a mundane episode the guiding force in the artistic life of the nation. The
in the life of a queen into a splendid pageant of the rulers and the royal ministers provided rich commis-
French monarchy. All action is centered on the kneel- sions that helped to shape the classical baroque, giv-
ing future queen. Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, of- ing this style a secular focus and identifying it with
fers instruction in reading and writing; Mercury, the absolutism. A second powerful influence on the ba-
god of eloquence, hovers overhead and offers his bless- roque in France was the pervasiveness of the classical
ing; Apollo (or Orpheus, or Harmony) plays a stringed values of simplicity and grave dignity. Accordingly,
instrument, thereby inculcating a love of music; and after Louis XIV became king, French artists and archi-
the three Graces, attendants of the goddess Venus, en- tects found the florid baroque alien and even offensive;
courage the perfection of feminine grace. A waterfall their adaptation of the baroque was more impersonal,
cascades in the background, a drapery billows above, controlled, and measured.
and various images of Greco-Roman culture (a mask
of tragedy and a musical instrument) are displayed in Architecture The palace at Versailles was the con-
the foreground. Rubenss mastery of both spiritual and summate architectural expression of the classical
secular subjects and the turbulent drama of his works baroque. Versailles, a former hunting lodge, was trans- S
made him the finest artist of the florid baroque. formed by Louis XIV into a magnificent royal residence N
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400 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

that became the prototype of princely courts in the mirrors, wood parquetry floors of intricate design,
West. At Versailles, where all power was concentrated multicolored marbles, ceiling paintings depicting mili-
in the royal court, were the best architects, sculptors, tary victories and other deeds of Louis XIV, and gilded
painters, and landscape architects as well as the finest statues at the base of the paintings. In modern times,
writers, composers, and musicians that France could major political events have taken place in the Hall of
produce. The duty of this talented assemblage was to Mirrors: the Germans proclaimed their empire from
use their gifts to surround Louis XIV with the splendor here in 1871 after having vanquished the French, and
appropriate to the Sun King. the peace treaty that ended World War I was signed
The redesign of Versailles gave Louis XIV the most here in 1919.
splendid palace that has ever been seen in Europe. The
chief architects of this revamped palace were Louis Le Painting Classical values dominated baroque paint-
Vau [luh VO] (16121670) and Jules Hardouin-Mansart ing in France even more completely than architecture.
[ar-DWAN mahn-SAR] (16461708), but the guiding In pursuit of ancient Roman ideals, classical baroque
spirit was the Sun King himself. When finished, the artists painted mythological subjects, stressed idealized
palace consisted of a huge central structure with two human bodies, and cultivated a quietly elegant style.
immense wings (see Figure 15.2). The architecture is The outstanding classical baroque artist was Nicolas
basically in the style of the Renaissance, with rounded Poussin [poo-SAN] (15941665). Ironically, except for
arches, classical columns, and porticoes inspired by two disappointing years in Paris, Poussin spent his pro-
Roman temples, but the overall effect is a baroque fessional life in Rome, the home of the florid baroque.
style that is dignified yet regal. Although he was inspired by Caravaggios use of light
The most striking aspect of Versailles is its monu- and dark, the style that Poussin forged was uniquely
mentality: the palace is part of an elaborate complex his own: a detached approach to his subject matter and
that includes a royal chapel and various support struc- a feeling for the unity of human beings with nature.
tures, all of which are set in an elaborate park over An intriguing example of Poussins detached style
two miles long. The park, designed by Andr Le Ntre is Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice, a painting in
[luh NOH-truh] (16131700), is studded with a rich dis- which human figures are integrated into a vast, atmo-
play of fountains, reflecting pools, geometric flower spheric landscape (Figure 15.14). In ancient mythology,
beds, manicured woods, exotic trees, statues, urns, and the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice was a tragic tale
graveled walksa gorgeous outdoor setting for royal of true love lost twice: once, when the mortal Eurydice
receptions and entertainments (Figure 15.13). was bitten by a poisonous snake on her wedding day,
The most famous room in the palace at Versailles is and, secondly, when her lover, the poet-musician Or-
the Hall of Mirrors, a central chamber with a tunnel- pheus, failed in his bid to rescue her from the under-
vaulted ceiling (see the chapter-opening photo). The world. Poussin, in his version of the legend, depicts
grandiose design of this hallway reflects its original the doomed pairs wedding day. Eurydice, kneeling in
function as the throne room of Louis XIV. Named for the center foreground, appears to have been startled
its most prominent feature, this long hall is decorated by something nearby (unseen to the viewer). Behind
with baroque profusion, including, in addition to the her, a fisherman turns around, presumably startled

Figure 15.13 Andr Le Ntre, L andscape


A rchitect, and Various Sculptors. Versailles
Gardens. The Pool of Latona with adjacent
parterres. 1660s. Versailles, France. This
fountain, composed of four concentric marble
basins, is named for its crowning statue of
Latona, the mother of the sun god Apollo, who
was the inspiration for Louis XIVs reign. On
either side of the fountain are parterres, or
flower gardens with beds and paths arranged
into patterns. Beyond the fountain stretches
an avenue flanked by wooded areas that
culminates in the grand canal, which extends
S the view into infinity. The rich profusion of this
N scene is a hallmark of baroque design.
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 401

by her cry. On the right, a seated Orpheus, holding a Painting The Calvinist Netherlands pointed
lyre, continues to sing, having neither heard nor seen the way in the arts in Protestant Europe until
anything. Similarly, the other people in the painting 1675. The Dutch Republic was ruled by a well-
the nymphs before Orpheus (including the standing to-do middle class whose wealth was based largely on
figure dressed as Hymen, the goddess of marriage), their dominant role in international shipping. Led by
along with the bathers and workmenare equally these sober-minded burghers, as the townspeople were
oblivious. In this idyllic world, the rising clouds of called, the Netherlands was briefly one of Europes
smoke over the castle offer a visual metaphor of the great powers. During the middle of the century, the
looming tragedy. The magnificent stillness, the myth- Dutch controlled northern Europe, using their mili-
ological subject, and the gentle melancholy evoked by tary and naval might to fight England, check French
this reminder of death were central to Poussins art ascendancy, and destroy Spanish sea power. Amster-
and evidence of his classical spirit. dam became one of Europes largest cities, and an im-
portant school of painting flourished there. In about
The Restrained Baroque 1675, a series of military disasters ended the Nether-
The Protestant culture of northern and western Eu- lands economic expansion, and the states fortunes
rope created simpler works that humanized baroque declined sharply. By this time, the great days of Dutch
exuberance, appealed to democratic sentiments, and art were over.
reflected common human experience. This style of art During the heyday of the Dutch Republic, a school
is called the restrained baroque, and it was founded of painters arose whose works defined the restrained
by the painters and architects of the Netherlands and baroque. Attuned to the sober values of their religion
England. and sympathetic to the civic ideals of the republic,

Figure 15.14 Nicolas Poussin. Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice. Oil on canvas, 487/8 78 3/4
(enlarged at the bottom by about 2). 1640s. Louvre, Paris. Poussin here demonstrates his mastery of the
baroque landscape, especially in these features: the drama created by juxtaposing a catastrophe in the midst
of calm; the small-scale figures versus the vast distances of the overall composition; the sensual tones and
rich colors; and the use of chiaroscuro, which makes the bare limbs and the faces stand out vividly from the
background. The building burning has been identified as Romes Castel SantAngelo, a papal fortresswhich
has given rise to many interpretations, but none persuasively for a scholarly consensus.

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402 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

these artists created a secular style that mirrored the on his face. The last self-portrait is most remarkable
pious outlook of the ruling middle class. An impor- for the expressive eyes, which, though anguished, seem
tant development that helped to shape the course of resigned to whatever happens next. Rembrandts pur-
Dutch painting was the rise of an art market. Venice suit of truthinspired by his own meditationsis re-
had shown some tendencies in this direction in the vealed here with clarity and acceptance. Looking into
1500s, but in the Netherlands in the 1600s the first full- this time-ravaged face, the viewer recognizes the uni-
fledged art market made its debut. The impact of this versality of growing old and the inevitability of death.
market on the Dutch school was instantaneous and Besides being a master painter, Rembrandt was a
dramatic. Driven by a demand for home decoration, giant in printmaking, creating thousands of extant
especially small works to hang on the wall, the mar- prints and influencing the field for generations to
ket responded with specific subjectsstill lifes, land- come. Beginning in the 1640s, when he was beset with
scapes, portraits, and genre, or slice-of-life, scenes. personal woes (the death of his first wife, Saskia) and
Paintings were sold by dealers as wares, and buyers a series of financial crises, he was able to keep himself
speculated in art objects. The market dictated success afloat financially through sales of his prints. While
or failure; some painters pursued other careers as a prints generally sold for lower prices than paintings,
hedge against financial ruin. Rembrandt, through his mastery of the print medium,
The greatest artist of the Dutch school and prob- was able to command higher prices for his prints than
ably one of the two or three greatest painters of West- for his paintings, which were not selling. Fashioned
ern art was Rembrandt van Rijn (16061669). His early with a deft hand and a clinical eye, the prints showed
genius lay in his subtle and dramatic use of lighting the same mastery of chiaroscuro and understanding
and his forceful expressivenessboth qualities that of character as his paintings. The methods Rembrandt
reflected the distant influence of Caravaggio. He also used were either etchings or drypointboth tech-
was supremely gifted in his ability to portray the niques from late medieval times (see Chapter 11)and
range of moods and emotions he found in humanity, his subjects included landscapes, Amsterdam street
as expressed through the ordinary people he used as scenes, self-portraits, and religious scenes.
models. The religious prints reflected his personal faith,
The culmination of Rembrandts early style is a which was centered on a compassionate, personal sav-
painting titled The Militia Company of Captain Frans ior rather than a stern, distant God. Rembrandts simple
Banning Cocq but commonly known as The Night Watch religious scenes, in sharp contrast to the grandeur and
(Figure 15.15). The painting was commissioned by one splendor of the Italian florid baroque, often portray
of Amsterdams municipal guard troops in a typi- Christ, dressed in simple clothes, mingling with the
cal display of Dutch civic pride. Instead of painting common folk, as he heals, preaches, and brings hope to
a conventional group portrait, however, Rembrandt the poor and downtrodden (Figure 15.17). Pious Protes-
created a theatrical work filled with exuberant and tants, who bought religious art for their homes, found
dramatic gestures and highly charged chiaroscuro ef- Rembrandts prints appealing because of their simple
fects. He gave the composition added energy by de- treatment of Christian themes.
picting the guardsmen marching toward the viewer. Another great Dutch artist was Jan Vermeer [yahn
The militia is led by Captain Cocq, the black-suited ver-MEER] (16321675), who specialized in domestic
figure with the red sash and white ruff who marches genre scenes. His works reveal a calm world where
with arm outstretched in the center foreground. On ordinary objects possess a timeless gravity. Color was
his left marches his attentive lieutenant, dressed in important for establishing the domesticity and peace-
yellow, with his halberd in his hand. Behind them, fulness of this closed-off world; Vermeers favorites
the members of the surging crowd, engaged in vari- were yellow and blue. These serene works evoked the
ous soldierly activities and looking in different direc- fabled cleanliness of Delft, the city where he lived and
tions with expressive faces, seem ready to burst forth worked.
from the space in which they are enclosed. Of Rem- One of the most beautiful of Vermeers domestic
brandts vast repertory, this painting is one of his most scenes is The Lacemaker (Figure 15.18). Like most of
representative. his thirty-five extant paintings, The Lacemaker depicts
After The Night Watch, Rembrandts style grew more an interior room where a single figure is encircled
personal and simpler. His paintings now expressed a by everyday things. She is lit by a clear light falling
stronger naturalism and an inner calm, a change that on her from the side, another characteristic of Ver-
paralleled the rise of the quieter classical baroque. meers paintings. The composition (the woman at the
This late stage of his art is most beautifully and mov- table and the rear wall parallel to the picture frame),
ingly rendered in his last self-portrait (Figure 15.16). the basic colors (yellow and blue), and the subjects
S During his career, he had often painted his own like- absorption in her task typified Vermeers works. The
N ness, coolly revealing the effects of the aging process Lacemaker also has a moral message, for a woman
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 403

Figure 15.15 Rembrandt van Rijn. The Night Watch (The Militia
Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq). 1642. Oil on canvas,
122 147. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Because of its murky
appearance, this painting acquired its nickname, The Night Watch,
in the nineteenth century. But a cleaning of the paintings deteriorated
surface showed that it was actually set in daylight. Restored to its
original conception, this work now reveals Rembrandts spectacular
use of light and dark.

Figure 15.16 Rembrandt van Rijn. Self-Portrait. 1669. Oil on canvas,


231/4 20. Mauritshuis, The Hague. In this last self-portrait,
Rembrandts eyes reveal the personal anguish of a man who has outlived
wife, beloved mistress, and children. By this means, Rembrandt expresses
one of the most popular themes of baroque art, that of pathosthe quality S
that arouses feelings of pity and sorrow. N
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404 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

Figure 15.17 Rembrandt van Rijn. Christ Preaching. Ca. 16481650.


Etching, 11 151/2. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Rembrandts
command of the etchers tools shines forth in this scene, based on a Her Carousing Couple (Figure 15.19), painted when she
verse from the biblical book of Matthew, depicting Christ preaching in the was about twenty, demonstrates early mastery of ar-
street. Christ stands in the center, bathed in light, while surrounded by the
poor and the lame, their figures fading into the shadows on the right. On
tistic technique. Leysters skill at genre painting, such
the left are gathered the Phariseesa sect that interpreted Jewish laws as this, enabled her to experience modest success in
strictly. Recognizable by their finery and showy hats, the Pharisees engage her profession.
in conversation, perhaps debating what to make of this street preacher. England also contributed to the creation of the re-
Rembrandt created characters not from his imagination but from real strained baroque, but conditions there led to a style
people he encountered in the streets of Amsterdam. This etching is often
called the Hundred Guilder Print, because of the high price (est. $1,300,
markedly different from that of the Dutch school. Un-
today) it brought at an auction in the seventeenth century. like the Netherlands, England had no art market, was
dominated by an aristocracy, and, most important,
had as yet no native-born painters of note. Painting in
England was controlled by aristocratic patrons who
engaged in household tasks symbolized the virtue of preferred portraits to all other subjects and whose
domesticity for Vermeer. taste was courtly but restrained. The painter whose
One of the few Dutch female artists was Judith style suited these aristocratic demands was a Flemish
Leyster (16091660), who, like her male colleagues, was artist, Anthony van Dyck [vahn DIKE] (15991641). A
a member of an artists guild (in Haarlem) and painted pupil of Rubens, van Dyck eventually settled in En
for the art market. Beginning in about 1300, women gland and became court painter to Charles I.
were able to join artists guilds in the Netherlands Van Dycks elegant style captured the courtly quali-
working in embroidery and other craftsbut it was ties prized by his noble patrons. He depicted his sub-
the explosive growth of the art market in the 1600s, jects splendid costumes in all their radiant glory, using
with the increased demand for artworks in the home vibrant colors to reproduce their textures. He invented
by the Dutch burghers, that made artistic careers such a repertory of poses for individual and group portraits
S as Leysters possible. Leyster opened her own studio, that showed his subjects to their greatest advantage.
N where she also instructed aspiring artists. Leysters But van Dyck did more than cater to the vanity of his
L specialties were genre scenes, portraits, and still lifes. titled patrons. With superb sensitivity, he portrayed
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Figure 15.18 Jan Vermeer. The Lacemaker.
Ca. 1664. Oil on canvas, 9 5/8 81/4. Louvre,
Paris. Unlike Rembrandt, Vermeer was not
concerned with human personality as such.
Rather, his aim was to create scenes that
registered his deep pleasure in bourgeois order
and comfort. In The Lacemaker, he gives his
female subject generalized features, turning
her into a social type, but renders her sewing
in exquisite detail, giving it a monumental
presence. The painting thus becomes a visual
metaphor of a virtuous household.

their characters in their faces, showing such qualities


as intelligence, self-doubt, and obstinacy. His psycho-
logical insights make his courtly portraits genuine
works of art.
Van Dycks fluent style is clearly shown in his dou-
ble portrait of Lords John and Bernard Stuart, two of
the dandies of the court of Charles I (Figure 15.20).
This painting indicates the artists mastery of the so-
ciety portrait. The subjects fashionable dress and
haughty expressions establish their high social status.
Van Dyck skillfully renders the play of light on the
silk fabrics of their clothing. He creates an interesting
design by placing their bodies opposite each other,
but this positioning also offers psychological insight
into their characters as the mirrorlike pose suggests
that they are vain young men. Van Dycks deftness at

Figure 15.19 Judith Leyster. Carousing Couple. 1630. Oil on panel,


26 3/4 225/8. Louvre, Paris. Leysters Carousing Couple shows
her command of the painting tradition in which she was trained. The
woman, holding a pitcher of beer and a half-filled glass, gazes at her
male companion, who is playing a stringed instrument. Both revelers,
with their rosy cheeks, are clearly enjoying themselves. The straitlaced
S
ruling class of the Netherlands viewed genre scenes such as this as N
cautionary tales, depicting public rowdiness of which they disapproved. L
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406 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE BARoquE AgE I

Figure 15.20 antHony van dycK. Lords


John and Bernard Stuart. Ca. 1639. Oil on
canvas, 791/3 49 1/2. National Gallery,
London. Van Dyck has depicted these dandies
in the carefully disheveled style preferred by
the eras aristocrats. Their doublets (jackets)
are of plain, muted colors and slashed on
the chest and sleeves to allow a contrasting
color to show. The deliberately casual look is
especially prominent in the unbuttoned doublet
worn by Lord John (left) and the cloak thrown
over the shoulder of Lord Bernard (right). Both
men wear the soft leather boots, partly rolled
down the legs, that were now replacing the
shoes of an earlier time.

creating elegant likenesses set the standard for En- fluenced by English architects, Wren, over the course
glish portraiture and influenced French artists well of his travels, observed at first hand the classical ba-
into the eighteenth century. roque of Versailles and Paris, as well as the High Re-
naissance style in Italy with its classical forms such as
Architecture Perhaps the most famous architect the dome and the column orders.
of the restrained baroque was an Englishman, Sir After the devastating fire of 1666 (see Slice of Life,
Christopher Wren (16321723). His diverse career per- earlier in the chapter), Wren was commissioned by
sonified the baroque age: astronomer and professor at CharlesII to supervise the rebuilding of much of cen-
oxford university, mathematician, engineer, friend of tral London, including the old gothic church of St.Paul.
S Isaac Newton, architectural adviser to Charles II, and Wrens St.Pauls cathedral, built between 1675 and 1710,
N a founding member of the Royal Society. Although in- was modified during construction (see Interpreting
L
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Interpreting Art
shape that typified Romanesque
Personal Vision The and Gothic churchesnave,
design for St. Pauls, Wrens transept, and choirthough the
masterpiece, united the transept is placed slightly closer
architects sense of beauty to the east end, near the choir
with his mathematical training and the high altar. Classical:
and religious faith. Wrens the west facade, as seen here,
tomb lies under the cathedrals has two symmetrical towers,
dome, where a plaque reads, the pairs of columns on two
in Latin: Si monumentum levels, the elaborate pediment,
requires, circumspice (If you and classical decorations.
are seeking his monument, look Baroque: the exterior has a lively
around you). appearance, with its ornate
facade punctuated by niches,
Religious the robust twin steeples with
their shadowy recesses and
Perspective Members of staggered columns, and the
the Church of England worship dramatic play of light across
here, observing their rituals the buildings surface.
and ceremonies and professing
their beliefs. Like medieval
cathedrals, St. Pauls was
Materials Brick, wood,
lead, marble, and stone were
designed to awe and inspire
used in construction. A brick
worshipers by affirming Gods
structure supports both
power and glory. the lantern and the wooden
framework of the outer dome,
Setting St. Pauls, built on which is covered with lead.
the site of old St. Pauls, stands Most of the exterior is sheathed
on a slight rise on the north in slabs of marble. The front
side of the Thames River, in steps, exterior columns, and
the heart of what was medieval interior floor are marble.
London. Although tucked in
among commercial buildings,
it remains aloof and alone, thanks
Echoes of
cHRistoPHeR WRen. St. Pauls Cathedral. 16751710. London. As Kings Surveyor of Public Works, St. Peters Wren adapted
to the orientation of the building,
the surrounding gardens, and
Christopher Wren designed and built St. Pauls, along with more than fifty other London churches, elements of Michelangelos
the imposing dome. after the Great Fire of 1666. St. Pauls, the first cathedral to be built for the Church of England, was design for St. Peters (see
meant to be a Protestant rival to St. Peters in Rome. Over time, members of Englands royal family Figure 13.23), including the
Mixed Stylistic and well-known commoners have been married and mourned here. magnificent dome with its
encircling colonnade, and
Elements Medieval: the the use of the Corinthian order
floor plan has the cruciform 1. Biographical Perspective What 3. Style What stylistic elements does as a unifying motif.
was Christopher Wrens personal Wren employ in his design?
vision for St. Pauls cathedral, 4. Medium What materials were used
London? in constructing St.Pauls?
2. Context How does St. Pauls reflect 5. Audience What does the style and
the late-seventeenth-century world the setting of this church tell us
in which it was conceived and built? about its intended audience?

Art). In its final configuration St.Pauls cathedralthe Nevertheless, a baroque literary style now arose, which
crowning achievement of Wrens illustrious career became international in scope.
represented the climax of the restrained baroque. The most enduring legacy of baroque litera-
Today, St.Pauls cathedral is one of the dominant land- ture is drama. Audiences of the period delighted
marks of the London skyline. in works that blended different forms, and ba-
roque drama mixed literature, costume design, set
painting, and theatrical spectacle. Tragedy, based on
Literature Roman models, was the supreme achievement of the
The Council of Trents decrees, which had played a baroque stage, but comedies of all types, including
powerful role in shaping baroque art and architecture, satires, farces, and sexual comedies, were also impor- S
had little impact on seventeenth-century literature. tant. After centuries of neglect, tragedy and comedy N
L
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408 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

had been brilliantly revived in Elizabethan England language; a fascination with characterization, either of
(see Chapter 14), and their revival in France in the individuals or of types; and a tendency to choose plots
1600s was evidence of the continuing growth of secu- loaded with emotional extremes, such as gross sensu-
lar consciousness. Another ancient literary genre that ality versus pangs of conscience. With such emotion-
returned to favor was the epic, a reflection of the love ally charged works, baroque writers could and did
of power typical of the age. Finally, baroque literature employ dramatic rhetoric, slipping occasionally into
began to acknowledge the world outside Europe, as empty bombast.
may be seen in the rise of writings with a non-Western
dimension, such as settings (for example, Mexico, in Baroque Literature in France Drama was Frances
the poetry of the Mexican nun Sor Juana Ins de la greatest contribution to baroque literature. Secular
Cruz [16481695]) (Figure 15.21); characters (for exam- drama revived in the 1630s under the patronage of
ple, the Aztec ruler Montezuma, the hero of the play Louis XIII and reached a climax during Louis XIVs
The Indian Emperor [1665], by John Dryden [16311700]); reign. Strict controla defining feature of the absolut-
and themes (for example, comparison of Western and ist policies of the kingwas exercised over the plays
non-Western customs in travel literature, as in Travels staged at the royal court, although comic playwrights
in Persia [1686], by Jean Chardin [16431713]). were given more freedom, as long as they did not of-
Despite the variety of their works, baroque writ- fend common decency or good taste.
ers shared certain traits, including a love of ornate Frances tragic playwrights were expected to obey
the rules of literary composition identified by the
French Academy and based on the theories of Aristo-
Figure 15.21 Andres de Islas. Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz. 1772. Museo tle (see Chapter 3). The ideal play had to observe the
de America, Madrid. This portrait, painted seventy-seven years after
unities of time, place, and actionthat is, it had to
the subjects death, is based on an earlier (now lost) likeness. Sor Juana
is depicted in a conventional pose for a writer-intellectual (see Chapter 14 take place during a twenty-four-hour time span, have
opening photo)seated before an open book, writing implement in hand. no scene changes, and have a single uncomplicated
She wears the Hieronymite habit of the Order of St. Jeromea white tunic plot. Furthermore, the plays were supposed to use for-
under a full-length scapular in a color that varied by region. In Mexico City, mal language and to focus on universal problems as
the scapulars were black or blue. Around her neck is a nuns shieldin
reflected in dilemmas experienced by highborn men
Spanish, escudo de monjatypically a painting on copper of a religious
scene of spiritual importance to the wearer. Sor Juanas shield shows the and women. Because of the playwrights strict adher-
Annunciation, the moment when the archangel Gabriel reveals to Mary her ence to these rules, it is sometimes claimed that the
destiny as the Mother of God. This painting is by the Mexican artist Andres dramas of this period are expressive of a classical
de Islas (active 17531775), whose specialty was the documentation of the style. But the French obsession with order, gravity, and
ethnic life of colonial Mexico.
severity was evidence of a baroque sensibilityjust as
was the case in the French style of baroque painting
and architecture.
Frances two great baroque tragedians were Pierre
Corneille [kor-NAY] (16061684) and Jean Racine [ra-
SEEN] (16391699). Corneille composed tragedies in
verse, which were based on Spanish legends and Ro-
man themes. Drawing on the Hellenistic philosophy
of Stoicism, his dramas stressed the importance of
duty, patriotism, and loyaltyideals that mirrored the
values of his courtly audience. His finest work is Le
Cid, based on the legendary Spanish patriot, who must
choose between personal feelings and honor.
Racine, perhaps Frances greatest playwright, wrote
tragedies characterized by refined language and pen-
etrating psychological insight. Preoccupied with the
moral struggle between the will and the emotions,
he created intensely human characters in classically
constructed plays. A subject that intrigued Racine was
the doomed woman who was swept to her destruction
by obsessive sexual passion. This baroque theme was
most perfectly expressed in his masterpiece, Phdre
(Phaedra), his version of the Greek tale of incestuous
S love first dramatized by Euripides in the fifth century
N BCE. Where Euripides makes fate a central reason for
L his heroines downfall, Racine portrays Phdre as the
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 409

unfortunate victim of uncontrolled passion for her as Lord. Adams choice reflected Miltons belief in free
stepson. Even though Racine explored other types of will and the necessity of taking responsibility for ones
love in his plays, such as mother love and even politi- actions.
cal passion, it was in his study of sex as a powerful In addition to its grand theme, Paradise Lost is ba-
motive for action that he was most original. roque in other ways. The mixing of Christian legend
Baroque drama in France also produced one of and ancient epic, for example, is typical of baroque
the comic geniuses of the Western theater, Jean Bap- taste. Miltons convoluted style is baroque with its oc-
tiste Poquelin, better known as Molire [mole-YAIR] casionally odd word order, Latinisms, and complex
(16221673). Molire analyzed the foibles of French metaphors. Most of all, Miltons epic is baroque in its
life in twelve penetrating satirical comedies that had lofty tone and exaggerated rhetoricliterary equiva-
the lasting impact of tragedy. He peopled his plays lents, perhaps, of Rubens or Rembrandt.
with social typesthe idler, the miser, the pedant, A secondary achievement of the literary ba-
the seducer, the hypochondriac, the medical quack, roque in England was that literature began to
the would-be gentleman, the pretentiously cultured reflect the Wests overseas expansion, as in the
ladyexposing the follies of the entire society. To cre- publishing of travel books, memoirs, and letters de-
ate his comedic effects, Molire used not only topical scribing real and fictional contacts with peoples and
humor and social satire but all the trappings of farce, lands around the globe. Part of a European-wide trend,
including pratfalls, mistaken identities, sight gags, the growth of English literature with a non-European
puns, and slapstick, as well. dimension expressed the baroque theme of pushing
Molire was appointed official entertainer to against the boundaries of life and art. A pioneering
Louis XIV in 1658; even so, he made many enemies work on this baroque theme was the short prose story
among those who felt they were the butt of his jokes. Oroonoko (1688) by Aphra Behn (16401689), an English
When he died, for example, the French clergy re- writer who exploited her firsthand experiences as a
fused to give him an official burial because they be- resident of Surinam (modern Suriname) to provide a
lieved some of his plays to be attacks on the church. vivid, exotic setting. Situated in South America and
The testament to Molires enduring brilliance is told with a blend of realism and romance, Oroonoko
that many of his comedies are still performed today, condemns the culture of slavery through the story of
including Tartuffe, The Miser, The Would-Be Gentleman, the doomed love affair between a black slave-prince
and The Misanthrope, and they are still enormously and a slave woman. The author portrays the black hero
entertaining. as untutored in Western ways yet polished and edu-
cated on his own terms and, above all, superior to the
Baroque Literature in England Englands out- natural depravity of the European characters. This is
standing contribution in English to baroque literature an early version of the myth of the noble savage, the
was made by John Milton (16081674), a stern Puritan cultural archetype that reached its climax in the ro-
and a high-ranking official in Cromwells Common- mantic era (see Chapter 18). Englands first woman to
wealth. The deeply learned Milton had a grand moral earn her living as a writer, Behn also wrote about
vision that led him to see the universe as locked in a twenty comedies for the stage and a poem collection,
struggle between the forces of darkness and the forces but Oroonoko is her chief claim to renown.
of light. Only an epic was capable of expressing such a
monumental conception.
His supreme literary accomplishment was to Chris- Music
tianize the epic in his long poem Paradise Lost. In- Unlike the Renaissance, when a single musical sound
spired by Homers and Virgils ancient epics, but also prevailed (see Chapter 13), the baroque had no single
intended as a Protestant response to Dantes Divine musical ideal. Nonetheless, four trends during the
Comedy, Miltons poem became an immediate classic. baroque period give its music distinctive qualities.
His grandiose themes in Paradise Lost were the rebel- First, the development of major and minor tonal-
lion of the angels led by Lucifer, the fall of Adam and ity, which had been prefigured in Josquin des Prezs
Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Christs redemption of music in the early 1500s, was a central feature of the
humanity. works of this time, making it the first stage in the
An astonishing aspect of Paradise Lost is Miltons rise of modern music. Second, the mixing of genres,
portrait of Lucifer, which some critics have seen as a which has been noted in literature and the arts, also
baroque glamorization of evil. Lucifer is characterized occurred in baroque music. Third, the expressiveness
as a creature of titanic ambition and deceitful charm. that had entered music in the late 1500s now became
Despite his powerful presence, however, this epic story even more exaggerated, being used to stress mean-
has moral balance. At the end, Adam, the author of ings and emotions in the musical texts that otherwise S
original sin, is saved instead of being condemned to might not have been heard. And last, this was an age N
hell. Adams redemption occurs when he accepts Jesus of virtuosos, master musicians, especially singers, L
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410 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Baroque Age I

who performed with great technical skill and vivid


personal style, and of a growing variety of musical in-
struments (Figure 15.22). The musical form that drew
these trends together was opera, making it the quint-
essential symbol of the age.

Opera Opera originated in Italy in the late sixteenth


century among a group of Florentine musicians and
poets with aristocratic ties. The first great composer
of opera was Claudio Monteverdi [mon-teh-VAIR-dee]
(15671643), whose earliest opera, Orfeo (1607), was
based on the legend of the ancient Greek poet-musician
Orpheus. Orfeo united drama, dance, elaborate stage
mechanisms, and painted scenery with music. Monte-
verdi wrote melodic arias, or songs, for the individual
singers, and he increased the operas dramatic appeal
by concluding each of its five acts with a powerful cho-
rus. His setting truly mirrored the text, using musical
phrases to serve as aural symbols and thus to enhance
the unfolding of events.
By the 1630s, opera began to shed its aristocratic
origins and become a popular entertainment. This
change did not affect operas focus on ancient myths
and histories about noble men and noble women, nor
did it halt the trend to brilliant singing called bel
canto, literally beautiful song. However, to appeal
to a wider audience, operatic composers added ele-
ments from Italys popular comic theater, such as far-
cical scenes and stock characters, notably humorous
servants. By the end of this age, the operatic form was Figure 15.22 Concert with Baroque Era Instruments. Seventeenth
stylized into a recipe, including improbable plots, in- century. In the baroque period, professional musicians often performed
with amateurs in various venues, such as university musical societies,
adequate motivations for the characters, and magical
taverns, coffeehouses, and private homes. In this print, the venue is
transformationssigns of its baroque nature. unclear, though the setting is a richly paneled, Italianate room and the
Opera became immensely popular in Europe, es- musicians are wearing court dress and powdered wigs. The musical
pecially in Italy, where it remains so today. By 1750, instruments include flute, bassoon, recorder, violin, harpsichord, and
opera houses had been built in many major cities; cello.
Venice led the way with more than a dozen establish-
ments. The rise of opera in Italy during the 1600s, like
the founding of a commercial theater in London in the sometimes performed in the operas ballet sequences
1500s, presaged the downfall of the aristocratic pa- himself, dancing side by side with the composer. Lullys
tronage system and the emergence of entertainments works, which dominated French music until 1750, en-
with mass appeal. sured a powerful role for French music in the Western
The winding down of the Thirty Years War allowed tradition.
Italian opera to be exported to the rest of Europe. Only
in France were composers able to defy the overpow- Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi Baroque music reached
ering Italian influence and create an independent its climax after 1715. Three composers were respon-
type of opera. This development was made possible sible for this development: in Protestant northern Eu-
by the grandeur of Louis XIVs court and by French rope, the Germans Bach and Handel, and in Roman
taste, which was more restrained than the opulent Catholic Italy, Vivaldi.
Italian. Nevertheless, French opera was founded by
an Italian, Jean-Baptiste Lully [loo-LEE] (16321687), Johann Sebastian Bach The greatest of these late ba-
who later became a French citizen and Louiss court roque masters was Johann Sebastian Bach (16851750).
composer. Under Lullys direction, French opera de- A devout Lutheran who worked for German noble
veloped its identifying features: dignified music, the courts and municipalities far from the major cities,
S full use of choruses, the inclusion of a ballet, and, most Bach created a body of sacred music that transcends
N important, a French text. Lullys patron, the Sun King, all religious creeds and nationalities. Employing all
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THE BAROQUE: VARIATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE 411

the baroque musical genres, his works are distin- subject in a minor key, and it concludes with a glori-
guished by their inventiveness and complete mastery ous major chorda typical baroque ending.
of major and minor tonality. His most memorable Of Bachs secular works, the most popular today are
achievements are the Passions, the musical settings probably the six Brandenburg Concertos (written for the
of the liturgy to be performed on Good Fridaythe duke of Brandenburg), whose tunefulness and rhyth-
most tragic day in the Christian calendar. Composed mic variety the composer rarely surpassed. The con-
in about 1727, the St. Matthew Passion expresses the col- certos were composed for the type of ensemble found
lective grief of the Christian community for the death in the German princely courts of the timea group
of Jesus. Bach used a German text with arias and cho- of string players of average ability along with a few
ruses, making the music bring out all the emotional woodwind and brass instruments, perhaps a total of
implications of the words. Thus, the St. Matthew Pas- twenty to twenty-five musicians. Bachs dominant idea
sion is more dramatic than most operas and a sublime in these concertos was to demonstrate the interplay be-
religious experience in itself. tween individual soloists and the larger group. As in
Although Bachs religious music is his greatest most of his work, the composer wove different melodic
legacy, he also left a body of secular music, including lines and different harmonies into elaborate, complex
orchestral works and works for various instrumental structures of tremendous variety, power, and scope.
groups. A musicians musician, Bach composed The
Well-Tempered Clavier as an ordered set of studies in George Frideric Handel The other great late baroque
all the major and minor keys. The forty-eight preludes German master, George Frideric Handel (16851759),
and fugues in this work set a heroic challenge for key- was renowned for his Italian-style operas. More cos-
board performers and are still an essential part of the mopolitan than Bach, Handel eventually settled in
piano repertoire today. (A clavier is an early keyboard London, where he composed thirty-six operatic works.
instrument; a fugue is a polyphonic composition in His operas succeeded because of the brilliant way
which a theme is introduced by one instrument and in which the music allows the singers to show their
then repeated by each successively entering instru- virtuosity. However, it is his mastery of sacred mu-
ment until a complicated interweaving of themes, sic, particularly the oratorioan opera-like form but
variations, imitations, and echoes results.) This work without any stage actionwhich he perfected, that
contributed to the standardization of the pitches of the has made his name immortal. Of the oratorios, Mes-
notes of the musical scale and of the tuning of key- siah, based on biblical texts and sung in English, holds
board instruments. first place. Its popularity stems from its baroque quali-
Bachs Organ Fugue in G Minor (Little Fugue; ties: the emotionally stirring choruses and the delight-
about 1709) is a classic of the fugue genre. A fugue ful embellishments the soloists are permitted in their
may be written for a group of instruments, voices, arias. As a result, Messiah is probably the best-known
or a single keyboard instrument, in this instance, an work of sacred music in the English-speaking world.
organ. Bachs organ fugue is scored for four melodic One of Messiahs great arias, which shows Handels
lines: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. It opens with the expressive music to perfection, is Evry Valley Shall
voices playing follow the leader: the soprano line Be Exalted, for tenor, strings, and basso continuo.
announces the subjectthe main musical theme, fol- Handels exuberant music matches the exuberant text,
lowed by its imitation in the alto, tenor, and bass lines. based on Isaiah 40:4, a verse that envisions an earth
However, before the alto line can complete its part, the transformed by the coming of the Messiah.
soprano line begins the countersubjecta variation
of the subject that will now be played in tandem with Evry valley
the subject, either above it or below it. The bass line, Evry valley shall be exalted,
recognizable by its deep plush tones, concludes the and evry mountain
opening sequence. and hill made low,
the crooked straight,
A short transitional section, known as an episode,
and the rough places plain.
leads to another round of follow the leader, with each
Evry valley shall be exalted,
melodic line taking a turn. Episodes may be fresh mu-
and evry mountain and hill
sic or phrases taken from the subject. Throughout the
made low, the crooked straight,
remainder of this piece, the subject and countersubject and the rough places plain.
are in constant dialogue, with episodes added after The crooked straight,
each recurrence of the subject. Sustained notes and And the rough places plain.
trillsrapid alternation of two notes, a step apart
are two means Bach used to embellish the increas- Through word painting, a popular baroque musical
ingly active melody. The Little Fugue, though in a technique, Handel makes the text come alive. For ex- S
minor key, has some episodes and restatements of the ample, the word exalted (raised up), in line 2, becomes N
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412 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE BARoquE AgE I

a rising musical phrase made up of forty-six rapid instrument, which together provide a unifying thread
notes. High tones are used to depict hill and mountain, to the work. Vivaldis concerto form influenced the late
and certain words are given musical equivalents, such baroque works of Bach and helped to set the standard
as crooked (two notes a half step apart, repeated), straight for classical music in general (see Chapter 17).
(sustained tone), and plain (long sustained note). The The best known of Vivaldis concertos are those col-
aria begins and ends in the baroque style with a refrain lectively titled The Four Seasons (1725), a set of four vio-
(in Italian, ritornello), a short instrumental passage. lin concertos, each named after a season of the year,
beginning with spring. using both major and minor
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi tonality, Vivaldis music passionately evokes a feel-
(16781741), the late baroque Italian composer and ing of each passing season. This work established the
violinist, set a new standard for instrumental music. tradition of program music, or music that represents
unlike Bach and Handel, whose patrons were al- a nonmusical image, idea, or story without the use of
most exclusively secular, Vivaldi supported himself words. Later, Beethoven made program music a cen-
through church patronage, serving as both a priest tral feature of his music (see Chapter 18).
(briefly) and a musician and composer (mainly) at a Vivaldis lively La Primavera (Spring), from The
church orphanage for females in Venice. He also was a Four Seasons, is a masterful evocation of springtime. A
freelance composer, producing works for patrons and work in a major key usually conveys optimism, and
customers across Europe. Employing diverse musical this concerto certainly does. Typical of baroque con-
genres, he wrote nearly fifty operas, of which about certos, Spring opens with an orchestral refrain, ex-
sixteen survive complete; about forty cantatas; fifty sa- pressed in two phrases, which are repeated twice, first
cred vocal works; ninety sonatas (a sonata is a work loudly and then softly. The refrain theme, or at least
for a small group of instruments); and nearly five hun- parts of it, becomes a recurring motif. After the open-
dred concertos (a concerto is a piece for one or more ing, violin solos alternate with the orchestral refrain. To
soloists and orchestra), of which nearly half were writ- conjure up the complex sounds of spring, Vivaldi uses
ten for solo violin. Vivaldis music is little performed word painting, for both solo violin and the orchestras
today except for the concertos, whose innovations and string section: bird songs (high trills and repeated high
style raise him to the first rank of composers. His in- notes), murmuring brooks (running notes alternat-
novations include a three-movement form, arranged ing with sustained notes), and thunder and lightning
in a fast-slow-fast pattern, and, most important, the (string tremolosthe rapid repetition of two pitches in
use of a refrain, that is, a recurring musical phrase, in a chord) and upward rushing scales. La Primavera is
combination with brief passages performed by a solo probably Vivaldis most popular single work.

SUMMARY
The baroque age was a transformative period in West- helps explain the propagandistic aspects of this peri-
ern culture. ods politics and religion.
In politics, the system of great states, governed by In the arts and humanities, the baroque style stressed
a balance of power, was now firmly in place. of these over-the-top ornamentation, while insisting on balance
states, France and England were the trendsetters, as among disparate parts. Three distinct variations of this
well as the bitterest rivals, their animosity fueled by style evolved: the florid baroque, in Roman Catholic
their respective forms of government: absolutism and Italy and Spain; the classical baroque, in France; and the
limited monarchy. In religion, the medieval ideal of a restrained baroque, in England and the Netherlands.
united Christendom had given way to the reality of Baroque painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and
a group of countries oriented to either Protestantism composers contributed a prodigious body of works to
or Roman Catholicism. The baroque idea of spectacle the Western canon.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


baroque restrained baroque style subject sonata
florid baroque style virtuoso countersubject concerto
baldacchino opera episode program music
S tenebrism bel canto trill tremolo
N illusionism clavier oratorio
L classical baroque fugue refrain
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KEY CuLTuRAL TERMS 413

The Legacy of the Baroque Age


The baroque period left a potent legacy to the modern where their works are displayed. Many cities also of-
world in politics, economics, religion, and the arts. fer splendid monuments of the baroque, such as the
Europes system of great powers, established in the church of St. Peters in Rome, St. Pauls cathedral in
baroque era, was transformed, after 1990, into a global London, and the palace and garden at Versailles. The
state system, based as much on economic might as on commercial art market that began in the Netherlands
military strength. In 2011, the four chief global powers, has grown into a global economic engine, ranging
in terms of gross domestic product (gDP) were, in order, from high-end auction houses (Christies, Sothebys),
the united States of America, China, Japan, and India. dealers, and collectors, down to prints and original art
Mercantilism, the reigning economic policy of the available on the web.
baroque age, was practiced into the 1800s. While to- Finally, King Louis XIVs absolutist court, with its
days world economy is nominally governed by the strict rituals, continues to fascinate in todays demo-
principles of free trade, traces of mercantilism remain, cratic world. For example, the African American
as in currency manipulation to create trade surpluses playwright Lynn Nottage (b. 1964) wrote Las Meni-
a common complaint made against the Chinese regime. nas (2002), a play focusing on an illicit affair between
The Wests religious identity today descends from Louis XIVs Spanish queen and her African dwarf
the baroque period. After the wars of religion failed jester. Based on a little-known story in French history,
to reunify Christendom, the religious division of the Nottage presents the lovers as drawn together by mu-
majority of Westerners into Protestant and Catholic tual outsidernessthe queen because of her Spanish
camps was confirmed. In the twenty-first century, the heritage and the jester because of his African origins
split has become rather meaningless, except in a few and small size.
locales, as in northern Ireland, where tensions between
the two rivals still smolder. Further complicating the
Wests religious landscape today are many factors, in-
cluding the ongoing splintering among the Protestant
sects, the fluidity of religious faith, the growing num-
ber of atheists and the nonreligious, and the influx of
non-Western immigrants with their own religions.
Culturally, the baroque is still very much with us,
as in the ubiquity of the musical art form of opera.
More than seventy of the worlds countries have opera
houses today. And, in 2006, New Yorks Metropolitan
opera launched a series of productions shown live in
high definition in movie theaters around the world.
other baroque musical works, notably the majestic
oratorios of Handel and the powerful compositions of
Bach for church and court, are regularly part of the
concert repertoire. A contemporary version of ba- Varekai. Cirque du Soleil launched the troupe Varekai (from Romany:
roque spectacle is the Cirque du Soleil, self-described wherever) in 2002. Loosely based on the Greek myth of Icarus, Varekai
as a dramatic mix of circus and street entertainment, is a salute to nomadic life. The shows staging is an eclectic stew of
founded in Montreal in 1984, with more than twenty technological wizardry (turntables, elevated platforms, and trapdoors),
circus acts (the trapeze, foot-juggling, and acrobatics), and folk routines
troupes today in over 250 cities across the globe.
from eastern Europe (Georgian dance and Russian swings). A measure
Some of the Wests most beloved art was created by of the success enjoyed by the Cirque du Soleil brand is that New Yorks
baroque artistsBernini and Rembrandtdrawing Metropolitan Opera engaged one of its directors, the Canadian Robert
international tourists to the churches and museums LePage (b. 1957), for productions in 2008 and 2011.

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Tycho Brahe in His Observatory. Engraving, from Brahes Astronomiae Instauratae
Mechanica. 1598. Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago. Tycho Brahe, the
danish astronomer, is shown in his observatory at uraniborg, on the island of Ven, in
denmark. Seated, with his right hand pointing upward, Brahe instructs two assistants,
below him, in the use of the wall quadrant, while other assistants, visible in small rooms
S in the back, work with various astronomical instruments and perform chemical experiments.
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The Baroque Age II
16
Revolutions in Scientific and Political Thought
16001715

Preview Questions The baroque age wasa period of dramatic events, as established
1. Compare and contrast ways of thinking were challenged on many fronts. Discoveries in astron-
European beliefs about omy and physics created a whole new way of viewing the universe. Break-
the structure of the throughs in human medicine and chemistry laid the foundations for these
universe before and
after the findings of modern disciplines. Innovations in technology led to more precise ways
Copernicus, Kepler, of understanding both the physical world and the human body. These
and Galileo. events, in turn, furthered the separation of philosophy from theology, a
2. What were the gap that had been widening since the 1300s (see Chapter 11). While theol-
contributions of Bacon,
ogy was relegated to a minor cultural role, philosophy began to address
Descartes, and Pascal
to Western thought? such basic questions as How does the human mind work? and What is

3. What impact did the best form of government? Europeans also continued to make contacts
Hobbes and Locke with non-Western cultures through exploration, trade, and colonization.
have on political The ensuing spread of Western civilization globally, just as in the case of
philosophy?
the scientific discoveries, changed the course of world history.
4. How and why did many
The climax of this revolutionary age occurred between 1685 and 1715,
European powers
establish overseas a period that witnessed what one historian called the crisis of the Euro-
colonies in the 1600s? pean conscience, as the balance tipped from traditional ideas to modern
5. What influence did the views. These early modern scientists and philosophers countered faith
Scientific Revolution with reason, dogma with skepticism, and divine intervention with natu-
have on Western
literature and the arts? ral law. They accepted as true what could be proven mathematically and
rejected as untrue those things that could not. They eventually concluded
that the universe was like a great clock that operated according to univer-
sal laws (Timeline 16.1).
The great British thinker Isaac Newton, whose research and work
completed the Scientific Revolution, once declared: If I have seen a lit-
tle further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Newtons giants
metaphor means that he felt indebted to the findings of earlier notable
thinkers. one such thinker was Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer
whose precise sightings of celestial phenomena proved essential to later S
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416 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Baroque Age II

Timeline 16.1 REVOLUTIONS IN SCIENTIFIC AND POLITICAL THOUGHT


1543 1600 1700 1715

The Scientific Revolution and Early Modern Political Philosophy

1543 15701600 1609 1625 1637 1651 1687 1690


Copernicuss Brahes Keplers Grotiuss Descartes Hobbess Newtons Lockes
Revolutions observations On the The Law of Discourse Leviathan Mathematical Two Treatises
of the Motion War and Peace on Method Principles of Government
Heavenly of Mars and An Essay
Bodies Concerning Human
1610 1632 Understanding
Galileo Galileos
sights Dialogues on the
four Two Chief Systems
moons of the World
of Jupiter

scientists. This engravingdepicting Brahe in his source of all celestial motionand down referred to
observatorydraws together several themes from this the center of the earth.
restless period. The wall quadrant, the semicircular, In the second century CE, the Egyptian scholar
calibrated device, was Brahes invention for measur- Ptolemy updated Aristotles geocentric theory with
ing the position of starsa testament to both his as- new astronomical data and improved mathematical
tronomical knowledge and his technological genius. calculations. During the golden age of Muslim cul-
The engraving is one of twenty-one illustrationseach ture (8001100 CE), Arab intellectuals preserved this
showing one of Brahes inventionsin a small book in- geocentric legacy, improving and refining it to reflect
tended to attract the attention of a wealthy patron. This new planetary sightings. In the High Middle Ages
gamble paid off, because in 1599, the Austrian emperor (10001300), Western scholars recovered the Ptolemaic
Ruldolf II appointed Brahe imperial mathematician. heritagewith its Muslim additionsand integrated
it into a Christian context: the Unmoved Mover was
God and the space beyond the spheres was heaven.
THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSE The church also became attached to the geocentric
BEFORE THE SCIENTIFIC theory because it seemed to validate the doctrine of
original sin: the corrupt earthinhabited by fallen
REVOLUTION mortalscorresponded to the sublunar world of de-
The Scientific Revolution was both an outgrowth and cay and constant change.
a rejection of Aristotelian cosmology that had held At the University of Paris in the 1300s, a more skep-
Western thinkers in its grip for two thousand years. tical outlook arose among a few thinkers who began
The ancient Greeks built upon the Aristotelian system, to question these assumptions. Unconvinced by Aris-
which was transmitted to the West through Roman totles solution to the problem of motion (which was
and Islamic culture and into the European medieval to attribute the forward motion of a projectile to air
scholastic tradition. The cosmologys fundamental movement), the Parisian scholars offered an alterna-
principle is geocentrism, the theory that the uni- tive explanation: a projectile acquired impetus, a
verse is earth centered. Around the stationary earth, propulsive quality that gradually diminished as the
which was not considered a planet, revolved the five projectile moved through space. The theory of impe-
known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and tus commanded scholars attention for about three
Saturn) and the sun and the moon, each held aloft by centuries, leading them to consider a new range of sci-
a crystalline sphere. Nearest the earth was the moon entific problems.
(Figure 16.1). In the supralunar world, or the region be- Although the theory of impetus was later proven
yond the moon, the planets moved in circular orbits untrue, it was a first step away from the Aristotelian
and were made of an incorruptible element, aether; in tradition because it made Western scientists aware
the sublunar world, or the region beneath the moon, that the great Greek thinker was not always right.
change was constant, motion was rectilinear, and mat- And scholars at Paris and other universities began to
ter was composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire, advocate applying mathematics to practical problems
S and water. This system had an absolute up and down: as well as directly observing naturein other words,
N up referred to the area beyond the spheres inhab- collecting data (empiricism) and framing hypotheses
L ited by the Unmoved MoverAristotles term for the from observable facts (inductive reasoning).
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Figure 16.1 peteR ApIan. Geocentric Diagram of the Universe,
from the Cosmographia. 1539. The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. This schematic diagram illustrates the geocentric
universe in the pre-Copernican era. The unmoving earth is at the center
and is surrounded by ten moving spheres, containing, in sequential order,
the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed stars,
the aqueous or crystalline heaven, and the empty sphere called the primum
mobile. The ninth sphere, the crystalline heaven, was added by medieval
scholars to address a problem raised by the account of creation in Genesis.
The tenth sphere, the primum mobile, was logically necessary in Aristotles
theory because it moved first and brought the other nine spheres into
motion. Beyond the tenth sphere was the Empyrean, home of the Unmoved
Mover in philosophy or of God in theology.

Aristotle had also used empirical data and induc-


tive logic, but his writings had become so revered, for
generations scholars did not examine his methodol-
ogy and were afraid to challenge his conclusions.
Indeed, his followers relied on deductive reasoning;
that is, they only explored the ramifications of ac-
cepted truths. But with the new critical spirit that ap-
peared in the late Middle Ages, scholars began to look
at the world from a new perspective. In time, this spirit
led to the Scientific Revolution, which overturned the
geocentric Ptolemaic system and established helio-
centrism, the theory that the universe is centered on
the sun.

THE MAGICAL AND


THE PRACTICAL IN THE
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The Scientific Revolution is notable for its paradoxes
and ironies, some of which will be discussed later
in this chapter. A paradox that should be noted at
the outset, however, is that this revolution in human
thought, which ushered in modern science, was rooted
in both magical beliefs and practical technological
achievements. With one or two exceptions, the Scien-
tific Revolution was motivated by two divergent and
contradictory sets of beliefs. On the one hand, it fol-
lowed the lead of late medieval science by collecting
empirical data, reasoning inductively, and using math-
ematics to verify results (Figure 16.2). Significantly, the
most startling changes occurred in those areas where
mathematics was applied to long-existing intellectual
problems, namely, in astronomy, physics, and biology.
On the other hand, the Scientific Revolution was en-
tranced by Neoplatonism, the philosophy that revived Figure 16.2 maRIa SIBYLLa meRIan. Insect Metamorphoses in Surinam.
1705. Hand-colored engraving, 4 3/4 7. (Reprinted in F. Schnack,
the ancient Greek philosophy in the early Renaissance Das Kleine Buch der Tropenwander. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1935.
(see Chapter 12). Like late medieval science, Neopla- Plate 11.) A painter and a scientist, the German-born Maria Sibylla Merian
tonism stressed the role of mathematics in problem (16471717) traveled to the South American Dutch colony of Surinam,
solving, but Neoplatonism also had a mystical streak where, for two years, she collected and raised insects and made notes
and illustrations. Her illustration of the metamorphosis of a moth, from
a legacy from Pythagorasthat led its devotees to seek
caterpillar through pupa (covered by a cocoon) to mature adult, along with
harmony through numbers (see Chapter 2). Thinkers a flowering branch of an orange tree, captures the exotic character of the S
who followed Neoplatonism believed that simplicity New World, adds to the growing body of scientific knowledge, and reflects N
was superior to complexity in mathematical figuring the high standards of seventeenth-century Dutch art. L
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418 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Baroque Age II

because simplicity was the supreme sign that a solu-


tion was correct. This belief has become a guiding
ideal of modern science, although other aspects of
Neoplatonism are rejected today, such as the attribu-
tion of mysterious powers to the sun. One effect of
Neoplatonisms occult side was to tighten the link be-
tween astronomy and astrology, a connection as old as
Greek science. Most of those thinkers who advanced
the Scientific Revolution supported this linkage, and a
few even cast horoscopes for wealthy clients.
Many of the Scientific Revolutions achievements
would have been impossible without the telescope and
the microscope, both of which were invented in about
1600 in the Netherlands. Without them, scholars would
have simply remained thinkers, as they had been since
the time of the ancient Greeks. But with the new tech-
nology, they could penetrate deep into previously in-
accessible areasouter space and the inner workings
of the human body. From then on, those scholars with
scientific interests allied themselves with the crafts tra-
dition, becoming experimenters and empiricists.

Astronomy and Physics: Figure 16.3 Thomas Digges. The Sun-Centered Universe of Copernicus,
from A Perfit Description of the Celestiall Orbes. 1576. The Huntington
From Copernicus to Newton Library, San Marino, California. This diagram drawn by the Englishman
The intellectual shift from the earth-centered to the Thomas Digges agrees with the Copernican system except in one major
sun-centered universe, which lasted almost one hun- way: Copernicus believed the universe was a finite, closed system, but
Digges represents it as infinite, expressed in the stars scattered outside
dred fifty years, involved an international community
the orbit of fixed stars.
of scholars. Heliocentrism, the new model of the world,
was first broached by the Polish thinker Copernicus
in 1543, and, in 1687, the English scholar Isaac Newton Recognizing the revolutionary nature of his hy-
proved this view with his incontrovertible mathemati- pothesis, Copernicus delayed printing his ideas until
cal calculations. Between those dates, major steps in sci- he was dying. In an attempt to mollify clerical crit-
ence were taken by Tycho Brahe of Denmark, Johannes ics, he dedicated his book to the pope, Paul III. Later
Kepler of Germany, and Galileo Galilei of Italy (see religious leaders, concluding that heliocentrism was
Timeline 16.1). dangerous and contrary to scripture, condemned it as
a false system. What disturbed them was that if the
Nicolaus Copernicus When Nicolaus Copernicus earth were to be removed from the center of the uni-
(14731543) published Revolutions of the Heavenly Bod- verse, the place of human beings in the divine order
ies in 1543, he was reviving the discarded heliocentric would be reduced. In effect, human beings would no
theory of the third-century BCE Greek thinker Aris- longer be the leading actors in a cosmic drama staged
tarchus (see Chapter 4). In this highly technical work, for them alone.
Copernicus launched a head-on assault against Ptol- Catholics and Protestants alike denounced the
emaic geocentrism. The main issue between Coperni- ideas of Copernicus. Lutheran and Calvinist authori-
can astronomy and the older worldview was not one of ties condemned his views as unbiblical, and in 1610
mathematical precision, for both were mathematically the pope placed Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies on
solid and thus equally able to predict planetary posi- the Index, the list of forbidden books created dur-
tions and solar and lunar eclipses. Rather, the basic ing the Counter-Reformation. Eventually, the two re-
question between the two systems was which one was ligious groups parted ways over Copernican ideas.
simpler. Copernicus reasoned that a more convincing For more than two hundred years, until 1822, the
picture of the universe could be achieved by transpos- Roman Catholic Church opposed the sun-centered
ing the positions of the sun and the earth. Instead of theory, thus reversing a centuries-old tradition of be-
the Ptolemaic notion of a finite world centered on a ing open to innovative scientific thought. However, in
fixed earth, Copernicus envisioned a vastly expanded, Protestantismwhere authority was less centralized
S but not infinite, universe with the planets orbiting the than in Roman Catholicismsome sects slowly ac-
N sun (Figure 16.3). cepted and adapted their beliefs to the new astronomy.
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The Magical and the Practical in the Scientific Revolution 419

Johannes Kepler The reception of Copernican as- of forces on matter. Inspired by news that Dutch lens
tronomy by the scientific community was neither im- grinders had made a device for viewing distant ob-
mediate nor enthusiastic. For example, the great Danish jects, in 1609 Galileo made his own telescope, which
astronomer Tycho Brahe [TEE-ko BRAH-hee] (15461601) enabled him to see stars invisible to the naked eye.
adopted a modified Copernicanism, believing that the With these sightings, Galileo demonstrated that
other planets moved around the sun but that the earth the size of the universe was exponentially greater
did not. Brahe nevertheless contributed to the ultimate than that computed on Ptolemaic principles. Further,
triumph of heliocentrism through his copious obser- his observations of the moons rough surface and the
vations of planetary movement. So accurate were his suns shifting dark spots provided additional proofs
sightings (without the aid of a telescope) that they set against the ancient arguments that the heavenly bod-
a new standard for astronomical data (see the chapter- ies were perfectly formed and never changed. But his
opening photo). most telling discovery was that the planet Jupiter has
Among Brahes assistants was Johannes Kepler moons, a fact that contradicted the Ptolemaic belief
(15711630), a brilliant mathematician who dedicated that all celestial bodies must move about a common
his life to clarifying the theory of heliocentrism. When center. Galileos observations, affirming that Jupiters
Brahe died, Kepler inherited his astronomical data. In- four satellites rotate around it in much the same way
spired by Neoplatonism to make sense of the regular the six planets orbit the sun, hastened the demise of
and continuous sightings of Brahe, Kepler in 1609 pub- geocentrism.
lished On the Motion of Mars, setting forth his solution Similarly, Galileos research in terrestrial mechan-
to the problem of what kept the planets in their orbits. ics proved conclusively that both Aristotle and his
His findings were expressed in two scientific laws that fourteenth-century critics in Paris were wrong about
were elegant in their simplicity. In the first planetary one of the central questions of earthly motionthat is,
law, Kepler substituted the ellipse for the circle as the the behavior of projectiles. Aristotle had claimed that
descriptive shape of planetary orbits. And his second projectiles stayed in flight because of the pushing mo-
planetary law, which was set forth in a precise math- tion of the air, and the Parisian scholars had countered
ematical formula, accounted for each planets variable with the theory of impetus. Through experimentation,
speed within its respective orbit by showing that near- Galileo showed that a mass that is moving will go on
ness to the sun affected the planets behaviorthe closer moving until some force stops itthe earliest expres-
to the sun, the faster the speed, and the farther from sion of the modern law of inertia.
the sun, the slower the speed. Together, these laws Galileo was probably the first scientist to make a
validated sun-centered astronomy. clock a basic means for measuring time in his experi-
Kepler continued to manipulate Brahes undigested ments. Like his contemporary Kepler, he reported his
data, convinced that other mathematical laws could findings in the form of simple mathematical laws.
be derived from observations of the heavens. In 1619 Galileos work was later validated by Newton, who
he arrived at a third planetary law, which relates the proved that the laws of mechanics on earth are the
movement of one planet to anothers. He showed that same as the laws of mechanics in the sky.
the squares of the length of time for each planets orbit At the same time Galileo was conducting the ex-
are in the same ratios as the cubes of their respective periments that would make him a hero of modern
mean distances from the sun. Through this formula, science, he ran afoul of the religious authorities, who
he affirmed that the solar system itself is regular and brought his career to a humiliating end. The church
organized by mathematically determined relation- had by now abandoned its relative openness to ideas
ships. This was the first expression of the notion that and was moving to stifle dissent. In 1633 Galileo was
the universe operates with clocklike regularity, an arrested by the Inquisition, the church court created in
idea that became an article of faith by the end of the the 1200s to find and punish heretics. The renowned
baroque age. Kepler took great pride in this discovery, astronomer was charged with false teachings for his
because it confirmed his Neoplatonist belief that there published support of the idea that the earth moves, a
is a hidden mathematical harmony in the universe. notion central to Copernicanism but untrue according
to Aristotle and the church. Threatened with torture,
Galileo Galilei While Kepler moved in the rare- Galileo recanted his views and was released. Despite
fied realm of theoretical, even mystical, science, one of living on for several years, he died a broken man. This
his contemporaries was making major breakthroughs episode abruptly ended Italys role in the burgeoning
with experiments that relied on mathematics, logic, revolution in science (Figure 16.4).
and instruments. This patient experimenter was Gali-
leo Galilei (15641642), whose most valuable contribu- Isaac Newton Building on the research of the
tions were his accurate celestial observations and his heirs to Copernicus, including Keplers laws of plan- S
work in terrestrial mechanics, the study of the action etary motion and Galileos law of inertia, the English N
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Figure 16.4 Pietro da Cortona. Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII. 16331639. Fresco. Palazzo
Barberini, Rome. Pope Urban VIII (pope 16231644), born Maffeo Barberini, a member of the powerful
Barberini family of Italys Tuscan region, was active in state and church affairs, a patron of the arts (he
supported Berninis projects to beautify Rome), a poet and man of learning, and a longtime friend of Galileo.
However, Galileo could not rely on his friend when he found himself before the Inquisition. Indeed, Pope
UrbanVIII sanctioned the Inquisitions second condemnation of Galileo. In this illusionistic ceiling painting, Pietro
da Cortona (15961669) depicted Urban VIIIs reign as a golden agein the tradition of art used as propaganda.
The ceiling design is a complex blend of religious, artistic, and dynastic symbols. Mythological figures, whose
height of popularity predated the Christian era, are portrayed in the shadowssymbolic of their pagan roots.
And the illuminated figures in the center represent people who have been exposed to the truth of Christianity.
S Near the top of the frame floats the personification of Religion, holding symbols of the papal officethe triple
N crown and two crossed keys. Below Religion, angelic figures and cherubs carry a giant laurel wreaththe
L Roman emblem of triumphand inside the wreath are three huge beespart of the Barberini coat of arms.
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The Magical and the Practical in the Scientific Revolution 421

mathematician Isaac Newton (16421727) conceived


a model of the universe that decisively overturned
the Ptolemaic scheme and finished the revolution in
astronomy begun by Copernicus. In Newtons world
picture, there is uniform motion on earth and in the
heavens. More significant, Newton presented a satis-
factory explanation for what held the planets in their
orbits: the force of gravity, the force that forms the
heart of his theory of the universe (Figure 16.5).
In a precise mathematical formula, Newton com-
puted the law of universal gravitation, the formula
whereby every object in the world exerts an attraction
on all other objects. By this law, the sun holds tightly
in its grip each of the six planets, and each in turn in-
fluences to a lesser degree the sun and the other plan-
ets. The earth and its single moon as well as Jupiter
and its four satellites similarly interact. Because of
gravity, the heavenly bodies form a harmonious sys-
tem in which each attracts the others.
Having described gravity and asserted its univer-
sal nature, Newton declined to speculate about what
caused it to operate. For him, the universe behaved
precisely as a machine, and his law was simply a de-
scription of its operation. Newton refused to speculate
beyond what mathematics could prove, and modern Figure 16.5 Godfrey K neller. Sir Isaac Newton. 1702. Oil on canvas,
scientists have followed his lead, preferring to ignore 293/4 241/2. National Portrait Gallery, London. As the most
the why of things and to concentrate on the how and celebrated intellectual of his generation, the middle-class Newton was
given star treatment in this portrait by the reigning society painter in
what.
England. Decked out fashionably in an elaborate baroque wig, Newton
Newtons views were set forth in his authorita- peers somewhat uncomfortably at the viewer. The likeness tends to
tive work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. support Newtons reputation for vanity and ostentation.
Known more familiarly as the Principia (the first word
of its Latin title), this book soon gained an authority
that made Newton the modern worlds equivalent of monument would be his religious writings, and as a
Aristotle. By the eighteenth century, the English poet pious Christian, he devoted his last years to demon-
Alexander Pope could justifiably write: strating that the biblical prophecies were coming true.
Nature and Natures Laws lay hid in Night;
God said, Let Newton be! and All was Light. Medicine and Chemistry
Newton also invented a form of calculus, a math- While Western understanding of the universe at its
ematical method of analysis that uses symbolic no- outer limits was being radically altered, breakthroughs
tation. This breakthrough had huge potential for were also occurring in medical knowledge and the
solving problems in physics and mechanics by provid- foundations of modern chemistry were being laid.
ing a tool for computing quantities that had nonlin-
ear variations. Simultaneously and independently of Medicine In 1600 anatomical knowledge was ex-
Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz [LIBE-nits] tremely limited, primarily because Christians for-
(16461716), a German thinker, invented a more use- bade the violation of corpses, as they believed that
ful version of calculus. By 1800 Leibnizs symbols had the body would be resurrected. Biological research,
become the universally accepted language of calculus. which had been limited to the dissection of animals
Even though Newtons work culminated in the birth and then equated to parts of the human body, led to
of modern science, he continued to cling to many older misinformation and half-truths. Also, the authority of
attitudesmanifested, for example, by his extensive ancient Greek thinkers reigned supreme in biology.
research in alchemy and theology. Indeed, Newtons Aristotles investigations of the natural sciences and
theological writings outnumber in length those of Galens research and findings in medicine were lost
his scientific writings. At the same time that he pur- in the fall of Rome, but some works were preserved
sued truth about the natural world, using mathemat- by Arab scholars and then translated from Arabic S
ics and careful observation, he cared little for his own into Latin by Western scholars from the eleventh cen- N
scientific achievements. Newton believed his lasting tury onward (see Chapter 9). Though offering rival L
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Interpreting Art
Reaction to Historical
the Scientific Context This painting
Revolution This reflects the mercantile
culture of the Netherlands.
scene of an anatomy lesson
Dr. Tulp was the City
demonstrates that Dutch
Anatomist of Amsterdam,
physicians were following
and, as such, he gave one
the lead of Vesalius, who
public anatomy lesson each
made such studies a central
year. Anatomy lessons
concern of medical science.
were social events, held
Rembrandts painting
in theatres, with paid
itself is also part of the
admissions.
popularization of science
that is a defining feature of
baroque culture. Social Class The
dark clothing, white neck
Baroque Effects ruffs, and the facial hair are
typical of the burghers who
An arresting image is
controlled the Dutch state.
created with the dramatic
Dr. Tulp is the only figure
play of light on the corpse,
wearing a hata sign of
the contrast between Dr.
his higher social position.
Tulps calm demeanor and
The body, being dissected,
the inquisitive expressions
was required by law to be
of the others, and the flayed
that of a criminal.
arm of the corpse.
reMbrAnDt VAn riJn. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp. 1632. Oil on canvas, 663/4 851/4. Mauritshuis, The
Influence of Psychological
Hague. In this painting, Rembrandt depicts Dr. Nicholas Tulp of Amsterdam, the figure facing to the left, as he
Caravaggio demonstrates the dissection of the left arm of a corpse. Perspective
Rembrandt portrays the
Caravaggios so-called
spectators as individuals,
night pictures (see
Chapter 15) probably 1. Influence of Caravaggio Compare and 4. Reaction to the Scientific Revolution by means of their
expressions and body
inspired Rembrandts use contrast this Rembrandt painting with How many aspects of baroque culture can
language. Thus, one can
of deep chiaroscuro here. Caravaggios The conversion of St. Paul you identify in this painting? Explain. identify intense curiosity,
The deep background
contrasted with the (Figure 15.8). 5. Psychological Perspective Speculate fear, mild revulsion,
disbelief, boredom, and
illuminated faces and the 2. Social Class Perspective What influ- on Rembrandts personal attitude toward indifference. Rembrandts
partially obscured body
of the corpse create a
ences from Amsterdams ruling merchant the figures in this painting. deep human sympathies
class can you find in this painting? have helped make him one
memorable image.
of the Wests most beloved
3. Historical Context How would a con- of artists.
temporary artist depict this subject: an
anatomy lesson?

theories, Aristotle and Galen shared many false ideas: The research of Vesalius and his successors paved
air moves directly from the lungs into the heart, blood the way for William Harvey (15781657), an English
flows from the veins to the outer part of the body, and scientist who studied medicine at the University of
different types of blood course in the arteries and the Padua (15971602), to offer the correct view of the cir-
veins. culation of the blood. Using arithmetical calculations,
The debate over how blood circulated was resolved as had Newton, Harvey proved that a constant quan-
in the early 1600s by scientists at the University of tity of blood continuously circulates throughout the
Padua in Italy, the most prominent of whom was An- body, thereby invalidating Galens ebb-and-flow theory.
dreas Vesalius. Vesaliuss anatomical studies first However, Harvey lacked knowledge of the capillar-
proved Galens explanation of the bodys structure and ies, the connectors between the arteries and the veins.
muscle system to be incorrect (see Chapter 14). Later, Later, in 1661, the Italian scientist Marcello Malpighi
Vesalius concluded that Galens theory about the circu- [mahl-PEE-gee] (16281694), with the aid of a micro-
lation of the bloodthat it passed from one side of the scope, identified the capillaries, which made possi-
S heart to the other through the septum, an impermeable ble an accurate and complete account of the bloods
N membranewas also erroneous (see Interpreting Art). circulation.
L
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THE MAGICAL AND THE PRACTICAL IN THE SCIENTIFIC REVoLUTIoN 423

Chemistry The English physicist Robert Boyle


(16271691) established the groundwork for modern
chemistry. Like Newton, Boyle believed that the uni-
verse is a machine, and he was also convinced that the
workings of nature could be revealed only through ex-
perimental studythat is, the inductive method. His
zeal for experimentation led him to study the behavior
of gases and to formulate the famous law that bears
his name.
Boyle also attempted to separate chemistry from
alchemy, a set of magical practices associated with
chemistry since the time of the ancient Greeks. Medi-
eval European scholars, who were often alchemists,
searched vainly for the philosophers stone that
would turn lead into gold. Boyle rejected alchemys as-
sumptions and methodology, and sought to understand
only those chemical reactions that happened naturally
and could be analyzed in mathematical terms.

Technology
Galileos studies of celestial and terrestrial motion and
Newtons explanation of gravity may be difficult to un-
derstand, but their experiments led to inventions, in
particular, the pendulum clock, that impacted life in
seventeenth-century Europe. This clock, which mea-
sured time more precisely and accurately than any
other clock heretofore, soon determined how people Figure 16.6 A Reconstruction of Huygenss 1656 Clock. Science
conducted business, performed religious duties, and Museum, London. Huygenss clock used the old-fashioned escapement
mechanism, but he added a pair of gear wheels to adjust for the precise
planned their daily lives. The clock became a metaphor
swinging of the pendulum, to ensure accurate timekeeping. On the main
for the human condition, symbolizing the brevity of dial, the hours hand is the shorter one, rotating twice every day. The longer
life and its graduated moments filled with unexplored hand was the seconds hand, and it required five minutes to revolve. This
potential. reconstruction also shows a minutes hand in the small dial at the bottom,
Humans had built instruments for measuring time which rotated counterclockwise once every hour.
for millennia, such as sundials, water clocks, and
hourglasses, but none of them could keep accurate
time. In medieval Europe, pressure to measure time dependability. By 1600 clocks were all given an upright
more precisely came from the church because, with design, though they remained bulky and difficult to
its monasteries, nunneries, schools, and cathedrals, it regulate.
needed devices to set schedules for prayer, work, les- The development of the pendulum clock came in
sons, and daily activities. Records confirm that the two stages: the work of Galileo and that of Christian
earliest clocks were installed in English cathedrals Huygens [HoI-genz] (16291695). In the 1580s, Galileo,
by the thirteenth century. By 1335 Milan, Italy, had while studying the properties of motion, observed that
the first public clock and during the fourteenth cen- the period of oscillation of a swinging pendulum was
tury several cities, including Paris and Rouen, France, always the same. Although he recognized the impor-
erected municipal tower clocks. These clocks were op- tance of the pendulum, he failed to design a pendulum
erated by heavy weights attached to cords around a clock. Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, physicist,
drum and regulated by a circular escapement mecha- and astronomer, while studying the heavens, realized
nism and sets of gears. he needed an accurate time instrument to calibrate his
A German locksmith, Peter Henlein (14801542), in- findings. Upon discovering that a swinging pendulum
vented the coil spring clock, which reduced the size and could regulate a clock, he built a vertical clock with a
weight of the timekeeping mechanismthus allow- pendulum, which kept time more accurately than any
ing for table clocks and eventually watches. Henleins existing clock. The pendulum clocks error rate of less
early timepieces could be carried around or placed than a minute a day meant that the time required for
on a table. Further advances during the sixteenth and a natural period of oscillation was constant and de- S
seventeenth centuries improved clocks accuracy and pendable (Figure 16.6). N
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424 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Baroque Age II

A few years later an English clockmaker devised of science lay in rejecting Aristotles teachings. Con-
the seconds pendulum and improved the escapement demning Aristotle for relying on deductive reasoning
mechanism. The two pendulumsone for the hours, and unproven axioms, Bacon advocated the inductive
the other for the secondsand other parts of the clock method, the procedure that embraced the conduct-
were encased in wood, thus creating the so-called ing of experiments, the drawing of conclusions, and
grandfather clock. This invention made it possible to the testing of results in other experiments. His claims
place clocks anywherein palaces, courts, homes, of- were not new, but they were forcibly and memorably
fices, businesses, shops, laboratories, and schools. Me- expressed. Bacon was convinced that scientific discov-
chanical clocks were now on their way to becoming eries would lead to mastery over the natural world, a
part of the collective consciousness of modern life. view summarized in the famous phrase attributed to
him, Knowledge is power.

The Impact of Science on Philosophy Ren Descartes An outstanding critic of the be-
The Scientific Revolutions profound influence on lief that the experimental method was the correct
Western thought also gave rise to a type of literature path to knowledge was Ren Descartes [day-KAHRT]
that reflected the impact of science on the nonscien- (15961650), a philosopher who urged a purely math-
tific culture. Three prominent contributors to this lit- ematical approach in science (Figure 16.7). Descartes
erature were the English jurist and statesman Francis love of numbers came from a mystical side of his per-
Bacon and two French mathematicians, Ren Des- sonality, which inspired his belief that mathematics
cartes and Blaise Pascal, whose writings continued holds the key to nature. Descartes founded analytic
the French rationalist tradition begun by Montaigne geometry, the branch of mathematics that describes
in the 1500s (see Chapter 14). geometric figures by the formulas of algebra, and au-
thored a widely influential philosophical treatise, Dis-
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon (15611626) had the course on Method, published in 1637.
ability to write lucid prose about science and its meth- In the Discourse on Method, Descartes outlined four
odology, which appealed to a curious and educated steps in his approach to knowledge: to accept noth-
public. In clarifying the techniques and the aims of ing as true unless it is self-evident; to split problems
the new science, he became the spokesman for the into manageable parts; to solve problems starting with
experimenters, those who believed that the future the simplest and moving to the most complex; and to
review and reexamine the solutions. He used deduc-
tive logic in his method, making inferences only from
general statements. But more important than his em-
phasis on deductive reasoning was his insistence on
mathematical clarity: he refused to accept anything
as true unless it had the persuasiveness of a proof in
geometry.
Descartes most influential contributions to West-
ern philosophy were skepticism and a dualistic theory
of knowledge. Descartes rejected the authoritarian
method of medieval scholasticism and began with
universal doubt in order to determine what was ab-
solutely certain in the universe. Step by step, he ques-
tioned the existence of God, of the world, and of his
own body. But he soon established that he could not
doubt the existence of his own doubting self. He
reached this absolute conclusion in the oft-quoted
Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Hav-
ing first destroyed the age-old certainties, he then,

Figure 16.7 Franz Hals. Ren Descartes. After 1649. Oil on canvas,
30 3/4 263/4. Louvre. In this likeness, Frans Hals, the great Dutch
portrait artist and contemporary of Rembrandt, has captured the complex
personality of the great French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes
S piercing gaze shows his skeptical spirit. His disdainful presence and rough
N features reveal his early background as a soldier. Hals apparently felt no
L need to flatter his sitter in this compelling portrait.
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The Magical and the Practical in the Scientific Revolution 425

through deduction, reestablished the existence of his notably in geometry and the study of probability. Pas-
own body, the world, and, finally, God. cal was a Jansenist, a member of a Catholic sect that
Descartes speculations were aimed at identifying to some observers was Calvinistic because it stressed
clear and distinct ideas that were certain for everyone, original sin and denied free will. Pascals Jansenism
but his efforts had a deeply ironic result: his thought permeates his masterpiece, the Penses, or Thoughts, a
fostered the growing awareness among the educated meditative work of intense feeling published in 1670,
elite that absolute truth is not possible. Many who eight years after his death.
read his Discourse were unimpressed by his rational In the Penses, Pascal went beyond Descartes skep-
arguments, but they nevertheless accepted his radical ticism, concluding that human beings can know nei-
doubt, and some even became atheists. That his work ther the natural world nor themselves. Despite this
contributed to the rise of atheism would have horri- seemingly universal doubt, Pascal still reasoned that
fied Descartes since, to his own way of thinking, he there are different levels of truth. Regarding science,
had proven the existence of God. He had used skepti- he thought that what he called the geometric spirit
cism merely as a means of achieving certainty. that is, mathematicscould lead scholars to a lim-
Descartes other great legacy, dualism, made a divi- ited knowledge of nature. Pascals most controversial
sion between the material world and the human soul opinions, however, concerned human psychology. He
or mind. According to Descartes, mathematics permit- felt that the passions enabled human beings to com-
ted natural truths to be revealed to the human under- prehend truths about God and religion directly. He
standing. He thought, however, that the mind itself summed up this idea in his oft-quoted The heart has
was beyond mathematical knowing and hence was reasons that reason does not know. In another pas-
not a fit subject for study. From this dichotomy arise sage, he justified his continued belief in God, not by
two contrasting traditions: the scientists, who reduce intellectual proofs in the manner of Descartes, but
the natural world to order through mathematics; and by a wagera notion he derived from his probabil-
the thinkers, who focus on human psychology. The ity studies. Pascal claimed his faith in God rested on
second groupthe psychologistsrepresent another a bet: if God exists, then the bettor wins everything,
ironic legacy, for through the study of such topics as but if God does not exist, then nothing is lost. Pascals
depth psychology and alienation, they want to prove fervent belief in God in the face of debilitating doubt
that Descartes was wrong and that the human self is makes him a forerunner of modern Christian existen-
knowable in all its irrationality. tialism (see Chapter 22).
Even though Descartes speculations were aimed
at achieving certainty, his focus on deductive logic
has not withstood the test of time. This is because
Ironies and Contradictions
modern scientists think that inductive reasoning of the Scientific Revolution
building a model of truth on the factsis more valid. Ironies abound in the Scientific Revolution. To begin
But Descartes was proven correct in assigning to with, only a handful of thinkers contributed to the
mathematics its paramount role in establishing pre- scientific changes. The vast majority of the populace
cision and certainty in science. Today, those sciences remained unaware of the new findings; besides, they
that have the greatest degree of mathematical rigor could not have understood the changes even if they
have better reputations for accuracy and believabil- had been informed of them. Furthermore, those who
ity than those sciences whose formulations cannot be made the scientific discoveries were engaged primar-
achieved mathematically. ily in solving practical problems rather than in trying
Descartes made another contribution to the Sci- to build a new model of the universe. They also be-
entific Revolution when he applied his method of in- lieved that what they were doing was entirely within
quiry to terrestrial mechanics. It was he, rather than an orthodox Christian framework (although some
Galileo, who gave final expression to the law of in- were aware that religious leaders might think other-
ertia. He concluded that a projectile would continue wise), and few foresaw that their efforts would even-
to move in a straight line until it was interrupted by tually lead to a conflict between religion and science.
some force. With this language Descartes finally de- Another irony was that not all of the scientific ad-
bunked the myth of circular motion, and his defini- vancements were original creations; some were rooted
tion of the law of inertia became part of the scientific in late medieval rationalism and the Renaissance re-
synthesis of Newton. vival of classical learning. Indeed, the new thinkers
were often more concerned with working out minor
Blaise Pascal Descartes work was barely published inconsistencies in the calculations of medieval schol-
before it elicited a strong reaction from Blaise Pascal ars than in overturning the accepted picture of the
[BLEHZ pas-KAHL] (16231662), an anguished thinker universe. Not only did seventeenth-century science S
who made radical doubt the cornerstone of his beliefs. have roots in medieval science, but it was also influ- N
Like Descartes, Pascal left his mark in mathematics, enced by superstitions and mystical beliefs. During the L
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426 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Baroque Age II

Scientific Revolution, even the greatest intellectuals reason. Like the Stoics, Grotius was convinced that
still held firmly to nonrational medieval views. Brahe natural law was founded on human reason and was
and Kepler, for example, supported their research by not the gift of a loving God. He rejected original sin,
pursuing careers as court astrologers. Harvey imag- believing instead that human beings are not motivated
ined that the heart restored a spirituous quality to merely by selfish drives. He thought that because all
the blood during circulation. Newton and Boyle were mortals are rational, they want to improve themselves
both involved in secret experiments with alchemy. A and to create a just and fair society. In his treatise The
mystical experience lay behind Descartes mathemati- Law of War and Peace, Grotius applied this rational view
cal zeal, and Neoplatonism motivated the thought of of human nature to his description of sovereign states.
Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Many scholars were He concluded that nations, like individuals, should
conventionally devout in their religious convictions, treat each other as they would expect to be treated. To-
and Newton tried to correlate biblical prophecy with day, the writings of Grotius are recognized as the start-
history. Despite their medieval heritage, these scholars ing point of international law.
did point European thought in a new direction. Taking a contrary point of view to Grotius was
Bishop Bossuet [bo-SWAY] (16271704), who defended
the theory that kings rule by divine right. This French
THE REVOLUTION IN church leader echoed the opinions of James I of En
gland, who maintained that God bestowed power on
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY certain national monarchs. The French bishop avowed
Political philosophy reflected the nature of the shift- that absolutism, as ordained by God in past societies,
ing political, economic, social, scientific, and religious was now manifested in the rule of Louis XIV, king of
institutions of the seventeenth century. The Thirty France. Louis XIV, as Gods chosen vessel on earth,
Years War, the wars of Louis XIV, and the English had the power to intervene in the lives of his subjects,
civil war (see Chapter 15) forced political theorists to not because of natural law, but by divine right. Ac-
reconsider such basic themes as the nature of govern- cording to this theory, for corrupt and sinful humans
ment, the relations between rulers and subjects, the ri- to rebel against the king was to go against Gods plan.
valries among sovereign states, and the consequences The bishop believed that the ages conflicts made au-
of war on society and the individual. tocratic rule a political necessity. Bossuets belief in
Political writers, stimulated by the rise of sovereign autocracy was shared by the Englishman Thomas
states in the 1500s, addressed themselves in the 1600s to Hobbes, although Bossuet explained absolute rule in
the fundamental questions of who holds the final sov- different terms.
ereignty in a state and how power should be exercised.
Realizing that new states were rapidly extinguishing
the rights held by the feudal estates, these theorists
Absolutism and Liberalism:
tried to define the best form of government. They all Hobbes and Locke
supported their arguments with the same sources Thomas Hobbes (15881679) grew up in an England
the Bible, the concept of natural law, scientific discov increasingly torn by religious, social, and political
eries, and their own views of human naturebut they discord. A trained classicist and a student of the new
came to widely differing conclusions. science, Hobbes came to believe that everything, in-
cluding human beings and their social acts, could be
explained by using mechanistic, natural laws to de-
Natural Law and Divine Right: scribe various states of motion or movement.
Grotius and Bossuet Hobbess efforts to synthesize a universal philoso-
Hugo Grotius [GRO-she-us] (15831645) thought that phy founded on a geometric design and activated by
natural law should govern the relations between some form of energy culminated in his best-known
states. He arrived at this belief chiefly because of his work, The Leviathan, published in 1651 (Figure 16.8).
personal sufferings during the Thirty Years War and The Leviathan sets forth a theory of government based
the intolerance that he observed in religious disputes. A on the pessimistic view that individuals are driven by
Dutch citizen but also Swedens ambassador to France, two basic forces, the fear of death and the quest for
1634-1645, he saw at first hand the ambiguity of diplo- power. Hobbes imagined what life would be like if
matic relations between the great military powers these two natural inclinations were allowed free rein
England, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. and there were no supreme power to control them.
Drawing on the idea of natural law as set forth by Hobbes described human life under these circum-
the ancient Stoic thinkers, Grotius urged the states to stances as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
S follow a law that applied to all nations, was eternal Hobbes thought that rational human beings would
N and unchanging, and could be understood by human recognize their miserable situation in a state of nature,
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The Revolution in Political Philosophy 427

Figure 16.8 Frontispiece of The Leviathan.


1651. The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. The original illustration
for Hobbess Leviathan conveys the political
message of this controversial work in symbolic
terms. Towering over the landscape is the
mythical ruler, whose body is a composite of
all his subjects and in whose hands are the
sword and the scepter, symbols of his absolute
power. Below this awesome figure is a well-
ordered and peaceful village and countryside
Hobbess political dream come true.

give up such an existence, and form a civil society un- was less concerned with the form of government than
der the rule of one man. The first step to create a civil with the need to hold in check destructive human im-
society was to draw up a social contract between the pulses. In the next generation, Hobbess pessimistic
ruler and the subjects. By the terms of this covenant, philosophy provoked a reaction from John Locke, who
the subjects surrendered all their claims to sovereignty repudiated absolutism and advocated a theory of gov-
and bestowed absolute power on the ruler. The sover- ernment by the people.
eigns commands were to be carried out by all those Despite their contradictory messages, Hobbes and
under him, including the religious and civic leaders. John Locke (16321704) had been subjected to similar
Always prepared for war, the sovereign would keep influences. Both adapted ideas from the new science,
peace at home and protect the land from its enemies witnessed the English civil war, and sought safety
abroad. on the Continent because of their political views. But
Hobbes made no distinction between the ruler of Locke rejected Hobbess gloomy view of humanity S
a monarchy and the head of a commonwealth, for he and his theory of absolutism; he taught instead that N
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428 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE BARoqUE AGE II

SLICE OF LIFE
Innocent or Guilty? A Seventeenth-Century Witch Trial

Suzanne Gaudry
TRIAL COURT RECORDS, JUNE 1652
Suzanne Gaudry, an illiterate old woman, was accused aforesaid doctor and officer truly to be the mark of the
of witchcraft, including such crimes as renouncing God, devil.2
Lent, and baptism, worshiping the devil, attending Being more tightly stretched upon the torture-rack,
witches Sabbaths, and desecrating the Eucharist wafer. urged to maintain her confessions.
Questioned by the court at Rieux, France, she confessed to Said that it was true that she is a witch and that
some charges but later recanted. Because confession was she would maintain what she has said. Asked how
necessary for conviction, she was subjected to torture, long she has been in subjugation to the devil.
and once again she confessed. She was then condemned Answers that it was twenty years ago that the
and sentenced to be tied to a gallows, strangled, and to devil appeared to her, being in her lodgings in the
have her body burned. form of a man dressed in a little cow-hide and black
breeches. . . .
on [June 27], . . . this prisoner [Suzanne Gaudry], be- Asked if her lover has had carnal copulation with
fore being strapped down, was admonished to main- her, and how many times.
tain herself in her first confessions and to renounce To that she did not answer anything; then, mak-
her lover [the devil]. ing believe that she was ill, not another word could be
Said that she denies everything she has said, and drawn from her.
that she has no lover. Feeling herself being strapped
1Not crying was thought to be a sign of witchcraft.
down, says that she is not a witch, while struggling 2Perhaps a birthmark or other skin blemish. It was commonly believed that
to cry.1 . . . witches were marked by the devil, as a sign of their intimate union, and when
Says . . . she is not a witch. And upon being asked the mark was pricked, no pain would occur nor any blood flow out.
why she confessed to being one, said that she was
forced to say it.
Told that she was not forced, that on the contrary Interpreting This Slice of Life
she declared herself to be a witch without any threat. 1. What were the charges against Suzanne Gaudry?
Says that she confessed it and that she is not 2. How did she respond to the charges?
a witch, and being a little stretched [on the rack]
3. In what ways does the official court record reveal
screams ceaselessly that she is not a witch, invoking
the attitudes and reactions of that time and place?
the name of Jesus and our Lady of Grace, not wanting
to say any other thing. . . . 4. Did Suzanne Gaudry receive a fair trial? Explain.
The mark having been probed by the officer, in the 5. Compare and contrast this trial with the treatment of
presence of Doctor Bouchain, it was adjudged by the suspect criminals today.

human nature is potentially good and that human In it Locke described the origins, characteristics, and
beings are capable of governing themselves. The two purpose of the ideal political systema government
thinkers originated opposing schools of modern po- limited by laws, subject to the will of its citizens, and
litical thought: from Hobbes stems the absolutist, au- existing to protect life and property.
thoritarian tradition, and from Locke descends the Locke shared some of Hobbess ideas: humans pos-
school of liberalism. Their works represent two of sess reason, human life is violent and disorderly in
the most significant legacies of the baroque age to the the state of nature, human beings must form civil
modern world. governments to protect themselves, and a social con-
Locke set forth his political theories in his Two tract is the necessary basis of civil society. But Locke
Treatises of Government, which he published anony- believed that basic rights, including life and property,
mously in 1690. In the First Treatise he refuted the di- exist in the state of nature. He also believed that hu-
S vine right of kings, and in the Second Treatise he laid man beings are fundamentally decent, law abiding,
N out the model for rule by the people. The latter work and slow to want change. From these principles, he
L has become the classic expression of early liberalism. concluded that human beings would contract together
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THE REVoLUTIoN IN PoLITICAL PHILoSoPHY 429

to create a limited government that had no other pur- the 1500s, the pace of explorations quickened and the
pose than the protection of the basic natural rights of globe was circumnavigatedevents that intensified
life and property. rivalries among the European states, increased the
Locke rejected the idea that by making a social con- Continents economic power, and diffused European
tract citizens surrender their sovereignty to a ruler. culture and customs around the world.
He argued instead that the people choose rulers who Europes success overseas was achieved through a
protect their rights in a fiduciary trust; that is, they ex- series of permanent settlements in North and South
pect their rulers to obey the social contract and govern America and by the opening of new trade routes to
equitably. If the rulers break the agreement, then the the Far East (Map 16.1). Expansion and colonization
people have the right to revolt, overthrow the govern- affected Europe in numerous ways: the introduction
ment, and reclaim their natural rights. Unlike Hobbes, of new foodstuffs and other products, the establish-
Locke asserted that rulers possess only limited au- ment of innovative business methods, the disruption
thority and that their control must be held in check by of old economic and social patterns, the introduction
a balanced governmental system and a separation of of novel ways of looking at the world, and the adop-
powers. Lockes tract influenced American and French tion of new symbols and themes in the arts. Whatever
political thinkers and patriots, who used its ideas to may have been the beneficial or harmful effects of these
justify the right to revolt against a tyrant and to estab- changes on European life, the negative effects of the
lish a government of checks and balances. introduction of Western culture on non-Europeans
Locke was not only a political theorist but also the tended to outweigh the good. In Africa, the Europeans
preeminent English philosopher of his day. He grap- expanded the slave trade; in North, Central, and South
pled with many of the same problems as Descartes, America and the Caribbean, they annihilated many
although his conclusions were radically different from native tribes; and everywhere they forced trade agree-
the French thinkers. Lockes significant philosophi- ments favorable to themselves on the local people.
cal work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, The earliest leaders in the European penetration
published in 1690 (the same year Two Treatises of Gov- of the Western Hemisphere were Portugal and Spain.
ernment was published), addressed the question How Since the 1500s, these two states had claimed South
is knowledge acquired? Descartes had proposed that and Central America and the southern reaches of
the germs of ideas were inborn and that people were North America. Where possible, they mined the rich
born knowing certain truths, such as mathematical gold and silver veins, flooding Europe with the new
principles and logical relationships; education re- wealth and gaining power and influence for them-
quired nothing more than the strenuous use of the selves. But Spains and Portugals ties with the New
intellect without concern for new information from World languished during the baroque age. At the same
the senses. time, England, France, and the Netherlands acceler-
Locke repudiated these views and described the ated their explorations, especially in North America
mind at birth as a tabula rasa (blank tablet) on (Table 16.1). In 1607 English farmers settled along the
which all human experiences were recorded. Locke Atlantic seaboard in Virginia, ready to exploit the land,
maintained that everything human beings can know and in 1620 English Puritans emigrated to New En-
must first be received through their senses (a basi- gland in search of religious freedom (Figure 16.9). To
cally Aristotelian viewpoint) and then recorded in the north, French explorers, missionaries, and fur trad-
their minds. The raw sensory data are manipulated ers founded quebec in 1608 and then spread along the
by the mental faculties, such as comparing and con- St.Lawrence River valley and southward into the Great
trasting, so that abstract concepts and generalizations Lakes region. At the same time, the French moved into
are formed in the mind. As a result, reason and ex- the Caribbean basin, occupying many islands in the
perience are united in human thought and together West Indies. After 1655 the English worked their way
determine what is real for each person. Lockes expla- into the southern part of the Atlantic coast and the
nation of the origin of ideas is the basis of modern-day West Indies. These newly arrived colonists eventually
empiricismthe theory that all knowledge is derived either drove out the Spaniards or drastically reduced
from or originates in human experience. His influence their influence.
has been so great that many of his ideas seem to the In the Far East, Europeans relied less on charters
modern reader to be just common sense. than on joint-stock companiesa capitalistic venture,
or association of individuals who pooled their money
to own shares or stock in a company. This arrange-
Global Encounter: ment allowed members to transfer stocks without the
European Exploration and Expansion consent of the other stock owners. The English and
Explorations begun in the late 1400s had led to the Dutch developed these types of business ven- S
a series of encounters with new peoples that slowly tures, a tactic that enriched both the investors and N
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Learning Through Maps

GREENLAND
Barents
Sea

ICELAND SIBERIA

Hudson
Bay BRITISH Bering
ISLES Sea
CANADA
NORTH NEWFOUNDLAND
Quebec EUROPE MANCHURIA
AMERICA ASIA
Massachusetts Bay
Mississippi R. New York MASSACHUSETTS
California RHODE ISLAND AZORES (Port.) Beijing
Jamestown PENNSYLVANIA JAPAN
MARYLAND MADEIRA CHINA
New Orleans (Port.) Nagasaki PA CIF IC
MEXICO LOUISIANA CANARY IS.
BAHAMAS (Br.) (Sp.) SAHARA Guangzhou FORMOSA OCEAN
Calcutta
Mexico City SENEGAL (Fr.) ARABIA Macau (Port.)
Ni INDIA
PACIFI C GUATEMALA WEST CAPE VERDE IS. Manila

Nile R.
ger
INDIES (Port.) (Port.) Goa Madras
OCE A N GUINEA AFRICA PHILIPPINE IS.

R.
VENEZUELA Surat
Isthmus of Panama NEW GUIANA
Equator GRANADA GOLD ongo CEYLON EAST INDIES Equator

C
COAST

R.
Quito
Amazon R. (Br.) I N D I A N SUMATRA
PERU BRAZIL O CEAN JAVA
Lima BOLIVIA TIMOR
PARAGUAY MADAGASCAR
ATLA N TI C LE DE FRANCE (Fr.)
SOUTH NEW HOLLAND
AMERICA O CEAN (AUSTRALIA)
CHILE
British Rio de la Plata CAPE OF
PATAGONIA GOOD HOPE
Dutch

French 0 1500 3000 mi NEW ZEALAND

Cape Horn
Portuguese 0 3000 6000 km
Spanish

MHS63 501MAP 16.1 EXPANSION OF EUROPE, 1715


mat76620_m1501.eps
This map shows the presence of Europeans around the globe in the early eighteenth century.1. Notice the overseas holdings of the five European countries
Second proof
identified on the map. 2. Observe the differing encounter patternscoastal and inlandon the various continents. 3. Which country has the largest number
of overseas holdings? 4. On which continent is there the greatest European presence? 5. Where are conflicts among European powers most likely to occur?
6. Which areas of the world seem less touched by European expansion?

TABLE 16.1SETTLEMENTS IN THE NEW WORLD The English East India Company, founded in 1600
DURING THE BAROQUE AGE by a group of London merchants, hoped to gain a
foothold in the spice trade, but the Dutch blocked the
DATE OF English access to this lucrative market. Turning their
LOCATION FOUNDING SETTLERS
attention to India, the English, after defeating a Portu-
Jamestown (Virginia) 1607 English guese fleet, won trading rights at Surat, a port on In-
Quebec (Canada) 1608 French dias west coast. Although the Christian English were
Plymouth (Massachusetts) 1620 English offended by Hindu and Muslim beliefs and practices,
Saint Kitts (West Indies) 1623 English and were dismissive of much of Mogul civilization,
New Amsterdam (New York) 1624 Dutch they immediately recognized the economic value of
Indian textiles, especially cotton goods. The East India
Barbados 1627 English
Company first imported linen cloth to be made into
Brazil 16321654 Dutch
clothes and later Madras cotton and chintz. During the
Curaao (West Indies) 1634 Dutch
1600s, the company forced more concessions from the
Martinique (West Indies) 1635 French feeble Mogul rulers, such as founding trading posts on
Saint Lucia (West Indies) 1635 French Indias east and west coasts (Figure16.10). As the Mo-
Honduras (Belize) 1638 English gul Empire collapsed in the early 1700s, the East India
Saint Domingue (Haiti) 1644 French Company began to meddle in political affairs by sup-
Bahamas (West Indies) 1648 English porting local princes and stepping up economic pres-
Jamaica (West Indies) 1655 English sure. The companys goal was to expand its sources of
S (captured from Spain) raw materials for export and, simultaneously, to create
N overseas markets for finished English goods.
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The Revolution in Political Philosophy 431

Figure 16.9 Hollar. Indian of Virginia, Male. 1645. Etching, 4 3.


The New York Public Library. This engraving portrays a Native American
male, who was probably one of many brought to London in the early


seventeenth century. Whether his presence abroad was voluntary
or involuntary is unknown, but the artist depicts him as a proud man Figure 16.10 Bichitr. Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh
with dignity. A translation of the Latin inscription reads, in part: at the to Kings, Page from the St. Petersburg Album, Mughal.
upper left, An American from Virginia. Age 23, and, at the upper right, 16151618. Opaque watercolor, gold and ink on paper,
W. Hollar . . . made from Life 1645. W. Hollar is Wenceslaus Hollar 10 7 1/8. Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
(16071677), an artist from what is now the Czech Republic, who lived In this delicate miniature painting, Jahangir (r. 16051627), whose name
in London in the midseventeenth century and worked for aristocratic means world seizer, sits on an hourglass throne, perhaps a reference
patrons with ties to the English court. to the fleeting of time and the brevity of his reign. Jahangirs head is
encircled in a halo with the sun and the moon. Before him stands a mullah,
or Islamic teacher, to whom the ruler is handing a book. The two figures
who are placed below the mullaha symbolic ranking to show Jahangirs
In 1602, the Dutch government granted the Dutch preference for spiritual over worldly mattershave been identified by art
East India Company a monopoly in the Asian trade historians as the Ottoman sultan (with a black beard) and James I of
(Figure 16.11). A Dutch expedition quickly drove the England (with the neck ruff). At the lower left, the man holding a painting
Portuguese out of the East Indies, where the company may be Bichitr, the famous court artist who painted this miniature.
set up headquarters on the island of Java. With its ex-
tensive military and political authority, the company
soon controlled the Indian Ocean and expanded trade near Nagasaki. This arrangement with the Dutch be-
into the China seas. It made the Cape of Good Hope came the only contact Japan had with the West until
a base for its ships and set up trading posts in India, the midnineteenth century.
Persia, and Nagasaki, Japan. The other joint stock venture the Dutch government
Before the Dutch arrived in Japan, the country had set up, the West India Company (1621), conquered is-
suffered through a long and divisive civil war and had lands in the West Indies and, in the 1620s and 1630s,
also witnessed the arrival of Portuguese and Roman founded colonies in South America and North Amer-
Catholic missionaries. In 1603 the powerful Tokugawa ica (New Amsterdam, later New York). The company
shogunate, or government, took control of Japan, helped launch the African slave trade by giving gold
kicked the Westerners out, and closed their ports to and silver to African tribes in exchange for captured
all foreigners. However, the shogunate allowed the slaves, which were then shipped to plantations in the S
Dutch to keep a factory, or trading post, on an island Caribbean islands. The American colonists and the N
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432 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Baroque Age II

intellectuals, and educated public. Among the aris-


tocracy, for example, a new social type arrivedthe
virtuoso, a person who dabbled in the latest science
and gave it respectability. A new type of literature also
evolved, in which scientific concepts and discoveries
were popularized for the consumption of an educated
elite. The seventeenth century found ample creative
expression among those who embraced the innova-
tions and change and their implications.

The Spread of Ideas


In the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, some sci-
entists and intellectuals realized that new scientific
findings needed to be given the widest dissemina-
tion possible, since the information would be of in-
estimable value to others who were engaged in their
own research. At first, they exchanged information
informally through personal contacts or by chance
encounters in the universities. But by midcentury, the
scientific societies were spreading new knowledge
through their corresponding members and by pub-
lishing journals. The first scientific society was in En
gland, where CharlesII granted a charter to the Royal
Society in 1662. In 1666 LouisXIV supported the cre-
ation of the Royal Academy of Science (Figure 16.12),
and in 1700 German scientists instituted the Berlin
Academy of Science.
At the same time, many intellectually curious men
and women, who wanted to learn more about the


changes taking place in the sciences and mathematics
Figure 16.11 A Chinese Interpretation of Dutch Traders.
but who lacked specialized training, turned to writers
Porcelain. Ching dynasty, Kang-hsi period, seventeenth
century. Formerly owned by the Dutch East Indies who could demystify the new discoveries and explain
Company. As Europeans spread Western culture around the globe them in popular language. One who responded to this
in the seventeenth century, they were sometimes confronted with images interest was the French thinker Bernard de Fontenelle
of themselves created by artists in other cultures, as in these Chinese [fon-tuh-NELL] (16571757), the long-lived secretary of
representations of Dutch traders. These figures express a stereotype
Frances Royal Academy of Science. His Conversations
of a European man, dressed in the costume of the day (long coat, knee
breeches, and hat) and with distinctive features (marked cheekbones, on the Plurality of Worlds set the early standard for this
curly hair [wig?], and smiling face). Dating from the reign of Chinas type of popular literature. With learning and wit, Fon-
Emperor Kang-hsi (16611722), these porcelains were made as tenelle created a dialogue between himself and an in-
curiosities for the European market. They are enameled glaze quiring countess in which Newtonian physics and the
porcelains, in which green, yellow, purple, and white enamels were
new astronomy were explained in an informative and
applied to a prefired, or biscuit, body and then given a second firing.
entertaining way. Through publicists like Fontenelle,
the new theories and ideas became available to the
general reading public.
British also joined in the profitable slave trade, eventu-
Another French publicist, Pierre Bayle [BEL]
ally bringing thousands of African slaves to the Brit-
(16471706), launched the intellectual fashion for ar-
ish West Indies and North America.
ranging ideas in systematic form, as in dictionaries and
encyclopedias. Bayles influential and popular work,
called the Historical and Critical Dictionary, was prob-
RESPONSES TO THE ably the most controversial book of the baroque age.
Bayle wrote articles on biblical heroes, classical and
REVOLUTIONS IN THOUGHT medieval thinkers, and contemporary scholars, many
The scientific discoveries, the growth of skepticism, the of which challenged Christian beliefs. Each article was
S new political theories, and the overseas explorations a short essay accompanied by lengthy footnotes. His
N provoked a variety of responses among the artists, aim was to set forth rival and contradictory opinions
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Responses to the Revolutions in Thought 433

Figure 16.12 J. Goyton after a painting


by Sbastian I. Leclerc. Louis XIV at the
Royal Academy of Science. 1671. Engraving.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Science
became fashionable during the baroque age,
and rulers provided funds to advance the new
discoveries. Louis XIV, king of France, is shown
here visiting the Royal Academy of Science, the
premier organization of scientists in France.
In the background of this black-and-white
engraving can be seen the Royal Observatory.
From this period dates the close alliance
between science and government, a linkage
based on mutual self-interest.

on each topic; if the essay was offensive to the pious, Impact on the Arts
Bayle pointed out that he himself was only follow- The innovations in science and philosophy coincided
ing the Bible and the teachings of the Christian faith. with and fostered a changed consciousness not only in
Many readers responded to the articles by becom- the educated public but also among artists and writ-
ing skeptical about the subjects. Others questioned ers. New attitudes, values, and tastes reflecting these
Bayles motives and accused him of atheism. Despite ideas are evident in the creative works of the baroque
the controversy, by 1750 Bayles Dictionary had been period, many of which are discussed and illustrated
reprinted many times and spawned many imitations. in Chapter 15. Central to the new ideas was the belief
Bayles Dictionary marked a new stage in the history that there is a hidden harmony in nature that may be
of literature for two reasons. First, the work was sold expressed in mathematical laws. In the arts, this belief
to subscribers, which meant that royal, aristocratic, or was expressed by order and wholeness beneath wild
ecclesiastical patronage was no longer necessary to profusion, such as the geometric order that organizes
publish a book. Second, the extravagant success of his the gardens and grounds of Versailles or the theme of
venture showed that a literate public now existed that redemption that unifies Miltons sprawling epic, Para-
would buy books if they appealed to its interests. Both dise Lost.
of these facts were understood very well by authors in A second reflection of the Scientific Revolution, par-
the next generation, who freed writing from the pa- ticularly of the discoveries in astronomy, is the feeling
tronage system and inaugurated the world of modern of infinite space that pervades baroque art. The love of S
literature with its specialized audiences. curving lines, elliptical shapes, and flowing contours N
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434 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE BARoqUE AGE II

may be related to the new, expansive views of the plan- life and search out its hidden truth. Racines plays, for
ets and the universe. The ultimate expression of these example, reveal acute insight into human psychol-
interests and feelings, of course, is the illusionistic ceil- ogy, as do the political philosophies of Hobbes and
ing painting (see Figure 15.10). Locke; and Rembrandts cycle of self-portraits shows
A final effect of the Scientific Revolution was the his ability and desire to reveal his innermost feelings.
elevation of analytic reasoning skills to a position of Baroque art and literature demonstrate that although
high esteem in the arts. Just as Newtons genius led the Scientific Revolution may have displaced men and
him to grasp concepts and laws that had eluded oth- women from the center of the universe, an optimistic
ers, so artists and humanists were inspired to use their view of the human predicament was still possible.
powers of analysis to look below the surface of human

SUMMARY
The baroque ages outstanding event was the Scien- The baroque age was also affected by other culture-
tific Revolution: the shift from geocentrism to helio- changing events. England, one of the great powers,
centrism. The heroes of this intellectual revolution are was racked by years of political and religious turmoil,
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, whose work culminating in a failed experiment with a republican
took place over a 150-year span. The Scientific Revolu- form of government. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke,
tion, when considered broadly, also included dramatic who witnessed these upheavals, reacted by developing
advances in medical science (Harvey, the circulation rival political theories. Around the globe, European ex-
of blood in the human body) and chemistry (Boyles plorers and settlers staked out claims, and English and
law). Likewise, the new methodology, pioneered by Dutch trading companies established outposts and
these scientists, came into being. The major contribu- struck agreements with local rulers and businesses. At
tors to the new methodology were Bacon (inductive the same time, European rulers, scientists, and think-
reasoning), Descartes (deductive reasoning), and Pas- ers were founding organizations to further research
cal (healthy skepticism). and to inform others about scientific discoveries and
scholarship.

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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 435

The Legacy of the Revolutions in Scientific and Political Thought


The Scientific Revolution forever changed the way
we view ourselves and our world. Its methodology
remains the standard of modern science: collect raw
data, reason inductively to hypotheses, and verify re-
sults with mathematics. This new way of thinking also
contributed to skepticism or systematic doubt regard-
ing artistic theories, social mores, and religious beliefs.
To question all beliefs has encouraged an intellectual
restlessness, which is one of the defining features of
modern life.
Scientific instruments, such as the telescope, en-
couraged the curious to search the skies and map parts
of the universe. Today, miniaturized devices, rockets,
computers, and space stations allow us not only to look
deep into the universe but also to look down onto our
planet. Spectacular photographs of the earth have cap-
tured the imagination of writers, composers, and intel-
lectuals, inspiring them to celebrate our latest galactic
adventures.
Wars have been fought, political upheavals staged, The Blue Marble. NASA. This photograph of our planet was taken by the
and elections contested, stemming from the two rival crew of astronauts in Apollo 17, on December 7, 1972, from a distance of
political heritages of the baroque era: the authoritar- about 28,000 miles, with the sun to their backs, using an 80-millimeter
lens Hasselblad camera. At the top is the northern part of Africa, the
ian tradition, which claims that a strong centralized
Arabian penninsula, and the Mediterranean Sea, and at the bottom is
regime will ensure justice for all citizens; and the lib- Antarctica, and, to the upper right, the Indian Ocean, marked by a cyclone.
eral tradition, which holds that citizens are capable of Environmentalists have used this iconic image in their campaigns, and
ruling themselves. The exploration and colonization television has capitalized on its name to produce a childrens show, Big
of the baroque age extended Western ideas, technol- Blue Marble. Although this photograph has been superseded by images
in newer technology, it retains its historic importance. It memorializes the
ogy, and peoples around the world with both positive
moment when humans first saw the earth from space, rather than looking
and negative results, which still challenge us both in up at the stars. No baroque astronomer or philosopher could have seen,
our personal lives and in the public domain. much less imaged, such beauty and splendor.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Scientific Revolution inductive reasoning social contract tabula rasa
geocentrism deductive reasoning liberalism virtuoso
empiricism heliocentrism

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ROBERT ADAM. Library, Kenwood House. 17671768. London. Robert Adams careful
attention to the rules of classical architecture were admired and influenced greatly the
spread of neoclassicism across Europe.

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The Age of Reason
17
17001789

Preview Questions The years from 1700 to 1789constitute the Age of Reason,
1. What was the when the best minds passionately believed in the power of knowledge to
Enlightenment, and improve both the individual and society. We call the cultural movement
who were its leading spawned by these progressive thinkers the Enlightenmentthe defining
advocates and their
major achievements? trend of the time. In the sociopolitical realm, three other trends were also
reshaping culture: the growing power of centralized states (Map 17.1), the
2. What were the four
trends that characterize resurgence of the aristocracy after a century of decline, and the rise to po-
the Age of Reason, and litical and cultural visibility of the middle class. The middle class, in turn,
how did these trends
supported those thinkers who advocated social equality, social justice, and
interact and shape the
periods culture? a thorough revamping of societykey ideals of the Enlightenment.

3. What were the rococo Along with these four trends, two new styles in art, architecture, and
and the neoclassical music emerged. The rococo began in France and was more informal and
styles, their relation graceful, less ponderous and oppressive than the baroque. After about
to one another,
and significant 1750, the neoclassical style was born. Unlike the rococo, the neoclassical
achievements in style in art and architecture spread widely across Europe and into British
each style? colonial America. In music, the new style was called classicalmarked by
refinement, elegance, and new musical forms
The splendid library at Kenwood House, London, encapsulates many
of this chapters themes. In this neoclassical interior, the architect, Robert
Adam, creates a subtle harmony, blending various influences, including
Greek (Corinthian columns), Roman (rounded arches), and rococo (pas-
tel colors). Adam remodeled Kenwood House for the Scotsman William
Murray (17051793), Britains Lord Chief Justice of Kings Bencha post
that came with a title, the first Lord Mansfield. As Lord Chief Justice, he
showed a conflicted view of Enlightenment ideals, for instance, repeatedly
rejecting the self-rule arguments of American colonists, yet ruling in 1772
that slavery was illegal in England and Wales, but not elsewhere in the
British Empirea major step in the abolition of slavery.

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438 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

Learning Through Maps


NORWAY
SWEDEN
SCOTLAND N ort h
S ea 0 250 500 mi

IRELAND DENMARK 0 500 1000 km


UNITED
NETHERLANDS RUSSIA
ENGLAND PRUSSIA

POLAND
ATLAN TI C
O CEAN HOLY
AUSTRIAN ROMAN
NETHERLANDS EMPIRE Se a o f
AUSTRIA
Azov
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND
HUNGARY

RE
PU
PORTUGAL B l ac k Sea
BL
O
IC
F
VE
KINGDOM CORSICA NI
SPAIN OF SARDINIA CE
PAPAL

OT
STATES O

T
M
AN
EMP
French IRE
KINGDOM
OF THE
Hohenzollerns TWO SICILIES
Hapsburgs
British
Russian
Med i t erran ean S ea
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire

MAPMHS63
17.1508EUROPE, 17631789
mat76620_m1601.eps
This First shows the political divisions of Europe in the mideighteenth century.1. Locate the territories of France, Great Britain, Russia, the
mapproof
Hohenzollern dynasty, and the Hapsburg dynastythe five great powers. 2. Which great power has the most compact state? 3. Which great power
has the most widely dispersed lands? 4. How would geography and cultural diversity influence a states ability to maintain great-power status?
5. Notice the vastness of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim state, in the southeastern corner of Europe.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT the cultural capitals of Paris, London, and Edinburgh.


Few workers and peasants were touched by the move-
The Age of Reason thinkers derived their ideals and ment, but some aristocrats and many middle-class
goals from varied sources. Following the example of readerssuch as educators, lawyers, journalists, and
ancient Greece and Rome, they rejected superstition, clergymenwere drawn to the new ideas. Ultimately,
sought truth through the use of reason, and viewed enough influential people were converted to the goals
the world from a secular, human-centered perspec- of the Enlightenment to have an impact on the revolu-
tive. Drawing on the Renaissance, they embraced tionary events that occurred later in the century (Time-
humanismthe belief that a human being becomes line 17.1).
a better person through the study and practice of lit-
erature, philosophy, music, and the arts. And from
the seventeenth-century revolutions in science and The Philosophes and Their Program
philosophy, particularly the works of Newton, Bacon, The leaders of the Enlightenment were a small band
Descartes, and Locke, they derived a reliance on ratio- of writers known as philosophes, the French word for
nalism, empiricism, skepticism, and the experimental philosophers. Not philosophers in a formal sense,
method, along with a belief in human perfectibility the philosophes were popularizers who wanted to in-
through education and unlimited progress. fluence public opinion. They tried to reach large audi-
S The Enlightenment changed the worldview of only ences through novels, essays, pamphlets, plays, poems,
N a small number of Westerners, mainly those living in and histories. In this they were following Fontenelle,
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THE ENLIGHTENMENT 439

Timeline 17.1 THE AGE OF REASON


1700 1714 1740 1748 1756 1763 1776 1783 1789

War of Seven
War of Spanish American
Austrian Years
Succession Revolution
Succession War

1740 1750 1759 1776 1786


Richardsons First volume Voltaires Smiths Mozarts
Pamela of the Candide Wealth of Marriage
Encyclopdie Nations of Figaro
1762
Rousseaus 1785
Social Contract Davids
17711773 Oath of the
Fragonards Horatii
The Pursuit

who had popularized the new astronomy in his Con- humanity. In effect, they preached a secular gospel
versations on the Plurality of Worlds (see Chapter 16). that happiness could be enjoyed here on earth.
They openly attacked social evils and supported rul- Envisioning a rejuvenated society that guaranteed
ers who favored change, the so-called enlightened des- natural rights to all citizens, the philosophes were al-
pots. When the censors threatened, the philosophes most unanimous in thinking exclusively in terms of
either disguised their radical messages or published men. They considered women their intellectual and
their criticisms in the Netherlandsthe most liberal physical inferiors and thus in need of male protection
state in Europe at the time. or guidance. Not until the 1790s, during the French
The Enlightenment was essentially a product of Revolution, were voices raised on behalf of womens
French cultural life, and Paris was its capital. Frances rights.
principal philosophes were Voltaire, Diderot, Montes One of those thinkers moved by the revolutionary
quieu, and by adoption the French-speaking Swiss winds blowing from France was the English writer
writer Rousseau. But major philosophes appeared Mary Wollstonecraft (17591797), who, in A Vindica-
elsewhere in Europe, notably in Great Britain, and in tion of the Rights of Woman (1792), used Enlightenment
Britains North American colonies, notably the English ideals to urge the liberation of her own sex. Like Rous-
historian Edward Gibbon, the American writer Ben- seau, Wollstonecraft was a democrat and opposed to
jamin Franklin, and two Scottish thinkers, the econo- hierarchy in all forms: in the aristocracy, the military,
mist Adam Smith and the philosopher David Hume. and the clergy to the extent that promotion was based
The philosophes, though never in complete agree- on pleasing those in higher positions. Unlike Rous-
ment, shared certain assumptions: they had full confi- seau, she was dedicated to the rights of women, whom
dence in reason; they were convinced that nature was she repeatedly called one-half of the human race.
orderly and fundamentally good and could be under- Rejecting the Adams rib explanation of womens
stood through the empirical method; they believed that inferiority as being simply a male fabrication, she
change and progress would improve society, since hu- claimed that women are as rational as men and thus
man beings were perfectible. Faith in reason led them should be treated the same. The heart of this latter-day
to reject religious doctrine, in particular Roman Catho- philosophes argument was that women should aban-
lic dogma; to denounce bigotry and intolerance; and to don feminine artifice and cunning, especially the all-
advocate freedom of religious choice. Maintaining that consuming need to be socially pleasing, and through
education liberated humanity from ignorance and su- education become equal partners with educated men.
perstition, the philosophes called for an expanded edu-
cational system independent of ecclesiastical control.
The philosophes thought that the political, economic, Religion
and religious institutions should be reformed to bring During the Age of Reason, two divergent religious
the greatest happiness for the greatest numbersa trends emerged: the Deist faith, which appealed to
phrase that expresses a key Enlightenment ideal and a small, but influential group of thinkers; and new
that, in the nineteenth century, became the battle cry of Protestant sects, which attracted followers across all
the English thinker Jeremy Bentham (see Chapter19). classes in Europe and the New World. Both trends
These theorists anticipated a general overhaul of so- generated controversy, and their lingering effects are S
ciety, leading to universal peace and a golden age for still felt in the West today. N
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440 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

Deism Newtonian science implied that God set the the Church of England, ending with a formal break in
universe in motion and then left it to run by its own 1784, the founding date of the Methodist Church.
natural laws. Taking this metaphor of God as a clock- Methodism and German Pietism became catalysts
maker, some thinkers rejected traditional Christian- for the First Great Awakening in colonial America. A
ity and adopted a natural Christianity called Deism. wave of revivalism swept over the English colonies,
Deists worshiped a Supreme Being, who created the from New England to Georgia. As in the Protestant
universe and set the laws of nature in motion but who Reformation (see Chapter 14), this movement stressed
never again interfered in natural or human affairs. Be- human sinfulness and the gift of Gods grace, the cen-
lieving in a clockmaker God, the Deists rejected the tral role of Jesus Christ as savior, the Bible as the ulti-
efficacy of prayer and downgraded Jesuss role from mate source of religious authority, and the need to be
savior to good moral example. born again. Two key leaders were Jonathan Edwards
Deism was espoused by a few public figures, includ- (17031758), a New England theologian and spellbind-
ing Benjamin Franklin in the British colony of Pennsyl- ing preacher, and George Whitfield (17141770), a fire-
vania and Jean dAlembert, coeditor of the influential and-brimstone preacher and member of Wesleys inner
Encyclopdie (see below). Deisms appeal, though lim- circle, who led revivals in southern colonies and in cit-
ited, marked another shift in religious attitudes and ies along the East Coast.
was added evidence of the growing secularization of While the First Great Awakening soon died out in
European consciousness in the 1700s. New England, it showed great staying power along
the westward-moving frontier, in the countryside, and
Popular Religion The two most important popu- throughout the southern colonieslaying the foun-
lar religious movements of the 1700s were Pietism in dation for what would become the Bible Belt of the
Europe and the First Great Awakening in Britains United States. By reaching out to the poor, to women,
American colonies. Emerging from mainline Prot- and to slaves and free blacks, this movement tended to
estantism, the two movements were loosely inter democratize religion in colonial life. It also led to the
connected and shared certain traits. They thought founding of a number of colleges, which, by educat-
established churches had lost contact with their mem- ing young men and training ministers, ensured that
bership, by becoming too closely identified with the the religious, moral, and cultural values of the First
rich and powerful. They also believed that the churchs Great Awakening would be perpetuated for genera-
mission should be to help resolve pressing social and tions. As a strong rival to the Church of England and
economic issues, such as poverty and social inequal- other mainline Protestant sects, the movement tended
ity, rather than accepting the status quo, as seemed to weaken the ties of the established churches with lo-
to be the case with established churches in England cal British officials. This development had social and
and Germany. And both movements also urged a per- political implications, which surfaced on the eve of the
sonal faith based on strict adherence to the Scriptures, American Revolution (see Chapter 18). The First Great
rather than a focus on ritual and liturgy, as was done Awakening peaked in the 1760s, but its influence re-
in the established churches. mained strong, and it became the prototype of reli-
Pietism began in Germany among the Lutherans in gious revivals in Americas later history.
the late 1600s and flourished until the 1760s. In the early
1700s it spread into central Europe, where it spawned
several new sects. One sect, the Moravians (in the The Encyclopdie
modern Czech Republic), sent a missionary to Britains The message of the philosophes was communicated by
American colonies, founding settlements there. The various means: pamphlets, essays, and books; private
Moravians also sent missions to England, where they and public discussions and debates; the new journal-
had a ready audience among disaffected members of istic press; and, in France, the salonthe half-social,
the Church of England. John Wesley (17031791), the half-serious gatherings where fashionable people met
founder of Methodism, was influenced by the Moravi- to discuss ideas. But the principal work of the philos-
ans both in England and in the Georgia colony, which ophes was the Encyclopdiethe monumental project
he visited in his early life. Wesley called for a spiritual that remains the summation of the Enlightenment. Two
renewal, demanding that followers be born again, earlier works, Chamberss Cyclopedia in England (1728)
that is, renounce their sinful ways and choose Jesus and Bayles Dictionary in France (1697) (see Chapter16),
Christ as their personal saviora belief that remains paved the way for the Encyclopdie. Begun in 1750 and
central to the evangelical movement today. Wesleys completed in 1772, the project comprised seventeen
movement, which had special appeal to the rural poor text volumes and eleven books of plates and illustra-
as well as urban workers, grew rapidly in England and tions (Figure 17.1). More than 161 writers wrote articles
S America. Wesley gradually acknowledged the irrecon- for this venture, which was intended as a summary of
N cilable difference between his teachings and those of existing knowledge in the arts, crafts, and sciences.
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THE GREAT POWERS DURING THE AGE OF REASON 441

Figure 17.1 Illustration from the


Encyclopdie: Cotton Plantation in the
French West Indies. 17511765. As principal
editor of the Encyclopdie, Diderot adopted
Francis Bacons notion that all knowledge
is useful. Thus, the articles and illustrations
for this reference work focused on practical
data such as soapmaking, human anatomy,
and military drill. In this drawing, for example,
the readers could peruse the romanticized
plantation scene to discover how raw cotton
was prepared for shipment to European mills.

The editor of the Encyclopdie was Denis Diderot from governmental interference. Accordingly, they
[DEED-uh-roh] (17131784). Diderot was constantly recommended the dismantling of mercantilism and
in trouble with the French authorities because of the the adoption of laissez-faire, French for to let alone
works controversial essays, which he claimed were in other words, an economy where the self-regulating
meant to change the general way of thinking. Pub- laws of free trade were in effect. They also argued that
lication was halted in 1759 by the state censor but re- unrestricted enjoyment of private property was neces-
sumed secretly with the collusion of other government sary for individual freedom. These thinkers concluded
officials. Unlike most publications of the period, the that both the individual and society automatically
project was funded by its readers, not by the crown or benefited when all people were allowed to serve their
the church, and private circulating libraries rented the own self-interest instead of working for the good of the
volumes to untold numbers of customers. state.
At about the same time, the Scottish economist
Adam Smith (17231790) was developing similar ideas
The Physiocrats in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
Under the broad umbrella of Enlightenment ideas, the of Nations (1776). In this work, Smith blamed mercan-
philosophes were joined by a group of French writers tilism for the economic woes of his time, identified
concerned with economic mattersthe Physiocrats. the central role played by labor in manufacturing,
(The term is a coined word, from Greek, meaning and called for open and competitive trade so that the
rule of, or from, the earth.) The Physiocrats exam- invisible hand of a free-market economy could op-
ined the general nature of the economy and, in par- erate. Smiths ideas quickly became the bible of indus-
ticular, the strengths and weaknesses of mercantilism, trial capitalism and had an immediate impact on the
the prevailing economic system, in which the state changes being generated by the Industrial Revolution
regulated trade and production for its own benefit. In (see Chapter 18).
their eyes, this state-run system hindered economic
growth: mercantilism, contrary to its goals, lowered
the productivity of workers, especially farmers, and THE GREAT POWERS
led to labor unrest and riots.
Guided by Enlightenment doctrine that natural DURING THE AGE OF REASON
laws govern society, the Physiocrats assumed that In comparison with the turbulent 1600s, Europe be-
similar laws applied to economic growth and decline. tween 1715 and 1789 enjoyed peace and prosperity.
After a thorough analysis of the French economy, Wars between sovereign states were few and brief;
they concluded that certain fundamental economic economic growth was slow, but steady; and a continu-
principles did exist, such as the law of supply and de- ing population increase supported the economic ex- S
mand, and that these laws operated best when free pansion. The periods prosperity fueled the rise of the N
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442 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

middle classes, especially in Great Britain and Holland. The traditional social hierarchy kept each class in its
However, in France, the middle class made only mod- place. The aristocracy constituted only about 3percent of
est gains, and, in central and eastern Europe, it formed the total population, but it possessed tremendous power
only a small fraction of the population. and wealth. The upper middle classencompassing
rich merchants, bankers, and professionalsnormally
resided in the rapidly expanding urban areas and
Society: Continuity and Change influenced business and governmental affairs. In the
A major consequence of the centurys modest eco- broad middle class were the less wealthy merchants,
nomic growth was the growing urbanization of soci- shopkeepers, skilled artisans, bureaucrats, and well-
ety. Although most Europeans still lived on farms and to-do rural families (Figure 17.2). In the lower middle
in villages, the more ambitious folk flocked to cities class were the lesser artisans and craftspeople, and
and towns. The rural-to-urban shift originated in En below them, the metropolitan poor, who performed
gland, the home of the Industrial Revolution, and to menial labor and were often unemployed, and ru-
a lesser extent in France. In the next century it slowly ral laborers. In the countryside, the nobility and the
spread to some parts of central and eastern Europe. prosperous farmers owned large sections of the land

Figure 17.2 tIenne AuBRY. Paternal Love. Ca. 1775. Oil on canvas, 30 39. The Barber Institute of
Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, England. Paternal Love is a symbol of French rural bourgeois life. It
depicts a father, probably returned home from a trip, greeting his three children, wife, and father (the childrens
grandfather). Although the rooms amenitiesstone floor, fireplace, and solid wallssignal financial security,
the simple and sturdy furniture and the scanty display of household effects indicate that the family is middle
class, not upper class (see Figure 17.5). Nevertheless, the painters moral lesson is evident: parental love makes
a family stronga sentiment that would appeal to moralistic middle-class taste. Aubry (17451781) was a
popular artist, praised by the writer-critic Diderot and famous for his moral genre paintings, such as this.

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and controlled the rural populace. The small cultiva-
tors, tenant farmers, landless workers, and indentured
contract laborers constituted a complex group whose
legal, social, and personal rights varied widely across
Europe. Next were the peasants, whose status ranged
from freedom in western Europe to serfdom in Rus-
sia. (Serfs were bound to the land they worked, but
they had customary rights and, strictly speaking, they
were not slaves.) These impoverished people often
bore the brunt of the taxes and the contempt of the
other classes.
Two social groups who gained little from the
Enlightenment were women and, in Europes
overseas colonies, African slaves (Figure 17.3). A
few upper-middle-class women played influential roles
in the Paris salons, but most women remained subor-
dinate to men. As mentioned earlier, the philosophes
failed to champion womens rights. Slavery grew in
the 1700s, as ships from England, France, and Holland
carried about six million Africans to the New World.
Efforts to abolish the slave trade or even to improve
the conditions of the slaves proved futile despite the
moral disapproval of the philosophes and the pleas of
English Christians.

Absolutism, Limited Monarchy,


and Enlightened Despotism
The eighteenth century was the last great age of kings
in the West. The royal rulers, supported by inefficient
bureaucracies and costly armies, controlled the masses
through heavy taxes and threats of brutality while
holding in check the privileged groups. Although a
few rulers attempted reforms, by the end of the cen-
tury most of the monarchies were weakening as demo- Figure 17.3 Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse.
cratic sentiments continued to rise. 1784. Oil on canvas, 79 49. Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino,
In France, the kings struggled to hold on to the California. The rococo portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds painted
power they inherited from Louis XIV. In Great Britain, many English personalities of his day, including Sarah Siddons. Mrs.
the kings fought a losing battle against Parliament and Siddons, who came from a theater family, won the applause of Englands
knowledgeable and discerning audiences to emerge as the most famous
the restrictions of constitutional monarchy. In Prussia actress of tragic drama in the late eighteenth century. Reynolds distances
and Austria, so-called enlightened despots experi- Mrs. Siddons from the viewer and surrounds her with elaborate scenery as
mented with reforms, while in Russia the czars found if she were on a proscenium stage in a darkened theater. The two figures
new ways to expand absolutism. By midcentury, the behind her represent Aristotles definitions of tragedypity and terror.
Continent had undergone a series of brief wars that
ended the several relatively peaceful decades Europe
had enjoyed (see Timeline 17.1). For France and En talented or loyal, and he permitted his mistresses, who
gland, the Continental conflicts soon escalated into were not trained in government, to influence his offi-
global commercial, territorial, and colonial rivalries cial decisions. When Louis XV, despairing over a mili-
that were resolved only with the outcome of the Ameri- tary defeat, expressed his misgivings about the future
can Revolutionary War (17751783). of France to his royal favorite, Madame de Pompadour
(17211764), she reportedly replied with the prophetic
France: The Successors to the Sun King No Aprs nous le dluge (After us, the flood).
French ruler was able to recapture the splendor of Life at Louis XVs court could not be sustained in the
Louis XIV. Louis XV (r. 17151774), who succeeded to grand manner of the late Sun King, and the nobles be-
full political control at age thirteen and never acquired gan to leave Versailles for Paris. Whether at Versailles S
a strong will to rule, only compounded the problems or elsewhere, educated aristocrats were becoming fas- N
of the French state. His subordinates were not always cinated by Enlightenment ideas, and they and their L
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444 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

wives read the Encyclopdie and studied the writings of economy was strong as well. Prompted by enterpris-
the philosophes. Upper-class women played influential ing merchants and progressive landowners, the na-
roles in presiding over salons, where the enlightened tion was dominant in an expanding global market; at
thinkers and their admirers gathered to dine and con- home, the standard of living was rising for the grow-
verse. Two of the best-known salons were conducted by ing population.
Madame du Deffand [day-FAHN] (16971780) and Julie After the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the English
Lespinasse [les-pee-NAHS] (17321776). For a number crown was inherited by George I, a great-grandson of
of years, Madame du Deffand (Marie de Marquise du James I and the Protestant ruler of the German prin-
Deffand) claimed Voltaire as her most prominent lit- cipality of Hanover. The first two Hanoverian kings
erary celebrity, and his presence ensured that other reigned in splendid isolation at the royal court, more
philosophes would attend her gatherings. Julie de Les- interested in events in Germany than those in En
pinasse, serving first as companion to Madame du Def- gland. George I (r. 17141727) allowed Parliament to
fand, broke away to found her own salon, where Jean run the country. Under George II (r. 17271760), Britain
dAlembert (17171783), coeditor of Diderots Encyclo- was drawn into the Seven Years War but emerged vic-
pdie, was a favored guest. torious, the dominant presence in world trade.
Even though the French elite debated the issues Nevertheless, Great Britain faced serious domestic
raised by the philosophes, Louis XV clearly did not ac- problems under George III (r. 17601820) because he
cept the movements call for change. It is ironic that the sought to restore royal powers lost to Parliament by
country where the Enlightenment began failed to un- his predecessors. This internal struggle affected for-
dertake any of its progressive reforms. Indeed, when eign policy when the king and Parliament offered dif-
changes were finally introduced under Louis XVI fering proposals to control the economic development
(r.17741792), they were too little and too late. of the American colonies through export and import
Handicapped by the weak Louis XV, France found quotas, duties, and taxes. The differences between the
its preeminent position in foreign affairs challenged two proposals hastened the onset of the American
by Great Britain, Austria, and Prussia. As a result of Revolution and probably contributed to Britains even-
the Seven Years War (17561763), France suffered de- tual defeat.
feats in Europe and lost its holdings in North America
and India. During the American Revolution, France Enlightened Despotism in Central and Eastern
sided with the colonists against Great Britain, its foe at Europe During the Age of Reason, Prussia, Austria,
home and overseas. Frances aid to the Americans fur- and Russia jockeyed for control of central and eastern
ther diminished the governments financial resources Europe. Under their absolutist rulers, these states pur-
and forced the nation deeper into debt. sued aggressive policies, seizing territories from one
Frances kings also failed to solve the nations do- another and their weaker neighbors. Although these
mestic problems. Matters worsened as the corrupt tax rulers portrayed themselves as enlightened despots,
system moved the country closer to financial bank- their regimes were generally characterized by oppres-
ruptcy. And, most important, the crown was faced sive and authoritarian policies.
with a resurgent aristocracy determined to recover the By 1740 Prussia, ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty,
feudal privileges it lost under Louis XIV. Rather than had a solid economic base, a hardworking bureau-
joining the kings efforts to reform the judicial system, cracy, and an efficient army. Capitalizing on these ad-
the nobility blocked the crown at every step. The mid- vantages, Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great
dle class joined forces with aristocratic rebels, trans- (r. 17401786), turned Prussia into a leading European
forming what had been a feudal issue into a struggle power. A pragmatic diplomat, skilled military tacti-
for freedom in the name of the people. In 1789, during cian, and student of the Enlightenment and French
the reign of Louis XVI, France started on a revolution- culture, Frederick was an enlightened despot of the
ary path that united most of French society against type beloved by the philosophes. He even attempted
the crown and culminated in the French Revolution (though failed) to reform his states agrarian economy
(17891799) (see Chapter 18). and social system in accordance with the rational
principle that all individuals have the natural right to
Great Britain and the Hanoverian Kings To choose for themselves the best way to live.
the philosophes, Great Britain was the ideal model of a Prussias chief rival in central Europe was Austria.
nation. To them, Britain seemed more stable and pros- Throughout the 1700s, Austrias rulers struggled to
perous than the states on the Continent, a success govern a multiethnic population that included large
they attributed to the limited powers of the English numbers of Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, and Slo-
monarchy imposed by Parliament during the Glorious vaks along with Poles, Italians, and various Slavic
S Revolution of 1688. Britains laws guaranteed to every minorities. At the same time, the emperors tried, with
N Englishman certain political and social rights, such mixed success, to assert Austrias role as a great power,
L as free speech and fair and speedy trials. Britains both politically and culturally. Schnbrunn Palace in
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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 445

Vienna, for example, was built as a rival to Frances Ver- reign of Peter the Great (r. 16821725). Abroad, Peter
sailles (Figure 17.4). Two rulers stand outthe Haps- made Russias presence known, and at home he began
burg emperors Maria Theresa and Joseph, her son, to reform political, economic, and social institutions
whose combined reigns lasted from 1740 to 1790. along Western lines. Most of his eighteenth-century
Unlike Frederick II of Prussia, Maria Theresa successors were ineffective, if not incompetent, until
(r.17401780) was not attracted to the ideas of the phi- Catherine the Great (r. 17621796) became empress. She
losophes. Instead, her strong Roman Catholic faith led pursued the unifying policies of Peter, but unlike him
her to portray herself to her subjects as their universal she was able to win the support of the large landown-
mother. She was perhaps the most beloved monarch ers. A patron of the Enlightenment, Catherine sought
in this age of kings. Maria Theresas reforming zeal the advice of a few philosophes, including Diderot.
sprang not from philosophic principle but from a re- She also increased farm productivity and improved
action against Austrias territorial losses during mili- the nearly enslaved condition of the peasants, but the
tary defeats. She overhauled the political and military vastness of Russias problems and the reactionary au-
machinery of the state. Along with universal military tocratic government defeated any genuine reforms.
conscription, increased revenues, and equitable distri-
bution of taxes, she wanted a general reorganization
of society that gave uniform treatment to all citizens. CULTURAL TRENDS IN
Her efforts were not wasted, for her son Joseph II took THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:
up her uncompleted task and became the ultimate
personification of the enlightened despot. During his FROM ROCOCO TO NEOCLASSICAL
brief reign (17801790), Joseph II launched far-reaching The Enlightenment dominated cultural life in this
changes to increase farm production and to provide century, but two artistic styles also held sway, along
more economic opportunities for the peasants. Con- with a fad for all things Chinese. The rococo style in
vinced that his countrys economic and social institu- the arts mirrored the taste of the French nobility; the
tions had to be fully modernized, he abolished serfdom subsequent neoclassical style was adopted by progres-
and passed decrees guaranteeing religious toleration sive writers, artists, intellectuals, and ambitious mem-
and free speech. In the 1790s, much of what he had ac- bers of the middle class. Chinoiserie, as the Chinese
complished was undone by his successors, who, fear- fad was called, was most popular from about 1740 to
ing the excesses of the French Revolution, restored 1770, but the style lingered until about 1850. Mean-
aristocratic and ecclesiastic control and privileges. while, new developments in literature were pointing
Russia was the newest member of the family of the way toward the modern world.
great powers, having achieved this stature during the

The Rococo Style in the Arts


Figure 17.4 Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg. The Gloriette, Conceived on a more intimate scale than the ba-
or The Temple of Fame. Schnbrunn Palace Gardens. 1768. roque style and committed to frivolous subjects and
Vienna. The Gloriette, a triumphal arch flanked by colonnaded screens, is themesthe dominant ideas of a workthe rococo
situated on the highest point within the vast gardens of Schnbrunn Palace. style arose in France in the waning years of the Sun
Designed by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg (17321816),
court architect to Empress Maria Theresa, it is the crowning touch of his
Kings reign. With his death in 1715 and the succession
beautification campaign for the palace grounds. It functioned as a theatrical of his five-year-old heir, Louis XV, the nobility were
backdrop for court rituals and receptions. Constructed partly from the ruins released both from Versailles and from the ponderous
of a castle near the site, the Gloriette uses classical features (colonnades, baroque style. Paris once again became the capital of
balustrades, and statuary and urns) though its style is baroque (profuse
decorative details and the reflecting pool).

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446 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

art, ideas, and fashion in the Western world. There, the tings with air, lightness, and gracea contrast to the
rococo style was created for the French elite almost occasionally heavy-handed baroque. Mythological al-
single-handedly by the Flemish painter and decorator lusions made Watteaus works depictions of classical
Jean-Antoine Watteau. themes rather than merely scenes of aristocratic life.
The rococo gradually spread to most of Europe, but In 1717 Watteau became the first rococo painter to
its acceptance was tied to religion and class. It was em- be elected to membership in the Royal Academy of
braced by the aristocracy in Germany, Italy, and Austria; Painting and Sculpture in Paris. As required by the
Roman Catholic nobles in Austria developed a version terms of election, he submitted as his diploma piece
of rococo that was second in importance only to that Pilgrimage to Cythera (Figure 17.5). The setting is Cyth-
of France. The English, on the other hand, rejected the era, the legendary island of Venus, whose bust on the
rococo, possibly because its erotic undercurrent and right is garlanded with her devotees roses. Forming
sexual themes offended Protestant middle-class sensi- a wavering line, the lovers express hesitation as they
bility. Consequently, rococo style is a purely Continen- make their farewells: the couple under the statue are
tal phenomenon; there is no English rococo. lost in reverie as a clothed cupid tugs at the womans
skirt; beside this group a suitor assists his lady to her
Rococo Painting Jean-Antoine Watteau [wah-TOE] feet; and next to them a gentleman accompanies his
(16841721) specialized in paintings that depict ftes companion to the waiting boat as she longingly gazes
galantes, or aristocratic entertainments. In these works, backward. This melancholy scene, signified by the set-
Watteau portrays aristocrats at play, dressed in sump- ting sun and the departing lovers, represents Watteaus
tuous clothing, grouped in parks and gardens, and homage to the brevity of human passion.
often accompanied by costumed actors, another of In Pilgrimage to Cythera, many of the new values
Watteaus favorite subjects. He filled these bucolic set- of the rococo style can be seen. Where the baroque

Figure 17.5 Jean-A ntoine Watteau. Pilgrimage to Cythera. 1717. Oil on canvas, 43 641/2.
Louvre. Watteaus aristocratic couples, savoring a last few moments of pleasure, represent the idealized
image that the eighteenth-century elite wanted to present to the world. No hint of the ages problems is allowed
to disturb this idyllic scene. From the court costumes to the hovering cupids, this painting transforms reality
into a stage setthe ideal of rococo art.

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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 447

favored tumultuous scenes depicting the passions and women to gain fame as an artist. In 1787 she painted
ecstasies of the saints, the rococo focused on smaller, a famous family portrait of Louis XVIs queen, Marie
gentler moments, usually involving erotic, romantic, Antoinette, whom she served as court painter (Fig-
or sentimental love. Where the baroque used intense ure 17.7). With this work, Vige-Lebrun solidified her
colors to convey feelings of power and grandeur, the status as the equal of the best court portraitists of the
rococo used soft pastels to evoke nostalgia and melan- century. Elements of the rococo style are seen in this
choly. The monumentality and sweeping movement elegant portrait of the queen and her children in the
of baroque art were brought down to a human scale dainty colors, the graceful gestures, and the feeling of
in the rococo, making it more suited to interiors, fur- domestic intimacy. The queens role as mother is the
niture, and architectural details than to architecture focus as she sits with the baby Duke of Normandy in
itself. Pilgrimage to Cythera shows the rococo to be a re- her lap, the small Madame Royale at her side, and the
fined, sensual style, perfect for providing a charming little Dauphin pointing at the empty cradle. Vige-
backdrop to the private social life of the eighteenth- Lebruns depiction of Marie Antoinette dressed as a
century aristocracy. lady of fashion instead of in the traditional trappings
Watteaus paintings convey a dreamy eroticism, but of royalty reflects the queens well-known fondness
those of Franois Boucher [boo-SHAY] (17031770) are for simplicity. Stifled by the formality of court life, the
characterized by unabashed sexuality. Boucher was queen promoted a relaxed social code at Le Hameau, a
the supreme exponent of the graceful Louis XV style, rustic hideaway she had built for herself at Versailles,
becoming official painter to the French crown in 1765. where all rules of court etiquette were set aside.
His voluptuous nudes, which were made more titillat- The last great French rococo painter, Jean-Honor
ing by their realistic portrayal without classical trap- Fragonard [frag-uh-NAHR] (17321806), revived Wat-
pings, appealed to the king and to the decadent court teaus graceful, debonair themes, as in The Pursuit
nobility. Bouchers Nude on a Sofa is probably a study (Figure 17.8). A young woman, attended by two female
of one of Louis XVs mistresses (Figure 17.6). The casu- servants, pauses in mock flight, as a suitor (on the
ally suggestive pose, the rumpled bedclothes, and the left) offers her a rose. The subdued pastel colors of the
delicate pastel shades are all designed to charm and mans shirt and the womans dress cause their figures
seduce. Bouchers art, though masterful, epitomizes to stand out dramatically from the dark background.
the lax morals of French noble life that were becoming The sensuality of this encounter is heightened by an
increasingly offensive even to other rococo artists. abundance of sexual symbols: a red rose (a symbol of
A different focus is evident in the rococo por- love and courtship); a statue of two cupids in the back-
traits of Elisabeth-Louise Vige-Lebrun [vee-ZHAY-luh- ground (attendants of the goddess Venus); a large vase
BRUHN] (17551842), who became the leading society on the left (a symbol of the female sex); and a fountain
painter of the later eighteenth century and one of the few behind the woman (a symbol of sexual conquest).

Figure 17.6 Franois Boucher. Nude on a


Sofa. 1752. Oil on canvas, 23 3/8 253/8.
Alte Pinakothek, Munich. The trend
toward the secularization of consciousness
that had been building since the late Middle
Ages reached a high point in this nude by
Boucher. Bouchers frank enjoyment of sensual
pleasure and his desire to convey that feeling
to the viewer represented a new stage in the
relationship between artists and the public. By
portraying his subject without any justification
except eroticism, Boucher embodied a new S
artistic sensibility. N
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448 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

Figure 17.7 Elisabeth-Louise Vige Lebrun. Marie Antoinette and Her Figure 17.8 Jean-Honor Fragonard. The Pursuit. 17711773. Oil on
Children. 1787. Oil on canvas, 91/4 75/8. Muse National du canvas, 1051/8 77/8. The Frick Collection, New York. This painting
Chteau de Versailles. Like the greatest court painters, Vige-Lebrun was one of four panels known as The Progress of Love, commissioned by
was able to provide psychological insight into her highborn subjects while Madame du Barry, Louis XVs mistress and rival to Madame de Pompadour.
flattering them. Here, Marie Antoinette, though surrounded by adoring Intended to adorn a pavilion at her palace, the panels were rejected for
children, seems uncomfortable in a maternal role. Instead, with her head reasons unknown. Together, the four works constitute a symbolic allegory,
held in an imperious manner and her face a beautiful mask, she looks every covering the stages of love from first contact (here) through courtship and
inch the lady of fashion, which she indeed was. Vige-Lebrun has muted consummation to reverie. Fragonards panels transform lovers passion into
this psychological insight by providing rich distractions for the viewers eye, works of art.
such as the shiny surfaces of the queens attire (satin gown, pearls, and
hat) and the elegant room (carpet, chest, and tasseled cushion).

What is fresh in Fragonards art and prefigures ribbons, leaves, stems, flowers, interlaces, arabesques,
romanticism is the luxuriant detail he lavishes on and elongated, curving lines applied to walls and ceil-
naturean influence from Dutch landscape art. In The ings. The effect of rocaille was to make solid surfaces
Pursuit, the vivid natural world seems to threaten the look like fleeting illusions. Mirrors further deceived
couples romantic idyll. Despite his interest in nature, the senses, and chandeliers provided jewel-like light-
Fragonard remained faithful to the rococo style even ing; all elements worked together to create a glittering,
after it fell out of fashion. His paintings continued to luxurious setting for an ultrarefined society.
focus on the playful themes of flirtation and pursuit in Germain Boffrand [bo-FRAHN] (16671754), Frances
a frivolous, timeless world. royal architect, helped to establish rococos popularity
with his Salon de la Princesse in the Htel de Soubise
Rococo Interiors The decorative refinement and in Paris (Figure 17.9). Exploiting the rooms oval shape,
graceful detail of the rococo style made it well suited Boffrand eliminated the shadows and omitted classi-
S to interior design. A major rococo design element was cal details such as pilasters and columns, which had
N rocaille: fanciful stucco ornaments in the shape of been elements of decoration since the Renaissance.
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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 449

Figure 17.9 Germain Boffrand. Salon


de la Princesse, Htel de Soubise.
Ca. 17351740. Paris. The Salon de la
Princesse was a reception room designed
for the apartment of the Princess de Soubise.
The graceful undulations of Boffrands design
represent the exquisite style of the Louis XV
era. A typical rococo design element is the
blurring of the line between the walls and
the ceiling.

The floor-to-ceiling windows admit light freely, and The English Response In Great Britain, where the
the strategically placed mirrors reinforce the airy feel- rococo was condemned as tasteless and corrupt, the
ing. Instead of using a large overhead fresco, Boffrand painter William Hogarth (16971764) won fame as a
divided the ceiling into many panel pictures. The social satirist, working in a style quite different from
characteristically nervous rococo lineseen in the in- that of his French contemporaries. Even though his
tricate designs of the gold edgingintegrates the in- mocking works appealed to all social groups, the Prot-
terior into a harmonious whole. The overall effect of estant middle class most enthusiastically welcomed
airiness, radiance, and grace is worthy of a Watteau his biting satires. In the paintings, which sometimes
setting of aristocratic revelry. ridicule idle aristocrats and always take a moralistic
German decoration followed the French lead. The view of life, his bourgeois admirers discovered the
Residenz, a palace commissioned by the prince- same values that caused them to embrace the English
bishop of the German city of Wrzburg, is an ex- novel. Taking advantage of his popularity, Hogarth
ample of baroque architecture with rococo interiors. made engravings of his paintings, printing multiple
Designed chiefly by Balthasar Neumann [NOI-mahn] copiesthe first major artist to take this step to reach
(16871753), the buildings glory is the main reception a new clientele.
room, called the Kaisersaal, or Emperors Room (Fig- Among the most popular of Hogarths moral works
ure 17.10). The ceiling fresco is by Giovanni Battista was the series of paintings that depict the course of
Tiepolo [tee-AY-puh-loh] (16961770), an Italian-born a loveless marriage between a profligate nobleman
rococo master. His paintings combine the theatrical- and the daughter of a wealthy middle-class business-
ity of the Italian florid baroque and the love of light man. Titled Marriage la Mode, this series comprises
and color characteristic of Rubens and the Flemish six scenes that show in exquisite detail the bitter con-
school (see Chapter 15). But Tiepolos frescoes are only sequences of an arranged marriage by following the
one facet of the riotous splendor of this room, which husband and the wife to their untimely deaths. In the
abounds in crystal chandeliers, gilt ornamentation, fourth episode, called The Countess Leve, or Morning
marble statues, Corinthian capitals and arabesques, Party, Hogarth portrays the wife plotting a rendezvous
gold-edged mirrors, and cartouches, or scroll-like with a prospective lover (Figure 17.11). In this scene,
frames. In rooms such as this, the baroque ages paint- typical of the ages aristocratic entertainments, the host-
ers and decorators catered to their patrons wildest ess is having her hair curled while the would-be suitor S
dreams of grandeur. lounges on a sofa, charming her with conversation. N
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Nearby, guests, servants, and musicians play their sup-
porting roles in this sad tale. Hogarth, never willing to
let the viewers draw their own conclusions, provides
the moral lesson. In the right foreground, a black child-
servant points to a small horned creaturea symbol of
the cuckold, or the deceived husbandthus alluding
to the wifes planned infidelity. Even the paintings on
the walls echo Hogarths theme of sexual abandon.

The Challenge of Neoclassicism


Soon after 1750, the rococo took a backseat to a new
style, known as neoclassical. With its backward glance
to the restrained style of antiquity, the neoclassical
had its origins both in a rejection of the rococo and in
a fascination with the new archaeological discoveries
made at midcentury. Knowledge about Pompeii and
Herculaneumthe Roman cities buried by Mount Ve-
suvius in 79 CE, with excavations beginning in 1738
and 1748, respectivelyhad greatly heightened the
curiosity of educated Europeans about the ancient
world. At the same time, scholars began to publish
books that showed Greek art to be the original source
of ancient classicism. The English authorities James
Stuart and Nicholas Revett pointed out the differences
between Greek and Roman art in The Antiquities of
Athens, published in 1762. In 1764 the German Johann
Figure 17.10 bAlthASAr neumAnn And otherS. Kaisersaal, the Residenz.
View toward the south wall. 17191744. Wrzburg, Germany. In Joachim Winckelmann (17171768) distinguished Greek
this magnificent room, the ceiling fresco by Tiepolo is gorgeously framed sculpture from the Roman in his History of Arta
with multicolored marble curtains pulled back by stucco angels. Other study that led to the founding of the academic disci-
sumptuous details include ornate framed paintings, cartouches, and pline of art history. The importance of neoclassicism
mirrors; gilded Corinthian capitals and arabesques; and crystal chandeliers
is indicated by the decision made in 1775 by the Paris
suspended low over a polychrome marble floor.

Figure 17.11 WilliAm hogArth. The


Countess Leve, or Morning Party, from
Marriage la Mode. 17431745. Oil
on canvas, 27 35. National Gallery,
London. Hogarths painterly techniques
learned in Francehave transformed a
potentially banal topic into a glittering social
satire. On the left, a pig-snouted singer is
used to ridicule the popular castratimen
who were emasculated as youths to preserve
their boyish tenor voices. Hovering over the
castrato is a flutisthis coarse features
demonstrating the artists loathing for this
social type. Other rich details, such as the tea-
S sipping dandy in hair curlers and the female
N guest who is gesticulating wildly, confirm
L Hogarths contempt for the entire gathering.
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CULTURAL TRENDS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: FRoM RoCoCo To NEoCLASSICAL 451

Interpreting Art
Moral Vision Setting The classical
Davids message is that settingplain walls,
sacrifice for ones country three arches with massive
is better than family loyalty. columns, and niches
(This theme is heightened reflects the ancient Roman
by the knowledge that one style.
sister will be killed because
of her love for an enemy Balance The father,
combatant.) This patriotic framed by the middle arch,
moral reflects the turbulent divides the painting into two
years just before the onset halves. On the left stand the
of the French Revolution three brotherssymbols of
in 1789. patriotic duty. On the right
are three women and two
Anatomy The athletic childrensymbols of love
bodies of the men show of family.
Davids superb mastery
of the human forma Patriarchal
classical feature of this
painting. Values The brothers
bold arm and leg movements
assert virile authority.
Color The foreground
The women, their faces
figures, clad in bold shades
averted and arms either
of green, brown, pink,
hanging listlessly at their
and red, stand out clearly
sides or shielding the two
against the shadowy and
children, suggest helpless
muted background.
resignation. One child
buries his or her face in one
of the womens skirts, and
the other child stares boldly
JAcqueS-louiS dAvid. Oath of the Horatii. 1785. Oil on canvas, 1010 14. Louvre. David here depicts an epi- at the unfolding drama.
sode from ancient Rome (seventh century BCE): the three Horatii brothers pledge to fight to the death in defense
of their city-state, while their father holds aloft their swords as tokens of their vows. With this work David returned
grand history subjects to favor, a type of art that Poussin had pioneered in the 1600s (see Figure 15.14). So im-
pressed were the philosophes by this painting that they urged artists to concentrate on neoclassical art with moral
themes. Later, revolutionary leaders selected David to be the official artist of the Revolution (see Figure 18.6).

1. Formal How does Davids use of line and shapeof both 3. Patriarchal Values How do the poses of the men, women,
the human figures and their dresshelp to deliver the paint- and children reflect the values of this male-dominated social
ings moral? order?
2. Context Discuss the ways the painting expresses the social 4. Influences Identify earlier artists who inspired David, and
and cultural trends under way in late-eighteenth-century show how these artists influenced his style and subject matter.
France. 5. Theme Is there one major theme, or moral, of the painting?
If so, what is it?

Salonthe exhibition (biennial to 1831 and annual on perspective, anatomy, and life drawing, efforts that
thereafter) that introduced the latest paintings to the resulted in the purified style of Jacques-Louis David
publicto rebuff works with rococo subjects and to [dah-VEED] (17481825), the principal exponent of the
encourage those with classical themes. neoclassical style.
Davids response to a commission from Louis XVI
Neoclassical Painting In 1775, the same year the for a historical painting was Oath of the Horatii, a work
Paris Salon began to promote neoclassicism, Louis XVI that electrified the Paris Salon of 1785 (see Interpret-
appointed Joseph-Marie Vien [vie-AHN] (17161809) ing Art). Taking a page from the history of the early
to head the Acadmie de France in Rome, a leading art Roman republic, this painting depicts the brothers S
school. A strict disciplinarian, Vien returned the study Horatii vowing to protect the state, even though their N
of art to the basics by instructing his students to focus stand means killing a sister who loves one of Romes L
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452 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

Figure 17.12 Jacques-Louis David. The Death of Socrates. 1787. Oil on canvas, 411 66. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. Neoclassicism usually relied on ancient literature and traditions for inspiration,
as in this painting by David. The scene is based on Platos dialogue Phaedo, though David has chosen to depict
Plato present (at the foot of the bed), unlike in the literary account. Two of the domestic details, the lamp and
the bed, are modeled on artifacts uncovered at Pompeii. The shackles and cuffs under the bed refer to the fact
that Socrates was in chains just before drinking the hemlock.

enemies. The patriotic subject with its tension between spread his message. Just as in Oath of the Horatii, Da-
civic duty and family loyalty appealed to the philos- vids arrangement of the figures reflects the classical
ophes, who preferred neoclassicism, with its implicitly ideal of balance. Surrounded by grieving followers,
revolutionary morality, to rococo, with its frivolous the white-haired Socrates reaches for the cup of poi-
themes. son and gestures toward his heavenly goalserene in
Davids Oath of the Horatii established the tech- his willingness to die for intellectual freedom.
niques and ideals that soon became typical of neo-
classical painting. His inspirational model was the The Print As demands for art grew in England
seventeenth-century French artist Poussin, with his and France, prints became popular among the middle
classical themes and assured mastery of linear per- class. These new patrons wanted art for collecting and
spective. Rejecting the weightless, floating images of for decorating their homes, but they could not afford
rococo painting, David portrayed his figures as fro- original paintings. Prints, which had been produced
zen sculptures, painted in strong colors. The classical since the midfifteenth century (see Chapter 11), turned
ideals of balance, simplicity, and restraint served as a out to be the solution. The first prints were exclusively
basis for many of Davids artistic choices. in black and white. Color prints dated from Rem-
David showed his mastery of these techniques and brandts era, when Dutch printmakers pioneered the
ideals in The Death of Socrates, which was exhibited mezzotint and the aquatint. Both types of prints now
in the Paris Salon of 1787 (Figure 17.12). Like Jesus in came into their own.
S scenes of the Last Supper, Socrates is portrayed shortly The mezzotint (halftone), which requires several
N before his death, encircled by those men who will later stages of cutting and scraping the metal plate with
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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 453

special tools to make an image, allows for subtle gra- make. First, the image was cut into a copper plate with
dations of shadings along with precise lines to give a metal tool. Then, the plate was dusted with resin
greater definition. In the late 1600s, Dutch engravers and heated. As the resin melted, an irregular pattern
arrived in London, where they trained a generation of of open and closed spaces was formed over the plates
artists in the mezzotint technique. In the 1700s, Wil- image. Next, the plate was subjected to an acid wash
liam Hogarth and other printmakers popularized (aqua fortis, nitric acidthe source of the name aqua-
mezzo tint prints by making inexpensive reproduc- tint), etching only those areas around the solid resin
tions of original paintings and copies of their own and creating a fine, grainy pattern, capable of holding
works. Connoisseurs and art patrons collected the color. Finally, watercolor was applied by hand, either
more valuable, first-run mezzotints, while the middle to the plate or to the print itself. By 1800, English and
classes bought the cheaper, mass-produced prints. French collectors were purchasing aquatints (Fig-
In comparison to the mezzotint, aquatints fell out of ure 17.13). However, with the rise of improved meth-
favor soon after their first appearance. However, in the ods of color printing after 1830, the aquatint process
late 1700s, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (17341781) wrote soon faded away.
a manual on the technique and began to print aqua-
tints in France. Other printmakers soon joined him in Neoclassical Architecture No other painter could
Paris. Across the channel, Paul Sandby (17301809), a compare with David, but the Scotsman Robert Adam
watercoloristfamous for his landscapeswas the
(17281792) developed a neoclassical style in interior
first English painter to replicate his drawings in aqua- decor that was the reigning favorite from 1760 until
tints. An attempt to create the effect of a watercolor, an 1800. Classicism had dominated British architecture
aquatint was labor intensive and time-consuming to since the 1600s, and Adam reinvigorated this tradition

Figure 17.13 Philibert-Louis Debucourt. The Public Promenade. 1792. Etching, engraving, and aquatint,
14 3/8 231/4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Aquatints, such as this, appealed to the middle
class, because the prints, besides being relatively inexpensive, were able to imitate the look of a watercolor
painting, with their subtle shadings of color and shadow. The blues are set among spots of pink and white, and
the darker trees around the periphery frame the scene. In the center, vivid colors highlight this gathering of
fashionable society on parade. The artist Debucourt [de-BOO-cour] (17551832) satirizes his subjects, through
their opulent dress and haughty manners, as they amuse themselves in the gardens of the Palais Royalean
eighteenth-century public area only in the sense that it was reserved for the social elite.

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454 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

Figure 17.14 Robert Adam. Kenwood House. 1764. Exterior, the north front. London. Adams restrained
style in the late eighteenth century represented a strong reinfusion of classical principles into the English
tradition. His style, with its reliance on the classical orders and principles of balance and proportion, appealed
to all classes but especially to the sedate middle class.

with forms and motifs gathered during his archaeo-


Figure 17.15 Jacques-Germain Soufflot. The Pantheon. 17551792. logical investigations. Kenwood House in London
Paris. By 1789, advanced thinkers in France had begun to appropriate shows his application of Roman design to the exterior
classical images for their movement, with Davids neoclassical paintings of a domestic dwelling, combining Ionic columns, a
leading the way. When the Revolution began, its leaders determined to
running frieze, and a triangular pediment to form a
build a suitable monument to house the remains of those philosophes
whose works had furthered the cause of reform. Hence, it was natural graceful portico, or porch, in the manner of a Roman
that the revolutionary government turn Soufflots classical church temple (Figure 17.14). In the library, Adam mixed clas-
with its portico modeled from Roman stylesinto a patriotic shrine. sical elements with the pastel colors of the rococo to
produce an eclectic harmony (see chapter-opening
photo). To continue this theme, he borrowed from Ro-
man buildings to design his barrel-vaulted ceiling and
adjoining apse.
French architects too began to embrace the neo
classical style in the late 1700s. The leader of this
movement was Jacques-Germain Soufflot [soo-FLOH]
(17131780), who designed buildings based on Roman
temples. Soufflots severe neoclassicism is character-
ized by its reliance on architectural detail rather than
on sculptural decoration. Avoiding Adams occasional
intermingling of rococo and classical effects, Souf-
flot preferred pure Roman forms. The most perfect
expression of Soufflots style is the Pantheon in Paris.
Soufflots classical ideal is mirrored in the Pantheons
basic plan, with its enormous portico supported by
huge Corinthian columns (Figure 17.15). Except for the
statues in the pediment and a frieze of stone garlands
around the upper walls, the buildings surface is de-
S void of sculptural detail. For the dome, Soufflot found
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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 455

his inspiration not in Rome but in London. The Pan-


theons spectacular dome, with its surrounding Co-
rinthian colonnade, is based on the dome of St. Pauls
cathedral (see Interpreting Art on page 407).

Global Encounter:
Chinoiserie, a Fantasy of the East
Not historically accurate, Chinoiserie [shen-
WAZ-uh-ree] (French, Chinois, China) was inspired
by Western travelers accounts and imported wares
(cabinets, porcelains, and embroideries), particularly
in countries with East India companiesEngland,
Holland, and Franceor trade depots in China (Por-
tugal), and by the vivid imagination of Western crafts-
people, artists, and designers, who drew freely on
Chinese decorative design.
The Chinoiserie fad impacted both interior and
exterior design. Style-conscious people designated a
Chinese roomwith lacquered furniture, decorated
screens, and precious objectsin their townhouses or
palaces, as did Frances King Louis XIV at Versailles
in 1671. The Chinese garden, with its irregular shapes
that imitate the irregularity of nature and its curved
roof pagodas, or towers, and gazebos, influenced
garden design. In England the homegrown English
garden, so carefully planned to look unplanned, was
merged with the Chinese version to create the Anglo-
Chinese garden. Kew Gardens, outside London, is an
elegant, surviving example of the Anglo-Chinese gar-
den (Figure 17.16).
Figure 17.16 William Chambers. The Pagoda. 1761. Ht. 163;
lowest story 49 diameter. Kew Gardens, United Kingdom.
William Chambers (17231796), the architect, was not a
creator of fanciful imaginings like many Western craftsmen and designers.
Instead, he traveled to China in his youth and, while there, acquired
firsthand knowledge of pagodas. An imitation of an actual Chinese pagoda,
Philosophy Chamberss structure stands ten stories tall, with projecting roofs on each
level and eighty dragons positioned at each roof angle. Originally a private
The Age of Reason was a seminal period in the history preserve, Kew Gardens, in 1759, became a royal garden, whose grounds
of Western thought. Two landmark books in political serve as a depository for many exotic and rare plants. The pagoda was
science were published, along with the works of David heavily restored after having been damaged during World War II.
Hume, one of the founders of modern philosophy.

Political Philosophy Modern political theory, which


had been founded in the 1600s, continued to evolve ensure justice and tranquillity. Rousseau, an impover-
in the Age of Reason. Absolutism, the reigning form ished citizen of the Swiss city-state of Geneva, advo-
of government, had many staunch defenders, such as cated a kind of pure democracy. Rousseaus ideas about
Voltaire. Voltaire, convinced that the people lacked who should control the state were more far-reaching
political wisdom, advocated enlightened despotism. and revolutionary than Montesquieus.
But most other philosophes rejected absolutism and Montesquieu [mahnt-us-KYOO] (16891755) ex-
supported various forms of government. pressed his political ideas in The Spirit of the Laws (1748),
The Enlightenments chief political theorists were a work that compares systems of government in an ef-
Baron de Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, fort to establish underlying principles. He concludes
whose contrasting social origins help explain their that climate, geography, religion, and education,
radically different definitions of the ideal state. Mon- among other factors, account for the worlds different
tesquieu, a titled Frenchman and a provincial judge, types of laws as well as governmental systems. De-
believed that rule by an enlightened aristocracy would spite his misunderstanding of the roles of climate and S
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456 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

geography, Montesquieus analytical approach identi- embassy in Paris, where he was honored by the French
fied influences on governments that had not been con- philosophes. He later returned to Edinburgh, where
sidered before. One enduring idea in The Spirit of the he was the leader of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Laws is that a separation of governmental powers pro- Hume first laid out his philosophy in A Treatise of
vides an effective defense against despotic rule. Amer- Human Nature (17391740), which he continued to revise
ican patriots adopted this principle of the separation over the rest of his life. His argument in this treatise
of powers in the 1780s when they framed the Consti- is subversive, as he undermines that which he claims
tution, dividing the federal governments power into to defend. He begins in the critical spirit of the Age of
executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Reason and ends up advocating skepticism. He follows
In contrast to the conservative Montesquieu, Jean- the empirical (knowledge comes from experience)
Jacques Rousseau [roo-SOH] (17121778) framed his method of the English thinker John Locke. However,
political theories within a libertarian tradition. Rous- revising Lockes dictum that all ideas in the mind are
seau set forth his model of the ideal state in The So- first in the senses, he denies the existence of the mind,
cial Contract, published in 1762. He agreed with John holding that it is simply a grab bag of mental images.
Locke that human beings are free and equal in nature, He then shows that Lockes dictum leads, not to cer-
but he defined the state of nature as a paradoxical tainty, but to solipsism, the belief that all that can be
condition in which individuals can follow any whim known is ones own mental world. Hume reached this
and hence possess no moral purpose. On the other controversial conclusion by breaking down ideas into
hand, the state, which is founded on a social contract (a) sense impressions and (b) mental images formed as
(an agreement among people), gives its citizens ba- a result of these impressions. Thus, two worlds exist:
sic civil rights (freedom, equality, and property) and the subjective world, which can be known and worked
a moral purposeprecisely the things that they lack with but which contains no guarantee of its objective
in nature. That morality arises within the civil state truth; and the external world, which is perceived, if at
is a function of the general will, Rousseaus term for all, through a screen of ideas.
what is best for the entire community. If each citizen is Hume also applied his empirical-skeptical method
granted the right to vote, and if each citizen votes on to causalitythe idea that one event causes another.
the laws in accord with the general will, then the laws He knew that such reasoning was typical of human
will embody what is best for the whole society. Thus, thinking on empirical matters. In the end, he con-
in Rousseaus thinking, citizens who obey the laws cluded that cause and effect is not communicated to
become moral beings. (It should be noted that who the mind through the senses; it is merely an assump-
defines and implements the general will and how it tion made about the world. In other words, the notion
affects individual freedom remain ambiguous in The of causality rests on habit. Later thinkers have found it
Social Contract.) difficult to refute Humes skepticism.
In contrast to Lockes form of democracy, whereby Hume was also controversial for his religious views.
a representative group such as a legislature acts in the His known skepticism kept him from a professors
name of the people, Rousseaus form of democracy chair at Edinburgh University. To live in peace, he ar-
asserted that the people themselves collectively per- ranged to have printed after his death the Dialogues
sonify the state through the general will. Rousseaus Concerning Natural Religion (1779), an atheistic work
ideal state, therefore, has to be relatively small so that that called God an empty hypothesis.
all citizens can know and recognize one another. His
model for the ideal state was based on his experience
as a citizen of the tiny Genevan republic. Neverthe- Literature
less, Rousseau has had an incalculable influence on Western literature in the Age of Reason was dominated
thinkers and politicians concerned about much larger by French authors and the French language, which
states. Indeed, his impact in the nineteenth century now replaced Latin as the international language of
extended far beyond democratic circles. Nationalistic scholarship, diplomacy, and commerce. French writ-
philosophers such as G. W. F. Hegel borrowed Rous- ers made common cause with the philosophes, shar-
seaus theory of the all-encompassing state, and radi- ing their faith in a glorious future. They wrote for the
cal theorists such as Karl Marx adopted his doctrine of growing middle-class audience that was replacing the
the general will (see Chapters 18 and 19). aristocratic patrons. Because these authors were under
the constant threat of state censorship, they were of-
David Hume David Hume (17111776), a close ten forced to disguise their barbed social criticisms or
friend of fellow Scotsman Adam Smith (see page 441), to sugarcoat their beliefs. Those restrictions did not,
was a philosopher and historian. His History of En however, deter them from their mission: to liberate the
S gland, in six volumes, became the standard for genera- consciousness of their readers and usher in an enlight-
N tions. From 1763 to 1766, Hume served at the British ened society.
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Cultural Trends in the Eighteenth Century: From Rococo to Neoclassical 457

French Writers: The Development of New Forms


The two political philosophers discussed earlier
Montesquieu and Rousseauwere also prominent
figures in French literature. Early in his career Montes-
quieu wrote Persian Letters, a cleverly devised, wide-
ranging critique of French institutions and customs in
the guise of letters purporting to be written by and
to Persian travelers during a trip to Paris. Through
Persian eyes, Montesquieu ridiculed the despotism
of the French crown, the idleness of the aristocracy,
and the intolerance of the Roman Catholic Church.
This device of using a detached observer of Western
life was a safeguard against censorship, as was the
decision to print Persian Letters in the Netherlands.
Montesquieus publication inspired a new type of lit-
erature, a genre in which a foreign traveler voices
the authors social criticisms.
Rousseau foreshadowed the romantic sensibility of
the next century with his intensely personal autobiog-
raphy, The Confessionspublished after his death. It
narrated Rousseaus lifelong follies and difficulties, in-
cluding sexual problems, religious vacillation, a mis-
matched marriage, and his decision to place his five
offspring in an orphanage as soon as each was born.
Not only did he reveal his personal secrets, but he also Figure 17.17 Jean-A ntoine Houdon. Voltaire. 1780. Life-size.
tried to justify his failings, pleading with his audience Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris. Houdons neoclassical
portrait in plaster of Voltaire shows the sculptors determination to
that they not judge him too harshly. The revelations
portray his subject as an ancient Roman. Houdon seated Voltaire in an
shocked many readers, but others praised him for his armchair copied from ancient models and draped him in an ample robe
emotional truthfulness and were willing to overlook that suggested Roman dress (but was actually based on the robe worn
his self-serving treatment of a number of the facts of by the great philosophe to keep out the cold). He endowed his sculpture
his own life. After Rousseaus candid admissions, the with a vivid sense of life, as may be seen in the fine details and the
expressive face.
genre of autobiography was never the same.
The third great French writer of the eighteenth cen-
tury was Franois-Marie Arouet, better known by his
pen name, Voltaire (16941778)the outspoken leader comic adventure tale recounts the coming-of-age of
of the Age of Reason and the philosophe who best per- the aptly named Candide, who is introduced to opti-
sonifies the Enlightenment (Figure 17.17). A restless mism by Dr. Pangloss, a caricature of a German profes-
genius, Voltaire earned success in many forms, includ- sor. The naive hero suffers many misfortuneswar,
ing dramas, essays, poems, histories, treatises, novels, poverty, religious bigotry, trial by the Inquisition,
a philosophical dictionary, letters, and the first work shipwreckand through them all holds fast to Pan-
of historythe Essay on Customsto survey civiliza- glosss teaching that this is the best of all possible
tion from a world perspective. worlds. But finally, faced with mounting incidents of
Of Voltaires voluminous writings, only one work pain and injustice, Candide renounces optimism. The
is still widely read today: Candide, published in 1759. story ends with the heros newly acquired wisdom for
The most popular novel of the Age of Reason, Can- combating the evils of boredom, vice, and want: We
dide exhibits Voltaires urbane style, his shrewd mix- must cultivate our garden.
ture of philosophy and wit, and his ability to jolt the
reader with an unexpected word or detail. Beneath its Neoclassicism in English Literature In England,
frivolous surface, this work has the serious purpose the growing presence of a Protestant middle class
of ridiculing the fashionable optimism of eighteenth- created a demand for literature that was decorous,
century thinkers who, Voltaire believed, denied the conservative, and basically moralistic and religious
existence of evil and insisted that the world was es- in tone, even if that religion were little more than def-
sentially good. erence to nature and natures God. The poetry of Al-
At one time an optimist himself, Voltaire altered exander Pope and the monumental historical work of
his beliefs about evil after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Edward Gibbon are typical of this style of literature, S
a calamity that figures prominently in Candide. This which is referred to as neoclassical. N
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458 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE AGE oF REASoN

Alexander Pope (16881744) is the most representa- Gibbons work reflects both the ancient historical
tive voice of the English neoclassical style. His poems tradition and the ideals of the Enlightenment. Follow-
celebrate the order and decorum that were prized by ing the ancient historians, Gibbon wrote with secular
the middle classesthe social group from which he detachment and offered reasons for historical change
sprang. He became his ages leading spokesman for based on human motives and natural causes. From
humane values such as reason, classical learning, the Enlightenment, he determined that history should
good sense and good taste, and hatred of hypocrisy be philosophy teaching through examplethat is, we
and ostentation. His verses, marked by their satire and should learn moral lessons from history. These influ-
wit, made Pope the supreme inspiration of the Age of ences come together in his history when he attributes
Reason. Romes decay to an unpatriotic and subversive Chris-
Pope wrote many kinds of poetrypastorals, ele- tian faith along with the Germanic invasions. In effect,
gies, and satires, among othersbut the work closest Gibbons history praises secular civilization and co-
to the spirit of the Age of Reason is his Essay on Man, vertly warns against the perils of religious enthusiasm.
a didactic work combining philosophy and verse, pub-
lished in 17331734. Issued in four sections and com- The Rise of the Novel Despite the contributions
posed in rhymed couplets, this poem brings together of Pope and Gibbon to Western letters, the most im-
one of the ages central ideas, optimism, and some no- portant literary development in England during the
tions inherited from antiquity. In the first section of Age of Reason was the rise of the modern novel. The
this poem, Pope argues that God in his infinite power hallmark of the early English novel was its realism. In
has created the best possible worldnot a perfect the spirit of the Scientific Revolution, the new authors
universeand that Gods design rests on the concept broke with the past and began to study the world with
of the great chain of being: reaching from God to mi- fresh eyes. Previous writers had based their plots on
croscopic creatures, this chain links all living things historical events or fables, but now individual experi-
together. Human beings occupy the chains midpoint, ence became the keystone of the writers art, and au-
where the human and animal species meet. Because of thors turned away from traditional plots in favor of an
this position, two different natures fight in the human accurate representation of real-life events.
breast: Created half to rise, and half to fall; / Great The English novel was realistic in several ways. It
lord of all things, yet a prey to all. According to Pope, focused on individual persons rather than universal
since humanitys place is unchanging, human reason types and on particular circumstances rather than set-
is limited, and God does not make mistakes, humans tings determined by literary custom. Its plots also fol-
should not question the divine plan. He concludes that lowed the development of characters over the course
whatever is, is right. From this fatalistic principle it of minutely observed time. The sense of realism was
follows that what humans perceive as evil is simply complete when the author adopted a narrative voice
misunderstood good. This qualified optimism was sat- that contributed to the air of authenticity.
irized by Voltaire in Candide through the character of The novel captured the wholehearted attention of the
Dr. Pangloss. reading public, including many women. The works of
Having established a fatalistic outlook in the first Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding especially ap-
section of Essay on Man, Pope became more optimistic pealed to these new readers. Their writings helped to
in the remaining sections. Although Gods ways may define the modern novel and, at the same time, set the
be unknowable, Pope reasoned that some truths may standards for later fiction. For centuries, tragedy, with
still be learned by human beings: The proper study its plots about aristocratic heroes and heroines, had
of mankind is man. From this belief he concluded been regarded as the highest literary form. But since
that a paradise could be created on earth if human be- the age of Richardson and Fielding, the novel, with its
ings would think and act rationallyan attitude dear focus on ordinary people, has been and remains the
to the hearts of the philosophes. dominant literary genre.
Edward Gibbons (17371794) History of the Decline The novels of Samuel Richardson (16891761) focus
and Fall of the Roman Empire appeared in six volumes on love between the sexes. For more than a thousand
between 1776 and 1788. Gibbons recognition was in- pages in Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and almost
stant and universal; he was hailed across Europe for two thousand pages in Clarissa Harlowe (17471748),
both his historical learning and his literary style. His he tells the contrasting stories of two young women
subject, the history of Rome, appealed to the ages clas- whose virtue is tested by repeated seduction attempts.
sical interests, and his skepticism, notably regarding Pamela, a resourceful and calculating maidservant,
the Christian faith, echoed the sentiments of the phi- eventually finds happiness in marriage to her prosper-
losophes. Although Gibbons authority as a scholar ous would-be seducer. Clarissa, from a higher social
S was eclipsed later, his work remains one of the En- class but of weaker mettle, runs off with her seducer
N lightenments genuine literary masterpieces. and dies of shame.
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CULTURAL TRENDS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: FRoM RoCoCo To NEoCLASSICAL 459

SLICE OF LIFE
How to Manipulate the System

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu


LETTER, 25 MARCH 1744
Lady Montagu (16891762) was one of the great letter was too well bred to refuse to listen to a lady, and I
writers in the Western tradition. A free spirit and a keen was of a rank and nation to have liberty to say what
observer, this Englishwoman lived apart from her hus- I pleased. They moved my compassion so much I re-
band, Lord Edward Wortley Montagu, for about twenty solved to use my endeavours to serve them, though I
years, four of which were spent in Avignon, France. In had little hope of succeeding.
this letter to her husband, Lady Mary explains how she I would not therefore dress myself for the supper,
was able to save a group of French Protestant Huguenots but went in a domino to the ball, a mask giving oppor-
from being galley slaves. tunity of talking in a freer manner than I could have
done without it. I was at no trouble in engaging his
I take this opportunity of informing you in what man- conversation. The ladies having told him I was there,
ner I came acquainted with the secret I hinted at in my he immediately advanced towards me, and I found
letter of the 5th of Feb. The Society of Freemasons at from a different motive he had a great desire to be ac-
Nmes presented the Duke of Richelieu, governor of quainted with me, having heard a great deal of me.
Languedoc, with a magnificent entertainment. It is but After abundance of compliments of that sort, I made
one days post from hence, and the Duchess of Crillon my request for the liberty of the poor Protestants. He
with some other ladies of this town resolved to be at it, with great freedom told me that he was so little a bigot,
and almost by force carried me with them, which I am he pitied them as much as I did, but his orders from
tempted to believe an act of Providence, considering Court were to send them to the galleys. However, to
my great reluctance and the service it proved to be to show how much he desired my good opinion he was
unhappy, innocent people. returning and would solicit their freedom (which he
The greatest part of the town of Nmes are secret has since obtained).
Protestants, which are still severely punished accord-
ing to the edicts of Louis XIV whenever they are de- Interpreting This Slice of Life
tected in any public worship. A few days before we 1. What is Lady Mary Wortley Montagus motive for
came they had assembled; their minister and about acting as she does?
a dozen of his congregation were seized and impris- 2. What is the religious situation in the town of
oned. I knew nothing of this, but I had not been in Nmes?
the town two hours when I was visited by two of the
3. How does Lady Montagu prevent the Huguenots
most considerable of the Huguenots, who came to beg
from becoming galley slaves?
of me with tears to speak in their favour to the Duke
of Richelieu, saying none of the Catholics would do it 4. Compare the tone and style of this letter with the
and the Protestants durst not, and that God had sent way we write letters (or emails or text messages)
me for their protection, [that] the Duke of Richelieu today.

In contrast to Richardsons sentimental domestic learned the virtues of moderation. The novel contains
dramas, the novels of Henry Fielding (17071754) de- a great deal of amusing satire, aimed particularly at
pict a robust world of comedy and adventure. His best the upper classes.
work is The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), a
comic masterpiece that has been called the finest En-
glish novel. Tom, the hero, is a high-spirited young Music
man who makes little effort to resist the temptations The standard in music in the early part of the eigh-
that come his way. His wealthy guardian rejects him teenth century was set by the French, as it was in art
for his immoral behavior, but Tom is shown to be and decoration. Rococo music, like rococo art, repre-
good-hearted and honest and thus worthy of the good sented a reaction against the baroque. Instead of the S
fortune that befalls him at the novels end when he has complex, formal structure of baroque music, French N
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460 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Age of Reason

composers now strove for a light and charming sound tempo. The second is slow and reflective, and the third
with graceful melodies over simple harmonies. Known is as quick as the first if not quicker. If there are four
as the style galant (gallant style), this music was par- movements, the third is either a minuet, based on a
ticularly fashionable during the reign of LouisXV. French dance, or a scherzo [SKAIRT-so], a lively Ital-
The perfect instrument for rococo music was the ian form. The sonata form provided general principles
harpsichord, a keyboard instrument whose strings of composition that governed each movement and yet
are plucked, giving it a delicate, refined sound. At the allowed composers to express their own ideas. Classi-
same time, improved instruments, such as brasses, cal music retained the rococo love of elegant melodic
woodwinds, and violins, were joining the musical lines and clear, simple harmonies, but by using the
family. The piano was invented in the first decade of sonata form, composers were able to add length and
the eighteenth century by Bartolomeo Cristofori, who depth to their works.
installed a mechanism in a harpsichord that would A second basic form that helped define the classical
strike the strings with hammers rather than pluck style was theme and variations, a technique in which
them. With this new instrument, a player could vary a musical idea is stated and then repeated in variant
the loudness of the sound depending on the force ex- versions. The theme and its variations are each about
erted on the keys, something impossible to do on the the same length, but each variation is unique and may
harpsichordthus the name pianoforte, from the vary in mood from the basic theme. Variations may di-
Italian for soft and loud. verge from the first theme in several ways, including
The two outstanding composers of rococo music were changes in rhythm, dynamics, harmony, key, accom-
the Frenchmen Franois Couperin and Jean-Philippe paniment, and tone colorthe quality of the sound,
Rameau. Couperin [koop-uh-RAN] (16681733) set determined by the overtones. The theme and a varia-
the tone in court society in the early 1700s. His finest tion may be heard together, or played overlapping, or
works were written for the harpsichord; many contain separated by pauses. Main themes may be inventions
dance pieces and are noted for their rhythmic virtuos- of a composer or a borrowed melody from an existing
ity. His highly ornamented compositions are the per- work. The theme and variations form has been used in
fect musical counterpart to Watteaus paintings. independent works or for a single movement in a sym-
Rameau [rah-MOH] (16831764) shared Couperins phony, sonata, or chamber work (music for a small en-
fascination with the harpsichord and small-scale semble of instruments or voices).
works, but his major achievement was as a composer Franz Joseph Haydn [HIDE-un] (17321809) was
of dramatic operas. Following in the footsteps of the the first master of the classical style. Haydn spent al-
French-Italian operatic composer Jean-Baptiste Lully most thirty years as music director at the palace of a
(see Chapter 15), he made a ballet sequence with a Hungarian noble family, where his status was that of
large corps of dancers a central feature of his oper- a skilled servant of the reigning prince. At his death,
atic works. The best of his operas was Hippolyte and however, he was both comfortably well-off and famous
Aricie (1733), based on the French playwright Racines throughout Europe. He is largely responsible for the
tragedy Phdre. Rameau heightened the tension of the development of the sonata form, and his 104 sympho-
gripping plot through his expressive music, under- nies helped to define the standard, four-movement
scoring the sexual tension between the doomed hero- symphony. Despite their formal regularity, the sym-
ine and her stepson. phonies show Haydns inventiveness and sense of free-
Like rococo art, rococo music was supplanted af- dom as he experimented with a large and imaginative
ter 1750 by the new classical style, with its empha- variety of moods and structures.
sis on form and structure. The most versatile and Haydns most popular symphony today is Sym-
widely used form to emerge was the sonata form, phony No. 94 in G Major, generally known as the Sur-
whose main sections were the exposition, the devel prise Symphony. First performed during Haydns first
opment, and the recapitulation. In the first, melodies visit to London in 1791, this work helped to establish
and themes are stated; in the second, the same mate- Haydns name with the concertgoing public there. The
rial is expanded and changed in various ways; and in second movement, marked andante (Italian, moder-
the third, the themes are stated again but with richer ate speed), is in the theme and variations form. The
harmonies and more complex associations for the opening theme, evocative of the childrens nursery
listener. rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, begins softly
The sonata form was also used as the basis for but ends with a crashing chordthe surprise that
whole compositions, including the symphony (a large gives this symphony its nickname. Four variations fol-
composition for orchestra), the concerto (a piece for a low, achieved through shifts in tone color, dynamics,
solo instrument and orchestra), and the sonata (a work rhythm, and melody. The movement concludes with
S for a small group of instruments). Such pieces often a restatement of the core theme, as a dissonant ac-
N have three movements varying in key, tempo, and companiment seems to mock the pieces lighthearted
L mood. The first is usually the longest and has a quick mood. Haydns more than seventy string quartets,
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Figure 17.18 Performance of a Haydn Opera. This anonymous print depicts a scene from Haydns
Lincontro improvviso, or The Chance Meeting, staged around 1775 at Esterhza, the summer castle of
the Esterhzy family, his patron and employer. Dignitaries and music lovers flocked to Esterhza to hear
Haydns latest works and to walk the grounds. In the print, the proscenium stage, the painted scenery, the
costumed singers, and the orchestra below in the pit indicate that the presentations of operas have not
changed much over the past 235 years. Some scholars assert that Haydn is playing the harpsichord, at the
lower left. Although he was isolated at Esterhza, his reputation grew, and his symphonies and concertos
were performed across Europe.

each composed for first and second violins, viola, and was spent as a freelance musician in Vienna, where he
cello, became the accepted norm for this type of cham- died in extreme poverty. Despite his brief and tragic
ber music. His supreme innovation was to allow each life, Mozart left a huge body of music that later genera-
instrument to show its independence from the rest. tions have pronounced sublime.
Although the first violin has the most prominent role, Mozarts gift was not for creating new musical
the musical effect of a Haydn quartet is of four per- forms; Mozart already had at hand the sonata, the op-
sons conversing. His operas (about twenty), popular in era, the symphony, the theme and variations, and the
his day, are now seldom performed (Figure 17.18). quartet. Rather, his inimitable talent was for compos-
However prodigious Haydns efforts, they are over- ing music with a seemingly effortless line of melody,
shadowed by the greatest exponent of the classical growing naturally from the opening bars until the fi-
style, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791). From nale. His disciplined and harmonious works embody
the age of six, he wrote music, alternating composing the spirit of the Enlightenment.
with performing. His travels around Europe as a child The transparency of Mozarts composing technique
prodigy exposed him to the musical currents of his allowed him to give a unique stamp to every type
day, which he eagerly adapted into his own works. For of music that he touched, and he composed in every
nine years of his adult life, he was a court musician in genre available to him. In vocal music, Mozart com-
the service of the archbishop of Salzburg, a post that posed religious works (such as Masses, oratorios, and
caused him great anguish because of its low social po- an unfinished Requiem Mass) and dramatic works (for
sition. Unlike Haydn, he would not accept the conven- example, operas and a ballet). In instrumental music, S
tional position of musician as a liveried (uniformed) he wrote orchestral and ensemble music, including N
servant of a wealthy patron. The last decade of his life symphonies, serenades, divertimentos (instrumental L
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462 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE AGE oF REASoN

works, performed as entertainment, as at social gath- a repeat of the opening stately melody and a conclud-
erings or banquets), marches, minuets, and German ing staccato phrase.
dances; concertos for piano, violin, horn, flute, trum- The fullest expression of Mozarts genius was
pet, and clarinet; chamber music for strings and winds; reached in his operas, especially his comic operas,
violin sonatas; and keyboard sonatas. where he gave free rein to the playful side of his nature,
The light touch, which makes Mozart such a be- blending broad humor with dramatic characterization.
loved composer, is nowhere more evident than in his His masterpiece in this genre is probably The Marriage
work for a small string orchestra, Eine Kleine Nacht- of Figaro, based on a play by the French philosophe
musik (A Little Night Music; 1787), K. 525, one of his most Pierre Beaumarchais [boh-mahr-SHAY] (17321799).
often heard works today. Classified as a serenade, this Since its first performance in 1786, Figaros humor and
lighthearted piece, in four movements, was composed rich musical texture have made it one of the most pop-
for an evenings entertainment. The third movement is ular works in the entire operatic repertory. Beneath the
a minuet and trio, a classical music form derived from farcical scenes and the enchanting melodies, however,
a French court dance, also called the minuet. It begins lies a serious theme: by allowing the servant Figaro to
with a stately melody whose loud staccato tones sum- outwit his arrogant master, Mozart joined the growing
mon up images of the courtly bowings and curtsies of ranks of those who criticized the privileged classes and
the dances origin. As the minuet unfolds, each sec- attacked the injustices of their times. In Mozarts other
tion is repeated. The minuet then yields to a quieter, music, his personal presence was always obscured. But
smoothly flowing trio, also written as a dancelike mel- in Figaro, the servant-musician who chafes at his hard
ody with repeated phrases. The movement ends with lot speaks with Mozarts authentic voice.

SUMMARY
The Age of Reason, 17001789, was a period of cultural their grip on the reins of power; a reinvigorated no-
ferment. The dominant trend was the intellectual bility, who sought more political say in state affairs;
movement known as the Enlightenment, which hoped and a newly awakened middle class, who embraced
to move the West into the light and free people from the Enlightenments ideals of social justice and politi-
their dark past. Sharing a belief in the supremacy cal freedom.
of human reason, the ages leading scientists, think- Stylistic changes in art, architecture, and music
ers, and writers questioned both traditional religious added to the cultural ferment of this period. The ba-
beliefs and civil institutions, while calling for a bet- roque style remained a powerful force in music, but two
ter future for all. The Enlightenment was centered new styles quickly claimed new patrons and audiences.
in, but not limited to, France. Voltaire, Montesquieu, The lighthearted rococo style emerged first, shortly af-
Rousseau, and Diderot were the great French think- ter 1700, and was adopted by the French aristocracy.
ers, with the Encyclopdie as the enduring monument And, after 1750, the neoclassical stylecharacterized
of their ambitious agenda. outside France, notable by simplicity, gravity, and moral themesbecame an
philosophes included: in Great Britain, Gibbon and instant hit with the philosophes. In effect, the rococo
the Scotsmen Smith and Hume; and in British North and neoclassical styles reflect the warring aspirations of
America, Benjamin Franklin. the ages two rising classes: the nobility and the middle
Enhancing the ages cultural ferment were three class.
sociopolitical trends: absolutist rulers, who tightened

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


Enlightenment rocaille pianoforte scherzo
philosophes neoclassical style classical style (in music) theme and variations
Deism mezzotint sonata form tone color
Pietism aquatint symphony chamber work
First Great Awakening Chinoiserie key divertimento
S Physiocrats solipsism tempo serenade
N rococo style causality mood minuet and trio
L fte galante style galant
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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 463

The Legacy of the Age of Reason


After the Age of Reason, Western civilization was never and government based on the will of the people. Rous-
the same. Absolutism, the prevailing form of govern- seaus Confessions is a forerunner of our ages obsession
ment in the 1700s, has been on the defensive ever since. with the private lives of celebrities and politicians.
Those few people who support absolutism argue for Two other philosophes who speak strongly to us today
enlightened despotism (or absolutism light we might include Adam Smith (the founder of laissez-faire eco-
call this today); constitutional-minded critics advocate a nomics) and Benjamin Franklin (the Autobiography).
separation of powers, while democrats want to abolish As to art and architecture, the neoclassical style was
monarchy and give power to the people. Since 1789, abso- adopted by the founders of the United States of Amer-
lutism has appeared in various guises, such as totalitari- ica, where it was known as the Federal style, 17801830.
anism and military dictatorships in twentieth-century Woodlawn Plantation in Fairfax, Virginia, is a beau-
Europe, but these regimes have usually ended badly tiful embodiment of the Federal style. Jacques-Louis
through either foreign wars or internal revolution. In David, the greatest of the neoclassical painters, drew
our global world, North Korea, which is controlled by on Greco-Roman culture to convey moral lessons. We
a single family, remains perhaps the most egregious ex- moderns are skeptical of such moralizing, as we prefer
ample of absolutist rule today. art for arts sake. Similarly, our democratic age rejects
Another powerful legacy of the Age of Reason was rococo paintings, for its focus on the insular world of
the emergence of the middle classes as a potent agent the nobility.
of change. In the twentieth century, when the middle A final legacy from the Age of Reason is the Encyclo-
classes gained the right to vote, many Enlightenment pdie, which established the tradition of providing easily
ideas, such as social justice and equal opportunity, accessible information on the arts and sciences. Today,
were legislated into law. The rise of the middle classes the Google website, with its instantaneous answers to
also opened the door to popular forms of culture, questions, is a high-tech version of the Encyclopdie.
such as the novel, comic books, movies, television, and
video games.
Modern scholars speak of the Enlightenment proj-
ect, that is, the ideals and principles of the eighteenth-
century philosophes. Many of those values have
become articles of faith today, such as the beliefs that
governments should rest on the consent of the gov-
erned, that the least amount of state interference in the
lives of citizens is best, and that all people are created
equal. More fundamentally, from the Enlightenment
come the views that human nature is good and that
happiness is the proper goal of human life. Today,
there is even a science of happiness, founded by aca-
demic researchers, who study what are the things that
make people happy.
of the leading voices of the Age of Reason, that
of Voltaire is probably the most powerful today. The
Woodlawn Plantation. Fairfax, Virginia. 1805. Having freed themselves
American composer Leonard Bernstein turned Vol-
from the British during the Revolutionary War, the newly liberated Americans
taires Candide into a comic operetta, in 1956. Jean- wanted architecture to reflect their vision of the new world they hoped to
Jacques Rousseau is the only philosophe who rivals create. The boldly simple design of Woodlawn Plantationrectangular box
Voltaire in his enduring legacy. From Rousseau de- structure, four windows balanced on either side of a center door, the fanlight
scends a cascade of ideas that resonate in the modern over the door, the elliptical window in the gable, and the overlay of classical
details on the facadeexpresses the patriotic vision of the time. Woodlawn
world, including nostalgia for nature and a simpler
was designed by William Thornton (17591828) for Major Lawrence Lewis,
life; treating children as children, not as little adults; a nephew of George Washington. Thornton also designed the U.S. Capitol,
romantic marriages rather than arranged marriages; though his plans were somewhat modified by later architects.

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LOUIS-LOPOLD BOILLY. Simon Chenard as a Sans-Culotte. 1792. Oil on canvas, 131/6 8 5/6.
Muse Carnavalet, Paris. Delacroix sends a startling political message to eighteenth-century
viewers by placing Chenard front and center in this painting, so that he towers over the
background. The message: an ordinary man is now a fit subject for portrait painting.

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Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response
18
17601830

Preview Questions During the years 1760 to 1830,three revolutions changed


1. What are the major the Western world so fundamentally that some historians claim this pe-
characteristics of the riod to be the beginning of the modern era. The Industrial Revolution cre-
Industrial Revolution, ated the factory system, which replaced agriculture as the economic basis
and how does classical
economics explain for society. The American Revolution demonstrated that government by
the new industrial the people is a workable and welcome alternative to kingship. And the
economy? French Revolution swept away centuries-old monarchies and redistributed
2. What were the causes political power across Europe. Those with vested interestsroyalty, the ar-
and the outcomes of
istocracy, wealthy landowners, and the Roman Catholic Churchtried to
the American and the
French revolutions? prevent the spread of revolutionary political ideas. Those who benefited

3. How did the economic the most from these revolutionsthe middle class, or the bourgeoisie
and political declared themselves to be the new standard-bearers of culture, first em-
revolutions affect bracing neoclassicism and then romanticism.
the Western arts and
humanities? The portrait of Simon Chenard, shown here, is a fitting symbol of this
period. The painting dates from the French Revolutions most tumultuous
4. Compare and contrast
neoclassicism and phasethe First Republic. The artist, Louis-Leopold Boilly, has filled the
romanticism. painting with varied signs that signal that a new age has dawned. The
subject is Boillys friend, Simon Chenard, a Parisian actor. Chenard is pre-
sented as the living embodiment of the Revolution and the new social or-
der that has emerged in France: he holds the tricolor (the red, white, and
blue revolutionary banner), and he wears the uniform of the working
classshort jacket, long trousers, and wooden shoes. Because of the long
trousers, the workers were known as sans-culottes (without breeches).
During the First Republic, aristocrats who maintained the costume of
waistcoats, silk stockings, and knee breeches, or culottes, put themselves
in grave danger. Hence, the sans-culotte became the dominant style worn
by men of all classes during this revolutionary period.

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466 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REvoLUTIoN, REACTIoN, AND CULTURAL RESPoNSE

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Revolution. Local woolen producers, threatened by


competition from cotton, persuaded Parliament to
Even before the Industrial Revolution, agricultural in- prohibit the importation of inexpensive cotton goods
novations in England made industrialization possible. from India; but still the demand grew. The industry
The shift toward enclosure, whereby wealthy land- tried to meet the demand for cotton through the medi-
owners fenced off common lands and consolidated eval putting-out systema method of hand manu-
them into large estates, brought hardship to smaller facture in which workers wove the fabric in their
farmers but did result in increased farm productivity homesbut cottage production proved hopelessly
and converted land into a commodity. Improvements outdated. Innovative industrialists developed the fac-
in farming techniques and the introduction of new tory system to accelerate and control manufacturing;
crops increased yields and farm income. Technology flying shuttles and power looms were located in one
also led to improved tools and farm implements, such building, which was situated near a stream that sup-
as the iron plow and the reaper. plied the water for the steam engines that drove the
textile machines.
The laborers had to adjust to the demands of the
Industrialization in England
factory system. No longer could rural workers stay at
By the 1750s, changes at home and abroad had cre- home and weave at their own pace. Towns near the
ated conditions that steered England toward industri- factories rapidly expanded, and new ones sprang up
alization. An increasing population provided both a in the countryside next to the mills. Employees were
labor force and a consumer market. Money to invest crowded into miserable living quarters, with little
was available because of surplus capital generated by regard given for the basic amenities of human exis-
sound fiscal practices. Several decades of peace had tence. With the factories came a realigned class system
created an atmosphere conducive to economic growth, of capitalists and workers at either extreme, a trans-
and the governments policies promoted further ex- formed social order, new indicators of wealth and suc-
pansion. Free of internal tariffs or duties, goods moved cess, and new patterns of class behavior. The earlier
easily throughout Britains navigable waterways, and cooperation between the country gentry and small
Britains acquisition of colonies gave merchants access farmers was replaced by increasingly strained rela-
to raw materials and new overseas markets. tions between factory owners and the working class.
However, industrialization required three changes:
the substitution of machines for manual labor; the
replacement of animal and human power with new
Classical Economics:
sources of energy such as water and steam (the steam The Rationale for Industrialization
engine, patented by James Watt in 1769, transformed Industrialization generated serious studies about the
the generation of power); and the introduction of new new economic system. Much of this thought could be
and large amounts of raw materials, such as iron ore interpreted as a rationale for industrialization and a
and coal (Figure 18.1). justification for profit seeking. The French Physiocrats
The changes in the cotton cloth industry dra- and the Scotsman Adam Smith both advocated the
matically illustrate the phases of the Industrial abolition of mercantilismthe economy at the service

Figure 18.1 The Cast Iron Bridge at


Coalbrookdale, England. 2005. The earliest
iron bridges, made from the superior grade
of iron that was being produced in the new
factories, were molded and cast to look like
wooden bridges. This 2005 photograph depicts
the first iron bridge, built over the Severn River,
S finished in 1779. Architects did not begin to
N use iron in building construction until the early
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THE INDUSTRIAL REvoLUTIoN 467

SLICE OF LIFE
Life Inside a Satanic Mill in 1815

Elizabeth Bentley
REPORT OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ON THE BILL TO REGULATE
THE LABOUR OF CHILDREN IN MILLS AND FACTORIES, 1832

The poet William Blake (17571827) was more truthful a chain and chained them, and strapped them all
than poetic in describing Englands factories as dark, down the room.
Satanic mills. In 1832, the report of a British parlia- Were you generally there in time?
mentary committee confirmed the hellish environment in Yes, my mother has been up at 4 oclock in the
which male, female, and child workers labored. The tes- morning. . . . I have sometimes been at Hunslet
timony of Elizabeth Bentley, a former child laborer, was Car at 2 oclock in the morning, when it was
part of the committees final report. streaming down with rain, and we have had to
stay till the mill was opened.
What age are you? You are considerably deformed . . . what time did it come on?
Twenty-three. I was about 13 years old when it began coming, and
What time did you begin work at the [flax] factory? it has got worse since; it is five years since my
When I was six years old [in 1815]. mother died, and my mother was never able to
What was your business in that mill? get me a good pair of stays to hold me up, and
I was a little doffer. when my mother died I had to do for myself, and
What were your hours of labour in that mill? I got me a pair.
From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, when they were Do you know of anybody that has been similarly injured in
thronged [extremely busy]. their health?
Explain what you had to do. Yes, in their health, but not many deformed as I am.
When the frames are full, they have to stop the Where are you now?
frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full In the poorhouse.
bobbins off, and carry them to the roller, and then
put empty ones on, and set the frame going again. Interpreting This Slice of Life
Your labour is very excessive? 1. Describe factory conditions in England before the
Yes, you have not time for anything. factory reform acts of the 1830s.
Suppose you flagged a little, or were late, what would they 2. Would you expect Elizabeth Bentley to have at-
do? tended school during her youth?
Strap us.
Is the strap used so as to hurt you excessively? 3. Note the absence of child labor laws, workers com-
Yes it is. . . . I have seen the overlooker go to the top pensation, factory safety legislation, and factory
end of the room . . . ; he has taken a strap, and a hour regulation.
whistle in his mouth, and sometimes he has got 4. Compare and contrast factory conditions then and now.

of the stateand its replacement with a laissez-faire his work verification for their activities. Smith argued
systemthe economy at the service of the individual that entrepreneurs, acting out of enlightened self-
entrepreneur. In England, Smiths ideas attracted a interest, not only would get rich but also would raise
band of thinkers who became known as the classical the standard of living for allprovided the govern-
economists and included Thomas Malthus and David ment did not interfere with the economy.
Ricardo. The writings of Thomas Malthus (17661834) and
Smiths key contribution to classical economics was David Ricardo (17721823) also lent support to the
a free-market system based on private property that changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. In his
would automatically regulate prices and profits to the Essay on the Principle of Population (1788), Malthus fore-
benefit of all. He focused his Wealth of Nations (1776) cast a world burdened with misery that would worsen
on agriculture and commerce, while only glancing at if the population continued to increase. Since popu- S
manufacturing. However, as manufacturing came to lation grows at a geometric rate and food supply ad- N
dominate the English economy, businessmen found in vances at an arithmetical rate, the number of human L
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468 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

Timeline 18.1 REVOLUTION, REACTION, AND CULTURAL RESPONSE


1760 1775 1783 1789 1799 1815 1830

Industrial Napoleon and the Restored Bourbon


American French
Revolution French Empire Monarchy in France
Revolution Revolution
in England

1769 1776 1793 1803 1808 1818 1830


Watts Smiths Davids Beethovens Goethes Gricaults Berliozs
steam Wealth of Death of Third Faust Raft of the Symphonie
engine Nations Marat Symphony (Part 1) Medusa fantastique
1774 1798 1813 1821
Goethes Wordsworth Austens Constables
The Sorrows of and Coleridges Pride and Hay Wain
Young Werther Lyrical Ballads Prejudice

beings will soon far exceed the amount of food, lead- taxation because, they asserted, they were not repre-
ing Malthus to conclude that famines, plagues, and sented in Parliament.
wars are necessary to limit the worlds population. Protests and violence succeeded in nullifying the
His gloomy prediction persuaded most of the middle parliamentary taxes and uniting the colonies in a
classes that laborers could not be helped, because they common cause. In 1774 the colonists convened a Con-
were responsible for their own thoughtless habits and tinental Congress in Philadelphia, which spoke for the
deeds. American people against the foreign power of Great
In Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821), Britain. In April 1775, conflict between British troops
David Ricardo explained his iron law of wages: la- and colonists in Massachusetts triggered a war. The
borers wages will always hover around the subsis- Continental Congress proclaimed the American goals
tence level, and workers will never be able to improve in the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4,
their standard of living beyond that level. Tying Mal- 1776: government by consent of the governed and the
thuss conclusion to his own, he argued that the work- rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The
ing class is inevitably mired in poverty. Thus, Adam American Revolution lasted until 1783 and resulted in
Smith and the classical economists provided the busi- victory and independence for the colonies.
ness classes with rationales to justify the methods of To realize their democratic goals, the Americans
industrialization and their consequences. developed two new ideas: the constitutional conven-
tion and a written constitution. Wary of centralized
power, and disappointed at their new nations first ef-
POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS, forts at governance, the framers of the United States
17601815 Constitution met in Philadelphia in 1787 and created
three branches of governmentlegislative, judiciary,
From the Treaty of Paris (1763) to the Battle of Water-
and executivewith specified powers delegated to
loo (1815), Europe saw monarchies fall, new forms of
each. (The idea of a balance of powers is derived from
government emerge, and old societies swept away.
the works of both John Locke and Montesquieu [see
By 1830 Europe was divided into a conservative east-
Chapters 16 and 17].) The central government could
ern Europe and a progressive western Europe that
assess and collect its own taxes, regulate commerce,
included the former colonies in the New World. This
and make and enforce laws. But the framers limited
twofold division persisted well into the twentieth cen-
the governments role in everyday life by incorporat-
tury (Timeline 18.1).
ing a Bill of Rights into the Constitution.
The framers failed to extend rights to slaves, whose
The American Revolution existence was barely noted, and women were not given
Although Great Britain led the way to industrializa- the right to vote. Still, the Constitution made America
tion, it also suffered from an outmoded tax structure the most democratic society of its day and the first
and from war debts. The royal ministers tried vari- successful democracy since Athens in the fifth cen-
ous taxes to make the American colonists share in tury BCE. As an exemplary democracy, the United
the burden of empire. The colonists, calling the Brit- States offered hope to the oppressed, and its successful
S ish governments new taxes on sugar, stamps, and tea struggle for independence provided a model for future
N unconstitutional, claimed immunity from imperial revolution.
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Political Revolutions, 17601815 469

TABLE 18.1 SHIFTS IN THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT, 17891830

July 1789September 1792 Limited constitutional kingdom; the National


Constituent Assembly
September 1792August 1795 First Republic; Reign of Terror (17931794)
August 1795November 1799 Directory
November 1799May 1804 Consulate
May 1804June 1815 First Empire
June 1815July 1830 Restored Bourbon monarchy

The French Revolution of Man and Citizen (1789), a document that guaranteed
Despite the importance of the American Revolution, both natural and civil rights, has served as the basis of
the revolution in France overshadowed it. Because of subsequent French regimes. In framing the constitution
its dramatic break with the past and its lasting world- of 1791, the National Constituent Assembly attempted
wide effects, the French Revolution is a pivotal event to embody the slogans of the Revolutionliberty, equal-
in modern history. ity, and fraternitybut class hatred made fraternity
more an ideal than a reality. This stage of the Revolu-
tion failed, however, because Louis XVI proved to be
From Constitutional Monarchy to Empire When untrustworthy. Forces inside France were also pressing
Louis XVI took the throne in 1774, the French crown its leaders for increasingly radical reforms, and a coali-
was confronted with social unrest, economic inequali- tion of European states invaded France to restore the
ties, and financial crises. Both the newly energized monarchy.
aristocrats and the emerging bourgeoisie were clam- The Revolution entered its second and most violent
oring for power. The affluent bourgeoisie aligned phase, which lasted from September 1792 to August
themselves with the nobles in supporting laissez-faire 1795. This phase was dominated by leaders from the
economics, but they joined the king in calling for an lower bourgeois and working classes, who executed
end to the aristocracys feudal privileges. The peasant the king, founded the French Republic, and briefly re-
farmers endured burdensome taxes and continued placed Christianity with a state religion organized on
to be subjected to feudal claims. The lower middle rational ideals (see chapter-opening photo). Full vot-
classsmall shopkeepers, salaried workers, and semi- ing rights were given to all males, including blacks
skilled artisanshad little opportunity to escape their and Jews, state education was opened to all, conquered
bleak existence. Below them, wage earners and menial people were allowed to vote on their future, and the
workers barely earned subsistence wages, while some slave trade was abolished. Women, however, were de-
drifted in and out of the criminal world. Oppressed by nied the vote and citizenship, but they acquired cer-
high taxes and harboring ill-disguised hatred for the tain rights, including equal treatment of both sexes in
classes above them, the lower classes schemed to stay marital law and equal rights of inheritance for male
one jump ahead of the tax collector. and female children, and the legal age for marriage
In the 1780s, France amassed a huge national debt, was raised to twenty-one. (These advances were short-
fueled by its support of the American Revolution. In lived, as they were all swept away by the Napoleonic
1789 Louis XVI agreed to convene the Estates-General, Code, after 1804.)
a representative body similar to the British Parliament, Such far-reaching reforms alarmed many who sup-
which had last met in the early 1600s. When this body ported the monarchy, church, and old social order, and
gathered, the middle-class representatives shunted aside soon the fledgling republic faced civil war at home and
the nobles and the church leaders and formed the Na- invasions from abroad, which in turn set off more do-
tional Constituent Assembly, which proceeded to end mestic political and financial crises. These events led
royal despotism and turn France into a limited, consti- to the yearlong Reign of Terror (17931794), when sus-
tutional kingdom similar to England (Table 18.1). pected enemies of the Revolution were executed. Its
This first phase of the Revolution lasted from 1789 excesses overshadowed many of the French Republics
until 1792. Dominated by the well-to-do middle classes, accomplishments and discredited the Revolutions ap-
the National Constituent Assembly embraced laissez- peal among many of its early supporters. In August
faire, restricted the vote to property owners, over- 1795, a moderate republic, known as the Directory, was
hauled the legal system, and introduced representative instituted, in which power was shared between two S
government. Its approval of The Declaration of the Rights legislative houses and five directors. N
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Figure 18.2 JeAn-AuGuSte-DomInIQue InGReS. Napoleon I. 1806. Oil
on canvas, 86 54. Muse de lArme, Paris. Napoleon, emperor
of France, 18041815, is depicted on a throne in the style of an ancient
ruler but with references that link him to the French monarchy. He wears
a wreath, a Greek symbol of victory, and in his right hand he holds a long
rod topped by a gold fleur-de-lis, or French lilyFrances national symbol
since the Middle Ages. His left hand holds the ivory hand of justice, an
image adopted by Frances kings in 1314 and revived by Napoleon at his
coronation in 1804. Ingres portrait helped to establish Napoleons authority
and image.

France did receive internal stability and a consolida-


tion of most of the Revolutions policies. Napoleon
kept careers open to talent (Napoleons term mean-
ing jobs for the people with the proper ability, not for
those with aristocratic connections), suppressed aris-
tocratic privilege, rewarded wealthy property own-
ers, and refashioned public education. He welcomed
home revolutionaries who had emigratedprovided
they were loyal to his regime. He restored relations
with the papacy, though he failed to achieve religious
harmony. He also ended the civil war that had raged
for more than a decade, and he reformed the economy.
Napoleons most enduring legacy was a law code
that introduced rational legal principles and legiti-
mized the idea of the lay state. The Napoleonic Code
rested on reforms of the revolutionary era, such as the
abolition of serfdom, the guilds, and feudal property.
Despite its reactionary ideas of paternal rule and the
subservience of womenthus reversing the small
gains made by women in the revolutionary erathe
code remains the basis of civil law in both France and
its former colonies.
Napoleons military conquests and diplomatic suc-
cesses soon eclipsed his domestic achievements. A
The Directory lasted only four years. Although this brilliant field general before he seized power, Napo-
government favored the commercial middle classes, it leon launched a series of victorious wars once he be-
was committed to the Revolution. However, its leaders came emperor in 1804 (Figure 18.2). When not winning
faced nearly insurmountable problems, such as a grow- battles, he managed to undermine the coalitions allied
ing counterrevolution, the collapse of the currency, and against him by exploiting his foes basic distrust of one
a breakdown in law and order. The directors appealed another. In particular, he worked to keep Great Britain
to the military for aid against their enemies, and in out of Continental affairs while he crushed Prussia and
November 1799 General Napoleon Bonaparte staged a Austria. Simultaneously, he annexed land for France
coup dtat (French, literally, a stroke of state, a sud- and established satellite kingdoms ruled by members
den, violent overthrow of government) that abolished of his family or by his generals. As the self-proclaimed
the Directory and established the Consulate. heir to the Age of Reason and the French Revolution,
Napoleon reorganized his newly conquered territories
French Empire With the rise of Napoleon along the lines of France. At first, many local reformers
(17691821), events had come full circle, in effect re- welcomed the French, but they soon learned the high
turning France to a monarchy. Napoleon was a dicta- costs of occupation and began to resist their libera-
tor and military genius who embodied the enlightened tors (Map 18.1).
despotism of his century and, at the same time, antici- Napoleons empire upset the European balance of
pated modern totalitarianism. Above all, he was heir to power at a basic level, so that ultimately the other na-
the French Revolution. tions united to defeat him once he was proven vulner-
S Although the cost of Napoleonic rule between able in battle by the failure of his invasion of Russia in
N 1799 and 1815 was the loss of political liberty at home, 1812. An alliance of Great Britain and the European
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Political Revolutions, 17601815 471

Learning Through Maps


0 250 500 mi
KINGDOM
OF
0 500 1000 km
KINGDOM SWEDEN
OF
NORWAY
North AND

a
KINGDOM

Se
Sea DENMARK
OF lti

c
GREAT Ba
BRITAIN KINGDOM OF RUSSIAN
PRUSSIA EMPIRE

el
nn
a
ATLANTIC Ch GRAND DUCHY
English OF WARSAW
OCEAN CONFEDERATION
OF THE
RHINE
FRENCH
EMPIRE
AUSTRIAN
EMPIRE

SWITZERLAND KINGDOM
OF
KINGDOM ITALY
OF Black Sea
PORTUGAL Ad
ria
MONTENEGRO
KINGDOM c
OF SPAIN ti Se
a
O
KINGDOM KINGDOM TT
OF NAPLES OM
OF SARDINIA AN
Aegean EMPIRE
Sea

KINGDOM
OF SICILY
Me
dit
err
an
ean
French Empire Sea

States under the control of the French

States allied with the French

MAP
MHS6318.1
536 EUROPE AT THE HEIGHT OF NAPOLEONS POWER, 18101811
mat76620_m1701.eps
This map shows the maximum expansion of Napoleonic power across the map of Europe.1. Compare the borders of the French Empire in this map
First proof
with those of France in Map 17.1, Europe, 17631789. 2. Identify the states now under the control of, or allied with, France. 3. Notice the various states
that appear in Map 15.1 but no longer exist or have new names in Map 18.1. 4. Consider the influence of geography in helping make Great Britain and
Russia the enemies of Napoleon.

states defeated Napoleon in June 1815 at Waterloo (in with the French Revolution, when slaves in Frances
modern Belgium). Exiled to an island in the South colony in the West Indies, inspired by the revolution-
Atlantic, Napoleon died there in 1821, but his spirit ary ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, joined
hovered over France and Europe for much of the nine- together to fight for their freedom.
teenth century. Slave conditions in the New World were grim. Af-
ter about 1780, New World slave owners imported
nearly seventy-five thousand slaves a year, many of
Global Encounter: them destined for the sugar plantations in the French
Slavery and the French Revolution colony of Saint Domingue, or modern Haiti. Saint
When African slaves were introduced into the Domingue was the western half of the island of His-
West Indies and North America in the early 1600s, paniola; the eastern half was Spains colony of Santo
many whites accepted slavery as sanctioned by the Domingo. Saint Domingues slaves, possessing no
Bible and necessary to large-scale agriculture. After rights, were at the bottom of a rigid social and racial
1750 those attitudes were challenged, as thinkers and system. The colony was run by white plantation own-
religious groups, especially the Quakers, began to ers, rich merchants, nobles, clergy, and government S
question slaverys legitimacy. The turning point came officials. In 1789, when news of the outbreak of the N
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472 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

French Revolution reached Saint Domingue, the colo- defeating both British and French forces, he ruled the
nys old social and racial order began to crumble. island as a military dictator. A year later Toussaint was
In the first phase of the French Revolution, the arrested and sent to France, where he died in prison.
white elite on Saint Domingue set up their own gov- Black leaders, taking advantage of Frances distraction
ernment, sent delegates to the Estates-General in Paris in the Napoleonic Wars, established the independent
(Figure 18.3), and pressed for economic freedom. From republic of Haiti (1803). This regime was the first black
1790 to 1794, a series of revolts by free people of color, republic in history and the second republic in the New
poorer whites, and slaves broke out and spread to the World.
Spanish side of the island. The islands revolutionary
government abolished slavery in 1793, and the French
government in Paris did likewise in 1794. By then,
an ex-slave, Toussaint LOuverture [TOO-san LOO- Technology
ver-tchur] (17431803), who was literate and familiar The American Revolutionary War, the French Revolu-
with the works of the French philosophes (see Chap- tionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars blended old
ter 17), had emerged as a military leader. In 1801, after and new technologies. Waged with both proven and
new weapons, they were fought with traditional and
innovative tactics and strategies and subjected to var-
Figure 18.3 Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson. Portrait of Citizen ied influences, far from the scenes of battle. By about
Jean-Baptiste Belley. 1798. Oil on canvas, 52 3/5 37 7/10. Chateaux 1750, most of Europes great powers (Great Britain,
de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles, France. Jean-Baptiste Belley France, Austria, and Prussia) had created an early ver-
[buh-LAY] joined the slave revolt led by Toussaint LOuverture before
being elected as one of three delegates to the constitutional assembly, or
sion of the military-industrial complex: tax systems to
Convention, in 1793. He lost his seat in 1797. He then threw his support to pay for armies and navies, contracts to supply arms
Napoleon and, later, during the campaign to restore French rule in Haiti, and materials, and bureaucracies to oversee funds,
ended up a prisoner in France, where he died in 1805. Elegantly dressed goods, and services. Officers still came from the up-
in the official costume of the Convention and wearing the French tricolor per class, with rank-and-file soldiers and sailors from
in his sash and on his hat, Belley leans against the bust of Abb Raynal
[re-NAHL], the French philosophe whose antislavery writings inspired
the lower class. With most countries at military parity,
Toussaint and probably Belley. Including and relating a dead person to victory often hinged on technology, innovative think-
the individual in the portrait was a popular device in eighteenth-century ing, and resources as the scale and complexity of war-
paintings. The background on the right represents the Haitian countryside. fare increased.

Changes in Military Weaponry The evolution of


the artillery cannon exemplified the changing face of
weaponry in this period:
In the 1730s, the French improved the cannon,
casting it as solid metal, out of which the barrel
was bored; they also standardized the cannons
parts, thus making a failed part easy to replace.
By the 1770s, artillery had become more accurate
and more powerful, more mobile and safer.
Despite the improved cannon, battlefield success still
depended on how the generals placed their troops and
managed their firepower, as Napoleon demonstrated
in his victories.

Composition of Armies European armies were


transformed by the French Revolution:
In 1793, France founded the first citizens army
through the leve en masse, or mobilization of all
Frenchmen.
From 1793 to 1815, other countries continued to
rely on mercenary troops or those pressed or
tricked into military service.
S By 1914, most Western nations had adopted the
N French model, using conscription of eligible male
L citizens to have large standing armies.
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REACTION, 18151830 473

Figure 18.4 James Gillray. John Bull Botherd:orthe Geese Alarming the Capitol. 1792. Hand-
colored etching and aquatint, 121/4 151/4. New College, Oxford. As the French Revolution grew more
radical, British observers became increasingly alarmed. James Gillray (17561815), the master caricaturist
of Englands golden age of caricaturing, shows William Pitt, the prime minister, peering through a telescope
with John Bullthe symbol of Great Britain standing beside him. At this time, national symbols were
taking shape across the West. In this caricature, Pitt thinks the geese are the French sans-culottes about to
descend on Great Britain and overthrow the government. John Bull, the personification of the common man,
is bothered (a word derived from both eared), not knowing what to believe since he sees only geese, and,
like many Englishmen in 1792, he is confused. To emphasize his dilemma, his hat reads God Save the King
while his French cockade has Vive la libert (Long Live Liberty). The balloonsa typical feature of these
caricaturesabove Pitt and John Bull convey Pitts fears and John Bulls mixed feelings. This Gillray work
typically has more than one meaning, as it is also a sly protest against the British governments campaign to
whip up fear about events in France. When collected by admirers, prints like this became part of what has been
called the public sphere of British life, which included coffeehouses and print shops, where public discourse
occurred among the politically aware. This work also shows Gillray to be a master of the aquatint.

Changes to Naval Warfare The rivalry between notion that they were citizens of the world, largely
France and Great Britain changed the role of naval ignored the traditions of the peoples whom they had
warfare. conquered, convinced that the principles of their
revolutionary society represented what was best for
In 1763, France entered a naval race with Great humanity. However, the French were not as success-
Britain. Nevertheless, for the rest of this period, ful as they had hoped in exporting their revolution,
France valued its army over its navy and did not because the victorious continental states and Great
build up its fleet strength. Britain shared a conservative agenda that aimed to
In contrast, Britain placed the Royal Navy first, suppress the advance of liberal ideas. At the Congress
giving it strong support from Parliament and the of Vienna in 1815, the victors stripped France of most
nation (Figure 18.4). of its conquests, restored the balance of power, halted
Britains Royal Navy defeated Napoleons navy, or reduced reform programs, and inaugurated a pe-
after which Britain ruled the waves until World riod of reaction.
War I. Despite this redesign of the map, many Napole-
onic reforms remained in force until 1830 and beyond.
Even in France, where the allies restored the Bour-
REACTION, 18151830 bons, Louis XVIII (r. 18151824) issued a charter that
The victorious nations tried to restore Europe to its guaranteed a constitutional regime resembling the
prerevolutionary status, but the forces of change had limited monarchy of 1791. Most western European S
already altered the future of Westernand world states now had governments elected by male citi- N
history. The French, as heirs to the Enlightenment zens and civil laws based on the Napoleonic Code. In L
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474 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REvoLUTIoN, REACTIoN, AND CULTURAL RESPoNSE

contrast, Prussia, Russia, and Austria remained auto- (17031792) influenced millions of Muslims during
cratic, and untouched by democracy and representa- this period, teaching them to support their communi-
tive government. ties and, most especially, to live by the Quran, Islamic
The fate of reform in Europe between 1815 and 1830 law, and the teachings of the Prophet.
varied across the Continent. In Great Britain, the gov- While the sultans struggled to keep peace at home,
ernment at first resisted attempts to reform Parliament the ottoman Empire often fought borderland wars
or to institute free trade, but in the 1820s, it began to against Russia (sometimes joined by Austria). of these
make modest changes. France regressed toward ab- wars, the two most damaging were waged against
solutism as the restored Bourbon monarchy chipped Russias empress Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796). In
away at the revolutionary heritage. In 1830, resistance the first war, the ottomans were forced to cede the
to the crown exploded in the July Revolution, which Crimea to Russia, and the second ended in a draw
replaced the Bourbon king with Louis Philippe, the (1792). While Russia gained little in the second war,
Duke of orlans (r. 18301848). Constitutional govern- the West drew the conclusion that the ottoman Em-
ment now put the middle class in power. pire was fair game for future incursionsboth mili-
In central Europe, the Austrian Empire kept liberal tary and commercial.
sentiments under tight control. Prussia, which had The ottoman Empires feeble condition was
made important liberal reforms in the Napoleonic confirmed in 1798, when Napoleon invaded
era, now seemed more focused on efficiency than in Egypt, as part of his plan to cut off British access
modernizing the state. Russia became increasingly to India. Muhammad Ali (17691849), the ottoman
reactionary and repressive. Until the 1860s, Russias commander sent to fight the French invasion, broke
czarist regime and Austrias mastery of central Eu- with the sultan and made himself ruler of a quasi-
rope widened the gulf between eastern and western independent dynasty in Egyptfriendly to France.
Europe. Having gained a toehold in Egypt, the French, in
1830 invaded Algiers (modern Algeria)an ottoman
provinceconquering it over a twenty-year period.
The West and Islam: The Ottoman The ottoman Empire next lost Greece in the Greek
Empire in Retreat, 17001830 War of Independence (18211830). During this pro-
After the Treaty of Karlowitz, in 1699 (see Chap- longed struggle, progressive Europeans rallied to the
ter 15), by which ottoman rule over most of the Chris- Greek cause, among them the French artist, Eugene
tian peoples of the Balkans was ended, the ottoman Delacroix. Delacroixs Massacre at Chios (Figure 18.5)
Empire was never the same. For centuries, the empire depicts dead and dying Greeks in the foreground,
had been the major power in the Middle East and the while two Turkish soldiers (in turbans) slaughter the
Arab world. Now, it was a weakened force in the re- innocents. Earlier, in 1822, the Turks had killed twenty
gion, racked by internal strife and threatened by west- thousand Greeks on the Aegean island of Chios, the
ern invaders. At home, the battles were now between legendary birthplace of Homer. Thus, for educated
reformers, who wanted to westernize the ottoman westerners, this painting was a visual metaphor of
world, and a renewal movement based on Islamic law. an Islamic attack upon the glories of the humanistic
In foreign affairs, the perennial issue was the threat tradition.
of European states intent on expanding their political
and commercial influence across the Middle East and
North Africa.
Between 1699 and 1830, ottoman rulers made a se- REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND
ries of sociopolitical innovations based on European IDEAS: FROM NEOCLASSICISM
models and guided by European advisers. The reigns
of two sultans are particularly noteworthy: Sultan TO ROMANTICISM
Selim III (r.17891807), who introduced many admin- The makers of the French Revolution adopted an artis-
istrative, land, taxation, and military reforms; and tic style that was already in vogue and perfectly suited
Mahmud II (r. 18081839), who continued the western- their purposesthe neoclassical. Unlike the frivolous
izing efforts in government, education, and dress. rococo, this style was high-minded, ethical, and seri-
These top-down reforms led to growing interest in ous. Neoclassical artists and architects followed the
western goods and culture, especially in the wealthier ancient Greco-Roman ideals of balance, simplicity, and
sectors of ottoman society. But a few scholars and restraint, principles that were thought to embody the
clerics, taking great offense at this opening to the underlying order of the universe. Truth was seen as
West, countered by urging a return to a purer form eternal, unchanging, the same for one and all. Art
S of Islam, that is, a renewal movement. Groups like and literature created according to classical principles
N the Sufi brotherhood (see Chapter 9) and the Wah- were believed to be both morally uplifting and aes-
L habi sect (founded by Muhammund Abd al-Wahhab thetically satisfying.
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 475

Figure 18.5 Eugne Delacroix. Massacre at Chios. 1824. Oil on canvas, 1310 117. Louvre. This
horrific scene is not only a rarity in the history of Western art but also a great work of art and a piece of political
propaganda. The painting was popular when exhibited in the 1824 Paris Salon. The French government bought
it for six thousand francsa common practice in that period, which linked the art world with the state.

In England, classicism lingered on in the novels of Advanced thinkers in France made the neoclassical
Jane Austen. Untouched by the revolutions that domi- paintings of Jacques-Louis David (see Interpreting Art
nated this age, Austen created fictional works that took in Chapter 17) a symbol of the new rational order they
Englands deep countryside for their setting and dealt wanted to introduce into the world. The Revolution in- S
with the lives of the less wealthy gentry, a middle-class tensified devotion to classical ideals, and David became N
world that appealed to her audience. its official artist. Later, when the Revolution lost its way L
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476 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

and France began to see itself as a new Rome, Napo- as inhabiting a serene environment reminiscent of
leon made David his court painter. After 1800, David the quiet domestic scenes of the seventeenth-century
transformed neoclassicism into an imperial style that Dutch painter Vermeer (see Chapter 15). Calling her-
continued in France and on the Continent long after self a miniaturist, she concentrated her authors eye on
Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena, in 1815, off Africas a vanishing world where the smallest important unit
west coast. was the family and the most significant problems in-
Even earlier, starting about 1770, a new move- volved the adjustment of social relationships.
ment was emerging across Europe, one that was In the hands of a lesser writer, such a literary pro-
to have lasting effects on the Western conscious- gram might have failed by being too narrow, but Aus-
ness. Romanticism, a new way of thinking, came to ten transcended her limited framework. She did this
dominate European culture in the nineteenth century. through clear writing, ironic understatement, and,
Rejecting neoclassicism as cold and artificial, the ro- above all, beautiful descriptions of the polite manners
mantics glorified the unruly side of nature, uncon- and minute rituals of provincial life: the balls attended,
trolled feeling, and the mysteries of the human soul. the letters and conversations, the visits to relatives,
They claimed that their ideals were more in tune with and the unexpected social breakdowns, such as an
human nature than the order, reason, and harmony of elopement, a betrayed confidence, or a broken engage-
classicism. Some elements of romanticism have per- ment. She was especially sensitive to the constraints
meated the Western way of thinking to become arti- her society imposed on women, depicting with great
cles of faith in the modern world. wit a world in which women were given little access
to formal education, confined to the domestic sphere,
kept economically dependent on men, and socialized
Neoclassicism in Literature after 1789 to be weak and sentimental. The best known of Aus-
During her brief life, Jane Austen (17751817) wrote six tens novels is Pride and Prejudice (1813), a gently satiri-
novels that together rank as the finest body of fiction cal work whose plot revolves around the problems that
produced in this period. Austen approached novel arise when the Bennetsa shabby-genteel familytry
writing in a classical spirit, portraying her characters to find suitable husbands for five daughters.

Neoclassical Painting
and Architecture after 1789
Jacques-Louis David founded neoclassicism in paint-
ing in the 1780s and remained its consummate expo-
nent until his death in 1825. As official artist of the
French Revolution, he rendered contemporary events
in the ancient manner. Davids most successful paint-
ing from this period was his study of the Revolutions
famous martyr Jean-Paul Marat [muh-RAH], who was
assassinated while seated in his bath (Figure 18.6).
Himself an ardent supporter of the Revolution, Da-
vid meticulously planned this work to give universal
meaning to a specific moment in French history. The
setting is historically accurate because Marat suffered
from a skin disorder and often conducted official busi-
ness while seated in the bathtub. Having established
the scene, David suppressed every detail that did
not contribute to the general impression of tragedy.
As a result, the few details take on a highly charged

Figure 18.6 Jacques-Louis David. Death of Marat. 1793. Oil on canvas,


65 50 1/2. Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Davids
presentation of figures in the nude in his neoclassical history paintings was
often denounced by literal-minded critics as unrealistic, but David defended
this choice as consistent with the customs of antiquity. The critics were
silenced by Davids depiction of the Marat murder scene, since in this case
S the nudity was true to life. In this painting, Davids classical principles and
N the demands of realistic portrayal combined to produce a timeless image.
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 477

quality. The figure of Marat resembles a piece of clas-


sical sculpture against the stark background. His torso
is twisted so that the bleeding wound and the peace-
ful face are fully visible. The pen and the inkwell re-
mind the viewer that Marat was killed while serving
the Revolutionthus, David has portrayed Marat as a
secular saint.
The only neoclassical painter comparable to Da-
vid was his pupil Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
[ANG-gruh] (17801867). Ingres inherited the mantle
of neoclassicism from David, but he lacked his teach-
ers moral enthusiasm. As a result, Ingres classicism
is rather cold-blooded. The finest expressions of In-
gres art are his portraits. Using clean lines drawn
with a sure and steady hand, he created photographic
images of his subjects. Of Ingres many portraits,
one of the most exquisite is that of Madame Rivire
[reev-yehr], the wife of Philibert Rivire, an official in
Napoleons regime (Figure 18.7). While not probing
deeply into the inner self, this portrait focused on the
sitters high social position, stressing her poise and al-
luding to her wealth through her jewelry and dress.
Madame Rivires portrait and that of Napoleon (see
Figure 18.2) were exhibited in the 1806 Paris Salon,
where the publics acclaim made the young artists
reputation, at age twenty-six. Ingres singular achieve-
ment was to give the rising bourgeois class the same Figure 18.7 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Madame Rivire. 1805. Oil
on canvas, oval, 45 36. Louvre. Ingres was the last great painter of
glamorous treatment that rococo artists had accorded portraits in a field that was taken over by the camera after 1840. A keen
the prerevolutionary aristocracy. observer of the human face and form, Ingres was able to render intense,
After 1789 the neoclassical style in architecture idealized but realistic likenesses, as evidenced in Madame Rivires
spread to the European colonies, notably to the for- portrait. Ingres conveys his subjects physical presence by centering her in
mer British territories in North America. In the United the foreground, highlighting her physical features and the color of her flesh,
and depicting the gleaming surfaces of her clothing and the pillow on which
States, the middle-class founders of the new republic she leans. The patterned shawlprobably an expensive accessory
adopted neoclassicism and made it synonymous with accentuates the oval shape of the portrait by covering the subjects right
their own time, which is known as the federal period. arm, curling around her shoulders, and hanging over the chair.
They graced their capital, Washington, with the clas-
sical architecture that symbolized devotion to republi-
can and democratic sentiments. tecture (Figure 18.9). From his plan for the Virginia
The most profound influence on Americas clas- statehouse arose the tradition of building public struc-
sical heritage was exercised by Thomas Jefferson tures in the form of ancient temples. His model for the
(17431826), the coauthor of the Declaration of Indepen- capitol was the Maison Carre (see Figure 5.9), a Roman
dence and the third president of the United States. Jef- temple dating from the first century CE. Though small
ferson was also a master architect. Like other architects by todays standards for public buildings, Jeffersons
in this era, he was deeply indebted to the principles statehouse has a strong presence and is a marvel of re-
of the Italian Andrea Palladio (15081580). Palladios fined elegance and simple charm. The most pleasing
Villa Rotonda near Vicenza served as the model for part of his original design is the central building, with
Jeffersons home at Monticello, near Charlottesville, its perfectly proportioned featurescolumns, pedi-
Virginia (Figure 18.8). Like the Villa Rotonda (see Fig- ment, and windows. Even though two smaller wings
ure 13.24), Monticello is a country dwelling arranged were added later, they enhance rather than detract
around a domed central area, though it features only from Jeffersons symmetrical and harmonious plan.
two symmetrical connecting wings. Executed in brick
with wooden trim, Monticello has inspired so many
imitations that it has come to symbolize the American Romanticism: Its Spirit and Expression
dream of gracious living. In contrast to neoclassicism, romanticism symbolized
Likewise, Jeffersons design for Virginias state capi- the unbounded and untamed. The romantics patron S
tol in Richmond has deeply influenced public archi- saint was the nature-loving Rousseau (see Chapter17). N
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478 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

Figure 18.8 Thomas Jefferson. Monticello. 17701784; remodeled 17961806. Charlottesville,


Virginia. The Palladio-inspired architecture of Monticello reflected Jeffersons ethical vision. Its portico in
the plain style of a Roman temple mirrored his admiration for the Roman republic and its ideals of simplicity
and order. Its overall devotion to mathematical principles and unobtrusive details were expressions of his
commitment to disciplined living. Though built for one of Americas elite, Monticello was conceived on a
modest scale as a visual rebuke to the luxurious palaces of Europes aristocrats.

Figure 18.9 Thomas Jefferson. State


Capitol of Virginia. 17851796. Richmond,
Virginia. Jefferson described the Maison
Carre, the model for this statehouse, as the
most perfect and precious remain of antiquity
in existence. Political considerations also
influenced Jeffersons choice, for he identified
this Roman temple as a symbol of Roman
republican values. Like Monticello, Jeffersons
statehouse design was an outgrowth
S of his ethical vision.
N
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 479

Like Rousseau, the romantics preferred to be guided of other cultures by conquering them and then im-
by emotion and intuition. Following these guides, they posing French customs. These conservative romantics
conjured up an image of the world that was deeply per- renounced the French Revolutions stress on abstract
sonal and alive with hidden meanings. Nature itself ideas and natural rights and focused their attention
became God for many romantics, who spiritualized on history and the rights and traditions native to each
nature so that divinity was expressed through bucolic country. Rejecting the Revolutions international spirit,
scenes as well as terrifying natural spectacles. To char- they advocated instead a nationalistic point of view.
acterize this force of nature, the romantics invented At first, romantic nationalism was little more than a
the term sublime to convey the awesome and majestic reaction against foreign influences and a reverence for
power of the sea, earthquakes, floods, and storms. those unique aspects of culture that are created by the
The romantic reverence for nature stemmed common peoplefolk dancing, folk sayings, folktales,
partly from a desire to escape from the effects of folk music, and folk customs. This benign national-
the Industrial Revolution, which was altering ism later developed into an aggressive attitude that
the countryside for the worse (Figure 18.10). Not sur- insisted on the moral superiority of one people over
prisingly, England, the first home of industrialization, all others and expressed unrelenting hostility toward
became the center of movements that exalted the Mid- outsiders. In its extreme form, militant nationalism
dle Ages and idolized nature, creating sentiments that encouraged the expulsion of alien groups who were
existed only in the romantics imaginations. Their re- not recognized as members of the national heritage.
jection of the industrial world had other consequences, Aggressive nationalism in Europe lasted almost a cen-
including a preoccupation with the exotic East and the tury, from 1848 to 1945, climaxing in Nazi Germany,
domains of the imagination, dreams, drugs, and non- and still remains a potent force around the world.
rational mental states. The romantics also generated a cult of nonconfor-
Many early romantics willingly saw in the French mity and held in great esteem outlaws, gypsies, and
Revolution a better future for Europe. They believed those who lived outside middle-class society. This
that the revolutionary watchwords liberty, rights of hostility toward middle-class life has an ironic twist
man, the individual, and equality could become because those who professed it generally came from
the basis of a moral and humanitarian worldview. this class and sought its patronage. The unruly pres-
When Greece fought for its freedom from the Ottoman ence of romanticism coincided with the rise to politi-
Empire in the 1820s, for example, many Europeans de- cal dominance of the middle class. Out of the love-hate
clared their solidarity with the rebels, including the relationship between romantics and the middle class
English romantic poet Lord Byron, who died in Greece emerged another familiar emblem of modern life, the
while aiding in the cause of Greek independence. antibourgeois bourgeoisthat is, middle-class people
The French Revolution also sparked a strong nega- who scorn their own social origins. From the dawn of
tive reaction among some romantics, who criticized its the romantic period until the present day, modern cul-
seemingly random violence. They likewise deplored ture has been filled with middle-class rebels in revolt
Napoleonic imperialism, which squeezed the life out against their class.

Figure 18.10 Philip Jacques de Loutherbourg.


Coalbrookdale by Night. 1801. Oil on
canvas, 263/4 42. Science and Society
Picture Library, London. At first glance, this
painting seems to portray the world engulfed
in a flaming inferno. Only gradually does the
meaning of the scenea depiction of one of
Englands new industrialized townsemerge.
As a terrifying symbol of industrialism, the
painting helps to explain what romantic art
was rebelling against. S
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480 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

France played a central role in romanticism be- revolution that was the equivalent of the coming of
cause of its culturally strategic position, and England democracy.
also produced major figures in romanticism, particu- The task Wordsworth assigned himself in Lyrical
larly in poetry and painting. Notwithstanding these Ballads was to compose verses about the pleasures of
achievements, the heart of romanticism was German- everyday existence. He responded to this challenge
speaking Europe. The French writer Madame de Stal with poems filled with deep feeling, which were
(17661817) helped popularize German culture with mainly about finding wisdom in simple things. A
her book On Germany (1810). So great was the German poem from this collection titled Lines Composed a
cultural response that romanticism is often called a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey shows Wordsworths
German invention. pantheism, or the belief that God lives in nature. In it,
speaking to his sister Dorothy, he recalls the strong
emotions he felt in his early life when he bounded oer
The Romantic Movement in Literature the mountains, by the sides / of the deep rivers, and
Romanticism in literature was foreshadowed in the the lonely streams, / wherever nature led. Now he de-
German literary movement known as Sturm und scribes himself as subdued but still a worshipper of
Drang, or storm and stress. This movement began Nature. Wordsworths nature is a world of overgrown
in the 1770s, arising as a revolt against classical re- hedgerows, meadows, orchards, and peasant cottages.
straint and drawing inspiration from Rousseaus emo- The beauty of the ordinary became Wordsworths life-
tionalism. The movements authorsmostly from the long preoccupation; he is regarded as the English lan-
middle-classobjected to the formality and tedium guages most stirring poet of nature.
of eighteenth-century life and letters and valued Soon after the appearance of Lyrical Ballads, Goethe
free expression in language, dress, and love. In their published his verse play Faust (Part I, 1808). Goethes
works, they celebrated peasant life and the uncon- Werther had been a social rebel, the prototype of the
ventional, liberated mind. They also attacked orga- antibourgeois bourgeois. But his Faust was a univer-
nized religion, because of its hypocrisy, and followed sal rebel, unwilling to let any moral scruple stand in
Rousseau in finding God in nature. By the mid-1780s, the way of his spiritual quest for the meaning of life.
the Sturm und Drang movement had settled down, Fausts two distinguishing marks are his relentless
drained of its rebelliousness, and its most influential pursuit of knowledge and his all-consuming restless-
members were now fully integrated into the German ness. Having exhausted book learning, Faust hopes
literary scene. that experience will satisfy his spiritual hunger, and
The Sturm und Drang movements outstanding thus he turns to the devil (Mephistopheles), who pro-
writer was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [GUHR-tuh] poses to give Faust all the exciting experiences that
(17491832), the greatest of German writers. In 1774, have been absent in his life. If Faust finds any of his
while still in his twenties, Goethe acquired a European- adventures satisfying, then his immortal soul is for-
wide reputation with The Sorrows of Young Werther, a ever condemned to hell. Under such conditions Faust
novel in which the young hero commits suicide be- signs the compact, in his blood, with Mephistopheles.
cause of disappointment in love. So successful was Mephistopheles helps Faust recover his youth and
this novel that it led to Wertherism, the social phe- involves him in a series of escapades that include
nomenon in which young men imitated the heros drunkenness, sexual excess, seduction, and murder.
emotionalism, sometimes even to the point of killing His mistress kills their illegitimate child and perishes
themselves. Werther is a complex character: passionate in despair. Faust, Part I, concludes with Faust more
and excitable, given to inappropriate outbursts, moved dissatisfied than when he began his quest and no
by the innocence of children, attracted to social mis- nearer to his goal. Goethe later added Part II (1832), in
fits, and overwhelmed by Gods presence in nature. which God redeems Faust because of his willingness
He embodies many characteristics of romanticism. to sacrifice his life for others, but because it lacked the
Literary romanticism truly began with the publica- emotional intensity of Part I, it failed to reach a large
tion in England in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads by William audience.
Wordsworth (17701850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge Goethes Faust, Part I, became the most often per-
(17721834). The two poets rejected what they con- formed German-language play in the world of all time.
sidered to be the artificiality of the neoclassicists and It inspired numerous paintings and several works of
turned to natural types of verse, Coleridge to ballad music. The word Faustian now is used to character-
forms and Wordsworth to simple lyrics of plain folks, ize one who is willing to sacrifice spiritual values for
voiced in the common language of the middle and knowledge, experience, or mastery.
lower classes of society. Henceforth many romantic Another powerful voice in romantic literature
S writers, in both poetry and prose, sought to repro- was the English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron
N duce the language of customary speecha literary (17881824). Better known on the Continent than his
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 481

compatriots Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron was England Romanticism in painting appeared first in
called by Goethe the herald of world literature. The England, manifesting itself as part of a cult of nature
personality of Byron has fascinated successive genera- with two distinct aspects, the pastoral and the sublime.
tions of Western artists and thinkers. At a time when Painters of pastoral scenes specialized in landscapes in
the middle classes were ruled by a restrictive code of which peasant life was equated with the divine order
respectability, he created a model for rebellious youth of things, thus forging a moral link between human be-
with his flowing hair, open shirt collar, and love of ings and the natural environment. John Constable was
ungovernable forces. His greatest romantic creation the chief exponent of the pastoral. In contrast, paint-
was probably himselfthe Byronic hero, who was ers of sublime subjects focused on devastating natural
moody, passionate, absorbed in exploring and express- or human-made calamities, reflecting a world order
ing his innermost self. beyond mortal control or understanding. The leading
Yet the English treated Byron as a pariah and drove exponent of the sublime was J.M.W. Turner.
him into exile for his unconventional life. Perhaps in Like the Dutch masters of the 1600s, John Constable
retaliation, Byron, in his most admired poem, Don (17761837) preferred to paint simple country land-
Juan (18191824), presented the notorious seducer as scapes. But more important than the Dutch influence
a virtuous heroa literary device intended to expose on his art was the romantic cult of nature. Constables
the hypocrisy of society. Like Goethes Faust, Byrons landscapes, like Wordsworths poetry, reflected the
Don Juan was a study in moral duality and reflected sense of Gods universal presence in nature. Words
the authors fascination with subterranean drives in worth claimed that nature aroused feelings that
human nature. connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky. In
English romanticism also produced two of the most his six-foot canvases, Constable tried to awaken the
pervasive figures of Western cultureFrankenstein viewer to the divinity in nature by focusing on ordi-
and his manufactured monster. Made familiar through nary scenes such as might be encountered on a coun-
countless films and cartoons, these two fictional char- try walk. Constable had an almost holy vision that
acters first appeared in the novel Frankenstein (1818) by was true to nature without using what he called tricks
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (17971851). Shelley was or crass emotional appeals.
well connected to two of the most unconventional Constables landscapes convey a feeling of hav-
literary families of the day; she was the daughter of ing been painted on the spot. In actuality, he liked to
Mary Wollstonecraft, a founder of modern feminism sketch on a site and then transform his impressions in
(see Chapter 17), and she was the wife of the poet his studio into a finished painting that preserved the
Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822). In Shelleys novel, feeling of immediacy. This two-step method resulted
Dr. Frankenstein, having thoughtlessly constructed a in a style that was both solid and sensitive to the nat-
humanlike being with no prospect for personal hap- ural world and also conveyed the feeling that his vi-
piness, is eventually hunted down and killed by his sion sprang from a mystical communion with nature,
own despairing creature. Part of the romantic reaction rather than being an artificial scene conceived in an
against Enlightenment rationalism, which began with artists workshop.
Rousseau (see Chapter 17), Shelleys novel presented Although Constables art was not fully appreci-
Frankenstein as a man driven by obsessive intellec- ated by his contemporaries, a few works won acclaim
tual curiosity and the monster as a tragic symbol of and helped to redefine the way the public looked at
science out of control. Written in the optimistic dawn nature. Of these the most famous is The Hay Wain (Fig-
of the industrialized age, when humanity seemed on ure18.11). Over the years, this painting has been repro-
the verge of taming the natural world, Shelleys Fran- duced so often that it is sometimes dismissed as calen-
kenstein is one of the earliest warnings that scientific dar art, but when it first appeared, it excited admiration
research divorced from morality is an open invitation at home and in Paris. The freshness of the simple im-
to personal and social disaster. ages attracted viewers to the beauty of the scene. The
Hay Wain added many features of everyday rural life
to the repertoire of romantic motifs, including a thatch-
Romantic Painting roofed cottage, a gently flowing stream, a dog running
Romanticism in painting was a European-wide art along a riverbank, cows grazing in the background,
style, in which artists of all countries shared many and overhead the ever-changing English sky.
subjects (landscape scenes and literary subjects) and The sky, for Constable, served as the unique source
themes (love of the exotic and the cult of the hero). But of light. In 18211822, he conducted a program that he
there were also national variations within this inter- called skying, capturing on canvas the cloud-filled
national style, as reflected in the images created by English sky as it moved from sunshine to rain and
the leading painters in England, Germany, Spain, and back again (Figure 18.12). Constables cloud studies S
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482 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

Figure 18.11 John Constable. The Hay Wain. 1821. Oil on canvas, 511/4 73. The National Gallery,
London. Although the pastoral subject was alien to them at the time, French romantic painters recognized in
Constable a kindred spirit when The Hay Wain was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1824. The scenes informality,
the strong colors, and the natural lighting converted them, and a later French school of landscape painters was
influenced by Constable.

Figure 18.12 John Constable. Cloud Study.


1821. Oil on paper on panel, 83/8 111/2.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.
Paul Mellon Collection. As Constable made
his cloud paintings, he kept precise records
of the weather conditions. For example, in
this Cloud Study, he recorded the date and
time, September 21, 1821, between 2 and
3 p.m., and noted: strong Wind at west, bright
light coming through the Clouds which are
S laying one on the other. Thus, these paintings
N combine the scientists meticulous eye with
L the artists sensitive response to nature.
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 483

who identified clouds as a symbol of various themes, in the way that he does here. He turns the sky, which
such as loneliness and the fleeting quality of life. In his occupies at least three-fourths of the canvas, into an
attempt to portray the out-of-doors in its lively colors abstract composition, a series of interpenetrating planes
and ever-changing light, Constable was an important of differently colored light.
influence on the nineteenth-century impressionists. Turner also dealt with another aspect of the sublime
As for the sublime, Joseph Mallord William Turner theme, the notion that all human endeavor is doomed,
(17751851) created a new type of subject, the sublime in The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl (Figure18.14).
catastrophe, in which he specialized from 1800 un- Inspired by his first visit to Italy, he portrays classical
til about 1830. He was the most original artist of his motifs in a romantic landscape. In ancient Rome, the
age, prefiguring the impressionists with his virtuosic imperial court built splendid villas at the Bay of Baiae
use of color and anticipating modern abstract paint- (near Naples), which by Turners time stood in ruins.
ing in his depictions of wild nature. An example of The painter, using artistic license, rearranged the ac-
Turners sublime catastrophes is Snowstorm: Hannibal tual scene to make this vista much more appealing. By
and His Army Crossing the Alps (Figure 18.13). Although placing Apollo and the Sibyl in the foreground, Turner
inspired by an episode from Roman history that ap- alludes to a Greek myth associated with the nearby
pealed to the publics penchant for historical themes, port of Cumae, the home of the Cumaean Sibyl.
this painting is more about the fury of nature than it is
about the Carthaginian general Hannibal. The actual Germany About the time the sublime developed
subject is the snowstorm, whose sweeping savagery in England, it also was launched in Germany by Cas-
threatens to annihilate everything, including soldiers par David Friedrich (17741840), a painter who spe-
and horses. No artist before Turner had handled paint cialized in brooding landscapes, usually with a few

Figure 18.13 Joseph Mallord William Turner. Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps.
18101812. Oil on canvas, 491/2 79 1/2. Tate Gallery. Hannibal and his troops, stretching from left to
right in the bottom third of the painting, are almost invisible; above them and dominating the scene is a raging
snowstorm, through which may be glimpsed a ghostly sun. This painting, based on a gothic novel of the time,
was less about the ancient struggle between the Carthaginian general Hannibal and Rome than about the
French general Napoleon and England in the 1800s; thus, this work implicitly reflects the periods political
climatea rare occurrence in Turners art.

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484 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Revolution, Reaction, and Cultural Response

Figure 18.14 Joseph Mallord William Turner.


The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl.
1823. Oil on canvas, 571/4 94. Tate
Gallery. Turner has deftly focused the viewers
eye on the paintings center by means of a
circular arrangement of objects (boats, ruins,
and rocks) and the use of shadows and light.
Within this space, Turner places Apollo making
overtures to the Sibyl, a tactic whose outcome
is symbolized by the rabbit and the snake.
The rabbit (center) represents love, referring
to Apollos pursuit of the Sibyl, and the snake
(lower right) alludes to lurking evil, perhaps a
reference to the Sibyls fate for spurning Apollo.
The god curses her so that she will grow old
but never diejust as the ruins at the Bay of
Baiae are reminders of Romes former glory.

Figure 18.15 Caspar David Friedrich. Monk by the Sea. 18081810. Oil on canvas, 431/4 671/2.
Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. This painting is revolutionary in form and content. In form,
it violates classical perspective by using a low horizon line to create a sky of limitless space; it also rejects
traditional design by reducing figures and setting to a minimum level. In content, the meaning is left deliberately
ambiguous. These simplifications make the painting a nearly abstract image, and thus it points the way to
modern art (see Chapter 20).

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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 485

diminutive human figures to give them a spiritual In 1799 Goya published a collection of etchings that
scale. A lifelong resident of Pomerania on northern set forth his savage indictment of the ages social evils
Europes Baltic coast, he drew artistic inspiration from and established him as an outstanding humanitarian
his homelands deserted beaches, dense forests, and artist. The title of this series was Caprichos, or Caprices,
chalky cliffs. What sets his landscapes apart from a romantic genre that allowed artists to express their
those of earlier artists on the same subject is his desire personal feelings on any subject and to use irrational
to turn natural scenes into glimpses of the divine mys- or imaginative scenes to plead for the use of reason
tery. Avoiding traditional Christian subjects, Friedrich in human affairs. One of the eighty caprichos, Hasta
invented his own symbols for conveying Gods pres- la Muerte, or Until Death (Figure 18.17), shows an old
ence in the world. woman gazing admiringly in a mirror and adjusting
In Monk by the Sea (Figure 18.15), the setting is the her hat, while a young woman, perhaps her maid, and
stark Baltic seacoast, where a hooded figure stands on two young men look on. The young woman and one
the dunes before a great wall of sky. This figurethe male attendant each cover their mouths, suggesting
monk of the titleforms the only vertical line in an they are laughing at such a ridiculous scene; the other
otherwise horizontal painting. Below is the angry sea, man gazes upward in a state of disbelief. In many of
but the sky is calm except for a bank of clouds lit by the caprichos, Goya probes the deeper meaning of life,
the moon or perhaps the coming dawn. By showing but, here, he treats the theme of vanity with a touch of
the monk from the backhe rarely painted faces humor, at the expense of a clueless old lady.
Friedrich encourages the viewer to see what the monk Napoleons conquest of Spain and the subsequent
sees and to feel what he feels. Perhaps, filled with opti- Spanish war of liberation form the background to Goyas
mism, he awaits a new day. Or perhaps, despairing, he masterpiece, The Execution of the Third of May, 1808 (Fig-
watches the descent of night. Or perhaps he feels in- ure 18.18). This protest against French imperialism
significant when confronted with the limitless sky and one of the worlds most compelling depictions of the
sea. Infrared photographs have revealed that Fried- horrors of warshows Spanish captives being exe-
rich originally included two ships struggling against cuted by a French firing squad. The French troops are a
the waves in the painting. Ships are often present in faceless line of disciplined automatons, and the Spanish
Friedrichs works, symbolic of a divine messenger to a band of ill-assorted prisoners. The Spanish patriots
the human realm. By painting them out, Friedrich re- are arranged in three groups: the dead (covered with
moved an optimistic note that may have guided the
viewers interpretation. Nevertheless, the finished
painting represents twin romantic themes and favor-
ites of Friedrichslove of solitude and fascination Figure 18.16 Francisco Goya. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Oil on
canvas, 92 11. Prado, Madrid. Following a well-established Spanish
with the infinite. tradition, Goya has painted himself into the canvas on the left, from which
vantage point in the shadows he observes the royal family. Velzquez
Spain In Spain, romanticism flourished in the anti had followed this tradition 150 years earlier (see Figure 15.11), which this
classical paintings of Francisco Goya (17461828), a painting echoes. Goya portrayed the ravaged face of the kings sister on
the left as a reminder of the fleeting nature of human beauty.
major figure in Spanish culture. Reflecting a night-
marish vision of the world, his art ranges from rococo
fantasies to sensual portraits to grim studies of human
folly to spiritual evil and finally to scenes of hopeless-
ness. Various reasons have been suggested for Goyas
descent into despair, but certainly his dashed hopes
for the regeneration of Spains political and social or-
der were central to his advancing pessimism, as was
his slow decline into deafness.
In the 1790s, Goya served as court painter to King
Charles IV, and signs of the artists political disaffec-
tion can be detected in his revealing portrait of the
royal family (Figure 18.16). He depicts the queen (cen-
ter) as a vain, foolish woman and the king (right, front)
as a simpleton. History has judged Goyas interpreta-
tions to be accurate, for this was a corrupt and stupid
court. Perhaps the lace-covered gowns, the glittering
medals, and the general elegance of the ensemble al-
lowed him to get away with such unflattering portraits S
and survive within this dangerous environment. N
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Figure 18.17 Francisco Goya. Hasta la Muerte (Until Death). 17971798.
Etching and aquatint, approx. 71/2 51/4. Private Collection. Goyas
artistic technique in the Caprichos series is aquatint, a process that uses
acid on a metal plate to create subtle shades of light and dark. The absence
of color in the resulting engravings heightens the moral message of these
works. In this etching, the mirror and the bottles and jars of cosmetics on
the table reinforce Goyas visual statement about vanity and aging.

Figure 18.18 Francisco Goya. The Execution of the Third of May, 1808.
18141815. Oil on canvas, 89 134. Prado, Madrid. A comparison
of this painting by Goya with Davids portrait of the assassinated Marat
(see Figure 18.6) shows the difference in tone between romantic and
neoclassical art. David makes Marats death a heroic sacrifice despite
its tragic circumstances. In contrast, Goyas passionate portrayal of the
Spanish martyrs shows that there is nothing heroic about their deaths; their
cause may be just, but the manner of their death is pitiless and squalid.

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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 487

blood and lying on the ground), those facing the firing on the moment of their rescue, he depicts ordinary
squad, and those marching forward with faces covered humans as noble heroes nearly overwhelmed by the
(the next round). The emotional center of this otherwise savage forces of nature. The nude and partially clad
somber-hued painting is the white-shirted man bathed bodies in the foreground convey a powerful sense of
in brilliant light. With his arms outstretched, he be- dignity and suffering. From here, the figures surge
comes a Christ figure, symbolizing Goyas compassion upward toward the black youth who is hoisted aloft
for all victims who die for a good cause. and waving a flag at the unseen rescue ship. Gri-
cault wanted his painting to convey a political state-
France
Romantic painting arrived in France ment about the government and to be as realistic as
in 1818 with the appearance of The Raft of the possiblehe interviewed survivors and had a replica
Medusa, a work by Thodore Gricault [zhay- of the raft constructedbut at the same time, he im-
rih-KOH] (17911824) that was based on an actual inci- bued it with expression and pathos. The result was
dent (Figure 18.19). The Medusa, a sailing ship, had a highly emotional work that embodied the spirit of
foundered in the South Atlantic, and it was believed romanticism.
that all aboard were lost. Then, after almost two Gricaults Raft of the Medusa also illustrates ro-
months, a handful of survivors were rescued from a manticisms connection to liberal political ideas. The
makeshift raft. From their story came shocking details devastated humanity on the raft underscored the
of mutiny, crimes by officers, murder, cannibalism, and breakdown in civilization that the entire Medusa in-
a government cover-up. cident came to represent. The painting itself became
Gricault was attracted to this incident in which a a rallying point for the critics of the restored Bour-
few men outwitted death against all odds. Focusing bon monarchy, who saw in the portrayal of a crew

Figure 18.19 Thodore Gricault. The Raft of the Medusa. 1818. Oil on canvas, 161 236. Louvre.
Other artists, including Turner and Friedrich, painted shipwrecks and their victims (see Figure 19.3), but
Gricaults enormous canvas is probably the best known. He so vividly caught his subjects desperation and
hope that his work received instant praise, regardless of the controversies surrounding the subject and its
relationships to social and political issues. With his usual thorough preparation, Gricault made over fifty
studies of the incident, rearranging the figures on the raft until he had created a pyramidal structure, moving
from the lower left corner to the center and upper right.

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488 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REvoLUTIoN, REACTIoN, AND CULTURAL RESPoNSE

Interpreting Art
History This painting workers), and the boy
celebrates the July waving the twin pistols
Revolution of 1830, which (street urchins, among the
kicked out the reactionary lowest social groups).
Bourbon king and
installed Louis Philippes Perspective
constitutional monarchy. Delacroix positions Liberty
and the three male figures
Setting Delacroix directly in front of the
leaves no doubt as to the viewer. This strategy
Paris setting. In the left ensures that the paintings
background, the image focal point is the tricolor,
of Notre Dame cathedral the Revolutionary flag.
looms through the billowing The tricoloradopted in
smoke. Scholars debate the 1789 Revolution and
whether or not the man in outlawed from 1815 until
the top hat is Delacroix. 1830was now restored
That said, from this as Frances national
point on, Delacroix was symbol.
recognized as the leader of
Frances romantic school Color The flags red,
of artists. white, and blue hues
determine the harmony of
Allegory Parisian color in this painting.
rebels are shown, manning
the barricades and led by a Composition The
bare-breasted goddess of design is that of a pyramid,
liberty. Encircling Liberty rising from the base of
are three central figures dead bodies to the apex
who collectively symbolize of the tricolor flag held
the People who waged eugne DeLacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1831. Oil on canvas, 86 108. Louvre. Completed a year aloft by Liberty. A beam
the revolution: the man of light streams from
after the 1830 revolution, Liberty Leading the People was purchased by King Louis Philippe as a fitting tribute to
in the tall hat, long pants, the left, illuminating the
the uprising that brought him to power. The painting was quickly hidden away, because the bourgeois public found foreground and highlighting
and flannel belt (skilled
workers), the kneeling
the revolutionary heritage an embarrassment. Only after the founding of Frances Second Republic in 1848 did the the white shirt of the dead
figure in the cap (unskilled French public see the painting, and that was not until 1863,when it entered the Louvre. revolutionary on the right.

1. History and Allegory Explain how Delacroix uses history 4. Political Perspective Why do you think this painting cre-
and allegory to convey a moral message in this painting. ated a negative backlash in Paris, when it was first on dis-
2. Composition How does Delacroixs composition reinforce play from 1831 to 1833?
his message? 5. Autobiographical Perspective What was Delacroixs at-
3. Compare and Contrast Compare and contrast Dela- titude toward the 1830 July Revolution? Explain.
croixs Liberty Leading the People with Gricaults Raft of
the Medusa.

cast adrift a metaphor for the French nation. Many of Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People was also in-
Gricaults ideas were taken up by Eugne Delacroix spired by a political incident, the July Revolution of
[del-uh-KWAH] (17981863), who became the leader 1830, which resulted in the establishment of a limited
of a school of romantic painting that was in open ri- constitutional monarchy in France (see Interpreting
valry with Ingres and the neoclassicists. Like Gri- Art). Delacroixs canvas bears some meaningful re-
cault, Delacroix was a humanitarian who drew artistic semblances to Gericaults Raft of the Medusa. Each
inspiration from his violent times. In the 1820s, he painting takes a contemporary event as its subject
identified with Greek freedom fighters in their war of and transforms it into a symbol of France. Moreover,
S independence against the Turks, expressing his sup- Delacroixs placement of two dead male figures, one
N port in Massacre at Chios (see Figure 18.5). partially nude and the other clothed, echoes similar
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REvoLUTIoNS IN ART AND IDEAS: FRoM NEoCLASSICISM To RoMANTICISM 489

figures in Gericaults work. Delacroixs portrayal of name. For the discipline of chemistry, he coauthored
the people triumphant thus seems to be an optimistic its classification system and established the ground
response to Gericaults image of France adrift. rules for conducting chemical experiments. Lavoisier
also was active in governmental affairs and dedicated
his expertise to improving the French economy and
Science and Philosophy society. However, because of his government service
Science, having been part of natural philosophy since for the French crown, he became a victim of the Reign
ancient Greece (see Chapter 2), grew more indepen- of Terror and was guillotined.
dent with each field of study developing on its own. The study of electricity, which began in the mid-
Science, based on a blend of empiricism, experiment, 1600s, made advances in the experiments conducted
and rationalism, was now revered in western Europe, by the American Benjamin Franklin (17061790). Soon
especially among French and British thinkers. But east he was able to distinguish between positive and nega-
of the Rhine, German thinkers, rejecting what they tive charges and between conductors and nonconduc-
judged to be the materialism and skepticism of the tors of electricity. His famous and dangerous 1752
new science (see David Hume, Chapter 17), began kite episode proved that electricity is identical with
developing an alternative approach to truthGerman lightning. Later, he invented the pointed iron light-
idealism, which assigned a central role to spiritual ning rod, which protected a building from lightning
values. Still, the vast majority in the West remained by transmitting an electrical charge by wire into the
ignorant of these shifts in science and thought. They ground, thus reducing the number of fires in a city.
found comfort and assurance in popular religion, es- Franklin wrote several articles explaining his experi-
pecially in those movements that had emerged in the ments, which made his reputation as a man of science
early eighteenth century (see Chapter 17). in Europe. The Swedish botanist, explorer, and collec-
tor Carl Linnaeus [ley-NEE-eus] (17071778) laid out
Science Between 1760 and 1830, the educated the modern taxonomic system for plants, animals, and
classes of Europe embraced the Scientific Revolution, minerals in his Systema Naturae (1753). Taxonomy is
making its findings part of the bedrock of Western the science of the classification of living organisms or
thought (see Chapter 16). Although this period did extinct beings. Linnaeus also established the basic bo-
not witness dramatic breakthroughs equal to the Sci- tanical nomenclature (names), along with the rules for
entific Revolution or Newtonian synthesis, the world their use. In his system, the plant and animal worlds
of science changed: better organization and diversity, are divided into a hierarchy: beginning at the top,
new journals devoted to research, and public recogni- class, order, genus, and species. In his nomenclature,
tion of scientific achievements. he used a binomial method (two names, both in Latin:
Instead of science, it now became customary to first the genus and then the speciesfor example,
speak of the sciences. The sciences, as such, com- Equus caballus, for the domestic horse). His system be-
prised the biological sciences, the physical sciences, came part of modern science, though aspects of it have
and the natural sciences. Each area of scientific study, been updated, supplemented, and modified.
in turn, began to splinter into specialized disciplines,
such as botany, zoology, chemistry, and electricity. Philosophy German thought stood in stark contrast
As more scientific discoveries were made, the new to the Anglo-French Enlightenment. German idealism,
knowledge was soon integrated into the mainstream which espoused a spiritual view of life, was closely re-
of Western thought and culture and spread around lated to the romantic spirit. From Kant through Hegel,
the world. German thinkers constructed idealism as a philo-
Modern chemistry, one of the new sciences, sophic alternative to conventional religion.
was founded through the efforts of primarily one In the 1790s, Immanuel Kant [KAHNT] (17241804)
scientistAntoine-Laurent Lavoisier [AN-twan-lo- began the revolution in German thought when he dis-
RAHN lahv-WAHZ-yeh] (17431794). Trained as a tinguished the world of phenomena (appearances)
chemist, he conducted experiments with air, gas, and from the world of noumena (things-in-themselves,
heat, which led, in turn, to many discoveries, includ- or spirit). In Kantian terms, the phenomenal world can
ing his explanation for combustion. At about the same be understood by science, but the noumenal world can
time, the first chemical elementoxygenwas iden- be studied only by intuitive means.
tified by the English scientist and theologian Joseph Kants followers, nonetheless, tried the impossible
Priestly (17331804). Later, Lavoisier, through his ex- when they began to map out the spiritual realm. Jo-
periments, discovered the life-sustaining role that hann Gottlieb Fichte [FICK-tuh] (17621814) found re-
oxygen played for plants and animals. Lavoisier also ality in the World Spirit, a force having consciousness
broke water down into its two basic elements, oxygen and seeking self-awareness. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph S
and hydrogen, though he did not identify hydrogen by von Schelling [SHEL-ing] (17751854) equated nature N
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with the Absolute, his name for ultimate reality. He
also was the first to espouse the romantic belief in the
religion of art by claiming that artists reveal divine
truths in inspired works. Schellings teaching on art
influenced the English poet Coleridge and through
him the English romantic movement.
The climax of idealism came with Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel [HAY-guhl] (17701831), who explained
human history as the record of the World Spirit seek-
ing to know its true nature. Self-knowledge for the
World Spirit arose only through a dialectical struggle.
In the first stage, the Spirit developed a thesis that in
turn produced an antithesis; in the second stage, a
conflict ensued between these two ideas that led to
a synthesis, or a new thesis, which in turn gradually
provoked new strifea third stage, and so on. Hegels
theory of history ignored individuals because humans
in the mass became tools of the World Spirit in its
quest for freedom. In this view, wars, riots, and revolts
were merely evidence of spiritual growth. For this rea-
son, Hegel characterized Napoleon and his wars as
embodiments of the World Spirit.
Hegelianism had a tremendous impact on later
Western thought. Revolutionaries such as Karl Marx Figure 18.20 Ferdinand Georg Waldmller. Ludwig van Beethoven.
1823. Oil on canvas, approx. 281/3 225/6. Archiv Breitkopf and
borrowed Hegels dialectical approach to history. Con-
Hrtel, Leipzig, Germany. Original destroyed in World War II.
servatives, especially in Germany, used his thought Beethoven in his later years was the embodiment of the romantic genius,
as a justification for a strong centralized state, and disheveled, singing to himself as he strolled Viennas streets, mocked by
nationalists everywhere drew inspiration from his street urchins; once, he was even arrested by the police as a tramp. In this
thought. Other thinkers rejected his denial of human 1823 portrait, Waldmller suggests Beethovens unkempt appearance,
but through the strong expression, fixed jaw, and broad forehead he also
responsibility and founded existentialist philosophies
conveys the great composers fierce determination and intelligence.
that glorified the individual.

The Birth of Romantic Music classical formsthe sonata, the symphony, and the
As the middle class gained political power between string quartethe created longer works, doubling
1789 and 1830, they converted the musical scene into a and even tripling their conventional length. He also
marketplace; that is, laissez-faire economics and music wrote music that was increasingly expressive and that
became intertwined. Replacing elite forms of patronage, showed more warmth and variety of feeling than clas-
programs that the bourgeoisie now attended required sical music, particularly his program musicthat is,
admission fees and paid performers. Salaries and the music that portrays a particular setting or tells a story.
demand for performances freed musicians from the pa- Beethovens career may be divided into three
tronage system. With their newly won independence, phases. In the first phase, from the 1790s until 1803,
they became eccentric and individualisticattitudes he was under the shadow of Haydn, with whom he
that were encouraged by the romantic cult of the artist. studied in Vienna. Beethovens First Symphony (1800)
Music grew more accessible as democracy progressed, may be termed a classical work, but in it he reveals
and new industrial techniques and production allowed a new spirit by lengthening the first and third move-
more people to own inexpensive musical instruments. ments and making the middle movement more lively
The most gifted composer of this period, and than usual.
one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, was In the second phase, from 1803 until 1816, Bee
Ludwig van Beethoven [BAY-toe-vuhn] (17701827), thovens genius gave birth to romantic music. He be-
a German who spent most of his life in Vienna. He gan to find his own voice, enriching and deepening
personified the new breed of musician, supporting the older forms. The Third Symphony (1803), which
himself through concerts, lessons, and the sales of Beethoven called the Eroica (Heroic), is the most char-
his music (Figure 18.20). His works represent both acteristic work from this second stage. The composer
S the culmination of classical music and the introduc- originally dedicated this symphony to Napoleon,
N tion of romantic music. Working with the standard whom he admired as a champion of democracy. But
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REVOLUTIONS IN ART AND Ideas: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism 491

when the French ruler declared himself emperor in art song, called lied (plural, lieder) in German. The
1804, Beethoven angrily tore up the dedication page emergence of this musical form in the romantic period
and dedicated the work instead to the memory of a was tied to the revival of lyric poetry. Schubert com-
great man. In the Third Symphony, Beethoven sub- posed the music for over six hundred lieder, with texts
stantially expanded the musical material beyond the by Goethe (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), Shake-
limits characteristic of earlier symphonies, making it speare (Who Is Sylvia?), and other poets. His efforts
longer and more complexa truly heroic work. raised the song to the level of great art.
From the second phase also comes Beethovens One of Schuberts best-known songs is Erlknig
most famous work, Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. (The Erlking), a musical setting of a narrative ballad
67 (1808). The highly emotional Fifth Symphony, filled by Goethe. Filled with romantic imagery, the poem
with bold harmonies and rich color contrasts, begins tells of a distraught father, carrying his dying son in
with a conflict-laden movement and concludes with his arms while riding horseback through a storm-
an exultant final movement. The first movement opens filled night. During the hectic ride, the boy has vi-
with four notesthree short and one longwhich sions of the Erlkingin German folklore, the king of
have been described as the most memorable musical the elves, and, in Goethes poem, the symbol of death.
phrase of all time. In the first movement, this musi- Schubert sets the text against a musical background
cal phrase is endlessly repeated, passed back and forth that represents the horses galloping hooves: pulsing,
among the various instruments, played by a single triplet rhythms. The song requires the soloist to give
instrument, or group of instruments, or the full or- voice to each of four characters: narrator, father, son,
chestra. This phrase is also given shifting tone colors, and Erlking. Appropriate music is written for each,
ranging from harsh to lyrical, from soft to loud, along such as, for example, upper register, with discordant
with dynamic changes in rhythm. The four notes notes, for the boy; and cajoling tunes for the Erlking.
function as a unifying motif in the first movement, Three times the boy cries out, My father, my father!
and they return as a pervasive presence throughout The song ends with the narrator speaking in recita-
the other three movements. tive: In seinen Armen das Kind war tot (In his arms
In his third phase, from 1816 until 1827, Beethovens the child was dead).
music became freer and more contemplative, reaching A final composer of significance in this first period
its culmination in the Ninth Symphony (18221824), of romanticism was the Frenchman Hector Berlioz
the last of his large-scale works. In the last move- [BAIR-lee-ohz] (18031869). His most famous work is
ment of this work, Beethoven included a choral fi- the Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony) (1830), a
nale in which he set to music the poem Ode to Joy superb example of program music. Subtitled Episode
by the German romantic poet Friedrich von Schiller of an Artists Life, this symphonic work illustrates
[SHIL-uhr] (17591805). Despite a life of personal ad- musically a story that Berlioz described in accompa-
versities that included deafness from the age of thirty, nying written notes. In the tale, which takes the form
Beethoven affirmed in this piece his faith in both hu- of an opium dream, an artist-hero hopelessly adores
manity and GodMillions, be you embraced! For the an unfaithful woman and eventually dies for her.
universe, this kiss! The magnificent music and the Relatively conventional in form, the symphony is most
idealistic text have led to the virtual canonization of original in its use of a recurring musical theme, called
this inspirational work. an ide fixe, or fixed idea, that becomes an image of
Across these three phases, Beethoven was a prolific the heros beloved. Because every section contains the
composer in all musical genres; many of these works ide fixe in a modified form, it unifies the symphony
are unrivaled in their expressiveness and originality. in an innovative way. For example, in the fifth move-
Besides the nine symphonies, he wrote two Masses, ment, subtitled Dream of a Witches Sabbath, he
two ballets, one opera (Fidelio), sixteen string quartets, uses the ide fixe to introduce the witches dancea
thirty-two piano sonatas (most notably the Pathtique favorite pseudo-gothic subject for romantic compos-
and Moonlight sonatas), five concertos for piano, one ers and artists. Berlioz based the dance on the Dies Irae
concerto for violin, and numerous chamber and choral (Day of Wrath) from the Catholic Mass, thus making
compositions. it emblematic here of a black mass, or devil worship.
Vienna contributed another outstanding composer The Dies Irae theme, made up of long, evenly sustained
in Franz Schubert [SHOO-bert] (17971828), who was notes, is first stated by low woodwinds and horns, ac-
famous for the beauty of his melodies and the simple companied by chimes. The theme becomes part of a
grace of his songs. He lived a rather bohemian life, musical conversation, being played in a rapid staccato,
supporting himself, like Beethoven, by giving lessons by high woodwinds, giving it a mocking sound. Varia-
and concerts. But unlike Beethoven, Schubert wrote tions of the theme are played by various groups of in-
mainly for the living rooms of Vienna rather than for struments, sometimes overlapping, and with frequent S
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492 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REvoLUTIoN, REACTIoN, AND CULTURAL RESPoNSE

SUMMARY
From 1760 to 1830 the West experienced three culture- Wollstonecraft Shelley portrayed the crosscurrents at
altering revolutions. The Industrial Revolution was play in the lives of individuals and of society at large.
marked by a series of inventions and new ways of mak- The painters Constable, Turner, and Friedrich painted
ing goods. Classical economics, a school of thought, the religion of nature in both its pastoral and sub-
soon emerged to explain the ups and downs of the lime aspects. And the painters Goya, Gricault, and
new industrial economy. Political revolutions swept Delacroix focused on the horrors of war and the plight
through Britains North American colonies and France, of its victims. A new generation of composers, led
spreading across Europe and into South America. Af- by Beethoven, created Romantic music, taking clas-
ter 1815, some nations made a concerted effort to roll sical models, expanding their length, and infusing
back the tide of change. them with feeling. The Scientific Revolution contin-
The artistic, literary, and musical worlds were af- ued with chemistry and botany becoming respected
fected by the three revolutions. Neoclassical art and fields of study. The German thinkers Immanuel Kant
architecture was expressed through the works of and G.W.F. Hegel introduced a spiritual way of un-
artists like David and Ingres and the amateur ar- derstanding life and redirected European philosophy
chitect Thomas Jefferson. In romanticism, the writ- down new paths.
ings of Wordsworth, Goethe, Lord Byron, and Mary

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


romanticism Sturm und Drang art song (lied)
sublime Faustian ide fixe

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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 493

The Legacy of the Age of Revolution and Reaction


The three revolutions in this chapter still affect our feeling and imagination. Todays environmental cause
personal and collective lives. In the West, the Indus- can be traced back to romanticism and its worship of
trial Revolution led to an exodus of farm people to the nature. of all the legacies of this revolutionary era, the
towns and cities, as the agricultural economy gave romantic outlook has helped most in shaping the way
way to the factory system. Globally, the effects of the that Western men and women live in todays world.
ongoing Industrial Revolution are evident in the bur-
geoning high-tech industries, along with the rise of
mega-urban complexes in Asia, the Middle East, and
South America. Laissez-faire economics still provides
the most persuasive argument for modern-day capital-
ism. The American Revolution has stood as a beacon
of hope for the oppressed in authoritarian regimes.
The French Revolution showed that the past could be
completely swept away and replaced by a secular or-
der based on social justice and fairness to all. Both rev-
olutions generated beliefs cherished by many today:
written laws and constitutions; basic human rights
identified and guaranteed; and government of and by
the people.
Romanticism remains a pervasive force in our post-
modern world. We glory in informality; for example,
many high-tech firms in Californias Silicon valley Tahrir Square. Cairo. Egypt, February 10, 2011. Egyptian anti-
have no dress code, allowing employees to dress as government demonstrators wave Egyptian flags at Cairos Tahrir Square
they willjeans, sneakers, or whatever. In the arts on February 10, 2011, on the 17th day of protests against President
and the humanities, we identify with the common Hosni Mubarak. From 1981 to 2011, Mubarak ruled with an iron fist,
jailing opponents and rigging elections, while maintaining close ties
people, for instance, the television channel CNN con-
with the West. Since the American and French revolutions, painters, such
ducts an annual Heroes show, subtitled Everyday as Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People (see Interpreting Art), and
People Changing the World. In our media culture, the photographers have used their artistic powers to capture critical moments
talking heads speak endlessly of the importance of in history.

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HONOR DAUMIER. The Third-Class Carriage. Ca. 1862. Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 351/2.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. Close
study of this oil painting reveals daumiers genius for social observation: the mothers doting
expression, the old womans stoicism, and the melancholy profile of the top-hatted man in
the shadows at the far left. None of the figures is individualized, however, for all represent
social types.

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The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie
19
18301871

Preview Questions As noted in Chapter 18,the French and American Revolutions


1. How and why did the promised political power to the disfranchised, and the Industrial Revolu-
bourgeoisie become the tion offered hope for a higher standard of living to the oppressed. Build-
dominant class after ing on these hopes, upheavals punctuated the history of this period. By
1830?
the end of the nineteenth century, these expectations remained largely
2. What were liberalism
unfulfilled in Europe. Benefits were reaped mainly by one groupthe
and nationalism, and
how did these two bourgeoisie. Left behind was a new class created by industrialismthe
movements impact proletariat, or working class.
events during the Age
Honor Daumiers Third-Class Carriage illustrates many crosscurrents
of the Bourgeoisie?
at play in the Age of the Bourgeoisie. The railroad, a marvel of industrial
3. What were the periods
major developments in technology, seemed to shrink the size of the world and to speed up the
philosophy, religion, shift from a rural to an urban economy. Liberal rhetoric proclaimed the
and science, and how equality of all people, yet the grades of rail fares showed the shallowness
did they influence the
wider culture? of that thought. Indeed, money increasingly mattered in how people ac-
tually lived. Third-class coach was the cheapest rail fare, and Daumiers
4. What role did Manet
play in the founding of painting reveals what such a cheap ticket could buy: cramped quarters
modern art? with plain dcor. In this scene, two groups of travelers are depicted: urban
5. What was realism and workers (men and women dressed in plain clothing) and businessmen (in
how was it expressed in top hats). Daumier seems divided in his point of view: he presents a realis-
literature and the arts?
tic image of the growing democratization of public life, yet simultaneously
he shows the isolation of individual travelers, as they avoid any personal
interaction.
Faced with the periods unequal social conditions, many urban work-
ers, joined by radicals from other classes, acted out their frustrated hopes
through direct political action and social movements, demanding uni-
versal suffrage and a fairer distribution of power and wealth. Rejecting
the liberal creed of the bourgeoisie, some of the disillusioned set forth the
ideals of socialism. successive waves of revolutionary uprising resulted in
reforms by the ruling elites. However, the limited nature of these reforms
failed to stem the tide of social resentment.
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496 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Timeline 19.1 THE AGE OF THE BOURGEOISIE


1830 1848 1851 1861 1865 1871

American
Civil War
Revolutions
in Europe
Creation of
German Empire

Revolutions 1839 1848 1851 1854 1857 1862 1869


of 1830 Daguerres Marx and Great Dickenss Flauberts Hugos Tolstoys
camera Engelss Exhibition Hard Madame Les War and Peace
Communist Times Bovary Misrables
Manifesto
1832 1855 1859 1863
English 1847 Courbets Darwins Manets
Reform Bill; Bront sisters The On the Origin Olympia
Sands Indiana Wuthering Heights Meeting of Species
and Jane Eyre

These sociopolitical events were echoed in the cul- nationalists advocated humanitarian values, stressing
tural realm. From its peak in the 1820s, romanticism de- the concept that all members of a nation are brothers
clined and slowly faded away. Embraced by the middle and sisters. As nationalism spread, these values were
class, the style became respectable, timid, and repeti- often expanded to include liberal ideals, republican
tious. By midcentury, realism had emerged as the lead- principles, and even democratic beliefs. National-
ing style, reflecting the new social and political order. ism became a force in central, southern, and eastern
By focusing on ordinary people, realists strove to depict Europe, where the states of what would become Ger-
in objective terms the heroism of everyday life. At many and Italy were still little more than geographic
the same time, traditional beliefs and values were be- expressions (Map 19.1). However, after 1848 national-
ing challenged on a host of fronts, including Darwins ism grew increasingly militant and ethnocentric.
theory of evolution, Pasteurs germ theory of disease,
and the invention of the camera (Timeline 19.1).
The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848
The repressive policies imposed at the Congress of
THE POLITICAL Vienna in 1815 were challenged by a series of upris-
AND ECONOMIC SCENE: ings, beginning in France with the July Revolution
of 1830, which overthrew the last Bourbon king and
LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM installed Louis Philippe (r. 18301848) and a liberal
The twin forces of liberalism and nationalism drove constitution (Figure 19.1). This regimeknown as the
many of the periods events. The basic premise of July Monarchyeventually became the tool of the
liberalismthe individual should be free from exter- rich middle class at the expense of the workers. Voting
nal controlresonated with the American and French rights were limited to wealthy male property-owners,
Revolutions as well as the bourgeois classs need to and laws favored an unregulated economy. The July
liberate itself from aristocratic society. The liberal Monarchy showed that the middle class, once empow-
political agenda included constitutionally guaranteed ered, refused to extend the benefits of liberalism to
political and civil rights, especially free speech, reli- disfranchised groups.
gious toleration, and voting rights for property-owners. Liberal revolutions followed Frances lead, first in
Perhaps most important, liberalism promoted laissez- Belgium and then in central and southern Europe,
faire economics, which allowed the wealthy classes to but they all failed. In central Europe, local authorities
maximize their profits and justified their control of the backed by Austrian troops quickly crushed the liberal
workers. Liberalism was most successful in England, uprisings and punished rebels, imposed martial law,
France, and Belgium, failed to take root in Italy and reinstituted censorship, and took control of the school
central and eastern Europe, and never affected czarist systems. Although liberals continued to work for
Russia. moderate reforms, conservatives dashed their hopes.
In contrast, nationalism emphasized cooperation Across central and eastern Europe, the one force
S among all of a countrys people who shared a common emerging as a rallying point was nationalism, focus-
N language and heritage. Overlooking class divisions, ing on ethnic identity and common cultural heritage.
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THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENE: LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM 497

Learning Through Maps


KINGDOM OF
0 250 500 mi NORWAY AND SWEDEN
Stockholm
0 500 1000 km North
Sea
G R E AT B R I TA I N KINGDOM KINGDOM OF
IRELAND OF THE DENMARK Baltic
Dublin NETHERLANDS Sea
Copenhagen
Liverpool SCHLESWIG
Birmingham HOLSTEIN
MECKLENBURG

Hamburg RUSSIAN
London HANOVER
Amsterdam EMPIRE
Berlin POLAND
P R U S S I A

BE
G
IU

L
ATLANTIC M HESSE SAXONY REPUBLIC
OCEAN LUXEMBOURG OF CRACOW Kiev
Paris
BAVARIA
LORRAINE
KINGDOM BADEN WRTTEMBERG
OF ALSACE
HUNGARY
Munich Vienna
FRANCE Berne Budapest

MO
Bordeaux AUSTRIAN EMPIRE

LD
SWISS

AV
CONFEDERATION Milan LOMBARDY-

IA
VENETIA
PARMA
KINGDOM MODENA WALLACHIA
OF Marseilles LUCCA
O T
PORTUGAL T O
Madrid KINGDOM TUSCANY dr

A
OF SARDINIA ia M
tic
Lisbon Barcelona PAPAL
Se MONTENEGRO A
KINGDOM CORSICA STATES a N
OF Rome E
SPAIN M
Naples P
I R
BALEARIC ISLANDS E
(to Spain)
KINGDOM
OF THE TWO
SICILIES
Palermo
ALGERIA
MOROCCO
TUNISIA
Austrian Empire

France Mediterranean
Sea
Prussia
Boundary of the Germanic Confederation

MAP
MHS6319.1
562 EUROPE AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, 1815
mat76620_m1801.eps
This map shows the political divisions of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon.1. Compare this map with Map 18.1, Europe at the Height of Napoleons Power.
First proof
2. Notice the trend toward larger but fewer states. 3. Which states improved their territorial holdings at the Congress of Vienna? 4. Which states were the
losers at the congress? 5. Identify the German Confederation and its boundary. 6. Which state, Austria or Prussia, was better positioned to emerge as leader
of the German Confederation?

In 1848 accumulated dissatisfactions and frustra- out foreign troops and set up constitutional monar-
tions erupted in another series of uprisings across chies, republics, or democracies with universal male
Europe (Table 19.1), starting with demonstrations and suffrage. A few governmentsinfluenced by the new
riots in Paris in February. The rebellions were pro- movement known as socialismaddressed economic
pelled by liberal ideals and nationalistic goals, but problems by passing laws to stimulate productivity,
their immediate causes were declining production, ris- improve working conditions, and aid the poor with re-
ing unemployment, and falling agricultural prices. By lief or employment programs.
spring, the path of revolution ran from Paris through By fall, the conservativesthe army, the aristocrats,
Berlin to Vienna, and all along this route varied group- and the churchhad rallied to defeat the disorga-
ings of bourgeoisie, intellectuals, workers, students, nized revolutionaries, and by January 1849 many of
and nationalists toppled kings and ministers. Tempo- the old rulers had reclaimed power. After the failed S
rary governments, led by liberals and reformers, drove revolutions of 1848, the idealism of the liberals, social N
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498 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

TABLE 19.1MAJOR POLITICAL EVENTS


OF 18151871

EVENT AND DATE OUTCOME


Congress of Inaugurates an era of
Vienna, 1815 repression
July Revolution Ends the Bourbon dynasty
in France, 1830 and installs the bourgeois
monarchy
First English Extends voting rights to
reform bill, 1832 wealthy middle-class males
Revolution in Ends the bourgeois monarchy
France, 1848 and installs the Second
Republic, with Louis-Napoleon
as president
Revolutions in Their failure leads to an era
Europe, 18481851 dominated by realpolitik
Creation of Second Louis-Napoleon becomes
French Empire, 1851 Napoleon III and leads
empire until 1870
Kingdom of Italy, Sicily joins Piedmont
1860
Creation of German Engineered by Bismarck
Empire, 18621871 using a policy of blood and
iron; unites German states
around Prussia
American Civil War, Preserves national union and
Figure 19.1 FRAnoIS RuDe. The Departure of the Volunteers. 18611865 abolishes slavery
18331836. Approx. 42 26. Paris. This sculptural group, depicting
a crowd of warriors inspired by the winged Liberty, symbolizes the French Second English Extends voting rights to
people on the march during the revolution of 1830, the first of a series of reform bill, 1867 working-class males
revolutions in nineteenth-century Europe. Designed for the Arch of Triumph Franco-Prussian Destroys the Second French
in Paris, the work came to be known affectionately as La Marseillaise, the War, 1871 Empire, proclaims the
name of the French national anthem. German Empire, and leaves
a legacy of French bitterness
toward Germany

reformers, and nationalists gave way to an unsenti-


mental vision of politics backed by the use of force.
This perspective came to be known as realpolitik, a supporters of any type of reform, became even more
German term that means practical politics, a tactful committed to the belief that if any change did come, it
way of saying power politics. would begin at the top, not the bottom, of society.

Limited Reform in France and Great Britain


European Affairs in the Grip of Realpolitik An astute observer of the 1848 revolutions was Louis-
From 1850 to 1871, realpolitik guided the European Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the former French em-
states as conservative regimes turned to strong and ef- peror. He became Emperor Napoleon III (r. 18521870)
ficient armies, short, fierce wars, and ambiguously writ- of the Second French Empire by appealing to both the
ten agreements to resolve the problems that surfaced bourgeoisie and the working class. A benign despot,
in the 1848 revolts. Otto von Bismarck (18151898), the he ruled over a sham representative government sup-
prime minister of Prussia and future architect of Ger- ported by a growing middle class made prosperous
man unification, mocked the failure of the liberals par- by an expanding industrial base. He also provided the
liamentary reforms and asserted that his countrys fate poor with social services; with an economic plan and
would be settled not with speeches but with blood and subsidies, he enabled most urban workers and farmers
iron. Nationalists in Austrian-occupied Italy learned to maintain a high standard of living.
S that Italian unity could be achieved only by military In Great Britain, a liberal coalition of landed and busi-
N force and clever diplomacy. The Russian czars, seldom ness interests pushed a reform bill through Parliament in
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THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENE: LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM 499

Figure 19.2 Charles Barry and a. w. n. Pugin. The Houses of Parliament. 18361860. Big Ben (right)
320 high; Victoria Tower (left) 336 high; riverfront width 800. London. In contrast to the revolutionary
tradition on the Continent, Great Britain struggled to respond to changing political and social realities through
debate and reform. To many observers in England and abroad, Parliament symbolized the success of liberalism
and the representative legislative system. The Gothic spires of the Houses of Parliament rose in the mid
nineteenth century after the old buildings burned. Along with the neighboring clock tower known as Big Ben
(a name applied originally only to the bell), they still stand today as the most recognizable image of modern London.

1832 over the protests of the conservatives. This new abrupt end later that year, toppled the Second Empire
law redrew Britains political map to reflect the popu- of Napoleon III, and resulted in Frances humiliation in
lation shift resulting from industrialization. It also en- the treaty signed at Versailles in 1871, proclaiming the
franchised thousands of new male voters by lowering German Empire. The seeds of World WarI were sown
the property qualifications for voting, although mil- by this crucial turn of events (Map19.2).
lions of citizens still could not vote. In 1867 a second On the Italian peninsula, most of which was ruled
reform bill extended voting rights to working-class by Austrian princes, liberalism and nationalism were
males. Under Queen Victoria (r. 18371901), with politi- also causes of disruption. In the 1830s, Italian liberals
cal forces balanced evenly between liberals and con- inspired by the revolutionary writings of Giuseppe
servatives, Great Britain reached its apex of economic Mazzini [maht-SEE-nee] (18051872) banded together
power and prestige (Figure 19.2). to form Young Italy, a nationalist movement, and
the independent Italian state of Piedmont-Sardinia
Wars and Unification in Central Europe Among emerged as the hope of liberals. Piedmont was a con-
the German-speaking states, the small principali- stitutional monarchy that honored its subjects civil
ties tended to discard liberalism and embrace mili- and political rights. Its economy was well balanced
tant nationalism. Their concerns were overshadowed, between farming and trade, and under Prime Min-
however, by the power struggle between Prussia and ister Count Camillo Benso di Cavour [kuh-VOOR]
Austria for control of central Europe. William I became (18101861), the standard of living was raised for many
king of Prussia in 1861, and Bismarck was appointed Piedmontese, especially middle-class merchants and
his prime minister. Over the next few years, Bismarck manufacturers.
built the Prussian army into a fierce fighting machine, Between 1859 and 1871, Piedmont expelled most of
at the same time ignoring liberal protests and the the Austrians. As part of his grand strategy to unite
Prussian assembly and its laws. Nationalism replaced Italy, Cavour, with the encouragement of NapoleonIII
liberalism as the rallying cry of the Prussians, and of France, annexed parts of central and southern
Bismarck used this shift to unite the Germans around Italy. Further assistance came from the fiercely patri-
the Prussian state at the expense of France and Austria otic soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi [gahr-uh-BAHL-dee]
(see Map 19.1). (18071882), who, with his personal army of a thousand
Bismarck achieved his goal by neutralizing poten- Red Shirts, invaded and liberated the Kingdom of
tial enemies through deft diplomacy and, failing that, the Two Sicilies (see Map 19.1) from its Spanish Bour-
through force. By 1866 he had united the German states bon ruler. In 1860 Sicilians voted overwhelmingly to
into the North German Confederation, a union that ex- join Piedmont in a Kingdom of Italy, and soon there-
cluded Austria. In 1870 he engineered a diplomatic cri- after the Italian mosaic fell into place. In 1866 Austria
sis that forced France to declare war on Prussia. Costly gave up Venetia, and in 1870 Rome fell to nationalist S
French defeats brought the Franco-Prussian War to an troops and became Italys capital. N
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500 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Learning Through Maps


KINGDOM OF FINLAND
NORWAY
Christiania St. Petersburg
(Oslo) AND
SWEDEN Stockholm

ea
UNITED KINGDOM

cS
OF GREAT BRITAIN North
Moscow

lt i
AND IRELAND Sea DENMARK

Ba
Dublin Manchester Copenhagen
Liverpool NETHERLANDS
Birmingham The Hamburg
London Hague
Berlin RUSSIA
ATLANTIC GERMANY Warsaw
Brussels Leipzig
OCEAN BELGIUM Bonn

Paris LUXEMBOURG

AUSTRIA-
FRANCE Vienna HUNGARY
SWITZERLAND Budapest

Trieste
Arles RUMANIA
PORTUGAL
Ad
BOSNIA Belgrade Bucharest Black Sea
ria
ITALY
tic
Madrid HERZE- Sarajevo
CORSICA GOVINA BULGARIA
Se
Lisbon Barcelona (France) SERBIA
SPAIN Rome a
MONTENEGRO OT Constantinople
MACEDONIA TO
SARDINIA MA
BALEARIC ALBANIA N(
ISLANDS TUR
KISH) EMPIRE

GREECE
SICILY Athens

ALGIERS TUNIS
MOROCCO (Ottoman MALTA
(France) CRETE
0 250 500 mi Empire) (Great Britain)
CYPRUS
Mediterranean Sea
0 500 1000 km

MAP
MHS6319.2
564 EUROPE IN 1871
mat76620_m1802.eps
This proofshows the political divisions of Europe in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.1. Compare this map with Map 19.1, Europe after the Congress
Firstmap
of Vienna. 2. Notice the sacrifice of the small states in the German Confederation and on the Italian peninsula to the unified countries of Germany and Italy.
3. Observe the changes in the European holdings of the Ottoman Empire. 4. Consider how the unification of Germany threatened the dominance of France
in Europe. 5. Which states divided Poland among themselves?

Civil War in the United States Unlike Europes contemporaneous wars, which were
Paralleling the turbulent unification of the states of brief and resulted in relatively few deaths, the Ameri-
Italy and Germany, the United States was also under- can Civil War lasted four years and resulted in huge
going expansion and centralization, processes that losses on both sides (Figure 19.4). The Northern victory
carried within themselves the seeds of conflict. The in 1865, engineered by President Abraham Lincoln (in
economy was mixed and regionally divided. On one office 18611865), saved the Union and guaranteed
side stood the Northeast, the national leader in com- freedom for the slaves. But animosity between the
merce, trade, and banking and the site of a growing North and the South continued to smolder during the
factory system; on the other side was the South, domi- wars aftermath, called Reconstruction (18651876),
nated by huge cotton plantations cultivated by thou- and relations remained strained, particularly over ra-
sands of black slaves. The unsettled western lands cial matters, for more than a century.
formed a third region.
After 1830 the economic issues that divided the
northern and southern states became intensified over Industrialism, Technology, and Warfare
the question of slavery (Figure 19.3). As settlers moved Underlying the political upheavals of this period were
west, the debate over the spread of slavery into these rapid changes in industrialism, technology, and war-
new territories and states aggravated sectional in- fare. The three became more closely intertwined as
S terests. In 1861 the southern states seceded from the they spread across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, af-
N Union, provoking a civil war. fecting the daily lives of people at every social level.
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THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENE: LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM 501

Figure 19.3 Joseph Mallord William Turner. The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard
the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). Ca. 1840. Oil on canvas, 353/4 481/4. Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston. Turner was motivated, in part, to paint The Slave Ship because of the
famous Zong trial of 1783. The captain of the Zong, a British slave ship, in a ploy to collect insurance on his
property, claimed that because the ship was running out of water, he ordered the crew to throw the sick
slaves overboard. At the trial, testimony proved that there was no water shortage on the ship. However, the
court saw the incident as a civil insurance issue, not a criminal case, and the insurance company eventually
had to pay for the loss of propertythat is, the value of the slaves who had died. By the time he painted The
Slave Ship (ca. 1840), Parliament had, in the 1830s, abolished slavery in the British colonies. Turners terrifying
image of natural calamity and human cruelty reflected the humanitarian values that had surfaced during the
parliamentary and national debates about slavery. The ghoulish scene, painted in Turners unique romantic
style, depicts the castaway bodies of the dead and dying, encircled by hungry fish, as they sink into the
stormy sea.

Industrialism: The Shrinking Globe After competing national postal rates led to the formation of
its beginnings in England in the 1700s (see the Universal Postal Union (UPU); within ten years,
Chapter 18), industrialism started to take root in the UPU numbered fifty-five independent countries.
France in the 1830s, and a short time later Belgium en-
tered the industrial age. For the next forty years, Bel- New Technologies Rapid technological advances
gium and France were the chief economic powers on confirmed the revolutionary nature of the indus-
the Continent, with factory and railway systems radi- trial age.
ating from Paris and Brussels to Vienna and Milan by The steam engine, invented in 1769, was used in the
1871. The expansion of rail lines meant that factories following transportation and manufacturing:
no longer needed to be near coal mines or clustered in Steamboats, with paddle wheels (1807); their hey-
urban areas. Inventions in communications, such as day was 18161870, on the Ohio and Mississippi
the telegraph, made it easier for industrialists to take Rivers.
advantage of distant resources and markets, and in
Steam locomotives (1830); the Age of the Rail-
1866 engineers laid a transatlantic telegraph cable,
road was 18301945.
linking Europe and America. Further shrinking of the
Water turbines (1820s) were used first in sawmills
globe occurred with the founding of national postal
and textile mills and, after 1882, also in hydro
systems. The United Kingdom led the way (1839), cre-
electric plants.
ating the worlds first postal service with a uniform
postage rate. Switzerland and Brazil soon followed Gas lighting, with coal gas, came into use in the S
with their own systems (1843). By 1878, a crazy quilt of early 1800s in Great Britain. It was used for lighting N
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502 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Figure 19.4 douard Manet. The Battle


of the U.S.S. Kearsarge and the C.S.S.
Alabama. 1864. Oil on canvas, 541/4
50 3/4. Philadelphia Museum of Art. John
G. Johnson Collection, 1917. The American
Civil War was also fought on the high seas. The
C.S.S. Alabama was built in England in 1862
and, for twenty-two months, this commercial
raider attacked Union merchant ships until the
U.S.S. Kearsarge sank it off the French coast
in 1864. Many bystanders on shore witnessed
the battle, and reports quickly reached Paris,
where Manet, after reading about the event,
painted his imagined version of the conflict. He
not only caught the drama of naval warfare but
also documented its technological changes
the combining of steam with sail. His painting
started a trend among French artists to travel
to the coast and paint seascapes. In the 1870s,
the impressionists (see Chapter 20) painted
many marine scenes, which helped establish
their reputation.

both streets and homes. By 1870, most European towns bankers, made loans to fledgling companies for new
and cities were outfitted with gas lights. Oil, a new factories, warehouses, ships, and railways, thereby
power source discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859, was generating more wealth for capitalists with surplus
mainly a source of kerosene for lamps; gasoline was funds to invest.
considered a waste by-product during this period.
New military technology included steam-powered Symbols of the Bourgeois Age: The Crystal
boats and railway engines, to haul troops, horses, and Palace and the Suez Canal As Europes
supplies; and the needle gun, a breech-loading rifle economy grew, two marvels of the industrial
that fired a cartridge, instead of a muzzle-loading mus- agethe Crystal Palace in London and the Suez Canal
ket that shot a ball. The industrial-military complex, in Egyptcaptured the worlds imagination. The iron
with weapons from arms manufacturers and orders and glass Crystal Palace housed the Great Exhibition
from government procurement officials, continued to of 1851in effect, the first worlds fair. There, the new-
evolve. By 1870 Germany, now unified around Prus- est inventions and machine-made goods were dis-
sia, was setting the pace in strategy and weaponry in played for everyone to see, rich and poor alike. Al-
Continental Europe. though many nations displayed products and inven-
tions, Great Britains exhibits were the most impressive,
The Spread of Industrialism In 1830 Great Brit- thereby proving that it was the worlds leading indus-
ain passed into another phase of the Industrial Revo- trial and agricultural power (Figure 19.6).
lution. While continuing to build ships and construct The second marvel, the Suez Canal, linked the Gulf
factories, its industrialists laid a network of rail lines of Suez and the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea.
linking all its major cities by 1850 (Figure 19.5). In Brit- Funded by a French company and opened in 1869, the
ain and on the Continent, the mining of new coal and canal shortened the distance between Europe and In-
iron deposits and the rise of imports in materials for dia, thus enabling steamships to ferry passengers and
S textiles and other goods kept the machines of indus- goods around the globe more quickly and comfort-
N try humming. British financiers, joined by Continental ably (Figure 19.7).
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Figure 19.5 W. P. Frith. The Railway
Station. Ca. 1862. Oil on canvas, 310
85. Royal Holloway College and Bedford
New College, Surrey, England. London
was the hub of Englands economy long before
the Industrial Revolution, and with the coming
of the railroads its position was enhanced.
The massive new railway stations, often
constructed of glass and iron, symbolized
the changing business and leisure habits of
life. In this painting of one of Londons new
rail stations, Friths well-dressed middle-class
citizens convey the excitement of travel as
well as its novelty and uncertainty.

Figure 19.6 Joseph Paxton. Crystal


Palace, Hyde Park, London. 1851. Cast
iron, wrought iron, and glass. Color
lithograph with watercolor, by Joseph
Nash. Approx. 211/2 29 5/8. Guildhall
Library, London. This illustration shows the
splendor of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which
so impressed visitors. When the fair closed, the
Crystal Palace was disassembled and rebuilt
in South London, where it stood as an arts and
entertainment center until destroyed by fire
in 1936. The prefab construction principles
of the Crystal Palace foreshadowed modern S
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504 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

NINETEENTH-CENTURY
THOUGHT: PHILOSOPHY,
RELIGION, AND SCIENCE
The period 1830 to 1870 was rich in intellectual dis-
course. Liberalism, based on the ideas of Locke, Mon-
tesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire, and tested and proven
in the American and French Revolutions, was now re-
defined. Socialism, born in reaction to industrialism
and liberal economic theory, emerged as a galvanizing
force for change among the working classes. Popular
religion, in protest against the embryonic secular state,
gave rise to evangelicalism, a conservative movement
dedicated to biblical authority. And breakthroughs in
science and thought challenged traditional ways of
understanding the world and history.

Liberalism Redefined

Figure 19.7 A French Frigate in the Suez Canal. 1869. At the heart of the debate over liberalism was the ques-
Just as Great Britain showed the world what it could achieve tion Which is primary, the individual or the group?
through industry and agriculture, so France demonstrated its Liberalism glorified free expression for each human
technological and engineering genius in digging the Suez Canal. The Suez being, and capitalists used liberal arguments to justify
Canal Company, headed by the French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps their economic policies. But the corollaries of these pol-
[duh lay-SEPS] (18051894), began its work in 1859 and completed the
canal ten years later. The French vessel pictured here was one of the first
icies seemed to be poverty, degradation, and injustice
to navigate this waterway linking the Mediterranean with the Orient. for workers, and new voices began to be raised in sup-
port of approaches that promised antidotes to the in-
justices of industrial capitalism. Primary among these
were a variety of socialisms, forms of political and so-
The Crystal Palace, the Suez Canal, and other won- cial organization in which material goods are owned
ders of the age were made possible by the labor of mil- and distributed by the community or the government.
lions of workersmen, women, and children. On the In the late 1700s, English philosopher and social
Continent, the working and living conditions of this theorist Jeremy Bentham (17481832) had developed
group were no better than the squalid circumstances a variant of liberalism known as utilitarianism. Ben-
found in Great Britain in the first stage of the Indus- tham made utility his supreme moral principle, mean-
trial Revolution. The social costs of industrialism, no- ing that what gave pleasure to both the individual and
tably the rapid growth of cities that threw poor and society was right and what gave pain was wrong. Util-
ill-trained people into slums and ghettos, were part of ity for society was always identified with the greatest
its negative side. The slums became breeding grounds good for the greatest numbera view that reflected
for class hatred and offered ready audiences for revo- Benthams commitment to democracy. Accepting lib-
lutionaries and socialists advocating revolt and social eralisms laissez-faire ideal, yet tempering it with the
changes. The rebellions that flashed across the Conti- principle of utility, Bentham pushed for a renovation
nent in 1848 were caused partly by the mounting frus- of the repressive and outmoded governments of his
trations in these working-class areas. time, including reform of the legal system, prisons,
Even a large segment of the middle class remained and education.
cut off from economic and political power. In the After 1830 Benthams ideas were reinterpreted by
United States, all white males were granted suffrage in bourgeois liberalisms strongest defender, the English
the 1820s, and in England voting rights were granted philosopher John Stuart Mill (18061873). Growing to
to working-class males in the Reform Act of 1867. The maturity in the second phase of the industrial age,
revolutions of 1830 and 1848 widened the franchise for Mill became increasingly fearful that the masses and
French, Italian, German, and Austrian men, although a powerful state would ultimately destroy individual
important government posts were always reserved for rights and human dignity. In his essay On Liberty
aristocrats. Women still could not vote anywhere in (1859), Mill argued that the continued existence of the
1871, nor could wage earners (except for British and civilized community required the fullest freedom
S American workers) and members of the lower middle of speech, discussion, and behavior that was possible
N class. Universal suffrage was not yet a reality. among all citizens, as long as no person was physically
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NINETEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT: PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND SCIENCE 505

harmed. Mills essay represents the high point of En emphasis on Spirit. Since his radical politics made a
glish liberalism. teaching post untenable in reactionary Prussia, Marx
After having advocated laissez-faire economics in became editor of a Cologne newspaper. When the po-
his 1848 edition of the Principles of Political Economy, in lice shut down the paper, he sought refuge abroad.
later editions Mill embraced a mild form of socialism. From Brussels, he and Friedrich Engels (18201895),
Condemning unbridled economic competition, he his lifelong friend and coauthor, were asked to de-
reasoned that though production was subject to eco- velop a set of principles for a German workers soci-
nomic laws, distribution was not, and thus humans ety. The resulting pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto
should divide the benefits of industrialism along ratio- (1848), became the bible of socialism. Both men played
nal lines. Mill also campaigned for religious toleration minor roles in the 1848 revolts, seeing in them the first
and minority rights and became a staunch supporter steps of a proletarian revolution. Marx spent his last
of womens right to vote and own property. In many years in London, writing his major work, Capital (vol-
of his writings, Mill collaborated with Harriet Taylor, ume 1, 1867; volumes 2 and 3, completed by Engels,
his wife. 18851894), and founding an international workers as-
sociation to implement his ideas.
Marxs approach to historical change differed radi-
Socialism cally from the utopian view. According to Marx, his-
Liberalism provided support for bourgeois values, tory moved in a dialectical pattern as the Hegelians
but socialism seemed to many European workers and had argued, but not in rhythm with abstract ideas,
intellectuals to be the irresistible wave of the future. or the World Spirit. Instead, Marx thought that ma-
Socialism began as a reaction to industrialism and terial reality conditioned historical development; the
came to be its most severe critic, holding out a vision various stages of history, which were propelled by
of what society might become if only certain funda- class conflicts, unfolded as one economic group re-
mental reforms were made. Two main groups spoke placed another. For example, the bourgeoisie, which
for socialism in the 1800s: the utopian socialists and had emerged out of the collapse of the feudal system,
the Marxists. The utopians, who had their greatest im- represented only a moment in history, destined dia-
pact before 1848, believed that the ills of industrial so- lectically to bring forth its own gravedigger, the pro-
ciety could be overcome through cooperation between letariat, or the urban working class. Moreover, the
workers and capitalists. In contrast, the Marxists, who institutions and ideas of a society constituted a su-
flourished after 1848, held the utopians in contempt perstructure erected on the foundation of economic
as naive idealists and called for revolutions, violence, reality; governments, law, the arts, and the humanities
and the inevitable triumph of scientific socialisma merely reflected the values of a particular ruling class.
term coined by Marxists that reflects their faith in the Marx then forecast a revolt by the proletariat, who
inexorable laws of their theory of history. would install a classless society. He believed that the
The principal utopian socialistsRobert Owen workers revolution would be international in scope
(17711858) (himself a wealthy industrialist), Comte and that communist intellectuals would assist in bring-
de Saint-Simon [san-see-MOH(N)] (17601825), and ing an end to bourgeois rule. For Marx, socialism was
Charles Fourier [FOOR-ee-ay] (17721837)shared the not the answer to the ills of the Age of the Bourgeoisie
belief that a more just society could be introduced us- but was a transitional stage to communism, where all
ing the discoveries about society made in communal class distinctions would be abolished and the exploita-
associations that served as laboratories for their phil- tion of the masses would be ended. Elaborating on his
osophical ideas. All three thinkers were concerned political, economic, and social theories, Marxs follow-
more about the consumption of the fruits of industri- ers created Marxism and, inspired by his ideal society,
alism than about the creation of goods. To them, the organized to abolish the capitalist system, although
workers were simply not receiving a fair share for their impact before 1871 was minimal.
their efforts and were being victimized by a ruthless, From the first, socialism appealed especially to
competitive system. To solve these problems, the uto- women, because it condemned existing social rela-
pian socialists proposed a number of alternatives, but tions and called for universal emancipation. The ideal
their often impracticable schemes had little chance of classless society would be free of every inequality, in-
succeeding in an age that was becoming more scien- cluding sexual inequality. Utopian socialists were the
tific and realistic. most welcoming to supporters of female rights. For
The utopian socialists and their supporters quickly example, Fourier claimed that female freedom was
faded from view once Karl Marx (18181883) appeared the touchstone for measuring human liberation every-
on the scene. As a student at the University of Berlin, where; Owen espoused a new moral order in which
Marx studied Hegels dialectical explanation of his- sexual and class differences would be overcome in S
torical change, but as an atheist he rejected Hegels cooperative, loving communities; and Saint-Simon N
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506 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

preached the moral superiority of women, though he decree, which was made retroactive, led to a schism
preferred sexual complementarity to sexual equality. with some disaffected Catholics in the Netherlands,
Marx and Engelss views on women were ambigu- Germany, and Switzerland, but it slowly faded from
ous. They urged the full integration of women into the prominence. Until 1963 the Catholic Church seemed
workforce as a condition of female emancipation but self-isolated and opposed to all progressive ideas.
insisted that freedom for male workers was key to rad- Meanwhile, in a development that alarmed some
ical social change. So, they encouraged women to curb Christians, some German Protestant scholars began to
their aspirations in the name of the greater goodthat study the Bible not as a divinely inspired book inca-
is, for an ideal Marxian workers society. pable of error but simply as a set of human writings
susceptible to varied interpretationsa movement
called higher criticism. These scholars began to try to
Religion and the Challenge of Science identify the author or authors of each of the biblical
The rise of evangelicalism was the major religious de- books rather than relying on old accounts of their ori-
velopment of the Age of the Bourgeoisie. Evangelical- gins, to study each text to determine its sources rather
ism, a distinctively Protestant movement, grew out of than treating each book as a divine revelation, and,
the Methodist tradition, with its focus on personal sal- most important, to assess the accuracy of each account
vation (belief that one must be born again) and sanc- rather than accepting it as Gods final word. By 1871
tification (ability of the Holy Spirit to redeem sinners orthodox Christians across the West were engaged
and create new lives) (see Chapter 17). In the United in intellectual battles with the higher critics, some of
States, all mainline Protestant sects except the Luther- whom portrayed Jesus not as Gods son but as a myth-
ans and the Episcopalians became evangelicals, while, ological figure or a human teacher.
in England, the Methodists formed the movements While the higher critics chipped away at Christian-
core, along with a strong wing of Anglicans. The evan- ity from within, science assaulted it from outside. Ge-
gelicals wanted to transform society, one person at a ologists first discredited the biblical story of creation,
time, and their methods included revivalism and the and then biologists questioned the divine origin of hu-
holiness movementwhich stressed sanctification, or man beings. The challenge from geology was led by
a holy life, after being born again. They also were the Englishman Charles Lyell [LIE-uhl] (17971875),
involved in the founding of nonsectarian self-help and whose fossil research showed that the earth was much
personal uplift organizations, all in Great Britain: the older than Christians claimed. By treating each of
Young Mens Christian Association (1844), the Young Gods six days of creation as symbolic of thousands of
Womens Christian Association (1855), and the Salva- years of divine activity, Protestant Christians were able
tion Army (1865). to weather this particular intellectual storm. Not so
The evangelicals were deemed conservative, be- easily overcome, however, was biologys threat to bibli-
cause of their insistence on the paramount authority cal authority.
of the Holy Scripturesa position that set them apart Following the Bible, the church was clear in its ex-
from liberal Protestants, who adopted many Deist planation of humanitys origin: Adam and Eve were
ideas, and from traditional Protestants, such as Epis- the first parents, having been created by God after he
copalians and Lutherans, who stressed ritual and the had fashioned the rest of the animate world. Parallel-
sacraments. Grounded in their biblical faith, the evan- ing this divine account was a secular argument for
gelicals resisted new developments in thought and evolution. Based on Greek thought, but without solid
science that contradicted their beliefs and values. proofs, it remained a theory and nothing more for cen-
While the evangelicals worked to hold back the sec- turies. In 1859, however, the theory of evolution gained
ular tide that was washing over the West, the Roman dramatic support when the Englishman Charles Dar-
Catholic Church committed to a war against moder- win (18091882) published On the Origin of Species. Mar-
nity itself. The once liberal Pius IX (pope 18461878), shaling data to prove that evolution was a principle of
made captive briefly during the 1848 uprising in Rome, biological development rather than a mere hypoth-
became one of the most reactionary popes in history. esis, Darwin showed that over the course of millennia
In 1864 he issued an encyclical, the Syllabus of Errors, modern plants and animals had evolved from simpler
in which he denounced, as contrary to the faith, about forms through a process of natural selection.
eighty modern ideas, including public schooling, lib- In 1871, in Descent of Man, Darwin applied his find-
eralism, democracy, socialism, religious toleration, ings to human beings, portraying them as the outcome
and civil marriage. Then, in 1870, he proclaimed the of millions of years of evolution. Outraged clergy at-
doctrine of papal infallibility, by which the pope can- tacked Darwin for his atheism, and equally zealous
not err when he speaks ex cathedra (Latin, from the Darwinians ridiculed those who adhered to the bib-
S chair)that is, when speaking officially as pope. This lical story of creation for their credulity. Today, the
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 507

theory of evolution is one of the cornerstones of bio- laws. In romanticism, they found escape from the sor-
logical science, despite some continuing criticism. did and ugly side of industrialism (see Slice of Life on
Other advances in science were helping to lay page 510).
the groundwork for the modern world. In the 1850s, But both styles slowly grew mundane and preten-
French scientist Louis Pasteur [pass-TUHR] (18221895) tious under the patronage of the middle class, partly
proposed the germ theory of disease, the notion that because of the inevitable loss of creative energy that
many diseases are caused by microorganisms. This sets in when any style becomes established and partly
seminal idea led him to important discoveries and because of the conversion of the cultural arena into a
proposals for change. Claiming that germs are respon- marketplace. Because they lacked the deep learning
sible for the spread of disease, he campaigned for im- that had guided aristocratic patrons in the past, the
proved sanitation and sterilization and thus paved the new bourgeois audiences demanded art and literature
way for antiseptic surgery. He demonstrated that food that mirrored their less refined values. Catering to this
spoilage could be prevented by killing microorgan- need, artists and writers produced works that were
isms through heating, a discovery that resulted in the spectacular, sentimental, and moralistic. Simply put,
pasteurization of milk. His studies of rabies and an- successful art did not offend respectable public taste.
thrax led him to the first use of vaccines against these Adding to this bourgeois influence was the grow-
diseases, thus laying the groundwork for the scientific ing ability of state institutions to control what was
study, immunology. As the founder of the science of expressed in art and literature. The most powerful of
bacteriology and an important figure in the develop- these was Frances Royal Academy of Painting and
ment of modern medicine, Pasteur is the embodiment Sculpture, founded in 1648 for the purpose of honor-
of Francis Bacons seventeenth-century assertion that ing the nations best painters. After 1830 its leaders
knowledge is power. became obsessed with rigid rules, thus creating what
In chemistry, a fruitful way of thinking about atoms was called official art. Those artists who could not
was finally formulated, moving beyond the simplistic obtain the academys approval for exhibiting their
notions that had been in vogue since fifth-century BCE works in the annual government-sponsored Paris Sa-
Greece. In about 1808 the Englishman John Dalton lons, or art shows, were virtually condemned to pov-
(17661844) invented an effective atomic theory, and erty unless they had other means of financial support.
in 1869 the Russian Dmitri Mendeleev [men-duh-LAY- Rejected artists soon identified the Royal Academy as
uhf ] (18341907) worked out a periodic table of ele- a defender of the status quo and an enemy of innova-
ments, based on atomic weights, a system that, with tion. No other Western state had a national academy
modifications, is still in use. By 1871 other chemists with as much power as Frances Royal Academy, al-
had moved from regarding molecules as clusters of though in other European countries similar bodies
atoms to conceiving of them as structured into stable tried to regulate both art and literature.
patterns. Nevertheless, without means and equipment In reaction to the empty, overblown qualities of
for studying the actual atoms, atomism remained official art, a new style began to appear in the 1840s.
merely a useful theory until the twentieth century. Known as realism, this style focused on the everyday
Advances in chemistry also led to changes in anes- lives of the middle and lower classes (see Interpreting
thetics and surgery. In the 1840s, chemists introduced Art). The realists depicted ordinary people without
nitrous oxide, chloroform, and other compounds that idealizing or romanticizing them, although a moral
could block pain in human beings. Use of these new point of view was always implied. Condemning neo-
painkillers in obstetrics increased after Queen Victo- classicism as cold and romanticism as exaggerated, the
ria was given chloroform to assist her in childbirth in realists sought to convey what they saw around them
1853. These desensitizers revolutionized the treatment in a serious, accurate, and unsentimental way. Mer-
of many diseases and wounds and made modern sur- chants, housewives, workers, peasants, and even pros-
gery possible. titutes replaced kings, aristocrats, goddesses, saints,
and heroes as the subjects of paintings and novels.
Many forces contributed to the rise of realism. In di-
CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM plomacy, this was the era of Bismarcks realpolitik, the
hard-nosed style that replaced cautious and civilized
ROMANTICISM TO REALISM negotiation. In science, Darwin demystified earthly
In its triumph, the middle class embraced both neo- existence by rejecting the biblical view of creation and
classical and romantic styles in the arts. In neoclas- concluding that the various species, including human
sicism, the bourgeoisie found unchanging aesthetic beings, evolved from simpler organisms. The spread
rules that echoed their belief that the seemingly cha- of democracy encouraged the realists to take an inter-
otic marketplace was actually regulated by economic est in ordinary people, and the camera, invented in the S
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508 CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE TRIuMPH OF THE BOuRGEOIsIE

Interpreting Art
Composition Five Artists Vision
vertical forms (the human Manet brings the viewer
figures and the columns) directly into the scene by
and two horizontal forms (1) presenting the barmaid
(the bar counter and the in close-up, standing in a
panel behind the bar) are confrontational posea
the main design elements. method adapted from the
Manet creates an optical new art of photography; and
illusion with the background (2) by cropping the scene,
mirror, which is filled with as shown by the male figure
images of patrons heads (right) and the chandeliers
and lighting fixtures. (above)a method adapted
from Japanese prints (see
Color The colors create Figure 20.5 ).
rich optical effects. Black
Manets favorite hueis Spectacle Manet
dominant (the barmaids captures the spectacle of
dress; the mans attire). The the new entertainments:
somber mood is relieved the ghastly white light, the
by bits of gold, orange, crush of customers, the stoic
red, blue, and green. The barmaid, the male customer
splashes of white (the who may be making a
lighting; the barmaids proposition, the trapeze
upper torso) make this an artist whose green feet are
eye-popping image. visible in the top left corner.

Mood The barmaid Artistic


surrounded by pleasure
seekersstands alone, douard ManeT. A Bar at the Folies-Bergre. 1882. Oil on canvas, 311/2 43. Samuel Courtauld Trust,
Perspective
The mirror distorts the
withdrawn, perhaps The Courtauld Gallery, London. This paintings settingthe Folies-Bergre, dating from 1869was a traditional use of perspective,
bored, as she works caf-concert, or glorified beer hall, which offered drinks and raucous stage acts. From the 1850s these venues leaving the viewer puzzled
her monotonous job. In initially catered to the lower classes, but in time, Parisians from all social strata began to spend time in them. by the placement of figures
her unseeing gaze and The barmaid, who posed in Manets studio, actually worked at the Folies-Bergre. Manet drew inspiration from and objects. The barmaid
stiff posture, Manet has
Courbet and the realists for subject matter and painting methods. In turn, he influenced the impressionists and appears to be looking
captured the anonymity of
postimpressionists (see Chapter 20) with his focus on urban life, new ways to apply paint, and his aesthetic ideal outward but is also standing
life in the industrial age.
of art for arts sake. before the top-hatted man
in the mirror.

1. Composition How does Manet use vertical and horizontal 4. Cultural Perspective Why was this painting so revolution-
forms to set this scene? ary in its day?
2. Context Discuss the social, economic, and cultural themes 5. Theme What is the paintings dominant message and how
evident in the painting. does Manet convey it?
3. Technique What techniques does Manet use to create
space and perspective?

1830s, inspired the realists in their goal of truthful ac- focused on their characters emotions and showed
curacy. All these influences combined to make realism great faith in the power of an individual to transform
a style intent on scientific objectivity in its depiction of his or her own life and the lives of others. Realist writ-
the world as it is. ers, in contrast, tended to be determinists who let the
facts speak for themselves. They rejected the bour-
geois world as flawed by hypocrisy and materialism
Literature and denounced the industrial age for its mechaniza-
In literature, the romantic style continued to dominate tion of human relationships. Realism in literature
poetry, essays, and novels until midcentury, when it flourished between 1848 and 1871, chiefly in France,
S began to be displaced by realism. Romantic writers England, Russia, and the united states, especially
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CuLTuRAL TRENDs: FROM ROMANTICIsM TO REALIsM 509

among African American writers who found their bird-seller, sand found herself in a socially equivo-
voices during the slavery controversy preceding the cal position in class-conscious France. Thus, she was
Civil War. predisposed to focus her writings on people without
power, such as women, artists, and laborers. Her nov-
The Height of French Romanticism In France els and plays, with their strong political undertones,
the leading exponent of romanticism was the poet, illustrate Victor Hugos claim that romanticism was
dramatist, and novelist Victor Hugo (18021885). His liberalism in literature. For sand, idealism simply
poetry established his fame, and the performance of meant another way to call for social reform.
his tragedy Hernani in February 1830 solidified his po- sands first novel, Indiana (1832)perhaps her
sition as the leader of the romantic movement. Enliv- bestfeatures multifaceted characters and accu-
ened with scenes of rousing action and by characters rately depicts the constraints on married women
with limitless ambition, this play seemed with one in her day. The nineteen-year-old heroine, Indiana,
stroke to sweep away the artificialities of classicism. who is unhappily married to an older man, seeks true
Its premiere created a huge scandal. When the bour- love, apart from her spouse and in a relationship of
geois revolution erupted in July 1830, many French equals. unfortunately, because of her lovers treachery
people believed that Hugos Hernani had been pro- and societys inflexible marital code, she is forced to
phetic of the political upheaval. flee to Bourbon Island (modern Runion), then a French
Hugo became something of a national institution, colony in the Indian Ocean. There she finds a soul
noted as much for his humane values as for his writ- mate with whom she settles down in a Rousseau-like
ing. Because of his opposition to the regime of Napo- paradise. Critics read the work as an attack on Frances
leon III, he was exiled from France for eighteen years, Napoleonic Code, which placed wives under their hus-
beginning in 1851. While in exile, he published his bands control (see Chapter 18). Indiana made sands
most celebrated novel, the epic-length Les Misrables reputation, and she followed it with about eighty more
(The Wretched) (1862), which expresses his revulsion at novels and twenty plays.
the morally bankrupt society he believed France had
become after Napoleon I. The hero and moral center Romanticism in the English Novel In England,
of the book is the pauper Jean Valjean, imprisoned for romanticism found its most expressive voices in the
seventeen years for stealing a loaf of bread. He escapes novels of the Bront sisters, Charlotte (18161855) and
and becomes a prosperous, respectable merchant, but Emily (18181848). Reared in the Yorkshire country-
the law is unrelenting in its pursuit of him, and he is side far from the cultural mainstream, they created
forced into a life of hiding and subterfuge. Hugo makes two of the most beloved novels in the English lan-
Valjean a symbol of the masses will to freedom, and guage. Their circumscribed lives seemed to uphold
his bourgeois readers were fascinated and horrified at the romantic dictum: true artistic genius springs from
the same time by Valjeans ultimate triumph. the imagination alone.
Another popular romantic literary figure was the Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights (1847) creates
French novelist and playwright George sand (18041876), a romantic atmosphere through mysterious events,
who was forced by need to become a writer. Amandine- ghostly apparitions, and graveyard scenes, but it rises
Aurore-Lucie Dupin took the name George sand in above the typical gothic romance. The work is suf-
part to keep from embarrassing her own and her es- fused with a mystical radiance that invests the char-
tranged husbands families and in part to assert herself acters and the natural world with spiritual meanings
in the male literary world; she was addressed by her beyond the visible. A tale of love and redemption, the
friends as Madame George sand. sand has been called story focuses on a mismatched couple, the genteel
the first modern, liberated woman. she courted contro- Catherine and the outcast Heathcliff, who are never-
versy as she engaged in highly public sexual liaisons theless soul mates. In the uncouth, passionate Heath-
with leading men of the times, including romantic cliff, Bront creates a Byronic hero who lives outside
composer and pianist Frdric Chopin [sHO-pan] conventional morality. Her portrayal of him as a man
(18101849). she often dressed as a typical bourgeois made vengeful by cruel circumstances has led some to
gentleman: coat and vest, cravat, trousers, steel-tipped label this the first sociorevolutionary novel.
boots, and top hat. sand was the first Western woman Charlotte Bront published Jane Eyre in the same
to play an active part in a revolutionary government. year Wuthering Heights appeared. A dark and melan-
In the Paris uprising of 1848, she sat on committees, de- choly novel, the work tells the story of a governesss
livered speeches and debated issues, and wrote in sup- love for her brooding and mysterious employer. Her
port of the short-lived radical socialist regime. hopes for happiness are crushed by the discovery
Because her father was descended from Polish roy- hat the cause of his despair is his deranged wife, kept
alty and her mother was the daughter of a Parisian hidden in the attic. Narrated in the first person, the S
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SLICE OF LIFE
Observing Human Behavior: A Frenchman Watches the English at Play

Hippolyte Taine
A DAY AT THE RACES, 28 MAY 1861
Hippolyte Taine (18281893), a French philosopher, his- of them resemble wretched, hungry, beaten, mangy
torian and critic, was a shrewd observer of the human dogs, waiting for a bone, without hope of finding much
comedy. A historic determinist, he believed that indi- on it. They arrived on foot during the night, and count
vidual fate was determined by nation, culture, and ac- upon dining off crumbs from the great feast. Many are
tion. His determinism is on view in Notes on England, lying on the ground, among the feet of the passers-by,
the book he penned during visits to the island monarchy and sleep open-mouthed, face upwards. Their coun-
in 1861 and 1871. Taines account of Derby Day is acute tenances have an expression of stupidity and of pain-
social observation and a classic of reportage. ful hardness. The majority of them have bare feet, all
are terribly dirty, and most absurd-looking; the reason
Races at Epsom; it is the Derby Day, a day of jollifica- is that they wear gentlemens old clothes, worn-out
tion; Parliament does not sit; for three days all the talk fashionable dresses, small bonnets, formerly worn by
has been about horses and their trainers. . . . young ladies. The sight of these cast-off things, which
Epsom course is a large, green plain, slightly undu- have covered several bodies, becoming more shabby
lating; on one side are reared three public stands and in passing from one to the other, always makes me un-
several other smaller ones. In front, tents, hundreds comfortable. To wear these old clothes is degrading;
of shops, temporary stables under canvas, an incred- in doing so the human being shows or avows that he
ible confusion of carriages, of horses, of horsemen, of is the off-scouring of society. Among us [the French]
private omnibuses; there are perhaps 200,000 human a peasant, a workman, a laborer, is a different man,
heads here. Nothing beautiful or even elegant; the car- not an inferior person; his blouse belongs to him, as
riages are ordinary vehicles, and toilettes are rare; one my coat belongs to meit has clothed no one but him.
does not come here to exhibit them but to witness a The employment of ragged clothes is more than a pe-
spectacle: the spectacle is interesting only on account culiarity; the poor resign themselves here to be the
of its size. From the top of the stand the enormous footstool of others.
antheap swarms, and its din ascends. . . .
1Types and styles of horse-drawn carriages.
It is a carnival, in fact; they have come to amuse 2Agame played at fairs, featuring an effigy of an old woman smoking a pipe, at
themselves in a noisy fashion. Everywhere are gyp- which fairgoers threw missiles to win prizes.
sies, comic singers and dancers, disguised as negroes,
shooting galleries, where bows and arrows or guns
are used, charlatans who by dint of eloquence palm Interpreting This Slice of Life
off watch chains, games of skittles and sticks, musi- 1. What do Taines observations reveal about life in
cians of all sorts, and the most astonishing row of mid-nineteenth-century England and about his
cabs, barouches, droksies, four-in-hands,1 with pies, own attitudes toward the English nation?
cold meats, melons, fruits, wines, especially cham-
2. How do Taines descriptions of human behavior
pagnes. They unpack; they proceed to drink and eat;
support his theories of determinism?
that restores the creature and excites him; coarse joy
and open laughter are the result of a full stomach. In 3. Where would Taine be classifiedin the school of
presence of this ready-made feast the aspect of the romanticism or realismand why?
poor is pitiable to behold; they endeavor to sell you 4. How would you describe public behavior at a sport-
penny dolls, remembrances of the Derby; to induce ing event in the united states, and what does that
you to play Aunt sally,2 to black your boots. Nearly all tell us about our society?

novel reveals the heroines deep longings and pas- Romanticism in American Literature Romanti-
sions as well as her ultimate willingness to sacrifice cism reached a milestone with the American literary
her feelings for moral values. Recognized at the time and philosophical movement known as transcenden-
as a revolutionary work that dispensed with the con- talism. Flourishing in New England in the early and
ventions of sentimental novels, Jane Eyre was attacked middle part of the 1800s, this movement was critical
S by critics but welcomed by readers, who made it a of formal religions and drew inspiration from the be-
N best seller. lief that divinity is accessible without the necessity of
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CuLTuRAL TRENDs: FROM ROMANTICIsM TO REALIsM 511

mediation. unlike the God of traditional religion, the which caused a scandal with its unvarnished tale of
divine spirit (transcendence) manifests itself in many adultery. In contrast to Balzacs many characters, Flau-
forms, including the physical universe, all construc- bert focused on a single person, the unhappy and mis-
tive practical activity, all great cultural achievements, guided Emma Bovary. In careful detail, he sets forth
and all types of spiritual expression. In their goal of the inner turmoil of a frustrated middle-class woman
seeking union with the worlds underlying metaphysi- trapped by her dull marriage and her social standing.
cal order, the transcendentalists followed in the steps By stressing objectivity and withholding judgment,
of the German idealists (see Chapter 18). Of the tran- Flaubert believed he was following the precepts of
scendentalists, Henry David Thoreau (18171862) was modern science. As a social critic, he portrays every-
probably the most influential. His most celebrated day life among the smug members of a small-town,
book, Walden (1854), the lyrical journal of the months bourgeois society. Notwithstanding the scandal it
he spent living in the rough on Walden Pond, is vir- caused, Madame Bovary was an instant success and es-
tually the bible of todays environmental movement. tablished the new style of realism. For most readers,
Thoreaus On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849), an Emma Bovary became a poignant symbol of people
essay on the necessity of disobeying an unjust law, whose unrealistic dreams and aspirations doom them
was one of the texts that inspired Martin Luther to failure.
King Jr.s protests of the 1950s and 1960s against the English novelists also wrote in the new realist style.
united states segregated social system. Like French realists, they railed against the vulgar-
American poetry now became a major presence in ity, selfishness, and hypocrisy of the middle class, but
Western literature with the writings of Emily Dickin- unlike the French, who were interested in creating
son (18301886) and Walt Whitman (18191892). Both unique characters, they spoke out for social justice.
poets drew on their personal lives, in the manner of Englands most popular writer of realist fiction was
other romantic poets. They also adopted offbeat verse Charles Dickens (18121870), who favored stories deal-
forms and punctuation, which have greatly influenced ing with the harsh realities of the industrial age. Writ-
twentieth-century poets. Today, Dickinson and Whit- ing to meet deadlines for serialized magazine stories,
man are regarded as two of the most innovative poets Dickens poured out a torrent of words over a long lit-
of nineteenth-century American literature. Dickinson, erary career that began when he was in his twenties.
a recluse, published only seven poems during her life- In early works, such as Oliver Twist (18371839) and
time. since her death, her reputation has increased David Copperfield (18491850), Dickens was optimistic,
dramatically, based on about 1,800 poems that make holding out hope for his characters and, by implica-
up the Dickinson canon. Whitman, vilified at first by tion, for society in general. But in later novels, such as
the establishment, lived long enough to see himself Bleak House and Hard Times, both published between
become an American icon, the model of the good gray- 1851 and 1854, he was pessimistic about social reform
haired poet. During his career, he effected a revolu- and the possibility of correcting the excesses of indus-
tion in American poetry by creating a body of works trialism. Dickenss rich descriptions, convoluted plots
based on his experience as an American, written in a with unexpected coincidences, and topical satire were
specifically American language. much admired by Victorian readers, and his finely
developed and very British characters, such as Mr.
Realism in French and English Novels Realism Pickwick, Oliver Twist, and Ebenezer scrooge, have
began in France in the 1830s with the novels of Hon- survived as a memorable gift to literature.
or de Balzac [BAHL-zak] (17991850). Balzac fore- Realist fiction in England was also represented by
shadowed the major traits of realism in the nearly one important female writers. The two most successful
hundred novels that make up the series he called The were Elizabeth Gaskell (18101865) and Mary Ann
Human Comedy. set in France in the Napoleonic era Evans (18191880), better known by her pen name,
and the early industrial age, this voluminous series George Eliot. Both wrote novels about the hardships
deals with the lives of more than two thousand charac- imposed on the less fortunate by Englands industrial
ters, in both Paris and the provinces. Balzac condemns economy. Gaskells North and South (1855) underscores
the shallowness of middle-class society, pointing out the widening gap between the rich, particularly in
how industrialism has caused many people to value Englands urban north, and the poor, concentrated in
material things more than friendship and family, al- the rural south, within the context of the rise of the
though there are virtuous and sympathetic characters labor unions. Typically, her themes involve contrasts,
as well. contradictions, and conflicts, such as the helplessness
Frances outstanding realist was Gustave Flaubert of the individual in the face of impersonal forces and
[floh-BAIR] (18211880), who advocated a novel free the simultaneous need to affirm the human spirit
from conventional, accepted moral and philosophi- against the inequalities between the factory owners S
cal views. His masterpiece is Madame Bovary (1857), and their workers. similarly, in Middlemarch (1872) and N
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512 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

other novels, George Eliot explores the ways human figure. Using the novel to address one of lifes most
beings are trapped in social systems that shape and vexing questionsIf God exists, why is there suffer-
mold their lives, for good or ill. Less deterministic in ing and evil in the world?Dostoyevsky offers no easy
outlook than Gaskell, Eliot stresses the possibility of solution. Indeed, he reaches the radical conclusion that
individual fulfillment despite social constraints as the question is insoluble, that suffering is an essential
well as the freedom to make moral choices. part of earthly existence and without it human beings
can have no moral life.
The Russian Realists Russia now for the first time
produced writers whose realist works received interna- Realism among African American Writers In
tional acclaim: Leo Tolstoy [TOHL-stoy] (18281910) and the 1840s, as public opinion in the United States be-
Fyodor Dostoyevsky [duhs-tuh-YEF-skee] (18211881). came polarized over slavery, a new literary genre, the
Like English and French realists, these Russians de- slave narrative, emerged. The narratives, whether com-
picted the grim face of early industrialism and dealt posed by slaves or told by slaves to secretaries who
with social problems, notably the plight of the newly wrote them down, were filled with gritty, harsh de-
liberated serfs. Their realism is tempered by a typically tails of the unjust slave system; these stories in turn
Russian concern: Should Russia embrace Western val- influenced realist fiction and also fueled the fires of
ues or follow its own traditions, relying on its Slavic and antislavery rhetoric. Many slave narratives were even-
Oriental past? Significantly, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky tually published, but probably the most compelling
transcend Western realism by stressing religious and was Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), writ-
spiritual themes. ten by Douglass (18171895) himself, which launched
In his early works, Tolstoy wrote objectively, with- this literary tradition. Douglasss narrative described a
out moralizing. The novel Anna Karenina (18751877) heroic struggle, starting from an early awareness of the
describes the unhappy consequences of adultery in a burden of being a slave, continuing through successful
sophisticated but unforgiving society. War and Peace efforts to educate himself, and concluding with a bolt
(18651869), his greatest work, is a monumental sur- to freedom and a new life as a spokesman for aboli-
vey of Russia during the Napoleonic era, portraying a tion. This eloquent narrative was one of the first great
huge cast of characters caught up in the surging tides modern books in the West to be written by a person of
of history. Although Tolstoy focuses on the upper class color. Besides establishing a new genre, Douglass made
in this Russian epic, he places them in realistic situa- a splendid addition to the old genre of autobiography
tions without romanticizing them. In these works, he and opened the door to an inclusive world literature
was a determinist, convinced that human beings were free from the racial segregation that had characterized
at the mercy of forces beyond them. But in 1876, af- the varied literatures of the world since the fall of Rome.
ter having a religious conversion to a simple form of Another African American who contributed to the
Christianity that stressed pacifism, plain living, and realist tradition was Sojourner Truth (17951883). Given
radical social reform, he repudiated all art that lacked the slave name of Isabell (Bell) Hardenberg at birth,
a moral vision, including his own. Tolstoy devoted the she won her freedom and took a new name, symbolic
rest of his life to this plain faith, following what he be- of her vow to sojourn the American landscape and
lieved to be Jesuss teachings and working for a Chris- always speak the truth. Truths voice, captured by her
tian anarchist society. secretary, Olive Gilbert, is both colloquial and elo-
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a powerful innovator who quent, teasing and sincere, homespun and filled with
introduced literary devices that have become standard biblical knowledge. Her actual voice electrified lis-
in Western letters. For example, Crime and Punishment teners, causing Truth to be remembered as one of the
(1866), written long before Sigmund Freud developed most natural orators in the nineteenth-century United
psychoanalysis, analyzes the inner life of a severely States. Sojourner Truths Aint I a Woman? speech,
disturbed personality. In Notes from Underground (1864), delivered in 1851 before the Womens Rights Conven-
the unnamed narrator is the first depiction of a mod- tion in Akron, Ohio, shows the simple eloquence that
ern literary type, the antihero, a character who lacks made her a legend in her own time.
the virtues conventionally associated with heroism but
who is not a villain.
In The Brothers Karamazov (18791880), Dostoyevsky Art and Architecture
reaches the height of his powers. Like Flaubert in Ma- Realism in art grew up alongside an exaggerated ver-
dame Bovary, Dostoyevsky sets his story in a small town sion of romanticism that persisted well beyond mid-
and builds the narrative around a single family. Each century. Even neoclassicism was represented in the
of the Karamazov brothers personifies certain traits of official art of France throughout this period. Both
S human behavior, though none is a one-dimensional styles found favor with the wealthy bourgeoisie.
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 513

Figure 19.8 Jean-Auguste-


Dominique Ingres. The Turkish Bath.
Ca. 18521863. Oil on canvas,
diameter 421/2. Louvre. Interest in Oriental
themes was a continuous thread in Frances
nineteenth-century bourgeois culture. In his
rendering of a Turkish bath, Ingres used a
harem setting in which to depict more than
twenty nudes in various erotic and nonerotic
poses. The nudes nevertheless are portrayed in
typical classical manner, suggesting studio
models rather than sensual human beings.

Neoclassicism and Romanticism after 1830 Jean- effects they have on the viewer. The results in Hamlet
Auguste-Dominique Ingres, who had inherited the and Horatio in the Graveyard are somber hues that rein-
position of neoclassical master painter from Jacques- force the melancholy atmosphere.
Louis David, controlled French academic art until his Romantic painting, especially of landscapes, became
death in 1867. He understood the mentality of the Paris popular in the United States as Americans pushed
Salon crowds, and his works catered to their tastes. westward in the nineteenth century. The grandeur,
What particularly pleased this audiencecomposed vastness, and beauty of the new country and Gods
almost exclusively of the wealthy, educated middle presence in nature, as explained by the transcendental
classwere chaste nudes in mythological or exotic poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882),
settings, as in The Turkish Bath (Figure 19.8). The wom- inspired landscape artists to glorify nature, to portray
ens tactile flesh and the abandoned poses, though su- nature as sublime, and to relate the individual to the
perbly realized, are depicted in a cold, classical style natural world. One group of artists, known as the
and lack the immediacy of Ingres great portraits. Hudson River school (ca. 18251870), specialized in
Eugne Delacroix, Ingres chief rival, remained a images of the mountains and valleys of New England
significant force in French culture with comparable ar- and New York. For them, following Emersons teach-
tistic power. Delacroix perfected a romantic style filled ings, God and nature were one, and they attempted
with superb mastery of color and human feeling. One to infuse their works with a mystical quality while
of his finest works from this period is Hamlet and Hora- also showing that the individual had a role to play in
tio in the Graveyard, based on act 5, scene 1, of Shake- understanding and affecting nature. A second genera-
speares drama (Figure 19.9). In the painting, one of the tion of the Hudson River school ushered in luminism,
gravediggers holds up a skull to Hamlet and Horatio. an art movement that emphasized nature rather than
Delacroix, faithful to the Shakespearean text, captures the individual, whom they often depicted in small
the mens differing reactions: Hamlet, on the right, scale or omitted entirely from their paintings. Some
seems to recoil slightly, while Horatio appears more luminists followed the American frontier as it was
curious. In this and later paintings, Delacroix tried to pushed westward, in search of spectacular landscapes
work out the laws governing colorsespecially the (Figure 19.10). S
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514 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Figure 19.9 Eugne Delacroix. Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard.


1839. Oil on canvas, 32 26. Louvre. Shakespeares Hamlet, a tragedy
of doomed love, became a touchstone for romantic artists and poets.
Delacroix, after having seen Hamlet performed in Paris, was so taken
by the graveyard scene that he created at least three lithographs and
two paintings of it. In this painting, he has reduced the scene to its bare
essentials: the two gravediggers (foreground) confront Hamlet and Horatio
(middle ground), while a cloud-filled sky takes up nearly half of the canvas.
He makes the dark skull the focus of the painting by having all four figures
gaze at it and placing it against the light sky. Dynamic tension is added
by the diagonal line running from the upper right to the lower left side of
the painting, a line made up of the descending hill and the gravediggers
upraised arm.

Like romantic painting, nineteenth-century archi- events. In 1848 the jury of the Paris Salon, influenced
tecture tended to be nostalgic, intrigued by times by the democratic feelings unleashed by the social
and places far removed from the industrial present. revolutions of that year, allowed a new kind of paint-
Particularly appealing were medieval times, which ing to be shown. The artist most identified with this
were considered exotic and even ethically superior to new style was Gustave Courbet [koor-BAY] (18191877),
the present. Patriotism also contributed to the trend renowned for his refusal to prettify his works in the
among romantic architects to adapt medieval building name of aesthetic theory. His provocative canvases
styles, notably the Gothic, to nineteenth-century con- outraged middle-class viewers and made him the
ditions, since the Middle Ages was when the national guiding spirit of militant realism. Until about 1900,
character of many states was being formed. most painters followed in his footsteps. Combative,
In London, when the old Houses of Parliament largely self-taught, and a man of the people, Courbet
burned to the ground in 1834, a decision had to be first attracted notice in 1849 by painting common folk
made about the style of their replacement. Since En at work. Above all, he strove for an art that reflected
glish rights and liberties traditionally dated from ordinary life.
Magna Carta in 1215, during the Middle Ages, a parlia- Courbets art was not readily accepted under
mentary commission chose a Gothic style for the new Frances Second Empire (18521871). Salon juries re-
building (see Figure 19.2). Designed by Charles Barry jected his pioneering works, such as The Meeting, or
(17951860) and A. W. N. Pugin (18121852), the Houses Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, a visual record of an en-
of Parliament show a true understanding of the essen- counter between the painter and his wealthy patron,
tial features of the Gothic style, using pointed arches Alfred Bruyas [brew-yah] (18211877) of Montpellier
and picturesque towers. Nevertheless, this building is (Figure 19.11). With an expansive gesture, the well-
not genuinely Gothic, for it adheres to classical prin- dressed Bruyas (center) greets Courbet (right), as a
ciples in the regularity of its decorations and its em- manservant (left) stands with head bowed. The paint-
phasis on the horizontal. ers informal costumewith painting equipment and
belongings strapped to his backhelped promote
The Rise of Realism in Art Dissatisfied with the Courbets image as a carefree artist serving the cause
emotional, exotic, and escapist tendencies of romanti- of realism. With Bruyas financial backing, Courbet
S cism, a new breed of painter began to depict real-life installed this painting at the Realism Pavilion, next
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 515

Figure 19.10 Albert Bierstadt. The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak. 1863. Oil on canvas,
731/2 120 3/4. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The German-American Albert Bierstadt
(18301902) traveled, in 1859, with a government survey party, headed by Frederick W. Lander, to the
Nebraska territory. This scene, the peak in the distance named for the survey leader, is in present-day
Wyoming. Typical of luminism, the human worldmen, horses, camping gear, and tentsis dwarfed
by the sky and mountains. Based on sketches made on site, Bierstadt painted this work in his New York
City studio.

door to the official Salon of 1855. Critics ridiculed The references to the Salons preference for nudes and still
Meeting, claiming it had no narrative, dramatic, or an- lifes. To the left of this central group, in shadow, are
ecdotal subject, and accused Courbet of self-promotion depicted those who have to work for a living, the usual
and narcissism. Relishing the controversy, Courbet re- subjects of Courbets paintings, including peasants
mained true to his vision and continued to make art (the hunter and his dog) and a laborer. To the right,
from his own lifean ideal that influenced Manet and also in shadow, are grouped those for whom he paints,
the impressionists (see Chapter 20). including his friends and mentors, each representing
Another of Courbets paintings rejected by the 1855 a specific idea. For example, the man reading a book is
Salon jury and exhibited in the Realism Pavilion was the poet Charles Baudelaire [bohd-LAIR], a personifi-
his masterpiece, Interior of My Studio (Figure 19.12). An cation of lyricism in art. As a total work, Interior of My
intensely personal painting that visually summarizes Studio shows Courbet as the craftsman who mediates
his approach to art until this time, this work uses ac- between the ordinary people pursuing everyday lives
tual people to convey allegorical meaning. Its subtitle and the world of art and culture, bringing both to life
suggests Courbets intent: A Real Allegory Summing Up in the process.
Seven Years of My Life as an Artist. At the center of this Although Courbet is considered the principal
canvas sits the artist himself, in full light and painting founder of the realist style in art, he had a worthy pre-
a landscape while he is watched by a naked model and decessor in Honor Daumier [DOH-myay] (18081879),
a small boy. The model and the fabric may be ironic a painter of realistic scenes before realism emerged as S
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Figure 19.11 Gustave Courbet. The Meeting,
or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. 1854. Oil
on canvas, 503/4 58 5/8. Muse Fabre,
Montpellier. This painting is an allegory of
the artistic and financial pact made between
Courbet and his wealthy patron, Bruyas.
Deeply attracted to Fouriers socialist ideas,
both men thought they had found the solution,
a Fourierist term, to the problem of uniting
genius, capital, and work for the benefit of
all. Published letters between the two show
them involved in a mutual compact: for Bruyas,
greater access to art circles and society,
and for Courbet, the gaining of spiritual and
economic freedom. Despite their partnership,
the figural placement in the painting proclaims
the preeminence of the artist: with his head
tilted haughtily, the painter is privileged, placed
nearest the viewer and isolated from the other
two figures.

Figure 19.12 Gustave Courbet. Interior of My Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My
Life as an Artist. 1855. Oil on canvas, 119 3/4 196 3/8. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Romanticism and realism
are joined in this allegorical work. The subjectsthe artist and artistic geniuswere major preoccupations
of the romantic era, as was the use of allegory. But undeniably realist is Courbets mocking attitude toward
academic art and society. This paintings fame rests on its deft three-part composition, its allegorical biography
of the artist, and its painterly technique, which captures the sensuosity of different textures, such as the female
models skin, a lace shawl, and a dogs ruffled fur.

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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 517

a recognized style (see chapter-opening photo). Dau political drawings until tighter censorship laws were
mier chronicled the life of Paris with a dispassionate passed in 1835.
eye. In thousands of satirical lithographs, from which In contrast to Daumier with his urban scenes, Jean-
he earned his living, and hundreds of paintings, he Franois Millet [mee-YAY] (18141875) painted the
depicted its mean streets, corrupt law courts, squalid countryside near Barbizon, a village south of Paris
rented rooms, ignorant art connoisseurs, bored musi- where an artists colony was located in the 1840s.
cians, cowardly bourgeoisie, and countless other ur- Millet and the Barbizon school were influenced by
ban characters and scenes. His works not only conjure the English romantic Constable, whose painting The
up midcentury Paris but also symbolize the city as a Hay Wain had been admired in the Paris Salon of 1824
living hell where daily existence could be a form of (see Figure 18.11). Unlike Constable, who treated hu-
punishment. man beings only incidentally in his landscapes, Mil-
Daumier is a master of the lithograph print. Lithog- let made the rural folk and their labors his primary
raphy, invented in 1798 in Germany, is based on the subject.
resistance between water and grease. In early lithog- One of Millets most famous Barbizon paintings,
raphy, the artist drew an image on a flat stone sur- The Gleaners, exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1857, de-
face using a greasy substanceapplied with brush or picts three women gleaningthat is, scavenging grain
crayonand then poured a special chemical to adhere left over from the harvest (Figure 19.14). The gleaners
the image to the stone. He then dampened the stone belonged to a depressed rural class that had fallen
with water, which saturated the nongreasy areas. The hopelessly behind in Frances rush into industrial-
artist next applied an oily ink with a roller, which held ism. The composition hints at their plight by depict-
fast only to the greasy image, while the blank sections ing the women isolated from the world in a desolate
were protected by the thin layer of water. Next, paper landscape. Rejecting any ties to socialism, Millet in-
was laid on the stone, which was then run through stead claimed that it is the treatment of the human
a press, thus transferring the image to the paper. To- condition that touches me most in art. Salon critics
days lithography makes use of zinc or aluminum sur- nevertheless reacted by calling him a socialist, and
faces instead of stone. seeing the threat of revolution in these marginalized
In Daumiers prints, no one and nothing was safe laborers.
from his gaze. For example, in The Freedom of the Press, However, realist painters could focus on rural life
he depicts a muscular printer, symbolic of free ideas, and not be accused of socialism, as the career of Rosa
ready to fight oppressive regimes (Figure 19.13). On Bonheur [boh-NURR] (18221899) reveals. Specializ-
the right, Charles X, attended by two ministers, has ing in animal subjects, Bonheur enjoyed success with
been knocked downa reference to the role of the critics and public alike, starting with the Paris Salon
press in the kings fall from power in the revolution of of 1841, when she was nineteen. In 1848 the Salon jury
1830. On the left, top-hatted Louis Philippe threatens awarded Bonheur a Medal First Class for an animal
the printer with an umbrella, egged on by two atten- scene. In 1853 The Horse Fair (Figure 19.15)portraying
dants. For such satire, Daumier was awarded a six- spirited horses and their handlers at a horse market
month prison term in 1832, but to his adoring audience made her an international celebrity, after a lithograph
he was a hero. Daumier often included printers in his copy sold well in France, Britain, and the United States.

Figure 19.13 Honor Daumier. The Freedom of the Press. Caption:


Ne vous y Frottez Pas!! [Watch It!!]. 1834. Lithograph, 161/2
111/2. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris. Daumiers career as
a caricaturist was made possible by technological advances associated
with the industrial era. After drawing a cartoon, he reproduced it for
the ever-expanding popular market using the lithographic process, the
first application of industrial methods to art. Daumiers prints reflect his
liberal politics, as shown in this defense of a free press. And their design
elementsa blend of figures and words, the use of metaphors, and the
lack of reverence for authoritymake them the progenitors of todays S
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518 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Figure 19.14 Jean-Franois Millet. The Gleaners. 1857. Oil on canvas, 33 44. Muse dOrsay,
Paris. Millets realistic scenes of peasants were inspired in part by the biblical quotation In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread (Genesis 3:19). In The Gleaners, Millet expresses this idea with controlled beauty,
depicting the women with simple dignity despite their hard lot. The paintings earth tones reinforce the somber
nature of the subject.

What makes Bonheurs horses different from those in 1863 when Napoleon III authorized a Salon des Re-
painted by the romantic Delacroix was her accuracy fuss (Salon of the Rejects) for the hundreds of artists
in depicting anatomy and movementa reflection of excluded from the official exhibit. An audacious paint-
her realist faith in science. To prepare for this paint- ing by Manet in this first of the counter-Salons made
ing, Bonheur, dressed as a man, visited a horse market him the talk of Paris and the recognized leader of new
twice a week for two years to make sketches. Today, painting.
the work is considered her masterpiece, both for its im- In the official Salon of 1865, Manet exhibited Olym-
pressive scale and for its knowledgeable portrayal of pia, painted two years earlier, which also created a
nineteenth-century country life. scandal (Figure 19.16). The painting presents a nude
If the Parisian art world was gratified by the paint- woman on a bed, a subject established by the painter
ings of Bonheur, it was outraged by the work of d- Titian in the sixteenth century, but which Manet now
ouard Manet [mah-NAY] (18321883), a painter whose modernized. Titian presented his nude as the goddess
style is difficult to classify. He contributed to the events Venus in an idealized setting, but Manet rejected the
that gradually discredited the Salon and the Royal trappings of mythology and depicted his nude real-
Academy, encouraging painters to express themselves istically as a Parisian courtesan in her bedroom. The
as they pleased, and thus was a bridge between the name Olympia was adopted by many Parisian prosti-
realists of the 1860s and the group that became known tutes at the time, and Manet portrayed her as being as
S in the 1870s as the impressionists. His notoriety arose imperious as a Greek goddess from Mount Olympus.
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 519

Figure 19.15 Rosa Bonheur. The Horse Fair. 18531855. Oil on canvas, 8 133. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. Artists specializing in animal scenes usually painted their subjects in loving
detail but only sketched in the backgroundperhaps reflecting lack of landscape technique. In contrast,
Bonheur fully renders the setting of The Horse Fair, including the feathery trees and dusty cobblestones.
So precise is her design that the cupola in the distance has been identified as that of La Salptrire hospital
in Parisa landmark near a midcentury horse market. Such realism led to the works favorable reception
from Napoleon III, which in turn helped promote Bonheur as one of Frances best painters. In 1864 Bonheur
became the first woman to receive the Legion of Honor, Frances highest award. However, the award was
bestowed privately by the empress, for the emperor refused to give the medal to a woman in a public
ceremony.

Figure 19.16 douard Manet. Olympia.


1863. Oil on canvas, 511/4 74 3/4. Muse
dOrsay, Paris. Despite its references to
traditional art, Olympia created a furor among
the prudish and conservative public and critics.
Parisian bourgeoisie expected to see nudes
in the official Salon, but they were shocked
by the appearance of a notorious prostitute,
completely nude. The art critics, likewise,
found the painting indecent and also condemned
Manets harsh, brilliant light, which tended
to eliminate any details of the rooms interior.
Regardless of its initial negative reception,
Olympia today is admired as a work that broke
with traditional art practices and opened the
way for a modern art centered on the painters
own theories. S
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520 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

Manets Olympia is neither demure nor flirtatious; she topics. With his work, he opened the door to an art that
gazes challengingly at the observer in a mixture of had no other purpose than to depict what the artist
coldness and coyness. Her posture speaks of her bold- chose to paintthat is, art for arts sake. In sum, Ma-
ness, as she sits propped up by pillows and dangles net was the first truly modern painter.
a shoe on her foot. She is attended by a black maid,
whose deferential expression is in sharp contrast to
Olympias haughty demeanor. At her feet lies a black Photography
cat, an emblem of sexuality and gloom, perhaps in- One of the forces propelling painting toward a more
spired by a poem by the artists friend Baudelaire. realistic and detached style of expression was the in-
More important than these historical connections, vention of the camera. Two types of camera techniques
however, are Manets artistic theories and practices, were perfected in 1839. In France, Louis-Jacques-Mand
which strained the boundaries of realism. Unlike other Daguerre [duh-GAIR] (17871851) discovered a chemi-
realists, whose moral or ideological feelings were re- cal method for implanting images on silvered copper
flected in the subjects they painted, Manet moved to- plates to produce photographs called daguerreotypes.
ward a dispassionate art in which the subject and the In England, William Henry Fox Talbot (18001877)
artist have no necessary connection. Manets achieve- was pioneering the negative-positive process of photo-
ment was revolutionary, for he had discarded the intel- graphic images, which he called the pencil of nature.
lectual themes of virtually all Western art: reliance on Not only did the camera undermine the reality of the
anecdote, the Bible, Christian saints, politics, nostalgia, painted image, but it also quickly created a new art
Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, and sentimental form, photography. From the beginning, many photog-
raphers began to experiment with the cameras artistic
potential, though only since 1945 has photography re-
ceived wide acceptance as serious art.
Among the early photographers were the American
Mathew Brady (about 18231896) and the English Julia
Margaret Cameron (18151879). Both made important
contributions to photography, but their techniques
and results differed widely. Brady attempted, through
a sharp focus, to capture his subject in a realistic man-
ner, whereas Cameron, by using a soft focus, delved
into the personality and character of the individual in
a near-mystical way.
Bradys reputation today is based mainly on his pic-
torial record of the American Civil War. Before the war,
he operated a spacious studio and gallery in New York
City, and there, in February 1860, he photographed
Abraham Lincoln, who was campaigning to be the
Republican nominee for president (Figure 19.17). This
portrait introduced Lincoln to the East Coast public,
who previously had thought the midwesterner to be
a coarse, backwoods politician. The original photo-
graph achieved wide circulation when it was printed
on a carte-de-visite, a 2-inch print that was mounted
as a calling card or collected as a personal memento.
After Lincoln was elected president, he acknowledged

Figure 19.17 Mathew Brady. Abraham Lincoln. 1860. Library of


Congress. Urged by his supporters in New York City, Lincoln hastily
arranged to have Brady photograph him. Typical of the carte-de-visite,
Lincoln is shown standing in a three-quarter-length frontal pose, a position
influenced by the Western tradition of portrait painting. Dressed in the
proper attire of the successful attorney that he was, Lincoln looks steadily
at the viewer while resting his left hand lightly on a stack of books. This
S photograph enhanced the Honest Abe image, with its dignity, seriousness,
N and air of calm resolve. On the left is the photographers logo: Brady N.Y.
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 521

Figure 19.18 Julia Margaret Cameron. Beatrice. 1866. Victoria


and Albert Museum, London. Cameron photographed many women
representing religious, historical, classical, and literary females. Turning
to The Divine Comedy, Cameron tries to capture the compelling beauty
of Beatrice, who was one of the guiding inspirations of Dantes famous
work. The light, coming in from the upper right, accentuates Beatrices
contemplative pose and her allure. In 1864, eight years before Cameron
took this picture and when she was beginning her career, she wrote that
she wanted to ennoble photography by combining the real & Ideal and
sacrificing nothing of Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty.

to Brady that the photograph had been instrumental forms of classical music compositionthe opera, the
in securing his victory. sonata, and the symphony.
While Brady and his staff were photographing bat- Although a baroque creation, opera rose to splen-
tlefield scenes as well as portraits, Cameron, in 1863, did heights under romanticism. The bourgeois public,
at age forty-eight, began to photograph her family bedazzled by operas spectacle and virtuoso singers,
and friendsmany of whom were prominent Victo- eagerly embraced this art form. Operatic composers
rians (Figure 19.18). Within two years her talent was sometimes wrote works specifically to show off the
recognized, and soon she was exhibiting her works vocal talents of particular performers. So prolific were
and winning awards. Her photographs document her these musicians that they wrote over half of the operas
conventional views of a womans place in society, her performed today.
deep Christian faith, and the impact of the romantic Concerts also flourished under romanticism. As the
movement. In her effort to catch the consciousness middle class grew wealthier, they used culture, espe-
of each sitter, Cameron experimented with lighting, cially music, to validate their social credentials. They
used props and costumes, tried different cameras, and founded orchestras, whose governing boards they ran,
often developed her own plates. turned concerts into social rituals with unwritten codes
of dress and behavior, and made musical knowledge
a badge of social worthiness. Opera composers em-
Music braced the romantic style. Operatic orchestras became
Originating shortly after 1800, romantic music reigned larger, inspiring composers to write long, elaborate
supreme from 1830 until 1871. Romantic works grew works requiring many performers. Composers began
longer and more expressive as composers forged styles to integrate the entire musical drama, creating orches-
reflecting their individual feelings. To achieve unique tral music that accentuated the actions and thoughts of
voices, romantic composers adopted varied techniques the characters onstage. Most important, the form of op-
such as shifting rhythms, complex musical structures, era itself was transformed. At first, composers imitated
discordant passages, and minor keys. In addition, with the form they had inherited, writing operas in which a
the spread of nationalistic feelings across Europe, es- series of independent musical numbersthat is, arias
pecially after 1850, composers began to incorporate (melodious songs)alternated with recitatives (text ei-
folk songs, national anthems, and indigenous dance ther declaimed in the rhythms of natural speech with
rhythms into their music. Nonetheless, throughout this slight musical variations or sung with fuller musical S
era romantic composers stayed true to the established support). The Italian composer Verdi brought this type N
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522 CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie

of opera to its peak, advancing beyond the mechanical the supreme expression of artistic genius occurs only
aria-recitative alternation. But even as Verdi was being when the arts are fused. To that end, he not only com-
lionized for his operatic achievements, a new style of posed his own scores but also wrote the librettos,
opera was arising in Germany in the works of Wagner, or texts, frequently conducted the music and even
which were written not as independent musical sec- planned the opera house in Bayreuth, Germany, where
tions but as continuous musical scenes. his later works were staged (Figure 19.19).
Giuseppe Verdi [VAYR-dee] (18131901), Italys Wagners major musical achievement was the monu-
greatest composer of opera, followed the practice of mental project titled The Ring of the Nibelung (18531874),
the time and borrowed many of his plots from the a cycle of four operasor music dramas, as Wagner
works of romantic writers filled with passion and full- called themthat fulfilled his ideal of fusing music,
blooded emotionalism. One of the operas that brought verse, and staging. In these works, the distinction be-
him international fame was Rigoletto (1851), based on tween arias and recitatives was nearly erased, giving a
a play by Victor Hugo. What make it such a favorite continuously flowing melodic line. This unified sound
with audiences are its strong characters, its beautiful was marked by the appearance of recurring themes
melodies, and its dramatic unityfeatures that typify associated with particular characters, things, or ideas,
Verdis mature works. A study in romantic opposites, known as leitmotifs.
this work tells of a crippled court jester, Rigoletto, de- Perhaps the best-known Wagnerian motif is that
formed physically but emotionally sensitive, coarse identified with the valkyriethe mythic blond women
in public but a devoted parent in private. The jesters warriors who administered to the fallen heroes in
daughter, Gilda, is also a study in contrasts, torn be- Valhalla, the Norse heaven. They were the subject of
tween love for her father and attraction to a corrupt Wagners second opera in the Ring cycle, Die Walkre
noble. (The Valkyrie) (1856). Act III of that opera begins with
In Rigoletto, Verdi continues to alternate arias with Ride of the Valkyries, an exciting evocation of a wild
sung recitatives, but overall his music for the orchestra cosmic ride, which builds to a thrilling climax, inter-
skillfully underscores the events taking place onstage. spersed with quiet pianissimosvery soft sounds
In addition, he employs musical passages to illustrate and crashing crescendosincreases in volumeand
the characters psychology, using convoluted orches- shifts in rhythm and tone color. The work, written as
tral backgrounds to accompany Rigolettos mono- an orchestral prelude, unfolds with the curtain ris-
logues, for example, or shifting from simple to showy ing before its finish, to reveal a stage filled with blond
musical settings to demonstrate Gildas conflicted maidens carrying dead warriors to their heavenly rest.
nature. In Act III, the lighthearted aria La donna e Today, it is sometimes heard in films, as in the heli-
mobile (Woman Is Fickle) is sung by the Duke copter scene in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppolas
of Mantua, expressing perfectly his cynical view of 1979 epic about the Vietnam War.
women. Following a brief orchestral section, the duke Based on a popular romantic sourcethe medieval
sings a four-line refrain, which is reprised two more Norse mythsthe Ring also reflected Wagners be-
times, in between two verses with different words. lief that opera should be moral. The Ring cycle warns
The theme of this tenor aria is Woman is deceitful, against overweening ambition, its plot relating a titanic
always changeable in word and thought. Verdi un- struggle for world mastery in which both human be-
derscores the irony by setting this famous aria in a ings and gods are destroyed because of their lust for
low divea decaying innwhere the count has been power. Wagner may have been addressing this warn-
lured by Maddalena, a loose woman. When the aria ing to the Faustian spirit that dominated capitalism in
ends, Rigoletto, who has been eavesdropping on the the industrial agea message that went unheeded.
Duke of Mantua, exchanges words, in recitative, with Another German, Johannes Brahms (18331897),
Maddalenas brother, a hired killer. dominated orchestral and chamber music after 1850
Other operas followed, enhancing Verdis in much the same way that Wagner did opera. Un-
mounting celebrity: La Traviata in 1853, based on like Wagner, Brahms was no musical innovator. A
a play written by the French romantic writer Al- classical romanticist, he took up the mantle vacated
exandre Dumas [doo-MAH] the younger, and Ada in by Beethoven, and he admired the baroque works of
1871, commissioned by Egypts ruler and first per- Bach. In Vienna, his adopted home, Brahms became
formed in the Cairo opera house. the hero of the traditionalists who opposed the new
Romantic opera reached its climax in the works music of Wagner. Neglecting the characteristic roman-
of Richard Wagner [VAHG-nuhr] (18131883), who tic works of operas and program music, he won fame
sought a union of music and drama. A political revo- with his symphonies and chamber music. His charac-
lutionary in his youth and a visionary thinker, Wag- teristic sound is mellow, always harmonic, delighting
S ner was deeply impressed by the romantic idea that equally in joy and melancholy.
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CULTURAL TRENDS: FROM ROMANTICISM TO REALISM 523

Figure 19.19 Richard Wagner. Bayreuth Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre), Germany. 18721876.
This 2009 photograph shows the Bayreuth Festspielhaus as it looks today. The German architect Gottfried
Semper (18031879) made a preliminary design, but the finished building reflects Wagners vision, both
nationalistic and personal. Wagner demanded a venuea neo-European theater, he called itthat would
showcase the German spirit and character, as he proclaimed in his speech at the 1872 founding ceremony.
And, of equal weight, he planned the theaters interior details, according to his artistic specifications.
For instance, the orchestra pit is under the stage, covered by a hood, and invisible to the audience. This
arrangement allows the audience to gaze directly at the singers on the stage, their line of sight not interrupted
by the orchestra. Today, the theater is dedicated exclusively to the performance of Wagners operas.

Despite his conservative musicianship, Brahmss composer of lieder was the German Robert Schumann
work incorporates many romantic elements. Continu- (18101856), a pianist who shifted to music journalism
ing the art-song tradition established by Schubert (see and composition when his right hand became crip-
Chapter 18), Brahms introduced folk melodies into his pled in 1832. Splendid fusions of words and music, his
pieces. In his instrumental works, he often aimed for songs are essentially duets for voice and piano.
the expressiveness of the human voice, the singing Schumanns lieder are often parts of song cycles
style preferred in romanticism. He was also indebted held together with unifying themes. One of his best-
to the romantic style for the length of his symphonies, known song cycles is Dichterliebe (A Poets Love) (1840),
the use of rhythmic variations in all his works, and, set to verses by Heinrich Heine (17971856), Germanys
above all, the rich lyricism and songfulness of his preeminent lyric poet. This song cycle superbly illus-
music. trates the romantic preoccupation with program mu-
Despite the dominance of classical musical forms, sic. For instance, the song Im Wunderschnen Monat
this period was the zenith of romantic lieder, or art Mai (In the Marvelously Beautiful Month of May)
songs. The continuing popularity of lieder reflected conveys the longing of Heines text through ascending
bourgeois taste and power, since amateur perfor- lines of melody and an unresolved climax. The pas-
mances of these songs were a staple of home enter- sion in this song cycle was inspired by Schumanns
tainment for the well-to-do, especially in Germany marriage to Clara Wieck (18191896), a piano virtuoso
and Austria. In the generation after Schubert, the best and composer in her own right. S
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524 CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE TRIuMPH OF THE BOuRGEOIsIE

SUMMARY
The Age of the Bourgeoisie was bracketed with violent novations (the camera) and scientific breakthroughs
events, beginning with uprisings in France, Belgium, (Pasteurs germ theory of disease).
Poland, Greece, and switzerland and ending in 1871 Because of the foregoing changes, many artists and
with the treaty that concluded the Franco-German humanists found this an exhilarating time. Old ways
war. In between were other notable violent events: of looking at the world were collapsing. Darwins the-
the 1848 revolutions that erupted in Europes larg- ory of evolution located humankind within the animal
est cities; Civil War in the united states of America, kingdomand not as creatures of God. Higher critics
18611865; and periodic unrest up and down the Ital- construed biblical texts as mere works of literature,
ian peninsula. written by mortals. Photography challenged painting
Beneath the violence, however, fundamental changes as a faithful record of historical events and personali-
were reshaping the West. The great power system ties. Romanticism was a victim of these transforma-
was expanded when Italy and Germany each became tions, as it was replaced by a realist style that flashed
unified states (1871). Americans felt closer together, across the cultural spectrum. Great realist works were
as railroads ran between major cities, both in Europe created by writers (Balzac, Flaubert, and Dickens) and
and its colonies and in the united states. serfdom artists (Daumier and Millet). In politics, a few leaders
was abolished in Russia (1861). slavery was ended practiced a realist style called realpolitika heavy-
across the British colonies (1834) and in the united handed approach to governing. some artists and hu-
states (1863). (slavery had been made illegal earlier in manists, who believed they could see into the future,
Great Britain, in 1772.) In the united states, with the abandoned realism to become part of the ragtag gang
Fifteenth Amendment (1871), adult African American of outsiders, committed to new forms of expression,
males were given the same voting rights as the rest of which Manet is the best known. In western mu-
of the adult males. Elsewhere, the picture was not as sic, however, realism had no impact. Romantic music
clear. By 1871, voting rights in most Western nations reigned supreme, in the operas of Verdi and Wagner
extended only to males who owned property. Other and the orchestral and chamber works of Brahms.
dramatic cultural changes included technological in-

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


utilitarianism higher criticism slave narrative music drama
socialism evolution luminism leitmotif
evangelicalism realism aria pianissimo
holiness transcendentalism libretto crescendo

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KEY CuLTuRAL TERMs 525

The Legacy of the Bourgeois Age


We live in the shadow of the bourgeois age. The pe- high-tech tradition in art and architecture, and inven-
riods failed revolutions are textbook examples of the tions and new techniques in printing and publishing
dual nature of such uprisings: they erupt out of hope laid the foundation for a mass market in the visual
but they also show hopes dashed. Later revolts dem- arts. Delacroixs experiments with color influenced
onstrate the two sides: the failed takeovers in Ger- the Impressionistsa late-nineteenth-century school
many from 1918 to 1919 and Hungary in 1956, and the of painters, still beloved today. Perhaps the most sig-
successful ones in the former soviet republics in 1991. nificant artistic development of the time was Manets
Which path the 2011 Arab spring will take is too soon adoption of the credo art for arts sake, which termi-
to know. The bourgeois ages revolts also inspired the nated the debate over the representational nature of art.
amoral concept of realpolitik, a guiding ideal in Manet, in effect, is the godfather of modernist art.
much of todays cynical world. Realpolitik unleashed
German militarism, which eventually led to the two
world wars of the twentieth century.
With liberalism in the ascendant, middle-class val-
ues of hard work, thrift, ambition, and respectability
became sacred cows, as did the idea that the individ-
ual takes precedence over the group. But the utopian
socialists and the Marxian socialists rejected liber-
alism, along with the factory system. Instead, they
proposed solutions to social and economic problems,
which foreshadowed later approaches such as labor
unions, mass political parties, and state planning.
The intellectual and artistic strides made during this
age also resonate today. Marxs controversial analysis
of history still has appeal in China, Cuba, and North
Korea, despite the failure of global communism; Dar-
wins evolutionary theory, though intensely debated,
is central to modern thought; Pasteurs contributions
in immunology and microbiology have helped make
the world a safer place; higher criticism, by challeng-
ing the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, has di-
minished the notion of religious revelation itself; and
the evangelical movement, with its faith-based rejection
of arguments grounded in science, history, and textual
analysis, has become a fixture in the American political
landscape.
Romanticism, although under siege from other
modes of thought after 1850, has not disappeared from
the West today. Realism, its successor, became the Poster for Zombieland. Global pop culture is awash in imaginary
reigning style until 1900, partly because of the develop- creaturesa legacy of romanticism, beginning with Mary Shelleys novel
ment of the camera and the art of photography. Camera Frankenstein (1818). From the Age of the Bourgeoisie forward, creative folk
have catered to the Wests seemingly endless fascination with occult life
art today may be at risk, replaced by video and social
vampires, ghosts, shape-shifters, and so on. Currently, zombies, or the
media. In 2010 the san Francisco Museum of Modern undead, seem to be everywhere, as in the 2009 film Zombieland, directed
Art held a two-day symposium titled Is Photogra- by Reuben Fleischer. Zombies may have originated in the voodoo tradition
phy Over? Londons Crystal Palace inaugurated the of west Africa, as scholars claim, but, today, zombies belong to the world.

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CLAUDE MONET. Impression: Sunrise. 1872. Oil on canvas, 191/2 251/2. Muse Marmottan,
Paris. Monets aesthetic goal was expressed in a letter he wrote to a friend: [From my window
overlooking Le Havre harbor, I paint] the sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking
up in the foreground. In effect, Monet has transformed the substantial world of nature into
fragmented daubs of broken color. But Monets first audience thought otherwise, viewing the
painting as slapdash and messy, an affront to good taste and accepted standards of great art.
The reception of Monets painting has been a cautionary warning ever since: Which side will
you be on when the next great wave of art arrives on our shores?
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The Age of Early Modernism
20
18711914

Preview Questions The cultural movement calledmodernism lasted from 1871


1. How and why did to 1970, reaching its zenith during the first half of the twentieth century.
Europes great powers After World War II it entered a slow decline, fading away with the rise of
come to dominate postmodernism in the 1970s.
world culture during
this period? During modernisms first phase, 18711914, Europe enjoyed unprece-
dented tranquillity. But undercurrents of rampant nationalism, aggressive
2. What is early
modernism and imperialism, and growing militarism were steadily moving the world to-
what are its origins ward the Great War, or World War I. Over this forty-year period, modern
and goals?
life was emerging, with more and more people sharing in the benefits of
3. How did early unified nation-states and the advancements of the Second Industrial Revo-
modernism manifest
itself in literature, lution. In the cultural realm, modernism rejected both the Greco-Roman
music, and the visual and Judeo-Christian legacies, as artists, writers, and thinkers tried to forge
arts? a new perspective that reflected the modern secular experience.
4. Who were this periods Claude Monets Impression: Sunrise, shown here, is a fitting symbol of
major thinkers and
early modernism. In 1874 a band of French artists staged an exhibition in
what were their
contributions? Paris, which outraged the art establishment, but it was Monets Impres-

5. What were the major sion: Sunrise that provoked the loudest howls. Monets subjectsunrise
developments in over the waterwas a common vista, shared by ordinary peoplenot a
science and religion, historical or allegorical scene beloved by the cultural elite. One Parisian
and how did these
events impact the art critic wrote that a proper name for Monet and his fellow painters
wider culture? was impressionistsa term that the artist rebels embraced as a badge
of honor. The new art also inspired composers to create a style of music
that was atmospheric and suggestive, rather than sharply defined as in
other styles. Impressionism was also a herald of the changes reshaping
the periods culture, for example, in politics (right and left challenges to
liberal values), in medicine (the discovery of X-rays), in psychology (the
role of the unconscious), in science (quantum theory), and in technology
(the telephone and the automobile). As impressionism became accepted,
newer artistic styles arose, ever in pursuit of anything newthe defining
characteristic of modernism.
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528 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

EUROPES RISE TO From about 1900 to the outbreak of World War I in


1914, the middle and upper classes enjoyed unprec-
WORLD LEADERSHIP edented prosperity and leisure, but misery mounted
The Age of Early Modernism, despite the prevailing among the urban working class. Urban slums grew
moods of optimism and tranquillity, was an age of more crowded, and living conditions worsened. The
accelerated and stressful change. Dynamic forces presence of squalor in the midst of plenty pricked the
imperialism, nationalism, and militarismwere shap- conscience of many citizens, who began to work for
ing the course of history that came to define life in the better housing and less dangerous working conditions
twentieth century. Acting as a catalyst on these pow- for laborers. When these reform efforts proved inade-
erful forces were the middle classes, whose political quate and state-funded social welfare programs failed
power grew daily across the West. to alleviate the problems, labor unions thrived, along
As imperialistic ambitions grew, Europe became with their best weapon, the strike.
a world power with a network of competing political One reform did succeed: the founding of secular
and economic interests around the globe. Imperial- public education. Its advocates claimed that public
ism, combined with heightened nationalism and mili- schools, financed by taxes and supervised by state
taristic impulses, created an atmosphere of patriotism agencies, would prepare workers for jobs in indus-
that eventually led rival states to war. trialized society and create an informed and literate
citizenrytwo basic needs of modern life. The status
The Second Industrial Revolution, of women also changed dramatically. New employ-
ment opportunities opened for teachers, nurses, office
New Technologies, and the Making workers, and salesclerks. Because some jobs required
of Modern Life
The Second Industrial Revolution differed from the
first in several significant ways. First, Great Britain
now faced competition from Germany and the United Figure 20.1 umBeRto BoCCIonI. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space.
States. Second, science and research provided new 1913. Bronze (cast 1931), 437/8 347/8 153/4. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Umberto Boccioni and his fellow futurists were
and improved industrial products and influenced
members of an Italian-based literary and artistic movement that typified
manufacturing much more than earlier. Finally, oil early modernisms rejection of the past and set out to create a new concept
and electricity, rather than steam and water power, of art. The futurists called for the destruction of museums, libraries, and all
became primary sources of industrial energy. The in- existing art forms. In this striding bronze figure, Boccioni distorts form and
ternal combustion engine replaced the steam engine space to create an airstreamed image of speed, the new modern icon.
in ships and, in the early 1900s, gave rise to the au-
tomobile and the airplane. Europeans and the world
were entering an age of power and speed (Figure 20.1).
Technology was also reshaping the world. The wire-
less superseded the telegraph, the telephone made its
debut, and national and international postal services
were instituted (Figure 20.2). Typewriters and tabula-
tors transformed business practices. Rotary presses
printed thousands of copies of daily newspapers for
an increasingly literate public.
The Second Industrial Revolution affected almost
every segment of the economy. More efficient engines
meant lower transportation costs and less expensive
products. Refrigeration permitted perishable foods to
be transported great distances without spoiling. Ad-
vertising became both a significant source of revenue
for publishers and a persuasive force in the consumer
economy. Increased wealth provided more people
more leisure time and new recreations appeared, such
as seaside resorts, music halls, movies, and bicycles
all contributing to what is now known as modern life.
Industrialized cities drew residents from small
towns and farms, and by 1900 nearly 30 percent of the
S people in the West lived in cities (Figure 20.3). As ur-
N banization expanded, the standard of living improved.
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EUROPES RISE TO WORLD LEADERSHIP 529

Figure 20.2 Mary Cassatt. Letter. 1890-1891. Color drypoint and


aquatint, 17 117/8. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Louis E.
Stern Collection, 1963. A woman writing a letter reflects the restricted
domestic world of women in the nineteenth century. For Cassatt, who
lived much of her life in Paris, the subject of letter-writing loomed large,
as a means of keeping in touch with family and friends back home in
Philadelphia. Cassatt has cropped the writing desk, much in the style
of a photograph, a popular technique among early modernist painters.

special skills, colleges and degree programs were de-


veloped to train women. Many young women still
turned to domestic service, but new household ap-
pliances reduced the need for servants. Independent
retail shopkeepers continued to work long hours in
family businesses, but working conditions for women
in factories were now regulated by laws.
Some women reformers, primarily from the middle
classEmmeline Pankhurst (18581928) and Susan B.
Anthony (18201906), leaders in the womens suffrage
movement in Great Britain and the United States,
respectivelyadvocated more rights for women, con-
tinuing a tradition that had begun on a limited scale
before 1871. They launched successful campaigns to re-
vise property and divorce laws, giving women greater
control over their wealth and their lives. In several
countries, women reformers founded suffrage move-
ments, using protests and marches to dramatize their
situation. Following a vigorous, occasionally violent,
campaign, women won the right to vote in Great Brit-
ain in 1918 and in the United States in 1920.

Figure 20.3 Camille Pissarro. The Great


Bridge, Rouen. 1896. Oil on canvas,
29 1/4 36 3/8. Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh. Purchase. Pissarros painting
captures the energy of Rouen and transforms
this French river town into a symbol of the
new industrial age. Contributing to the sense
of vitality are the belching smokestack, the
bridge crowded with hurrying people, and the
dockworkers busy with their machinery. The
fast pace is underscored by the impressionist
technique of broken color, giving immediacy S
to the scene. N
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530 CHAPTER TWENTY: THE AGE OF EARlY MODERNISM

Response to Industrialism: divided between republicans and monarchists, it


agreed on the need to correct the most glaring social
Politics and Crisis
injustices in an attempt to counteract the growing ap-
In early modernism, liberal assumptions were chal- peal of the workers parties and socialism. Frances
lenged in many quarters. Except in Great Britain and liberal center gradually evaporated, creating bitter
the United States, liberals were under siege in national deadlocks between socialists and conservatives that no
legislatures both by socialistswho wanted central government could resolve.
planning and state-funded services for workersand Great Britain was more successful than Germany
by conservativeswho feared the masses and sup- and France in solving its domestic problems. Con-
ported militant nationalism as a way to unify their trolled by political parties that represented the upper
societies. After 1900, strong political parties represent- and middle classes, the British government passed so-
ing workers and trade unionists further threatened cial legislation that improved the working and living
the liberals hold on power. conditions of poorer families and created opportunities
Events also seemed to discredit liberal economic for social mobility through a state secondary-school
theories. Ideally, under free trade the population ought system. As in Germany and France, these reforms did
to decline or at least stabilize, and wages and prices not prevent workers from forming their own political
ought to operate harmoniously, but neither happened. party, the labour Party.
Population was surging and industrial capitalism was Across the Atlantic, the United States now chal-
erratic, leading many critics to conclude that the so- lenged Great Britains industrial supremacy. Americas
called laws of liberal economics did not work. expanding economy allowed big business to dominate
politics at all levels (Figure 20.4). But, in the early 1900s,
Domestic Policies in the Industrialized West reform movements, spurred by its democratic tradi-
Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States tion, temporarily restrained the power of the business
all faced domestic problems during this period. conglomerates, or trusts, particularly in transporta-
Founded in 1871, the German Reich, or Empire, moved tion and oil.
toward unity under the astute leadership of its first In the late 1800s, eastern and central Europeans came
chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, and the new kaiser, or to America in the largest migration of human popula-
emperor, William I (r. 18711888), former king of Prus- tion ever recorded. These immigrantsafter painful
sia. Despite the illusion of parliamentary rule, the tone adjustments, particularly in the crowded slums of the
of this imperial reich was conservative, militaristic, eastern citiesgradually entered the mainstream of
and nationalistic. American life. They provided much of the labor for the
In France, the Third Republic was founded after the factories, and they transformed the United States into a
humiliating defeat of the Second Empire by Germany much richer ethnic society, while making valuable con-
in 1871. Even though the regime remained hopelessly tributions to the culture.

Figure 20.4 edgar degas. The Cotton


Bureau in New Orleans. 1873. Oil on
canvas, 291/8 361/4. Muse des Beaux-
Arts, Pau, France. By the third quarter of
the nineteenth century, the United States was
challenging English supremacy in world trade.
The French painter Degas must have observed
this scenethe interior of a cotton exchange
in New Orleanswhile visiting relatives in
Louisiana. Whether consciously or not, Degas
accurately depicted the social realities of this
bourgeois work space: the capitalist idlers
S reading a newspaper or lounging against a wall
N and, in contrast, the paid employees intent on
L their work.
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EUROPES RISE TO WORlD lEADERSHIP 531

SLICE OF LIFE
Winning the Right to Vote

lady Constance lytton


NOTES FROM A DIARY
Lady Constance Lytton (18691923) was a leader of which . . . was something like four feet in length. . . .
Britains womens suffrage movement. Arrested during I choked the moment it touched my throat. . . . Then
a protest in Liverpool in 1910, she assumed a fictitious the food was poured in quickly; it made me sick . . .
identityJane Warton, a working-class woman my body and legs double[d] up, but the wardresses in-
because she feared that her high social position (daugh- stantly pressed back my head and the doctor leant on
ter of a former viceroy of India) would prompt the police my knees. . . .
to release her. As Jane Warton, she went on a hunger As the doctor left he gave me a slap on the cheek,
strike and was force-fed, a horrifying tactic experienced not violently, but . . . to express his contemptuous dis-
by many suffragettes. approval. . . . Then suddenly I saw Jane Warton . . . as
if I were outside of her. She was the most despised,
I was visited again by the Senior Medical Officer. . . . ignorant and helpless prisoner that I had seen. When
He said, . . . This is the fourth day [without food]; she . . . was [free], no one would believe anything she
that is too long . . . I must feed you at once. . . . said, and the doctor when he had fed her by force and
[H]e returned with, I think, five wardresses [women tortured her body, struck her on the cheek to show
guards] and the feeding apparatus. He urged me to how he despised her! That was Jane Warton, and I had
take food voluntarily. I told him that was absolutely come to help her.
out of the question, that when our legislators ceased
to resist enfranchising women then I should cease to Interpreting This Slice of Life
resist taking food in prison. . . . [I] lay down volun- 1. Why did lady lytton assume the name of a working-
tarily on the plank bed. Two . . . wardresses took hold class woman, and what does that reveal about En-
of my arms, one held my head and one my feet. One glish life?
wardress helped to pour the food. The doctor leant on 2. Describe force-feeding.
my knees as he stooped over my chest to get at my
3. How did lady lytton see Jane Warton at the end
mouth. I shut my mouth and clenched my teeth. . . .
of her ordeal?
He seemed annoyed at my resistance and he broke
into a temper. . . . [H]e . . . got the gag between my 4. Explain why the suffragettes used the hunger strike
teeth, when he proceeded to turn it . . . until my jaws to advance their cause.
were fastened wide apart, far more than they could 5. Compare and contrast this battle for civil rights with
go naturally. Then he put down my throat a tube recent civil rights struggles.

Domestic Policies in Central, Southern, and the Austrian Germans granted political parity to the
Eastern Europe The less industrialized states of Hungarians, allowing them free rein within their land,
central, southern, and eastern Europe faced more dif- they did not address the discontent among the Slavs.
ficult challenges. As the factory system spread to their Even while the region seethed with ethnic violence, the
regions, these countries had no well-defined policies empires capital, Vienna, became a glittering symbol of
for handling the problems of industrialism. In Italy, modernism. From fin-de-sicle (end-of-the-century)
because regional leaders were often stronger than the Vienna came the cultural style called expressionism
prime minister, the government allowed the north and the psychology of Sigmund Freud.
to become industrialized while the south, including Farther east, the autocratic Russian Empire slowly
Sicily, remained in a semifeudal condition. As a re- entered the industrial age, hampered by its vast size,
sult, the north, driven by an expanding middle class, sluggish agrarian economy, and inefficient bureaucracy.
moved far ahead of the agrarian south, where vast Adding to Russias woes were violent underground rev-
estates were worked by peasant labor. In the Austro- olutionaries who despaired of any substantial reforms.
Hungarian Empire, the governments biggest problem In 1881 an anarchist assassinated the reform-minded S
was ethnic unrest, a direct outgrowth of the denial of czar Alexander II (r. 18551881), and his reactionary N
political freedom to the Slavic minorities. Although successors dismantled his programs, as the economy L
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532 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

worsened. In 1905 Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-


Japanese War (19041905), setting off an abortive revo-
lution led by underpaid factory workers and starving
peasants. Czar Nicholas II (r. 18941917) violently re-
pressed dissent, and the imperial court grew danger-
ously isolated.

Imperialism and International Relations


In 1871 most European nations believed that domestic
issues, such as internal law and order, were more im-
portant than foreign trade and overseas colonies. By
1914 those beliefs had been reversed: a states primary
national interests were now equated with its role in
the global economy and foreign affairs.

Global Encounter:
The Opening of Japan to the West
Foreign trade between Japan and the West was
booming during this period. Except for the Dutch, Eu-
ropeans had lost access to Japan in 1638, when Japans
shogun, or military ruler, closed the country to for-
eigners. For decades thereafter, the Dutch colony on
Deshima, an island in Nagasaki harbor, operated as
Japans window on the world, conducting from there
a highly regulated but lucrative two-way trade. Ja-
pans isolationist policy began to unravel in 1853, after Figure 20.5 Ando (or Utagawa) Hiroshige. Sudden Shower over Shin-
American gunboats demanded an open door policy. Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi Atake no Yudachi). Plate 58 from
With trade renewed, Japanese goods and culture soon One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. ca. 1857. Woodblock color
flowed into the West (Figure 20.5). print. Brooklyn Museum of Art. Trade with Japan introduced woodblock
prints, or ukiyo-e [oo-key-yoh-AY]until now, unknown in the West. The
This gunboat incident sent shock waves across Ja-
Japanese artist Hiroshige [he-roh-SHE-ge] created a new genre of ukiyo-e,
pan, calling into question its national identity. In 1868, the travelogue print, based on sketches made on the spot, in all weathers
imperial rule replaced the shogunate that had held and at different times of day. Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and
power since 1603. Under the Meiji [enlightened] em- Atake is from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. He boldly crops
perors (until 1912), Japan began to modernize along the composition, shows the human figures dwarfed by the setting, and
uses unusual perspectivetypical features of his art.
Western lines. In 1905, when news of Japans defeat of
Russia reached the worlds ears, it was evident that a
new global power was on the scene.
materials (Figure 20.6). France and Britain claimed the
best lands; Germany and Italy had to settle for less com-
mercially desirable areas (Map 20.1). In the Far East,
The Scramble for Colonies Before 1875 the com- the Europeans, the United States, and Japan competed
mon wisdom was that a colony brought both benefits for colonies in the South Pacific and trading rights in
and problems to a modern state, but after that year China (Map 20.2).
Western thinking abruptly changed. Europes indus- Imperialism fomented many crises, particularly in
trialized states began to compete for colonies around Africa, but none led to war on European soil. In this
the world. To maintain their high standard of living, mostly tranquil climate, Europeans came to believe that
they had to find new markets, underdeveloped areas peace depended on a complex set of secret alliances
in which to invest capital, and cheap raw materials. among the major powers. These diplomatic agreements,
Given these needs, product-rich Africa was an impe- reinforced by powerful armies and navies, had origi-
rialists dream. Acquiring African lands through vari- nated after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. By 1914
ous means, including treaties with local chiefs, claims Europe was divided into two armed campsFrance,
by missionaries and explorers, or victories by superior Great Britain, and Russia (the Triple Entente) against
S armies, the European states set up colonial govern- Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy (the Triple Alli-
N ments, opened trading companies, and extracted raw ance) (Map 20.3).
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EUROPES RISE TO WORlD lEADERSHIP 533

Figure 20.6 g. w. bacon. Battle of Omdurman. 1898. Engraving.


In September 1898, an Anglo-Egyptian army of twenty-six thousand men,
led by General H. H. Kitchener (18501916), annihilated Sudanese forces
Modern lifesymbolized by huge armies, military
numbering about forty thousand, at Omdurman on the Nile River in Sudan. technology, and industrial mighthad plunged Eu-
Within five hours, the British, armed with rifles, cannons, and machine rope and, later, much of the world into the bloodiest
guns, killed over ten thousand Sudanese troops and wounded about the war that civilization had yet witnessed.
same number, while losing fewer than four hundred soldiers. Leading
one of the British units in the cavalry charge was the young Winston
Churchillwhose glory days lay ahead. With this victory, the British
extended their control of the Nile River farther south, and by 1914 they The West and Islam: 18301914
had solidified their position in Africa, controlling lands from Alexandria After 1830, the Ottoman Empire, despite the
(in the north) to the Cape of Good Hope (in the south), and from the east best efforts of westernizing sultans, continued
to the west coast in sub-Saharan Africa (see Map 20.1).
its slow decline. Taking advantage of Ottoman weak-
ness, Europe expanded its reach deeper into the Mus-
lim world, through trade and war. The big winners in
The Outbreak of World War I In June 1914, an these imperialist maneuvers were France and Great
incident took place in Sarajevo (in modern Bosnia and Britain in North Africa, while Russia and Austria
Herzegovina) for which diplomacy had no peaceful were the most successful in the Balkans. Nevertheless,
remedy: the assassination of the heir to the Austro- the Western public remained mystified by the world
Hungarian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Islam.
(18631914). The Austrians were convinced that Serbia,
a Balkan state and an ally of Russia, was behind the The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire From
murder of the crown prince. They demanded a full 1839 until World War I, three successive sultans
apology and punishment of the guilty parties. Serbias Abdulmecid I (r. 18391861), Abdulaziz (r. 18611876),
reply proved unsatisfactory and Austria declared war. and Abdulhamid II (r. 18761909)tried to modern-
Austrias action set in motion the mobilization plans ize the Ottoman Empire. Externally, the empire was
required by the alliance system. Frantic efforts to re- under periodic threat of dismemberment, and inter-
store peace failed. By August 4, 1914, Russia, France, nally, the sultans faced two sets of foes: conservatives,
and Britain were fighting Germany and Austria- who wanted a return to the old ways, and national- S
Hungary while Italy watched from the sidelines. ists, ready to fight for independence from Istanbul. N
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534 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

Learning Through Maps


Algiers Tunis
Tangier
S PA N I S H M O R O C C O TUNISIA
Casablanca
M e d i t e r r a n e a n S ea
Tripoli
MOROCCO Alexandria
Agadir A LG E R I A
CANARY Cairo
ISLANDS
L I B YA
EGYPT
RIO
DE ORO

Re
e
Nil
ARABIA

d
Se
FRENCH WEST AFRICA

a
Timbuktu Ni
g
Omdurman B FRENCH
E R ITR EA
er

Dakar S E N E GA L S O MA L I L A N D

l ue
A N G LO -
GA M B IA Aduwa

Ni l e
TO G O E G YPT IA N
DA H O M EY

A
S U DA N

FRIC
B R IT I S H
SIERRA
P O RT U G U E S E N I G E R IA Fashoda E T H I O P IA S O M A LI L A N D
LEON E
G U I N EA

L A
Addis

Wh
IVORY GOLD Ababa

R IA

i
COAST COAST ITA LIA N

te N i l e
LI B E R IA
S O MA LI L A N D

TO
S PA N I S H CA M E R O O N S Mogadishu
UA
Congo BRITISH
G U I N EA U G A N DA
EQ

Gulf of H EAST AFRICA


AT L A N T I C NC
Lake
Nairobi
Guinea FRE B E LG IA N Victoria
OCEAN CONGO Mombasa
GERMAN Z A N Z I BA R (Br.)
CABINDA
EAST AFRICA Dar-es-Salaam
ALDABRA IS.

COMORO
IS.
British ANGOLA
NORTHERN
French RHODESIA E
Z am be z i U

R
Q

SCA
BI
Belgian
M

GERMAN SOUTHERN

GA
ZA

Portuguese SOUTHWEST RHODESIA

DA
MO

AFRICA

MA
Italian BECHUANALAND
PROTECTORATE TRANSVAAL
Spanish
Johannesburg SWAZILAND
German UNION OF
NATAL
Kimberley
Ladysmith INDIAN
Independent States ORANGE FREE STATE
SOUTH AFRICA BASUTOLAND OCEAN
CAPE COLONY
Cape Town
Cape of Good Hope

MAP 20.1 IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA: COLONIAL STATES, 1914


This map shows Europes colonies in Africa on the eve of World War I.1. Notice the movement of Europeans from the coastal lands of
Africa in Map 16.1, Expansion of Europe, to theMatthews_map 19.1
founding of colonies across the continent in this map. 2. Identify the holdings of the European
powers. 3. Which country had the largest number35pof colonies?
x 36p4Which country had the smallest number? 4. Locate centers of potential
conflict among the colonial powers. 5. Which two countries remained independent of European control?
Source: Felix Gilbert, The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present (New York: Norton, 1970), p. 23.

Abdul mecid I made governmental, administrative, visited western Europe (a first for a sultan), fostered
and educational reforms, along with guarantees of life, higher learning, and encouraged literature and the-
liberty, and property to all subjects; freedom and secu- ater. When his ministers urged further reforms, op-
rity to Christians; and liberty of conscience and access ponents retaliated by forcing him out of power. After
to office for all. Under Abdulaziz, Western influences a brief interlude, Abdulhamid II came to the throne.
multiplied: giving loans to build railroads, signing in- He promptly issued the first Ottoman constitution,
ternational monetary pacts, and, in 1869, opening of guaranteeing basic freedoms and a parliamentary
the Suez Canal (see Chapter 19). An admirer of Eu- government. But his reforms were short-lived. Faced
S ropean culture, Abdulaziz composed classical music, with nationalist unrest in the Balkans and a war with
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EUROPES RISE TO WORLD LEADERSHIP 535

Learning Through Maps

ARCTIC OCEAN ARCTIC OCEAN

SIBERIA

RUSSIA
ALASKA
St. Petersburg

Sea of Bering Sea


Moscow Okhotsk
r ur
Berlin e Am Ri
Riv

ve
SAKHALIN I.
ga

r
Vol

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (U.S.)


MANCHURIA
MONGOLIA KURIL ISLANDS
TURKESTAN Vladivostok (Jap.)
Cas

Black Sea Mukden


pian

Tashkent Lshun (Jap.)


Constantinople SINKIANG Beijing Sea of
S ea

AFGHANISTAN
OTTOMAN EMPIRE Weihai (Br.) Japan
KOREA JAPAN
Mediterranean MESOPOTAMIA Teheran Kiahsien (Ger.) PACIFIC OCEAN
Tokyo
Sea Baghdad CHINA
PERSIA TIBET Shimoniseki
Jerusalem r
r

Chongqing Yangtze Rive


ive

NEPAL
East
sR

Kuwait BHUTAN
Nile Riv

Persian Gulf MIDWAY IS. (U.S.)


du

(Br.) Dehli
Ga

ng China
In

es R
r iver Sea BONIN IS. (Jap.)
Guangzhou (Fr.)
e

INDIA
Gulf of FORMOSA
Re d

Calcutta Mandalay
ARABIA Oman Hong Kong (Br.)
Damao (Port.)
Sea

Diu (Port.) BURMA Macao (Port.)


Bombay Yanaon (Fr.) WAKE IS. (U.S.)
OMAN
FR. INDO- PHILIPPINE MARIANA IS. (Ger.) HAWAIIAN IS.
Rangoon SIAM (U.S.)
HADRAMAUT Goa (Port.) BangkokCHINA ISLANDS (U.S.)
Bay of Bengal
Mahe (Fr.) GUAM IS. (U.S.)
ADEN Pondicherry (Fr.)
Karikal (Fr.) South China Sea CAROLINE IS. (Ger.)
FED. MALAY BRUNEI PELEW IS. (Ger.)
AFRICA STATES SARAWAK Davao MARSHALL IS. (Ger.)
CEYLON BR. NORTH
BORNEO KAISER
WILHELMS BISMARCK GILBERT IS. (Br.)
SUMATRA Singapore LAND ARCHIPELAGO
BORNEO NEW (Ger.)
INDIAN OCEAN CELEBES
GUINEA
SOLOMON ELLICE IS. (Br.)
DUTCH EAST INDIES ISLANDS
PAPUA (Br.)
Timor (Port.) SAMOA IS.
NEW HEBRIDES (Ger.) (U.S.)
(Br.-Fr.)
FIJI IS. (Br.)

NEW CALEDONIA (Fr.)


AUSTRALIA
0 1000 2000 mi

0 2000 4000 km

British Chinese

French Portuguese
NEW ZEALAND
German Dutch

United States Japanese

MHS63 595
MAP 20.2
mat76620_m1902.eps IMPERIALISM IN ASIA: COLONIAL STATES, 1914
First proof
This map shows Europes expansion into Asia on the eve of World War I.1. Compare the small presence of Europeans in Asia in Map 16.1, Expansion of
Europe, with their extensive holdings in this map. 2. Identify holdings of the European powers. 3. Notice that China, Japan, and the United States have
become colonial powers. 4. Which country was the dominant colonial power? 5. What countries occupied islands in the Pacific Ocean? 6. Which continent,
Africa in Map 20.1 or Asia in this map, was more subject to European occupation?
Source: Felix Gilbert, The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 2425.
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536 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

Learning Through Maps


KINGDOM OF
SWEDEN AND St. Petersburg
NORWAY

North DENMARK Baltic


IRELAND GREAT
Sea Sea RUSSIA
BRITAIN
NETHERLANDS PRUSSIA
Danzig
Hamburg
Amsterdam Berlin
GERMAN EMPIRE Warsaw
Brussels
BELGIUM Kiev
BOHEMIA
ATLANTIC ALSACE-
GALICIA
OCEAN Paris LORRAINE BAVARIA
Munich Vienna
Budapest
FRANCE SWITZERLAND
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Venice BOSNIA-
Bordeaux CROATIA HERZEGOVINA
Milan RUMANIA Black Sea
d SERBIA BULGARIA
ITALY riaSarajevo
A
PORTUGAL tic
CORSICA Se Constantinople
Madrid Rome OT
a TO
SPAIN Naples M AN
SARDINIA
Aegean E MPI
RE
GREECE Sea

Algeciras SICILY

ALGERIA
MOROCCO TUNISIA Mediterranean Sea

Triple Alliance 0 250 500 mi


Triple Entente
0 500 1000 km

MHS63 596
MAP 20.3 EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR I
mat76620_m1903.eps
This map
First shows the political divisions in Europe in 1914.1. Identify the member states of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. 2. Which of the two
proof
alliances would have the geographic advantage when defending its member states? 3. Which small states might become battlegrounds if war broke out
between the two alliances? 4. Locate Sarajevo, the city where an incident occurred that set off World War I. 5. Notice the lost lands of the Ottoman Empire
and the creation of nation-states on this map, compared with the same territories in Map 19.2, Europe in 1871.

Russia (18771878), he suspended the constitution and factions continued to fight one another until the out-
ruled as an autocrat thereafter. break of World War I.
In response to Abdulhamid IIs repressive regime, During early modernism, the Islamic world
the Young Turk movement was born. The Young Turks stretching from the East Indies across Afghanistan,
were a secret society of Ottoman exiles living in Eu- India, and the Middle East, and ending, in North
rope, united in a common causethe overthrow of the Africawas prey to European imperialists. The Dutch
sultan and the protection of imperial lands. They drew and British divided the East Indies, expanding their
inspiration from many sources, including French revo- commercial interests. Great Britain invaded Afghani-
lutionary ideals, European reform movements, Turkish stan twice with no success, but added India to its bur-
nationalism, and disgruntled army units. Under siege geoning empire. Russia and Great Britain meddled in
from the Young Turks, the sultan, in 1908, restored the Persia (modern-day Iran), until they agreed, in 1907, to
1876 constitution. But it was not to be. Abdulhamid re- divide it into spheres of influencein effect, parti-
signed in disgrace. The revolution of 1908 installed a tioning the country.
new sultan, Mehmed V (r. 19091918), forcing him to However, it was the Ottoman Empirethe sick
make liberal reforms. Thereafter, Mehmed Vs unsta- man of Europe, a popular phrase of the timethat
ble regime was beset by battles with foreign enemies became the focus of Europes imperialist aims. The
(Italy) and by unrest at home. In 1913 the Young Turks French invasion of Algiers in 1830 and the rise of Mu-
S seized power, keeping Mehmed V as a figurehead, but hammad Ali in Egypt (see Chapter 18) drew Europe
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EARLY MODERNISM 537

into Egyptian affairs. Fifty years later, in 1882, British standard of living that held the promise of unlimited
troops took control of Egypts government. moral and material progress for humanity. As a result,
Perhaps the greatest threat to the Ottoman Em- a passion for novelty and a desire to cast off the dead
pire came from the north, from Russia, whose czars hand of the past characterized the era.
were intent on expanding southward, into the Turkish However, a mood of uncertainty began to creep
lands bordering the Black Sea. Two inconclusive wars into early modernism and undermined its optimism.
against the Russiansthe Crimean War (18541856) Artists and thinkers, for whom rebellion was a pri-
and the Russo-Turkish War (18771878)left the Ot- mary response to the world, questioned traditional
toman regime weakened and with more of its lands Western ethics, religion, and values. They expressed
lost. (In the Crimean War, Britains and Frances poor their doubts chiefly through constant experimenta-
battlefield performance as Ottoman allies caused the tion, through a desire to return to aesthetic funda-
sultan to doubt the reliability of these countries.) After mentals, and, especially among the painters, through
the Russo-Turkish War, Europes major powers met in a belief that the art process itself is more valuable than
Berlin (1878), hoping to stabilize the Balkans. This con- the completed work. As the pace of events accelerated,
ference decided the fate of many ethnic and national a vigorous avant-garde, or advance guard, of writers,
groups seeking independence or some degree of au- artists, and intellectuals pushed Western culture to-
tonomy from the Ottomans. The empires presence in ward an elusive, uncertain future (see Figure 20.1).
Europe was reduced to a small allocation of land.
By 1900, the Ottoman regime realized that it could
not depend on France and England as allies. Instead, it Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion
turned to the German Empire for economic and mili- As the century closed, new directions in philosophy
tary aid. Germany, eager to outpace its imperial rivals, and psychology reshaped these disciplines, fostered
poured money into Turkey. Closer ties with Germany the growth of modernism, and undercut cherished
brought the Ottomans into the Austrian-German or- Western beliefshuman rationality, universal moral
bit. When war broke out in 1914, the Turks sided with order, and personal freedom. The creators of these sem-
the Germans. The Turks now confronted their old en- inal innovations were Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund
emy, Russia, and two former friends, France and Great Freud, and Carl Jung. At the same time, mainstream
Britain. and popular religion, though largely impervious to
these intellectual trends, struggled to conform to tradi-
Orientalism The geopolitical events of the 18301914 tional values and beliefs as society grew more secular.
period strengthened the Wests misunderstanding
of the Muslim world. Already, the collective mind of Nietzsche The German philosopher Friedrich Nietz
Europeans had been filled with exotic, often false im- sche [NEE-chuh] (18441900) was notorious for his
pressions of Muslim culturea view known today as corrosive thought. He saw beyond the optimism of his
Orientalism. As the West made further inroads into the times and correctly predicted the general disasters,
Middle East, these fantasies gained new life. Western both moral and material, that would afflict Western
guidebooks showed how to survive amid the natives culture in the twentieth century. To him, the philoso-
and savages. Written usually by armchair travelers phies of the past were all false because they were built
who had never set foot in the Middle Eastthese books on nonexistent absolute principles. Denying moral cer-
reinforced existing stereotypes. Despite being isolated tainty, Nietzsche asserted that he was the philosopher
by the Atlantic Ocean, Americans shared in these fanta- of the perhaps, deliberately cultivating ambigu-
sies, drawing on various sources: the writings of Wash- ity. Nietzsche vehemently rejected middle-class and
ington Irving (17831859) and Mark Twain (18351910) Judeo-Christian ideals, identifying them with herd
and the accounts of missionaries, diplomats, and busi- or slave values. For the same reason, he heaped
nessmen. By 1914, most Westerners viewed the Middle scorn on many of the isms of his dayliberalism,
East through the prism of Orientalism: a forbidden and socialism, and Marxismclaiming that they appealed
erotic land, a place of squalor and crime. to humanitys lowest common denominator and were
thus destroying Western civilization.
Nevertheless, there were affirmative, positive as-
pects to Nietzsches thought. He believed in a new mo-
EARLY MODERNISM rality that glorified human life, creativity, and personal
As the age of modernism began, many in the West be- heroism. He forecast the appearance of a few ber-
lieved that a golden era had dawned. This sanguine menschen, or supermen, who had the will to power,
outlook was fueled by the spread of self-government, the primeval urge to live beyond the masses and their
advances in science and technology, and a rise in the debased values. He praised these supermen for living S
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538 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

beyond good and evil, for refusing to be bound by (3) a body of psychological data obtained from these
societys rules and mores. studies, which collectively establish a new scientific
Virtually unknown when he died, Nietzsche be- discipline. This school of thought is dedicated to the
came one of the giants of twentieth-century thought. principle that once the roots of neurotic behavior are
His radical thinkingnotably in affirming that civili- unraveled, a patient can lead a freer, healthier life. As
zation itself is nothing more than a human invention part of psychoanalysis, Freud devised the free asso-
has touched nearly every phase of modern thought, ciation therapy whereby his patients were asked to
including religion, philosophy, literary criticism, and say, spontaneously and without inhibition, whatever
psychology. His glorification of individualism was an came into their mindsmemories, random obser-
especially powerful stimulus to artists, writers, and vations, anything at alland thus uncover traumas
musicians. An extreme individualist, he was contemp- buried in their unconscious. He also studied his pa-
tuous of the strong German state, though the Nazis in tients dreams, which he thought were forms of wish
the 1930s used his writings to justify their theory of fulfillment, a theory he set forth in The Interpretation
Aryan supremacy. of Dreams (1899). Freuds influence is pervasive today
in Western culture, but critics have recently called
Freud and Jung Rather than making a blanket into question not only his conclusions but his ethics
condemnation of human morality and behavior, the as well.
Austrian Sigmund Freud [FROID] (18561939) offered A challenge was made to Freuds views by a former
an approach to human psychology that could be used associate, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung [YOONG]
for further explorations into the study of the self. Part (18751961). Jung developed a theory of a universal,
of the circle of intellectuals and artists who flourished collective unconscious, shared by all humans, that ex-
in Vienna around 1900, Freud, a neurologist, invented ists in conjunction with each individuals personal
a new way of thinking about human nature that pro- unconscious. Jung speculated that the secrets of the
foundly affected Western society. unconscious could be revealed by studying arche-
Freuds analysis of the human mind challenged types, ancient images that occur again and again in
the Enlightenments belief that human beings are human experience and appear in dreams, myths, and
fully rational. Freud argued that the human personal- folktales. His conception of archetypes opened a rich
ity is the product of an intense internal struggle be- source of images and subjects for many modernist art-
tween instinctual drives and social reality. According ists and writers. Despite their differences, however,
to Freud, each psyche, or self, is composed of an id, a Freud and Jung agreed that the conscious mind is
superego, and an ego. The id is the source of primitive, only a very small part of individual personalitya be-
instinctual drives and desires, notably sex and aggres- lief that is a cornerstone of modernism.
sion. The superego corresponds to the will of society
internalized as the conscience. The ego represents the Religious Developments The 18701914 era was
conscious public face that emerges from the conflict one of the last periods in which religious values
between the inborn instincts and the conscience and continued to motivate all levels of society. Evangeli-
acts as the balancing component that establishes in- calism, with its focus on personal salvation and faith-
ner resolutions. In Freuds view, a true, lasting equi- based truth, remained in control of mainline American
librium among the three components of the psyche ProtestantismBaptist, Congregational, Methodist,

cannot be reached; the internal struggle is constant and Presbyterianalong with English Methodism.
and inescapable. Those in whom the imbalance is However, that changed in the 1880s, when adherents
pronounced suffer varying degrees of mental illness, to the Social Gospelstressing social betterment
ranging from mild neurosis to extreme psychosis. rather than personal pietybegan to dominate main-
Even though Freuds theory tends toward determin- line faiths. Social reform, rooted in Jesuss social teach-
ism, he had hope for human freedom. For those who ings and the Jewish prophets call for social justice (see
accepted their inescapable limitations, he believed Chapter 6), had always been a secondary goal of the
that the truth about the human condition would liber- evangelicals (see Chapter 19), but now it became the
ate them from damaging habits of thought and enable primary tenet of the mainline churches. The religious
them to function as morally free individualsthat is, equivalent of progressive politics, the Social Gospel
free to make moral choices in full knowledge of the taught Americans that the evils of industrialism could
consequences of their actions. be ameliorated through social outreach projects, such
Freuds greatest achievement was the founding of as settlement houses and soup kitchens. In Europe, a
psychoanalysis, a school of thought, which includes similar development emerged in Inner Mission, a Lu-
(1) a procedure for investigating the minds processes theran program aimed at helping the industrial poor.
S that are otherwise unavailable, (2) a method, based on Contemporary evangelicals in the United States felt
N that investigation, for treating mental disorders, and their faith betrayed by the rise of the Social Gospel.
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EARLY MODERNISM 539

Timeline 20.1 EARLY MODERNISM


1871 1874 1886 1890 1900 1914
Impressionist Art Postimpressionism Fauvism and Cubism

Artistic Expressionism

1880 1900

Literary Naturalism

Literary Decadence

Literary and Musical Expressionism

1871 1883 1894 1899 1905 1913


Defeat of Death of Debussy, Freud, Birth of Stravinsky,
France by Richard Prlude The Fauvism; The Rite
Germany Wagner laprs-midi Interpretation Einsteins of Spring
and the dun faune of Dreams special 1914
founding theory of Outbreak
of the relativity of
German World
Empire War I

Thus, after 1880, a wing of the evangelical movement Literature


transformed itself, becoming the fundamentalist Three overlapping and contradictory styles character-
movement. The fundamentalists held fast to certain ize early modern literature: naturalism, decadence, and
basic beliefs: the inerrancy of the Holy Bible, the need expressionism. Naturalism was inspired by the meth-
to be born again, the truth of miracles, and the belief ods of science and the insights of sociology to focus
in the resurrection. Having lost control of mainline on such issues as working-class unrest and womens
Protestantism, the fundamentalists founded an array rights. Naturalistic writers, while striving for objectiv-
of new sects, including the Church of God (1886), the ity, tended to depict industrial society in harsh terms.
Pentecostal Church (1901), the Church of God in Christ Decadent writers rejected material values, scorned
(1901)a black Pentecostal churchand the Assem- science, and mocked bourgeois society, which they
blies of God (1913). These churches shared the practice identified with respectability and mediocrity. Expres-
of speaking in tongues, as a sign of the Holy Spirits sionism was built on the premise that bourgeois cul-
presencederived from I Corinthians 12:810. ture had robbed the arts of their capacity to express the
Meanwhile, in Europe the Roman Catholic Churchs truth and thus new methods and forms of expression
opposition to modern ideas (see Chapter 19) helped must be found. To some degree, the three styles share a
bring on the Kulturkampf (German, culture war), disdain for middle-class life and values (Timeline 20.1).
from 1871 to 1878, between Germany and the Vati-
can. With Germany unified, the Protestant chancellor Naturalistic Literature The founder and chief
Otto von Bismarck feared meddling by the church, exponent of naturalism was mile Zola [ZOH-luh]
especially on the part of Bavaria, a Catholic-majority (18401902), the French writer whose fame rests on the
state in southern Germany. Thus, he pushed legisla- Rougon-Macquart series (18701893), twenty novels de-
tion through the Reichstag, or parliament, that was picting the history of a single family under Frances
pointedly aimed at Catholic citizens, such as weaken- Second Empire. The novels treat socially provoca-
ing church power over education, making civil mar- tive themes such as prostitution (Nana, 1880) and the
riages mandatory, and expelling the Jesuit order from horrifying conditions in the coal-mining industry
Germany. His plan failed, as Catholic representatives (Germinal, 1884). They offer a richly detailed portrait
increased their numbers in the Reichstag, and, on the of French society in the midnineteenth century and
election of a new pope, Bismarck made peace with the also illustrate Zolas belief in biological determinism.
church. Still, some German laws stayed in effect, such Whether the novels characters became prostitutes or
as the states oversight of priests and the expulsion of virtuous housewives, family men or drunken suicides, S
the Jesuits, until 1917. Zola traces their ultimate fates to inborn dispositions. N
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540 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

No rigid fatalist, Zola convincingly portrays people and toward realism and naturalism. A frequent theme
fervently trying to control their destinies in an uncar- in Chopins writings was a romantic awakening, usu-
ing universe. ally by a female character. The setting was sketched
Another outstanding naturalist was the Norwegian out in local color, or regional details, and her method
playwright Henrik Ibsen (18281906), who pioneered of tracking the action was naturalisticthat is, she
the problem play, dealing with social issues. The prob- based plot twists on biological and socioeconomic
lem play became the staple of the modern theater and factors. A St. Louis native, Chopin focused her stories
Ibsen remains its most eloquent practitioner. Ibsen and novels on Creole and Cajun life in Louisiana, two
lived mainly in Germany and Italy, writing about the ethnic groups rooted in the southern part of that state,
middle-class Norwegian world he had fled, treating a world that caught her imagination during a twelve-
with frankness such previously taboo themes as vene- year-long marriage to a Creole planter and merchant.
real disease, suicide, and the decay of Christian values. The Awakening (1899) was Kate Chopins masterpiece
In A Dolls House (1879), Ibsen questions a wifes and the novel that abruptly ended her literary career,
subservient role in a traditional marriage. When the as she was stunned into silence by a hostile public re-
play begins, the wife Nora is treated by her husband action. A tale of adulterous passion, this novel is an
Torvald as a charming child whose sole purpose is to American Madame Bovary (see Chapter 19). The story
amuse him. When Nora borrows money to save Tor- of Edna Pontellier, the Kentucky-born wife of a Creole
valds life, she keeps it secret, because she knows how husband, The Awakening explores a womans passion-
painful and humiliating it would be for him to know ate nature and its relation to self, marriage, and soci-
he owed her anything. But his reaction when he finds ety. Edna rejects conventional morality, social duty,
outcondemning her bitterly and then forgiving her and personal obligations to her husband and children.
like a fathermakes her realize she is living with a She establishes her own home, earns money with her
stranger. Faced with such lack of understanding, she painting, accepts one lover, and pursues another. Ul-
deserts both husband and family, closing the door timately, however, Ednas bid for freedom fails. She
on bourgeois decency. The unconventional ending drowns herselfbrought down by tradition, preju-
created a scandal when the play was first performed. dice, and other societal pressures. More than a simple
Eventually, A Dolls House became an international naturalist, Chopin is hailed today as a precursor of
success, and its liberated heroine became the symbol postmodernism (see Chapter 23) because of her keen
of the new woman of the late 1800s. interest in marginal people and feminist themes.
The preeminent naturalistic writer from eastern
Europe was the Russian Anton Chekhov [CHEK-ahf] Decadence in Literature The decadent movement
(18601904), a physician turned playwright and short- began in France with Joris-Karl Huysmans [wees-
story writer, who found his subject in the suffocating MAHNS] (18481907), who, in 1884, wrote the perverse
life of Russias small towns. He peopled his gently novel rebours (Against Nature). Paris was astonished
ironic plays with men and women in anguish over by this partly autobiographical work. In it, Huysmans
their ordinary lives, although his most arresting char- presents an exotic hero, Des Esseintes, bristling with
acters are those who endure disappointment without eccentricity and neurotic feelings and yet filled with
overt complaint. It is this latter quality that has made inexpressible spiritual yearnings. Des Esseintes, de-
Chekhovs comedies, as these bittersweet plays are ploring modern life for its vulgarity and materialism,
called, such favorites of both actors and audiences. creates an encapsulated, silent world where he culti-
The Three Sisters (1901), a play that dramatizes the vates artificial pleasures.
uneventful lives of a landowning family confined to In Great Britain, Oscar Wilde (18541900) was the
the drab provinces, is characteristic of Chekhovs work. center of the 1890s decadent movement, with its gener-
The characters conceal their depression behind false ally relaxed view of morals and cynically amused ap-
gaiety and self-deceit. His heroines, the three sisters, proach to life (Figure 20.7). As with Huysmans, Wildes
are bored, restless, and frustrated, not quite resigned outrageous manner can scarcely be separated from his
to their mediocre existence. They talk constantly of a literary achievements. Dressed in velvet and carrying
trip to Moscow, a journey longed for but never made. a lily as he sauntered down Londons main streets,
Today, Chekhovs plays suggest the dying world of Wilde gained notoriety as an aestheteone unusually
Russias out-of-touch ruling class, who were about to sensitive to the beautiful in art, music, and literature
be swept away by the Marxist revolution of 1917. even before he achieved fame as a dramatist of witty
An important naturalistic writer in the United comedies of manners, such as The Importance of Being
States was Kate Chopin [SHO-pan] (born Catherine Earnest (1895). Wildes only novel, The Picture of Dorian
OFlaherty; 18511904), a short-story writer and nov- Gray (1894), features a hero immersed in exotic plea-
S elist whose fiction reflected the trend in nineteenth- sures and secret vices, his youth preserved while his
N century American literature away from romanticism portrait ages horribly.
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EARLY MODERNISM 541

the human mind, as in Freudian psychoanalysis, and


the relativity of time, as in Einsteins universe. Today,
Prousts novels may be read in contradictory ways, as
the supreme expression of a life lived for art or as the
embodiment of a life empty of spiritual purpose.

Expressionist Literature Expressionism originated


in Scandinavia in the works of the Swedish playwright
August Strindberg and in central Europe in the fiction
of Franz Kafka. Strindberg (18491912), having first
earned fame through naturalistic plays, shifted to an
expressionist style in the 1890s. The Dream Play (1907)
is typical of his expressionist dramas in employing
generic figures with symbolic, all-purpose names
(Daughter, Father, and so on), shadowy plots, and
absurd fancies. In The Dream Play, time and place be-
come meaningless, as, for instance, when a lovesick
soldier suddenly becomes old and shabby and his
bouquet of flowers withers before the audiences eyes.
Strindbergs innovative techniques were meant not to
obscure his meaning but rather to initiate the public
into new ways of seeing and understanding life.
The finest exponent of expressionism was Franz
Kafka (18831924), whose strange, symbolic stories
question traditional views of reality. Perhaps Kafkas
most striking work is the short story Metamorphosis
(1919), in which the hero awakens to discover that he
Figure 20.7 Aubrey Beardsley. Salom with the Head of John the
Baptist: The Climax. Illustration from Salom by Oscar Wilde. 1893. has been turned into a giant insecta vivid image of
Line block print. Private Collection. The visual counterpart to Wildes an identity crisis and a gripping parable of what hap-
decadent style in literature was art nouveau, especially as practiced by pens when a person is suddenly perceived to be differ-
Aubrey Beardsley. Typical of his work is this black-and-white illustration ent from other people.
for Wildes play-poem Salom, based on the biblical story of the dancer.
Kafkas The Trial, a novel completed in 1914 and pub-
In this print, Salom holds the severed head of John the Baptist, whose
death she had ordered, and gazes into his face. While the print focuses lished in 1925, features a doomed main character with
on the heads of Salom and John the Baptist, the viewers attention is also the generic name of Joseph K. An obscure government
drawn to the ghastly image in the lower-right corner where the dripping official, Joseph K. has his well-ordered world shattered
blood forms a pool in which two flowers grow. Blending organic shapes when he is accused of a nameless crime. Unable to iden-
and flowing lines with perverse themes, Beardsleys artificial style reveals
tify either his accusers or his misdeed and denied jus-
art nouveaus affinity with an underworld of depravity.
tice by the authorities, Joseph K. is eventually convicted
by a mysterious court and executed by two bureaucrats
in top hats. Kafkas faceless, powerless hero has become
Todays most widely admired writer of the decadent one of the most widely discussed figures of modern-
movement, the Frenchman Marcel Proust [PROOST] ism. In effect, Kafka transformed his own alienation
(18711922), made his appearance at the end of this pe- as a German-speaking Jew from the Czech-speaking,
riod. Starting in 1913 and concluding in 1927, Proust Protestant section of predominantly Roman Catholic
published a series of seven autobiographical novels Austriainto a modern Everyman victimized by forces
collectively titled la recherche du temps perdu (Remem- beyond human control (Figure 20.8).
brance of Things Past). In this ambitious undertaking,
he re-creates the world of upper bourgeois society that
he had known as a young man but had deserted in The Advance of Science
1903. Withdrawn into a cork-lined retreat reminiscent Biology and chemistry made rapid advances during
of Des Esseintes silent hideaway in rebours, Proust this period. In biology, the Austrian monk Gregor
resurrected in the pages of his novels the aristocratic Johann Mendel (18221884) had finished his ground-
salons, the vulgar bourgeois world, and a sordid col- breaking research in 1865, but his findings, the basis
lection of mistresses, prostitutes, and rich homosexu- for the new science of genetics, were ignored until
als. Prousts wider concerns brilliantly echo the new three researchers, working independently, rediscov- S
scientific theories of his time: the inner workings of ered his reports in 1900. Mendel proved the existence N
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542 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

The discoveries in genetics and radiochemistry


boosted the periods optimism and faith in progress,
but experimentations in physics had the opposite ef-
fect, adding to the undercurrent of uncertainty and
doubt that also existed. Three brilliant scientistsMax
Planck, Niels Bohr, and Albert Einsteinlaunched a
revolution that led other scientists to discard the belief
that Newtons laws of motion were universal.
Max Planck (18581947) laid the foundation for
modern physics in 1900 with research in quantum
theory. His research called into question the wave the-
ory of radiation, which dated from the 1700s. Working
with hot objects, Planck observed that the radiative
energy that emanated from a heat source issued not
in a smooth wave but in discrete bursts. He measured
each burst of radiation and computed a mathemati-
cal formula for expressing the released energy, a unit
that he called a quantuma word meaning a speci-
fied amount, derived from the Latin quanta, or how
much. When Planck could not fit his quantum for-
mula into traditional wave-theory physics, he realized
the revolutionary nature of his discovery. Plancks
quantum theory became a primary building block in
the speculation of the second of the trio, Danish physi-
cist Niels Bohr.
Bohr (18851962) was the prime mover in solving the
Figure 20.8 Edvard Munch. The Scream. 1893. Oil on canvas,
mystery of the structure of the atom. When he began
36 29. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo. The expressionists, whether writers,
artists, or musicians, responded to the uncertainty of the modern world his research, the Greek idea of the indivisible atom had
with images of despair, anxiety, and helplessness. The work of the already been discarded. Scientists in the early 1900s
Norwegian painter Edvard Munch provides a visual counterpart to the had proved that each atom is a neutral body containing
bleak and brooding plays of Strindberg and the terrifying stories of Kafka. a positive nucleus with negatively charged particles
Munch, whose paintings reflect a nightmarish vision of life as a tormented
called electrons. And one researcher had speculated
existence never free from pain, once said, I hear the scream in nature.
The Scream is a visual metaphor of modern alienation. The skull-headed, that electrons orbit a nucleus in much the same way
sexless figure, with mouth open and hands over ears, seems to be that the planets move around the sunsuggesting a
ignored by the couple walking away in the background. In a way typical correspondence with Newtonian theory.
of expressionism, Munch depicts the world as unnatural, as evidenced Until Bohrs theory of atomic structure was set forth
by the paintings swirling patterns of lines and colors. Masked and armed
in 1912, however, no one could explain how these min-
thieves stole Munchs Scream from its museum setting in 2004, and police
recovered it, slightly damaged but repairable, in 2006. iature solar systems actually worked. Bohrs solution
was based on bold assumptions: that an electron could
revolve about a nucleus only in certain privileged or-
bits and that, when it is in these orbits, it does not emit
of dominant and recessive traits and, using the laws of radiation. He concluded that an electron radiates only
probability, worked out the pattern for offspring over when it leaps from orbit to orbit. Using Plancks quan-
the generations. Subsequent research showed that Men- tum theory, he called these leaps quantum jumps,
delian laws applied to virtually all animals and plants. referring to the amount of radiative energy released.
The founder of the new discipline, radiochemis- Bohrs discovery had tremendous consequences, lead-
try, was Marie Sklodowska Curie (18671934), a Polish ing eventually to the development of nuclear energy
physicist and the first scientist to be awarded two No- for weaponry and electrical generation.
bel Prizes. Working with her French husband, Pierre German-born Albert Einstein (18791955) also did
Curie (18591906), Madame Curie identified two new important theoretical work in atomic physics, but his
radioactive elements, polonium and radium. The iso- most significant research in the early 1900s involved
lation of radium stimulated research in atomic phys- the relationship between time and space. Newton had
ics. Another contributor to radiochemistry was the maintained that there existed absolute rest and abso-
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen [RENT- lute velocity, absolute space and absolute time. Ein-
S guhn] (18451923), whose 1895 discovery of X-rays led stein asserted that the only absolute in the universe is
N to their use in diagnostic medicine. the speed of light, which is the same for all observers.
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EARLY MODERNISM 543

He concluded that all motion is relative and that con- to find beauty in the everyday world. From the Bar-
cepts of absolute space and time are meaningless. If bizon painters (a group of French landscape painters
two systems move with relatively uniform motion to- active in the midnineteenth century), they took the
ward each other, there exist two different spaces and practice of painting in the open air. From the roman-
two different times. He called this finding the special tics they borrowed the techniques of broken color
theory of relativity. This theory replaces Newtonian splitting up complex colors into their basic huesand
absolute space with a grid of light beams that in effect of using subtle color shadings to create a shimmering
determines the meaning of space in each situation. surface effect (see Chapter 19).
Einsteins special theory was the first step in a refor- Claude Monet [moh-NAY] (18401926) led the im-
mulation of scientific concepts of space and time. pressionists, especially after his painting Impression:
Sunrise gave the group its name (see chapter-opening
photo). Although many of his comrades later moved
The Modernist Revolution in Art on to other styles, Monet remained faithful to the im-
After 1871 a revolution began in the arts and archi- pressionist creed until his death. Over a long career,
tecture that aimed to replace Renaissance ideals with Monet sought to re-create the optical sensations he ex-
modernist principles. In painting and sculpture, this perienced. Rejecting traditional content, he focused on
generally meant a shift from an art that reflected the light and atmosphere, simulating the visual effects of
natural world to one rooted in the artists inner vision, fog, haze, or mist over a landscape and, especially, over
from an art based on representational or naturalistic water. That this approach succeeded so well shows the
images to one devoted to nonrepresentational or non- harmony between Monets scientific eye and painterly
objective forms, and from an art focused on content hand. His studies of changing light and atmosphere,
to one dedicated to the process of creation itself. By whether depicting haystacks, the Rouen cathedral, or
the time the revolution in painting and sculpture was water lilies (Figure 20.9), demonstrate Monets lifelong
complete, artists had given up realism and made ab- devotion to impressionism.
straction their ideal. In architecture, the modernist Unlike Monet, Auguste Renoir [REN-wahr]
revolution was less radical, though architects slowly (18411919) did not remain faithful to the impressionist
turned away from Greco-Roman and Gothic styles movement. In the early 1880s, personal and aesthetic
and created functional buildings devoid of decoration. motives led him to break with the impressionists and
exhibit in the official Paris Salon (when he could get
Impressionism The stylistic innovation in paint- his work accepted). He now shifted from a soft-focus
ing known as impressionism began in the 1870s. The image to a concentration on form, a move that brought
new paintingas one French critic labeled the new quick support from art critics and wealthy patrons.
stylemarked a genuine break with the realistic tra- Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du Le Moulin de
dition that had dominated Western art since the 1300s. la Galette) demonstrates Renoirs splendid mastery of
The impressionists chose to depict what they saw form (Figure 20.10). Its subject is a carefree summer
in nature, but they were inspired by the fast pace of eveningfilled with dancing, eating and drinking,
modern life to portray transient moments. They con- and talkingat an outdoor restaurant in Monmartre,
centrated on the play of light over objects, breaking Pariss bohemian district favored by artists. Le Moulin
up seemingly solid surfaces, stressing vivid contrasts de la Galette (a windmill surrounded by various busi-
between colors in sunlight and shade, and depicting nesses) had been a Parisian landmark since the seven-
reflected light in all its possibilities. Unlike earlier art- teenth century. This painting shows that Renoir had
ists, they abandoned the studio, painting in the open not given upnor would he everhis impressionist
air and recording spontaneous impressions of their ties, for his stress in this work on the fleeting, pleasure-
subjects instead of making sketches outside and then filled moment was basic to the style, as was his use of
moving indoors to complete the work from memory. broken color in a natural background. Nevertheless,
Their painting methods were influenced by techno- what remained central to Renoirs creed were the fore-
logical advances: the shift from the studio to the open ground figures, treated clearly and with substance.
air was made possible by the advent of cheap rail In contrast to Monet and Renoir, whose careers
travel, which allowed easy access to the countryside bloomed in poverty, Berthe Morisot [mohr-ee-ZOH]
or seashore, and by the discovery of chemical dyes (18411895) was a member of the upper middle class.
and oils that allowed paint to be kept in metal tubes, Her wealth and artistic connectionsFragonard
which artists could carry with them, along with por- was her grandfather and Manet her brother-in-law
table easels. allowed her to apply herself to painting and play an
Although impressionism was a product of indus- important role in the founding of the impressionist
trial society, it was at the same time indebted to the movement. In her work, she focused on atmosphere S
past. From realism the impressionist painters learned and the play of light on the human form, although N
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544 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

Figure 20.9 Claude Monet. Waterlily Pond (Le Bassin des Nymphas). 1904. Oil on canvas, 341/2
35 3/4. Denver Art Museum. Knowledgeable about the art market and determined to escape a life of poverty,
Monet produced nonthreatening works that appealed to conservative middle-class collectors. For these
patrons, he painted natural scenes, such as water lilies, that evoked pleasant memories of simple rural values.
Begun in 1899, the water lily series occupied him for the rest of his life. Setting up his easel in his splendid
garden at Giverny and working at different times of the day, Monet captured the effect of changing sunlight on
this beloved subject.

she never sacrificed her subjects to the cause of color studying painting in Paris. Hailing from a prosperous
alone. Her subjects were modern life, from urban Philadelphia family, Cassatt urged her wealthy friends
workers to the confined world of domestic interiors to collect the new art. Because of her influence, some
and gardens and smartly dressed ladies out for a stroll of the most notable impressionist paintings are now in
(Figure 20.11). American museums. Cassatt, however, was not de-
A few Americans also made contributions to voted exclusively to impressionism. Like other artists
impressionism. The most important of them was of this era, she was fascinated by Japanese prints (see
S Mary Cassatt [kuh-SAT] (18451926), a young Figure 20.5) that were on exhibit in Paris in 1890, and
N woman who joined the impressionist circle while she was the first to imitate all aspects, including color,
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EARLY MODERNISM 545

Figure 20.10 Auguste Renoir. Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du Le Moulin de la Galette). 1876.
Oil on canvas, 431/2 59. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Renoirs focus on traditional artistic values is reflected
in this vivid painting. He uses the bench in the foreground to establish conventional perspective, its slanted
back forming a diagonal line that runs into the distance. He balances the composition, weaving the partying
men and women into a harmonious ensemble, with some standing, sitting, or dancing. He also employs colors
effectively, using splashes of color to dapple the faces and clothing of the revelersthus accentuating the
feel of this summer day.

of the ukiyo-e [oo-key-yoh-AY] woodblock prints that settings, fascinated the impressionist and postimpres-
had developed in Japan in the 1600sas in The Bath, sionist painters. Many artists, including douard Ma-
or The Tub (about 1891; Figure 20.12). net, Claude Monet, Pierre Renoir, Mary Cassatt (see
Figure 20.12), Paul Czanne, and Paul Gauguin, played
with Japanese motifs in their works. But it was the
Global Encounter: Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh who had the greatest
The Western Art World and Ukiyo-e Art affinity with the ukiyo-e prints (see Interpreting Art).
Japanese culture became an obsession among Eu-
ropes avant-garde in the late 1800s, once diplomatic
and commercial ties were reestablished with the is-
land kingdom. As Japanese waresceramics, fans, Postimpressionism The rebellious, experimental
parasols, kimonos, and woodblock printsbegan to spirit instilled by the impressionists had freed art
flood into Europes shops and homes, the fashion trend from the tyranny of a single style. Artists now moved
of Japonisme [ja-pon-eas-muh] was born. Japonisme is a in varied directions, united only by a common desire
French term meaning the love of all things Japanese. to extend the boundaries of impressionism. This am-
Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) wood- bition signified the triumph of the modernist notion S
block prints, with their simple design and off-kilter that art must constantly change in order to reflect new N
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546 CHAPTER TWENTY: THE AGE OF EARlY MODERNISM

Figure 20.11 bertHe morisot. The Harbor at Lorient. 1869. Oil on


canvas, 171/8 28 3/4. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ailsa
Mellon Bruce Collection. Morisot painted in open air this harbor scene
at Lorient on the Bay of Biscay in Brittany, while visiting there. The sky,
clouds, ships, and houses are reflected in the water. The lady, sitting alone
and lost in thought, looks down at the wall while shading herself with a
fashionable parasol. The muted browns of the seawall set off the womans
white dress with its pinkish overtone, and the darkish colors of her hat
are repeated in the brown to black colors in the ships hulls. The paintings
designthe diagonal line of the seawall on the right; the parallel diagonal
line of the houses and trees on the left; and the horizontal line of the ships
masts and house rooflines in the middle distancecreates a harbor pool
in the foreground and reinforces the vastness of the sky. Morisots quick
brushwork gives the painting a feeling of immediacy and intimacythe
aim of impressionism. She signed her name, B. Morisot, on the seawall.

Figure 20.12 mary cassatt. The Bath, or The Tub. Ca. 1891.
Soft-ground etching with aquatint and drypoint on paper,
12 3/8 87/8. National Museum of Women in the Arts,
Washington, D.C. This Cassatt print, in Japanese-inspired style,
symbolizes the globalization of Western culture that was well under way
in early modernism. The first of ten prints in a series, it is the only one that
could be called a true imitation. It uses simple design, Japanese spatial
pattern, flat areas of color, and a hint of Japanese facial features to create
a Western version of a ukiyo-e printexcept that it is made on a metal
plate, not a woodblock. In the rest of this series, Cassatt adopted a more
Western style, notably adding a complete background, such as wallpaper
and windows. Her interest in Japanese prints coincided with Gauguins
experiments (see Figure 20.15) with Tahitian-inspired art. By drawing
S inspiration from non-Western sources, Cassatt and Gauguin are
N forerunners of postmodernism.
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Interpreting Art
Influence The Japanese artist nature of modern life with this
Ando Hiroshiges woodblock print Japanese setting. Rain is a natural
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi phenomenon that is part of daily life
Bridge and Atake (see Figure 20.5) on earth.
inspired this oil painting.
Personal Van Gogh
Composition Van Goghs encountered ukiyo-e in Antwerp in
design, adapted from that of the early 1880s. Moving to Paris
Hiroshige, includes cropping the in 1886 and staying until 1888, he
scene (as in a photograph), strong, became an avid collector of ukiyo-e,
dark color to outline the human particularly those by Hiroshige. Van
figures, and elevated perspective. Goghs letters reveal an abiding love
of Japanese art and the clarity of its
aesthetic vision.
Color Van Gogh creates a
dramatic vista by heightening the
color contrasts of red and green and Style Van Gogh belongs to
adding a decorative border. Bold modernisms expressionist trend,
colors became a signature of his which holds that artists reveal
personal style. their emotional states through
their techniques. Thus, the bold
colors, agitated lines, and distant
Theme Van Gogh portrays
figures with obscured faces suggest
ordinary life, a favorite theme of
that van Gogh was alienated and
the impressionists. Van Gogh,
depressed.
prophetically, shows the global

vincent van gogH. The Bridge in the Rain (After Hiroshige). 1887. Oil
on canvas, approx. 28 3/4 211/4. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
(Vincent van Gogh Foundation). This painting shows van Gogh Euro-
peanizing Hiroshiges ukiyo-e print style. Van Gogh made these tech-
niques his own in his later works. Thus, van Gogh is one of the doors
through which Japanese cultural style has entered the heart of Western
canonical art.

1. Audience Who would have been a likely buyer for this 4. Technique Explain van Goghs technique and his artistic
painting in 1887? influences.
2. Psychological Perspective What does this painting reveal 5. Cultural Perspective Why is van Gogh one of the most
about van Goghs outlook on life? admired artists today?
3. Context What does this artwork tell us about the culture in
which it was created?

historical conditionsthe opposite of the classical color theory, Seurat developed a technique known as
ideal of eternal truths. Impressionism was succeeded pointillism (or divisionism), which meant applying to
by postimpressionism (18861900), whose four most the canvas thousands of tiny dots of pure color jux-
important artists were Georges Seurat, Paul Czanne, taposed in such a way that, when viewed from the
Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. proper distance, they merged to form a natural, har-
like the impressionists, Georges Seurat [suh-RAH] monious effect of color, light, and shade. His most
(18591891) painted the ordinary pleasures of Parisian famous pointillist work is A Sunday Afternoon on the
life in a sunlit atmosphere, but his way of doing so was Island of La Grande Jatte (Figure 20.13), an affectionate,
formulaic and theoretical, markedly different from good-humored look at Parisians enjoying themselves. S
the approach of, say, Monet. After studying scientific The technique may be novel and scientific, but the N
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548 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

Figure 20.13 Georges Seurat. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. 18841886. Oil
on canvas, 69 101. Art Institute of Chicago. Unlike most impressionists, Seurat worked slowly and
methodically. In the case of La Grande Jatte, he spent years organizing the canvas and then painting the
thousands of dots required by the pointillist technique. Such painstaking attention to detail was necessary
to achieve the harmonious effect his finished paintings demonstrate.

composition is classical and serene, with carefully solidity and order. After experimentation, Czanne
placed and balanced figures and repeated curved concluded that nature is composed of such geomet-
shapes, visible in the umbrellas, hats, and other ob- ric forms as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and cones. By
jects. Seurats style led to a minor school of painters, trying to reveal this idea in his works, he opened up
but his influence on later developments in art was a new way of painting that has influenced art to the
overshadowed by that of Czanne. present day.
Paul Czanne [say-ZAN] (18391906) was the prophet Czannes greatest works came after 1886, when
of abstraction in postimpressionism and a precursor he left Paris for his quiet home in Aix-en-Provence in
of cubism. Abstraction is the trend in modern art that southern France. Among his favorite subjects was the
emphasizes shapes, lines, and colors independent of nearby mountain Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 20.14).
the natural world. With douard Manet, he was one Like many later works, Mont Sainte-Victoire points
of the founders of modern painting. He exhibited with toward abstraction but never quite gives up repre-
the original impressionist group in 1874 but by 1878 sentation. Amid the geometric forms in the pictures
had rejected the movement because its depiction of na- lower half, house shapes peek through daubs of green
ture lacked substance and weight. He sought a new foliage, reminding the viewer that this is a realistic
S way to portray nature so as to reveal its underlying landscape.
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EARLY MODERNISM 549

Figure 20.14 Paul Czanne. Mont Sainte-Victoire. Ca. 1900. Oil on Figure 20.15 Paul Gauguin. Manao Tupapau: The Spirit of the Dead
canvas, 30 3/4 39. Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Although Czanne Watching. 1892. Oil on burlap mounted on canvas, 281/2 383/8.
was the founder of the postimpressionist movement that culminated in Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Gauguin wrote of this
abstraction, he had a conservative approach to art. He wanted to create painting that he wanted to convey the presence of tupapau, or the spirit
paintings that had the solidity of the art in the museums, especially of the dead, as envisioned by the young girl on the bed. He implies her fear
the works of the seventeenth-century painter Nicolas Poussin. Hence, through the mixture of the yellow, purple, and blue colors; by the sparks of
Czanne continued to rely on line and geometric arrangement as well as light, or phosphorescences, which symbolize the spirits of the dead; and
on color and light, simplifying his paintings into austere images of order by the ghost depicted as an old woman in the left background. He felt it
and peaceful color. In this one of sixty paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire necessary to make very simple paintings, with primitive, childlike themes
visible from his studio in Aix-en-ProvenceCzannes closeness to and to use a minimum of literary means in order for Western Europeans
abstract art may be seen. The distant mountain has a solid presence, to understand how Tahitians viewed life and death.
but the houses, foliage, fields, and road disappear into a set of ambiguous
forms and color planes. Czannes handling of the color planes, with their
jagged edges and abrupt juxtapositions, inspired the cubists to search
for a new way to represent the world.

The postimpressionist Paul Gauguin [go- left was a direct challenge to a secular worldview.
GAN] (18481903) began the movement known Since his day, Gauguins role in art has been reevalu-
as primitivismthe term used to describe the ated. Today, Gauguin is recognized for his introduc-
Wests fascination with non-Western culture as well as tion of non-Western traditions into Western art, thus
pre-Renaissance art. Gauguins eccentric personal life enriching its vocabulary, and for his expressive use
also made him a legendary figure of modernism. Re- of color.
jecting Parisian bourgeois life, he abandoned his ca- With the postimpressionist Vincent van Gogh [van
reer and family and exiled himself to the French colony GO] (18531890), the tradition of expressionism began
of Tahiti, living a decadent, bohemian existence. to emerge in Western art, although he was not part
Before moving to the South Pacific, Gauguin de- of any expressionist school. Expressionism in van
veloped a personal style that favored flattened shapes Goghs case meant that the painting served as a ve-
and bright colors and avoided conventional perspec- hicle for his private emotions to an unprecedented de-
tive and modeling. He also became interested in non- gree. He sometimes allowed his moods to determine
Western, primitive religions, and many of his Tahi- what colors to use and how to apply paint to canvas, a
tian works refer to indigenous beliefs and practices, principle that led to an idiosyncratic style. Van Goghs
as in Manao Tupapau: The Spirit of the Dead Watching life was filled with misfortune, and even his painting
(Figure 20.15). When exhibited in Paris, this painting had little recognition in his lifetime. His attempts at
created an uproar, for Western audiences were not friendship ended in failure, including a celebrated epi-
accustomed to seeing dark-skinned nudes in art, and sode in the south of France with the painter Gauguin.
certainly not presented reclining on a bed, a cus His overtures to women resulted in utter humiliation.
tomary pose for female nudes since the Renaissance In the end, he became mentally unstable and commit-
(see Figure 17.6). Furthermore, the seated ghost at the ted suicide. S
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From his personal pain, van Gogh created a memo-
rably expressive style. Rejecting the smooth look of tra-
ditional painting and stirred by the colorful canvases
of the impressionists, he sometimes applied raw pig-
ments with his palette knife or fingers instead of with
a brush. His slashing strokes and brilliant colors mir-
rored his mental states, giving the viewer a glimpse
into his volatile personality. For instance, his Self-
Portrait strongly suggests mental agitation, through
the dominance of the color blue and the swirling lines
of paint (Figure20.16). The anguish in his eyes is rein-
forced by the vortex of color framing the head and the
deep facial lines. As a result, the portrait seethes with
emotion.
Among the most memorable of van Goghs paint-
ings is The Starry Night (Figure 20.17). Executed in the
last year of van Goghs life, the painting depicts a tran-
quil village under an agitated sky filled with pulsating
stars, an unnatural crescent moon, and whirling rivers
of light. Intensifying the strange imagery is the grove
of cypress trees (left foreground), rendered in the shape
of flames. The ensemble of convoluted shapes and bold
Figure 20.16 Vincent van Gogh. Self-Portrait. 1889. Oil on canvas,
251/2 211/4. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Van Goghs self-absorption is colors expresses the artists inner turmoil. In a sense,
reflected in the thirty-six self-portraits he painted during his eleven-year van Goghs works constitute his psychological signa-
artistic career. Anguished and prone to mental breakdown, he must have ture; his style is perhaps the most easily recognizable
found a measure of reassurance in recording the subtle changes in his own one in Western art.
countenance. A constant in all his likenesses is the haunted eyes, showing
the inner torment from which he could never quite escape. The very
execution of this work demonstrates van Goghs passionate mood, as in Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism The pre-
the aggressive brushstrokes that congeal into a radiating pattern of energy eminence of Paris as the hub of Western culture was
lines covering the paintings surface. He painted this self-portrait in 1889, enhanced by the arrival of Henri Matisse and Pablo
a year before he took his own life.

Figure 20.17 Vincent van Gogh. The Starry


Night. 1889. Oil on canvas, 29 361/4.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Van Goghs Starry Night is a stunning symbol
of the unstable world of early modernism.
The whirling, luminous sky, formed with wild
patches of color and tormented brushstrokes,
reflects the psychic disturbance of the
painteran early example of expressionist
art. But van Gogh was more than an artist
beset by personal demons; he wanted to
follow Delacroix (see Chapters 18 and 19) and
depict nature, using color and drawing, without
slavishly copying reality. In van Goghas in
his contemporary, the philosopher Nietzsche
S psychic turmoil and artistic vision were
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EARLY MODERNISM 551

dAvignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), perhaps the


most influential painting of the twentieth century (Fig-
ure 20.19). This revolutionary work moved painting
close to abstractionthe realization of Czannes
dream. An unfinished work, Les Demoiselles reflects the
multiple influences operating on Picasso at the time
the primitivism of African masks, the geometric forms
of Czanne, and the ancient sculpture of pre-Roman
Spain. Despite its radical methods, this painting still
has a conventional composition: five figures with a still
life in the foreground. With this painting, Picasso redi-
rected objective art beyond abstraction and into the de-
velopment of nonobjective paintingthus overturning
a standard founded in the Renaissance.
Les Demoiselles was the prelude to cubism, another
step on the road to abstraction. With his French col-
league Georges Braque [BRAHK] (18821963), Picasso
developed cubism. This style of painting, which went
through different phases at the hands of different art-
ists, basically fragments three-dimensional objects
and reassembles them in a pattern that stresses their
geometric structure and the relationships of these ba-
sic geometric forms. Braque and Picasso worked so
closely together that their paintings could sometimes
Figure 20.18 Henri Matisse. Madame Matisse (The Green Line). 1905. not be separately identified, even, it is said, by the art-
Oil on canvas, 16 12 3/4. The National Gallery of Denmark. Like van ists themselves.
Gogh, Matisse resisted quiet surface effects, preferring the look of paint With his adoption of cubist methods, Picasso gave
applied in thick daubs and strips of varying length. His dazzling optical art up Renaissance space completely, representing the sub-
was created by his use and placement of vibrant colors. In this painting,
jects from multiple angles simultaneously and shaping
Matisse uses a bold color scheme to interpret the formidable presence of
his wife, Madame Matisse. the figures into geometric designs. He later added a
new feature to cubism when he applied bits and pieces
of other objects to the canvas, a technique called col-
lage (from French coller, to glue). Collage nudged
cubism closer to pure abstraction; the flat plane of the
Picasso in about 1900. These innovative and prolific paintings surface was now simply a two-dimensional
artists emerged as the leaders of the preWorld War I showcase for objects. Man with a Hat (also known as
generation, later dominating the art world in the Portrait of Braque) shows Picassos blend of cubist style
twentieth century in much the same way that Ingres with collage (Figure 20.20).
and Delacroix had in the nineteenth century. Although Paris remained the capital of Western
Henri Matisse [ma-TEES] (18691954) rose to fame art, other cities were also the scene of aesthetic ex-
in 1905 as a leader of fauvism. The fauvesFrench for periment. Oslo, Munich, Vienna, and Dresden became
wild beasts, a name their detractors gave to them artistic meccas, especially for expressionist painters
were a group of loosely aligned painters who exhibited who followed the path of van Gogh and the fauves. In
together. Matisses work, like that of his colleagues, Munich, expressionism led to the formation of an in-
stemmed from the tradition of van Gogh, with color ternational school of artists known as Der Blaue Reiter
as its overriding concern. In this portrait of Madame (The Blue Rider), named after a painting of the same
Matisse (The Green Line), he painted a kaleidoscope of name. Rejecting the importance of artistic content and
colorspinks, mauves, greens, bright reds, oranges, refusing to paint safe objects, this group of painters
and purples (Figure 20.18). The colors are arbitrary concentrated on basics such as color and line, which
in the sense that they bear little resemblance to reality, were meant to express inner feelings. Founded by
but they are far from arbitrary in their relation to one the Russian exile Wassily Kandinsky [kan-DIN-skee]
anotherwhich was what interested Matisse. (18661944) in 1911, this school made the first break-
Pablo Picasso [pih-KAH-so] (18811973), a tal- through to abstract artnonrepresentational or non-
ented young Spanish painter, was attracted to objective paintings that defy any sense of reality or
Pariss avant-garde art community in about 1900. connection to nature and are, as the artist himself put S
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Figure 20.19 Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles
dAvignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon).
Paris (JuneJuly 1907). Oil on canvas,
8 78. The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. This paintings title derives from
Picassos native Barcelona, where Avignon
Street ran through the red-light district. First
intended as a moral work warning of the
dangers of venereal disease (the figures still
show provocative poses), the painting evolved
over the months, changing as Picassos
horizons expanded. That he left the painting
unfinishedlike a scientists record of a failed
laboratory experimentillustrates a leading
trait of modernism, the belief that truth is best
expressed in the artistic process itself. A recent
survey reveals that this painting is the most
often reproduced work in art history textbooks.

inner character, nonmaterial in nature. Kandinskys


aesthetic vision was to create free forms, possessing
no objective content, consisting only of meander-
ing lines and amorphous blobs of color. Despite the
seeming randomness, he consciously worked out the
placement of the lines and the choices of color, leaving
nothing to chance. He also linked the fluidity of paint-
ing with the lyricism of music, a connection suggested
in Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 4 (Figure 20.21) by
the meandering lines. In this famous set of four panels
representing the seasons of the year, Kandinsky used
vivid colors to express his guiding belief that art has a
spiritual quality.

Figure 20.20 Pablo Picasso. Man with a Hat. (Also known as Portrait
of Braque.) Paris (after December 3, 1912). Cut-and-pasted colored
paper and printed paper, charcoal, and ink on paper, 241/2 18 5/8.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. This image alludes to the close
working relationship between Picasso and Braque. Whether the portrait is
of Braque is debatable, especially since Picasso denied it. He claimed he
worked without a model and added, Braque and I [afterwards] pretended
it was his portrait. The anecdote stresses the point that both men were
S less interested in content than creating a new visual reality through
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EARLY MODERNISM 553

New Directions in Sculpture and Architecture


Few sculptors of any consequence appeared in the
18711914 period and only one genius: Auguste Rodin
[roh-DAN] (18401917). Rejecting the static classicism of
the midnineteenth century, Rodin forged an eclectic
style that blended romantic subject matter, Renais-
sance simplicity, and Gothic angularity with the radi-
cal changes under way in painting. In the sculpture
Eve (Figure 20.22), he created a rough Gothic effect us-
ing modern means, torturing the surface, especially of

Figure 20.21 Wassily K andinsky. Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 4


(formerly Painting No. 201, Winter ). 1914. Oil on canvas, 641/4 481/4.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. This panel is one of four
commissioned by a founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, to hang
in his New York apartment. When Kandinsky painted this series, he moved
from nonrepresentational to totally nonobjective art, an expression he
coined. His ideas rested on the romantic notion that serious art can be
a substitute for religion; the artist serves as priest, who, with mystical
insight, can tap into the divine. Later artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg
(see Chapter 22), ridiculed this idea as pretentious. Kandinsky, in this
painting, achieves what he had set out to doeliminate all representative
imagery and express himself solely through line, color, and form. Red, the
dominant color, is set off against blues, greens, and yellows, with accent
colors of white and black to suggest winterhis only concession to
representational aesthetics.

Figure 20.22 Auguste Rodin. Eve. 1881. Bronze, ht. 67. Rodin
Museum, Philadelphia. This life-size statue of Eve was originally
conceived as half a pair, with Adam, to flank The Gates of Hell, Rodins
masterpiece, loosely based on Dantes Inferno (see Chapter 10). The figure
of Eve owed much to Michelangelos expressive forms, particularly that of
Eve in The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden on the Sistine Chapel ceiling
(see Chapter 13). Reflecting her dual roles as first mother and coauthor of
original sin, Rodins Eve is both voluptuous (beautiful face and curvaceous
form) and ashamed (face averted and, in gestures of modesty, arms S
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554 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

the stomach and the head. The result was both impres- Using the aesthetic dictum that form follows func-
sionistic (the play of light on the scored surfaces) and tion, the Chicago school solved design problems
expressionistic (the traces of Rodins fingers on the without relying on past techniques and traditions.
bronze medium, which so dramatically suggest the This dictum means that a building ought to be a work-
intensity of the artists involvement). able organism where the pressure of daily existence
Having lagged behind the other arts for most of the is channeled into a harmonious, functioning whole;
century, architecture began to catch up in the 1880s. in practical terms, the pressure is called function, the
The United States led the way, notably in the works resultant building, form. The author of this dictum,
of the Chicago school. The skyscraper, perfected by Louis Sullivan (18651924), produced a masterly ex-
Chicago-based architects, became synonymous with ample of the Chicago schools style in the Wainwright
modernism and modern life. Unlike modernist paint- Building in St. Louis, Missouri. Here, Sullivan used a
ing and sculpture, the new architecture arose for steel frame, joining the horizontal and vertical girders,
practical reasons: dense populations and soaring real to create a towering grid, which became the exteriors
estate values. defining pattern (Figure 20.23). Rather than covering

Figure 20.23 Louis Sullivan. Wainwright


Building. 18901891. St. Louis, Missouri.
Purity became an identifying characteristic of
modernist style. It was apparent in Matisses
color experiments, in Picassos abstract
cubist forms, and even in the expressionist
goal of unvarnished truth. In architecture,
Louis Sullivan introduced the purity principle
with his artistic credo that form follows
function. Originally built for a wealthy St. Louis
businessman, this early modernist architectural
icon deteriorated until the National Trust for
Historic Preservation purchased it (1973),
thus saving it from the wrecking ball. Today,
the Wainwright Building is part of a state of
S Missouri office complex.
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Figure 20.24 Frank Lloyd Wright. Frederick C. Robie House, 1910. Hyde Park Neighborhood, Chicago.
Between 1900 and 1910, Wright introduced his prairie houses, named for the Ladies Home Journal article
(1901) in which their designs first appeared. The Robie House, built in an affluent Chicago suburb for a wealthy
client, is a fine example of this midwestern American style that became later the dream house for many
middle-class homeowners. The styles strong focus on horizontal lines, resulting in shifting planes of light across
the facade, may be compared to the multiple perspectives of cubism, the parallel development in painting.

the exterior walls with ornamentation or design ele- bourgeois patrons. To strengthen domestic values,
ments, as was done in earlier steel skyscrapers, Sulli- he planned houses that encourage the inhabitants to
van left the girders exposed in order to give a sense of identify with the natural surroundings; his structures
unity to the building. Vertical columns extend up the also departed from the typical reliance on fixed inte-
sides of the building, connecting the basethe two rior walls to encourage fluid family relationships and
first floorswith the top floor. By making the build- a free flow of traffic. In time, Wrights style became
ings exterior a grid, it became a visual expression of standard for progressive architects throughout the
the structural frame underneath. Although Sullivan United States, expressed in the exterior in strong hori-
rejected the rich ornamentation of the nineteenth- zontal lines, overhanging eaves, banks of windows,
century Gothic as well as the balanced decorations of and a minimum of decorative detail (Figure 20.24).
classicism, he nevertheless devised his own decorative
scheme, which may be seen in the vertical and hori-
zontal elements, for example, and the spaces (blocks) Music: From Impressionism to Jazz
between the windows. In this building, Sullivans one Richard Wagner died in 1883 (see Chapter 19), but in
exception to his rule of pure functionality is in the certain respects he is the commanding musical pres-
decorative facade he used to hide the water tank ence in early modernism. Most composers were either
and elevator machinery on its top floor. utilizing in their own way the harmonic advances he
Sullivan defined the public building for the twen- had made, working out the implications of those ad-
tieth century, and his disciple Frank Lloyd Wright vances, or reacting to his influence by elaborately re-
(18691959) did the same for domestic architecture in jecting it. For example, a musical style influenced by
about 1910. For his middle-class clients, Wright created Wagner was impressionism, in part inspired by his
a new type of dwelling he called organic, a term he shimmering, constantly alternating chords. The im-
coined to describe a building that is constructed of lo- pressionist composers did not stay under his tutelage,
cal woods and stone and therefore harmonizes with however. Where Wagner was philosophical, seek-
the physical environment. Although unconventional ing to fuse all the arts, the impressionists explored
in his own life, he was rather a romantic about his sound for its own sake. Like impressionist painters, S
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556 CHAPTER TWENTY: The Age of Early Modernism

impressionist composers thought that all moments and even disturbing, because it offers no harmoni-
no matter how realwere fleeting and fragmentary, ous frame of reference. It is characterized by wide
and their compositions illustrated this principle. Their leaps from one tone to another, melody fragments,
music, without conventional thematic development or interrupted rhythms, and violent contrasts. Rejecting
dramatic buildup and release, often sounds veiled or traditional forms, expressionist composers made ex-
amorphous when compared with the music of, for ex- perimentation central to their musical vision.
ample, Haydn (see chapter 17). The founder and leader of the expressionist school
Claude Debussy [duh-byoo-SEE] (18621918), a was Arnold Schoenberg [SHUHN-burg] (18741951),
French composer, founded the impressionist style. He who gave up a Wagnerian style in about 1907 and
created constantly shifting colors and moods through moved toward atonality. At first, Schoenberg employed
such musical methods as gliding chords and chromatic traditional musical forms, as in the Second String
scales derived from non-Western sources. Debussys Quartet (1908), although no string quartet had ever
music represents the climax of the nineteenth-century sounded like his dissonant creation. Scored without a
interest in programmatic titles, large orchestras, rich designated key and filled with snatches of melody, this
chords, and relatively free rhythms and forms. work offered the listener no recognizable frame of ref-
One of Debussys programmatic works, Prlude erence. Violinists were required on occasion to play the
laprs-midi dun faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) most extreme notes of which their instruments were
(1894), is generally recognized as the first impression- capable.
ist orchestral masterpiece. This work, a musical set- Besides traditional forms, Schoenberg established a
ting of the poem The Afternoon of a Faun (1876) by favorite compositional method of expressionism: set-
the French poet Stphane Mallarm (18421898), is a ting a literary text to music and following its changes
sensuous confection of blurred sounds and elusive in character and feeling. An influential example of ex-
rhythms. To achieve its mood of reverie, Debussy used pressionist music with text was Pierrot lunaire (1912),
a meandering musical line played by a soulful solo based on symbolist poems by a Belgian writer and
flute, backed by muted strings and delicately voiced scored for chamber quintet (flute [and piccolo], clari-
brasses and woodwinds. Adding to the works dreamy net [and bass clarinet], violin [and viola], cello, and
mood is its subtle dynamics, changes in the volume of piano) and voice. Though Schoenberg downplayed the
sounds, as in the sudden shifts between piano (Ital- source texts importance, the musics violent shifts and
ian, soft) and forte (Italian, loud). prevailing discord clearly complement the alienated
Impressionist music produced a second major voice psychology and shocking language of the symbolist
in France during this period: Maurice Ravel [ruh-VEL] text. Instead of conventionally singing the text, the
(18751937), a composer loosely indebted to Debussy. solo vocalist declaims, or chants, the words by com-
Unlike Debussy, Ravel had a taste for the clear struc- bining speech and song.
ture of classical musical forms as well as established Moonstruck Pierrot, one of the twenty-one songs
dance forms. Perhaps the most impressionistic of Ra in the Pierrot lunaire cycle, features the poet as clown,
vels compositions is Jeux deau (Fountains) (1901), a pro- made drunk with the beauty of the moonlight. Schoen-
grammatic work for piano marked by sounds evoking bergs music conveys the poets hyperbolic thoughts,
sparkling and splashing water. Dance inspired Ravels as in, for example, the use of a cadenzaa passage
Valses nobles et sentimentales (Noble and Sentimental with an improvised feelto represent the streaming
Waltzes) (1911), a work for piano based on the waltzes moonlight. Schoenberg also establishes the main mo-
of Franz Schubert and the Parisian ballrooms of the tive, a seven-note sequence for piano and violin, in the
1820s, and La valse (The Waltz) (1920), an orchestral work first line, which begins with Den Wein (German, the
that is a sardonic homage to the waltzes of nineteenth- wine)a poetic metaphor for moonlight. The main
century Vienna. Ravels best-known work, La valse is in motive and the Den Wein line are repeated in lines 7
actuality an embittered metaphor in which the increas- and 13. The poetic text, like other songs in this cycle,
ingly discordant sounds of the music represent the is a rondeau, a thirteen-line French verse form dating
forces that generated the catastrophe of World WarI. from the late Middle Ages.
A trend in opposition to Wagner was expression- Pierrot lunaire, representing the extreme of Schoen-
ism, which developed simultaneously with expres- bergs expressionism before World War I, made him
sionist art in Vienna. Drawing on the insights of one of the two most highly respected composers of
Freudian psychology, musical expressionism offered early modernism. The other outstanding twentieth-
a distorted view of the world, focusing on anguish century musical genius active during this period was
and pain. Its most striking feature was its embrace the Russian Igor Stravinsky [struh-VIN-skee] (18821971).
of atonality, a type of music without major or minor Untouched by Wagnerism but attuned to the revolu-
S keys. To the listener, atonal music sounds discordant tionary events unfolding in the arts and in literature,
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EARLY MODERNISM 557

Figure 20.25 Mathews Band. Lockport, Louisiana. Hogan Jazz Archive, Howard-Tilton Memorial
Library, Tulane University. Bandsboth black and whiteflourished in nineteenth-century America. Band
concerts were part of town culture, as they played at local events, including picnics, holidays, and parades.
For black musicians, playing in a band offered an opportunity to hone musical skills, earn cash, wear snappy
clothes, and bask in the spotlight. Band culture, with its well-experienced musicians, became part of jazz
culture, and in Dixieland jazz, the band component still remains strong today. The all-brass band pictured here
was in Lockport, Louisiana, a village on Bayou Lafourche, near New Orleans. Note the regions vernacular-style
building in the background: the wooden house, raised on blocks, for ventilation; the shallow porch with four
plain wood supports; the central doorway with flanking windows; and the hinged wooden window covers.

Stravinsky acquired his reputation at about the same rooted in African American tradition, began to emerge
time as Schoenberg. In 1913 Stravinsky wrote the mu- in the United States (Figure 20.25). The word jazz, origi-
sic for The Rite of Spring, a ballet produced by Sergei nally a slang term for sexual intercourse, reflects the
Diaghilev [dee-AHG-uh-lef] (18721929) for the Ballets musics origins in the New Orleans sexual underworld.
Russes in Paris. Stravinskys music and the ballets Jazz combined West African and African-Caribbean
choreography tapped into the theme of primitivism in rhythms with Western harmony, along with an impro-
art that was currently the rage in the French capital. visatory call-and-response style rooted both in African
Stravinskys pounding rhythms evoke a pagan ritual, songs and in gospel songs of the urban Protestant re-
using abrupt meter changes, a hypnotic beat, and furi- vival in the 1850s. Jazz drew on two other African
ous syncopation, the musical technique of accenting American musical forms as wellragtime, which was
a weak beat when a strong beat is expected. The Rite chiefly instrumental, and the blues, which originated
of Spring builds to an exhilaratingeven frenetic as a vocal art.
conclusion, titled The Sacrifice, with time signature Ragtime flourished from 1890 to 1920. The word
changes in almost every measure, explosive beats ragtime is derived from the phrase ragged time,
on the drums, and blaring brasses. A sudden shift the original name for this type of syncopated music
in dynamics brings a brief quieter interlude, marked perfected by black pianist and composer Scott Joplin
by thrumming chords and silent beats, followed by a (18681917) and based on a blend of African Ameri-
raucous, throbbing climax of drums and brasses. The can rhythms and Western harmony. The blues grew
savage music coupled with the erotic dancing cre- out of the rural African American tradition of work
ated a scandal that made Stravinsky the leading avant- songs and spirituals and evokes the pain to be found
garde composer in the world. in life, love, poverty, and hard work. Blues and jazz are
As Western music moved away from ancient both powerfully expressive musical forms, considered
and medieval sources, a new tradition, jazz, specifically American contributions to world music. S
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558 CHAPTER TWENTY: THE AGE OF EARlY MODERNISM

SUMMARY
The West, from 1871 to 1914, enjoyed one of the most movement. The middle classs role in society contin-
peaceful eras in its history. A few brief wars broke out ued to grow, bringing the inherited culture more into
in the Balkans, and, overseas, in Africa and China, line with middle-class tastes and values.
Western powers fought over trading rights and dis- Overall, the early modernist age reflected the pe-
puted territories. The Second Industrial Revolution riods peace, prosperity, and progress. Nevertheless, a
picked up momentum, and all social classes enjoyed contrarian spirit soon arose. led by an avant-garde of
a higher standard of living. Many Europeans aban- artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers, these rebels
doned ancestral villages in search of wealth and rejected traditional values and, most of all, the smug-
adventure in the teeming cities. Millions more, de- ness of bourgeois life. Instead, they envisioned a new
spairing of upward mobility at home, emigrated to the culture, freed from the pastin essence, the battle cry
United States, while fewer moved to South America. In of early modernism.
industrialized areas, many workers joined the union

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


modernism problem play abstraction atonality
avant-garde local color primitivism cadenza
Social Gospel Creole fauvism rondeau
fundamentalist Cajun cubism syncopation
movement, or aesthete collage jazz
fundamentalism impressionism abstract art ragtime
naturalism ukiyo-e dynamics blues
decadent postimpressionism piano
expressionism pointillism forte

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KEY CUlTURAl TERMS 559

The Legacy of Early Modernism


late-nineteenth-century militant nationalism, imperi- tainty and restlessness, its obsession with abstraction,
alism, and militarism laid the foundation for our later its beliefs in the hidden depths of the human personal-
history: two world wars, the rise of superpowers, colo- ity, and its willingness to think the unthinkable.
nial revolts and regional conflicts, totalitarianism and
military dictatorships, the industrial-military complex,
international arms races, and a proliferation of weap-
ons of mass destruction. Nationalism has united soci-
eties to protect themselves against aggression and to
win freedom at home from oppressive rulers. Imperi-
alism, on the positive side, exported Western values of
self-rule, along with technology, around the globe, en-
couraging people to fight for their independence and
rights and to raise the standard of living for millions
trapped in poverty. On the negative side, imperialism
undermined old ways of life in its colonies, thus foster-
ing a sense of cultural alienation; and also led to vari-
ous wars (e.g., the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan
[2001]) as well as Western support of authoritarian
regimes (Saudia Arabia today).
likewise, the era of early modernism set the cultural
scene for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The
rise of the masses led to a growing proletarianization
of culture. The middle classes were now subjected to
cultural assault from urban workers in much the same
way that the middle classes had attacked the ruling ar-
istocracy in the early 1800s. The avant-garde of artists,
writers, musicians, and thinkersrejecting the clas-
sical ideal of the search for eternal truthsstrove for a
paradigm of newness that reflected the ever-changing
historical conditions unfolding around them. From this
period on, Western culture has been roiled by stylistic
doUard vUillard. Thodore Duret. 1912. Oil on wood, 371/2 29 7/16.
shifts and changes in aesthetic tastes. Artistic battles National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Thodore Duret (18381927)
have littered the landscape, as, in the late 1950s, when was one of the pacesetters of early modernism. A journalist, art critic,
Andy Warhol and pop art met rejection from the ab- and bon vivant, he was often on the right side of history. He joined the
stract expressionists. Our postmodern world is divided popular uprising in Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. When Paris
by rival perspectives and theories, including feminist, condemned the first impressionist exhibition, he welcomed it, correctly
recognizing that a new Western style had emerged. This insightful portrait
racial, gender, psychological, cultural studies, queer- depicts Duret in his study, surrounded by books and art-covered walls.
theory, populist, and so on. Early modernisms most He sits dejected, all alone, except for his pet cat, Lulu. The artist douard
enduring legacy has probably been its addiction to Vuillard (18681940) is noted for interior scenes that reflect the influence
experimentalism, its love-hate relationship with uncer- of the irregular shapes and bold color contrasts of Paul Gauguin.

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PAUL KLEE . Revolution of the Viaduct. 1937. Oil on canvas, 25 5/8 193/8. Hamburger
Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. In this painting, Klee espouses a quiet faith that
fascist mass conformity will be eventually undermined by the subversive acts of cultural
revolutionaries. Although he did not live to witness it, his hope became a reality when
thousands of resistance fighters rose up against fascism across Europe during World War II.

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The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism
21
19141945

Preview Questions Between 1914 and 1945,Western culture was shaken by four
1. What major events cataclysmic events: World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Great De-
contributed to the pression, and World War II. But, in retrospect, the ages defining feature
coming of World was the arrival of the common people on the cultural stage. The needs
War II?
of this new audience led to the birth of mass culture, with its ever-fresh
2. Compare and contrast
forms of popular entertainment. Mass culture did not drive away mod-
the various forms
of totalitarianism, ernism, which now reached its zenith. Some members of the avant-garde
including the impact did appropriate ideas from mass culture, but the majority stayed true to
of each on the arts
modernism.
and humanities.
The rise of the masses was also entangled with the advent of modern
3. What postimpressionist
trends dominated the dictatorshipsor totalitarianism. Capitalizing on the uncertainties of
arts during this period, modern, urban life, dictators of various stripes rose to power across Eu-
who were the chief rope. Preaching a narrow-minded nationalism, they promised relief for
artists, and what were
their styles? their own people, even as they vigorously manipulated public opinion.
An early victim of this worldview was the Swiss artist Paul Klee [klay]
4. How was high
modernism manifested (1879-1940), who fled Nazi Germany in 1933. To the Nazis, Klees offense
in literature, thought, was double: he was rumored to be a Jew and he created degenerate art.
and music, and who
Klees Revolution of the Viaduct, shown here, is a subtle response to Nazi
were the leaders
in each of these hate-mongering. At first glance, the painting appears to be a childs ren-
achievements? dering of half-stick walking figures. But close inspection reveals the fig-
5. What major ures are viaductsreminiscent of the style favored by Nazi buildersthus,
advancements were symbols of a homogeneous community. By depicting the viaducts on the
made in science and
medicine between march, Klee forecasts an uprising against the Nazis and the downfall of
1914 and 1945? Germany.

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562 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

THE COLLAPSE OF OLD Germany, Austria-Hungary (members of the Triple


Alliance), Turkey, and Bulgariawere determined to
CERTAINTIES AND THE assert their power in central Europe, which had been
SEARCH FOR NEW VALUES eclipsed by western Europe for almost two hundred
years. Central Europes new sense of importance grew
Before 1914, liberalism guided political and eco-
from the unification of Germany in 1871, which made
nomic policies in most Western countries. In the
the German Empire the most powerful industrial and
Age of the Masses, liberal values were ques-
military state on the Continent.
tioned, tested, and often discarded. In a few states, in-
The Allied powersFrance, Russia, and Great Brit-
dividual rights, a defining tenet of liberalism, were
ain (members of the Triple Entente), joined in 1915 by
abolished or became secondary to the needs of society.
Italy (a former member of the Triple Alliance)refused
Laissez-faire, the bedrock doctrine of economic liber-
to allow the Central powers to shift the Continents
alism, was discredited during the Great Depression,
balance of power and, most especially, were deter-
bringing capitalism into question. Many countries ex-
mined to keep Germany from gaining new lands. Af-
perimented with state-run economic programs. Both
ter the Germans failed to capture Paris in September
democratic and totalitarian leaders competed for the
1914, both sides raced to the sea to secure French and
support of the masses. Europes great states, along
Belgian seaports. By the end of the year, the western
with Japan in the East, embraced imperialism, milita-
front was stalled. By spring 1917, Europe confronted
rism, and nationalismthus creating a band of global
a war of position in the trenches with unimaginable
rivals (Figure 21.1). These states fought among them-
casualties on both sides, a series of bloody but futile
selves in two world wars (now seen as one single con-
battles in Russia and Italy, and appalling hardships
flict) to protect their own interests, spread their
on the home fronts. With the war stalemated, the Ger-
ideologies, or avenge perceived wrongs.
mans renewed their submarine attacks on neutral
shipsa strategy that brought the United States into
World War I and Its Aftermath the war on the Allied side in April 1917 (Figure21.2).
In November 1917, the Russian Revolution began.
In 1914 came the war that shook Europe to its founda-
Soon, the Bolsheviks, or Communists, seized power
tion, setting off a series of crises that have reverberated
and established a new government, which sued for
around the world ever since. The Central powers
peace in March 1918. With the eastern front closed, the

Figure 21.1 pABLo pICASSo. Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas, 1151/2 255 3/4. Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Picassos Guernica is a vivid symbol of the violent twenty years
between World War I and World War II. Depicting the bombing of the unarmed town of Guernica by Nazi
planes during the Spanish Civil War, the painting transforms the local struggle into an international battle
between totalitarianism and human freedomthe issue that also dominated the ages ideological debates.

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THE COLLAPSE OF OLD CERTAINTIES AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW VALUES 563

Figure 21.2 Childe Hassam. Allies Day. May,


1917. 1917. Oil on canvas, 361/2 301/4.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Patriotic rituals expanded readily during
wartime to recognize nations allied to fight a
common enemy. Upon the United States entry
into World War I, French, British, and American
flags were displayed along New York Citys
Fifth Avenue. Childe Hassam (18591935)
studied in Paris before returning home to
become Americas leading impressionist
painter. In the style of a cropped photographic
image, Hassam frames the flags with the
tall buildings, on the left, which fade into the
distance, and, on the right, only the thinnest
edge of other buildings facades. The paintings
airy mood is heightened by the sunlight
reflected on the buildings on the left.

Germans launched an offensive on the western front. Its demands on Germany sowed the seeds of discord
The Allies, reinforced with American troops, halted there that contributed to the coming of World WarII
the German advance. The Germans signed an armi- (Map 21.1). German politicians and military leaders
stice in November 1918. During the wars four years, would later denounce the treaty as unfair and humili-
more than ten million men died and over twenty mil- ating. The treaty, by dismantling the Ottoman Empire
lion were woundeda statistic that stains the Age of in the Middle East, along with turning its provinces of
the Masses. Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra over to the British, shaped
The Treaty of Versaillesthe 1919 accord that settled the future of Mesopotamia. The kingdom of Iraq was
the warwas a compromise among the victorious Al- created in 1921, despite the deep religious divide inter-
lies. The treaty struck an uneasy balance between the nally between the Shia and Sunni Muslims and the
idealistic American president Woodrow Wilson (in of- tribal and ethnic differences among the Arabs, Kurds,
fice 19131921), who hoped to keep Europe safe from Persians, and Assyrians.
war, and the pragmatic French and British delegates, Peace brought boom times to the economies of the
who wanted payback. Wilsons points included the self- Allies, however. Britain and France returned to busi-
determination of nations, democratic governments, and ness as usual. The United States reverted to its prewar
an international agency to keep the peacethe League isolationism, and between 1924 and 1929 it exhibited the
of Nations. The French and British demands required best and the worst of free enterpriseunprecedented
that Germany pay for the war and not be a future threat prosperity and rampant greed.
to Europes peace. Despite Wilsons dogged determi- The economies of the Central powers did not fare
nation, the U.S. Congress never ratified the Versailles as well. After a shaky start, Germany survived near
Treaty. bankruptcy to regain its status as the leading indus- S
The treatys provisions influenced domestic trial state on the Continent. Under the Weimar Repub- N
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564 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

Learning Through Maps


0 250 500 mi
FINLAND
0 500 1000 km NORWAY

Oslo SWEDEN
Stockholm
ESTONIA
N. IRELAND

Se a
North LATVIA

ltic
Sea Moscow

Ba
DENMARK LITHUANIA
IRELAND GREAT
BRITAIN N. Schleswig MEMELLAND
NETHERLANDS EAST
PRUSSIA
London Amsterdam SOVIET UNION
Berlin
POLAND
AT L A N T I C GERMANY CORRIDOR
BELGIUM
OCEAN Eupen-
LUXEMBOURG Malmdy Prague UPPER SILESIA
Paris
GALICIA
Alsace-Lorraine Nuremberg
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
FRANCE Vienna
Zurich Budapest BESSARABIA
SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
RUMANIA
Guernica Trieste Fiume
S. Tyrol
Bucharest
PORTUGAL Belgrade
ea
Istria ck S
Madrid
YUGOSLAVIA Bla
ITALY BULGARIA
Sofia
SPAIN Rome
Istanbul
ALBANIA

Med TURKEY
iterra GREECE
nean Sea
Germany Athens

Bulgaria
Russia
Austria-Hungary

MAP 21.1 EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR I


MHS63 624
This map shows Europes political divisions in the early 1920s.1. Notice the territories lost by Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. 2. What
mat76620_m2001.eps
name now given to Russia? 3. Which countries lost the most territory? 4. How did these lost lands affect European politics? 5. Observe the increase
wasproof
Second
in the size of countries in southeastern Europe in this map, as compared with their smaller size in Map 20.3, Europe on the Eve of World War I. 6. Notice
that the Ottoman Empire in Map 20.3 has become Turkey in this map.

the country once again became a center for European The Great Depression of the 1930s
culture, providing key leaders in avant-garde painting The Great Depression was a global calamity, but its
and literature. Conversely, Austria-Hungary was di- starkest impact was felt in the West. Along with wip-
vided into separate nations, and its Slavic population ing out family savings, the downturn led to mass un-
dispersed among several states. Lacking a sound eco- employment (for instance, in 1933, about 25 percent
nomic base, the onetime empire never fully recovered of Americas urban workers and almost 37 percent of
from its defeat. farm workers were out of work), bank and business
As the 1920s drew to a close, a warning signal failures, farm foreclosures, and near starvation for
sounded: the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in many (Figure 21.3). In Europe and the United States,
October 1929. After the crash, the buoyant atmosphere governments took a variety of steps to restore their
of the twenties lingered for only a few months. Then economies to health.
economic depression in the United States, a key player In Great Britain, leaders abandoned free trade but
S in the worlds economy, pulled down Europes finan- did not intervene to lower the unemployment rate or
N cial house. aid businesses. In France, labor unrest and political
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crises tended to overshadow the Depressions effect.
In Germany, the hardest hit country in Europe, the
government failed to deal with bank closings, mass
unemployment, and fear of runaway inflation (fueled
by memory of the hyperinflation in 19211924, which
wiped out the savings of Germanys middle class). The
ensuing crisis doomed Germanys Weimar republic
and set the stage for the rise of the Nazis.
In the United States, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt (in office 19331945) ushered in the first
New Deal, a series of programs to revitalize the econ-
omy and create a social safety net. These programs
included public works projects (building roads and
dams), the Social Security Act (old-age benefits; un-
employment insurance; benefits for victims of indus-
trial accidents; and aid for dependent mothers and
children, the blind, and the physically handicapped),
and federal commissions to oversee and regulate
Wall Street and the banking system. These measures
brought some relief. But, the effects of the depres-
sion lingered on, only ending with the onset of World
WarII, in 1941.
Japan, in contrast to the economic woes of Eu-
rope and the United States, enjoyed prosperity
in the 1930s. Since 1926 Japan had been ruled, in
theory, by Emperor Hirohito (r. 19261989), who was
worshiped as a god, but actual power was wielded by
a military clique and powerful businessmen. With the
rest of the world distracted by the Great Depression, Figure 21.3 Dorothea L ange. Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California.
Japan seized the moment to pursue imperialist goals 1936. Library of Congress. Migrant workers were increasingly
attracted to the vegetable fields of California during the Great Depression.
in the Far East, seizing Manchuria (1931) and attacking Seasonal laborers, they harvested crops for very low wages under
China (Sino-Japanese War, 19371945). miserable working conditions and usually lived in crowded, unsanitary
camps. This photograph shows a migrant mother, surrounded by three
children, whose bleak future has been made worse by the failure of
Global Encounter: the pea crop. Dorothea Langes poignant photographs, collected in An
Civil Disobedience in British India American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (1939), reflected her strong
sense of social justice, her sympathy for the downtrodden, and her own
In British Indiabetween World War I and World life as the child of a broken home.
War IIa new method of resistance against foreign
ruleemerged: civil disobedience. India, since 1857,
had been ruled by the British crown (Raj, or Reigna In 1921 the National Indian Congress finally found
Hindu word from Sanskrit, king). The Rajs modern- a capable leader in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
izing agenda included fostering agriculture, building (18691948). Gandhi was an ideal leader, standing as he
railroads and harbors, linking the country by telegraph, did with a foot planted firmly in both India and the
changing Indian customs and rituals, and founding West. He studied law in London (18881891) and served
schools to train Indians for lower positions in the In- as a civil rights lawyer in South Africa (18931914). In
dian Civil Service. South Africa, he had a moral and spiritual awakening,
Indias status under the Raj was rocky from the start. inspired by the Russian Tolstoys Christian writings,
Westernized Indiansthose educated in England the American Thoreaus essay on civil disobedience,
wanted a larger role in Indian affairs. In 1885, they the Bible, the Quran, and, in particular, the Bhagavad
founded the National Indian Congress, an assembly Gita, the Hindu classic on personal behavior. From this
where grievances were aired and passed on to British blend of West and East, Gandhi wove a creed that re-
officials. After World War I, the Congress, joined by pudiated materialism while embracing nonviolence
the All-India Muslim League, began to clamor for to- (ahimsa) and civil disobedience (satyagraha, or holding
tal freedom, but the British stood firm. The coalition to the truth). Gandhi soon emerged as the conscience
frayed because the Muslim members distrusted the of the Indian people. Seeking social progress, he led S
Hindu-majority Congress. peaceful protests in support of womens rights, amity N
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566 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE AGE OF THE MASSES AND THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM

between Hindus and Muslims, an end to the untouch- Balfour Declaration, which supported Palestine as a
able caste, and help for the poor. Hoping to restore national home of the Jewish people.) Greece expanded
Indias national identity, he led campaigns against to include Thrace and the Aegean Islands. Egypt was
industrialization, the importing of foreign goods, the a British protectorate. Armenia was free. And, when
British legal system, and British-style education. the Ottoman Sultanate ended in 1922, Turkey emerged
from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

The Founding of the Republic of Turkey, 19231938


The West and Islam: Freedom for Turkey came at a price. With much of
The End of the Ottoman Empire Anatolia occupied by Allied armies, the Turks first
World War I finished off the Ottoman Empire. had to defeat the invaders in the War of Turkish Inde-
Having fought on the losing side, it was divided pendence, 19191923. The Young Turks were the guid-
among the victors. By the early 1920s, a system of ing spirit behind the new Turkish state, drawing on
new states was in place (Figure 21.4). Syria and Leba- both Ottoman and Western sources. The name Turk
non were in Frances sphere of influence. Palestine, means peasant or country bumpkin. With this
Transjordan (modern Jordan), and Iraq were in Brit- name, the Young Turks signaled solidarity with the
ains sphere of influence. (In 1917 Britain issued the lowest social classa nationalist idea adapted from
the West. Nevertheless, the new state was ruled by ur-
ban bureaucratic and military elitesholdovers from
Ottoman days. The peasantry were Muslims first, last,
Figure 21.4 Lawrence at Aqaba [in modern Jordan]. 1917. This historic and always, while the urban elites embraced a secular
black-and-white photograph shows the continuing power of Orientalism on Turkish identity. The urban elites held to the Ottoman
the Wests collective imagination. It depicts the adventurer, Thomas Edward
practice of centralized rule, but they made Turkey a
Lawrence (18881935), better known as Lawrence of Arabia. This image
of Lawrencedressed as an Arab and riding a camelmade him a global Western-style republic with a constitution, a presi-
celebrity. Deep into World War I, the British War Office was secretly pushing dent, and an assembly.
Arab leaders to revolt against their overlords, the Turks. And, Lawrencean The history of the Turkish Republic began in 1923
Oxford-trained archaeologist who had traveled widely in the Middle East when the soldier Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was named
was recruited to be both a smokescreen and a spy for Britain. In Seven Pillars
President for Life (in office 19231938). Ataturk, in ac-
of Wisdom (1926), Lawrence wrote a self-aggrandizing account of his role
in these complex events. Lawrences extraordinary life has inspired several tuality, was a dictator who presided over a single-party
biographies, plays, television shows, and the award-winning film Lawrence of regime. His goal of modernizing Turkey was achieved
Arabia (1962), directed by David Lean. by means of a cultural revolution, which included
support for womens rights (the right to vote (1934);
the introduction of Western dress (1927); the mandat-
ing of surnames as in the West (1935) (Ataturk, i.e.,
Father of the Turks, was the name given to him); the
replacement of Arabic with a new Latin script; and the
purging of Persian and Arabic content from the Turk-
ish language.
Under Ataturk, Turkeys economy grew. State sup-
port of economic development resumed as in the Ot-
toman world, along with help from Western powers,
particularly the Soviets with the textiles industry and
the British with the railroads. The 1929 stock market
crash led to more state control of the economy, with
Ataturk nationalizing the railroads, utilities, ports, and
mines.

Transition: 19381945 When Ataturk died in 1938,


the Turkish economy was strong and the contours of a
secular society were now visible. Ataturks successor
was the soldier Ismet Inonu (in office 19381950), who
had been Turkeys first prime minister (19231937).
During this era, Inonu loyally continued Ataturks
policies. When World War II began in 1939, Inonu
S kept Turkey neutral, despite overtures from both Al-
N lied and Axis leaders. In February 1945, as the war was
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THE COLLAPSE OF OLD CERTAINTIES AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW VALUES 567

winding down, Inonu bowed to pressure and joined the In 1917 Russia was plagued by an incompetent
Alliesa gesture that made Turkey a charter member ruler, a weak economy, and rising social and politi-
of the United Nations, founded the following June. cal discord. Revolution broke out in February, and a
small band of Marxist communiststhe Bolsheviks
Other Major Events in the Former Ottoman seized the reins of government in October. Led by
Lands Saudia Arabiacovering most of the Arabian Lenin (r. 19171924), the Bolsheviks began to reorder
peninsulawas founded in 1932. Then, Abdul-Aziz bin the economy and the political system. Under their
Saud, or Ibn Saud (about 18801953), after decades of plan, the state would control production and distri-
fighting rival tribes and families, set up his kingdom bution, and sovietsor councils of workers, military
the only world state with a family name. Unlike Turkey, personnel, and peasantswould restructure the so-
Saudia Arabia did not draw on Western ideas. Instead, cial and economic order at the local level, as directed
Saudia Arabia is an absolutist state, fueled by Salafism by the Communist Party under Lenin.
a fundamentalist school of Islamic thought. The king- After Lenins death, Joseph Stalin (r. 19281953)
doms strong position in both Middle Eastern and world emerged as the sole ruler of the Union of Soviet So-
affairs comes from two sources: it is home to Islams two cialist Republics, as the Russian Empire was now
holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, and, in 1938, vast oil called, and he proceeded to impose his will over the
reserves were discovered under desert sands. state. Production was increased and modernization
This periods other major event was the founding accomplished through state-owned farms, factories,
in Egypt, in 1928, of the Muslim Brotherhooda reli- and heavy industry. No political party other than the
gious social movement, designed to promote Muslim Communist Party was permitted, however, and Stalin
identity and to improve Islamic family life. By 1945, the was ruthless in dealing with his critics. He had them
Brotherhood claimed a membership across the Arab either murdered or imprisoned in a vast network of
world, numbering more than two million. Founded by forced-labor camps, known as the Gulag, in the Sibe-
Hassan al-Banna (19061949), a schoolteacher, it sought rian wilderness. More than ten million men, women,
to blend democratic ideas with sharia law. The Broth- and children met unnatural deaths in the period of
erhoods unique approach was through charity, such forced collectivization of agriculture, 19291936, and
as teaching the illiterate, setting up hospitals, and millions more were murdered during purges and in
helping the poor. the Gulag.

European Fascism European fascism was based


on the idea that the masses should participate directly
The Rise of Totalitarianism in the statenot through a legislative body such as
With the 1919 peace treaty, democracy seemed a parliament, but through a fusion of the population
triumphant in the West. By 1939, most of the new into one spirit. Fascism sought to bind the masses
democraciesGermany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, by appealing to nonrational sentiments about national
Bulgaria, and Rumaniawere totalitarian. Totalitarian- destiny. Like communists, fascists believed that the
ism is a twentieth-century phenomenon, but its roots individual was insignificant and the nation-state was
reach back to Robespierre during the French Revolu- the supreme embodiment of the destiny of its people.
tion (see Chapter 18). Totalitarian governments seek to In practice, fascism led to loss of personal freedom,
control every aspect of the lives and thoughts of their as did communism, because its ideals of economic sta-
citizens. Art, literature, and the press exist only in the bility and social peace could be achieved only through
service of the state. Truth becomes a matter of what tight control over the press, education, police, and the
the state says it is. Between the wars, totalitarianism judicial system. Because of its idealistic nationalism,
emerged in two forms: Russian communism and Eu- fascism was also hostile both to foreigners and to in-
ropean fascism. ternal groups that did not share the majoritys history,
race, or politics. The movements innate aggressive-
Russian Communism Russian communism was ness led to strong military dictatorships, which were
based on the writings of Karl Marx, as reinterpreted used to conquer new lands in Europe and to win co-
by the revolutionary leader V. I. Lenin. Lenin accepted lonial empires. Fascism first appeared in Italy in the
Marxs basic premise that economic conditions deter- 1920s and then in Germany and Spain in the 1930s.
mine the course of history and his conclusion that his- In Italy, a floundering economy led to national frus-
tory leads inevitably to a communist society run by tration, which, in turn, caused many people to follow
and for the workers. Unlike Marx, Lenin believed that the Fascists. Under Benito Mussolini [moo-suh-LEE-
radical reform could occur only when a small, elite nee] (r. 19221945), the Fascists dreamed of a revitalized
grouprather than a mass movementseized power Italy restored to its ancient glory. After seizing power S
in the name of the people. in 1922, Mussolini achieved some early success, and as N
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568 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

the rest of Europe suffered through the Depression, his World War II: Origins and Outcome
pragmatic policies gained admirers elsewhere.
The origins of World War II lay in the Treaty of Ver-
Germany in the early 1930s was racked by the De-
sailles, the Great Depression, and nationalism. In his
pression, unemployment, and political extremism,
first year in power, Hitler launched a propaganda cam-
and in 1933 the voters turned to the National Socialist
paign to revise the Versailles Treaty that focused on
(Nazi) Party. By 1936, the Nazis had restored industrial
Germanys glorious past. His regime, he boasted, was
productivity, eliminated unemployment, and gained
the Third Reich, or empire, which would last for a thou-
the support of many business leaders and farmers. The
sand yearslike the Holy Roman Empire (10001806)
Nazis success depended ultimately on their Fhrer, or
rather than the German Empire (18711918). In 1936 he
leader, Adolf Hitler (r. 19331945), a middle-class
marched troops into the Rhineland, Germanys indus-
Austrian and veteran who had hammered together
trial heartland, which had been demilitarized by the
a strong mass movement built on anti-Semitism and
Versailles Treaty. When the world ignored this act, he
anticommunism. With his magnetic personality, he
concluded that Germanys former enemies were weak,
attracted devoted followers with promises to restore
and he initiated a plan to conquer Europe. Over the next
Germany to prewar glory. From the outset, the Nazis
two years, Europe watched as Hitler seized Austria and
ruthless treatment of political enemies, of the Jews,
Czechoslovakia. World War II began on September 1,
and of any dissidents aroused fears, but most Europe-
1939, when Germany invaded Poland; France and Brit-
ans ignored these barbaric acts, preferring to focus on
ain responded with declarations of war.
the regimes successes (Figure 21.5).
In June 1940, France fell to German troops and Ger-
Monarchical Spains farm economy and traditional
manys conquest of western Europe was almost com-
institutions were strained by industrial growth in the
plete. Only England under prime minister Winston
1920s, and in the early 1930s a coalition of reformers
Churchill (in office 19401945) stood between Hitler
overthrew the king and created a secular republic
and his imperial dream. During the summer and fall
with a constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Conser-
of 1940, the Germans incessantly bombed the island
vatives plotted to restore monarchical rule and the
kingdom. In June 1941, Hitler, recognizing he had lost
churchs influence. In 1936 civil war broke out. General
the Battle of Britain, abruptly turned eastward and
Francisco Franco (r. 19391975) led the conservatives
launched a surprise attack against the Soviet Union
to victory in 1939, defeating an alliance of reform-
(Figure 21.6). The next month, England and the Soviet
ers. During hostilities, Hitler and Mussolini supplied
Union formed an alliance that would hold until the
Francos fascist army with troops and equipment, and
end of the war.
Stalin backed the losing faction. For the Germans and
Before the end of 1941, the war in Europe had
the Italians, Spains civil war was a practice run for
gone global. On December 7, Japan, determined
World War II (see Figure 21.1).

Figure 21.5 Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally.


1933. Under the skillful orchestration of
their propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels,
the National Socialists staged massive
demonstrations whose goal was to overpower
the emotions of participants and observers
alike. In this anonymous photograph, Nazi
Party members and private army units pass
in review. In the 1930s, such demonstrations
S succeeded in uniting the German masses with
N the Nazi leader.
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THE COLLAPSE OF OLD CERTAINTIES AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW VALUES 569

to eliminate the U.S. naval presence in the Pacific,


bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, in the Ha-
waiian Islands. The next day, the United States de-
clared war on Japan. Within a week, Germany and
Italy joined Japanthe Axis powersin making war
against the United States. The U.S. then aligned itself
with Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Francethe
Allied powers.
The United States quickly adapted to wartime con-
ditions. American factories began making guns, air-
planes, ships, and military vehicles, while people on
the home front adjusted to rationing, shortages, and
buying war bonds. After early defeats in the Pacific
theater, the U.S. launched a campaign to capture Ja-
pans islands and destroy its navy. By late 1942, the
tides of war had turned in favor of the Allies. In June
1944, the Allies invaded western Europe. After many
costly battles, they pushed into Germany from the
west, while the Soviets attacked from the east. In May
1945, the Germans surrendered, ending the war in Eu-
rope. In August 1945, after the United States dropped
two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, Japan capitu-
lated (Figure 21.7). The more than two hundred thou-
sand Japanese killed in these two raids climaxed the
death toll of World War II, adding to its estimated fifty
million military and civilian dead. Figure 21.6 Margaret Bourke-White. Russian Tank Driver. 1941.
As the Allied armies moved across Europe, they Photojournalism, a popular form in which the photograph rather than
the text dominates the story, reached new heights during World War II,
liberated thousands of inmates from the Nazi death
particularly in illustrated magazines such as Life. Margaret Bourke-White,
camps. Most of these prisoners were Jews, who had one of the first women war journalists, was the only foreign correspondent
been rounded up and transported in cattle cars to photographer present in the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded in
extermination camps, where they either died of star- June 1941. In this photograph, a Russian tank driver peers through his
vation or were killed in gas chambers. The Nazis, in window with the cannon jutting out over his heada vivid image of the
integration of human beings into mechanized warfare.
their effort to wipe out all Jews, referred to their plan

Figure 21.7 Carrier Planes over the


U.S.S. Missouri. 1945. Although the Japanese
surrendered unconditionally on August 15,
1945, the formal signing of the surrender
documents occurred in a ceremony on the deck
of the U.S.S. Missouri, a battleship, in Tokyo
Bay, on September 2, 1945V-J Day. By then
American troops were on the ground in Japan,
and the supreme might of the Allies had been
assembled to let the Japanese and the world
know who had won the war. This message was
delivered as squadrons of carrier planes flew
over the victorious American fleet. The Allied
forces, supplied with weapons and materials
from the United States, proved that nations had
to possess both military and industrial power S
if they expected to win wars. N
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Figure 21.8 Nazi Death Camp in Belsen,
Germany. 1945. When the Nazis came to
power in Germany in 1933, they secretly
began to imprison their political enemies
in concentration camps, where they were
tortured or executed. By 1942 the Nazis had
extended this secret policy across Europe to
include minority civilians, particularly Jews.
Photographs such as this one revealed to the
world the atrocities committed by the Nazi
regime.

as the Final Solution, but the rest of the human race velopments. When this wider audience was exposed
has labeled it the Holocaust. The Holocaust resulted to modernist works, they often responded negatively,
in the deaths of six million of Europes Jewsout of considering them incomprehensible, obscene, or pro-
a total of nine million. In other campssuch as slave- vocative. They turned instead to the increasingly avail-
labor camps, concentration camps, and prison camps able and affordable pleasures offered by mass culture.
another six million perished, people that the Nazis found
undesirable, including Gypsies, homosexuals, people
with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, po- Mass Culture, Technology, and Warfare
litical prisoners, and prisoners of war (Figure 21.8). From its beginning, modernism was both a product
Six years of war dramatically changed the worlds of and reaction against technology and warfare, and
balance of power. The defeated Axis powers, Germany during the first half of the twentieth century, the three
and Japan, were sidelined, because both countries were became more intertwined. Technology and warfare
now occupied by Allied troops. Italy escaped with less often seemed inseparable as technology dictated how
war damage, and having signed an armistice with the wars were fought and military planners, whose ex-
Allies in 1943, was not subject to Allied occupation. periences dated from an earlier time, seemed unable
France, partly occupied by the Germans since 1940, but to adapt to the latest technologies. And modernism,
whose exiled leaders and troops fought with the Allies, holding a mirror up to the age, recorded and reflected
was readmitted into the councils of the Allied victors. the devastating impact of technology and warfare on
Great Britain emerged exhausted, with her empires society, exposing the shaky foundations and bound-
future uncertaina shadow of its former world pres- aries of modern life. However, even mass culture, de-
ence. The big winners were the Soviet Union and the spite its mass appeal, seemed unable at times to resist
United Statesnow the two most powerful countries the corrosive antics of the modernist aesthetic.
in the world.
Mass Culture and the New Technologies Like
modernism, mass culture was a direct outgrowth of
THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM industrialized society. Its roots reached back to the
Modernism was the reigning cultural style of this pe- late 1800s, when skilled workers began to enjoy a bet-
riod. With an underlying spirit of skepticism and ex- ter standard of living than had previously been pos-
perimentation, it guided artists, writers, composers, sible for the lower classes. This new generation of
filmmakers, designers, and architects in their labors. consumers demanded products and amusements that
S But this style had limited emotional appeal, and an appealed to their tastes: inexpensive, energetic, and
N ever-growing public felt isolated from avant-garde de- easily accessible.
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 571

In response, entrepreneurs using new technologies together, with an occasional push from the state; bu-
flooded the market with consumer goods and new en- reaucracies smoothly supplied the logistics; states fi-
tertainments. Unlike the folk culture or popular culture nanced key scientific projects, such as the building of
of earlier times, modern mass culture was also mass- the first atomic bombs; and civilians willingly made
produced culture. The untapped consumers market sacrifices.
led to the creation or expansion of new industries, in
particular automobiles, household goods, and domestic
appliances. Most forms of mass cultureradio, news- Experimentation in Literature
paper comic strips and cartoons, professional sports, Modernist writers between 1914 and 1945 remained
picture magazines, recordings, movies, and musical dedicated to experimentation, a stance that reflected
comedieshad originated before World War I, but despair over their eras instability. Through carefully
now, between the wars, they came into their own. composed experimental works, these writers were con-
The spread of mass culture heightened the prestige vinced that they could impose order on the seeming
of the United States, as it was the source of the most randomness and meaninglessness of human existence.
imaginative popular works. The outstanding symbol
of Americas dominant role in popular culture is Walt The Novel Depiction of the narrators subjective
Disney (19011966), the creator of the famous cartoon thoughts was a principal concern of modernist nov-
figure Mickey Mouse (1928). A few modernists now elists. The most distinctive method that arose from
began to incorporate aspects of mass culture into their this concern was stream-of-consciousness writing, a
works, using jazz in serious music or film in theatri- method in which the narrative consists of the unedited
cal performances, for example. But most artists, writ- thoughts of one of the characters, through whose mind
ers, and musicians stood apart from such influences. readers experience the story. Stream-of-consciousness
Their isolation reflected an almost sacred commit- fiction differs from a story told in the first personthe
ment to the modernist ideals of experimentation, new- grammatical Iby one of the characters in that it is
ness, and deliberate difficulty. And a handful of visual an attempt to reproduce the actual experience of think-
artists imbued these ideals with spiritual meaning. ing and feeling, even to the point of sounding frag-
mented, random, and arbitrary.
Warfare The interdependency of technology and The Irish author James Joyce and the English writer
warfare accelerated in this violent era. In all Western Virginia Woolf were important innovators with the
nations, the powerful industrial-military-state com- stream-of-consciousness technique. In Ulysses, James
plex ordered the new weapons, mass-produced goods, Joyce (18821941) uses this device as a way of making
and mobilized citizen armies. A new dictum now the novels characters speak directly to readers. For in-
emerged: only those states that successfully blend stance, no narrators voice intrudes in the novels final
technology, warfare, and government can win wars. forty-five pages, which are the scattered thoughts of
To paraphrase one historian, the twin processes the character Molly Bloom as she sinks into sleep. This
that distinguish the twentieth century now became long monologue is a single run-on sentence without
the industrialization of war and the politicization of any punctuation except for a final period.
economics. The end result was to create fighting ma- Despite Ulysses experimental style, Joyce aspired
chines, which neither politicians nor military leaders to more than technical virtuosity. He planned this
could control. monumental work as a modern version of the Odys
By 1914 industrialized nations had adopted new sey, contrasting Homers twenty-four books of heroic
weaponsthe 75 mm field cannon, machine guns, exploits with an ordinary day in the lives of three
and breech-loading riflesand had constructed rail Dubliners. Joyces sexual language, although natural
systems for moving troops and supplies. Thinking of to his characters, offended bourgeois morals. Ulysses,
yesterdays wars (see Chapter 19), military leaders at first published in France in 1922, became the eras test
first believed that World War I would be swift and case for artistic freedom, not appearing in America or
short. But, instead, it turned out to be a war of inde- England until the 1930s.
cisive battles, with huge losses on both sides. The les- Virginia Woolf (18821942) also experimented with
sons learned from this long, bitter struggle were that narrative technique. Like Joyce and Freud, Woolf
the next war would be fully mechanized and science was interested in examining the realities that lie be-
and technology would play crucial roles. low surface consciousness. In her finest novel, To the
Germany, Japan, and Italywhich heeded these Lighthouse (1927), she uses stream of consciousness to
lessons of World War Ihad the advantage in the first strip the story of a fixed point of view and capture the
three years of World War II. But, ultimately, the Allies differing realities experienced by the charactersin
were victorious because of the well-oiled industrial- much the same way that cubist painters aimed at rep- S
military-state complex: labor and management worked resenting multiple views. For instance, one characters N
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572 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

matter-of-fact mentality differs from his wifes emo- themes about extended families bound together by
tional, free-ranging consciousness. A distinguished sexual secrets. Faulkners universe became the fic-
literary critic and the author of well-known feminist tional county of Yoknapatawpha, which he peopled
works such as A Room of Ones Own (1929), Woolf gath- with decaying gentry, ambitious poor whites, and ex-
ered around her the avant-garde writers, artists, and ploited blacks. His artistic power lay in his ability not
intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group and only to relate these characters to their region but also
founded, with her husband, Leonard Woolf, the Ho to turn them into universal symbols.
garth Press. Falling outside the modernist category is the En
Another giant of modernism was the German nov- glish novelist and essayist George Orwell (19031950).
elist, short-story writer, and essayist Thomas Mann Born Eric Blair to a genteel middle-class family, Or-
(1875-1955). Shunning literary experimentation, Mann well changed his name, rejected his background, lived
created a body of fiction marked by deep learning, and worked among the poor and downtrodden, and
nuance, ambition, and, most of all, ambiguity and became a writer. He also became the conscience of his
ironyboth defining features of the modernist aes- generation because he remained skeptical of all the
thetic. Manns most highly praised work is The Magic political ideologies of his day. In the allegorical novel
Mountain (1924), an allegorical novel, set in the decade Animal Farm (1945), he satirized Stalinist Russia. In the
before World War I. The novels hero, Hans Castorp, antiutopian novel 1984 (1948), he made totalitarianism
visits his tubercular cousin in a sanatorium. In time the enemy, especially as practiced in the Soviet Union,
(time is a central theme of the novel), he takes up but he also warned of the dangers of repression in
residency himself having received the same diagno- capitalist society. What made Orwell remarkable in
sis. (Manns wife had been treated in such a facility this age torn by ideological excess was his claim to be
in 1912.) There, Castorp encounters a diverse cast of merely an ordinary, decent man. It is perhaps for this
characters, which together represent the eras cultural reason that today Orwell is claimed by socialists, lib-
wars. At the novels end, World War I is beginning and erals, and conservatives alike.
a healed Castorp eagerly rushes to join the German
cause only to be killed in combat. Written as a bildungs Poetry Modern poetry found its first great master
roman, or coming of age novel, Mann slyly under- in William Butler Yeats (18651939). His early poems
mines the genre by ironic twists of character and fate. are filled with romantic mysticism, drawing on the
American writers also contributed experimental myths of his native Ireland. By 1910 he had stripped
fiction to the modernist revolution. By and large, they his verses of romantic allusions, and yet he never gave
made their first contacts with Europe during World up entirely his belief in the occult or the importance
War I and stayed on until the Great Depression drove of myth. As Irish patriots grew more hostile to their
them home. Ernest Hemingway (18991961) was the countrys continued submersion in the United King-
first of these Americans to emerge as a major literary dom, climaxing in the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Yeatss
star. His severely disciplined prose style relied heav- poems took on a political cast. His best verses came
ily on dialogue, and he often omitted details of setting in the 1920s, when his primary sources were Irish his-
and background. His writing owed a debt to popular tory and Greco-Roman myth. Perhaps his finest lyric
culture: from the eras hard-boiled detective fiction is Sailing to Byzantium, a poem that conjures up the
he borrowed a terse, world-weary voice to narrate his classical past to reaffirm ancient wisdom and redeem
works, as in The Sun Also Rises (1926). In this novel, he the tawdry industrialized world.
portrays his fellow American exiles as a lost genera- T. S. Eliot (18881965) was another founder of mod-
tion whose future was blighted by World War Ia ern poetry. Reared in St. Louis and educated at Har-
modernist message. In Hemingways cynical vision, vard, Eliot moved to London in 1915, becoming an
politics is of little importance; what matters most are English citizen in 1927. He and Ezra Pound (18851972),
drinking bouts with male friends and casual sex with another American exile, established a school of poetry
beautiful women. that reflected the crisis of confidence that seized Eu-
William Faulkner (18971962) was another Ameri- ropes intellectuals after World War I. Like those of the
can who became a giant of twentieth-century fiction. poets of late Rome, Eliots verses relied heavily on lit-
The stream-of-consciousness technique is central to erary references and quotations.
his 1929 masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury. With a The Waste Land, published in 1922, showed El-
story line repeated several times but from different iots difficult, eclectic style; in 403 irregular lines, he
perspectives, this novel is especially audacious in its quotes from or imitates thirty-five authors, including
opening section, which narrates events through the Shakespeare and Dante, adapts snatches from popular
eyes of a mentally challenged character. More impor- songs, and uses phrases in six foreign languages. Form
S tant than this modernist device was his lifelong iden- matches content because the waste land itself repre-
N tification with his home state of Mississippi, where, sents a sterile, godless region without a future, a sym-
L after a brief sojourn in Europe, he returned to explore bol drawn from medieval legend but changed by Eliot
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 573

into a symbol of the hollowness of modern life. In 1927 up that was fueled by jazz and the avant-garde cult
he moved beyond such atheistic pessimism, finding of primitivism (see Chapter 20). This craze sparked
solace by being received into the Church of England the Harlem Renaissance, a 1920s cultural revival in
a step he celebrated in the poem Ash Wednesday, the predominantly black area of New York City called
published in 1930. Harlem. Hughes was a major figure in this black liter-
The black American poet Langston Hughes ary movement. His earliest book of verses, The Weary
(19021967) also belongs with the modernists. Blues (1926), contains his most famous poem, The Ne-
Hughes drew inspiration from many sources, in- gro Speaks of Rivers. Dedicated to W. E. B. DuBois
cluding Africa, Europe, and Mexico, but the ultimate (18681963), the founder of the National Association
power of his poetry came from the American experi- for the Advancement of Colored People, Hughess
ence: jazz, spirituals, and his anguish as a black man verse memorializes the deathless spirit of his race by
in a white world. Hughess emergence, like that of many linking black history to the rivers of the world.
African American writers, occurred during a popula- Another outstanding figure of the Harlem Renais-
tion shift that began in 1914 when thousands of blacks sance was Zora Neale Hurston (about 19011960). Poet,
from the American South settled in northern cities novelist, folklorist, essayist, Hurston made her literary
such as New York, Chicago, and Detroit in hopes of a task the exploration of what it means to be black and
better life (Figure 21.9). female in a white and male-dominated society. Not a
At the same time that Americas ethnographic map rabble-rousing polemicist, she drew from many tradi-
was being redrawn, a craze for Negro culture sprang tions besides her experience as an African American,

Figure 21.9 Jacob L awrence. Migration Series, No. 58. The original caption reads, In the North
the Negro had better educational facilities. 19401941. Tempera on gesso on composition board,
12 18. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Jacob Lawrences Migration series, a cycle of paintings
commissioned by Fortune magazine, depicted the mass flight of African Americans from the American South
to the North in their quest for a better life. Lawrence (19172000) was a Harlem resident and the son of black
migrants. These works are simplistic in format (standard small size and common color scheme); nevertheless,
they reveal Lawrences knowledge of modernism, especially in the flatness and angularity of the figures and
the unusual perspective. The painting titled No. 58 evokes a sense of rhythm by having the number sequence
repeated by the young girls arm and leg movements and their swaying dresses. This series established
Lawrence as a serious artist, and in 1941 he became the first African American included in the permanent
collection of New Yorks Museum of Modern Art.

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574 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

including American southern and American feminist theater centered on a technique called the alienation
literatures, along with the insights of anthropology effect, whose purpose was to make the bourgeois au-
from her graduate studies at Barnard College in New dience uncomfortable (Figure 21.10). Alienation effects
York. An excellent example of this approach is Their could take any form, such as outlandish props, inap-
Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In this novel, Hurston propriate accents, or ludicrous dialogue. By breaking
portrays the African American heroine Janie Crawford the magic spell of the stage, Brechts epic theater chal-
as she seeks sexual and personal fulfillment in rural lenged the viewers expectations and prepared them
segregated Florida in the 1920s and 1930s. Speaking in for his moral and political message. A victim of Nazi
heavy dialect, marked by pithy language and folk say- oppression, Brecht fled to America, where he lived for
ings, Janie Crawford narrates her life story, giving a fifteen years before moving to East Berlin in 1952 to
richly evocative sense of time and place to the novels found a highly influential theater company.
events. A year before he officially embraced Marxism,
Brecht teamed with the German-born composer Kurt
Drama Drama now moved in new directions in Weill [WILE or VILE] (19001950) to create one of the
both Europe and America. The German Bertolt Brecht best-known musicals in modern theater, The Three
[BREKT] (18981956), an expressionist in aesthetics penny Opera (1928). Loosely based on an eighteenth-
and a Marxist in politics, blended a discordant style century English opera, Brecht and Weills expressionist
learned from the Berlin streets with his hatred of bour- version was raucous, discordant, violent, and hostile
geois society into what he called epic theater. Re- to bourgeois values. The playwright, believing bour-
belling against traditional theater, which he thought geois audiences wanted goodness to triumph over
merely reinforced class prejudices, he devised a radical evil, made the hero a small-time hoodlum (Mack the

Figure 21.10 Hannah Hch. Cut with the


Kitchen Knife Dada through Germanys
Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch.
19191920. Photomontage and collage
with watercolor, 447/8 351/16. Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. The art
of German artist Hannah Hch (18881978)
is a visual counterpart to the dramas of Brecht.
In this piece, Hch portrays her fellow Germans
as morally and politically corrupt, a point she
reinforces with the caustic title. Hch belonged
to the art movement called Dada, which was
imported into Berlin from Zurich at the end
of World War I. Hchs artistic technique
photomontage, which mixed photographs cut
from newspapers to send a messagewas
adapted from the collages invented by Picasso
S (see Chapter 20). Note the word Dada appears
N several times in this image.
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 575

Knife) and then saved him at the last moment from a universities in England between 1930 and 1960 and in
hanging that he richly deserved. America after World War II.
Another major modernist playwright was the While Wittgenstein was challenging philosophys
French dramatist Jean Cocteau [kahk-TOE] (18891963). ancient role, Martin Heidegger [HI-deg-uhr] (18891976)
Cocteau helped launch the French trend for modern- was assaulting traditional philosophy from another
izing the Greek classics. His The Infernal Machine (1934), angle by founding modern existentialism. Heidegger
for example, updates Sophocles Oedipus so that the himself denied being an existentialist. Nevertheless,
story is filled with Freudian overtonesOedipus is the result of Heideggers critique was to restore phi-
portrayed as a mothers boyfilm clips are intro- losophy to its primary role as the definer of values for
duced for flashbacks. culture. His major work, Being and Time (1927), focused
on the peculiar nature of human existence (the source
of the term existentialism) when compared with other
Philosophy, Science, and Medicine objects in the world. For him, human existence leads
The Age of the Masses was a fertile period in philoso- to anxiety, because of the consciousness that there is a
phy, science, and medicine, when old certainties were future that includes choices and death. He noted that
under fire from, respectively, new schools of thought, most people try to avoid facing their inevitable fate by
a revolutionary way of looking at the world, and immersing themselves in trivial activities. For a few,
medical advances. However, certainty still reigned though, Heidegger thought that the existential moment
supreme in one highly visible aspect of sciencethe offers an opportunity to seize the initiative and make
practical application of science as a cure for social ills. themselves into authentic human beings. Authentic-
Indeed, this was the last period when blind faith in ity became the ultimate human goal: to confront death
science still ruled, a trend that began with the Scien- and to strive for genuine creativitya typical Ger-
tific Revolution and was sanctified by the Enlighten- man philosophical attitude shared with Goethe and
ments optimistic perspective (see Chapters 16 and 17). Nietzsche.
Although among this periods foremost thinkers,
Philosophy During this period, idealism, the reign- Heideggers politics made him controversial. He used
ing philosophy since the early 1800s, was replaced his post as a German university professor to support
by two new schools of thought. First, in Austria and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. To some critics, Hei-
England, Ludwig Wittgenstein developed ideas that deggers existential viewpointan individual, power-
helped establish logical positivismrenamed the ana- less to reshape the world, can only accept itseemed to
lytic school after World War II. Second, in Germany, support his political position. Indeed, some commenta-
Martin Heidegger founded the existentialist school. tors have condemned existentialism for this reason.
Both schools tried to create philosophies that were in Heideggers best-known disciple and one who re-
harmony with modernist developments. jected Nazism was the French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre
The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein [VIT-guhn-stine] [SAHR-truh] (19051980). Sartres major philosophi-
(18891951) believed the West was in a moral and in- cal work, Being and Nothingness (1943), was heavily
tellectual decline that he attributed to faulty language, indebted to his mentors concepts. From Heidegger
for which, he surmised, current philosophical methods came his definition of existentialism as an attitude
were to blame. He rejected traditional philosophical characterized by concern for human freedom, per-
reasoning, claiming it relied on language that could sonal responsibility, and individual choices. Sartre
not rise above simple truisms. His solution to this in- used these ideas to frame his guiding rule: because
tellectual impasse was to dethrone philosophy and human beings are condemned to freedomthat is,
make it simply the servant of science. Wittgenstein set not free not to choosethey must take responsibil-
forth his conclusion in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ity for their actions and live without excuses. After
in 1922. He reasoned that, although language might be 1945, Sartre rejected existentialism as overly individu-
faulty, there are mathematical and scientific tools for alistic and thereafter tended to support Marxist col-
comprehending the world. He proposed that think- lectivist action.
ers give up the study of values and morals and assist
scientists in a quest for truth. This conclusion led to Science In the sciences, physics remained the field
logical positivism, a school of philosophy dedicated to of dynamic activity. The breakthroughs made before
defining terms and clarifying statements. World War I were now corroborated by new research
Wittgenstein later rejected the idea that language that compelled scientists to discard the Newtonian
is a flawed instrument and substituted a theory of model of the universe as a simple machine. They re-
language as games, in the manner of childrens play. placed it with a complex, sense-defying structure
Nevertheless, it was the point of view set forth in the based on the discoveries of Albert Einstein and Wer- S
Tractatus that made Wittgenstein so influential in the ner Heisenberg (Figure 21.11). N
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576 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE AGE OF THE MASSES AND THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM

Figure 21.11 alberto giacometti. Hands Holding the Void. 1934.


Plaster sculpture, original cast, ht. 611/2. Yale University Art Gallery,
New Haven, Connecticut. The uncertainty of the modern worldas
demonstrated by both physics and the economic and social realities of daily
lifeis poignantly symbolized in Giacomettis sculpture. His melancholy
figure, clutching an invisible object, evokes the anguish humans suffered
in no longer being able to expect answers from traditional sources, such
as science and philosophy. Giacometti personally shared these fears as
he created, in this unusual work (inspired by his admiration for Egyptian
sculpture), a semiseated female whose face is a mask. She seems to be,
in the opinion of one critic, searching for what is truly human in a state of
painful ignorancethe predicament of those in the modern world.

Einstein was now the leading scientist in the West.


His special relativity theory, dating from 1905, over-
turned the Newtonian concept of fixed dimensions
of time and space (see Chapter 20). In Einsteins view,
absolute space and time are meaningless categories,
since they vary with the situation. In 1915 Einstein ex-
panded this finding into a general theory of relativ-
ity, a universal law based on complex equations that
apply throughout the cosmos. The heart of the gen-
eral theory is that space is curved as a result of the
acceleration of objects (planets, stars, moons, meteors,
and so on) as they move through undulating trajecto-
ries. The earths orbit about the sun is caused not by
a gravitational force but by the curvature of space-
time around the sun. In 1919 a team of scientists ob-
served the curvature of space in the vicinity of the sun
and confirmed that space curves to the degree that
Einsteins theory had forecast. Since then, his general
theory has survived many tests of its validity and has
opened new paths of theoretical speculation.
The other great breakthrough in modern phys-
ics was the establishment of quantum physics. Before
1914, the German physicist Max Planck proved that
energyin the subatomic realmis emitted in sepa-
rate units that he called quanta, after the Latin for how
much (as in quantity), and he symbolized these units
by the letter h (see Chapter 20). Working with Plancks
h in 1927, which by now was accepted as a fundamen-
tal constant of nature, the German physicist Werner
Heisenberg [HIZE-uhn-berg] (19011976) arrived at the
uncertainty principle, a step that constituted a deci-
sive break with classical physics. Heisenberg showed
that a scientist could identify either an electronic par-
ticles exact location or its path, but not both. This di-
lemma led to the conclusion that absolute certitude
in subatomic science is impossible because scientists
with their instruments inevitably interfere with the ac-
curacy of their own workthe uncertainty principle.
The incertitude involved in quantum theory caused
Einstein to remark, God does not play dice with the
S world. Nevertheless, quantum theory joined relativity
N theory as a founding principle of modern physics.
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 577

SLICE OF LIFE
The Face of Evil: A Nazi Death Camp

Elie Wiesel
NIGHT (2006)
In this excerpt from his autobiographical novel, Night, My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could
Wiesel (b. 1928) describes the arrival of his family at think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone.
Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp, in 1944. The SS officers gave the order.
Form ranks of fives!
The beloved objects that we had carried with us from There was a tumult. It was imperative to stay together.
place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, Hey, kid, how old are you?
with them, finally, our illusions. The man interrogating me was an inmate. I could
Every few yards, there stood an SS man, his ma- not see his face, but his voice was weary and warm.
chine gun trained on us. Hand in hand we followed Fifteen.
the throng. No. Youre eighteen.
An SS came toward us wielding a club. He But Im not, I said. Im fifteen.
commanded: Fool. Listen to what I say.
Men to the left! Women to the right! Then he asked my father, who answered:
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without Im fifty.
emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the No. The man now sounded angry. Not fifty.
moment when I left my mother. There was no time to Youre forty. Do you hear? Eighteen and forty.
think, and I already felt my fathers hand press against He disappeared into the darkness.
mine: we were alone. In a fraction of a second I could
see my mother, my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora Interpreting This Slice of Life
was holding Mothers hand. I saw them walking far- 1. Summarize the events set forth in this excerpt from
ther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sis- Wiesels book.
ters blond hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on
2. What is the significance of the inmate insisting that
with my father, with the men. I didnt know that this
the son claim to be eighteen and the father to be forty?
was the moment in time and the place where I was
leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. I kept walk- 3. Explain what the narrator means by the word illu
ing, my father holding my hand. sions in the first sentence.
Behind me, an old man fell to the ground. Nearby, 4. Relate the narrators experience with that of chil-
an SS man replaced his revolver in its holster. dren caught in contemporary political upheavals.

A practical result of the revolution in physics was as expressed in the eugenics (Greek, eugenes, of good
the opening of the nuclear age in August 1945. The stock) movement, which called for the selective
American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer [AHP- breeding of human beings. Nazi ideology, rooted in
uhn-hi-muhr] (19041967), having made basic contri- the myth of Aryan (Germanic peoples) supremacy,
butions to quantum theory, was appointed head of the led to a full-fledged eugenics program. Seeking Aryan
team that built the first atomic bomb. Oppenheimers racial purity, the Nazis created a forced sterilization
other role as a member of the panel that advised that program in the 1930s, in which doctors sterilized more
the atomic bombs be dropped on Japan raised ethical than four hundred thousand people who were deemed
questions that divided the scientific community then genetically defective. The Aryan supremacy claim
and continue to do so. resulted in the Holocaust, the Nazi plan to eliminate
While debates divided the scientific community, Jews, whom German doctors believed to be carriers of
many people in the West forcefully expressed un- many genetic disorders (see Slice of Life). After World
questioning trust in the pseudoscience behind racist War II, knowledge of the Holocaust helped discredit
theories that were flourishing. These theories blamed the eugenics movement.
social ills on innate racial differences. Germany was The eugenics movement in the United States did not S
probably the country most affected by racist thought, lead to genocide, but it did spark varied governmental N
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578 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

Timeline 21.1 HIGH MODERNISM, 19141945

1919 Neoclassical Music

1922 Serial Music

Constructivist Art 1922 Socialist Realist Art

1917 De Stijl 1932

Cubism

1915 Dada Art 1925 Surrealist Art

Expressionist Art

1919 Bauhaus 1933

1929 International Style Architecture

World War I The Great Depression World War II

1914 1918 1922 1926 1929 1933 19361939 1939 1945


Fascists take Hemingways Stock Nazis take Spanish
1915
power in Italy; The Sun market power in Civil War
Einsteins
Joyces Ulysses; Also Rises crash Germany
theory of
Eliots The Waste Land; 1927
relativity
1917 Wittgensteins Heideggers
Bolshevik Tractatus Being and Time;
Revolution Logico-Philosophicus Heisenbergs
in Russia uncertainty principle

policies. In 1924 a federal law was passed closing immi- that produce tropical illnesses such as malaria; and vi-
gration from southern and eastern Europe, the Balkans, ruses, organisms that cause mumps, measles, and po-
and Russia. Vice President Calvin Coolidge (18721933) lio. New pharmaceuticals included aspirin (1899), the
justified this legislation thusly: America must be kept worlds universal pain remedy today; arsphenamine
American. Biological laws show . . . that Nordics deteri- (1910), an arsenic-based preparation, which was the
orate when mixed with other races. Only six senators first effective treatment for syphilis and the first che-
voted against this exclusionary law. Further, by 1930, motherapy; sulfonamide (1936), an antibacterial agent,
twenty-seven states had laws that allowed involuntary used to cure septicemia (blood infection) and other in-
sterilization of the feebleminded and others deemed fections; penicillin (discovered in 1928 and made avail-
unfitwith the surgery performed usually at state-run able in injectable form in 1941), probably the Wests
psychiatric hospitals or homes for the mentally chal- most popular antibiotic, used against syphilis, menin-
lenged. Eugenics programs also thrived in England gitis, and other ills, until the rise of penicillin-resistant
and France. And, earlier, in 1901, Australia closed its bacteria; and streptomycin (1944), the first successful
doors to non-European immigrants, making itself a treatment for infectious tuberculosis. In World War II,
citadel of white culture. penicillin helped save many lives on the battlefield.

Medicine Major medical events between 1900 and


1945 occurred in two areas: identification of disease Art, Architecture, Photography, and Film
pathogens and the development of pharmaceuticals. Modernism reached its zenith in painting and archi-
Medical researchers identified these new pathogens tecture, photography came into its own as part of the
disease-causing agents: rickettsias, organisms that mass media, and movies became the worlds most
S cause diseases such as typhus; protozoans, organisms popular form of mass culture (Timeline 21.1).
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 579

Painting Painting now dominated the visual arts. A movement similar to suprematism and construc-
Painters launched new art movements every two or tivism, called de Stijl [duh STILE] (the style), origi-
three years, although certain prevailing themes and nated in the Netherlands, lasting from 1917 to 1932.
interests could be discerned as a foundation for the De Stijl artists shared the belief that art should have
three shifting styles: abstraction, primitivism and fan- spiritual values and that artists have a social mission
tasy, and expressionism. Picasso and Matisse, the two to improve the world by revamping society along ra-
giants of twentieth-century art, continued to exercise tional lines, from town planning to private residences
their influence, yet they too worked within these three to eating utensils.
categories, all of which had arisen in the postimpres- The de Stijl movement was led by the painter Piet
sionist period. Mondrian [MAHN-dree-ahn] (18721944), who after
1919 worked successively in Paris, London, and New
Abstraction Picasso and Braque laid the platform for York. He developed an elaborate theory to give a meta-
abstraction with their cubist paintings before World physical meaning to his abstract paintings. A member
War I (see Chapter 20), but Soviet painters now moved of the Theosophistsa cult that flourished in about
beyond cubism to full abstraction, thus staking out 1900Mondrian adapted some of their mystical be-
claims as the founders of modern abstract art. The liefs to arrive at a grid format for his later paintings,
most influential of these Soviet artists was Kasimir notably using the Theosophists stress on cosmic du-
Malevich [mahl-YAY-vich] (18781935). ality, in which the vertical represented the male and
Influenced by the cubists and the Italian futurists the horizontal the female. To create the grid format,
the latter, a school of artists who depicted forms in he used heavy black lines set against a white back-
surging, violent motionMalevich was already work- ground. Into this highly charged field he introduced
ing in an abstract style when World War I began. By rectangles of the primary colorsblue, yellow, and
wars end in 1918, he was painting completely non- redwhich in his mythic vision stood as symbols of
objective canvases. Believing that art should convey the sky, the sun, and dynamic union, respectively. Af-
ethical and philosophical values, he created a painting ter 1932, Mondrian began to tire of black (a noncolor,
style devoted to purity and devoid of content except to him), but it was only with the coming of World
for line, color, and shape. He called this style supre- WarII, when he emigrated to New York City, that he
matism, named for his belief that the feelings are su- was able to eliminate black from his works. However,
preme over every other element of lifefeelings, that he remained faithful to the grid and the primary col-
is, expressed in a purely rational way. ors, as in Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 21.12).
Searching for a way to visualize emotions on canvas, Despite the pioneering work of suprematism and
Malevich adopted geometric shapes as nonobjective the de Stijl school, cubism remained the leading art
symbols, as in Suprematist Painting (See Interpreting movement of high modernism, and Pablo Picasso was
Art). In this painting, design has triumphed over rep- still the reigning cubist. The most famous work of Pi-
resentation. There are only geometric shapes of dif- cassos long career dates from this period: the protest
ferent sizes and varying lengths. The choice of the canvas Guernica, painted in a modified cubist style. Pi-
geometric shapes reflects their role as basic elements casso named this painting for an unarmed town that
of composition with no relation to nature. The quali- had been bombed by Nazi airplanes (in the service of
ties shown in Malevichs paintingflatness, coolness, Franco) during the Spanish Civil War. He used every
and severe rationalityremain central to one branch element in the work to register his rage against this
of abstract art today. senseless destruction of human life (see Figure 21.1).
Malevichs suprematism helped to shape construc- The black, white, and gray tones conjure up newspaper
tivism, the first art style launched by Lenins regime in images, suggesting the casual way that newspapers re-
1917. Malevichs views, rooted in Christian mysticism, port daily disasters. An all-seeing eye looks down on a
ran counter to Marxist materialism, however, and scene of horror made visible to the world through the
the flowering of abstraction in the Soviet Union was modern mediaas symbolized by the electric bulb
abruptly snuffed out. In 1922, Lenin pronounced it a that acts as a retina in the cosmic eye. Images of death
decadent form of bourgeois expression, and its lead- and destructionthe mother cradling a childs body,
ers were imprisoned or exiled. Then the Soviet leaders the stabbed horse, the enraged bull, the fallen man,
proclaimed the doctrine of socialist realism, which and the screaming womanare made even more ter-
demanded the use of traditional techniques and styles rifying by their angular forms. In retrospect, Guernica
and the glorification of the communist ideal. This type was a watershed painting both topically and stylisti-
of realistic art also held greater appeal for the Soviet cally. The blending of cubism with social protest was
masses, who had been alienated by the abstract style newas was Francos type of unbridled warfare. Guer
of constructivism. nica forecast even more horrifying events to come. S
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580 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE AGE OF THE MASSES AND THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM

Interpreting Art
Geometric Design The basic
Shapes Malevich design makes this a fully
abstract work: geometric
adopted geometric shapes
shapes seemingly placed
to give expression to his
at random, within a
feelings. The circle and the
rectangular field.
square, most especially,
became iconic forms in his
Suprematist art. Historical
Context The
Artistic Vision Suprematist movement
Malevich practiced art for originated when Russia was
arts sake, thus rejecting in a revolutionary mode,
art in the service of the with avant-garde ideas in
state and religionthe twin the ascendant and a new
pillars of Western art until order beginning to emerge.
the birth of modernism.
Anticlassical
Style This painting
Values This works
helps define the aesthetic
design negates classical
values of Suprematism,
values: purity (instead
whichunlike cubism
of harmony), asymmetry
ignores the physical world.
(instead of symmetry),
abstract art (instead of
representative art).

k asimir malevich. Suprematist Painting. 19161917. Oil on canvas, 38 1/2 261/8.


The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Malevichs geometric style reflected his
belief that abstract images had a spiritual quality comparable to that of religious
icons. Thus, if approached in the proper spirit, an abstract form could become a
meditation device that could lead the viewers thoughts beyond the physical realm.
For Malevich, the physical realm was no longer of use, and painting was a search
for visual metaphors (mainly geometric elements) that could evoke awareness of
unconscious and conscious experiences in the individual. His belief was typical of
thinking among the German and Russian avant-garde in the early 1900s.

1. Artists Intent What is Malevichs message? 4. Historical Context How does this painting reflect the period
2. Design Why does Malevich use geometrical shapes and in which it was made?
what are their functions? 5. Audience Who would have been the audience for this
3. Compare and Contrast Compare and contrast the ab- painting?
straction in this painting with that of Picasso in Guernica
(Figure 21.1).

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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 581

Figure 21.12 Piet mondrian. Broadway Boogie Woogie. 19421943.


Oil on canvas, 50 50 (127 127 cm). The Museum of Modern Art,
New York 2012 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International
USA. Allied with those artists who identified abstract forms with spiritual
values, Mondrian originated the grid as the ideal way to approach the
canvas, allowing the verticals and horizontals to establish the painting
area. In this painting, he pays homage to his new home and a dance craze
of the era: The interaction of the colored lines evokes both the street map
of Manhattan and the syncopated pattern of the Boogie Woogie. Mondrians
devotion to the grid, along with his sparse use of color, gave rise to many
of the dominant trends in art after World War II: two-dimensional images,
geometric shapes, and all over paintings without a specific up or down.

Figure 21.13 georgia ok eeFFe. Cows Skull with Calico Roses. 1931.
The American painter Georgia OKeeffe (18871986) Oil on canvas, 36 24. Art Institute of Chicago. The simplified
refused to follow European painters down the path formsthe skull and the roselink this painting to the periods trend to
to pure abstraction. Instead, she pursued a distinc- abstraction, but their placement so as to suggest the image of a face
devouring a rose implies a connection with another development of this
tively American type of abstraction, using Ameri-
period, surrealism, a style that delighted in realistic images with double
can subjects drawn from nature, which she pared to meanings (see Figure 21.15). Whether intentional or not, OKeeffes
their pure form and color; at the same time, she kept overlapping of stylistic boundaries was typical of the fluid artistic scene
representation of the natural world as a primary in the years between the two world wars.
goal. A native of Wisconsin, OKeeffe found a spiri-
tual home in the American SouthwestTexas and
especially New Mexicowhose sun-drenched, stark cows skull, stripped bare of flesh, became even more
landscapes inspired some of her most famous im- abstract as she simplified it and presented it close-up
ages. Sensitive to light, color, texture, and atmosphere, with two roses nearby. The result is an image of shock-
she registered in her paintings the previously hidden ing beauty.
beauties of this high desert world, as in Cows Skull
with Calico Roses (Figure 21.13). As early as the Renais- Primitivism and Fantasy The modernists admiration
sance, painters had occasionally used deaths-heads for primitivism led to Dada [DAH-dah], the most un-
as memento mori (reminders of death), but no artist usual art movement of the twentieth century. Named
before OKeeffe had thought of presenting a cows for a nonsense word chosen for its ridiculous sound,
skull as an art subject. The already abstract form of the Dada flourished in six citiesZurich, Berlin, Cologne,
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582 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

Hannover, Paris, and New Yorkbetween 1915 and values meaningless. Believing the spiritual claims and
1925, chiefly as unruly pranks by disaffected artists traditional beliefs of Western humanism were dead,
who wanted to hurl gobs of spit in the faces of the the Dada group embraced anti-art as the only ethical
bourgeoisie. They staged exhibits in public lavatories, position for an artist in the modern era.
planned meetings in cemeteries, and arranged lec- The most influential exponent of Dada was the French
tures where the speaker was drowned out by a bell. artist Marcel Duchamp [doo-SHAHN] (18871968), who
Slowly it became evident that these outrageous acts abandoned cubism in about 1915. His best-known Dada
conveyed the message that World War I had made all piece is the definitely incomplete work called The

Figure 21.14 Marcel Duchamp. The Bride


Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (or
The Large Glass). 19151923. Oil, varnish,
lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass
panels. 1091/4 69 1/4. Philadelphia
Museum of Art. Shortly after this legendary
assemblage was built, the glass shattered.
Duchamp repaired the work, replacing the
glass with heavier panes and installing a
reinforced frame. But effects of the accident
are still apparent. Duchamp claimed to be
delighted by these chance additions to his
original design. In making this claim, he was
the forerunner of the modernist idea that
chance should play a guiding role in art. After
World War II, many artists began to incorporate
S random effects into their works.
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 583

Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, a mixture of a direct fashion that made their paintings more star-
oil, wire, and lead foil on two glass panels made be- tling than those of Dadaist artists. Among the leading
tween 1915 and 1923, sometimes called The Large Glass surrealists were Salvador Dali and Paul Klee.
(Figure 21.14). Although many viewers think it looks The Spanish painter Salvador Dali [DAH-lee]
like a giant swindle, much is clear about The Large (19041989) concentrated on subjects that surfaced from
Glass. Duchamp develops an erotic theme by devoting his lively imagination and often contained thinly dis-
the upper half of the sculpture to the bride (the amor- guised sexual symbols. Probably his most famous
phous shape floating on the left) and her apartment work is the painting The Persistence of Memory, which
(the stretch of gauze with three holes) and populat- depicts soft, melting watches in a desertlike setting
ing the lower chamber with the bachelors (the nine (Figure 21.15). Sexual themes may be read in the limp
objects to the left) and their sex organ (the contrap- images of watchesperhaps a reference to sexual im-
tion made of a water mill, grinder, and other bits of potence. Regardless of its meaning, the painting gives
metal). Linking the bride with the bachelors are tiny a strange twist to ordinary things, evoking the sense
capillaries, or thin tubes, filled with oilsymbolic of of a half-remembered dreamthe goal of surrealist
fertilization with sperm. Duchamps point seems to be art. Despite obvious painterly skills, Dali cultivated a
that sex in the machine age has become boring and controversial, even scandalous, personal image. His
mechanized. escapades earned him the publics ridicule, and the
Dada led to surrealism, an art movement that be- surrealists even disowned him. From todays vantage
gan in the 1920s. Unlike Dada, surrealism was basically point, however, Dali is admired for two reasons: for
a pictorial art. Inspired by Freuds teaching that the having created some of modernisms most fantastic
human mind conceals hidden depths, the surrealists images and for being a link with the pop artists of the
wanted to create a vision of reality that also included 1960s (see Chapter 22).
the truths harbored in the unconscious. They por- The Swiss painter Paul Klee [KLAY] (18791940)
trayed dream imagery, fantasies, and hallucinations in may be grouped with the surrealists, but he was too

Figure 21.15 Salvador Dali. The Persistence of Memory. 1931. Oil on canvas, 91/2 13. The Museum
of Modern Art, New York. Dali liked to paint images that were actually optical illusions. In this painting, the
watch depicted on the right is draped over an amorphous shape that, on inspection, appears to be that of a
man. Dalis use of such optical effects reflected his often-stated belief that life is irrational.

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584 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

changeable to be restricted to a single style. He is best viaducta series of arches built to carry a road across
known for an innocent approach to art, which was a wide valleywhen each arch, marching on thin
triggered by his fondness for childrens uninhibited legs and footlike bases, goes its own way. More than
scrawls. A professor from 1920 until 1930 at the Bau- a cartoon, this whimsical work is Klees allegorical re-
haus, Germanys leading art institute between the sponse to Europes growing fascist culturean atypi-
wars, Klee created poetic images, rich in color and cal gesture by this usually apolitical artist.
gentle wit, as in Revolution of the Viaduct (see chapter- The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo [KAH-low]
opening photo). This painting depicts the breakup of a (19071954), famed for her unsettling self-portraits,

Figure 21.16 Frida K ahlo. The Two Fridas (Las Dos Fridas). 1939. Oil on canvas, 691/2 69 1/2. Museo
de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. Kahlo reveals a modernist sensibility in this double likeness, which draws
on surrealist and expressionist styles of art. The subjectthe schizophrenic nature of Kahlos inner life
reflects the artists familiarity with depth psychologythe key ingredient of surrealist art. The bold color
contrasts, especially the blood-red on white, and the agitated brushstrokes in the background are evidence
of the expressionist style.

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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 585

might be classified with the surrealists, though she


is usually linked with the Mexican muralists, the po-
litically motivated artists who flourished between the
two world wars and who painted mural (wall) cycles
in public buildings to dramatize their socialist vision
and solidarity with Mexicos native peoples. For most
of her life, she was involved in a tempestuous mar-
riage to Diego Rivera (18861957), a leading Mexican
muralist, but she was much more than the wife of a
famous painter. Kahlo was an important artist in her
own right, creating works that reflected her physical
and spiritual suffering (she had polio at age six and
was in a serious accident at eighteen).
Kahlos The Two Fridas (Las Dos Fridas) (Figure 21.16)
reflects her stormy relationship with the womanizing
Diego Rivera. On the left, a provincial Frida, dressed
in traditional white costume, draws comfort from, on
the right, a worldly Frida, who holds an amulet dec-
orated with an image of a youthful Diego Rivera. A
small line of blood courses from the Rivera amulet,
connecting the worldly Fridas heart to that of the pro-
vincial Fridasa visual affirmation that the two form
a single unit. And the provincial Frida, with a dam-
aged heart, seems to have cut the artery to Diego, with
the result that blood is pooling on her white dress. The
portraits violent overtones underscore Kahlos obses-
sion with death and suffering.
Figure 21.17 Henri Matisse. Decorative Figure on Ornamental
Ground. Nice, 19251926. Oil on canvas, 511/8 381/2. Muse
Expressionism
The chief expressionist painters National dArt Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, France. In
in this era were Henri Matisse, a founder of fau- this work, the subject and the implied settingan odalisque, or female
vism before World War I (see Chapter 20), and slave, in a harem room in some unknown sultans palacehad been
Max Beckmann, the heir to German expressionism. In an important part of Matisses repertoire since the founding of fauvism.
The nude, or sometimes partially clothed, odalisques conveyed a not-so-
the 1920s, Matisses art was distinguished by its deco- subtle message: enjoy living in contrast to the daily grind and materialism
rative quality, a tendency since his fauvist days. Tap- of Western industrial society.
ping into the periods love affair with Orientalism,
Matisse enlivened the painting surface with decora-
tive patterns taken from varied non-Western sources:
wallpapers, carpets, and fabrics, as in Decorative Figure philosophy, and the Jewish kabbalah (medieval writ-
in an Oriental Setting (Figure 21.17). As the works title ings), The Departure represents a yearning to be free of
suggests, the female subject is rendered as simply an- the horrors of earthly existence. In the side panels,
other decorative element in the overall design. Never- Beckmann depicts images of cruelty, including bound
theless, Matisse remains true to his fauvist roots with human figures, one of whom is gagged, being sub-
the richly saturated colors. jected to tortureperhaps reflecting his fears of the
Matisse was rebuked for concentrating on rise of Nazism. In contrast, the central panel, in which
decorative subjects while many nations slipped a man, woman, and child are ferried across a lake by a
into anarchy in the 1930s. No such charge can be hooded boatman, evokes the theme of deliverance.
made against the German painter Max Beckmann When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they declared
(18841950), whose expressionist paintings register hor- Beckmann a degenerate artist, confiscated his works,
ror at the eras turbulent events. The Departure is typi- and fired him from his academic post. In 1937 he
cal of his works, being concerned with both personal sought refuge in Amsterdam, where he managed to
and spiritual issues (Figure 21.18). The structure of the survive World War II.
paintingdivided into three panels (a triptych) like a
medieval altarpiecesuggests that it has religious Architecture In the 1920s and 1930s, architects
meaning. It was the first of nine completed triptychs. continued their search for a pure style, free of deco-
Influenced by the mystical teachings of the German ration and totally functional. Their efforts resembled S
thinker Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860), East Asian a mystical quest, stemming from the belief that new N
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586 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

Figure 21.18 Max Beckmann. The Departure. 19321935. Oil on canvas, center panel 7 39, side
panels 7 33. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In The Departure, Beckmanns expressionism
is revealed through the treatment of form and color. The flat, angular figures, arranged into awkward
positions, and the unusual perspective reinforce the paintings disturbing theme. The dark hues of the side
panel, appropriate for the violent images, contrast with the bright colors of the central panel and its message
of salvation.

architecture could solve social problems by creating a style in architecturesleek, geometrical, and devoid
new physical environmenta recurrent theme in Eu- of ornament (Figure 21.19).
ropean modernism. The international styles most distinguished rep-
This visionary ideal of architecture was best ex- resentative in this period was the Swiss architect
pressed in Germanys Bauhaus, an educational insti- Charles-douard Jeanneret, better known as Le Cor-
tution whose aim was to bring about social reform busier [luh kor-boo-ZYAY] (18871965), whose artistic
through a new visual environment, especially in the credo was A house is a machine for living. In pur-
design of everyday objects. To that end, the school suit of this ideal, he pioneered building methods such
brought together artists, craftspeople, and architects. as prefabricated housing and reinforced concrete as
During a brief lifetime, from 1919 to 1933, when it was ways to eliminate ordinary walls. His Savoye House,
closed by the Nazis, the Bauhaus, under Walter Gro- near Paris, became the prototype of private houses
pius [GROH-pee-uhs] (18831969), was the center of for the wealthy after World War II (Figure 21.20). The
abstract art in Germany. The Bauhaus affected later Savoye House was painted stark white and raised on
culture in two ways: it developed a spartan type of columns, its ground floor had a curved wall, and its
interior design characterized by all-white rooms and windows were slits. A painter before becoming an
wooden floors, streamlined furniture, and lighting architect, Le Corbusier designed architecture that
S supplied by banks of windows by day and recessed combined cubisms abstractness (the raised box) with
N lamps at night; and it introduced the international constructivisms purity (whiteness).
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Figure 21.19 Walter Gropius. The Bauhaus,
Workshop Wing. 19251926. Dessau,
Germany. The Bauhaus (German, Architecture
House) was an applied arts, architecture, and
design school that operated from 1919 to 1933,
when it was closed by the Nazis because of
its supposed Jewish connections. Founded in
Weimar in 1919, it moved to Dessau in 1925.
Aspiring architects and designers trained in
sculpture, painting, architecture, and crafts
workshops, learning to design objects for a
mass society, which would be both functional
and aesthetically pleasing. Among the
distinguished teachers were Paul Klee (see
chapter-opening photo) and Wassily Kandinsky
(see Figure 20.21). The Bauhaus workshop
wing, part of a three-building complex, was
designed in the international style. Its front
wall, constructed of glass and metal, became
a defining architectural feature of office
skyscrapers in the postwar period.

Figure 21.20 Le Corbusier. Savoye House. 19291931. Poissy, near Paris. Le Corbusier wanted to break
with previous styles of architecture and create a new style in tune with the machine age. His design for the
Savoye House realizes this ambition completely through its severe geometrical form, its absence of decoration
except for architectural details, and its sparkling white walls. When finished, the Savoye House had the
streamlined look associated with industrial machinery, an achievement much admired in the 1930s.

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588 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

Photography Between 1900 and 1945, photography during the Depression (see Figure 21.3). More than a
continued to evolve within two genres: the photograph documentary record, her photographs served a propa-
as a historical record and the photograph as a work of ganda function, because they were commissioned by
art. History-minded photographers wanted realistic this federal agency to bring the plight of the rural poor
images, which would serve as records for future gen- to the attention of affluent America.
erations, including documentary photographs, combat
photographs, landscape scenes, urban scenes, indus- Film Motion picturesthe movieswere immedi-
trial culture, and records of endangered social life (for ately popular when they were introduced in the early
example, village life and Native American rituals). 1900s, and by the mid-1920s they had become the most
In contrast, artistic photographers manipulated their popular mass entertainment. The American film direc-
final images, using soft-focus lenses and techniques tor D. W. Griffith (18751948) showed in such pioneer-
borrowed from art and film, to create, for example, ing works as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance
impressionistic photographs, photomontages (mixing (1916) that it was possible to make movies that were se-
photographs with words cut from newspaperssee rious, sustained works of art. His technical innovations,
Figure 21.10), and photographs influenced by abstrac- such as crosscutting and the close-up, made more com-
tion, cubism, Dada, surrealism, and other art styles of plex film narratives possible, but such attempts to de-
the era. Neither category is absolute, however, as aes- velop the medium were rare. Although other directors
thetic influences inevitably creep into historic photo- quickly appropriated Griffiths techniques, few went
graphs and artistic photographs do serve as historic beyond them, and the movies remained resolutely low-
records of the event that produced them. brow. The present-day distinction between movies (the
Documentary photography, or photojournalism, widest possible audience) and films (appealing to more
was probably this periods most highly visible pho- educated, intellectual audiences) had not yet arisen.
tographic genre. This was because newspapers and One of the eras most inventive directors was the
magazines, both part of the explosive growth of mass Russian Sergei Eisenstein [IZE-uhn-stine] (18981948),
culture, seemed insatiable in their appetite for new who introduced techniques that had an enormous in-
images. Staid newspapers, like the New York Times and fluence on the rise of art films. In The Battleship Potemkin
Englands The Times, resisted placing photographs on (1925), he pioneered the montage technique, which con-
the front page, but the tabloids and the regional press, sisted of highly elaborate editing patterns and rhythms.
eager to boost sales, plastered historic, lurid, and hu- He developed the montage because he believed that
morous photographs on the front page and sprinkled the key element in films was the way the scenes were
others liberally throughout their pages as a way to arranged, how they faded out and faded in, and how
attract more readers. A milestone in photographic they looked in juxtaposition. By focusing on the mate-
history occurred in 1936 with the founding of Life rial of the film itself instead of highlighting the plot or
magazinethe brainchild of Henry Luce (18981967) the characters psychology, Eisenstein showed his alle-
because it was the first general-audience magazine in giance to the artistic aspect of moviemaking.
which pictures dominated. With fifty-two issues each Perhaps the most controversial director of this pe-
year, Life raised the demand for new photographs ex- riod was Leni Riefenstahl [LAY-nee REE-fen-shtahl]
ponentially. Lifes success soon spawned rivals in the (19022003), a German dancer and actress, who be-
United States and similar-style magazines in Ger- came Hitlers favorite moviemaker. Her masterpiece
many, England, France, and elsewhere. was Triumph of the Will (1934), an almost-two-hour-long
Photojournalism exerted a powerful attraction for documentary depicting the sixth Nazi Party Congress
women, including Margaret Bourke-White (19061971) in Nuremberg, held in September 1934, which intro-
and Dorothea Lange (18951965). Bourke-White es- duced the Nazi Party to the world (see Figure21.5). The
tablished her reputation with the Henry Luce group, films title was Hitlers own term, reflecting his bor-
starting in 1930. When Life was founded, she became rowing from Nietzsches philosophy (see Chapter20).
one of four staff photographers who routinely circled Made in black and white, this film depicted the Nazi
the globe in search of a scoop. Her subjects, presented pageant in all of its dramatic glory: massed ranks of
straightforwardly and directly, with just a hint of thousands of party members, torchlight parades, ath-
compassion, included Dust Bowl victims, southern letic displays by well-muscled young men, children
sharecroppers, Czech life on the eve of the Nazi take- marching in close ranks, and rituals involving flags
over, and World War II (see Figure 21.6). Langes fame emblazoned with swastikas. The United States (which
rests primarily on her photographs for the Farm Se- eventually meant Hollywood, California) had domi-
curity Administration (FSA), part of President Roose nated the motion picture industry since World War I,
velts New Deal. Her photographs, made in extreme and the industry underwent important changes dur-
S close-up, depict in uncomfortable detail lives wasted ing these years. Sound movies became technically
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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 589

feasible in the late 1920s, and in the early 1930s three- But one of the hallmarks of the movieits dark look,
color cinematography processes were developed. Both which underscores the theme of unbridled lust for
of these technical developments became basic to the powerwas in actuality a money-saving device to
movies throughout the world, but other experiments, disguise the absence of studio sets. Is Citizen Kane a
such as wide-screen and three-dimensional photogra- film or a movie? It is a measure of Welless genius
phy, were less successful. Another important develop- that it is triumphantly both: its frequent showing both
ment in this period was the descent on Hollywood of on television and in theaters attests to its popularity,
many German filmmakers in flight from the Nazis. yet its analysis in film journals and books points to its
In the Hollywood of the 1930s, these exiles helped to high prominence as a film.
create some of the outstanding achievements in world
cinema.
A sign of the excellence of Hollywood movies in
Music: Atonality, Neoclassicism,
these years is Orson Welless Citizen Kane (1941), often and an American Idiom
called Americas best film (Figure 21.21). An Ameri- During the 1920s and 1930s, Western music was frag-
can, Welles (19151985) had learned from the German mented into two rival camps. On one side was the
exiles and borrowed their expressionist methods, such Austro-German school headed by Arnold Schoen-
as theatrical lighting and multiple narrative voices. berg, who had introduced atonality before 1914 and
Welless own commanding presence in the lead role in the 1920s pioneered serial music. On the other side
also contributed to making this an unforgettable movie. was the French school led by Igor Stravinsky, who

Figure 21.21 Still, from Citizen Kane. 1941. This still from Citizen Kane conveys the megalomania
of the films hero, Charles Foster Kane, played by its director and star, Orson Welles (on the left). Kane is
depicted in a typical posespeaking forcefully, as a means of intimidating the listener (the actor, George
Coulouris (1903-1989)). Reflecting his democratic values, Welless film satirized the rise and fall of citizen
Kane, a self-absorbed newspaper mogul modeled on the newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst
(18631951). Part of the films appeal stemmed from its innovative cinematography, which permitted deep-
focus imagery, so that extreme foreground and background could be viewed simultaneously with equal
claritya breakthrough suggested by this still.

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590 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism

system culminated in Variations for Orchestra (1928), a


composition that uses the classical form of theme with
variations. In 1933 he emigrated to America, where his
devotion to atonality mellowed. Some of Schoenbergs
later works mix twelve-tone writing with tonality.
Stravinsky, in exile from the Soviet Union after 1917,
went to live in Paris, where he became the dominant
figure of neoclassicism in music, borrowing features
from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music (Fig-
ure 21.22). In his neoclassical works, he abandoned
many techniques that had become common to music
since the baroque period, such as romantic emotion-
alism and programmatic composition as well as im-
pressionisms use of dense orchestral sounds. Austere
and cool, his neoclassical compositions used simple
instrumental combinations and sounded harmonious.
Stravinskys works from this period made him the
outstanding composer of the twentieth century.
Stravinsky originated neoclassicism in 1919 with
the ballet Pulcinella and brought the style to a close in
1951 with the opera The Rakes Progress. Between these
two works was one of his most admired compositions,
the Symphony of Psalms, dating from 1930. Pulcinella
and The Rakes Progress owe much to the music and
comic operas of the classical composers Pergolesi [per-
GO-lay-see] (17101736) and Mozart (see Chapter 17),
respectively, and the Symphony of Psalms follows a ba-
roque model in its small orchestra and musical struc-
ture. Despite borrowing forms and ideas, Stravinsky
made them his own, introducing occasional disso-
Figure 21.22 Pablo Picasso. Stravinsky. 1920. Pencil on gray paper, nances and continuing to experiment with complex
243/8 191/8. Muse Picasso, Paris. Picassos pencil sketch of Stravinsky rhythmic patterns.
is a perceptive character study. Long before Stravinsky became almost
American music, meanwhile, was discovering its
unapproachable, Picasso portrayed him as an aloof, self-absorbed young
man. Stravinskys cold demeanor is obvious in the tense posture, the harsh own idiom. Aaron Copland (19001990) had achieved
stare, and the clasped hands and crossed legs. Picassos sketch also hints some success by imitating European styles, but in the
at Stravinskys genius by exaggerating the size of his hands, perhaps to 1930s he began to develop a distinctive American style.
emphasize their role in the composers creative life. His ballet scores Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and
Appalachian Spring (1944), commissioned by choreogra-
phers Agnes de Mille (19091993) and Martha Graham
had experimented with primitive rhythms and harsh (18931991), drew on hymns, ballads, folk tunes, and
dissonances in the early 1900s but after World War I popular songs of the period. His delightful melodies,
adopted a stern neoclassical style. brilliant sound, jazzy experimentation, and upbeat
Schoenberg in the 1920s introduced serial music, rhythms ensured the popularity of these pieces.
a method of composing with a twelve-tone scale Despite the overall folksy sound of Appalachian
twelve tones that are related not to a tonal center in Spring, the only actual folk tune Copland used was
a major or minor key but only to each other. Lacking Simple Gifts, a hymn from the Shaker sect that ex-
harmonious structure, serial music sounded disso- pressed their faith in simple living. Copland exploited
nant and random and tended to create anxiety in lis- this Shaker hymn, making it the theme of Section 7,
teners. As a result, serial music appealed to cult rather Simple Gifts, of his ballet score. Written in the clas-
than mass audiences. Lack of a responsive public did sical form of theme and variations, Simple Gifts
not halt Schoenbergs pursuit of atonality. His serial begins with the sweet melody of the hymns first two

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THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM 591

lines, Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free / for example, the main theme, which appears after a
Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be. brief introduction, is a four-note phrase that Still called
There are five variations, with the theme being var- the hallelujah motive, thereby evoking the central role
ied through changes in key, tempo (slow to staccato), played by gospel singing in African American life.
dynamics (soft to loud), instrument combinations, and Accompanying the hallelujah theme is a banjo play-
tone color. In the concluding variation, Copland pulls ing on the offbeata jaunty reminder of the banjos in
out all stops, using the full orchestra playing fortissis- nineteenth-century black minstrel shows. The counter-
simo (a made-up term, extremely loud; abbreviated melody, a syncopated version of an African American
) to transform the simple melody into a majestic af- spiritual, also was inspired by the African American
firmation of the simple life. church tradition. The playfulness of this section sug-
A major American composer who cared less about gests a jubilant moodevocative of a future when
developing a purely American idiom and more about African Americans will be rewarded for their suffer-
exploring musics frontiers was George Antheil [an- ings on earth. The jubilant mood is expressed through
TILE] (19001959). Living in Europe from 1922 to 1933, sudden shifts in dynamics, rhythm, tone color, register,
Antheil became part of the intellectual avant-garde and varied combinations of instruments.
who were intrigued by the machine-oriented culture During the Age of the Masses, jazz began to reach
of the Age of the Masses. As part of the 1920s Euro- larger audiences, in part because of the development of
pean scene, Antheil was led to incorporate industrial the radio and the phonograph. Many jazz greats forged
soundsthe music of the massesinto his composi- their reputations in these years. The fame of the finest
tions. Hence, his Ballet mchanique (Mechanical Ballet) jazz composer, Duke Ellington (born Edward Kennedy
(1924; revised 1952) included scoring for unusual in- Ellington; 18991974), dated from 1927 at Harlems Cot-
struments (electric bells, small wood propeller, large ton Club. Ellingtons songs balanced superb orches-
wood propeller, metal propeller, siren, and sixteen tration with improvisation and ranged from popular
player pianos) as well as more traditional instruments melodies, such as Sophisticated Lady (1932), to ma-
(piano and three xylophones). Antheil claimed this in- jor suites, such as Such Sweet Thunder (1957), based on
corporation of urban and industrial sounds as his goal Shakespeare. Jazzs premier female vocalist, Billie Hol-
in composing this iconoclastic work: It is the rhythm iday (19151959), whose bittersweet style was marked
of machinery, presented as beautifully as an artist by innovative phrasing, also appeared then.
knows how. . . . It is the life, the manufacturing, the Ellingtons Mood Indigo (1930), now a standard
industry of today. in the American songbook, shows him to be a master
The African American composer William Grant of jazz composition. He usually wrote for a fifteen- or
Still (18951978), who was born in the heart of the Old sixteen-piece swing band orchestra, with himself on
South, in Mississippi, also left his mark on this period. piano, creating music marked by syncopation and lush
Still was uniquely positioned to make a major contri- tone color. In Mood Indigo, he used his music ex-
bution to serious music, and he was steeped in Western pressionistically to convey a gentle air of melancholy
musical styles, both traditional and radically avant- hence its title. Introduced with a swelling crescendo
garde, along with jazz idioms. His eclectic style used that builds to a crashing climax, which is then repeated,
traditional Western musical forms infused with ele- this piece unfolds in typical popular song format: re-
ments of jazz and various other forms of black musical frain, verse, refrain. The delicate blend of jauntiness
expression, as well as popular music and orchestration. and sadness invoked by the minor key gives it a haunt-
He wrote ballets, five symphonies, orchestral suites, ing quality, which is heightened by the slow fade to si-
symphonic poems, chamber works, songs, arrange- lence at the end.
ments of spirituals, and operas, including The Troubled Two jazz performers whose careers extended well
Island (1938), with a libretto by Langston Hughes. beyond this period are Louis Armstrong (19011971)
Stills most popular work today is the Afro-American and Ella Fitzgerald (19181996). Armstrong, better
Symphony (1931), the first symphony by a black Ameri- known as Satchmo, became a goodwill ambassador
can to be performed by a major symphony orchestra. for the United States with his loud and relaxed New
Stills symphony, though composed in a Western mu- Orleansstyle trumpet playing. Ella Fitzgerald, a vo-
sical form, draws on elements of the African Ameri- calist noted for her bell-like voice and elegant phras-
can heritage for its themes, rhythmic structures, and ing, became the peerless interpreter of jazz standards
instrumentation. In the symphonys third movement, as well as pop tunes.

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592 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE AGE OF THE MASSES AND THE ZENITH OF MODERNISM

SUMMARY
The material culture of the Age of the Masses was Adding to the periods tensions was the emergence of
marked with calamities: the most destructive wars of America as a cultural force, partly because of the tide
history, the greatest depression since the 1300s, abso- of intellectuals flowing from Europe, partly because of
lute forms of government not seen since the late Ro- Americas growing political, economic, technological,
man Empire, the first modern attempt to eliminate an and military power, and partly because of excellent
entire people, the fully formed industrial-military- native schools of writers, musicians, and artists.
state complex, and a weapon capable of destroying Another prominent feature of the Age of the Masses
the planet. But despite these calamitous events, this was a deeply-ingrained questioning spirit. The early
period also brought a better standard of living to most modernists had pioneered such questioning, but now
people in the West and gave millions of Westerners the revolution in physics seemed to reinforce it. Ein-
their first taste of democracy. steins conclusion that space and time are interchange-
Contradictions also abounded in the arts and hu- able was echoed by artists, writers, and musicians
manities. On the one hand, there was an explosive who focused on form to define content in their work.
growth of worldwide mass culturemovies, newspa- Heisenbergs uncertainty principle seemed to rever-
pers, jazz and the blues, radio, magazines, and sporting berate everywherefrom Wittgensteins toying with
eventswhich began to dominate public and private language to the highly personal narrative voices that
life. On the other hand, most modernist artists, writ- dominated the novel to the constantly shrinking set of
ers, and musicians continued to ignore mass culture basic beliefs that characterized the periods religious
and create works free of its influence. Only a hand- thought and, ultimately, to the widespread belief that
ful of modernistssuch as the painter Daliadopted Western civilization had lost its course.
references from mass culture within their creations.

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


mass culture existentialism Dada twelve-tone scale
stream of consciousness suprematism surrealism neoclassicism
epic theater constructivism international style fortississimo
photomontage socialist realism montage swing band
logical positivism de Stijl serial music

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KEY CULTURAL TERMS 593

The Legacy of the Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism
We still live in the Age of the Masses and high modern- entrenched pharmaceutical industry. The Age of the
ism. Or, as the novelist William Faulkner wrote at the Masses catapulted America onto the world stage, a po-
time, The past is never dead. Its not even past. The sition savored ever since by Americans of every sort.
few modernist voices who refused to become adversar- Today, many would-be prophets predict the end of
ies of mass culture are now viewed as prophets, pre- Americas world leadership rolefor example, Why the
paring the way for blending elitist high culture with West RulesFor Now (1910), by the British historian Ian
popular entertainment; two examples are the category- Morris. In effect, the questioning mood of high mod-
defying music of the Argentinian-American Osvaldo ernism has become todays new normal, replacing the
Golijov (b. 1960) and the graphic novels of the Iranian- certainty of previous centuries.
French Marjane Satrapi (b. 1969). In the political realm,
this age left two enduring legacies: the Indian leader
Gandhis technique of nonviolence, which later in-
spired Martin Luther King Jr. and civil disobedience
movements everywhere; and nationalism, which was
a guiding force behind the 2011 Arab Spring upris-
ings across the Middle East. Filmboth as an art form
and as moviesremains the single greatest legacy of
mass culture. And inventive wizardrysuch as three-
dimensional filmsconstantly pushes the limits of
the art. Photography is also a legitimate art form, as
reflected in the collections of the worlds major muse-
ums and, online, in virtual museums (The American
Museum of Photography, www.photography.museum
.com). Some artists incorporate photography into their
art; for example, the American Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum. Computer-generated image. The French
infuses her unclassifiable pieces with the atmosphere architect Jean Nouvel (b. 1945)seated, in the photographdesigned
of old photographs. In the sciences, advances in medi- the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum. Nouvel received the prestigious Pritzker
cine, along with new pharmaceuticals, are almost a Prize in 2008. This image of the planned museumscheduled to open in
the capital city of the United Arab Emirates in 2013shows the expansion
daily feature of the 24-hour news cycle. These advances of modernism into the heart of the Islamic Middle East. Nouvel adapted
have extended life spans in the industrialized world, elements of Arabic style into his design, and the museums founding
but they have also spawned two seemingly intractable document defines its mission as respecting the dignity of all cultures
issues: spiraling health-care costs and a politically thus, this venture reflects todays emerging global culture.

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INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF ARCHITECTS, WALLACE K. H ARRISON, CHAIRMAN; OSCAR NIEMEYER;
LE CORBUSIER. United Nations Headquarters. 19491951. New York City. The decision to
locate the United Nations Headquarters in New york City made that city the unofficial capital
of the free worlda term that was applied to the United States and its allies during the cold
war. And the choice of a glass box skyscraper for the United Nations Secretariat building
S helped to ensure that the international style would be the reigning style of architecture in the
N postwar period, until about 1970.
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The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism
22
19451970

Preview Questions The United Nations Headquarters,finished in 1951, is em-


1. Why is this period blematic of the euphoric mood of the postwar years. When World War II
called the Age of ended, hopes were running high that the United Nations would succeed
Anxiety? in keeping world peaceunlike the old League of Nations. The buildings
2. What events reshaped glass box design is doubly fitting: the stark appearance gives no hint as
the West and the world
to national origin and the style is late modern. New York Citythe build-
between 1945 and 1970?
ings sitesignaled that the United States was a world power. And the
3. What is late
modernism, who New York art scene, still hosting many refugee artists and thinkers from
are its leaders, and war-ravaged Europe, was the worlds art capital.
what are their major The Wests euphoric mood soon faded, as the new reality set in. The
contributions
both in the arts and worlds only superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became
humanities and in the locked in a cold war struggle. Fear that cold war between the superpowers
wider culture? would turn into nuclear war had a pervasive effect on attitudes and events
4. How did the U.S.s after 1945 and led to an arms race. Most industrialized nations chose sides,
superpower status
dividing the world between a democratic American bloc and a collectivist
impact the Age of
Anxiety? Soviet bloc. The arms race led to uncontrolled military spending at the ex-
pense of domestic programs. For many Westerners, anxiety about nuclear
war produced moods of absurdity, futility, and despair.
Against the backdrop of these harsh realities, late modernism was born.
Change was in the air on many fronts, including the re-booting of femi-
nism, the black consciousness movement, the decolonization of the third
world, the founding of the Jewish state of Israel, the invention of the birth
control pill, and the development of a cure for polio. Existentialismwith
its teaching that one live in the presentbecame the ages trademark phi-
losophy. For artists, writers, and intellectuals, a paradoxical truth now
rang true: whats new today will be old hat tomorrow. Hence, a sense of ur-
gency coursed through the ages culture. Rival schools of cultural expres-
sion jostled and bickered. Experimentation remained a central strategy,
with successive styles and trendsfor example, in the arts, the sequence
ran from abstract expressionism to pop art to op art.
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596 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

TRANSFORMATIONS ing countries for large-scale building projects, and


the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which fosters
IN THE POSTWAR WORLD international monetary cooperation, encourages the
The end of World War II brought the cold war expansion of international trade, and attempts to sta-
periodan era of political and military rivalry, bilize exchange rates. However, the Soviet Union re-
international tensions, and conflicting ideolo- fused to participate in these economic arrangements
gies. World relations were governed by a bipolar bal- (Timeline 22.1).
ance of power between the United States and the In 1945 the Allies split Germany into four occupied
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Amer- zones. In 1949 Great Britain, France, and the United
ican bloc included the United States, most of Western States united their zones into the Federal Republic
Europe, Great Britain and the British Commonwealth, of Germany (West Germany), and the USSR set up
and their former enemies Japan, West Germany, and its zone as the German Democratic Republic (East
Italy. The Soviet bloc embraced virtually all of Eastern Germany). By 1969 West Germany, led by moderates
Europe and, after 1949, when the Communists took devoted to capitalism, had become Europes chief in-
power, China. dustrial power, and East Germany, under a collectivist
The cold war escalated for two main reasons. regime, lagged far behind.
First, the superpowers extended their confronta- In Japan the American victors imposed a
tions to the third worlddeveloping countries democratic constitution that kept the emperor as
in Africa (except South Africa), Asia (except Japan and a figurehead; introduced parliamentary govern-
parts of Southeast Asia), and Latin Americarushing ment; gave the vote to women, workers, and farmers;
in to influence events as the Wests colonial empires and virtually eliminated the military. Between 1950
fell and were replaced by struggling independent and 1973, Japans gross domestic product grew more
states. Second, ballistic missiles capable of hurtling than 10 percent a year on average, surpassing that of
nuclear weapons across intercontinental distances any other industrialized nation.
raised the possibility of sudden strikes and mass de- By the early 1950s, both Great Britain and France
struction without warning. were enjoying moderate economic growth, although
By the 1970s, the world seemed balanced between each was beset by endemic labor unrest. Left-wing
the two superpowers and their respective blocs; and governments in both countries nationalized major
the cold war, with its threat of nuclear annihilation of industries and founded national health-care systems,
the human race, loomed over the foreseeable future. although conservatives periodically returned some
businesses to private hands.
France and West Germany recognized that the era
The Era of the Superpowers, 19451970 of the small state was over and it was necessary to co-
With Germany and Japan defeated, the ideological dif- operate to ensure economic stability. In 1957 they initi-
ferences between the USSR and the Western nations ated a free-trade zone that also included Belgium, the
came to shape the postwar world. For the American Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy. Called the Euro-
bloc, democracy was the rule, social welfare was slowly pean Economic Community, or the Common Market,
expanded, and the economies were booming. For the this organization became the driving force in Europes
Soviet bloc, collectivist regimes prevailed, social wel- prosperity over the next decade.
fare was comprehensive, and the economies either Another reason for the formation of the Common
stagnated or grew slowly. Market was that the USSR threatened to dominate
Europe. After World War II, Soviet troops occupied
Postwar Recovery and the New World Order neighboring countries in Eastern Europe, ostensibly to
The chief Allied forcesthe United States, Great provide a military shield for the USSR. By 1948 the So-
Britain, and the Soviet Unionbegan to plan for viets had converted these countries into Communist
the postwar era before World War II ended. They satellites, their industrial and agricultural systems tied
agreed to occupy Germany and Japan, giving those to the Soviet economy.
nations representative forms of government and dras- Joseph Stalin, the architect of the Soviet Unions rise
tically curbing their military systems. They joined to superpower status, saw that the Wests market econ-
with forty-eight other countries in 1945 to found the omy and ideas of freedom posed a threat to the col-
United Nations, a peacekeeping and human rights lectivist system. Thus, he imposed extreme sacrifices
organization dealing with international disputes (see on the Soviet citizenry to bring their war-shattered
chapter-opening photo). They also prepared for world- economy up to the level of that of the advanced indus-
wide economic recovery by establishing several trans- trialized countries. After Stalins death in 1953, his suc-
S national organizations, such as the World Bank, which cessors were less brutal but they continued the policies
N provides funds and technical assistance to develop- of censorship and political repression.
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Timeline 22.1 CULTURAL STYLES, 19451970

LATE MODERNISM
1945 1952 1960 1970

Abstract Expressionism

Socialist Realism

Pop Art

Op Art

Neoorthodox Theology

Minimalism in Art

Happenings

International Style Architecture

Neorealism in Film

Theater of the Absurd

New Wave Film

Serial Music

Existentialism: Atheistic and Christian

1945 1960 1967 1970


1953
Two atomic OPEC Lvi-Strauss,
Miller, 1956
bombs dropped founded Elementary
1949 The The Pill
on Japan by U.S.; Structures
East Germany Crucible introduced;
World War II of Kinship;
ends; United and West Osborne, Look Garca Mrquez,
Nations Germany become Back in Anger One Hundred
founded independent states; Years of Solitude
NATO founded;
Peoples Republic 1954 1968
begins in China; 19621965 Martin Luther
Brown Vatican II
de Beauvoir, v. Board of King Jr. and
The Second Sex Education Robert Kennedy
1947 1957 assassinated
Williams, 19501953 Founding of
A Streetcar Named Desire Korean War the Common Early 1960s1973 1969
Market Vietnam War The first moon
1948
Soviet satellite system walk
in Eastern Europe set up; 1955
Israel founded; the birth of the Warsaw Pact
transistor founded

The United States emerged as the leader of the free liefs, the United States justified an activist foreign pol-
world in 1945, claiming to have earned this status icy, and between 1945 and 1970 it was probably the
because of crucial contributions to Allied victory. It wealthiest and most powerful nation-state that ever
believed that the war had been a moral crusade for hu- existed.
man freedom and that it now had to protect the rights During the 1950s American domestic life was char- S
of people around the globe. On the basis of these be- acterized by complacency and blandness, but the 1960s N
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Learning Through Maps
MAP 22.1 EUROPE IN 1955
This map shows Europe at the height of the
cold war.1. Notice the division of Europe
ICELAND
between NATO and the Communist bloc.
2. Which countries were not members of
0 500 mi either alliance? 3. Which countries would
most likely be battlegrounds if war occurred
0 500 1000 km between the two power blocs? 4. Notice also
the division between East Germany and West
FINLAND Germany. 5. Observe the westward expansion
NORWAY of the Soviet Union in this map, as compared
with the smaller Soviet Union on Map 21.1,
SWEDEN Europe after World War I.
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
North

ea
Sea

cS
DENMARK

i
alt
IRELAND UNITED B
KINGDOM SOVIET
UNION
NETHERLANDS

EAST POLAND
BELGIUM GERMANY

WEST CZECH
LUXEMBOURG OSL
GERMANY OVA
KIA

FRANCE
AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
SWITZERLAND
ITALY YU RUMANIA
GO
SL
AV
L
GA

IA
Black
TU

SPAIN BULGARIA
Sea
POR

ALBANIA

TURKEY
GREECE

Original NATO alliance


ALGERIA
Communist bloc Mediterranean
(members of Warsaw Pact) Sea

MHS63 666
mat76620_m2101.eps
First proof

proved to be a turbulent decade around the world, of in education, living conditions, and voting rights
which the American experience was only a part. In for black Americans. In 1968 the civil rights struggle
that decade, millions of people protested against the temporarily lost direction and momentum when its
Vietnam War and racism and questioned the old ways leader, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated, but
of thinking. Hippies cultivated a bohemian lifestyle a new generation soon arose in Americas black com-
and contributed to the emergence of a counterculture munity to confront racism.
that rejected mainstream values and traditions.
Racial prejudice was the most pressing domestic The Cold War Hope for peace and cooperation
problem in the United States after World War II be- among the victorious powers disappeared after 1945
cause it was so embedded in the nations history. In as the USSR and the United States defined their re-
1954 the Supreme Court declared segregation in pub- spective spheres of influence. By 1949 an iron cur-
lic schools unconstitutional. The next year, Rosa Parks tain had descended in Europe, dividing the West
(19132005), a black Alabaman, refused to move to from the East (Map 22.1). In 1949 fear of a Soviet inva-
the back of a bus as required by state law and was sion led the Western democracies to form a military
jailed. The social protests following her arrest were alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
a turning point in American race relations. Reject- (NATO) with the United States as its leader. The East-
ing a historically passive role, black citizens began to ern bloc countered with the Warsaw Pact (1955), an al-
use the tactics of civil disobedience to win their equal liance led by the Soviet Union. By 1955 a balance of
rights. However, the civil rights movement did not terror seemed to have been reached because both the
S spread across the nation until the 1960s. After some United States and the USSR possessed enough bombs
N stalling, the federal government instigated changes and missiles to destroy each other.
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TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE POSTWAR WORLD 599

The East-West contest spread to other regions


of the world. In 1949 Chinese Communists de-
feated the ruling Kuomintang Party and com-
menced to build a socialist system under Mao Zedong
[MAU (D)ZE-DUHNG] (r. 19491976). The confronta-
tion between the superpowers now shifted to the Far
East, with a war between North and South Korea.
Alarmed at the possible expansion of communism, the
United States, supported by the United Nations, sent
troops in support of the South Koreans. China then
dispatched its soldiers to aid the North Koreans. A
stalemate resulted, followed by an armistice in 1953,
which guaranteed the borders between the two coun-
tries. From this conflict came two guiding principles of
the nuclear age: (1) proxy wars between surrogate al-
lies could replace actual hostilities between the super
powers, and (2) wars could be fought with conventional
weapons rather than with nuclear arms. In 1961 cold
war tensions were heightened and refocused on Eu-
rope when the East Germans built the Berlin Wall to
prevent its citizens from fleeing to West Berlin. Con-
ceived as a way to save communism, the wall came to
symbolize the divisions between Western and Eastern
Figure 22.1 The Brandenburg Gate. More than 3.5 million refugees
Europe (Figure 22.1). But the severest strain on the migrated to West Germany from the German Democratic Republic, or
super power system was the Vietnam War, which East Germany, between 1945 and 1961. In August 1961, East Germany
erupted in the early 1960s. Originating as a civil war, it constructed a wall of concrete and cinder blocks, reinforced with steel
became a cold war contest when the United States girders, and barbed wire strung on top that snaked through the city.
From 1961 to 1989, the Berlin Wall stood as the dividing line between
joined South Vietnam to repel Communist invaders
Communism and Western democracy. The Brandenburg Gate, in the
from the north. For American soldiers, the war was background, is one of Berlins historic landmarks.
difficult because it was fought in unfamiliar jungle
terrain against a guerrilla army and because it became
so unpopular at home. Protests against the war culmi- Britain agreed to divide India into a Hindu-dominated
nated in confrontations at universities in Ohio and stateIndiaand a separate Muslim statePakistan.
Mississippi, leaving six students killed in clashes with The Dutch gave up the East Indies, which in 1950 be-
public authorities. came Indonesia. France tried to retain Indochina but
The Vietnam War proved to be a turning point in in 1954 was driven out, and the former colony was di-
the cold war. The United States withdrew from South vided into North and South Vietnam. In Africa, nearly
Vietnam in 1973, thereby allowing its conquest by all colonies became free, although through often pain-
North Vietnam in 1975. Two conclusions were drawn ful and costly transitions. In the 1960s, France con-
from the war: (1) Americas superpower status was cluded a bloody war in Algeria, relinquishing it and
cast into doubt, and its leaders became reluctant to ex- most of its West African colonies. The British withdrew
ercise military power; and (2) superpowers could not gradually from East Africa, leaving behind bureaucra-
defeat small states by means of conventional warfare. cies that could serve the new states (Figure 22.2). In
Taken together, these post-Vietnam lessons suggested southern Africa, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980,
that the international influence of the United States achieving independence from Great Britain and gain-
was in decline, and that opened the door to global co- ing black majority rule.
operation in the 1970s. One of the consequences of the emergence of the
third world was the so-called North-South divide. Re-
lationships between industrialized countries, which
Global Encounter: Emergence of the have been generally north of the equator, and develop-
Third World Outside of the Middle East ing third world countries, many located south of the
After 1945 Europes overseas territories began their equator, became at this time a major issue in interna-
struggles for freedom, and by 1964 most of the colo- tional politics. The newly independent but still devel-
nial holdings had been transformed into independent oping countries quickly found themselves at a serious
countriesa process called decolonization. In 1946 the economic disadvantage. In 1964 the United Nations S
United States let go of the Philippines. In 1947 Great held a conference to promote international trade to aid N
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600 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE AGE OF ANxIETY AND LATE MODERNISM

Figure 22.2 Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II


and Kwame Nkrumah, Accra, Ghana. 1961.
In 1957 Ghana was the first of Britains African
colonies to gain independence. In 1961 Queen
Elizabeth visited the new nation. Five years
later, its leader, Nkrumah (r. 19571966), was
overthrown by the army. The towering size of
the double portraits suggests that Nkrumah
was under the spell of the cult of personality
the deliberate creation, using mass media
techniques, of hero worship of a countrys
leader by the people.

developing countries. Some progress was made in Postwar Libya remained in Allied hands until 1951,
narrowing the North-South divide, but the gap has when a monarchy was established. In 1969 the king was
been slow to close. overthrown by Islamic army officers led by Colonel
Muammar Qaddafi (r. 1969-2011). A year later, Qaddafi
staged a coup and made Libya a socialist state. In Al-
geria the people waged a bloody war against France
(19541962), resulting in an independent Algeria. In
The West and Islam: 1965 Colonel Hourai Boumedienne (r. 1965-1976) seized
The Middle East and Israel power and set up a left-wing regime.
In the immediate postwar years a revolt against Iran was controlled by Allied troops until 1946.
Western imperialism swept across Asia, the Middle Earlier, in 1941, the shahwith a push from the
East, and Africa. The United States and the USSR Allieswas replaced by his son, Muhammad Reza
wooed the emerging third world nations. Saudi Ara- Shah Pahlavi (r. 19411979). Ruling as an autocrat, Mu-
bia, Iran, Iraq, and other Middle East countries ex- hammad Reza forced through many Western-style re-
panded their influence as an industrialized global forms. Iran became much more secular and rich due to
economy consumed more and more of their oil. The its oil reserves and agreements with Western oil cor-
creation of the state of Israel in 1948 further intensified porations. Disgruntled Islamic leaders started a move-
these volatile changes. ment to overthrow the shah and establish an Islamic
After World War II, Great Britain reasserted its state. In Iraq, the British presence was strong, having
power in the Middle East. Its plans for Egypt were been there since the 1920s. After a power struggle
foiled in 1952, when King Farouk (r. 19361952) was from 1958 to 1968, the Baathist party took control. The
ousted by a group of army officers, led by Colonel Baathists were Pan-Arab, socialist, and opposed to non-
Gamal Abdul Nasser (r. 19541970). In 1956 Nasser Arab influence. The Baathist regime began to modern-
took control of the government and, with Soviet aid, ize the economy and create social programs, financed
launched the Aswan Dam projectcritical for Egypts from oil revenues.
industrialization. The USSR, with its Communist During the rise of these Middle Eastern states, a
agenda, now had a foothold in the Islamic Middle East. basic question was What was the best path for mod-
In 1956 Nasser seized the Suez Canal and nationalized ernizing society yet maintaining the beliefs of Islam?
it. His bold act triggered a British and French invasion, Supporters of Islam believed that their faith should de-
backed by Israel, which set off the Suez Crisis. When termine what was best. And Western-trained elites
the United States refused to support the assault, the civil servants, army officers, and intellectualswere
British and French quickly withdrew. Although Egypt convinced that Western knowledge and values were the
later suffered a defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, most capable of initiating reforms. At first, the Western-
S Nasser was seen as a Pan-Arab leader, social reformer, leaning secularists were in charge. But as their pro-
N and deft player in the cold war. grams faltered or as their support for either the West
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THE END OF MODERNISM 601

or the Soviet bloc made them puppets on the interna- determined to destroy the Jewish state. Earlier, in 1964,
tional stage, the Islamist opposition grew. animosity toward Israel was being channeled into the
Between 1945 and 1970, the Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)a military
(see Chapter 21) was the most strident voice of Islam. and political body composed of various Palestinian
In 1954 it called for a new Islamic political and social Arab groups sworn to win back their lands.
order based on the Quran and sharia (law). In Egypt,
under Nasser, its members were persecuted and
its chief spokemanSayyid Qutb [si-YID KU-tahb]
(19061966)was killed. Qutb, the father of modern Is- Mass Culture In the postwar era, American mass
lamic terrorism, wrote In the Shade of the Quran (thirty culture began to serve as the common denominator of
volumes, starting in 1954) and Milestones (1964). He an emerging world civilization. With its democratic and
called for a jihad, an armed struggle against Infidels energetic qualities, sexual content, and commitment to
(the West) and secular Muslim regimes. In this strug- free expression, American mass culture attracted peo-
gle, the Near Enemy (secular, pro-Western rulers) and ple around the globe. Scenes of American life, conveyed
the Far Enemy (the United States and its allies) would through television, movies, and advertising, mesmer-
have to be destroyed. After expelling the Infidels, this ized millions, who imitated these images. The popular-
jihad would have to purify its homelands, kill the Far ity of American clothing, food, and music now began
Enemies, and found a new Islamic empire or caliphate to influence lifestyles across the free world as well as
based on the past. in the Soviet bloc, the third world, and the Middle East.
These events were overshadowed by the found- The rise of a worldwide mass culture produced an in-
ing of Israel, which became the focal point of Middle satiable demand for popular entertainment, along with
East tensions. During World War II Jews immigrated a fascination with celebrities. Of the media when the
to Palestine, then under British control. These Jews period began, movies were best positioned to address
were inspired by Zionism, a movement, dating from this demand. American movies transformed many ac-
the 1890s, that was dedicated to the creation of a Jew- tors and entertainers into iconic presences around the
ish homeland. After the war, American Zionists and world, for example, Elvis Presley (19351977) (see Fig-
European leadersthe Holocaust staring them in the ure 22.12). New forms of amusements, such as watching
facedemanded an independent Jewish state. The television, carrying transistor radios, listening to record
British, unable to solve the Palestine problem, with- albums, and attending rock concerts, grew with the
drew their forces in spring of 1948. Within weeks, the birth of new media. Contributing to this push for new
state of Israel was proclaimed. Within days war broke types of entertainment was the abrupt shift in musical
out between Israel and the Arab League (Egypt, Iraq, taste that occurred in the United States in the 1950s.
Transjordan [later Jordan], Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Syria, and Yemen). Israel won the war in 1949. Thus
Palestine, as a political entity, ceased to exist. The land THE END OF MODERNISM
of the former state was divided among Israel, Egypt, In 1947 the British-American author W. H. Auden
and Jordan. The division led to the flight of Palestin- (19071973) published a poem titled The Age of Anxi-
ians from their homeland, creating a refugee problem ety, which expressed the melancholy spirit of his
that soon became a contentious issue. times. Responding to the unparalleled violence of
The new state of Israel welcomed thousands of im- World War II, Audens anxious age was haunted by
migrants from Europe, Communist countries, and death and destruction, fueled by memories of the Ho-
Arab states. With U.S. and European aid, Israel be- locaust in Europe and the two atomic bombs dropped
came the most industrialized country in the Middle on Japan. While relations between the Soviet Union
East. At first, Israel remained neutral in the cold war. and the United States deteriorated and World War III
But, as anti-Semitism grew in the USSR, it moved into seemed inevitable, melancholy could and often did
the Western orbit with the United States as its most turn into despair. In this gloomy setting, modernism
staunch ally. In the Suez Crisis (1956), the Israelis, entered its final phase.
joining the British and the French, were once again at Late modernism, flourishing from 1945 until 1970,
war with the Arab world. Tensions mounted between expressed the vision of a group of artists, writers, and
Israel and its neighbors. Confronted by Egypt, Syria, thinkers who seemed overwhelmed by this despairing
and Jordan and a coalition of Arab states, Israel won a age. Existentialismwith its advice to forget the past
quick and decisive victory (the Six Day War, in 1967). and the future and to live passionately for the present
Israel expanded its lands southward toward Egypt appeared to be the only philosophy that made sense.
and to the north and east, thus strengthening its de- Paradoxically, diminished faith in humanity kept the
fenses and opening up new settlements for its citizens. modernists at their creative tasks and prevented them S
The war angered Israels enemies, making them more from falling into hopeless silence. N
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602 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Like earlier modernists, late modernists thought At the heart of Tillichs thought is his notion of
of themselves as an elite. They were committed to God. He begins where the German philosopher Nietz
saving what they considered worthwhile in Western sche ends, with the death of God (see Chapter 20).
culture while destroying all that was irrelevant, ignor- However, for Tillich, the God who has died is the per-
ing mass culture, and borrowing insights from depth sonal deity of liberal Christianityan idea that led
psychologythe psychoanalytical study of the rela- some critics to accuse him of agnosticism or atheism.
tionship between the conscious and the unconscious But Tillich insists that the authentic God exists: this
mindand non-Western sources. Armed with this infinite being is the God behind God, the ground
sense of mission, they stripped their works down to of all beingthat is, the source for all existence and
the most basic components, abandoning strict rational- meaning in life.
ity and making randomness the rule. They cast aside Tillich thought of himself as a boundary man,
subject matter and pressed experimentation to the ex- who stood on the threshold of two eras, when one way
treme, reducing painting to lines and colors, sculpture of life was dying and a new one was being bornan
to textures and shapes, and music to random collec- observation that summed up the Age of Anxiety for
tions of sound. Like earlier modernists, they invested many religious seekers. Catholics, Protestants, and ex-
their works with spiritual or metaphysical meaning istentialists, both atheistic and Christian, eagerly read
by claiming that abstract paintings and sculptures are his difficult works. Atheistic existentialists, while de-
meditation devices and that music that mixes noise nying Gods existence, accepted Tillichs description of
and harmony echoes the natural world. the human condition as hopeless without God. Chris-
tian existentialists embraced his description of the
gulf separating humans from the God behind God
Philosophy and Religion and made a leap of faith to embrace the full panoply
Existentialism, born between the two world wars, of orthodox Christian beliefs.
dominated Western thought in the immediate post- Two other major religious thinkers also attracted
war period. Two French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and a wide-ranging audience: the Frenchman Jesuit Teil-
Albert Camus, were the leading voices of atheistic ex- hard de Chardin [tah-yahr duh shahrdan] (18811955)
istentialism, who expressed their ideas through their and the German-Jewish religious philosopher Martin
novels and plays (see the section The Literature of Buber (18781965). Teilhard, a geologist and paleontol-
Late Modernism). Theistic, or god-based, existential- ogist, blended science and religion in The Phenomenon
ism, also flourished, as a part of the religious thought of Man (1955), which set forth a Christianized view of
of the times. evolution. For Teilhard, history is an evolutionary pro-
Postwar religious thought was dominated by neo cess with moral advances occurring at certain stages,
orthodoxy, which had been founded by the Swiss such as the moment of Jesuss Incarnation, and the
Protestant thinker Karl Barth (18861968) after World entire process is moving toward spiritual wholeness,
War I. Claiming God is beyond human reason, Barth when Jesus will return to earththe Second Coming
urged a return to traditional, or orthodox, Christian to inaugurate the last stage of human redemption. Fear-
beliefs, such as original sin, the Trinity, the Resur ing controversy, Teilhards most significant works were
rection, and even the Virgin Birth, and rejected the published after his death. In 1962 the Vatican warned
human-centered religion of liberal Protestantism, with believers against uncritical acceptance of his ideas.
its reliance on reason, which had been in ascendance Martin Buber was a commanding figure in the
since the late 1800s (see Chapter 20). Barth stressed the new state of Israel, having fled from Nazi Germany
gulf between wholly other God and lowly human- in 1938. Shortly after arriving, he was appointed pro-
ity, a gulf only God could bridge. fessor of social philosophy at Hebrew University. His
After 1945 and following Barths lead, neoorthodoxy best-known work, I and Thou, though first published
prospered in Western religious circles, specifically in in 1923, was among the late modern periods top re-
the writings of the German-born American Protestant ligious best sellers. In this work, Buber described the
Paul Tillich [TIL-ik] (18861965). Tillichs liberal Chris- universe as comprising a three-tiered moral hierar-
tian faith was shattered during World War I, while chy: God, the Eternal Thou; the human, the I; and the
he served as a chaplain in the German army, and he rest of the world, the Itwith the Eternal Thou mak-
fled Germany to the United States in 1933, after the ing possible all human relationships. The ideal rela-
Nazis barred him from university teaching. Once in tion is that of I-Thou, between a human and God, a
the United States, Tillich taught at prestigious divinity tie characterized by openness, mutuality, directness,
schools and eventually completed Systematic Theology and trust. He urged that all human-to-human rela-
(19511963), a three-volume work that explores link- tions be of the I-Thou type, to the fullest extent pos-
S ages between culture and Christianity. sible. The most problematic relation is that of I-It. A
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THE END OF MODERNISM 603

necessary evil when practiced between humans and scientific study of languages. He argues that below the
the animal, plant, and natural worlds, the I-It rela- surface form of sentences (that is, the grammar) lies a
tionship becomes morally wrong when used between deeper linguistic structure that is intuitively grasped
humans, as it turns other people into objects for ones by the mind and is common to all languages. Similarly,
own advantage. Lvi-Strauss made war on empirical thinking with his
One remarkable milestone, with wide-ranging impli- 1967 study, The Elementary Structures of Kinship. He
cations for religious culture, occurred under late mod- claimed that beneath the varied relations among clans
ernism: reform of the Roman Catholic Church, initiated in different societies exist certain kinship archetypes
by Pope John XXIII (pope 19581963) and carried out by with such common themes as the incest taboo and
the Second Vatican Council (19621965), better known marriage patterns. Chomsky and Lvi-Strauss imply
as Vatican II. Vatican II made dramatic changes within that common universal structures run through all
the church and the Catholic community, such as intro- minds and all societies and can be expressed as a gen-
ducing vernacular language into the Mass, abolishing eral code. This conclusion gives a pronounced psycho-
various dietary restrictions, and allowing greater lay analytic cast to structuralist thought, because it leads
participation in religious services. Even more dramatic researchers to focus on the subconscious mind.
changes were made in the churchs views toward non- The revival of feminist thought was another sig-
members: Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christians nificant development after World War II. The French
were now no longer termed heretics but were regarded thinker and novelist Simone de Beauvoir [duh boh-
as brothers and sisters in Christ; friendly overtures VWAHR] (19081986) sparked this revival with her
were made to the Jews along with expressions of re- 1949 treatise, The Second Sex, in which she argued that
gret for the churchs past anti-Semitism; other world women are treated by men as the Other, an anthro-
religions were addressed with praise for their spiritual pological term meaning a person or group accorded
quests; and peoples, everywhere, were assured of the a different and lower existence. Drawing on personal
churchs repudiation of coercion in matters of faith. anecdote and existentialist thought, de Beauvoir ad-
With its reforms, Vatican II became the most significant vised women who want independence to avoid mar-
church council since the Council of Trent in the six- riage and, like men, create their own immortality
teenth century (see Chapter 14). (Figure 22.3).
De Beauvoirs message was heard around the world,
especially in the United States. Americas best-known
Political and Social Movements feminist in the 1960s was Betty Friedan (19212006).
In the 1960s, political and social movements, notably She awakened the dormant womens movement with
structuralism, feminism, and black consciousness, The Feminine Mystique (1963), arguing that society con-
eclipsed existentialism. Unlike existentialism, with its spired to idealize women and thus discourage them
focus on freedom and choice, structuralism affirms from competing with men. In 1966 Friedan founded
the universality of the human mind in all places and the National Organization for Women (NOW), an ad-
times; thus, human freedom is limited. Structuralists vocacy group that has attracted millions of members.
maintain that innate mental patterns cause human be- According to its founding manifesto, NOW supports
ings to interact with nature and one another in consis- womens equal partnership with men and is com-
tent and recurring ways, regardless of the historical mitted to integrating women into the power, privi-
period or the social setting. It follows that civilization leges, and responsibilities of the public arena.
(as represented in governments, social relations, and Like feminism, the black consciousness movement
language) and ideas (e.g., freedom, health, and beauty) grew after 1945 (Figure 22.4). An early theorist of black
arise from deep-seated modes of thought instead of identity was Frantz Fanon [fah-NOHN] (19251961), a
from the environment or progressive enlightenment. psychiatrist from French Martinique who practiced
Structuralists reason not only that all knowledge is medicine among the Arabs of Algeria. An eyewitness
conditioned by the mind but also that civilization it- to French colonialism, Fanon became convinced that
self reflects the minds inborn nature. By defining and the West had doomed itself by abandoning its own
analyzing the levels of culture, they attempt to garner moral ideals. By the late 1950s, Fanon began to jus-
some understanding of the elemental nature of the hu- tify black revolution against white society on the ba-
man mind. sis of existential choice and Marxism. In 1961, in The
The two leading structuralists are Noam Chomsky Wretched of the Earth, he issued an angry call to arms,
[CHAHM-skee] (b. 1928), an American linguist, and urging nonwhites to build a separate culture. Some
Claude Lvi-Strauss [lay-vee-STRAUS] (19082009), black leaders in America welcomed Fanons message
a French anthropologist. Chomskys Syntactic Struc- in the 1960s, as did third world thinkers who rejected
tures (1957) prompted a revolution in linguistics, the Western ideologies in the 1970s. S
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604 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

America in the 1960s produced a radical black voice


in Malcolm X (19251965), the pseudonym of Malcolm
Little. He made sharp ideological shifts, moving from
advocacy of black separatism to a call for an interracial
civil war and, after his conversion to orthodox Islam,
Figure 22.3 JuDY ChIcAGo. The Dinner Party. 1979. Installation view. to support of racial harmony. He remains a prophetic
Multimedia, china painting on porcelain, needlework, 48 48 48 voice for many African Americans who want a clearer
installed. The rebirth of feminism led some women artists to adopt
sense of their history, culture, and accomplishments in
explicit feminist themes in their art, as in the works of Judy Chicago (born
Gerowitz, 1939). Chicago abandoned abstract expressionism in the late a predominantly white society.
1960s, at about the same time she changed her name, thereafter devoting In the turbulent 1960s, Malcolm Xs voice was over-
her art to the feminist cause. The Dinner Party, her most ambitious project powered by that of Martin Luther King Jr. (19291968),
to date, is dedicated to leading historical and mythological women of a visionary who dreamed of a world free from racial
Western civilization. In this work, she arranges a triangular-shaped dining
discord. Probably the most famous black figure in
table with thirty-nine places decorated in individual styles, honoring such
famous women as Sappho and Sojourner Truth (inset; see also Chapter 19). Western history, King advocated civil disobedience
S based on Christian teachings, the writings of the
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THE END OF MODERNISM 605

Figure 22.4 Romare Bearden. The Dove. 1964. Cut-and-pasted paper, gouache, pencil and
colored pencil on cardboard, 133/8 18 3/4. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Romare Bearden
(19141988), the United States most honored postWorld War II black painter, blended modernism with
elements from his cultural heritage. In the 1960s, he developed a style reminiscent of cubism, which employed
collage and flattened, angular figures to produce twenty collages that he labeled projectionsenlarged
images made through a photographic process, photostat, which was popular from the 1950s to the 1980s. In
The Dove, Bearden has created a Harlem scene, with a dove perched above the comings and goings of people
on a busy street along with idlers, who peer out of the window or smoke cigarettes. Beardens collage, made
from photographs, newspaper clippings, and colored paper, all pasted together, was inspired by personal
historyhis life in North Carolina and New York, his love of jazz, and his artistic training.

philosopher and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau, and immediately. The lives of millions around the
and the example of Indias liberator, Gandhi. An inspi- world were irretrievably altered by the inventions com-
rational leader and a superb orator, King galvanized ing out of laboratories and research centers and by the
blacks, along with many whites, into the Southern scientific by-products of World War II and the cold war.
Christian Leadership Conference, organized by min-
isters to end segregation in American life, notably in Late 1940s: the transistor, a semiconductor for
schools and universities. Though Kings dream of an controlling electronic impulses, which gave birth
integrated society lives on, the civil rights movement to improved hearing aids and pocket radios.
took many directions after his assassination. Mass-produced transistor radios, miniaturized
and portable, ushered in the information age,
starting in the 1960s.
Science and Technology The 1950s: first commercial nuclear power sta-
Although important theories were developed in biol- tions; used to generate electrical power. By 1970,
ogy and physics during this period, spectacular ad- forty-two plants were producing about 4.5 per-
vances in applied science affected people more directly cent of the United States electricity. As the most S
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606 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE AGE OF ANxIETY AND LATE MODERNISM

promising alternative to fossil fuels, commercial beyond that axis occasionally broke through and were
nuclear power programs were established by heard. African American writers continued to make
many Western nations. their presence felt on the international stage. The avant-
In 1957 the USSR launched the first globe-circling garde was still very much alive, as writers pushed the
satellite, Sputnik, thus sparking a space race be- boundaries of literary art. There also emerged new
tween the superpowers. In 1958 the United States schools of writing and theater, based on rival theories,
countered with its first space satellite, Explorer. seeking to connect with audiences. The works of many
In 1961 the Soviet Union sent the cosmonaut Yury of these writers are now lauded as classics.
Gagarin (19341968) around the earth. President
John Kennedy (in office 19611963) promised Fiction The Frenchmen Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert
that the United States would have a man on the Camus were late modernisms leading thinkers. Sar-
moon before the end of the sixties. In 1962 the tres trio of novels called Roads to Freedom, published
U.S. put John Glenn (b. 1921) into orbit, and, in between 1945 and 1950, interwove Marxist collectivist
July 1969, two astronauts walked on the moons beliefs with existentialisms focus on the individual.
surface (see Slice of Life). Accepting the existentialist view that life is cruel and
must be confronted, he portrayed his characters as
The moon walk, which climaxed the space race be- cooperating for a new and better world, presumably
tween the USSR and the United States, was made pos- one in which they would be able to live in harmony.
sible by advances in telecommunications, rocketry, Sartres most successful drama, and perhaps his most
and the miniaturization of controlling and guidance enduring literary work, is No Exit (1944), which shows
systems. how three characters turn their lives into living hells
because they made unfortunate choices in desperate
situations.
Medicine Like Sartre, the Algerian-born writer and thinker
As with science and technology, breakthroughs in Albert Camus [kah-MOO] (19131960) wrote novels,
medicine changed the patterns of behavior and raised plays, and philosophical works that mirrored his po-
the living standards for populations on every conti- litical thinking and personal values. His finest liter-
nent. While most discoveries saved lives, some had ary work was the novel The Fall (1956). In 1957 he was
social and moral implications that spilled over into so- awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Written as a
cietal and gender issues. rambling monologue, The Fall portrays an anguished,
The invention of a safe birth control pill in 1956 self-doubting central character who accuses himself of
triggered a sexual revolution, which, by the late 1960s, moral fraud. When admirers recognized Camus in the
was part of the social unrest of the times. This newly narrators voice, they were shocked because they were
found sexual freedom, popular in the 1960s and 1970s, unwilling to accept this harsh self-judgment. Whether
grew more restricted in the 1980s with the advent of his self-mocking confession heralded Camus move
AIDS (see Chapter 23). toward Godas some critics have maintainedcan
Other medical advances benefited the public with- never be known, for he was killed prematurely in an
out generating social and moral debates. In the 1950s, auto accident.
polio was eradicated through vaccines developed by Existentialisms rejection of bourgeois values and
the American physicians Jonas Salk (19141995) and its affirmation of identity through action appealed to
Albert Sabin (19061993). Innovative surgical methods, black writers in the United States. As outsiders in a
radiation treatment, and chemotherapy drastically white-dominated society, these writers identified with
reduced cancer mortality. In the biological sciences, the French thinkers call to rebellion. The first black
in 1953, Francis Crick (19162004) and James Watson author to adopt an existential perspective was Richard
(b. 1928) reported their discovery of the structure of Wright (19081960), whose outlook was shaped by his
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the chemical substance birth on a Mississippi plantation. His novel Native Son
ultimately responsible for determining individual he- (1940) and his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), were
reditary characteristics. filled with too much rage at racism to be accepted by
white literary critics in the 1940s. His later years were
spent in Paris, where he further developed his interest
The Literature of Late Modernism: in existentialism.
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama The most successful black American author of this
Despite late modernisms prevailing mood of despair, time was James Baldwin (19241987), who began to
this period produced a cacophony of voices in fiction, write during a self-imposed exile in France (19481957),
S poetry, and drama. Literary culture flourished along where he had fled from racial discrimination. Bald-
N the New YorkLondonParis axis, though voices from wins writings explored the consequences of growing
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THE END OF MODERNISM 607

SLICE OF LIFE
Humans in Space: One Giant Leap for Mankind

Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin


RECOLLECTIONS OF THE MOON LANDING AND TRANSMITTALS OF THE ASTRONAUTS VOICES
The intersecting of science, technology, and the human thisstill dont know exactly what color to de-
spirit was played out before a worldwide audience in scribe this other than grayish-cocoa color. . . .
July 1969 when the American astronauts Neil Armstrong [Later] The Moon was a very natural and pleasant
(19302012) and Edwin E. Aldrin (b. 1930) walked on the environment in which to work. It had many of the
moon. The event transcended cold war politics, as earth- advantages of zero gravity, but it was in a sense
lings realized that Armstrongs first steps on the moon less lonesome than Zero G, where you always have
were monumental. to pay attention to securing attachment points
to give you some means of leverage. In one-sixth
NEIL ARMSTRONG: The most dramatic recollections I gravity, on the Moon, you had a distinct feeling
had were the sights themselves. Of all the spectac- of being somewhere. . . . If anyone tried to throw
ular views we had, the most impressive to me was a baseball back and forth in that atmosphere
on the way to the Moon, when we flew through its he would have difficulty, at first, acclimatizing
shadow. We were still thousands of miles away, himself to that slow, lazy trajectory; but I believe
but close enough, so that the Moon almost filled he could adapt to it quite readily. . . .
our circular window. It was eclipsing the Sun, Odor is very subjective, but to me there was a
from our position, and the corona of the Sun was distinct smell to the lunar materialpungent, like
visible around the limb of the Moon as a gigantic gunpowder or spent cap-pistol caps. We carted a
lens-shaped or saucer-shaped light, stretching out fair amount of lunar dust back inside the vehicle
to several lunar diameters. It was magnificent, with us, either on our suits and boots or on the
but the Moon was even more so. We were in its conveyor system we used to get boxes and equip-
shadow, so there was no part of it illuminated by ment back inside.
the Sun. It was illuminated only by earthshine. . . .
[After touchdown] The sky is black, you know. Its a Interpreting This Slice of Life
very dark sky. But it still seemed more like day- 1. How does Neil Armstrong describe the sights as
light than darkness as we looked out the window. they approach the moon?
Its a peculiar thing, but the surface looked very
2. What are some of the advantages and disadvan-
warm and inviting. It was the sort of situation
tages of being on the moon?
in which you felt like going out there in nothing
but a swimming suit to get a little sun. From the 3. In what ways did these landings and subsequent
cockpit, the surface seemed to be tan. . . . trips to the moon affect our society?
EDWIN E . ALDRIN: [On the moon]: The blue color of 4. What are the implications in humans taking future
my boot has completely disappeared now into trips to the moon and beyond? Explain.

up black in a predominantly white world, and in his trated on exposing societys failings. Two major writ-
first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), he drew ers who blended existential despair with realisms
on his Christian beliefs to mute his anger against the moral outrage were Doris Lessing (b. 1919) and Alex-
injustices that he believed blacks daily endured. This ander Solzhenitsyn [solzhuh-NEET-suhn] (19182008).
novel, which held out hope for an integrated society, Their shared goal was to uncover the hypocrisy of
established the literary theme that he pursued until their age.
Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination caused his vi- Lessing, a white African writer, used realism
sion to darken. In later novels, such as No Name in the to show the contradictions in her homeland,
Street (1972), Baldwin regretfully accepted violence as Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe), between blacks
the only path to racial justice for black Americans. and whites, British and Dutch, British and colonials,
In postwar fiction, existentialism sometimes took capitalists and Marxists, and, always, women and men. S
second place to a realistic literary style that concen- In the Children of Violence series (19501969), consisting N
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608 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

of five novels, she presents the story of the rise of black Orthodox Christianity. His short novel One Day in the
freedom fighters and the diminishing of white control Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) reflects his rage at being un-
in what was then a British colony. This disintegrating justly imprisoned under Stalin. This novel, published
world serves as a backdrop to the existential struggle during Nikita Khrushchevs (Soviet premier 19581964)
for self-knowledge and independence by the main de-Stalinization drive, offers an indelible image of the
character, Martha Quest. Her concerns, however, are tedium, harassment, and cruelty of life in a forced-labor
not just female identity but also the moral and intel- camp. And yet Ivan Denisovich remains a Soviet John
lectual fragmentation and confusion she sees in the Doe, dedicated to Marxism, his work, and his comrades
modern world. Lessing received the Nobel Prize in (Figure 22.5).
Literature in 2007.
The Russian Solzhenitsyn wrote realistic novels that Poetry Many late modernist poets used a private
praise the Russian people while damning Marxism, language to such a degree that their verses were of-
which he regarded as a Western heresy, opposed to ten unintelligible to ordinary people and thus had a

Figure 22.5 Vitaly Komar and Aleksander


Melamid. Stroke (About March 3, 1953).
19821983. Oil on canvas, 6 311.
Collection of Evander D. Schley. The two
Russian migr painters Komar (b. 1943)
and Melamid (b. 1945)who work as a
teampainted this work, Stroke, soon after
arriving in the United States. In it, they depict
the lonely death of Stalin and the discovery of
his body by a member of his inner circle. The
artists subtly criticize both Stalin and the Soviet
system in the way the official stares unmoved
at the dead tyrant. Komar and Melamid show
their postmodernist tendencies in their use of
elements from earlier styles of art, such as
S the theatrical lighting and unusual perspective
N typical of Caravaggio (see Chapter 15).
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THE END OF MODERNISM 609

limited audience. A few who used conventional verse routines). What plot there is also reinforces the idea of
styles, however, earned a large readership. Of this lat- futility, as the characters wait for the mysterious Go-
ter group, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (19141953) dot, who never appears.
was the most famous and remains so today. Thomass In later years, Becketts works explored the dramatic
poems mirror the obscurity favored by the modern- possibilities of silence, as in the one-act drama Not I
ist critics, but what makes his works so memorable is (1973). In this play, a voiceseen only as a mouth illu-
their glorious sound. With their strong emotional con- minated in a spotlighttries to, but cannot, stop talk-
tent, jaunty rhythms, and melodious words, they are ing. Becketts plays portrayed human consciousness
perfect to read aloud. Better known than Thomass po- as a curse; yet, at the same time, his works affirmed
ems, though, is his verse play Under Milk Wood (1954), the human spirits survival in the face of despair.
arguably the best-loved poetic work of late modern- In the late 1950s, when his plays were first per-
ism. Unlike the poems, this verse play is direct and formed, Englands Harold Pinter (19302008) was often
imbued with simple emotions. Originally a play for ra- grouped with the absurdist playwrights. However, he
dio, it presents a typical day in a Welsh village, a world belonged to no particular school but created his own
Thomas knew well, having grown up in such a place. style. Today, Pinteresque is a term denoting a dramatic
A late modernist poet who was able to be ex- style marked by enigmatic plots, underwritten char-
perimental and yet win a popular audience was the acters, and, especially, the liberal use of pauses in the
American writer Allen Ginsberg (19261997), the most dialogue.
significant poet produced by the beat generation of For Pinter, a play often begins with a room, occu-
the 1950s. Like Dylan Thomas, he had an ear for collo- pied by one or more characters. Dramatic tension is
quial speech, and he was able to construct new forms introduced when a stranger arrives, throwing all into
to convey iconoclastic views as no other contemporary confusion, upsetting routines and calling relationships
poet could do. Howl (1956), his most famous poem, into question, as seen, for example, in The Homecom-
was an homage to rebel youth and illicit drugs and ing (1965), perhaps Pinters best-known play. A profes-
sex. Overcoming censorship, it opposed a capitalist, sor brings his wife home to meet his father and two
heterosexual, bourgeois society and became the an- brothers in London. The wifes presence sparks sexual
them of the beat generation. tensions among family members, who compete for her
attention. The play ends, surprisingly, with the wife
Drama Late modern drama spawned multiple joining the all-male household and the husband turn-
trends. There were experimental plays, filled with the- ing a blind eye. In 2005 Pinter was awarded the Nobel
atrical innovations and philosophic allusions; social Prize in Literature.
problem plays, written in the naturalistic tradition of In addition to the absurdist playwrights, other sig-
Ibsen; realist-style plays, dealing with class conflict; nificant late modernist dramatists included the Ameri-
and lyrical plays, driven by poetic language and rich can Arthur Miller (19152005), the British John Osborne
characterization. (19291994), and the American Tennessee Williams
Indeed, the most radical changes in literature took (19111983).
place in drama. Sharing existentialisms bleak vision Arthur Miller was the master of the social prob-
and determined to find new ways to express that out- lem play, a genre that originated with Ibsen in early
look, a group of dramatists called the theater of the modernism (see Chapter 20). Miller adapted Ibsens
absurd emerged. The absurdists shifted the focus 1881 play Enemy of the People into English in 1951, be-
of their plays away from the study of the characters cause of its passionate defense of minority rights.
psychology to stress poetic language and abandoned Most of Millers early works addressed social con-
realistic plots to concentrate on outrageous situations. cerns, including All My Sons (1947), about a corrupt
A typical absurdist play mixed tragedy with comedy, factory owner in wartime; Death of a Salesman (1951),
as if the playwright thought that the pain of existence about false social values; and The Price (1968), about a
could be tolerated only if blended with humor. failed relationship between two brothers. In his mas-
Samuel Beckett (19061989), an Irish writer who terpiece, The Crucible (1953), Miller uses the story of a
lived in Paris, was the best-known dramatist of ab- 1692 witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, to symbolize
surdist theater. His Waiting for Godot (1952) is a play in the U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Ac-
which almost nothing happens in the conventional tivities Committees search for Communists.
sense of that word. Combining elements of tragedy John Osbornes fame rests primarily on a single
and farce, Waiting for Godot broke new ground with its work: Look Back in Anger (1956). This realist drama,
repetitive structure (the second act is almost a replica filled with working-class rage against the leaders of
of the first), its lack of scenery (the stage is bare except postwar British society, centers on a tormented hero,
for a single tree), and its meager action (the characters Jimmy Porter, and two compliant, apron-wearing, S
engage in futile exchanges based on British music-hall middle-class women, who cater to his every mood and N
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610 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE AGE OF ANxIETY AND LATE MODERNISM

whim. Osbornes play was the opening salvo in a move- need for constant newness. These forces had been
ment that was quickly named the angry young men. shaping modernism since 1900, but the effects of World
Osbornes scathing words, uttered by Jimmy Porter, War II, the Holocaust, and the postwar arms race fur-
seemed to speak for a generation, who lamented their ther dispelled illusions and raised the level of despair.
countrys failure to maintain its empire and Great Brit-
ains place in the sun. Look Back in Anger revolutionized Painting After World War II, an energetic style of
the British stage, as elitist society plays gave way to painting came to dominate late modernism: abstract
works dealing with class conflict and working-class expressionism, sometimes called action painting. Like
themes. earlier modernists, the abstract expressionists made
The lyrical dramas of Tennessee Williams (born spiritual claims for their work, saying their spontane-
Thomas Lanier Williams) addressed a wholly different ous methods liberated the human spirit. One of the
set of issues: furtive sex and family secretsreflecting founders of abstract expressionism was the American
perhaps his homosexualityand pent-up angera Jackson Pollock (19121956), who launched this style
legacy of his upbringing in the Deep South. Adding to with his drip paintings, between 1947 and 1950. In-
the intensity of his plays is the romantic speech of his fluenced by Jungian therapy to experiment with spon-
characters, many of whom are self-deluded. His many taneous gestures, Pollock nailed his canvases to the
masterpieces include The Glass Menagerie (1944), about floor of his studio and dripped loops of house paint
a domineering mother; A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), onto them from buckets with holes punched in their
about forbidden sexual desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof bottoms (see Interpreting Art). The drip canvases led
(1955), about sexual frustration; and The Night of the to a new way of looking at art in terms of randomness,
Iguana (1961), about a wayward clergyman. Of these, A spontaneity, alloverness, and stress on the physical
Streetcar Named Desire stands out for its indelible por- process of painting. Pollocks tendency to move around
traits of the fading southern belle Blanche, who uses the canvas during its execution also introduced the
gentility as both a veil and a weapon, and the crude idea of the artist interacting with the artwork.
Stanley, who is impatient with romantic drivel. Both of Another founder of abstract expressionism was the
them are victims of a world in transition. Dutch-born Willem de Kooning [VIL-uhm duh KOO-
ning] (19041997). De Kooning studied art and worked
as a commercial artist in Holland before coming to the
Late Modernism and the Arts United States as a stowaway in 1926. His earliest art
The capital of the postwar art world shifted from Paris still lifes and figuresshowed the influence of cub-
to New York. The end of Parisian dominance had been ism and Picasso and, later, surrealism. By 1945 he had
predicted since the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940; created a new style, using male figures and abstract
and the emerging economic and military superiority elements. In 1948 he established his reputation with a
of the United States by 1945 guaranteed that Americas one-man show of abstract black-and-white paintings,
largest city would be the new hub of Western culture. using enamel house paintsa revolutionary gesture.
However, New Yorks cultural leaders were divided: These were followed by more abstract works in which
one side wanted to build on the native school of Amer- he introduced color. By then, de Kooning was defining
ican art, which was realistic and provincial; the other himself as an action painter.
side was ready to take up the mantle of leadership of In 1950 de Kooning painted a controversial series on
the Wests avant-garde. The chief institutional ally women. To other abstract expressionists, de Kooning
of this latter group, which soon dominated the field, seemed to be breaking ranks with their techniques and
was New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) imagery, and many critics especially faulted his rendi-
founded principally by the Rockefeller family in 1929. tion of the female form and features (Figure22.6). For
New Yorks cultural community was also influenced the next ten years, the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties, de
by North Carolinas Black Mountain College (closed Kooning moved from painting women to landscapes
in 1956), whose experimental atmospheres nurtured and back to women again. His return to the female
many avant-garde painters (as well as poets, musicians, formwhich some art critics and feminists read as sat-
and dancers) on their road to success in New York. irizing womens bodiesgenerated more controversy.
The New York artists had to recognize their cul- The first generation of abstract expressionists was
tural situation: the domination of painting by Picasso, attracted by the movements energy, rawness, and
whose restless experimentation seemed to define arts seriousness. An outstanding recruit to the new art
leading edge; the prevalence of psychological theories was the Russian-American Mark Rothko [RAHTH-
that encouraged artists to experiment with spontane- koh] (19031970), who painted in a style very different
ous gestures and to seek insights from primitive peo- from Pollocks. A mystic, Rothko envisioned eliminat-
S ples and from religious experience; and the cardinal ing pigment and canvas and suspending clouds of
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THE END OF MODERNISM 611

Interpreting Art
Color Yellows and paintings abstract and
oranges are interspersed nonrepresentational, they
with blacks and whites, were freeing themselves
with white dominating the from their physical
surface. surroundings and entering
into a spiritual realm.
Design There is no
center, no top, no bottom, Perspective
no single object, no part Abstract expressionism
of the picture on which to achieves what many
focus. The discerning eye modern artists had been
may be able to find patterns striving to dopaint on an
based on the slashing entirely flat surface with
lines. no sense of perspective.
However, many viewers
rejected such paintings as
Style Pollocks random
mere scribbles, without any
technique became the
sense of depth perception.
standard by which other
artists abstract paintings
were measured. At Technique
the same time, artists Dripping commercial
who were not abstract paint and studio oils on
expressionists could a canvasplaced on
separate themselves from the floor and not set on
the movement. an easeldivided the
abstract expressionists
from conventional painters.
Spiritual Vision This technique led to other
Abstract expressionists
experiments on how to
believed that as they
apply paint to a flat surface.
struggled to make their

JaCKson polloCK. White Light. 1954. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas,
481/4 381/4. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Pollocks refusal to use tradi-
tional painting methods reflects his belief that rational approaches to art are flawed and
his faith that subconscious feelings, when released, reveal hidden truthsan attitude
typical of the abstract expressionists.

1. Artistic Perspective Can you see any perspective and, if 4. Medium Why does Pollock use both commercial paint as
so, where is it? well as oil and enamel?
2. Audience Do you consider yourself a fan of abstract ex- 5. Spiritual Perspective Does abstract expressionism pos-
pressionism? Why or why not? sess any spiritual content or meaning?
3. Cultural Context How does abstract expressionism repre-
sent the postwar art world?

shimmering colors in the air. After 1950 he settled for portant of whom were Helen Frankenthaler [FRANK-
creating huge paintings that focused on no more than un-thahl-uhr] (19282011), Frank Stella (b. 1936), Jasper
two or three fields of color (Figure 22.7). Johns (b. 1930), and Robert Rauschenberg [RAU-shun-
By the mid-1950s, a new generation of abstract ex- buhrg] (19252008). Following in Pollocks footsteps,
pressionists had emerged in New York, the most im- Frankenthaler adopted a method of spilling pigment S
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612 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Figure 22.6 Willem de Kooning. Woman and


Bicycle. 1953. Oil on canvas, 641/2 41.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York. De Koonings female, with her bulging
eyes, double set of exaggerated teeth, and
extended breasts, fills over half the canvas.
Her threatening appearance is heightened by
the artists slashing brushstrokes and vivid
colors, especially in the flesh tones and dress.
Feminist critics have observed that this painting
alludes to one of a males basic fears: large
and monstrous women out to conquer and
subdue him. Many women see this painting
and the series as an insult to their bodies and
female identity. Some art critics interpret this
painting from a formalist perspective, viewing
the image as secondary to the works meaning
and focusing more on de Koonings handling of
paint and use of colors.

onto canvas from coffee cans. By guiding the paints that were fashioned into asymmetrical forms, called
flowing trajectory, she stained the canvas into exquisite, shaped canvases. These geometric shapes, curves, and
amorphous shapes that, though completely flat, seem to intersecting patterns of bright colors established his
suggest a third dimension (Figure 22.8). reputation and made him one of the most popular art-
Frank Stella began as an abstract expressionist but ists of the late 1960s (Figure 22.9). Unlike many other
soon found the style too confining. While experiment- late modernist artists, Stella became an important fig-
ing with various styles, he gave birth to a technique ure in postmodern art (see Chapter 23).
called hard-edgethe nonpainterly effect created by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg found ab-
strips of color separated by precise clear edges. To stract expressionism too constricting and overly seri-
achieve this, Stella made black paintings patterned ous. Although Johns did not abandon expressionism,
at first with white stripes and then later with colored he added ordinary objects to his works, as in Target
S stripes. In the mid-1960s, he enhanced the visual effect with Plaster Casts (1955) (Figure 22.10). In this work,
N of his hard-edge paintings by working with canvases Johns painted a banal image below a row of wooden
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THE END OF MODERNISM 613

Figure 22.8 Helen Frankenthaler. Interior Landscape. 1964. Acrylic


Figure 22.7 Mark Rothko. Orange and Yellow. 1956. Oil on canvas, on canvas, 1047/8 927/8. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
91 71. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Rothko Frankenthalers staining methodpouring acrylic paint (a water-based
layered his colors, one upon another, to create a radiance of blending at paint) onto a canvasillustrates the tension between spontaneity and
their intersections, giving Orange and Yellow an intensity of light as well control typical of abstract expressionism. On the one hand, this technique
as of color. In this and all of his paintings, Rothko aims to create secular leads naturally to surprises because of the unpredictable flow of the paint.
icons for a nonreligious age, a spiritual theory inherited from the Russian On the other hand, the artist exercises control over the process, from
constructivist tradition. Accordingly, he banishes all references to nature choosing the colors and thickness of the paint to manipulating the canvas
from his art and focuses on fields of color floating in spacetimeless, during the staining. In effect, she becomes both a participant in and the
universal images. creator of the final work of art.

boxes enclosing molds of body parts. A basic feature of it was not until a new generation of New York artists
his art is the contrast between the precisely rendered began to explore commercial images in the early 1960s
human parts (above) and the painterly target (below). that the movement took off.
Johnss fascination with such tensions paved the way The most highly visible pop artist was Andy Warhol
for the self-contradicting style of postmodernism. Sim- (19271987), a former commercial artist who was fasci-
ilarly, Rauschenberg abandoned pure painting to be- nated by the vulgarity and energy of popular culture.
come an assemblage artist, mixing found objects with Warhols deadpan treatment of mass culture icons be-
junk and adding a dash of paint. In Monogram, he en- came legendary, whether they were Campbells Soup
circled a stuffed goat with a rubber tire and splashed cans, Coca-Cola bottles, or Elvis Presley (Figure 22.12).
the goats head with color, thus turning ready-made By treating these icons in series, much in the same way
objects into an abstract image (Figure 22.11). that advertisers blanket the media with multiple im-
Both Johns and Rauschenberg, with their playful ages, he conveyed the ideas of repetitiveness, banality,
attack on serious art, opened the door for the pop art and boredom. An artist who courted fame through his
movement. Rejecting the modernist belief that spiri- self-promotion stunts, Warhol recognized Americas
tual values may be expressed in nonrealistic works, obsession with celebrity in his oft-quoted line, In the
the pop artists frankly admitted that they had no future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
spiritual, metaphysical, or philosophic purposethey With the New York school commanding the art
simply created two-dimensional images. Even though world, European artists seemed to disappear into S
a kind of pop art developed in London in the 1950s, the shadows. One group, however, shared the stage N
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614 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Figure 22.9 Frank Stella. Tahkt-i-Sulayman I. 1967. Polymer and


fluorescent paint on canvas, 101/4 2021/4. The Menil Collection,
Houston. This painting, with its curving lines, is part of Stellas Protractor
seriesa term based on the drafting instrument, usually shaped as a
semicircle. The outlines of the protractor are repeated horizontally and
vertically across the canvas and interlace with one another. The warmer
variations of reds and pinks are balanced by the cooler shades of blues
and greens. Stellas subject is purely abstract, colors and lines only, with
no hint of any natural or human forms. The name for this work is inspired
by the name of a royal palace in medieval Persia.

Figure 22.10 Jasper Johns. Target with Plaster Casts. 1955. Encaustic
on canvas with plaster cast objects, 51 44 31/2. Courtesy Leo
Castelli Gallery, New York. Johns is a key figure in the transitional
generation of painters between the abstract expressionists and the pop
artists. He rebelled against the pure abstraction of the older movement,
yet he shied away from embracing mass culture images as directly as
did the younger school of painters. His Target with Plaster Casts is typical
of his playful, witty style. In this work, he makes a visual play on words,
juxtaposing a bulls-eye with plaster casts of body parts, each of which
S has been a targetthat is, a subject for artists to represent throughout
N history.
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THE END OF MODERNISM 615

Figure 22.11 Robert R auschenberg. Monogram. 19551959. Freestanding Combine. 42 631/4 641/2.
Moderna Museet, KSK, Stockholm. In his glorification of junk, Rauschenberg helped to open the door to
postmodernism. In works such as Monogram, he showed that anything, no matter how forlorn, even a stuffed
goat and a discarded automobile tire, could be used to make art. Such irreverence reflected a democratic
vision in which no object is seen as having greater artistic merit than any other.

with the New York group for a brief moment in the constructivism (see Chapter 21). He was guided by the
1960s: the practitioners of op art. Embracing the ab- truth to materials argument and by the principle of
stract ideal of abstract expressionism, op art concen- exposing the complete sculptural form. Moores truth
trated on abstract, mathematical forms, which were to materials meant that he often used a material in its
visually stimulating to the eyeball, such as whirling natural state, such as wood or stone, and he left some
effects, moir (patterned) silklike surfaces, or linger- of his bronze castings with a rough, unfinished and
ing afterimages. Perhaps the best-known op artist is unpolished texture that made them seem more natu-
Bridget Riley (b. 1931), a British painter whose theory ral. In trying to reveal the complete sculptural form,
of perception owes much to that of Georges Seurat, the Moore abandoned the traditional solid mass of a work
founder of pointillism (see Chapter 20). Rileys Drift to create, within his sculpture, voids, holes, and hol-
No. 2, 1966 (Figure 22.13), made during her forma- lows. He cut into the solid forms, to allow light and
tive period, is executed in black and white. The more space to interplay between the solid mass and the
steadily the viewer studies the image, the greater the hollowed-out areas.
vibrating effect on the eye. In the 1930s, Moore slowly won over the skeptical
public. During World War II, he continued to sculpt
Sculpture The British sculptor Henry Moore and, at the same time, sketched a series of shelter
(18981986) was the only major sculptor working in drawings, which depicted Londoners huddled in the
the postwar period who did not attempt to translate underground subway stations during the blitzthe
into sculptural form what was taking place in the Nazi bombing of England. His sketches and sculp-
world of painting. Moore established his reputation in tures enhanced his reputation in the United Kingdom S
the 1930s, when he was identified with surrealism and and abroad. N
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616 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Figure 22.12 Andy Warhol. Elvis I & II. 1964. Two panels: synthetic
polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, each panel 82 82.
Elvis I & II is typical of Warhols style, which placed little value on originality.
His deadpan appropriation of pop culture images, such as this of Elvis After the war, Moore cast huge sculptures to be in-
Presley, could be interpreted as both an homage to celebrity culture and stalled in sculpture gardens, in parks, and in front of
a representation of the cultural poverty of his era. Working from what could public buildings (Figure 22.14). Many of them repre-
pass as a poster for one of Elviss movies, he manipulates the image four sented the humanistic tradition and images character-
times in what is a typical diptych form as if it were four photographsor
posters. Warhols commercial approach to portraiture made him the most
istic of his postwar sculpturesa mother and child, a
celebrated society artist of his generation. reclining nude, a fallen warrior, and a family group.
By the time of his death, Moore was considered one
of the leading sculptors of the postwar period and his
monumental works part of the urban landscape amid
the eras prosperity and growth.
Abstract expressionist painting had its equivalent in
sculpture in the works of several Americans, notably
David Smith (19061965); Louise Nevelson (18991988), a
Russian migr; and Eva Hesse (19361970), a German
migr. David Smiths point of departure, however,
differed from that of the painters. He drew inspiration
from the symbols of primitive cultures, as in Cubi IX,
a geometric work that, according to the artist, repre-
sents an altar with a sacrificial figure (Figure22.15). If
the viewer is unaware of this meaning, however, this
stainless steel work, although influenced by cubism,
has the inaccessible look of a Pollock drip canvas. In

Figure 22.13 Bridget Riley. Drift No. 2, 1966. Acrylic on canvas,


911/2 891/2. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
Bridget Riley is typical of op artists in her reliance on printsa strategy
to democratize art by making it available to an extended audience, in
contrast to the implied elitism of original oil paintings. Riley also seems
to prefer silkscreen printing, a commercial method for reproducing art
images, especially those with a so-called hard edge, as in her works. The
S result is a combination of visual sensation triggered by the complexities
N of patterns, forms, and light.
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THE END OF MODERNISM 617

Figure 22.14 Henry Moore. Reclining Figure. 19571958. Roman


travertine, length 168. UNESCO Building, Paris. Moore made the
reclining female nude with her open body one of his trademarks. The
UNESCO figure, with its rough surface, reflects Moores appreciation
for the effect of climate on natural stones and his admiration for ancient
sculptures weathered over time. While most of his female figures are cast
in bronze, this one is carved in marble.

contrast, the wooden sculptures of Louise Nevelson are


not about representation but, instead, are simple com-
positions fashioned from old furniture and wooden
odds and ends (Figure 22.16). The use of found objects
allowed Nevelson to realize the abstract expression-
ists goal of spontaneous art devoid of reference to the
artists life. Eva Hesse followed Nevelson in oppos-
ing representational art, but Hesses art owed more to
minimalism, a trend that stripped art to its basics and
then worked on that. Hesse ultimately found that goal
too simplistic. In her short career, she created a small
body of abstract works, filled with wit, irony, and refer-
ences to famous art such as Laocon (1996) (Figure 21.17).
Pop art was an influence in the sculptures of George
Segal (19242000) and Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929). Segals
ghostly works are plaster casts of live subjects, such
as his Parking Garage (1968), which depicts a seated
man, seemingly dejected and lost in his thoughts (Fig-
ure 22.18). Segal himself rejected the pop art label
pointing out that his sculptures have expressionistic
surfaces, like Rodins works (see Chapter 20)but his
method reduces the body to a cartoon form and thus

Figure 22.15 David Smith. Cubi IX. 1961. Stainless steel, 1053/4
58 5/8 437/8. Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Smiths
ability as a sculptor of enormous and rather destructive energies shines
through in the monumental Cubi series, the last artworks he made before
his accidental death. A machinist by training, Smith liked to work with
industrial metals, welding and bending them into geometric units to
meet his expressive needs. His desire to shape mechanical images into
expressive forms related him to the abstract expressionist movement S
in painting. N
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618 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Figure 22.16 Louise Nevelson. Black Wall. 1959. Wood painted black. 24 units, 94 71/4. Tate
Gallery, London. Though a modernist, Nevelson anticipated postmodernism by combining genres, as in this
freestanding wall that integrates architecture, sculpture, and painting. She assembled boxes of various sizes,
which she stuffed with found objects, such as a measuring T, manuals, and carved pieces of wood; the whole
S assemblage was then painted black, giving the finished work the appearance of a relief sculpture.
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THE END OF MODERNISM 619

Figure 22.17 Eva Hesse, Laocon, 1966. Plastic tubing, rope, wire,
papier-mache, cloth, paint, 130 231/4 231/4. Allen Memorial Art
Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Hesses sculpture has created
a humorous homage to one of the most famous classical works in Western
art, Laocon and His Two Sons or The Laocon Group (see Interpreting Art
in Chapter 4, page 99). Hesses cords, while evocative of the snakes of
the ancient sculpture, are actually used to bind together the covered pipes
and open cubes. This playful sculpture suggests the death of myth in the
modern world.

relates it to popular culture. In contrast, Oldenburg


embraced consumer culture while manufacturing
sly, humorous reproductions of familiar objects
typewriters, electric fans, toilets, bathtubs, and pay
telephones (Figure 22.19). These collapsed sculptures
of ordinary objectsmade of vinyl or canvas and
stuffed with foam rubber or kapokserved as oppo-
site images of the manufactured goods. Oldenburgs
humor in depicting American productivity comple-
mented the pop art painters who similarly were mock-
ing material, consumer society.
While American sculpture flourished, the con
troversial German sculptor Joseph Beuys [BOYS]
(19211986) was shaking up the art establishment
at home and developing a theoretically based style,
which helped shape the postmodernist movement
after 1970 (see Chapter 23).
Beuyss first sculptures were made from animal fat
and felt. His use of unconventional materials echoed
artistic choices then being made by members of the ab-
stract expressionist school. Beuyss greatest notoriety,
and the source of his enduring influence, came in the
1960s with his staged performancesreminiscent of
happenings then under way in New York and a forecast
of the performance art of the 1970s (see Chapter23). In
the tradition of happenings, Beuys staged one of his
most famous pieces, Coyote, I Like America and America
Likes Me (Figure 22.20), at the Ren Block Gallery, in
New York. In this 1974 masterwork, preserved on film,
Beuys was wrapped in felt with a shepherds crook
sticking out of his felt tent, while a live coyote wan-
dered about the room. For a week, he and the coyote
moved in unison around the gallery, emphasizing the
connection between the human and animal worlds.
One of his propsfifty copies of the Wall Street Journal
delivered each daysymbolized the power wielded
by money in the art world. This radical piece of perfor-
mance art reflected Beuyss artistic credo: opposition to
the old concept of art as a unique object and support
for the dismantling of the dealer-critic-museum sys-
tem. A political radical whose views hearkened back to
early modernism, he sought to blend artistic freedom S
with social revolution. N
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Figure 22.18 George Segal. The Parking Garage. 1968. Plaster,
wood, electrical part, and light bulbs, 1173/4 155. The Newark
Museum, Newark, New Jersey. Unlike other pop artists, George Segal
views the world through existential eyes. While Warhol glamorized his
celebrity subjects, Segal often portrays his subjects as lonely and beset
by anxiety. He conveys their boredom and depression through fixed facial
expressions and heavy limbs while keeping their appearances generalized.
His modeling technique, which requires subjects not to move until the
plaster dries, reinforces the melancholy image. By creating a suitable
setting for his sculptures, he influenced the rise of installation art (see
Chapter 23).

Figure 22.19 Claes Oldenburg. Soft Pay-Telephone. 1963. Vinyl,


filled with kapok, mounted on a painted wood panel, 46 19 9.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Oldenburg claims
that his soft forms possess many identities, thus allowing a variety of
interpretations. His allusions to the sensual and erotic in the shape and
contours of Soft Pay-Telephone are evident. The sagging vinyl, filled with
material from the kapok tree, presents in a humorous way one of the most
S used objects in communication in the 1960s, which now is becoming a
N museum piece itself.
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THE END OF MODERNISM 621

Figure 22.20 Joseph Beuys in Performance. Coyote, I Like America and America Likes Me. 1974. Ren
Block Gallery, New York. This photograph of Joseph Beuys holding forth during a performance in 1974 is an
iconic image of late modernism. More than an artist, Beuys considered himself a shaman, that is, a priest able
to communicate with the gods and perform healing ritualsa view that hearkened back to primitive times.
Thus, his acts were, in effect, shamanistic rituals, mysterious to outsiders but therapeutic for the initiated.
In this belief, he was part of the assault against consumer culture; he particularly denied that art should be a
marketable commodity. Indeed, his artistic activity left no body of artworks to be sold. Beuys tapped into the
periods longing for meaning, as he became in demand as a personality.

Architecture Two influential late modernist archi- (ice hockey rink) or a building for transportation (air-
tects were the Finnish-born Eero Saarinen [E-ro SAAR- line terminal), and then create a design that would
uh-nen] (19101961) and the German-born Ludwig both serve and symbolize the buildings function. In
Mies van der Rohe [mees van duh ROH] (18861969). the Dulles International Airport, outside Washington,
Both made important contributions after World WarII D.C., and the TWA terminal at Kennedy International
as they experimented with materials and designs. Airport in New York City (Figure 22.21), Saarinen
Eero Saarinen came from a family of architects achieved the sense and symbolism of flight.
and sculptors. After graduating from Yale University, Mies van der Rohe, in comparison with Saarinen,
he joined, in the late 1930s, his fathers architectural had a greater impact on late modernist architecture
firm in Michigan. He followed the international style with his international style buildings in New York and
throughout his career, but, in the last decade of his life, other American cities. The last director of the Bauhaus,
he began to experiment with the styles basic rectilinear Germanys premier design school before World War II,
format, specifically by introducing eye-catching sculp- Mies closed its doors in 1933 and moved to the United
tural forms and designs. Reinforced and prestressed States in 1938 (see Chapter 21). In the 1950s, he captured
concrete, which had been available for many years (see the worlds attention with a glass skyscraper, New
Chapter 21), provided Saarinen with the materials to Yorks Seagram Building (Figure 22.22). Based on the
bring to fruition his sculptural-based buildings. artistic creed Less is more, this buildings design is
Saarinens approach was to define a structure by its simple, a bronze skeletal frame on which tinted win- S
specific purpose, such as an organized sports arena dows are hungthe buildings only decorative feature. N
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Figure 22.21 Eero Saarinen. Trans-World Airline (TWA) Terminal,
Kennedy International Airport. 1962. New York City. The terminals
exterior is designed to give the impression of a bird in flight. Saarinen
accomplished this by installing a reinforced concrete roof anchored by
two soaring beams, or cantilevers, which flare up and out on both ends
and are connected by a lower center section, with the whole roof resting
on giant Y-shaped pillars. Inside, curving stairways and supports add to
the exteriors sense of a bird soaring. The sculptural design helped define
the purpose of the building and enhanced the anticipation and adventure
of flying. This terminal is no longer in use, and its future remains in doubt.

Figure 22.22 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Seagram
Building. 19541958. New York City. Miess decision to use bronze-
tinted windows as virtually the only decorative feature of the Seagram
Buildings simple geometrical design had a profound impact on his
contemporaries. Following his lead, other architects made the high-
S rise skeleton-frame building with tinted windows the most recognizable
N symbol of late modernism.
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THE END OF MODERNISM 623

The implementation of his ideals of simplicity and ing in New York City was the painter Allan Kaprow
restraint also led him to geometrize the building, (19272006), who, according to legend, staged 18 Happen-
planning its structural relationships according to math- ings in 6 Parts (1959) (Figure 22.23), along with the com-
ematical ratios. So successful were Mies van der Rohes poser John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg. Kaprow is
glass box buildings, they became the prototype for also credited with coining the term happening.
skyscrapers built around the world until the early 1970s.

Late Modern Music


Happenings The musical styles that were dominant before World
Happenings was the term given to theatrical skits cre- War II persisted in late modernism. The music scene
ated by painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, actors, remained divided into tonal and atonal camps, led by
and friends, performing odd and sometimes ridicu- Stravinsky and Schoenberg, respectively. After Schoen-
lous actions. Happenings were planned so as to give bergs death in 1951, however, Stravinsky abandoned
the appearance of spontaneity; often involving chance tonality and adopted his rivals serial method. Stra
elements, these experimental eventschangeable, irre- vinskys conversion made twelve-tone serialism the
producible, and explosivewere staged so as to make most respected type of atonal music, though other ap-
the audience a participant in the performance. Were proaches to atonality sprang up, notably in the United
they serious or meant to be viewed as satires? What- States. Under late modernism, this dissonant style be-
ever their meaning, happenings could have thrived came the musical equivalent of the spontaneous paint-
only in the 1960s, when much of the Wests traditional ings of abstract expressionism.
culture was under assault from within the establish- Despite embracing the dissonance and abstraction
ment. Some older critics denied the originality of the of serialism, Stravinsky filled his late modernist works
concept and instead connected it to Dada (see Chap- with energy and feeling, the touchstones of his musi-
ter 21) and Dadas unrestrained cabaret shows during cal style. Two of his finest serial works are Agon (1957),
World War I in Europe. The first happening probably a score for a ballet with no other plot than a competi-
was held at Black Mountain College, in the early fifties, tion among the dancers, and Requiem Canticles (1968),
featuring the avant-garde artist Robert Rauschenberg. a religious service for the dead, marked by austere
The artist credited with organizing the first happen- solemnity.

Figure 22.23 Allan K aprow. Scene, from


18 Happenings in 6 Parts. 1959. This
photograph shows the artist Allan Kaprow
playing a musical instrument in the first
happening for which he wrote the script and
John Cage the music. At the time, Kaprow was
studying music with Cage, whose aleatory, or
indeterminate ideas are evident in the events
program. During each of the events six parts,
three happenings took place simultaneously,
with the ringing of a bell signaling when to
begin and end. Audience members were given
cards of written instructions, which told them
when to applaud and when to shift seats and S
move from gallery to gallery. N
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624 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism

Dissonance also characterizes the music of Krzysz-


tof Penderecki [pahn-duhr-ETS-key] (b. 1933), a member
of the Polish school. Committed to an older musical
ideal, he believes that music must speak to the human
heart. Nevertheless, he has been a constant innovator,
seeking to create new sounds through the unconven-
tional use of stringed instruments and the human
voice. Marked by classical restraint, his compositions
are clearly structured works permeated by fluctuat-
ing clouds of sounds, as in Threnody for the Victims of
Hiroshima (1960), scored for fifty-two stringed instru-
ments. (A threnody is a song of lamentation.) Reflec-
tive of the melancholy mood of late modernism, this
work conjures up the eerie minutes, in 1945 at Hiro-
shima, between the dropping of the atomic bomb and
its detonation. Penderecki achieves unearthly effects
through the use of glissando (the blending of one tone
into the next in scalelike passages) in an extremely
high register and by the string players bowing their
instruments in abnormal ways.
The most influential late modernist was John
Cage (19121992), whose unusual, even playful,
approach to music opened the door to postmod-
ernism. Briefly Schoenbergs student, Cage gained
most of his controversial notionsin particular, his


goal of integrating noise into musicfrom the enig-
Figure 22.24 Louis Armstrong in Cairo. 1961. Louis
matic teachings of Zen Buddhism. A work that demon-
Armstrong House Museum, New York City. In this black-
strates this goal is called 433 (Four Minutes Thirty-three and-white photograph, Louis Armstrong is pictured outside
Seconds). The title describes the time period for which a hospital in Cairo, surrounded by laughing children. In appearances such
the performer is to sit immobile before a piano key- as this, Armstrong was seen as the United States goodwill ambassador
board so that the concert hall sounds, in effect, become to the world, showcasing a lively, homegrown art form.
the music during the performers silence. Cages spir-
ited experiments made him the darling of the avant-
garde who, with assemblage artists, choreographers, ational relations, and popular tastes. New media
n
and sculptors, helped to break down the divisions transformed the world into a global village, a term
among the art formsin anticipation of a postmodern- dating from this era. The audience for this global vil-
ist development. lage was broadened by rapid advances in the record-
In late modernism, revolutionary change altered the ing industry, which were fueled by an economic boom
sound of American pop music and made it a global in the West, Japan, and parts of the third world. After
sensation. Born in the 1950s, rock and roll claimed in- 1948 the superpowers fostered global music, with the
digenous black and white roots: country music, rhythm Soviets exporting classical music and the Americans a
and blues, rockabilly, gospel, and jazz, and overlay- mixture of classical, pop, and jazz.
ing it all, an uninhibited sexual tone. The sound of A fitting symbol of the periods global music is the
rock and rollgritty, loud, and urgentreflected its African American jazz trumpeter Louis Satchmo
heritage outside the mainstream. Rock and rolls first Armstrong (Figure 22.24), who toured the world tire-
outlets were bars, records, and radio, but soon small lessly after 1947, earning the nickname Ambassador
bands of five to eight musicians performed in concerts Armstrong (see Chapter 21). Ambassador Armstrong
and on tours, playing to hordes of screaming fans, lives on in recordings such as What a Wonderful
especially teenagers. In the mid-sixties, rock and roll World (1968), which celebrates Satchmos simple faith
evolved into rock, a more sophisticated but less sexy at the height of the 1960s rebellion.
global style, embodied most famously by the Beatles
(active 19591970). Soon, rock had wiped out most
other popular musical styles, with its driving rhythms, Film
wailing vocals, and youthful angst. Film was perhaps the most important art form of late
S Rock contributed to the rise of global music, but modernism, holding its own against the newcomer
N other forces were also in play: new technology, inter- television. Filmmaking grew more international, moving
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THE END OF MODERNISM 625

toward a global cinema. Hollywood increasingly be- usually falling into the category of art film, featuring
came more prominent as the period unfolded, but stu- unusual narrative structures, blood and gore with
dios in Europe and elsewhere played major roles in an uplifting humanist message, and dramatic camera
this expanding world market of mass entertainment. work, and the production suffused with the personal
In Rome, CinecittItalys largest motion picture vision of the director. Art films also dominated the
studiowas rebuilt, after the war. At Cinecitt, the first French film industry. In the 1950s, Frances influential
postwar film movement was born, neorealism, which journal of film criticism Cahiers du Cinma began to
trained an unforgiving eye on the gritty life of post- use the term auteur (author) to denote those direc-
war Italy. The director Roberto Rosselini (19061977) tors who wrote with their cameras as they made
founded this movement with Open City (1945), an un- their films. Auteurs were distinguished from mere di-
sparing portrait of Italys chaotic capital in the wars rectors, who simply made movies by collaborating with
last days, as the Italian underground fought the re- screenwriters, cinematographers, editors, costume de-
treating Nazis. The greatest of the neorealists was signers, set designers, lighting technicians, and musi-
Federico Fellini (19201993), who developed a satirical cians. Auteurist theory inspired Frances first postwar
style, taking images from the circus and often using film movement, Nouvelle Vague, or the French New
the actress Giulietta Masina (19211994), his wife, as Wave (late fifties to early sixties). Adopting experimen-
his muse. This he did in Juliet of the Spirits (1965), a hi- tal methods, New Wave directors used jump cuts
larious romp through the consumer-driven, erotically (rapid changes of scenes), freeze-frames, and ambigu-
charged Italy that had emerged in the 1960s. ous time sequences to create idiosyncratic films, such
Similarly, Japans film industry was reestab- as The 400 Blows (1959), directed by Franois Truffaut
lished after the war, thus helping its national (19321984).
economy to recover and ensuring a Japanese Sweden enjoyed a film boom, largely through the
presence in the emerging global culture. Daiei Films multilayered works of Ingmar Bergman (19182007).
in Tokyo inaugurated a successful marketing cam- Bergmans angst-ridden characters, torn between love
paign to export its films to the West through means of of life and the certainty of death, were consummate
seeking awards in film festivals, which now func- exemplars of late modernism. Drawing on his strict
tioned as international marketplaces for film distribu- Lutheran upbringing, Bergman created a powerful se-
tors. Daieis success began at the prestigious Venice ries of films, set both in the bleak feudal past and in the
Film Festival in 1951, when Rashomona dramatic equally bleak, though different, world of the modern
film, directed by Akira Kurosawa [kur-uh-SAH-wah] middle class. The greatest of these are The Seventh Seal
(19101998), recounted a particular event from the shift- (1957), which presents a harrowing vision of the me-
ing perspectives of its several characters. Rashomon dieval plague, culminating in a chess game between
won the top prize and, at the same time, introduced the crusader knight and the devil (Figure 22.25), and
the world to Japanese cinema. Other films followed, Winter Light (1963), part of the Silence of God trilogy,

Figure 22.25 The Devil and the Knight.


Still, from The Seventh Seal. Ingmar
Bergman, director. 1957. Various scenes in
the film depict the ongoing chess match (as
here) between the devil (Bengt Ekerot) and
the returning crusader knight, Antonius Block
(Max von Sydow). Antonius plays chess for
his soul, even as he reveals much about his
feelings for God, religion, and life. The title, The
Seventh Seal, is taken from the biblical book of
Revelation, where the opening of seven seals
heralds the end of the world. Revelation 8:1
states: The Lamb then broke the seventh seal,
and there was silence in heaven for about half
an hour. Bergmans allegorical movie vividly
represents this dramatic passage with its
depiction of a world beset by plague, violence, S
and death. N
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626 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE AGE OF ANxIETY AND LATE MODERNISM

which offers a portrait of a Protestant pastor adrift in because of the immediacy of their subjects, which were
the personal and political ambiguities of modern life. often ripped from newspaper headlines. Two early
While the rest of the world produced art films, Hol- examples by American directors are Dont Look Back
lywood stayed with the tried and true: genre movies, (1967), directed by D. A. Pennebaker (b. 1925), about the
defined by drama or setting, such as westerns (late 1965 concert tour of Great Britain by the then-emerging
forties to early fifties); film noir (French, dark film), singer Bob Dylan (b. 1941), and Titicut Follies (1967), an
a style of crime film marked by harsh lighting, hard- expos of the horrors of a mental hospital in Massachu-
boiled heroes, and existential angst (late forties to early setts, by Frederick Wiseman (b. 1930). American docu-
fifties); musicals (until 1967); social problems (entire pe- mentary films appeared at the same time as the French
riod); and romantic comedies (entire period). Some of movement called cinma vrit (direct cinema). Both
the genres, by their nature, produced escapist movies the French and the Americans shared values with the
with formulaic plots, stereotyped characters, and pre- Italian neorealists, especially in their preference for
dictable outcomes. One representative of Hollywoods truth over art.
creative genius, while still working within the confines A further development that changed film was the
of a genrethe musicalis the incomparable Singing rise of film festivals for showcasing new releases.
in the Rain (1952), codirected by Stanley Donen (b. 1924) The Venice Film Festival came first, in 1932, but after
and the films star, Gene Kelly (19121996). While the the war, festivals were established in Cannes, France
movie breaks no new ground, it has become the gold (1947), Berlin (1951), London (1956), and Karlovy Vary,
standard by which other musicals are judged, because in the Czech Republic (1965). In the United States, the
of the perfect ease with which it realizes each of the film industry remained aloof from festivals during this
disparate elements of the filmic art. period, preferring to market itself through traditional
Another trend in film in the United States, and venues, but changes in the U.S. film industry were oc-
elsewhere, was the rise of the documentary. The doc- curring as art house cinemas and university film so-
umentary style was made possible by the invention cieties began showing foreign films and catering to
of the portable handheld camera in 1959, thus allow- selected audiences. Around the globe, distributors set
ing the recording of ordinary people and events in up systems to specialize in old films, and movie houses
real time. Documentaries attracted a cult following showing classic films grew in popularity.

SUMMARY
The Age of Anxiety began with a war-weary world The United States added universities and research
hoping for peace and ended in a standoff between centers to the already existing industrial-military-state
two superpowers capable of destroying the human complex, creating a military establishment capable of
race. After the mid-1950s, fear gripped the world as wielding huge economic, political, and even spiritual
the United States and the USSR seemed positioned to influenceas President Dwight Eisenhower (in office
go to war. As crisis followed crisis, they found ways 19531961) famously cautioned. The introduction of the
to avoid a military showdown. But, economically, the birth control pill led to the Sexual Revolution.
USSR and its satellites lost the race. By the early 1970s, The late modernist style arose from the traumas of
the West had surged ahead in manufacturing, produc- World War II. The United States, with New York City
tivity, and marketing to produce a consumer society as the hub, became the Wests cultural leader. Ameri-
and a burgeoning middle class that were the envy of can painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature
the world. held center stage globally, with only a few voices from
In the realm of faith and values, some Western Europe. Abstract expressionism was the first art style
thinkers embraced existentialism, while others turned of the postwar generation of New York painters and
to Christian existentialism or neoorthodoxy. Most be- sculptors, followed by pop art, op art, minimalism,
lievers stayed with traditional religions, seeking an- and other schools. Films witnessed a rebirth and,
swers and solace in an increasingly secular age. The along with television, competed for a global audience.
Roman Catholic Church convened a council. New In the arts and popular culture, the United States was
challenges to middle-class and Christian values came outdistancing the USSR, as American clothes, music,
from two directions: structuralism, within the uni- movies, and celebrities won young fans around the
versities, and a materializing hedonism, which perco- world. The United States, with its material values, re-
S lated across popular culture. laxed lifestyle, and rock-and-roll music, was now the
N force driving the emergent global culture.
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The Legacy of the Age of Anxiety and Late Modernism
Todays postmodern world is indebtedin both obvi- of fame has taken root, but a few celebrities have be-
ous and subtle waysto the Age of Anxiety. The cold come cultural icons.
war ended in 1990 but tensions remain between the
United States and a slimmed-down Russia, stripped of
empire. The era of the superpowers gave way to todays
multipolar world, though, on occasion, the United States
holds fast to its superpower status, as for example, the
Iraq War (20032011). The United Nations, despite some
successes, has not become the worlds peacemaker, but
its global membership has increased from 51 states
in 1945 to 193 in 2012. The World Bank and the Inter-
national Monetary Fund are necessary fixtures of the
global economy. The threat of nuclear war is still there,
but now largely associated with rogue states, such as
Iran. Nuclear power, as a source of electricity, has pro-
voked a backlash; for example, in 2011, German leaders
moved to phase out nuclear reactors after a Japanese
nuclear crisis. Todays multiculturalism has roots in
the black liberation movements of the 1950s. Womens
emancipation has gained many victories, such as the
election of Margaret Thatcher as British prime minister,
19791990. (Globally, there have been more than fifty
women presidents and prime ministers since 1960.)
Late modernism survives as just another style in
our open-ended world. Its cascade of styles has so
deeply conditioned the postmodernist mind that we
often hear this telling phase: Whats coming next?
a mantra evoking both joy and dread. Existentialism
has lost its mojo, but existentialist words and phrases
still echo in the media sphere, including angst, authen-
ticity, and it is what it is. American lifeespecially My Week With Marilyn. Movie poster. 2011. In the 1950s, the actress
that of its young peoplecasts a global shadow. Most Marilyn Monroe (baptized Norma Jean Baker, 19261962) became
memorably, observers of the 2011 Arab Spring claim a permanent fixture in mass culture. With dyed hair, breathy voice,
sexual allure, and naked ambition, she became the eras dumb blonde
that Ibn Thabit, an anonymous Libyan, performed hip-
archetype. Serial marriages to, among others, the legendary baseball
hop online, with antigovernment lyrics that prepared player Joseph Paul Joltin Joe DiMaggio (19141999) and the acclaimed
the way for his countrys uprising. The idealism of the playwright Arthur Miller (19152005) heightened her mystique. After her
1960s is gone, but the decades counterculture is now death, Warhol enhanced her fame with a Marilyn portrait, the reworking of
mainstream, as evident in casual lifestyles (in dress a film still photo. Miller turned her life into a play. Feminists deconstructed
her public persona, focusing on how she presented herself as a sex
and entertainment), sexual openness (ads for Viagra),
object. Even today, the memory of Marilyn continues to haunt the public
gay marriage, deep attachment to new technology, imagination, as revealed by the popular 2011 British film My Week With
greater permissiveness, and fascination with marginal Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis (b. 1960) and starring the actress
groups. Warhols famed saying about fifteen minutes Michelle Williams (b. 1981).

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


late modernism angry young men pop art neorealism
neoorthodoxy abstract expressionism op art art film
structuralism action painting minimalism auteur
beat generation hard-edge happening Nouvelle Vague
theater of the absurd assemblage art glissando (New Wave) S
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World Trade Center Project. 2012. New York City. The 2001 destruction of the Twin Towers of
the World Trade Center in New York City presented a challenge and an opportunity to rebuild
the area. After years of public debates, political pressures, and lawsuits, the authorities chose
the plan of the Berlin-based Studio Libeskind in 2004. in this March 20, 2012 photograph, the
Survivor Tree blossoms as the World Trade Center begins to take shape. One World Trade
S Center, left, is scheduled for completion in 2014. As of October 2012, the buildings steel had
N reached the 102nd floor with glass installed up to the 73rd floor. The callery pear tree, salvaged
L from the rubble following the attacks of September 11, 2001, was nursed back to health and
628 replanted at the National September 11 Memorial.
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The Contemporary World
23
Globalization, Terrorism, and Postmodernism
1970

Preview Questions New Yorks World Trade Center (WTC) Projecta post-
1. What major events modern complex, set to be completed in 2014is a powerful symbol of
contributed to the rise todays complex, global world. The first WTC, sited on the East River, just
of a new global order steps from Wall Street, was finished in 1973. A modernist jewel, its twin
between 1970 and 2001?
glass towers seemed to signal two messages: the United States is a super-
2. What are the defining
power and New York is a major player in the emerging global economy.
sociopolitical events
between 2001 and Those messages were strengthened in 1990, with the end of the cold war
today? and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Even a failed bombing attack against
3. What forces and issues the WTC by Islamic radicals, in 1993, only briefly disrupted the periods
surrounded the birth of generally optimistic mood. But, on September 11, 2011, all of that changed.
postmodernism?
Islamic radicals brought down the Twin Towers, causing great loss of life.
4. What is postmodernism
An outraged nation, led by President George W. Bush, vowed to avenge
and how is the style
manifested in the arts the attacks and rebuild the World Trade Center.
and humanities? The destruction of the World Trade Center divides this period into two
phases: toward a new global order, 19702001; and the Age of Terrorism,
2001present. Before 9/11, the West, driven by globalization and a boom-
ing economy, envisioned the future as a peaceful, unified, multicultural
world. After 9/11, that global vision was challenged. Conflicts between
the West and Islamic radicals, which had been sporadic for decades, now
moved to a higher level, most notably in wars against the Islamic states of
Iraq and Afghanistan. The globalization ideal remained dominant in the
cultural conversation. The global economy boomed, until the Great Reces-
sion, beginning in 2008. Today, the economy, though shaky, shows many
signs of recoveryoffering hope for the future. And the 2011 Arab Spring
uprisings have, once again, caused the West to rethink its relationship to
the Islamic world.

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630 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Learning Through Maps


FINLAND
NORWAY Members
SWEDEN Candidates for membership
ATLANTIC ESTONIA
OCEAN North Not member states

Sea
Sea
LATVIA

ic
IRELAND DENMARK

alt
UNITED B LITHUANIA
KINGDOM
RUSSIA
BELARUS
NETH.

Rhine
BELG. GERMANY POLAND
Se
in

R.
e R.
CZECH REP. UKRAINE
LUX.
SLOVAKIA
FRANCE MOLDOVA
SWITZ. AUSTRIA
e R.

HUNGARY
Rhn

SLOVENIA ROMANIA
CROATIA
ITALY GEORGIA
L

Danube R.
GA

Black Sea
SERBIA
TU

SPAIN BULGARIA
P OR

BOSNIA AND KOSOVO


HERZEGOVINA
MACE-
MONTENEGRO DONIA
ALBANIA
Mediterran TURKEY
e a n Se GREECE
a
0 250 500 mi

MALTA CYPRUS
0 500 1000 km

MAP
MHS6323.1
697 EUROPE IN 2012
mat76620_m2201.eps
This map shows the member countries of the European Union as of 2012.1. Note those countries that are candidates for membership. 2. Observe which
Second proof
current member states of the EU are former members of the Communist bloc, as shown on Map 22.1, Europe in 1955. 3. Excluding Norway and Switzerland,
which are special cases, identify those countries that are not currently members of the EU. 4. Why do you think these countries are not yet members of the
EU? 5. Speculate on Russias attitude toward the expansion of the EU to the borders of Russia.

TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL Economic, National, and


ORDER, 19702001 International Developments
The early 1970s marked a turning point, not only for During the 1970s the worlds economy underwent sev-
Western civilization but for the world as well. The bal- eral changes. The standard of living declined for most
ance of global power began to shift from the bipolar, citizens in Western Europe and the United States when
superpower model to a multipolar system that in- the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
cluded Japan, China, and Western Europe. This politi- (OPEC), a cartel of the oil-rich states of the Middle East,
cal realignment started when the superpowers moved raised prices. As a result, most Western nations went
toward dtente, a French term meaning a waning of into a recession that resulted in rising unemployment
hostility. By the early 1970s, dtente had produced and inflation. Also, the migration of Turks, North Af-
several arms-limitation treaties between the USSR and ricans, and Arabs to Europe as guest workers restruc-
the United States, creating a favorable climate for a re- tured the labor market and intensified socioeconomic
appraisal of cold war attitudes and a reduction of other tensions in many European countries. And the Soviet
global ideological battles. China, a previously closed Union, with its state-controlled economy, could no lon-
country, began to interact with the United States and ger produce both arms and consumer goods.
other Western countries. In addition, as the industrial- The 1970s was a time of political drift in the United
ized nations became increasingly dependent on the oil- States in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Presi-
producing countries, the latter exerted more influence dent Richard Nixons (in office 19691974) resignation;
S on world events. in contrast, the 1980s brought dramatic changes both
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TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL ORDER, 19702001 631

nationally and internationally. Under President Ronald domestic reforms contributed to the breakup of the
Reagan (in office 19811989), the government a dopted centralized structure of the USSR, as some member
laissez-faire economic policies, which led to an eco- states declared their independence and others gained
nomic turnaround. The nation paid for this prosper- local control. From the old Soviet system, following
ity, however, with increased spending, a huge national more than seventy years of communism, a severely
debt, and a shift in foreign trade from creditor to debtor weakened Russia reemerged, shorn of its vast empire
status. The gap between rich and poor also widened, yet still managing to retain some ethnic republics
leading to increasing polarization in American society. through a commonwealth arrangement (Map 23.1).
On the international scene, dtente suffered two Gorbachevs policies toward the satellite states led
setbacks: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the dissolution of the Communist bloc in Eastern
in support of local Communist leaders; and the Pol- Europe, symbolized by the destruction of the Berlin
ish governments suppression of Solidaritya labor Wall (Figure 23.1). Newly independent, these former
movement founded in 1980 that pushed for economic Communist states struggled to maintain their social
reforms. Cold war sentiments revived, ongoing disar- welfare programs and worker protection system, while
mament talks between the superpowers broke down, moving toward democratic government and a market
and an intensified arms race seemed imminent. economy. However, Russia, with its ethnic and regional
The international tension dissipated in 1985 with crises on the rise, Boris Yeltsin (in office 19911999)
the appearance of Mikhail Gorbachev [GOR-bah-chof] tried to steer a course in uncharted political waters.
(in office 19851991) as the new moderate leader of Russias future seemed to be in the hands of either the
the Soviet Union, which had fallen behind the more nationalists and Communists, who wanted to restore
productive capitalist nations. Gorbachev introduced their countrys former imperial and economic systems,
a new era of dtente with his overtures to the United or the reformers, who wanted a marketplace economy
States, which opened communication between the and political freedom.
two superpowers. Under Vladimir Putin, president (19992008, 2012)
and prime minister (20082012), Russia began to dis-
mantle its earlier democratic reforms, to centralize po-
The Fall of Communism litical control, and to reinvigorate a nationalist agenda.
Within the Soviet Union, Gorbachev initiated reforms
in the state bureaucracy and the Communist Party
that were designed to raise the standard of living. His Figure 23.1 Fall of the Berlin Wall. 1989. Given the Soviet Unions
plans dramatically altered the course of history in the previous use of force in Eastern Europe, no one had predicted that the
USSR, Eastern Europe, and the world. Gorbachevs collapse of the Communist states would be so quick and bloodless. The
most symbolic event of this extraordinary period was the dismantling
of the wall that separated East Berlin from West Berlin.

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Timeline 23.1 CULTURAL STYLES, 1970PRESENT

POSTMODERNISM
1970 1980 1990 2000 2012
since 1947
Abstract Expressionism

since 1920s
Socialist Realism

since 1960
Pop Art

Neoexpressionism

Neoclassicism

Neorealism

Postmodern Architecture and Music

Liberation Theology

Evangelical Christianity

Concept Art

since late 1950s


Minimalism in Art and Music

Neoromanticism in Music

Hip-Hop

1970 1980 1985 1990 2005


19721974 Founding of Gorbachev Union of Terrorist
Watergate Scandal, Solidarity era begins East and West 1997 bombing in
President Nixon in Poland; Germany Guggenheim the U.K.
resigns first case of Museum, 2008
Bilbao, Spain, 2001 The Great
1976 AIDS in U.S. 1991 Terrorist
opens Recession
Glass, Einstein Persian attacks begins
on the Beach 1982 Gulf War on U.S.
Walker, The 2009
1992 2003 Obama
Color Purple
1973 European Iraq War inaugurated
Organization of 1979 Community 2006 president
Petroleum Exporting Soviet Union established Nobel
2000
Countries (OPEC) invades 1984 Prize in
1989 Smith, White Teeth; 2011
oil embargo sparks Afghanistan; Kundera, The 1993 Pamuk, My Name Is Red;
Literature
global recession Iranian Unbearable Soviet Nobel Prize in to Orhan Arab
satellite Lee, Crouching Tiger, Spring
revolution Lightness of Being Literature to Pamuk
system Hidden Dragon
Toni Morrison
1971 crumbles 2004
Kung fu films 1994 Koolhaas, Seattle 2011
begin to reach 1980 World Trade Public Library; U.S. troops
global market Sundance Film Organization terrorist train out of
Festival founded founded bombing in Spain Iraq

Exercising newly found economic powerbased on as its former satellites rush to join either the European
oil and natural gas resourcesit is today more in- Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
volved globally in diplomacy and European and inter Beyond Russias borders, the downfall of the So-
national trade, as, for example, in 2012, becoming a viet system set off a chain of events that ended Soviet
S member of the World Trade Organization. At the same control of eastern and central Europe and rebalanced
N time, Russia sees new threats to its national security, the power structure in Europe, marked the demise of
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TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL ORDER, 19702001 633

communism, and left the United States the winner eminence was its unwillingness to work in full har-
of the cold war. The euphoria generated by the fall mony with the United Nations. Convinced that the UN
of communism and the expectancy of a new world was dominated by third world interests, the United
order quickly became linked with market-based States preferred to act alone, through coalitions of its
economies, which replaced the discredited state-run own choosing, or to work with established regional
models. The implications of these political and eco- alliances. Other nations, such as Japan, failed to re-
nomic transformations gave further proof that the cover from the 1990s downturn of its financial mar-
world was shrinking and that globalization would be kets, while China, in spite of its phenomenal economic
the defining trend in the 1990s (Timeline 23.1). growth rate of 8 to 12 percent a year, faced a number of
domestic crises. Some of its citizens, particularly stu-
dents and workers, called for a more open and dem-
The PostCold War World ocratic society. Public demonstrations led Chinese
After 1989 the United States emerged as the worlds authorities to crack down on protesters in Beijings Ti-
lone superpower, while many other countries faced ananmen Square in June 1989 (Figure 23.2).
nearly intractable problems. The United States basked
in its unique position because of its military superi- The World Economic Boom and Regional Violence
ority, its central role in international affairs, and its Throughout the 1990s, economic globalization inten-
consumer-driven society, which helped propel the
sified because of the spread of free-market systems.
global economic boom. Complicating Americas pre- However, volatility in financial markets led to social

Figure 23.2 Protester Standing in Front of Tanks. Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, 1989. In the
1980s, the Chinese government abandoned its isolationist policy, engaged in international trade, and sent its
young people to study abroad to prepare them to be future leaders of China. Having seen life outside China,
they returned home and began to demand more freedom, which the authoritarian government would not
permit. This struggle, between the government and the youth, climaxed in Tiananmen Square, the symbol
of Chinese Communist power, during the prodemocracy demonstrations that were watched, as they unfolded,
on television around the world.

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634 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE CONTEMPORARY WORlD

and political unrest, thus hinting at what might hap- the Middle East and the industrialized world. In 1973
pen during a global financial crisis and calling into the second Arab-Israeli War resulted in Egypt regain-
question many assumptions of laissez-faire capital- ing some of its territory lost to Israel in 1967. In the late
ism. At first, for example, the economies of the Pa- 1970s conditions seemed to improve when Egypt and
cific Rim countries, except for Japan, boomed, but by Israel signed peace treaties. But in 1979 the founding
1998 the euphoria had waned. Paralleling globaliza- of a radical theocratic republic in Iran and the seizing
tion was the rise of regional economic alliances, such of the American embassy there worsened Iranian-
as the European Union as a free-trade zone and the American relations. The revolution brought Islamic
North Atlantic Free Trade Association (Nafta) among fundamentalism to the worlds attention.
Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The Internet The Middle East was further destabilized when
and electronic commerce were, at the same time, revo- Iraq, under Saddam Hussein [sa-DAHM hu-SANE]
lutionizing the way the world conducts its business. (r. 19792003), invaded Iran in 1980. Believing Iran weak
The World Trade Organization (WTO), founded in under its new revolutionary government, Hussein cal-
1994 to promote free trade, has helped settle trade dis- culated a quick and easy victory. However, the war,
putes among its member states. The WTO, along with with high casualties on both sides, dragged on until
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund 1988. Two years later, the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, which
(IMF), and regional trade associations, has increased soon led to the 1991 Gulf War. A coalition of Western
global wealth and reduced global poverty. However, and Muslim states, led by the United States, drove the
not all countries have benefited from globalization and Iraqis from Kuwait. Although defeated, Hussein re-
free trade, and a few have been openly critical of free- mained in power throughout the decade.
market economics. In these disaffected countries, glo- The Gulf War was soon followed by an increase in
balization is usually identified with the United States, terrorist attacks, many aimed at the United States. Sev-
giving rise to anti-American and antiglobalization sen- eral military bases were bombed. In 1993 the World
timents and generating a new form of populismthat Trade Center in New York was damaged, and in 1998
is, advocating the rights of a nations citizenry against U.S. embassies in Africa were destroyed. Far from the
the power of multinational corporations and the de- United States and the Middle East, in Afghanistan
veloped world. the Taliban (r. 19962001), a local fundamentalist Is-
From the mid-1990s to 2001, the worlds economy lamic movement, emerged as the winner of a civil war
was driven by developments in the United States. First, (19921996).
the American stock market climbed because of the
dot-com companiescommunications and technology
businesses, funded by venture capitalists. Speculation
and greed ran the market up to new heights, until the THE AGE OF TERRORISM, 2001
bubble burst in 2001. Second, American businesses out- Any hope for a better world quickly ended in the new
sourced many white-collar jobs to developing nations, centurys first decade. It opened with a devastating ter-
following the lead of factory owners who had earlier rorist attack against the United States, soon followed
moved plants to countries with cheap labor. by the United States, and its Western allies, fighting
In addition to the economic fallout from the end wars in two Islamic countries, a near collapse of the
of the cold war, regional nationalism and ethnic vio- global economy, and political uprisings across the Mid-
lence, which had been suppressed during the era of the dle East.
superpowers (19451970s), now resurfaced. In the 1990s,
with the disintegration of Yugoslavia, wars broke out
among the newly formed states along ethnic and reli- War, Recession, and Revolution
gious lines. Eventually, as Europe vacillated over what On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New
to do, the United States decided to act. After a series of York City (see chapter-opening photo) and the Penta-
air strikes, the fighting ended and the warring factions gon outside Washington, D.C.buildings symbolic of
were brought to the peace table, where they accepted the superpowers economic and military mightwere
a series of accords, thus bringing a wary peace to the attacked by terrorists. The attacks, commonly referred
Balkan region. to as 9/11, were organized by al Qaeda [al KAY-duh], a
small radical Islamic sect, who capitalized on Ameri-
cas lax immigration policies and their own technologi-
The West and Islam: cal know-how for their destructive scheme. The United
Rising Tensions Across the Globe States, convinced that Afghanistans governmentthe
Tensions between the West and the Islamic Mid- Talibanwas harboring al Qaeda and its head, Osama
S dle East mounted in the 1970s. Early on, an oil embargo bin laden [o-SAH-mah bin lAHD-en] (19572011), in-
N against the West further strained relations between vaded the country in October 2001. The Taliban-led
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THE AGE OF TERRORISM, 2001 635

government fell in a few weeks, and America and its downturn that rivaled the Great Depression (see Chap-
NATO allies occupied the capital and sections of the ter 21). This crisisknown as the Great Recession
country. A new constitution was drafted, and several spurred some nations to take unprecedented steps,
elections were held, but the country continued to be both nationally and internationally, to bring stability
plagued by ethnic rivalries, systemic poverty, a corrupt to the financial system and establish effective regula-
and often dysfunctional government, and a resurgent tory agencies. In some quarters, the Great Recession has
Taliban. President Barack Obama (in office 2009), after called into question the benefits of free-market capital-
increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, ini- ism, which has held sway for the past three decades. In
tiated a plan to return the security of the country to Europe, the future of the European Union is at risk, un-
Afghan authorities. less the debt crisis of Greece and other member states is
In March 2003 the United States, supported by Brit- solved. In the United States, Congress passed President
ain and a few other nations, invaded Iraq. President Obamas stimulus package pumping money into the
George W. Bush (in office 20012009) reasoned that economic pipeline and creating jobs, along with bail-
Saddam Husseins dictatorship had to be overthrown, ing out Wall Street banks and the automotive industry.
claiming Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruc- Continued high unemployment and a sluggish recov-
tion, which were about to be unleashed on the world. ery will help to determine the outcome of the U.S.s 2012
Although the initial fighting lasted only weeks and presidential election.
Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, the During the last decade a number of radical Islamic
war dragged on for eight years and proved costly in ex- organizationsthe Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
penditure and lives: over 4,500 U.S. troops killed and Hez bollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine
30,000 wounded, and countless thousands of Iraqi casu- attracted Muslims across the Middle East. They came
alties (Figure 23.3). American opinion remained deeply to see these groups as alternatives to pro-Western, sec-
divided over the war until it ended in December 2011, ular, and failed governments, as the dedicated sworn
with the withdrawal of the last troops from Iraq. enemies of Israel, or as the strident voices of anti-
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were overshad- Americanism, willing to confront the Great Satan
owed after 2008 by a rapidly spreading global economic (the United States). These groups differed in their bid
for power: the Muslim Brotherhood worked from the
bottom up, through community programs, founding
Figure 23.3 American Soldiers Examine an Iraqi Child. 2005. This schools, and supplying food, while Hezbollah worked
sceneAmerican soldiers examining a wounded Iraqi child during a U.S. from the top down, trying to win government con-
governmentsponsored community health outreach programrecalls trol. These movements have intensified debates among
similar images from the United States recent warsfrom World War II Muslims as to what types of rule and society should
to the Vietnam War. This picture also illustrates the dilemma of an army
be created in Islamic countries.
fighting on foreign soil. The soldiers are warriors waging a war against the
enemy and, at the same time, protectors of the innocent victims of warfare. These organizations, as well as the rest of the world,
Throughout history, armies have come as liberators and remained as were caught off guard by the Arab Springa series of
occupiers, which often turns them from friend to foe. uprising in 2011 that spread from Tunisia, to Egypt, to
Libya, to Syria, to Yemen, and to Bahrain. Dictators fell
in Egypt and Tunisia, and one was killed in Libya. Ye-
men has a new leader, another is hanging on to power
in Syria, and Bahrains ruling family has survivedfor
now. The hopes of these revolutions have given way to
the reality of creating stable governments.

Global Encounter:
Migrations and Demography
In this Age of Globalization the worlds grow-
ing population and shifting patterns of migration are
bringing more pressures on governments and human
service agencies, and increasing tensions within coun-
tries and among nations. These problems are made
more acute due to the earths constricted livable areas,
the finite supply of natural resources, and the numer-
ous ethnic, racial, cultural, religious, and ideological
differences between the migrants and their adopted S
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636 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

United States and Australia. Following World War II, a


new wave of wartime and political refugees were seek-
ing new homelands. Since the 1970s, new patterns have
emerged, for example, to the United States: Vietnamese
war refugees, as well as immigrants from Asian coun-
tries, and legal and illegal workers from Latin America;
to western Europe: ex-colonials returning home, guest
workers from southern and eastern Europe and from
Muslim countries, and more eastern Europeans from
former Communist states after 1990; and to the Middle
East: temporary Asian workers to the oil-rich nations.
Demographic studies project a population of seven
billion in the near future and over nine billion by 2050.
Twenty of the most populous cities are on the five
largest landmasses: twelve in Asia, five in Latin Amer-
ica, two in Europe, and one in North America. In rich
countries, the population is aging and the working
population declining; in poor countries, the popula-
tion is growing and a larger percentage of this popu-
lation is young people, many entering the job market
without any prospects of employment.
These demographic and immigration trends have
set off heated debates about how to integrate the new
ethnic, racial, and religious groups. As an illustration,
France, with about 10 percent Muslim population, has
been beset by urban unrest among male Arab youths
lacking economic opportunities and by divisive pro-
tests over the ban of religious headscarves in public
schools. The influx of Muslims into the West, esti-
mated, in 2010, to be more than 18 million in western
Europe and 2.6 million in the United States, will con-
tinue to be a potential source of conflict and crisis.

THE BIRTH OF POSTMODERNISM


In the 1970s, late modernism (see Chapter 22) was chal-
lenged by a new movement: postmodernism. With its
optimistic view of historyas shown by its desire to
reinterpret earlier stylespostmodernism reflected
Figure 23.4 nAm June pAIK. My Faust-Channel 5-Nationalism.
19891991. Twenty-five Quasar 10-inch televisions, three Sony laser a more positive outlook than that of late modernism.
disc players, Neogothic wood frame with base, 104 50 32. Having grown to maturity after World War II and be-
Private Collection, Seoul. Designed by the Korean American artist lieving that late modernisms anxiety was outdated, the
Nam June Paik, this artwork is a playful commentary on war as a form postmodernists embraced mass culture and, in general,
of national religion. Housed in a Neogothic frame, inspired by medieval
displayed a playful approach to creativity (Figure 23.4).
altarpieces, the art is filled with military objects, such as bombs, jackboots,
and helmets, as well as television screens and laser disc players. By As witnesses to the world-ranging rivalry between the
covering the top and sides of the frame with flags from many of the worlds two superpowers, the postmodernists envisioned a
nations, Paik suggests that all countries make sacred cults of their military global culture, free from military threat.
establishments. The United States and postmodernism have been
closely intertwined. American artists and scholars
played a key role in establishing the culture of post-
Immigration patterns across the West have varied modernism because the United States is unique in
widely since the late nineteenth century. Then, the pat- being a microcosm of global society, and because afflu-
tern was Europeans coming to the Americas. After ence made its consumers the driving force in the world
S World War I, restrictions on immigration were imposed economy. The cold wars end in 1990, which left the
N in a number of countries, including, most especially, the United States as the only superpower, also enhanced
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The Birth of Postmodernism 637

Americas presence in postmodernism. However, the Organ transplants and the use of artificial organs
globalization of postmodernism has produced a para- have prolonged life for many people otherwise with-
dox: American culture, especially popular culture, val- out hope. However, these practices have also embroiled
ues, and technology, is eagerly adopted everywhere, the medical profession in ethical controversy, includ-
but alongside adoption come voices denouncing Amer- ing charges that only a few people can afford these
icas cultural imperialism as well as American military procedures and that they drain the financial resources
might and economic power. of the health-care system. Likewise, new methods in
Postmodernisms cultural vision looks in two di- human reproduction, while helping a few, have led to
rections: forward to a global, democratic, many-voiced court cases, involving such moral dilemmas as: When
civilization, and backward to the roots of the Western a couple divorces, which of the two has a legal right
tradition. This double vision embraces the works of to a fertilized egg? With surrogate parenting, does a
women, minority group members, and representa- surrogate mother have parental rights? When a sperm
tives of the third world, even as it reexamines both donor is used, does the donor have a legal right to pro-
classical and preclassical civilizations. The events of tect his identity from his offspring?
9/11 cast this global vision into doubt. Nevertheless, Despite medical breakthroughs that have saved mil-
the vision endures, despite the threats posed by war, lions of lives, some regions are still threatened by fatal
terrorist acts, and a global recession. diseases, and worldwide epidemics are always pos-
sible. In the 1980s, AIDS (acquired immune deficiency
syndrome) arrived and quickly spread to certain sec-
Medicine, Science, and Technology tions of society. AIDS, along with an increase of other
In todays world, advances in science and technology sexually transmitted diseases, not only slowed down
have had a greater impact than in the past. Not only the sexual revolution but also wiped out segments of
have science and technology accelerated and directed the population. In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS has dev-
change around the globe, but they have also become astated many communities where there are few hos-
integral parts of the worlds economy, international pitals or clinics; local attitudes have exacerbated the
affairs, and the military-industrial complex of most problem either by denying the existence of the disease
nations. or by rejecting modern medical practices. In some
areas, the most productive age groups have been deci-
Medicine The health and well-being of most hu- mated, leaving behind a generation of orphans, many
mans have improved since 1970. New drugs and sur- probably infected with the disease (Figure 23.5).
gical procedures have saved and prolonged life for Fatal infectious diseases, easily transmitted and with
millions in industrialized nations. Governments and millions of international travelers as potential carriers,
international organizations have worked together to have spread rapidly around the world. Especially wor-
educate the populace, to distribute drugs and build risome have been the influenza viruses, such as bird
medical facilities, and to eradicate childhood diseases flu and swine flu, originating in and moving out
around the world. of Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) and

Figure 23.5 AIDS Patient Dies from


Kidney Failure While Surrounded by Family
Members. Mission Hospital, Southern
Africa. 2002. According to one study, about
two million people die of AIDS each year, with
more than half of them from sub-Saharan
Africa. The United Nations and some of its
members, including the United States, have
increased their efforts to combat AIDS.
However, the approach of the United States
faith-based organizationsno condoms
and sexual abstinencehas generated
controversies among Americans and world
health authorities. About thirty-three million
humans worldwide are living with AIDS or
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which S
affects the immune system and leads to AIDS. N
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638 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

national health units work together, monitoring the hobbies, such as watching movies and playing video
paths of these diseases and cooperating to contain and games. These developments have led to cocooning, a
eradicate them. mode of stay-at-home living in which people surround
themselves with electronic devices and seldom ven-
Science Advances in genetics, based on the discov- ture into the public sphere, even for amusement and
ery of DNA, have revealed basic information about the social contact.
origins of life. Researchers have decoded the human Conversely, some technological breakthroughs have
genome, composed of perhaps three billion units of made for a more sociable world, but not in the old-
DNA, arranged into twenty-three pairs of chromo- fashioned sense. The cell, or mobile, telephone allows
somes. In biogenetics, scientists have cloned animal people to discuss business and personal matters, while
and plant products and organs, as well as whole sheep also providing them with varied forms of entertain-
and mice, their most spectacular achievement. As in ment. Online social networking services, such as
medicine, these breakthroughs raise serious ethi- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and personal blogs, en-
cal questions, such as: What use will be made of the able users to keep up with thousands of friends, ex-
genome map? Should attempts be made to clone hu- changing personal information, gossip, and random
mans? Are genetically modified fruits and vegetables thoughts. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, media stars
safe for human consumption? Just as in medicine, the and ordinary folks compete for the largest band of
resolution of these questions will probably be deter- followers.
mined within the courts. The microchip further revolutionized the entertain-
ment industry, which now produced many new prod-
Technology The inventions and improvements in ucts, including portable TVs, radios, CD players, and
machine technology have had a more direct and imme- media players. However, some buyers with alternate
diate impact on public and private life than advances in agendas, such as terrorists, have utilized these inven-
medicine and science. New devices have evolved from tions to construct an effective and sophisticated global
the miniaturized integrated circuit invented around network that allows them to carry on their destructive
1959, which had its origins in transistors (see Chap- work and to deliver their messages to a worldwide au-
ter 22), and from the founding of the microchip indus- dience. For better and for worse, e-mails, blogs, and
try in the 1970s. The microchip replaced the transistor text messages whiz around the world in seconds.
and its components with a single integrated circuit, or These instant forms of communicating can galvanize
chip, thus making it possible to further reduce the size opinions, appeal for international aid in time of crisis,
of machines, in particular, the computer. or stir up groups and set off riots or demonstrations.
Communication satellites, adapted from the 1960s Most notably, social media have been credited with
U.S. space program, made an interlinked global cul- starting the Arab Spring, by channeling the anger of
ture possible. Multinational corporations now depend disaffected citizens, first in Tunisia and later across
on these satellites, and people everywhere watch tele- the Middle East.
vised eventsincluding news, sports, and music at the Another breakthrough is under way in nanotech-
same time thanks to satellite communication. nology, which seeks to manipulate materials on the
But the computer and the Internet have revolution- atomic level, with the aim of building microscopically
ized life even more, making previously unimaginable small devices. This breakthrough follows the post-
quantities of data immediately accessible, simplifying 1945 trend toward miniaturization (see Chapter 22).
complex tasks, and transforming traditional habits of (Nano [Greek, dwarf ] in the international scientific
personal and public life around the globe. Consum- vocabulary means one-billionth part of.) Research
ers, through e-commerce, purchase goods and ser- in the United States and East Asia is ongoing, though
vices directly; through e-trade, buy and sell stocks and stain-resistant textiles, cosmetics, and improved me-
bonds without brokers; and through e-books, purchase dia players, using nanotechnology, are already avail-
and read books. Scholars, researchers, and students, able. Current research indicates future benefits in
through IT (information technology), access journals, varied fields, including health care, the environment,
books, libraries, and databases to keep up with areas food science, and communications.
of expertise. The medical community, through EMR Technological know-how is central to the growth of
(electronic medical records), maintains and shares com- many emerging economies. Technology, since the In-
puterized patient records, lab test results, and pharma- dustrial Revolution, has given developing nations the
ceutical lists. From websites, businesses place orders, means to catch up with the more advanced ones. Just as
restock inventories, and sell to customers. Individu- Germany and the United States eventually bypassed
als e-mail friends and family, keep pace with current Great Britain (see Chapter 20), today poor countries
S events, pay bills and do their banking, and design their with access to models of productivity and technology
N own websites, where they pursue varied interests and can close the gap and sell their manufactured goods
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The Birth of Postmodernism 639

to richer, consumer-driven nations. The Pacific Rim pattern of thought in each scientific disciplinethat
countries did this in the 1970s and 1980s. China and limits scientists to operating within its boundaries.
India, both rapidly moving up the technology ladder, For Kuhn, no basic changes can occur in science until
have emerged as major players in international trade a series of findings are made that render the existing
and commerce. paradigm unworkable, resulting in a paradigm shift.
Since 1995, the interfacing of technology with cli- When a paradigm shift occurs, one worldview is ex-
mate has become a global issue. In the 1980s, studies changed for another, as occurred, for example, when
showed that the emission of certain gases, including earth-centered astronomy gave way to sun-centered
carbon dioxide, were creating a greenhouse effect, or astronomy (see Chapter 16). A paradigm shift, in turn,
the warming of the earths surface, which might melt sparks new experiments that test basic assumptions
the polar ice and raise sea levels. Alarmed at this pros- and generate more questions. Kuhns paradigm-shift ar-
pect, 141 countries ratified the Kyoto Protocol (1997; gument was soon adopted by other disciplines, includ-
went into effect in 2005), which mandated specific ing the social sciences, economics, and business-school
reductions of industrial emissions by the signatory curriculums, and has now entered the mainstream of
nations. However, the United States refused to sign, Western thought.
asserting that the treatys demands would cripple its While Roland Barthes [BART] (19151980) bridged
economy. Meanwhile, corroboration of global warm- the structuralism and poststructuralism movements,
ing continues to come from reports of historic levels he, in contrast to Kuhn, attracted a select group of fol-
of polar ice melting in both the Arctic and Antarctic lowers and his influence was confined to a small audi-
regions. ence. In books on linguistics and language, Barthes,
as a structuralist, asserted that every language has
its own structure, or code, capable of being decoded.
Philosophy and Religion In later works, Barthes, as a poststructuralist, argued
Since the 1970s, most intellectual trends have been con- that any theory or explanation, such as that used in
fined to academic circles and small groups of thinkers, understanding or decoding a language or literary
while religious ideas and movements have caught the work, requires its own theory of meaning or explana-
attention of the world. The two primary subjects of tion. This necessitates a further set of codes and expla-
academic and literary debate have been poststructur- nations or a series of discourses. Although his quirky
alism and deconstruction. Poststructuralism, grow- style, wit, and allusions and his eclectic interests made
ing out of structuralism (see Chapter 22), offers varied Barthes difficult to understand, his ideas profoundly
ways to understand and interpret all texts, not just impacted literary and cultural criticism in France and
literary ones. Deconstruction is a method of criticism the United States. But many of his critics were both-
that focuses on reading, rhetoric, and aspects of lan- ered by the implications of his thought. Since Barthes
guage. In contrast, organized religious groups across reasoned that there were no certainties in understand-
the world have entered the political arena, often play- ing a text, there were, therefore, no overarching con-
ing a pivotal role in domestic and international affairs, cepts (such as science) or political or economic systems
while advocating their views on economic, social, and (such as democracy or socialism or capitalism). Critics
cultural issues. charged that his analysis led to extreme relativism or
even nihilismthe denial of objective truth.
Philosophy Thomas Kuhn, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida [deh-RE-dah] (19302004), a French
Jacques Derrida were leading thinkers in the post- philosopher and linguist, was another voice of post-
modern era, though most of their writings appeared modernism and the founder of deconstruction. His
earlier. Their ideas gave rise to ongoing debates about book Of Grammatology (1967) established his reputa-
timeless issues, such as how humans communicate, tion as a seminal thinker. Derrida defined decon-
understand, and explore the unknown and compre- struction as a new type of reading practice, which
hend their own existence and the meaning of life. deconstructed a text, claiming that a text, whether it
Kuhns ideas were easily understood and quickly be a novel, philosophical essay, or history book, could
adopted by the intellectual community, but the nu- be read in many ways and could have so many mean-
anced arguments of Barthes and Derrida were not as ings that it possessed no ultimate meaning. He argued
accessible and remain unfamiliar to the general public. that speech and writing, as they were deconstructed,
The American Thomas Kuhn (19221996) was a stu- could not be analyzed as they were subject to how
dent of the history of science, exploring the assumptions they were read and who was the reader. Deconstruc-
and methods of scientific research. In The Structure tion became another way to destabilize and displace
of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Kuhn reasoned that the former methods of understanding what was said
throughout the history of science, research has been or read or thought to be the truth. Like the critics S
framed by a paradigman unconsciously agreed-on of poststructuralism, the enemies of deconstruction N
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640 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

concluded that it was one more assault on the Wests By the 1990s, these groupsnow called evangelicals
self-evident truths and fundamental principles had coalesced into the National Association of Evan-
which were rooted in scientific methods, empiricism, gelicals and, through their political activity, were
and rationalism. affecting the outcome of elections. Known variously
as the Religious Right or the Christian Conservatives,
Religion and Religious Thought After 1970, reli- they joined with the Republican Party to become a
gious organizations tried, as in the past, to adjust to a powerful force in American politics. Through the me-
rapidly changing world. Many of the faithful utilized dia and the ballot box, they have proclaimed their be-
the latest technology for learning purposes, to spread liefs on many issues of modern life: stem cell research,
the faith, and to defend themselves, but others rejected evolution, abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex mar-
or attacked scientific and cultural changes that they riages. Their political activity has sparked controversy
believed to be threats to their values and beliefs. Chris- over the relationship between government and religion
tianity and Islam, the worlds most popular religions, and has raised, once again, concerns about the wall
adopted similar patterns of acceptance or repudiation, that has separated church and state in the United States
but they varied in their respective strategies and tac- for more than two hundred years.
tics for accommodating their faiths to modernity and Unlike in the United States, organized religion in
the postmodern world. western Europe has continued to decline as a social
In Latin America in the late 1960s, liberation theol- and cultural force. Many urban churches have been
ogy became a driving force for change in the struggle converted to secular uses, the ranks of Roman Catho-
against poverty and the oppression of the poor. Ro- lic priests and nuns are in steep decline, and member-
man Catholic intellectuals, inspired by Vatican II (see ship in Protestant churches has dwindled. However,
Chapter 22), founded this school of thought, which ap- in Africa and Asia, both the Roman Catholic and Prot-
pealed especially to the clergy who lived and worked estant churches, especially the evangelicals, have won
among the dispossessed. Mixing Christian social millions of converts by expanding mission programs
justice with Marxist analysis, advocates called for re- and building churches, schools, and hospitals. African
form of the economic and political systems along with and Asian bishops and cardinals make up an increas-
planned Christian-based communities that allowed ingly large percentage of the Roman Catholic hierar-
the poor to work together to improve their living and chy, which indicates that the Roman Catholic Church
working conditions. As liberation theology took root, will be less Eurocentric in the future.
its revolutionary ideas appeared to threaten the stabil- The papacy of John Paul II (pope, 19782005) typi-
ity of some Latin American countries. In the 1980s, the fied the challenges facing not only the Roman Catholic
Catholic Church withdrew its support for the move- Church but all organized religion during this period.
ment and military regimes wiped out many of its A cardinal from then-Communist Poland, he was the
communities, killing some priest-leaders. But libera- first non-Italian pope in 455 years. An engaging, bright,
tion theology has survived as an underground move- and energetic man, he took advantage of the news me-
ment in poverty-stricken regions of the world. dia and the jet plane, making highly publicized vis-
In the United States, appeals for Christian social its to nearly every country on the globe. He reached
justice reached new heights in the late 1960s. But the out to other faiths and played a key role in bringing
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, the ac- down the Communist regime in his native Poland,
celeration of the Vietnam War, and cultural upheaval which turned out be the opening phase of the fall
at home ended this phase of religious activism. Partly of the USSR (Figure 23.6). He also strengthened pa-
in reaction to these events, and partly due to the re- pal power, undermined some Vatican II reforms (see
vival and restructuring of the evangelical wing of Prot- Chapter 22), and held firm to the churchs traditional
estantism (see Chapter 19), institutionalized religion in stands on most gender and social issues. The human-
the United States took a different direction. In the 1960s ity and political acumen so evident in his early years
and 1970s, a number of charismatic, fundamentalist gave way to a more autocratic style and a conservative
preachers, led by Billy Graham (b. 1918), capitalized on theology, which reflected not only his aging but also
the rapid growth of television to deliver their revival the churchs response to its more globalized member-
messages. Some of these TV evangelists reached celeb- ship and an increasingly secular world.
rity status, and their followers donated generously to
build campus-style religious centers, large sanctuaries,
and colleges. These preachers attracted believers, who The Literature of Postmodernism
were disenchanted with mainstream culture, which Postmodernist literature is notable for the inclusion
they saw as a double threat: to their personal faith and of new literary voices drawn from diverse sources,
S to their vision of a Christian America. including Latin America, central and eastern Europe,
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The Birth of Postmodernism 641

Mississippi, Garca Mrquez invented the town of


Macondo as a symbol of his Colombian birthplace.
Through the eyes of an omniscient narratorprobably
an unnamed peasantwho sees Macondo as moving
toward a predestined doom, he produced a hallucina-
tory novel that blends details from Latin American
history with magical events, such as a characters as-
cent into heaven. The novels pessimism is typical of
the magic realist school.
While Latin Americas authors were enjoying in-
ternational renown for the first time, the writers of
central and eastern Europeanother new center of
postmodernismwere renewing an old tradition. From
the early 1800s until Communist regimes were in-
stalled in the early twentieth century, the finest writers
of central and eastern Europe had often been honored
in the West. The revival of the literature of this region
was heralded by the 1950s cultural thaw initiated by
Soviet leader Khrushchev (see Chapter 22), but this
thaw proved premature, since controversial writers
were either silenced or forced to seek refuge in the
West. Exile was the choice of the novelist Milan Kun-
dera [KOON-deh-rah] (b. 1929) of Communist Czecho-
slovakia, who moved to France after his first novel, The
Joke (1969), put him in disfavor with Czech authorities.
Figure 23.6 Pope John Paul II in Poland. 1979. Soon after being Kunderas style has affinities with magic realism, no-
elected pope, Karol Wojtyla [voy-TIH-wah] returned to his homeland. His tably the blending of fantasy with national history, but
June 1997 visit to Poland was a bold gesture. The leader of the Roman unlike the Latin American authors, he uses fantasy to
Catholic Church was warmly received, and he met with many organizations,
emphasize moral themes, never for its own sake. He is
including Solidarity, the underground labor movement that, in 1989, helped
overthrow the Communist government in Poland. In retrospect, the popes also more optimistic than the magic realists, hinting
trip was seen as an important step in the ending of the cold war. that the power of love can lead to a different and better
life. Indeed, Kundera tends to identify sexual freedom
with political freedom.
and the Islamic world, as well as minorities, assimi- The equation of sexual and political freedom is cer-
lated colonial peoples, and new immigrants. Taken to- tainly the message of Kunderas finest novel to date,
gether, these new voices signal a shift away from the The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). He made the
dominance of the New YorkLondonParis cultural center of this work two historic eventsthe coming of
axis and the rise of a global culture. communism to Czechoslovakia in 1948 and its reimpo-
sition after the 1968 uprising. He describes the obses-
Fiction In the late 1960s, Latin American authors sive and ultimately destructive behavior of his main
attracted international acclaim. Most of these writers characters as they try to define their sexual natures in
held left-wing political opinions and practiced a liter- the repressive Czech state. Although his novel shows
ary style called magic realism, which mixed realis- how insignificant human existence is in the face of po-
tic and supernatural elements. The ground had been litical repression, he refuses to despair. That his char-
prepared for the magic realists by the Argentine au- acters struggle for sexual fulfillment, even when faced
thor Jorge Luis Borges [BOR-hays] (18991986), whose with overpowering odds, is his way of affirming a hu-
brief, enigmatic stories were concerned with language manist message: the human spirit can be diminished
itself. The outstanding representative of the magic re- but never broken.
alist school is Gabriel Garca Mrquez [gahr-SEE-uh A belief in the power of the human spirit, similar
MAHR-kays] (b. 1928) of Colombia, who received the to Kunderas, is apparent in the work of the American
1982 Nobel Prize in Literaturethe first Latin Ameri- writer Alice Walker (b. 1944). In her poetry, essays, and
can novelist to be so honored. His One Hundred Years fiction, she brings a positive tone to her exploration of
of Solitude (1967) is among the most highly acclaimed the African American experience. Her novel The Color
novels since 1945. Inspired by William Faulkners Purple (1982) is the story of a black woman abused
(see Chapter 21) fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, by black men and victimized by white society. The S
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642 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

literary device she uses to express this womans an- with matriarchal influence, and China Men (1980),
guish is an old one, a story told through an exchange of telling of the patriarchal side. In 2008 Kingston was
letters. What is unique is that in some letters the suffer- awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to
ing woman simply pours out her heart to Godan un- American Letters.
expected but moving twist in the skeptical atmosphere Postmodern literature grew more pluralistic with
of the postwar world. The Color Purple also draws on the rise of writings crafted from the experience of
Walkers feminist consciousness, showing that the her- overseas peoples, drawn to Europe from former colo-
oines survival depends on her solidarity with other nies. One of the most commanding voices in this new
black women. Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, The writing is the English-born Zadie Smith (born Sadie
Color Purple was transformed into an award-winning Smith) (b. 1975). Smith, educated within the British
film in 1985, and in 2005 it became a successful Broad- establishment at Cambridge University, made a stun-
way musical. ning debut with White Teeth (2000), an evocative novel
Toni Morrison (b. 1931), whose novels explore the about multicultural London. In highly ironic prose,
plight of black Americans, was the first African Amer- Smith presents the lives of three familiesall outsid-
ican to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993). Except ers in a wayover three generations: a working-class
for The Song of Solomon (1977), which has a male nar- family of Muslim Bengalis; a working-class family
rator, her novels focus on female characters victim- similar to the authors, with a white English father and
ized by racism. In The Bluest Eye (1970), for example, a Jamaican-born wife; and an educated, middle-class
a young black girl, attracted by the standard of white family of British Jews. A hugely ambitious work, White
beauty, yearns to have blue eyes. Morrison also shows Teeth addresses many of todays major topics, such as
that violence is a central part of black life, as, for in- ethnic and racial identity, terrorism, and assimilation.
stance, in Sula (1973), when a grandmother, wanting The 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Wash-
to support her family, deliberately injures herself in ington, D.C., made Westerners eager for knowledge
order to collect insurance money. Inspired by her Af- about Islamic culture, by writers from within that
rican heritage, she draws on folklore, mythology, and world. Previously, translations of Islamic fiction had
the supernatural, as in Beloved (1987), in which a ghost appeared regularly in the West, though their style
is the central character. Her latest novel, Home (2012), and themes usually echoed Western models, as in The
focuses on a wounded Korean War veteran, as he tries Cairo Trilogy (19561957), about three generations of
to come to terms with the racism that drove him from Egyptians between World War I and the early 1950s,
his childhood home in the formerly segregated Deep by the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz [MAH-fooz]
South. Despite the racism and violence, Morrison im- (19112006). Now, after 9/11, the audience expanded
bues her novels with spiritual longing, thus offering dramatically, to address the burgeoning desire for Is-
hope for a more just society in the future. lamic books.
Maxine Hong Kingston (b. 1940) enriched postmod- The most profound voice yet to emerge in Islam for
ernism by bringing Chinese Americans into American many Westerners is that of the controversial Turkish
literature through her autobiographical books, a novel, writer Orhan Pamuk [PAH-muk] (b. 1952). His first
short stories, and articles. Her avowed literary aim novel, The White Castle (1985), about the ironies of mod-
has been to claim America, that is, to show that the ernization, made him a writer to watch. Later works
Chinese have the right to belong through their labor confirmed that judgment. Today, Western readers of-
in building the country and their own communities. ten hail him as the conscience of his nation, because
In staking out this claim, she was influenced by the his themes echo basic Turkish dilemmas: Western or
modernist poet William Carlos Williams (18831963), Islamic identity, secularism or religion, and freedom
who envisioned an American culture distinct from or authority.
Europe and fashioned from indigenous materials and Of Pamuks novels, My Name Is Red (2000) has ex-
forms. Kingstons writings not only celebrate Chinese cited the most global attention. Although events re-
strength and achievement but also serve to avenge volve around a murder, the novel is learned, ironic,
wrongsby calling exploitation, racism, and igno- erotic, and deeply steeped in the literary methods of
rance by their true names. the modernist novel. My Name Is Red focuses on a circle
The daughter of Chinese immigrants whose lan- of artistsall miniaturistsat the court of the Otto-
guage was Say Yup, a dialect of Cantonese, Kingston man sultan Murat III (r. 15741594), a generous patron
has used her own life as a paradigm of the Chinese of the arts. When one artist goes missing, a chain of
American experience. Drawing on childhood stories events is unleashed, ending with the death of the mur-
told in the immigrant community, she wrote two works derer. Adding to the novels allure are tidbits of Otto-
that draw on her Chinese heritage: The Woman War- man history, references to miniaturist styles across the
S rior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976), dealing Islamic world, and, of special note, meditations on the
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The Birth of Postmodernism 643

stir that arose when Western painting was introduced they performed with a theatrical collective in Milan,
to the Ottoman court. The novels narrative unfolds for which Fo wrote plays, including Accidental Death of
in a modernist style, as each of its fifty-nine chapters an Anarchist (1970), which established his international
is told from a shifting perspective, including those of reputation. This provocative play, based on a real-life
several characters, a dog, a gold coin, and the color red. event, raised the question Did a police suspect leap
In 2006 Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in Literature, to his death or was he pushed? Blending drama with
the first Turkish writer to be honored with this award. comedy, this full-length, tragic farce used techniques
from commedia dellarte (Italian, comedy of art), a
Poetry Poetry has, by and large, experienced a fal- theatrical form from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
low period after 1970. The already tiny audience for century, involving clowns, puppets, and stock figures;
poetry has grown smaller still, in response to the ex- absurdist drama; and Fos own imagination. In 1997
plosive growth of mass media, shifting demographics, Dario Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
and the obscurity of most verse. It has also thus far
resisted globalization, largely because, as is often said,
Poetry in translation does not travel well. How- Postmodernism and the Arts
ever, one major poet, writing in English, has emerged: After 1970, artists and architects moved beyond late
Derek Walcott (b. 1930), the West Indian poet. modernism, which dissolved into weak minimalist
Walcotts writings reflect his personal situation, schools (see Chapter 22). In postmodernism, the shock
first as a youth on the remote volcanic island of Saint of the new gave way to the shock of the old. Abandon-
Lucia, and second as a mature black writer, torn be- ing the pessimism of late modernism, with its focus on
tween island culture and his new American home- abstraction and purity, postmodern artists grew more
land. Author of numerous plays and books of poetry, optimistic and revived earlier styles, although always
Walcott became world famous with Omeros (1990), with added layers of meaning, nuance, or irony. Real-
a book-length poem that revisited Homers Iliad and ism made a triumphant return to art, flourishing as
Odyssey, transposing their setting to the Caribbean neorealism, a style based on photographic clarity of
in the 1900s and drawing on their themes of war and detail; as neoexpressionism, a style that offers so-
homecoming, respectively. Dantes Divine Comedy also cial criticism and focuses on nontraditional painting
influenced Walcott, providing him with the theme of methods; and as neoclassicism (not to be confused
salvation and the three-line verse form in which the with the neoclassicism of the late eighteenth century),
poem is composed. In Omeros, Walcott blended imag- which had been dormant since the early twentieth
ery and diction, redolent of the lush tropics, with an- century and pronounced dead by the late modernists.
guish for the paradisiacal world he had lost. Walcott Neoclassicism is the most striking style within
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. postmodernism, in both painting and architecture,
perhaps because it looks so fresh to modern eyes. But
Drama Drama, like poetry, has not become global. modernist abstraction still remains a significant facet
Avant-garde theater has all but disappeared. Few out- of postmodernism. The postmodernists, in their open-
standing dramatists have emerged since the politicized ness to artistic possibilities and their refusal to adopt a
1960s, when they made sociopolitical issues central to uniform style, resemble the postimpressionists of the
their works. Thus, the theater, often diagnosed as the late nineteenth century.
glorious invalid, has been ailing over the past four de-
cades or so. However, there have been two rays of hope: Painting The American neorealist painter Philip
the comedies of the Italian team Dario Fo (b. 1926) and Pearlstein (b. 1924) has kept the human figure a part of
Franca Rame (b. 1928) and the rise of comedy troupes. postmodern art. Starting in the 1960s, he made his chief
In Fo-Rame, from 1959 to 1970, Fo was the leader, subject human bodies beyond their prime, perhaps as
writing, directing, designing sets and costumes, and, a way of reflecting the melancholy of the age. He ren-
sometimes, composing music. Rame, his wife, muse, dered his nonidealized nudes in stark close-up, their
and leading lady, assisted at all levels. Nurtured in so- bodies at rest like hanging meat, and with cropped
cialist families in Italy, the pair were drawn to popular heads and limbs as in a photograph (Figure23.7). His
theater, which catered to ordinary people. Their early works seem to parody the centerfold sexuality that
plays were little more than comic revues, satirizing accompanied the sexual revolution brought on in part
postwar Italy. In response, the church and the state be- by the birth control pill.
gan a continuing campaign to censor them. Over time, Whereas neorealism tends to neutrality or moral
as their satire became fiercer, their fame grew, along subtlety, neoexpressionism uses realism to create
with controversy. In the 1960s, Fo and Rame became works with overtly sociopolitical messages. The out-
sensations on Italian television. From 1970 to 1985, standing neoexpressionist is the German artist Anselm S
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Figure 23.7 PhiliP PearlSteiN. Female on Eames Chair, Male on
Swivel Stool. 1981. Watercolor, 60 40. Collection of Eleanor and
Leonard Bellinson. Pearlsteins refusal to glamorize his nude subjects
is part of a democratizing tendency in postmodernism. Just as some
postmodernist authors borrow freely from mass-circulation genres such
as mystery and science fiction, so Pearlstein focuses attention on bodily
features like sagging breasts and bulging veins that had been overlooked
by realist painters.

Kiefer [KEE-fuhr] (b. 1945), whose expressive tenden-


cies owe much to his older countryman Joseph Beuys
(see Chapter 22). Kiefers works have blazed new trails
with nontraditional materials, including dirt, tar, and
copper threads (see Interpreting Art). In his apocalyp-
tic vision, personal references, and historical allusions,
Kiefer is perhaps the contemporary artist closest to the
German expressionists of the early 1900s.
In the United States, a leading neoexpressionist is
Susan Rothenberg [ROTH-en-berg] (b. 1945). Sensing
the tidal shift under way in art circles, she abandoned
1960s minimalism for a more expressive style in 1973.
In 1990, when she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, her
style changed again, returning to her minimalist roots
while remaining an expressionist, as in Maggies Pony-
tail (Figure 23.8). In this painting, she portrays two
disembodied limbs, perhaps arms, emerging from
an agitated red background. Their hands are holding
a dark massperhaps the ponytail of the paintings
title. On the lower right side of the painting, two other
images are barely visible: the back of a head and a hand.
A painter who uses neoclassicism to make subtle
commentary on art history is Peter Blake (b. 1932). In
The Meeting, or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney, he de-
picts a meeting of three 1960s British pop artists who
in the 1980s joined the ranks of postmodernism (Fig-
ure 23.9). This new version of Courbets The Meeting,
or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet (see Figure 19.11) is both
an ironic comment on contemporary neoclassicism
and a classical composition in itself. The three art-
ists depicted are, from left to right, Howard Hodgkin
(b.1932), Peter Blake, and David Hockney (b. 1937), the
last-named grasping a huge paintbrush. Blakes Meet-
ing abounds in ironic juxtapositions: age versus youth,
Old World versus the New, the aesthetic life versus
consumerism, work versus play, and timeless present
versus fleeting moment. Blakes postmodernism fuses
rival traditions, the eternal values of classicism and
the transience of pop art.

Figure 23.8 SuSaN rotheNBerG. Maggies Ponytail. 19931994. Oil on


canvas, 651/4 531/4. Private Collection. In this painting Rothenberg
deconstructs the natural world, focusing only on a few details. The result is
to create a simple enigmatic imagea style inspired perhaps by the bleak
S high desert world of Santa Fe. The highly expressive background links her
N style to that of Willem de Kooning (see Figure 22.6).
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THE BIRTH OF POSTMODERNISM 645

Interpreting Art
Materials Allegory The circuit
Nontraditional materials: board, atop the pyramid,
copper wires, bits of broken stands for Isis, and the
pottery, and a fragmented pottery shards symbolize
circuit board. Osiriss body parts. The
copper wires, linking the
Setting The massive circuit board to the pottery
copper-colored pyramid shards, represent both
evokes the step pyramid at Isiss love and a nuclear
Sakkareh (see Figure 1.12), reactor.
thus establishing a link to
ancient Egypt. The pyramid, Ambiguous
presumably, is Osiriss
tomb.
Message Kiefer
uses the Osiris-Isis myth
to give shape to his fears
Egyptian Myth of modern technology:
Osisris, one of Egypts chief technology has become
gods, was dismembered a deity with the capacity
by his enemy-brother, Set. either to destroy or to
Isis, the devoted sister-wife create.
of Osiris, reassembled his
body, except for the penis,
and restored him to eternal
Existentialism
Created at the end of the
life. In time, Isis became
cold war, this artwork, with
Egypts chief goddess
a NSelm k ieFer. Osiris and Isis. 19851987. Diptych, mixed media on canvas, 126 1841/2 61/2. its apocalyptic image of a
and Osiris, the ruler of the
Anselm Kiefer. Unlike modernist artists, whose goal was an art purified of national markers and symbols, blasted earth, is a chilling
underworld.
Anselm Kiefer is very much a postmodernist in embracing his German roots, particularly in coming to terms reminder of the threat of
with the calamitous Nazi period. Thus, his artistic mission: to explore his German heritage and identity. A sec- nuclear destruction that
hovered over the period.
ondary theme in his art has been the continuity of Western culture from its earliest stages to the present. Kiefer
has lived and worked in France since 1995.

1. Medium What materials does Kiefer use in this artwork? 4. Art Historical How do earlier styles influence Kiefer in this
2. Composition Describe the features that make this a work artwork?
of art. 5. Context How does Osiris and Isis reflect the world in which
3. Theme What is Kiefers message and what symbols does it was created?
he use to convey it?

Modernist abstraction remains a force in postmod- field painter, covering the entire canvas with color
ernism. The most famous abstractionist working to- and emphasizing solid areas of color on a monumen-
day is Frank Stella (b. 1936), an American painter with tal scale. Through a series of artistic experiments, he
a varied career. A minimalist in the 1950s, painting was led to create multicolored soaked and stained
striped canvases (see Figure 22.9), he became a fore- canvases, draping and wrapping them in space, and
runner of neoexpressionism in the 1970s, using gaudy shaping them into three-dimensional sculptural works
color and decorative effects. Since the 1980s, he has (Figure 23.11). These large draped paintings, which
stayed true to abstract ideals, as in Kastura, which uses are part of the installation art movement (see page 647),
the scraps left over from other works (Figure 23.10). have been hung in various public placessubway
Abstract and nonrepresentational, this work is never- stations, airports, and libraries. He continues to ex-
theless postmodernist, since it combines genres, in this periment in diverse media, using computers to create
case, painting and sculpturean ambition of many images, combining colors, textures, spaces, and mate-
postmodernist artists. rials, such as plastics and aluminum, and linking his
Another devotee of late modern abstraction is the earlier styles with his latest innovations. Gilliam and
African American artist Samuel Gilliam (b. 1933). Gil- Romare Bearden (see Chapter 22) are considered the S
liam began as an abstract expressionist and a color leading African American painters after World War II. N
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646 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Figure 23.9 Peter Blake. The Meeting, or Have a Nice Day,


Mr. Hockney. 19811983. Oil on canvas, 39 49. Tate Gallery,
London. Blake brings classicism up-to-date by applying its features and
principles to a contemporary California setting. He fills the sun-drenched
scene with double-coded references, including the pose of the girl in the
right foreground (borrowed partly from a skating magazine and partly from
classical sculpture), the dog (an allusion to American youth culture and
Albertis Renaissance artistic theory), and the winged hat of the person
in the Dodgers shirt (a contemporary sports emblem and a symbol of the
god Mercury). The result is a hybrid scene, marked by the ironic contrast
between the grave and self-contained central figures and the cool
teenagers in the background.

Figure 23.10 Frank Stella. Kastura. 1979. Oil and epoxy on aluminum,
and wire mesh, 97 78 30. The Museum of Modern Art, New
York. Largely because of his lively intelligence, Stella has stayed on the
cutting edge of postmodernism. He has kept abstraction alive almost
single-handedly at a time when realist styles are dominant. His 1960s
innovation, the shaped canvas, allowed him to replace the rectilinear
canvas with an abstract form (see Figure 22.9). By the late 1970s, he
S had transformed the shaped canvas into a blend of sculpture and painting,
N as in Kastura.
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The Birth of Postmodernism 647

Figure 23.11 Sam Gilliam. All Cats Are Grey at Night. 1996. Acrylic Figure 23.12 Gerhard Richter. Betty. 1988. Oil on canvas, 401/4 281/2.
on canvas, 65 44 8 (installed, variable). Collection of Patrick St. Louis Art Museum. Richters jarring portrait of Bettywith face
Everett. Gilliam, who was a member of the Washington color school of the avertedsparks a multilayered interpretation. In existential terms, the
1960s, moved beyond abstract expressionism, redefining its traditions and subject expresses the isolation of modern life. In an art historical sense,
techniques to experiment and create his own style. According to one critic, the depiction of the back of the head evokes the method of Renaissance
Gilliam has brought back the pleasure of texture and the optical qualities sculptors in fully finishing their figures in the round (see Figure 12.13).
of painting. In his drapesas these works are calledhe blends In modernist terms, the provocative pose is a challenge to viewers basic
colors, softening them on the surface and balancing them in the hanging of assumptions about art. A feminist reading could interpret the subject as
the canvas, thus combining colors and texture. rejecting the male gaze of the painter. And in Freudian terms, the pose
could reflect an estrangement between subject (his wife?) and artist.
Richters silence about his motives here leaves the meaning of the work
open. Thus, Richters Betty stands as a masterpiece of postmodernist
Defying easy categorization is the German painter ambiguity.
Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), whose style-shifting images
make him the art worlds chameleon. This protean art-
ists paintings range over the postmodernist spectrum, Sculpture Like painters, postmodernist sculp-
from abstraction to a kind of realism, with stops in be- tors began to work with realistic forms. For example,
tween, including photo-realism (a painting style that serving as complements to the neorealist paintings of
mimicks the clarity of a photograph) and op art, often Philip Pearlstein are the sculptures of the American
working in two styles at once. Richter further compli- John De Andrea (b. 1941). Typically, De Andrea uses
cates his art through varied means, such as choosing traditional poses, as in Sphinx (Figure 23.13). But his
banal subjects (two lighted candles) and blurring real- human figures are fully contemporary, suggestive of
istic images (to suggest faded photographs). Perhaps young, upwardly mobile professionals (yuppies)
his most arresting image is Betty (1988) (Figure 23.12), who have taken off their clothes. Whether or not his
a portrait of a woman whose face is hidden from the works are satirical, De Andrea manages to capture in
artists (and the viewers) gaze. This perverse image, sculptural form the erotic quality considered so desir-
with its slightly blurred effect, while charming, forces able by modern advertising, movies, and mass media.
the viewer to question the artistic intent of this most Minimalism, an art movement that originated in S
enigmatic of postmodern artists. the 1950s and 1960s (see Chapter 22), showed great N
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648 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Figure 23.13 John De Andrea. Sphinx.


1987. Polyvinyl, oil paint, life-size. Unlike
Pearlstein, who uses nudity to register his
disgust, De Andrea designs his polyvinyl nudes
to celebrate the glossy lives of the upper middle
class. The bodies of his nude subjects convey
what todays consumer culture urges everyone
to be: healthy, sleek, athletic, and sexy.

staying power after 1970, particularly among sculp- meaning is literal, not personala pervasive feature
tors who drew inspiration from its tendency to reduce of minimalism.
artistic elements to the simplest forms. Minimalist The minimalist aesthetic also inspired the spare
sculptors explored issues of medium, form, and mean- form of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Wash-
ing, as in the works of Dan Flavin (19331996). Flavin, ington, D.C., designed by Maya Ying Lin (b. 1959), the
rejecting the traditional materials of sculpture, made daughter of Chinese immigrants. Winner of a national
light the principal medium in his art (Figure 23.14). Be- contest for the designtwo highly polished black
cause his usual light source was fluorescent tubes, this granite walls set at angles so as to form a giant V
choice impacted the final form of his works. Because Lin rejected traditional images of fallen warriors (see
of the centrality of technology in his art, each works Figure 4.15) and chose instead an unconventional and

Figure 23.14 Dan Flavin. Untitled (to


the innovator of Wheeling Peachblow).
1968. Fluorescent lights and metal fixtures,
81/2 81/4 5 3/4. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York, NY. Just as video
art added a new mediumsoundto
sculptural art, so did Dan Flavins works in
light. By making light his medium, Flavin
shifted the aesthetic focus from sculptures
traditional concernstexture and presence
to mood and atmosphere. In Untitled, the
glowing lights evoke feelings of melancholy
and harmony. True to the ideals of minimalist
art, Flavin denied any transcendent meaning to
his light sculptures. Wheeling Peachblow was
a type of coral-colored glassware, produced
S in Wheeling, West Virginia, starting in the late
N nineteenth century.
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understated tribute to those who had died. In her artis-
tic vision, the memorial was to appear as a rift in the
earth, which would lift up and then recedea hint
of the environmental art principles then being born.
On its two walls are carved the names of the Vietnam
Wars casualties, the more than fifty-eight thousand
American men and women killed or missing, arranged
not alphabetically but by the war year for each death.
Perusing the names gives a striking representation of
the rhythm of the conflict, as the fighting intensified in
the late 1960s and early 1970s and then wound down
to its end, in 1974. Built on the northwest side of the
National Mall, this monument has become one of the
most hallowed and visited places in the United States Figure 23.15 Maya Ying Lin. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 1982. Black
(Figure 23.15). granite, 250 length (each wing). Washington, D.C. The vertex of the
In contrast to the solemnity and timelessness of V-shaped memorial is set in such a way that makes it possible to view the
Lins outdoor sculptures are the entertaining and tran- Washington Monument and then turn to see the Lincoln Memorialthe
shrines that honor Americas two most admired presidents. The Vietnam
sitory works of Christo (b. 1935) and his wife, Jeanne- Veterans Memorial, although controversial when built, has had a healing
Claude (19352009). Their creations are often identified effect, bringing the nation together after a war that bitterly divided its
with environmental art, a type of art that is related to citizens. Every day, visitors come to pay their respects, leaving flowers,
nature, usually site specific and sometimes ephemeral photographs, letters, and military medals. The seemingly endless list of
(see the section Environmental Art), and also with names reminds the viewer of the terrible costs of war.
conceptual art, a type of art in which the idea or con-
cept is more important than the means employed to
complete it. Conceptual art, which began in the 1960s, quantities of materials, usually roping, steel rods, and
is often a vehicle for sociopolitical ideas. Regardless fabrics. Christo and the late Jeanne-Claude accepted no
of the definition, Christo and Jeanne-Claudes works funding or donations for these events and paid for them
overawe the viewer, relate to the landscape, bring out from the sales of their own works, including postcards,
crowds and the media, and stir up controversy (Fig- scale models, and other personalized items. Their wrap-
ure23.16). ping a building, stringing a nylon fence along a coast-
Their monumental projects required years of line, or decorating a park or environmental site became
planning, the cooperation and approval of govern- a public spectacle. Each art event lasted for only a few
ment agencies and private institutions, the employ- weeks and was then dismantledto be remembered
ment of hundreds of workers, and the purchase of vast through photographs, on film, or in the minds of those

Figure 23.16 Christo and Jeanne-Claude.


Image, from The Gates. 2005. Central
Park, New York. The Gates in Central Park
lasted for two weeks, a typical time period
for a Christo project. Seventy-five hundred
gatesfree-hanging, saffron-colored fabric
panelswere positioned ten to fifteen feet
apart along the footpaths for a total of twenty-
three miles. The winter landscape, with the
bare trees and blanket of snow, and the rows
of saffron-colored panels, gave the effect of a
brightly colored river running through Central
Park where an individual could walk for miles
enjoying the interplay between nature and
art. The artists, who developed the concept
in 1979, worked with government and civic
groups to gain their approval. Christo and
Jeanne-Claude, according to their arrangements, S
paid for the 21-million-dollar project. N
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650 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

who witnessed it. The environment returned to its pre- Another important postmodernist sculptor is Ra-
event state and the art disappearedthus, only the idea chel Whiteread (b. 1964), one of the Brit Pak or, more
or the memory remained of this transitory happening. seriously, the YBA, Young British Artists. The YBA
A postmodernist sculptor, whose mysteriously se- has traded in the low-key style of older British art for
ductive works have earned him a strong presence in an art that is attention grabbing and often associated
global culture, is Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), an Indian with scandal. Unlike the works of many of this British
artist born in Mumbai (Bombay), who has lived and school, Whitereads sculptures are deeply serious and
worked in the United Kingdom since 1972. Drawing modest in execution. Inspired by American minimal-
on his Indian roots and his Western training and in- ist art of the 1960s and 1970s, her works usually rep-
spired by the aesthetic of the German artist Joseph resent simple ideas using familiar, everyday objects
Beuys (see Chapter 22), Kapoor has produced a varied (Figure 23.18). She works in various media, including
body of works, using an eclectic stew of materials: raw plaster, concrete, resin, and rubber.
pigment, chalk, dirt, fiberglass, stones, gourds, con-
crete, aluminum, stainless steel, bronze, felt, acrylic, Installation Art Installation art is a boundary-
and wax. Of his prolific sculptures, perhaps his most challenging art born in the 1960s that specializes in ar-
famous is Cloud Gate (2004), installed in Chicagos Mil- chitectural tableaux [tah-BLOZ]depictions of a scene,
lennium Park (Figure 23.17). Weighing 110 tons, this as on a stage, with silent and motionless characters
monumental work nevertheless is scaled to fit easily drawing and quoting from both artistic sources (such
into the vast park settingthus blurring the bound as music, painting, sculpture, and theater) and the
aries between architecture and sculpture. workaday world (such as everyday tasks, media images,

Figure 23.17 Anish Kapoor. Cloud Gate. 2004. Stainless steel, 33 66 42. Millennium Park, Chicago.
Inspired by blobs of liquid mercury, Cloud Gate has an elegant curvilinear shape, whose mirrorlike surface
captures the fleeting changes in its urban environment, both on the ground and in the sky. Designed to be
interactive, this accessible artwork is literally experienced by visitors as they walk around it and through its
arch. Cloud Gates abstract form echoes Western modernist ideals, while its ever-changing surface, according
to Kapoor, is a metaphor for a state of becominga typical worldview of Indian thought.

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The Birth of Postmodernism 651

and foodstuffs); the finished work often includes a hu-


man presence. One of the most gifted installation art-
ists is the American Ann Hamilton (b. 1956), known
for sensory works filled with meaning. The piece
mantle, installed in a second-floor gallery at the Miami
Art Museum in 1998 (Figure 23.19), had as its human
focus a woman performing a simple household task at
an open windowan homage to Dutch genre art, which
pictured women in similar poses. The womans task
sewing sleeves onto the bodies of wool coatsgives
the piece its name (a mantle is, among other things, a
sleeveless garment). Wires dangle down the gallerys
wall into a mound of sixty thousand cut flowers dis-
played on a 48-foot-long table behind the woman. The
decaying flowers are a memento mori, or a reminder
of deatha frequent theme of Renaissance art. In 1999
Hamilton represented the United States at the presti-
gious Venice Art Biennale, and in 2008 she received
the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities.

Environmental Art A new art form that emerged


after 1970 was environmental art. Environmental Figure 23.18 Rachel Whiteread. Untitled (Yellow Bath). 1996. Cast
structures were fashioned from native materials, such made of rubber and polystyrene, ht. 311/2 w. 811/2 d. 45 1/3.
Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York. Whitereads wide-ranging eye
as stone, mud, water, and plants, so as to appear as if has led her to sculpt many household objects, including mattresses, chairs
made by nature. Part landscape design, part engineer- and tables, bookshelves, and bathtubs. Her works are more than mere
ing, and part minimalist art, this sculpture began in representations; she makes a cast of the spaces around an object, trying
response to modernisms wish to erase the boundary to capture traces of a human presence. In its new incarnation, Whitereads
between art and life, as in Spiral Jetty (1970) by Rob- bathtub has been compared to a sarcophagus. Such an interpretation
is acceptable to the artist, as she is on record as comparing her casting
ert Smithson (19381973) (Figure 23.20). What made technique to the making of a death mask. Indeed, there is a faint air
environmental sculpture postmodern was its politics, of melancholy about Whitereads sculptures, since they seem to affirm
as the works, in effect, expressed solidarity with the human mortality.
environmental cause.

Figure 23.19 Ann Hamilton. View of mantle. Miami Art Museum. 1998. Installation art has affinities
with other innovative art forms, but it lacks the centrality of the videotaped image, as in video art, or a strong
musical component, as in performance art. In mantle, there was a minor musical aspect: radio receivers,
placed amid the flowers, transmitted musical and other sounds during the event. Feminist in perspective,
this installation may be interpreted as an ironic comment on the male-dominated art world, because, until
the mid-twentieth century, this world discouraged women from becoming artists and limited their artistic
choices mainly to domestic chores, such as making clothes. In the photograph, Ann Hamilton is the woman
sewing; volunteers and paid attendants performed this task when the artist was absent.

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652 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Figure 23.20 Robert Smithson. Spiral


Jetty. 1970. Great Salt Lake, Utah. Mud,
salt crystals, rocks, water, 1500 15.
Collection: DIA Center for the Arts, New
York. Smithsons mission, derived from
minimalist aesthetics, was to blur the boundary
between art and nature, as in Spiral Jetty.
Constructed of materials native to the Great
Salt Lake region, the jetty gives little hint of its
human origin, except for the spiral form. And
even that form has altered over time, as the
lakes water levels have risen and fallen. By
creating art that is subject to the same climatic
and geologic forces as its site, Smithson
reminds viewers of the transience of all human
endeavor. Thus, an air of gentle melancholy
pervades his works.

Video Art Nam June Paik (19322006) founded video urban landscape, for good or ill. If the setting is thriv-
art in the late 1950s and, during his lifetime, became ing, then a new building should harmonize with its
the best-known artist working in this new art form. neighbors, but if the area is in decline, then the new
Video art is made with a video monitor, or monitors, edifice can act as a catalyst to help revitalize the urban
and may be produced using computerized programs space. Thus, performing arts centers, opera houses, ath-
or with handheld cameras; the work may be ephem- letic arenas, and museums became agents of change,
eral or permanent. Over time, Paik evolved from an the nucleus around which restaurants, theaters, shops,
artist intent on being entertaining into one devoted apartments, and condominiums were built. A building
to serious issues and, starting in the 1980s, embracing itself becomes a place not only to see but also to ex-
political ideas. My Faust (Stations): Religion (19891991), perience urban life. For example, a new museum can
a sophisticated work representing his political beliefs, is not only function as a repository for art, but also serve
part of a series of thirteen individual multimonitor in- as an educational center, house an auditorium for lec-
stallations (see Figure 23.4). Rich in allusions, this work tures, films, and performances, and offer a fancy on-
refers to the thirteen channels available at the time site restaurant.
on Manhattan television, and the word stations in the One of the earliest exponents of postmodern ar-
title, reinforced by the Neogothic altarpieces, suggests chitecture is the American Robert Venturi (b. 1925),
Christianitys Stations of the Cross, the thirteen stages whose ideas are summarized in his book Complex-
of Jesuss journey to his crucifixion. The character Faust ity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966). Rejecting
was a symbol of both restlessness and relentless seek- modernist architecture, which he thinks inhuman be-
ing of knowledge, even to the loss of the soul (see Chap- cause of its starkness, he attempts to create buildings
ter 18). Thus, Paiks My Faust suggests humanitys pact that express the energy and ever-changing quality of
with the devil for secular power and glory. contemporary life. Fascinated by mass culture, he is
inspired by popular architecture, such as Las Vegas
Architecture By the mid-1960s, architecture was casinos and motels in the form of Indian tepeesa
moving away from late modernism toward postmod- kitsch style sometimes called vernacular. A work
ernism, as avant-garde architects experimented with that enshrines his love of the ordinary is Guild House,
new forms and built with new materials. In particu- a retirement home in a lower-middle-class section of
lar, the unadorned glass boxthe centerpiece of late Philadelphia (Figure 23.21). Faceless and seemingly art-
modernist designwas cast aside in favor of decora- less, this building is indebted to popular culture for its
tive exteriors and various claddings, or covers or over- aesthetic appeal; for instance, the wire sculpture on the
lays on the exterior walls. roof resembles a television antenna, and the recessed
Contributing to the rise of postmodern architecture entrance and the sign evoke memories of old-time
was a new way of thinking about a building. In late movie houses. Venturis playful assault on modernism
modernism, a building was usually a monument, a opened the door to the diversity of postmodernism. In
S timeless structure like a painting or a sculpture. But 1991 Venturi received the Pritzker Architecture Prize,
N in postmodernism, a building is one piece of a historic considered the professions highest honor.
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The Birth of Postmodernism 653

Figure 23.21 Robert Venturi. Guild House. 1965. Philadelphia. Venturis aesthetic aim is to transform the
ordinary into the extraordinary. He followed this democratic ideal in Guild House, where he took a dumb and
ordinary (his term) concept and tried to give it a monumental look. His ironic intelligence and his perverse
delight in mass culture have made him a guiding spirit of postmodernism.

Among the architects who have spanned both late which boldly displays its factory-made metal parts
modernism and postmodernism and who recognize and transparent walls (Figure 23.23). Commissioned
the relationships between urban life and architecture by France to restore Pariss cultural position over New
is I. M. Pei [PAY] (b. 1917). Pei, born in China, came York, the Pompidou Centre has spawned many imi-
to the United States in his teens to study architecture. tations as well as a style of interior decoration. Piano
Among his teachers was Walter Gropius [GROH-peus], was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
of Bauhaus fame, who had fled from Nazi Germany One of the most controversial buildings in post-
(see Chapter 21). Beginning in 1955, Pei and his part- modern architecture is the thirty-seven-story, pink
ners designed some of the most significant buildings granite headquarters building of American Telephone
of the late twentieth century, including the John F. and Telegraph, executed in a neoclassical style (Fig-
Kennedy Library in Boston, the Morton H. Myerson ure23.24). Designed by Philip C. Johnson (19062006),
Symphony Center in Dallas, the East Building of the an American disciple of Mies van der Rohe, this build-
National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Rock and ing was a slap in the face to the modernist ideal be-
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, and per- cause it used classical forms. AT&T Headquarters has a
haps his final project, the Museum of Islamic Art in base, middle, and top, corresponding to the foot, shaft,
Doha, Qatar (Figure 23.22). Pei has designed museums and capital of a Greek columnthe basic element of
not just to be repositories for art but as educational Greco-Roman building style. As a final blow to mod-
and social centers, and to make them more accessible ernist purity, Johnson topped his building with a split
and welcoming for a broader audiencea postmod- pediment crown (a triangular shape whose apex is
ern trend to democratize the arts. Pei was awarded the split, usually so as to form a semicirclea typical fea-
Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983. ture of classical architecture), causing a hostile critic
A prominent strain in postmodern architecture is to compare it to an eighteenth-century Chippendale
high tech, a style that uses industrial techniques and highboy (a tall chest of drawers set on a legged base).
whose roots stretch back to the Crystal Palace (see Fig- Notwithstanding the furor surrounding its creation,
ure 19.6) and the Eiffel Tower. Richard Rogers (b. 1933) this building heralded the resurgence of the neoclas-
of England and Renzo Piano (b. 1937) of Italy launched sicist wing of postmodernism. Johnson was the first S
this revival with the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1979. N
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Figure 23.22 I. M. Pei. Museum of Islamic Art. 2008. Doha, Qatar.
Pei, who seldom takes on new major projects, designed this museum,
with its geometric forms and soaring cubic dome, as a blend of Eastern
and Western architecture. He was inspired by the Ibn Tulun Mosque in
Cairo (see Figure 9.12), with its domes and ablution fountain resting Figure 23.24 Philip C. Johnson and John Burgee. American Telephone
on three receding squares. The museum, sited on an artificial island and Telegraph Headquarters. 19791984. New York. Although
accessible by a pedestrian bridge lined with trees, includes galleries, classical rules were followed in the planning of Johnson and Burgees
a library, a conservation center, and an auditorium. It is part of Qatars AT&T Headquarters, it was built using modernist methods. Like modernist
Education City, where several American universities have schools of structures, the building has a steel frame to which exterior panels
medicine, engineering, computer science, design, and diplomatic service. are clipped. Despite its modernist soul, the physical presence of this
postmodernist building conveys the gravity and harmony customarily
associated with classical architecture.

Figure 23.23 Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. The Georges Pompidou
Centre for Art and Culture. 19711977. Paris. Designed in a gaudy
industrial style and erected in the heart of a quiet section of Paris called
Beaubourg, the Pompidou Centre was controversial from the start, as it
was planned to be. Its showy appearance sharply contrasted with the
historic styles of neighboring structuresa contrast that has become
a guiding ideal of postmodernist architects. The furor that greeted the
Pompidou Centre on its opening has occurred in other places where city
S governments have placed colorful and brash high-tech temples amid their
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The Birth of Postmodernism 655

The Guggenheim Museum in the Basque city of the Virgin Mary, was appropriate for Catholic Spain.
Bilbao, Spain, designed by the American Frank Gehry Gehry, by shifting this emblem from a church to a mu-
(b.1929), was recognized immediately as a classic when seum, transformed it into an ambiguous sign of the
it opened in 1997. Hired by city officials to build the postmodern period. In 1989 Gehry was awarded the
museum as part of a civic rejuvenation project, Gehry Pritzker Architecture Prize.
chose a site on the Nervion River, which has played a Two of architectures brightest new stars are Rem
major role in the citys history. Gehrys design is in the (born Remmet) Koolhaas (b. 1944), of the Netherlands,
form of a rose, or metallic flower, with a rotunda at and Zaha Hadid (b. 1950), an Iraqi-born British citizen.
its center and the petals spiraling in waves of centrifu- Both were awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize,
gal force (Figure 23.25). Typical of Gehrys expression- Koolhaas in 2000 and Hadid in 2004, the first woman
ist handling of flexible materials, strips of metal ripple to receive it. Their lives overlapped in London, when
and flare outward into the city. Within the baroque Hadid worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architec-
interior are exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a restau- ture (OMA), which Koolhaas cofounded in 1975. Kool-
rant, a caf, retail space, and an atrium that functions haas moved OMA to Rotterdam in the early 1980s, but
as a town square. The choice of a rose, the symbol of Hadid remained in London, now her home.

Figure 23.25 Frank O. Gehry. Guggenheim Museum. 1997. Bilbao, Spain. Gehry is famed for pushing
the boundaries of architecture, which has often been confined by set rules, because he, as a friend of painters
and sculptors, sees himself as both an artist and an architect. Thus, the Bilbao Guggenheim has been labeled
sculptural architecture, considered a work of art in itself. Gehry relied on a sophisticated computer program to
achieve the buildings dramatic curvature, and he chose metal titanium to sheathe the exterior, thereby giving
it a gleaming, wavy-in-a-strong-wind appearance.

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656 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Figure 23.26 Rem Koolhaas. Seattle Central Library. 2004. Seattle.


Despite a restless facade, Seattles Central Library is meant to be used
rather than viewed as a monument, according to the architect, Koolhaas.
In his aesthetic vision, the cascading levels and thrusting angles echo the
hilly terrain of the citys downtown. Inside, a soaring atrium welcomes
visitors and psychedelic green-yellow escalators beckon patrons to explore.
Besides escalators and elevators, an innovative pathway spirals through
the eleven-level structure. Generous windows overlook the surrounding
cityscape and allow interplay between the indoors and outside. Koolhaass
masterpiece reinvents the modernist glass box, making the librarys
exterior and interior into an exuberant fantasy, but, like many postmodern
libraries, a place to enjoy and to meet.

Figure 23.27 Z aha Hadid. Rosenthal Center for Contemporary


Art. 2003. Cincinnati. Hadids bold designdramatic color contrasts,
elongated horizontal lines, and interplay of shadow and lightgives a
fresh look to the corner site of the Rosenthal Center. Yet the building fits
easily into the Cincinnati setting, as its dramatic facade makes linkages
with the nearby buildings (right, left, and rear). The street-level floor,
S articulated by a combination of glass walls and columns, is reminiscent
N of early modernism.
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The Birth of Postmodernism 657

Rebelling against the late modernist ideal that ar- in Jurassic Park (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg
chitecture could be an agent for social transformation, (b. 1946); computer-generated graphics in Toy Story
Koolhaas and Hadid created nonutopian styles that (1995), a collaboration between Pixar Studios and Dis-
connected with their urban settings. For both, a build- ney; digital video cameras in Star Wars: Episode II
ing is one part of a city, but cities, not buildings, are the Attack of the Clones (2002), directed by George Lucas
basic units of the emerging global culture. Koolhaas (b. 1944); and 3-D (three-dimensional) film in Avatar
set these ideas in motion in his 1975 treatise, Delirious (2009), directed by James Cameron (b. 1954). Of special
New York, A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattana call note, Avatar is the highest-grossing film in history, and
to arms to refashion the urban landscape. Koolhaass Camerons disaster film Titanic (1997) is number two.
Seattle Central Library (2004) (Figure 23.26), set atop Filmmakers also fill theaters with franchise films
one of the hills overlooking Puget Sound, is a beauti- multipicture stories that feature the same characters,
ful realization of his ideal: a building should harmo- such as the eight-part Harry Potter series (eight films,
nize with its immediate urban context. Hadid pursued from 2001 to 2011).
a similar goal in the Rosenthal Center for Contempo- A final major change in Hollywood after 1970 was
rary Art (2003), in Cincinnati, which fits seamlessly that films began to represent more closely the ethnic
into its setting (Figure 23.27). and racial pluralism of the United States. The trend
began with Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song! (1971),
directed by Melvin Van Peebles (b. 1932), which led,
Film in turn, to the blaxploitation film genrecrime films
After 1970 the film industry, now globalized, was un- featuring a swaggering black hero and catering to
der siege from many, often interrelated forces, includ- black audiences. Van Peebless commercially success-
ing technological innovations, a volatile marketplace, ful works paved the way for other black directors,
evolving film tastes, and the steady loss of audiences such as Spike (born Shelton) Lee (b. 1957), with his ur-
to new forms of entertainment. Although the Ameri- ban drama Do the Right Thing (1989), a study of racially
can film remained paramount globally, the Hollywood charged violence. As African Americans joined the
studio system, ailing since 1955, transformed itself over Hollywood mainstream, Hispanics and Asian Ameri-
the next three decades. cans followed suit. However, after 9/11, Arab Ameri-
Old Hollywood soon gave way to the new, as film cans and other Americans of Middle Eastern descent
studios shrank and movie screens grew wider, to were rarely depicted favorably in filmsa source of
counter the assault from television. Studios devised grievance for these groups.
creative strategies to lower costs, such as shooting The seismic shifts shaking the American film in-
films abroad or sharing expenses with foreign com- dustry were felt around the globe. Although audi-
panies. New film distribution systems arose, offering ences declined sharply, those viewers who remained
new formats, such as videos and DVDs, both for rent were more youthful. As Asias economies soared (in
and for sale, and television showed an unquenchable Japan, from the 1970s to the 1990s, and in China, In-
demand for movies on the small screen. A few small dia, and South Korea, from the 1990s to the present),
companies made a specialty of art films. For example, their youthful audiences became a driving force in the
Miramax Films (19792005), with appealing works market, as in the rise of the martial arts film genre.
such as the historic comedy Shakespeare in Love (1998), Japanese cinema retained a strong hold on world cin-
directed by John Madden (b. 1949), became a lead- ema. For example, Akira Kurosawas (19101998) Ran
ing global brand. The new Hollywood also spawned (1985), Shakespeares King Lear transposed to feudal
auteurist directors, including the New Yorkbased Japan, experienced international acclaim and techni-
Woody Allen (b. 1935), who directed urban neurotic cians there introduced the IMAX wide-screen format
art films such as Annie Hall (1977), and Clint East- (1970)a popular format for movies in most large cit-
wood (b. 1930), who directed the postmodern west- ies today.
ern Unforgiven (1992). A strong sign that Hollywood Film industries in Australia and China also joined
had changed was the founding of what is now the the global film community. Australias film boom pro-
Sundance Film Festival, in 1980, by the actor Robert duced art films of exquisite beauty, often based on
Redford (b. 1937). The festival has become a national real-life events, mixing gritty details with magic real-
and international showcase for art films, independent ism, such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), a haunting
films, and documentaries. In todays competitive mass tale of a school outing that ends tragically, directed
culture and in these lean economic times, the produc- by Peter Weir (b. 1944). Weir later was summoned to
tion of such venturesome films is increasingly at risk. Hollywooda path now taken by many foreign direc-
Meanwhile, in the new Hollywood, filmmakers tors. Australian film remains highly influential today,
continue to make genre films, keeping them fresh as in Moulin Rouge (2001), directed by Baz Luhrmann S
with new technologies, such as DTS Digital Sound (b. 1962), which almost single-handedly revived the N
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658 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Contemporary World

Figure 23.28 Still, from Crouching


Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 2000. Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon featured several Asian
superstars, along with relative unknowns,
such as Zhang Ziyi (b. 1979) (pictured above,
center). Zhang plays a young woman, a
runaway, who is on a quest involving honor
and revenge. Her charactercentral to the
complex storyblends Eastern martial arts
with Western feminist aspirationsa mixture
that appealed to a global audience. Ironically,
while Westerners were drawn to the over-the-
top fighting scenesactors on wires, moving
in seemingly gravityless spaceChinese
viewers were critical, finding the spectacle
unrealistic.

musical genre. And Australias top directors and ac- appealing, though they remained committed to exper-
tors move easily between Australia and Hollywood. imental methods. The most notable composer work-
Chinas rise to global eminence in film was equally ing in this style, the American Philip Glass (b. 1937),
spectacular, despite the use of a lowly genre inspired has made it his mission to return exuberance to mu-
by ancient fighting ritualsthe martial arts film. The sic. Working in a minimalist mode, he draws on var-
revival began in Hong Kong, where martial arts films ied sources, including classical Indian music, African
were entrenched by 1955. The regional genre went drumming, and rock and roll. Much of his music is
global in The Big Boss (1971), starring Bruce Lee (born written for synthesizer, a machine with a simple key-
Lee Jun Fan, in San Francisco) (19401973) and directed board that can duplicate the sounds of up to twelve
by Wei Lo (19181996). This film featured fighting with instruments simultaneously. Glass composes with sim-
bare fistskung fu, a Cantonese term, hence, the kung ple tonal harmonies, pulsating rhythms, unadorned
fu genre. With Hong Kongs films burgeoning, main- scales, and, above all, lilting arpeggios, the cascading
land Chinas film world reawakened in the mid-1980s, sounds produced by playing the notes of a chord in
when a new generation of filmmakers emerged who rapid sequences.
preferred art films to genre films. The groups leader A Glass piece is instantly recognizable for its ob-
was Zhang Yimou (b. 1951), whose films, while con- sessive, repetitive quality, as in Vessels, from the
troversial in China, were greeted as revelations and score for the documentary film Koyaanisqatsi (1983), a
earned many awards abroad, as, for example, Raise the Hopi word meaning life out of balance. In this cho-
Red Lantern (1991), a heartbreaking tale of forced mar- ral work, sung without a text, Glass manipulates hu-
riages, multiple wives, and intrigue. The proof that man voices into a thrilling dialogue, much as earlier
Chinas films were truly global came when Crouching composers had used groups of instruments. A cluster
Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), a martial arts film directed of higher voices creates a constantly shifting pattern
by Taiwans Ang Lee (b. 1954), won the Academy Award of undulating tones, against which a group of lower
for Best Foreign Language Film (Figure 23.28). Ironi- voices forges a forward-moving wall of sound. Glasss
cally, Chinas strict censors allow only a few foreign kaleidoscopic music provides a haunting accompani-
films to play in the countrys theaters each year. But ment to the time-lapse photography used in the docu-
bootleg DVD copies of foreign films circulate freely mentary film.
within China. A composer of symphonies, chamber works, film
scores, and dance pieces, Glass has gained the wid-
est celebrity for his operas. His first opera, Einstein
Postmodern Music on the Beach (1976), produced in collaboration with
In the 1960s, some innovative composers rejected late the equally controversial American director Robert
modernist atonality for its unemotional quality and Wilson (b.1941), was staged at New Yorks Metropoli-
harsh sounds. In place of atonality, they founded a tan Opera, a rarity in recent times for a living com-
S postmodern musical style that was more emotionally poser. In their kaleidoscopic work, Glass and Wilson
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The Birth of Postmodernism 659

redefined the operatic form, staging a production (19232006), the American John Corigliano [koh-RIG-
lasting four and one-half hours without intermis- li-ah-no] (b. 1938), and the Chinese-born Tan Dun
sion and with Glasss driving music set to Wilsons (b.1957).
texts with no recognizable plot, no formal arias, and Ligetis music, rooted in the minimalist aesthetic,
no massed choruses. So successful was this venture evolved over the course of his career. In his early
that Glass followed it with operas based on other re- works, he showed the mischievous spirit of John Cage,
markable figures, Satyagraha (1978), dealing with the as in Future of Music (1961), a piece in which the per-
life of Gandhi, Indias liberator, and Akhnaten (1984), former and the audience simply gaze at one another
focusing on the Egyptian pharaoh who is sometimes for a set time. Later, he experimented with electronic
called the first monotheist (see Chapter 1). Glasss in- music (music involving electronic processing, picked
terests took an even more multicultural turn in 1998 up from varied sound sources and requiring the use
with the premiere and world tour of his multimedia of loudspeakers in concert), pioneered by the French-
opera Monsters of Grace, with a libretto based on the born American composer Edgar Varese (18831965). In
thirteenth-century mystical poetry of the Persian poet the mid-1960s, Ligeti abandoned melody, rhythm, and
Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi (see Chapter 9). In 2000 Glass re- harmony to fashion a unique sound, as in Atmospheres
turned to Western themes with In the Penal Colonya (1966)his most frequently heard work to date. In
pocket opera he terms it, that is, a short, compact op- Atmospheres, he invented micropolyphony, to cre-
era with few characters and simple stagingbased on ate shifting masses of sound, notable for their den-
Kafkas short story. Western themes became intensely sity and texture. In 1968 the director Stanley Kubrick
political in his opera Waiting for the Barbarians (2005), (19281999) used passages from this work to evoke
with a libretto based on the 1980 novel by Nobel lau- the future in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A rest-
reate John M. Coetzee [KUUT-zee] (b. 1940), a South less genius, Ligeti continued to experiment, as in the
African novelist of German and English descent, who opera Le Grand Macabre (1976; revised 1999), blending
now lives in Australia. The operas setting and plot pop culture, satire, mock operatic music, and the peas-
a frontier town of an unnamed Empire, which is ant paintings of Pieter Bruegel (see Chapter 14). This
awaiting the attack of the barbariansevokes the ironic valentine to postmodernism has been called by
Iraq War and the threat of terrorism. critics an anti-opera, a musical comedy of the ab-
One of the best-known living composers is the surd, and an apocalyptic romp (Figure 23.29).
American John Adams (b. 1947). Like many other com- Corigliano belongs to the neoromantic wing of
posers of his generation, Adams is a minimalist, but he postmodern music. His works, composed in varied me-
stands out for his resonant sounds and firm grasp of diums, including orchestral, chamber, opera, and film,
musical form. He has written for a wide range of me- show an ever-evolving style, filled with rich expres-
dia, including orchestra, opera, video, film, and dance, siveness and innovative technique. He is perhaps best
and he has composed both electronic and instrumental known today for the film score of The Red Violin (1999),
music. His operas, Nixon in China (1987), The Death of directed by the Canadian Franois Girard (b. 1963). Fol-
Klinghoffer (1991), I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then lowing the 300-year-history of the red violin, Cori-
I Saw the Sky (1998), and Doctor Atomic (2005; revised glianos haunting score (finished in 1997) draws on
2008), based on historical events, have been viewed by diverse musical styles, such as classical, pop, and folk,
more audiences than any other operas in recent history. covering a global odyssey from Italy to Austria to Brit-
Two orchestral works, The Chairman Dances, adapted ain to China to Canada. Using the scores central mo-
from Nixon in China, and Shaker Loops (1996), have been tif, Corigliano expanded it into The Red Violin Chaconne
called among the best known and most frequently (1997), an independent work for violin and orchestra.
performed of contemporary American music by one (A chaconne, originally an eighteenth-century Spanish
critic. In 2001 Adams returned to his minimalist roots court dance, is a musical form that features variations
with Guide to Strange Places, a twenty-minute pulsing on a harmonic progression, rather then variations on
orchestral work, divided into five sections with alter- a melody.)
nating fast and slow movements. Two years later, this Tan Dun (surname, Tan) is a rising presence on the
piece became the score for a ballet of the same name, global music scene. Or, as John Cage has said, Tan is
choreographed by Peter Martins (b. 1946), the Danish- a musical force as the East and the West come to-
born ballet master of the New York City Ballet, the gether as our one home. A graduate of Beijings Cen-
eighth collaboration between Adams and Martins. tral Conservatory (1981) and of New Yorks Columbia
Three major composers with reputations for bold University (PhD, 1993), he developed an eclectic style
inventiveness and diverse influences demonstrate that reflects deep familiarity with the music of both
the multiple styles of postmodern music. They are the cultures. In orchestral and chamber music, opera,
Hungarian-born Austrian Gyorgy Ligeti [LIG-uh-tee] and film scores, he blends Chinese musical, historical, S
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660 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE CONTEMPORARY WORlD

Figure 23.29 Scene, from Le Grand Macabre. (1976; revised 1999). By blithely mixing periods and
styles, Ligetis Le Grand Macabre has established itself as a satiric work that plays fast and loose with
operatic tradition. The setting, to quote the composer, is the run-down but nevertheless carefree and thriving
principality of Breughelland [Ligetis term] in an anytime century. The hero is Death (Le Grand Macabre)
and the subject is living in the shadow of the apocalypse. In this world, Death gets no respect, as the cunning
peasant inhabitants pursue sex, alcohol, and political advancement. In the scene above, an astrologer peers
through a telescopea device not yet invented in Bruegels time

and cultural traditions with historic Western styles, Andersons performance art consists of sing-and-tell
including classical, minimalist, and popular music story-songs about mundane events of daily life, which
forms. Global audiences first became acquainted with somehow take on unearthly significance. These mono-
Tans dramatic music in Ang lees film Crouching Tiger, logues are often tinged with humor and are deliv-
Hidden Dragon (2000), for which his score was awarded ered in a singsong voice backed up by mixed-media
an Oscar. His most ambitious work to date, the opera images, strange props, and varied electronic media,
Marco Polo (1995), fuses a Western avant-garde musi- including electronic musical instruments, photo pro-
cal forman opera within an operawith Pan-Asian jection, manipulated video, and devices that alter the
multicultural elements: Peking Opera from China, ka- sound of her voice. Central to the performance is her
buki theater from Japan, shadow puppet theater from stage persona, rather like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,
Indonesia, and face painting from Tibetan ritual. Pe- in which she gazes with wide-eyed wonder on the
riod musical instruments from Europe, India, Tibet, modern technological world. A gifted violinist, An-
and China add to the multicultural fusion. In this derson intends her music to play only a supporting
multilayered story, the travel of Marco Polo from West role in her art, though her recordingsfor example,
to East is symbolic of the real-life trip of the Italian ad- The Ugly One with the Jewels (1995), based on a work
venturer, the global encounter now under way within called Readings from the New Bible (19921995)have
the postmodern world, and Tan Duns own spiritual found eager listeners. In Songs and Stories from Moby
journey. Dick (1999), based on Herman Melvilles nineteenth-
century novel, she broke new ground by composing
for male voices as well as her own.
Performance Art The American Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) has also
laurie Anderson (b. 1947) is a key artist in perfor- created a body of performance art, but without music.
mance arta democratic type of mixed-media art born Sherman first attracted notice in the 1970s with pho-
in the 1960s that ignores artistic boundaries, happily tographs of herself in elaborately staged poses, evoca-
mixing high art (such as music, painting, and theater) tive of old movie scenes or fan-magazine images of
S and popular art (such as rock and roll, film, and fads) a fictional actress (Figure 23.30). These photographs
N to create a unique, irreproducible artistic experience. seemed to present women as sex objects, trapped in
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SLICE OF LIFE
How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?

Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf (b. 1949), whose native language is Ara- originsillusory origins, since roads dont have real
bic but who writes in French, is both an exemplar and a starting points. Before the first curve, just behind us,
keen observer of global culture. Born in Lebanon as a Ro- there was a prior curve, and another one behind that
man Catholic Arab, he was driven from Lebanon by the one. The origin of every road is elusive because at ev-
1975 civil war. He moved to France where he has written ery crossroad other roads have merged, with other
a series of prizewinning novels. The following excerpt is origins. If we were to take into account all these tribu-
from the introduction to Origins (2004), a memoir of the taries, the earth would be encircled a hundred times.
Maalouf family. In my family, these tributaries must be taken into
account. The only thing connecting us to one another,
Someone other than I might have used the word beyond the generations, the seas, and the Babel of
roots [for the title to this memoir]. It is not part of languages, is the soft sound of a name. . . . Is a fam-
my vocabulary. I dont like the word, and I like even ily name a homeland? Yes, thats the way it is. And
less the image it conveys. Roots burrow into the instead of religious faith, an old-fashioned faithful-
ground, twist in the mud, and thrive in darkness; they ness. . . . like the ancient Greeks, I ground my identity
hold trees in captivity from their inception and nour- in a mythology; I know it is fictitious, but I revere it as
ish them at the price of blackmail: Free yourself and though it reveals truth.
youll die!
Trees are forced into resignation; they need their Interpreting This Slice of Life
roots. Men do not. We breathe light and covet the 1. Compare and contrast Maaloufs distinction between
heavens. When we sink into the ground, we decom- roots and roads as metaphors to define oneself
pose. The sap from our native soil does not flow up- and ones family.
ward from our feet to our heads; we use our feet only
2. What lesson does roads as a metaphor for iden-
to walk. What matters to us are roads. Roads convey
tity have for troubled regions of the world beset by
us from poverty to wealth or back to poverty, from
ethnic, racial, and religious tensions?
bondage to freedom or to a violent death. Roads hold
out promises, bear our weight, urge us on, and then 3. What lesson does roads as a metaphor for iden-
abandon us. And we die, just as we were born, at the tity have in the United States, as a way of address-
edge of a road not our choosing. ing the question of illegal immigrants?
Roads, unlike trees, do not sprout from the ground 4. Can the concept of roads be applied to your fam-
wherever the seeds happen to fall. like us, they have ily history? Explain.

Figure 23.30 ciNdy ShermaN. Untitled


#50. Photograph. 1979. Collection The
Museum of Modern Art, New York. In this
black-and-white photograph from the Film
Still series, Sherman impersonates an ice-cold
sophisticate, a stereotypical role in the movies
of her youth. The rooms furnishingslow
sofa, matching chairs, flowing draperies,
abstract sculptures, and square coffee table
with three ashtraysare directly from the
1950sthe period that established Shermans
artistic sensibility. She sits ramrod upright on
the sofa, ready for an evening at the theater or,
perhaps, an upscale restaurant. The low brim
of the hat, which obscures her eyes, adds an
air of mystery. Shermans aesthetic intent is
unclear: Is she simply presenting a straight-
ahead image, la Warhol? Or is she ironically
nudging the viewer with her nostalgic wink at S
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662 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE CONTEMPORARY WORlD

gender roles, and their ambiguous nature made her broadcasting in English. Russia has also joined in the
controversial, especially to feminists. In the eighties, global discussion with RTRussia Todaya news net-
she made a series called History Portraits, in which she work (in English, Spanish, and Arabic versions) and a
impersonated famous art subjects. In the nineties, she website, founded in 2005 by Vladimir Putin.
made photographs using pornographic subjects, mock Similar changes are under way in entertainment.
fashion images, and fairy-tale characters. Shermans Old types of amusements, such as radio and comic
art, with its staged and rather tacky quality, seeks to strips, have been joined by innovative means of media
dethrone high art and bring it down to earth for to- coverage, including cable television with MTV, and
days audiences. all-sports channels. These changes have given birth
to extravagantly popular figures: Michael Jackson
(19582009), superstar of the mid-1980s; Madonna
Mass Culture (b. 1959), queen of popular songs in the early 1990s;
The information boom spread American culture around and Eminem (born Marshall Mathers III in 1972), a
the world and transformed it into a global village. white rapper and the king of pop music in the last de-
Television provided the initial means of communica- cade. As entertainment continues to evolve, probably
tion, but the videocassette recorder, the compact-disc the most highly visible and influential development in
player, the digital recorder, the camcorder, the com- recent years has been the birth of hip-hopthe voice
puter, the Internet, the cell phone, and the World Wide of the people in the street.
Web have connected the globes peoples with unfore- The rise of hip-hop began in the 1970s. With ori-
seen consequences. gins in break dancing, graffiti art, rap rhyming, and
With this information explosion has come the Age of disc jockeys playing with turntables and scratch ef-
Infotainment, that is, a blend of information and enter- fects, hip-hop music emerged in black and Hispanic
tainment, a phenomenon that can be observed across America, spoken in either English or Spanish. By
the mass media. Older mass medianewspapers, mag- 2001, hip-hop was paramount in American pop mu-
azines, and radiohave declined, while newer outlets, sic, largely because of the same forces mainstreaming
such as television and computers, have grown. Even African Americans in Hollywood films and on tele-
newer types of media are under siege; for example, the vision. Hip-hop has spread to Mexico, much of latin
nightly televised news has taken second place to the America, parts of Canada, the Far East, and Europe,
24-hour news network format pioneered by CNN in especially within immigrant communities. And hip-
the early 1980s. CNN itself is now challenged by a Pan- hop played a role in the 2011 Arab Spring, with its lyr-
African news channel, using French and English, and ics serving as a battle cry for protesters as they took
Qatar-based Al Jazeera, the global voice of the Arabs, to the streets.

SUMMARY
After 1970 the world turned a corner. The United crisis and recession, and the uncertainties brought on
States and the USSR moved toward a dtente and their by the Arab Spring in 2011.
relations slowly improved. Then, in 1990, the Soviet Postmodernism struggled to explain and deal with
empire collapsed and the cold war was over. The tri- the changes in literature and the arts. It embraced
umph of a single superpowerthe United Statesdid mass culture, displaying a more playful approach to
not last long. The Western bloc fragmented as fissures creativity, and grew more inclusive as it envisioned a
emerged between the United States and Europe. Oil- global culture, including writers from latin America,
rich nations,such as Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, Asia, and the Middle East. Realism and figurative
presented challenges to Americas hegemony and se- painting returned to the art world, while many art-
curity. And the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India ists continued to push the boundaries of the creative
and China) began to play more important roles in the process via installation art, environmental art, per-
global economy. liberal democracy and free-market formance art, and video art. Architects adopted new
economics were threatened on many fronts: the re- materials and designs, built multipurpose structures,
vival of militant nationalism and ethnic warfare, the and planned people-friendly urban complexes.
populist reaction in poorer countries against global- Philosophical debates remained confined to aca-
S ization, the spread of terrorism, the worldwide credit demic and literary circles, but religious issues moved
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SUMMARY 663

into the public arena. The Roman Catholic Church vancements in medical treatment and technology have
modernized itself in some areas. In Europe, church at- saved lives and extended the human life span, but,
tendance continued to decline. But the United States at the same time, worldwide threats like AIDS have
witnessed a revival of religion, especially among Prot- taken the lives of thousands and lethal viruses are a
estant evangelicals. In Africa, the Roman Catholic and constant concern. The speed of change and the num-
Protestant churches attracted new members. Islam ber of inventions, such as the computer, the Internet,
grew and spread as Muslims migrated into the West. and mobile phones, created a global social network,
Radical Islamists became more assertive and mili- offering both information and a means for people to
tant, as they saw themselves as defenders of the faith communicate with each other around the world. Mass
against a threatening secular Western culture. culturethrough film, television, music, and the World
The rapid and far-reaching discoveries and inven- Wide Webgrappled with these transformations and
tions in medicine, science, and technology changed tried to explain them to their audiences.
the world at a pace unknown in previous eras. Ad-

The Legacy of the Contemporary World


No one standing on the edge of the future can predict What will be the legacy of our contemporary
with certainty what our legacy will be. Todays breath- world? What kind of life will weor our children
taking changes in the economic, political, and social or grandchildrenbe living in fifty, one hundred, or
realmsglobalization, terrorism, and technology two hundred years? Will how we live and what we be-
will probably shape and define us and our postmodern lieve today determine the future, or are there cultural
culture for the next few decades. From an optimistic changes ahead that none can foresee? Now, it is your
point of view, there will be a global, democratic world, turn to ask the question What will our future be?
embracing the contributions, tastes, and ideas of men How you answer this question will help you to plot
and women from many races and countries, borrow- out the rest of your life.
ing from high and mass culture. From a pessimistic
view, the mounting tensions of our day may lead to
more disruptions among states, including armed con-
flicts, terrorist campaigns, and economic crises.
But such forecasts are merely predictions. For ex-
ample, no one could have predicted in 3000 BCE that
Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies would become
cradles of civilization; or in 1000 BCE, a time of dis-
array and decline in the eastern Mediterranean, that
first Greece and later Rome would evolve into the
cultures that became the standard in the West; or in
1000 CE that the backward West would become the
constantly revolutionizing industrial giant whose cul-
ture would dominate the world for the next one thou-
sand years.
Taking in both the short and the long range of his- Ai Weiwei. Fairytale. Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany. 2007. The art
tory, civilization as we know it will likely undergo and the life of the Chinese artist, writer, and architect Ai Weiwei (b. 1957)
encapsulate the ambiguities of this point in history. Ai, a devotee of mass
fundamental changes due to some technological, po-
culture, has said that his life is a Hollywood movie. His support for free
litical, religious, economic, or social crisis and its re- speech and human rights has made him a political hero to the rest of the
sponse. But underneath the tensions, uncertainties, world, but local authorities have repeatedly arrested him, even charging
conflicts, and crises of modern life is that which de- him with tax evasion. The image is from Fantasyland, the genre-defying
fines us as humans: the search for spiritual guidance, project he staged at Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germanya prestigious
showcase for avant-garde art. Ais ambitious project: bring 1001 Chinese
the curiosity to explore, the satisfaction to compre-
(in a range of ages from all walks of life) to Kassel. Ai planned everything,
hend, the genius to express our creative talents, the from making travel arrangements, to designing clothing and luggage, to
past to guide us, and the conviction that the human setting up sleeping quarters in an old textile warehouse. His goal: a cultural
spirit will survive and prevail. encounter between the East and the West.
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664 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE CONTEMPORARY WORlD

KEY CULTURAL TERMS


postmodernism magic realism installation art synthesizer
poststructuralism commedia dellarte environmental art electronic music
deconstruction neorealism video art neoromanticism
paradigm shift neoexpressionism cladding performance art
nihilism neoclassicism high tech hip-hop
liberation theology conceptual art blaxploitation film

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Glossary
Italicized words within definitions are defined in their own apocalypse [uh-PAHK-uh-lips]In Jewish and early Chris-
glossary entries. tian thought, the expectation and hope of the coming of
God and his final judgment; also closely identified with
abstract art Art that presents a subjective view of the world the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, in which
the artists emotions or ideasor art that presents line, many events are foretold, often in highly symbolic and
color, or shape for its own sake. imaginative terms.
abstract expressionism Also known as action painting, a non- apologists From the Greek apologia, in defense of. Chris-
representational artistic style that flourished after World tian writers (about 150300) who differentiated between
War II and was typified by randomness, spontaneity, and Christianity, Judaism, and pagan philosophies, and who
an attempt by the artist to interact emotionally with the discussed ways in which Christians could be good citi-
work as it was created. zens of the Roman Empire.
abstractionIn modern art, nonrepresentational or nonob- apostolic successionA term for the idea in the Catholic
jective forms in sculpture and painting that emphasize Church that the authority of bishops descends from the
shapes, lines, and colors independent of the natural world. authority of the apostles, Christs twelve followers.
a cappella [ah kuh-PEL-uh]From the Italian, in chapel apse In architecture, a large projection, usually rounded or
style; music sung without instrumental accompaniment. semicircular, found in a basilica, usually in the east end; in
action painting Another name for abstract expressionism. Ac- Christian basilicas, the altar stood in this space.
tion painting referred to an artists use of agitated motions aquatintAn early type of color print, made with a metal
while applying paint to canvas, such as Jackson Pollocks plate, which attempted to replicate the effect of a water-
drip paintings or Willem de Koonings slashing strokes. color; originated in the Netherlands in about 1650. The
Inspired by surrealisms reliance on automatic responses golden age of the aquatint was from about 1770 to 1850.
as a way to release the creative unconscious. The prints name derives from nitrous oxide (aqua fortis), a
adab [ah-DAHB] An Arabic term. Originally, it meant good chemical used in the printmaking process.
manners or good conduct. In the eighth century, it ap- arabesque [air-uh-BESK] Literally, Arabian-like; a complex
peared as a literary genre; later, it indicated the posses- figure of decorative lines, patterns, and designs, often flo-
sion of athletic skills and literary knowledge and applied ral, in Islamic works of art.
especially to the elite. Today, adab refers to the whole of arcadeA series of arches supported by piers or columns,
literature. usually serving as a passageway along a street or between
aesthete One who pursues and is devoted to the beautiful in buildings.
art, music, and literature. Archaic styleThe style in Greek sculpture, dating from the
aisles The side passages in a church on either side of the cen- seventh century to 480 BCE, that was characterized by
tral nave. heavy Egyptian influence; dominated by the kouros and
ambulatory [AM-bue-la-tor-e]A passageway for walking kore sculptural forms.
found in many religious structures, such as outdoors in a architectural paintings A type of wall painting which cre-
cloister or indoors around the apse or the choir of a church. ated the optical illusion of either a wall opening or the
Anglicanism The doctrines and practices of the Church of effect of looking through a window; popular in imperial
England, which was established in the early sixteenth Rome.
century under Henry VIII. architrave [AHR-kuh-trayv] The part of the entablature that
angry young men A late 1950s and early 1960s literary move- rests on the capital or column in classical post-beam-triangle
ment in Great Britain, composed of novelists and play- construction.
wrights, whose works expressed frustration and anger arcosoliumArched chambers, usually belowground and
over their countrys loss of empire and declining status on carved out along the passageways of the catacombs. Many
the worlds stage. Most of the angry young men were part arcosolia have elaborate paintings.
of an emerging meritocracy, having been born in the lower aria [AH-ree-uh] In music, an elaborate melody sung as a solo
classes but educated in the universities, including Oxford or sometimes a duet, usually in an opera or an oratorio,
and Cambridge. with an orchestral accompaniment.
anthropomorphism [an-thro-po-MOR-fizm] The attributing ars novaLatin, new art; a style of music in fourteenth-
of humanlike characteristics and traits to nonhuman things century Europe. It used more secular themes than the
or powers, such as a deity. old art music of earlier times, which was closely identi-
AntigonidsThe name of the dynasty that ruled Macedon fied with sacred music.
and Greece after the death of Alexander the Great and art filmA film genre marked by unusual narrative struc-
down to the Roman conquest. One of Alexanders gener- tures, violent action, and uplifting themes; associated
als, Antigonus the One Eyed, tried unsuccessfully to se- with directors indebted to auteurist theory.
cure Macedon and Greece but his grandson Antigonus art song (lied) In music, a lyric song with melody performed
Gonatas established the dynasty definitively. by a singer and instrumental accompaniment usually pro-
antiphon [AN-te-fon] In music, a short prose text, chanted vided by piano; made popular by Schubert in the nine-
teenth century. S
by unaccompanied voices during the Christian liturgy.
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666 GLOSSARY

ashlar [ASH-luhr] A massive hewn or squared stone used in societys downtroddenthe source of the term beatthe
constructing a fortress, palace, or large building. beats criticized capitalism, bourgeois society and values,
assemblage art An art form in which the artist mixes and/or and the nuclear arms race.
assembles found objects, such as scraps of paper, cloth, or bel canto [bell KAHN-toe]Italian, beautiful singing; a
junk, into a three-dimensional work and then adds paint style of singing characteristic of seventeenth-century Ital-
or other decorations to it. ian opera stressing ease, purity, and evenness of tone along
ataraxia [at-uh-RAK-see-uh] Greek, calmness; in Hellenis- with precise vocal technique.
tic philosophy, the state of desiring nothing. blank verse Unrhymed iambic pentameter (lines with five
atonality [ay-toe-NAL-uh-tee] In music, the absence of a key feet, or units, each consisting of an unaccented and an ac-
note or tonal center and the use of the tones of the chro- cented syllable).
matic scale impartially. blaxploitation film A crime film genre, after 1970, that fea-
atrium [AY-tree-uhm] In Roman architecture, an open court- tures a swaggering black hero, catering to black audiences.
yard at the front of a house; in Christian Romanesque blind arcadeA decorative architectural design that gives
churches, an open court, usually colonnaded, in front of the appearance of an open arcade or window but is filled
the main doors of the structure. in with some type of building material such as stone or
attic The topmost section or crown of an arch. brick.
audience The group or person for whom a work of art, archi- blues A type of music that emerged around 1900 from the
tecture, literature, drama, film, or music is intended. rural African American culture, was originally based on
aulos In music, a reed woodwind instrument similar to the work songs and religious spirituals, and expressed feel-
oboe, usually played in pairs by one player as the double ings of loneliness and hopelessness.
aulos; used in Greek music. Byzantine style [BIZ-uhn-teen] In painting, decoration, and
autarky [AW-tar-kee]Greek, self-sufficient; in Hellenistic architecture, a style blending Greco-Roman and oriental
thought, the state of being isolated and free from the de- components into a highly stylized art form that glorified
mands of society. Christianity, notably in domed churches adorned with
auteur [oh-TURR] French, author; a film director who im- mosaics and polished marble; associated with the culture
poses a personal style. The auteurist director writes with of the Eastern Roman Empire from about 500 until 1453.
the camera to express a personal vision. cadenza [kuh-DEN-zah]In music, a virtuoso passage, usu-
avant-garde [a-vahn-GARD] French, advance guard; writ- ally for a solo instrument or voice, meant to be improvised
ers, artists, and intellectuals who push their works and or to have an improvised feeling.
ideas ahead of more traditional groups and movements. CajunA descendant of French pioneers, chiefly in Louisi-
baldacchino [ball-duh-KEE-no] An ornamental structure in ana, who in 1755 chose to leave Acadia (modern Nova Sco-
the shape of a canopy, supported by four columns, built tia) rather than live under the British crown.
over a church altar, and usually decorated with statues calligraphyLiterally beautiful writing. Penmanship or
and other ornaments. handwriting, usually done with flowing lines, used as a
balustrade In architecture, a rail and the row of posts that decoration or as an enhancement of a written work; found
support it, as along the edge of a staircase or around a in Islamic and Christian writings.
dome. Calvinism The theological beliefs and rituals set forth in and
baptisteryA small, often octagonal structure, separated derived from John Calvins writings, placing emphasis on
from the main church, particularly in Europe, where bap- the power of God and the weakness of human beings.
tisms are performed. campanile From the Latin campana, bell; a bell tower, es-
bard A tribal poet-singer who composed and recited works, pecially one near but not attached to a church; an Italian
often of the epic poetry genre. invention.
baroque [buh-ROKE]The prevailing seventeenth-century canon A set of principles or rules that are accepted as true
artistic and cultural style, characterized by an emphasis and authoritative for the various arts or fields of study;
on grandeur, opulence, expansiveness, and complexity. in architecture, it refers to the standards of proportion; in
barrel vault A ceiling or vault made of sets of arches placed painting, the prescribed ways of painting certain objects;
side by side and joined together. in sculpture, the ideal proportions of the human body; in
basilica [buh-SILL-ih-kuh] A rectangular structure that in- literature, the authentic list of an authors works; in reli-
cluded an apse at one or both ends; originally a Roman gion, the approved and authoritative writings that are ac-
building used for public purposes, later taken over by the cepted as divinely inspired, such as the scriptures for Jews
Christians for worship. The floor plan became the basis of and Christians; and in religious and other contexts, cer-
nearly all early Christian churches. tain prescribed rituals or official rules and laws. In music,
bayA discrete interior or exterior architectural element a canon is a composition in which a melody sung by one
marked not by walls but by piers, columns, vaulting, or voice is repeated exactly by successive voices as they enter.
windows. canzone [kan-ZOH-nee] Latin, chant; a type of love poem
beat generationA literary movement in the United States, popular in southern France during the twelfth and thir-
from about 1950 to 1970, made up of poets, novelists, and teenth centuries.
playwrights, who stood apart from the mainstream literary capital In architecture, the upper or crowning part of a col-
establishment, as reflected in their use of street language, umn, on which the entablature rests.
S experimental forms of literary expression, and liberal use capitulariesFrom the Latin capitula (chapters), a term
N of alcohol and drugs. While expressing solidarity with meaning quasi-legislative documents of varying lengths
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GLOSSARY 667

issued by Carolingian kings on a variety of secular and the classical world, the tools of ancient learning, and the
ecclesiastical topics. Some capitularies flowed from the morals of the Christian scriptures to rid the church of
kings, while others emerged from general assemblies of worldliness and scandal.
the Franks. chthonian deities [THOE-nee-uhn] In Greek religion, earth
Carolingian minusculeA new, highly legible script that gods and goddesses who lived underground and were usu-
originated in the reign of Charlemagne (768814). The ally associated with peasants and their religious beliefs.
script served the kings desire for accurate copies of key civic humanism An Italian Renaissance ideal, characterized
ancient and contemporary books. It gradually replaced by dedicated and educated citizens who served as admin-
earlier scripts that were difficult to read and led to errors istrators and civil servants in their cities; inspired by the
in transcription. periods classical revival.
catacombFrom Greek, kata kumbas, at the hollows; the civilizationThe way humans live in a complex political,
traditional name for the miles and miles of subterranean economic, and social structure, usually in an urban en-
burial chambers carved into the soft stone around the city vironment, with some development in technology, litera-
of Rome. Though particularly associated with Christian ture, and art.
burials, Romans had long used the catacombs. cladding In architecture, a covering or overlay of some ma-
cathedral The church of a bishop that houses a cathedral, or terial for a buildings exterior walls.
throne symbolizing the seat of power in his administra- classic, or classical Having the forms, values, or standards
tive district, known as a diocese. embodied in the art and literature of Greek and Roman
causality The idea that one event causes another; the rela- civilization; in music, an eighteenth-century style char-
tion between a cause and its effect. acterized by simplicity, proportion, and an emphasis on
cella [SELL-uh] The inner sanctum or walled room of a clas- structure.
sical temple where sacred statues were housed. classical baroque styleA secular variation of the baroque
chamber work Music for a small ensemble of instruments style that was identified with French kings and artists,
or voices. was rooted in classical ideals, and was used mainly to em-
chanson [shahn-SAWN]French, song; a fourteenth- to phasize the power and grandeur of the monarchy.
sixteenth-century French song for one or more voices, often clavier [French, KLAH-vyay; German, KLAH-veer] Any mu-
with instrumental accompaniment. Similar to a madrigal. sical instrument having a keyboard, such as a piano, organ,
chanson de geste [shahn-SAWN duh zhest] A poem of brave or harpsichord; the term came into general usage with the
deeds in the epic form developed in France during the popularity of Bachs set of studies titled The Well-Tempered
eleventh century, usually to be sung. Clavier.
character A person in a story or play; someone who acts out clerestory windows [KLEER-stor-ee] A row of windows set
or is affected by the plot. along the upper part of a wall, especially in a church.
chiaroscuro [key-ahr-uh-SKOOR-oh] In painting, the use of cloisterIn architecture, a covered walkway, open on one
dark and light contrast to create the effect of modeling of side, which is attached to the four walls of buildings that
a figure or object. face a quadrangle; originated in medieval church archi-
Chinese rococo A variation of the European rococo, charac- tecture. Also, a monastery or convent dedicated to reli-
terized by oriental shapes, materials, techniques, and de- gious seclusion.
sign elements. collage [koh-LAHZH]From the French coller, to glue; a
Chinoiserie [shen-WAZ-uh-ree]French, Chinois, China. type of art, introduced by Picasso, in which bits and pieces
A style and taste in the West for Chinese culture, embrac- of materials such as paper or cloth are glued to a painted
ing the decorative arts and, to a lesser extent, Chinese surface.
writings; most influential from 1740 to 1770, but lingering color Use of the hues found in nature to enhance or distort
until about 1850. the sense of reality in a visual image.
chivalry The rules of conduct, probably idealized, featuring comedy A literary genre characterized by a story with a com-
courage, prowess, loyalty, religious faith, and generosity, plicated and amusing plot that ends with a happy and
that governed the social roles and duties of aristocrats in peaceful resolution of all conflicts.
the Middle Ages. comedy of manners A humorous play that focuses on the
chivalric novel A late medieval literary form that presented way people in a particular social group or class inter-
romantic stories of knights and their ladies; the dominant act with one another, especially regarding fashions and
literary form in Spain from the late Middle Ages into the manners.
Renaissance. commedia dellarte [kuh-MAY-de-uh del-AR-teh]Italian,
choir In architecture, that part of a Gothic church in which comedy of art; an Italian theatrical genre from the six-
the service was sung by singers or clergy, located in the teenth to the eighteenth century, using puppets and stock
east end beyond the transept; also, the group of trained characters, with a strong streak of improvisation. Highly
singers who sat in the choir area. influential later on live theater in Italy and elsewhere.
chorusIn Greek drama, a group of performers who sang composition The arrangement of constituent elements in an
and danced in both tragedies and comedies, often comment- artistic work; in music, composition also refers to the pro-
ing on the action; in later times, a group of singers who cess of creating the work.
performed with or without instrumental accompaniment. conceptual artA late modern art movement in which the
Christian humanism An intellectual movement in sixteenth- concept or idea of the proposed art is more important S
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668 GLOSSARY

concerto [kuhn-CHER-toe] In music, a composition for one or cruciform [KROO-suh-form] Cross-shaped; used to describe
more soloists and orchestra, usually in a symphonic form the standard floor plan of a church.
with three contrasting movements. CrusadesA series of military campaigns launched in
conch The rounded semi-dome that topped the half-drum of 1095 by Pope Urban II to recover the Holy Land from its
an apse. Muslim conquerors. The name derives from crucesignati,
congregational or Friday mosqueA type of mosque used Latin for signed by the cross, signifying the cross that
for Friday prayers, inspired by the prophet Muhammads crusaders stitched onto their clothing. The First Crusade
original example. Characterized by a central courtyard (10971099) captured Jerusalem and established some
along with a domed fountain for ablutions; found across small Crusader States in the eastern Mediterranean but
the Islamic world. the movement as a whole failed, over the centuries, in its
consortA set of musical instruments in the same family, stated objective.
ranging from bass to soprano; also, a group of musicians cubismA style of painting introduced by Picasso and
who entertain by singing or playing instruments. Braque in which objects are broken up into fragments and
constructivismA movement in nonobjective art, originat- patterns of geometric structures and depicted on the flat
ing in the Soviet Union and flourishing from 1917 to 1922 canvas as if from several points of view.
and concerned with planes and volumes as expressed in culture The sum of human endeavors, including the basic
modern industrial materials such as glass and plastic. political, economic, and social institutions and the values,
content The subject matter of an artistic work. beliefs, and arts of those who share them.
context The setting in which an artistic work arose, its own cuneiform [kue-NEE-uh-form]Wedge-shaped characters
time and place. Context includes the political, economic, used in writing on tablets found in Mesopotamia and
social, and cultural conditions of the time; it can also in- other ancient civilizations.
clude the personal circumstances of the artists life. CynicismA Hellenistic philosophy that denounced society
contrapposto [kon-truh-POH-stoh]In sculpture and paint- and its institutions as artificial and called on the individ-
ing, the placement of the human figure so the weight is ual to strive for autarky.
more on one leg than the other and the shoulders and chest Dada [DAH-dah] An early-twentieth-century artistic move-
are turned in the opposite direction from the hips and legs. ment, named after a nonsense word that was rooted in a
convention An agreed-upon practice, device, technique, or love of play, encouraged deliberately irrational acts, and
form. exhibited contempt for all traditions.
CorinthianThe third Greek architectural order, in which decadenceA late-nineteenth-century literary style con-
temple columns are slender and fluted, sit on a base, and cerned with morbid and artificial subjects and themes.
have capitals shaped like inverted bells and decorated with deconstructionIn postmodern literary analysis, a set of prac-
carvings representing the leaves of the acanthus bush; tices for analyzing and critiquing a text in order to de-
this style was popular in Hellenistic times and widely construct its actual meaning and language.
adopted by the Romans. deductive reasoningThe process of reasoning from the
cornice In architecture, the crowning, projecting part of the general to the particularthat is, beginning with an ac-
entablature. cepted premise or first statement and, by steps of logical
cosmopolitan From Greek, cosmos, world, and polis, city; reasoning or inference, reaching a conclusion that neces-
a citizen of the world, that is, an urban dweller with a uni- sarily follows from the premise.
versal, or world, view. Deism [DEE-iz-uhm] A religion based on the idea that the
Counter-ReformationA late-sixteenth-century movement universe was created by God and then left to run accord-
in the Catholic Church aimed at reestablishing its basic ing to natural laws, without divine interference; formu-
beliefs, reforming its organizational structure, and reas- lated and practiced in the eighteenth century.
serting itself as the authoritative voice of Christianity. de Stijl [duh STILE] Dutch, the style; an artistic movement
countersubject In music, in the fugue, a contrasting variant associated with a group of early-twentieth-century Dutch
to the subject; played in tandem with the subject, either be- painters who used rectangular forms and primary colors
low or above it. in their works and who believed that art should have spir-
courtly loveA new and idealized ethos as the product of itual values and a social purpose.
noble courts that envisioned fine love as the love of an devotio moderna [de-VO-tee-oh mo-DER-nuh]The new
unattainable lady and male refinement in manners and devotion of late medieval Christianity that emphasized
behavior. piety and discipline as practiced by lay religious commu-
covenant In Judaism and Christianity, a solemn and bind- nities located primarily in northern Europe.
ing agreement or contract between God and his followers. Diaspora [dye-AS-puhr-uh]From the Greek, to scatter;
CreoleAn ambiguous term, sometimes referring to de- the dispersion of the Jews from their homeland in ancient
scendants of French and Spanish settlers of the southern Palestine, a process that began with the Babylonian Cap-
United States, especially Louisiana; used by Kate Chopin tivity in the sixth century BCE and continued over the
in her short stories and novels in this sense. In other con- centuries.
texts, Creole can refer either to blacks born in the Western Dionysia [DYE-uh-NYSH-ee-ah] Any of the religious festi-
Hemisphere (as distinguished from blacks born in Africa) vals held in ancient Athens honoring Dionysus, the god
or to residents of the American Gulf states of mixed black, of wine; especially the Great Dionysia, celebrated in late
S Spanish, and Portuguese ancestry. winter and early spring in which tragedy is thought to have
N crescendo [krah-SHEN-doh] In music, an increase in volume. originated.
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divertimentoInstrumental work, performed as entertain- episode In music, a short transitional section played between
ment, as at social gatherings or banquets. the subject and the countersubject; used in fugal composition.
dominate Term applied to the Roman imperial regime inau- epistemology The branch of philosophy that studies the na-
gurated by Diocletian (284305) implying that the emperor ture, extent, and validity of knowledge.
was dominus, lord and master, instead of first citizen eschatology [es-kuh-TAHL-uh-jee]The concern with final
(see principate). The dominate persisted in the East into the events or the end of the world, a belief popular in Jewish
Byzantine era but became meaningless in the West after and early Christian communities and linked to the con-
the death of Theodosius (395), Romes last sole emperor. cept of the coming of a Messiah.
Doric The simplest and oldest of the Greek architectural or- Etruscans A people of mysterious origins who ruled the ter-
ders, in which temple columns have undecorated capitals ritory north of Rome in Italy from the ninth to the sixth
and rest directly on the stylobate. century BCE. They dominated the early Romans and in-
drum In architecture, a circular or polygonal wall used to fluenced their art, architecture, and religion.
support a dome. evangelicalismHistorically, a nineteenth-century Protes-
drypoint In art, the technique of incising an image, using a tant movement, mainly in the United States, which grew
sharp, pointed instrument, onto a metal surface or block out of the Methodist tradition and emphasized personal
used for printing. Also, the print made from the technique. piety and the working of the Holy Spirit. Evangelicalism
dynamics In music, changes in the volume of a sound. dominated mainline Protestant America until about 1870.
early Renaissance styleA style inspired by classical rather Today, evangelicalism is a term used for describing Prot-
than Gothic models that arose among Florentine archi- estants who emphasize fundamentalism, biblical inerrancy,
tects, sculptors, and painters in the late fourteenth and and conservative social values.
early fifteenth centuries. evangelistsFrom the Greek evangelion, a term generally
electronic musicMusic produced using electronic means, used for those who preach the Christian religion; more
usually with a synthesizer and/or a computer. specifically, the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
empiricismThe process of collecting data, making obser- and John, who wrote about Jesus Christ soon after his
vations, carrying out experiments based on the collected death in the first four books of the New Testament.
data and observations, and reaching a conclusion. evolution The theory, set forth in the nineteenth century by
engraving In art, the technique of carving, cutting, or etching Charles Darwin, that plants and animals, including hu-
an image with a sharp, pointed instrument onto a metal mans, evolved over millions of years from simpler forms
surface overlaid with wax, dipping the surface in acid, and through a process of natural selection.
then printing it. Also, the print made from the technique. existentialism [eg-zi-STEN-shuh-liz-uhm]A twentieth-
EnlightenmentThe eighteenth-century philosophical and century philosophy focusing on the precarious nature
cultural movement marked by the application of reason to of human existence, with its uncertainty, anxiety, and
human problems and affairs, a questioning of traditional ultimate death, as well as on individual freedom and re-
beliefs and ideas, and an optimistic faith in unlimited sponsibility and the possibilities for human creativity and
progress for humanity, particularly through education. authenticity.
entablature [en-TAB-luh-choor] In architecture, the part of expressionism A late-nineteenth-century literary and artis-
the temple above the columns and below the roof, which, tic movement characterized by the expression of highly
in classical temples, included the architrave, the frieze, and personal feelings rather than of objective reality.
the pediment. fan vaulting A decorative pattern of vault ribs that arch out
entasis [EN-ta-sis]In architecture, convex curving or en- or radiate from a central point on the ceiling; popular in
larging of the central part of a column to correct the opti- English Perpendicular architecture.
cal illusion that the column is too thin. Faustian [FAU-stee-uhn]Resembling the character Faust
environmental artA postmodern art form that uses the envi- in Goethes most famous work, in being spiritually tor-
ronment, including stone, earth, and water, so as to create mented, insatiable for knowledge and experience, or will-
a natural-looking artwork. Environmental art is ephem- ing to pay any price, including personal and spiritual
eral, as it tends to revert to its primary elements over integrity, to gain a desired end.
timethus echoing the ever-changing world of nature. fauvism [FOH-viz-uhm] From the French fauve, wild beast;
epic A poem, novel, or film that recounts at length the life of an early-twentieth-century art movement led by Matisse
a hero or the history of a people. and favoring exotic colors and disjointed shapes.
epic poetry Narrative poetry, usually told or written in an fte galante [fet gah-LAHNN] In rococo painting, the theme
elevated style, that recounts the life of a hero. or scene of aristocrats being entertained or simply enjoy-
epic theater A type of theater, invented by Brecht, in which ing their leisure and other worldly pleasures.
major social issues are dramatized with outlandish props feudalism The customary name for the political regime in
and jarring dialogue and effects, all designed to alienate much of the medieval West, beginning in the Carolingian
middle-class audiences and force them to think seriously period. The term basically pertains to honorable relation-
about the problems raised in the plays. ships between lords and vassals. Vassals promised to give
Epicureanism [ep-i-kyoo-REE-uh-niz-uhm]A Hellenistic phi- their lords homage and fealty (i.e, respect and fidelity),
losophy, founded by Epicurus and later expounded by the as well as aid and counsel (i.e., military service and legal
Roman Lucretius, that made its highest goals the develop- advice). In return, lords promised their vassals protection
ment of the mind and an existence free from the demands and maintenance (i.e., military cover and a landed estate), S
of everyday life. or fief ( feudum in Latin, whence the name feudalism.). N
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The term also signifies the exploitation of peasants by gallery In architecture, a long, narrow passageway or cor-
landowners. ridor, usually found in churches and located above the
First Great Awakening The period of religious revivalism aisles, and often with openings that permit viewing from
among Protestants that placed emphasis on a direct and above into the nave.
personal relationship with God and undermined the tra- gargoyle [GAHR-goil] In architecture, a water spout in the
ditional role and power of the established churches; cen- form of a grotesque animal or human, carved from stone,
tered mainly in the British American colonies during the placed on the edge of a roof.
1730s and 1740s. genre [ZHON-ruh]From the French, a kind, a type, or a
First RomanesqueThe first stage of Romanesque architec- class; a category of artistic, musical, or literary composi-
ture, about 10001080. First Romanesque churches had tion, characterized by a particular style, form, or content.
high walls, few windows, and flat wooden roofs, and were genre subject In art, a scene or a person from everyday life,
built of stone rubble and adorned with Lombard bands and depicted realistically and without religious or symbolic
Lombard arcades. It began along the Mediterranean, in the significance.
area ranging from Dalmatia, across northern Italy and geocentrism The belief that the earth is the center of the uni-
Provence, to Catalonia. verse and that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around it.
Flamboyant style [flam-BOY-uhnt] A late French Gothic ar- ghazal [GUZ-l] A short lyric, usually dealing with love, com-
chitectural style of elaborate decorations and ornamenta- posed in a single rhyme and based on the poets personal
tion that produce a flamelike effect. life and loves.
florid baroque style A variation of the baroque style specifi- glissando [gle-SAHN-doe] (plural, glissandi) In music, the
cally identified with the Catholic Churchs patronage of blending of one tone into the next in scalelike passages
the arts and used to glorify its beliefs. that may be ascending or descending in character.
fluting Decorative vertical grooves carved in a column. goliards [GOAL-yuhrds] Medieval roaming poets or schol-
flying buttressAn external masonry support, found pri- ars who traveled about reciting poems on topics ranging
marily in Gothic churches, that carries the thrust of the from moral lessons to the pains of love.
ceiling, or vault, away from the upper walls of the build- GospelsThe first four books of the New Testament (Mat-
ing to an external vertical column thew, Mark, Luke, and John), which record the life and
forms In music, particular structures of arrangements of ele- sayings of Jesus Christ; the word itself, from Old English,
ments, such as symphonies, songs, concerts, and operas. In means good news or good tales.
painting and sculpture, form refers to the artistic structure Gothic styleA style of architecture, usually associated with
rather than to the material of which an artwork is made. churches, that originated in northern France and whose
forum In Rome and many Roman towns, the public place, lo- three phasesearly, High, and latelasted from the
cated in the center of the town, where people gathered to so- twelfth to the sixteenth century. Emerging from the Ro-
cialize, transact business, and administer the government. manesque style, Gothic is identified by pointed arches, ribbed
forte [FOR-tay] Italian, loud. A musical term. vaults, stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, and carv-
fortississimo [fawrh-tis-ISS-e-moh] In music, extremely loud; ings on the exterior.
abbreviated . Gregorian chantA style of monophonic church music sung
fourth-century styleThe sculptural style characteristic of in unison and without instrumental accompaniment and
the last phase of the Hellenic period, when new interpreta- used in the liturgy; named for Pope Gregory I (590604).
tions of beauty and movement were adopted. groined vault, or cross vault A ceiling, or vault, created when
fresco A painting done on wet or dry plaster that becomes two barrel vaults, set at right angles, intersect.
part of the plastered wall. happeningA late modern theatrical development, combining
friarsMembers of a thirteenth-century mendicant (beg- skits with outrageous events and involving performances
ging) monastic order. by painters, actors, musicians, and audience members, so
frieze [fREEz] A band of painted designs or sculptured fig- as to give the impression of spontaneity.
ures placed on walls; also, the central portion of a temples hard-edgeIn late modern painting, a technique used in color
entablature just above the architrave. paintings, by which the areas of color are precisely delin-
fugue [FEWg]In music, a composition for several instru- eated from one another.
ments in which a theme is introduced by one instrument harmonyThe simultaneous combination of two or more
and then repeated by each successively entering instru- tones, producing a chord; generally, the chordal character-
ment so that a complicated interweaving of themes, varia- istics of a work and the way chords interact.
tions, imitations, and echoes results; this compositional heliocentrismThe belief that the sun is the center of the
technique began in the fifteenth century and reached its universe and that the earth and the other planets revolve
zenith in the baroque period in works by Bach. around it.
fundamentalist movement or fundamentalismHistorically, Hellenic [hell-LENN-ik] Relating to the time period in Greek
an American Protestant movement that broke free of the civilization from 480 to 323 BCE, when the most influential
evangelicals from about 1870 to 1970, stressing biblical iner- Greek artists, playwrights, and philosophers, such as Prax-
rancy, speaking in tongues, and opposition to certain mod- iteles, Sophocles, and Plato, created their greatest works; as-
ern scientific trends, such as evolution and higher criticism. sociated with the classical style.
Today, fundamentalism is often aggregated with evangelical- Hellenistic [hell-uh-NIS-tik] Relating to the time period from
S ism and other socially conservative religious movements. about 323 to 31 BCE, when Greekand later Romanand
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Oriental or Middle Eastern cultures and institutions in- ide fixe [ee-DAY FEEX] French, fixed idea; in music, a re-
termingled to create a heterogeneous and cosmopolitan curring musical theme that is associated with a person or
civilization. a concept.
henotheismThe worship of one god without denying the ideogram [ID-e-uh-gram] A picture drawn to represent an
existence of other gods. Sometimes called monolatry. idea or a concept.
Associated with Akhenaten in Egypt. idyllA relatively short poem that focuses on events and
heresy Greek, literally to choose, a choice. In Christian themes of everyday life, such as family, love, and religion;
theology, any church teaching deliberately chosen that is popular during the Hellenistic period and a standard form
deemed unacceptable by the majority, by the popes, or by that has been periodically revived in Western literature
the bishops sitting in a council. By extension, any unorth- throughout the centuries.
odox belief or teaching in politics, philosophy, or science. illuminated manuscriptA richly decorated book, painted
hieroglyphs [HI-uhr-uh-glifs]Pictorial characters used in with brilliant colors and gold leaf, usually of sacred writ-
Egyptian writing, which is known as hieroglyphics. ings; popular in the West in the Middle Ages.
high classical styleThe style in Greek sculpture associated illusionism The use of painting techniques in florid baroque
with the ideal physical form and perfected during the ze- art to create the appearance that decorated areas are part
nith of the Athenian Empire, about 450400 BCE. of the surrounding architecture, usually employed in ceil-
higher criticism A rational approach to Bible study, devel- ing decorations.
oped in German Protestant circles in the nineteenth cen- imitation In music, a technique in which a musical idea, or
tury, that treated the biblical scriptures as literature and motif, is presented by one voice or instrument and is then
subjected them to close scrutiny, testing their literary his- followed immediately by a restatement by another voice
tory, authorship, and meaning. or instrument; the effect is that of a musical relay race.
High Renaissance The period from about 1495 to 1520, often impasto [ihm-PAHS-toe] In painting, the application of thick
associated with the patronage of the popes in Rome, when layers of pigment.
the most influential artists and writers of the Renaissance, impressionism In painting, a style introduced in the 1870s,
including Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and marked by an attempt to catch spontaneous impressions,
Machiavelli, were producing their greatest works. often involving the play of sunlight on ordinary events
high tech In architecture, a style that uses obvious industrial and scenes observed outdoors; in music, a style of com-
design elements with exposed parts serving as decorations. position designed to create a vague and dreamy mood
hip-hopIn postmodern popular culture, after 1970, an eclec- through gliding melodies and shimmering tone colors.
tic trend among African Americans and Hispanic Ameri- impressionisticIn art, relating to the representation of a
cans, drawing on break dancing, graffiti art, rap rhyming, scene using the simplest details to create an illusion of re-
and disc jockeys playing with turntables and scratch ef- ality by evoking subjective impressions rather than aim-
fects; highly influential on todays youth culture, popular ing for a totally realistic effect; characterized by images
music, film, and dance styles. that are insubstantial and barely sketched in.
holiness A nineteenth-century American Protestant move- incunabula (singular, incunabulum) From the Latin, cra-
ment, which came out of the Methodist tradition, empha- dle; the collection of books printed before 1500 CE.
sizing holy living and the need to be born again as a inductive reasoningThe process of reasoning from par-
true disciple of Jesus Christ; part of the fundamentalist ticulars to the general or from single parts to the whole
movement after 1870. and/or final conclusion.
Homeric epithet A recurring nickname, such as Ox-eyed installation art A boundary-challenging type of art born in
Hera, used in Homers Iliad or Odyssey. the 1960s that creates architectural tableaux, using objects
hubris [HYOO-bris] In Greek thought, human pride or arro- drawn from and making references to artistic sources
gance that leads an individual to challenge the gods, usu- (such as music, painting, sculpture, and theater) and the
ally provoking divine retribution. workaday world (such as everyday tasks, media images,
humanism An attitude that is concerned with humanity, its and foodstuffs) and that may include a human presence.
achievements, and its potential; the study of the humani- Associated with the work of Ann Hamilton.
ties; in the Renaissance, identified with studia humanitatis. international style In twentieth-century architecture, a style
humanitiesIn the nineteenth century, the study of Greek and method of construction that capitalized on modern
and Roman languages and literature; later set off from materials, such as ferro-concrete, glass, and steel, and that
the sciences and expanded to include the works of all produced the popular glass box skyscrapers and vari-
Western peoples in the arts, literature, music, philosophy, ously shaped private houses.
and sometimes history and religion; in postmodernism, ex- Investiture Controversy The long quarrel between the
tended to a global dimension. medieval popes and the German emperors over their re-
hymn From the Greek and Latin, ode of praise of gods or spective rights and responsibilities. The struggle sprang
heroes; a song of praise or thanksgiving to God or the from the denial by the church, especially by the eleventh
gods, performed both with and without instrumental century popes, of the right of laypeople to invest clerics
accompaniment. with the symbols of their church offices.
idealismIn Platos philosophy, the theory that reality and Ionic The Greek architectural order, developed in Ionia, in
ultimate truth are to be found not in the material world which columns are slender, sit on a base, and have capitals
but in the spiritual realm. decorated with scrolls. S
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672 GLOSSARY

isorhythm In music, a unifying method based on rhythmic in Latin America, blending Christian teachings on so-
patterns rather than melodic patterns. cial and economic justice with Marxist theory. After this
Italo-Byzantine style [ih-TAL-o-BIZ-uhn-teen]The style of movement went global, the Vatican withdrew its support
Italian Gothic painting that reflected the influence of Byz- in the 1980s, though liberation theology remains an un-
antine paintings, mosaics, and icons. derground force in some parts of the world today.
iwan [eye-van]In Islamic architecture, a vaulted hall. In libretto [lih-BRET-oh]In Italian, little book; the text or
the 4-iwan mosque, one iwan was used for prayers and the words of an opera, an oratorio, or a musical work of a simi-
other three for study or rest. lar dramatic nature involving a written text.
jazzA type of music, instrumental and vocal, originating in lineThe markstraight or curved, thick or thin, light or
the African American community and rooted in African, Af- darkmade by the artist in a work of art.
rican American, and Western musical forms and traditions. Linear A In Minoan civilization, a type of script still undeci-
Jesuits [JEZH-oo-its]Members of the Society of Jesus, the phered that lasted from about 1800 to 1400 BCE.
best-organized and most effective monastic order founded Linear B In Minoan civilization, an early form of Greek writ-
during the Counter-Reformation to combat Protestantism ing that flourished on Crete from about 1400 until about
and spread Roman Catholicism around the world. 1300 BCE and lasted in a few scattered places on the Greek
jihad [JEE-HAD]Originally, this Arabic term meant to mainland until about 1150 BCE; used to record commercial
strive or to struggle and, as such, was identified with transactions.
any pious Muslim combating sin and trying not to do evil. liturgical dramaReligious dramas, popular between the
In modern times, radical Islamic states and groups have twelfth and sixteenth centuries, based on biblical stories
given the term new meaning as Holy War and have with musical accompaniment that were staged in the area
used it to justify military and other violent action against in front of the church, performed at first in Latin but later
their enemies. A central belief in Islam. in the vernacular languages; the mystery plays (mystery is
keyIn music, a tonal system consisting of seven tones in derived from the Latin for action) are the most famous
fixed relationship to a tonic, or keynote. Since the Renais- type of liturgical drama.
sance, key has been the structural foundation of the bulk liturgy A rite or ritual, such as prayers or ceremonies, prac-
of Western music, down to the modernist period. ticed by a religious group in public worship.
keystone The central stone at the top of an arch that locks local color In literature, the use of detail peculiar to a partic-
the other stones in place. ular region and environment to add interest and authen-
Koine [KOI-nay] A colloquial Greek language spoken in the ticity to a narrative, including description of the locale,
Hellenistic world that helped tie together that civilization. customs, speech, and music. Local color was an especially
kore [KOH-ray]An Archaic Greek standing statue of a young popular development in American literature in the late
draped female. nineteenth century.
kouros [KOO-rus]An Archaic Greek standing statue of a loggia A porch or gallery open on one or more sides, some-
young naked male. times at street level, sometimes on a second story, nor-
late Gothic styleA style characterized in architecture by or- mally placed on the front of a building but could be a
nate decoration and tall cathedral windows and spires and self-standing structure.
in painting and sculpture by increased refinement of details logical positivism A school of modern philosophy that seeks
and a trend toward naturalism; popular in the fourteenth truth by defining terms and clarifying statements and as-
and fifteenth centuries in central and western Europe. serts that metaphysical theories are meaningless.
late mannerism The last stage of the mannerist movement, logos [LOWG-os]In Stoicism, the name for the supreme being
characterized by exaggeration and distortion, especially or for reasonthe controlling principle of the universe
in painting. believed to be present both in nature and in each human
late modernism The last stage of modernism, characterized being.
by an increasing sense of existential despair, an attraction Lombard arcadesIn architecture, a sequence of decora-
to non-Western cultures, and extreme experimentalism. tive arcades beneath the eaves of a building. First used in
lay A short lyric or narrative poem meant to be sung to the churches in Lombardy (north central Italy). A defining
accompaniment of an instrument such as a harp; based on feature of the First Romanesque.
Celtic legends but usually set in feudal times and focused Lombard bandsIn architecture, a web of vertical bands
on courtly love themes, especially adulterous passion. The or buttresses along the sides of a building. First used in
oldest surviving lays are those of the twelfth-century poet churches in Lombardy (north central Italy). A defining
Marie de France. feature of the First Romanesque.
leitmotif [LITE-mo-teef]In music, and especially in Wag- luminism An art movement that emphasized nature rather
ners operas, the use of recurring themes associated with than the individual. In nineteenth-century American
particular characters, objects, or ideas. landscape painting, a group of artists, who were inspired
liberalismIn political thought, a set of beliefs advocating by the vastness of the American West and influenced by
certain personal, economic, and natural rights based on transcendentalism, approached their work by consciously
assumptions about the perfectibility and autonomy of hu- removing themselves from their paintings.
man beings and the notion of progress, as first expressed lute In music, a wooden instrument, plucked or bowed, con-
in the writings of John Locke. sisting of a sound box with an elaborately carved sound
S liberation theologyA reform movement, which began in hole and a neck across which the (often twelve) strings
N the late 1960s among Roman Catholic priests and nuns pass. Introduced during the High Middle Ages, the lute
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GLOSSARY 673

enjoyed a height of popularity in Europe from the seven- portrait; in general architectural use, a tablet or panel in a
teenth to eighteenth century. wall or window containing a figure or an ornament.
LutheranismThe doctrine, liturgy, and institutional struc- medium The material from which an artwork is made.
ture of the church founded in the sixteenth century by melisma In music, in plainsong, a style of singing in which a
Martin Luther, who stressed the authority of the Bible, the group of notes is sung to the same syllable; the opposite of
faith of the individual, and the worshipers direct commu- syllabic singing.
nication with God as the bases of his new religion. melodyA succession of musical tones having a distinctive
lyre In music, a handheld stringed instrument, with or with- shape and rhythm.
out a sound box, used by ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Messiah A Hebrew word meaning the Anointed One, or
and Greeks. In Greek culture, the lyre was played to ac- one chosen by God to be his representative on earth; in
company song and recitation. Judaism, a savior who will come bringing peace and jus-
lyricA short subjective poem that expresses intense per- tice; in Christianity, Jesus Christ (Christ is derived from a
sonal emotion. Greek word meaning the Anointed One).
lyric poetry In Greece, verses sung and accompanied by the metaphysicalMeaning literally beyond nature, based
lyre; today, intensely personal poetry. on abstract and speculative reasoning, not on empirical
Machiavellianism [mahk-ih-uh-VEL-ih-uhn-iz-uhm] The observation.
view that politics should be separated from morals and metope [MET-uh-pee] In architecture, a panel, often deco-
dedicated to the achievement of desired ends through any rated, between two triglyphs on the entablature of a Doric
means necessary (the end justifies the means); derived Greek temple.
from the political writings of Machiavelli. mezzotint Also known as halftone. An early type of color
madrasa [mah-DRASS-ah] An Arabic term meaning a reli- print, made with a metal plate, characterized by subtle
gious school for advanced study; a forerunner of the Is- gradations of shadings and clear definition of line; devel-
lamic university. Today, madrasas are schools for Islamic oped in about 1650 in the Netherlands.
youth, and their curriculum is based on the Quran. microtone In music, an interval, or distance between a sound
madrigal [MAD-rih-guhl]A polyphonic song performed (pitch) on a scale, that is smaller than a semitonethe
without accompaniment and based on a secular text, often smallest interval in mainstream Western music prior to
a love lyric; especially popular in the sixteenth century. jazz. Muslim music uses a microtonal system.
magic realismA literary and artistic style identified with minaret In Islamic architecture, a tall, slender tower with a
Latin American postmodernism that mixes realistic and su- pointed top, from which the daily calls to prayer are deliv-
pernatural elements to create imaginary or fantastic scenes. ered; located near a mosque.
mannerismA cultural movement between 1520 and 1600 minbar [min-bar]In Muslim mosque architecture, a pulpit
that grew out of a rebellion against the Renaissances artis- with steps, sometimes on wheels for portability; used by a
tic norms of symmetry and balance; characterized in art cleric for leading prayers and giving sermons.
by distortion and incongruity and in thought and litera- miniature A small painting, usually of a religious nature,
ture by the belief that human nature is depraved. found in illuminated manuscripts; also, a small portrait.
maqamah [mah-kah-mah]In Arabic, assembly. A Muslim minimalism A trend in late modern and postmodern art, ar-
literary genre, intended for educated readers, that recounted chitecture, and music that found beauty in the bare essen-
stories of rogues and con men; filled with wordplay, humor, tials and thus stripped art, buildings, and music to their
and keen usage of Arabic language and grammar. Created basic elements. The minimalist aesthetic was a strong in-
by al-Hamadhani in the tenth century. fluence in the architecture of Mies van der Rohe, many
Mass In religion, the ritual celebrating the Eucharist, or Holy art styles, including conceptual art, environmental art, and
Communion, primarily in the Roman Catholic Church. op art, and the music of Philip Glass.
The Mass has two parts, the Ordinary and the Proper; minstrel A professional entertainer of the twelfth to seven-
the former remains the same throughout the church year, teenth century; especially a secular musician; also called
whereas the latter changes for each date and service. The jongleur.
Mass Ordinary is composed of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, minuet and trio In music, a classical music form, based on
Sanctus, and Agnus Dei; the Mass Proper includes the In- two French court dances of the same name, dating from
troit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence, Offertory, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; often paired
Communion. In music, a musical setting of certain parts in the third section of symphonies in the classical period.
of the Mass, especially the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Typically, the minuet was in time and with a moderate
Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The first complete Mass Or- tempo, while the trio provided contrast but had no stan-
dinary was composed by Guillaume de Machaut [mah- dard form.
SHOH] (about 13001377) in the fourteenth century. modernismA late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century cul-
mass culture The tastes, values, and interests of the classes tural, artistic, and literary movement that rejected much
that dominate modern industrialized society, especially of the past and focused on the current, the secular, and
the consumer-oriented American middle class. the revolutionary in search of new forms of expres-
matriarchy Greek, literally mother-rule; term for historical sion; the dominant style of the twentieth century until
or mythical societies in which political and social power 1970.
is in the hands of women. modes A series of musical scales devised by the Greeks and
medallionIn Roman architecture, a circular decoration believed by them to create certain emotional or ethical ef- S
often found on triumphal arches enclosing a scene or fects on the listener. N
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monophony [muh-NOF-uh-nee]A style of music in which rowed features from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
there is only a single line of melody; the Gregorian chants music and practiced the ideals of balance, clarity of tex-
are the most famous examples of monophonic music. ture, and non-programmatic works.
monotheism From the Greek monos, single, alone, and the neoclassicism In the late third century BCE, an artistic move-
Greek theos, god; the belief that there is only one God. ment in the disintegrating Hellenistic world that sought in-
montage In film, a technique consisting of highly elaborate spiration in the Athenian Golden Age of the fifth and fourth
editing patterns and rhythms. centuries BCE; and, since 1970, neoclassicism has been a
mood In music, the emotional impact of a composition on the highly visible submovement in postmodernism, particularly
feelings of a listener. prominent in painting and architecture, that restates the
mosaicAn art form or decoration, usually on a wall or a principles of classical artbalance, harmony, idealism.
floor, created by inlaying small pieces of glass, shell, stone, neoexpressionism A submovement in postmodernism, asso
or metal in cement or plaster to create pictures or patterns. ciated primarily with painting, that offers social criti-
mosque A Muslim place of worship, often distinguished by cism and is concerned with the expression of the artists
a dome-shaped central building placed in an open space feelings.
surrounded by a wall. NeolithicLiterally, new stone; used to define the New
motet A multivoiced song with words of a sacred or secu- Stone Age, when human cultures evolved into agrarian
lar text, usually sung without accompanying instruments; systems and settled communities; dating from about
developed in the thirteenth century. 10,000 or 8000 BCE to about 3000 BCE.
mural A wall painting, usually quite large, used to decorate neoorthodoxyA twentieth-century Protestant movement,
a private or public structure. dedicated to recentering orthodox theology in Christian
muse In Greek religion, any one of the nine sister goddesses thought and emphasizing the central role played by God
who preside over the creative arts and sciences. in history. Founded after World War I in opposition to the
music dramaAn opera in which the action and music are Social Gospel.
continuous, not broken up into separate arias and recita- Neoplatonism A philosophy based on Platos ideas that was
tives, and the music is determined by its dramatic appro- developed during the Roman period in an attempt to rec-
priateness, producing a work in which music, words, and oncile the dichotomy between Platos concept of an eter-
staging are fused; the term was coined by Wagner. nal World of Ideas and the ever-changing physical world;
mythA traditional story about gods, heroes, or ancestors in the fifteenth-century Renaissance, it served as a philo-
that serves to exemplify essential moral, political, social, sophical guide for Italian humanists who sought to recon-
or psychological characteristics believed to exist in a cile late medieval Christian beliefs with classical thinking.
given society. neorealism A submovement in postmodernism that is based
narrative voice In literature, the narrator, a key element in on a photographic sense of detail and harks back to many
fiction. An omniscient narrator, usually in the third per- of the qualities of nineteenth-century realism.
son, knows everything about the plot and characters, re- neoromanticismA postmodern movement in music, starting
gardless of time and placetypical of nineteenth-century after 1970, which rejects atonality and draws inspiration
novels. In modernist fiction, the narrative voice tends to be from the music of the romantic period.
disjointed, unreliable, and often in the first person. neumes From the Greek neuma, a gesture, or sigh; a sys-
narratorThe speaker whose voice we hear in a story or tem of musical notation (a written pattern of dots and
poem. squiggles), used from the Carolingian period to the four-
narthex The porch or vestibule of a church, usually enclosed, teenth century, inserted into plainchant manuscripts to
through which worshipers walk before entering the nave. signal pitch and to a lesser degree the shape of the melody.
naturalism In literature, a late-nineteenth-century movement New ComedyThe style of comedy favored by Hellenistic play-
inspired by the methods of science and the insights of so- wrights, concentrating on gentle satirical themesin par-
ciology, concerned with an objective depiction of the ugly ticular, romantic plots with stock characters and predictable
side of industrial society. endings.
natural lawIn Stoicism and later in other philosophies, a nihilism The denial of any objective ground of truth and, in
body of laws or principles that are believed to be derived particular, of moral truths.
from nature and binding on human society and that con- nominalism [NAHM-uh-nuhl-iz-uhm] In medieval thought,
stitute a higher form of justice than civil or judicial law. the school that held that objects were separate unto them-
natural philosophy Science based on philosophical specu- selves but could, for convenience, be treated in a collective
lation and experiments or data, founded in Ionian Greece sense because they shared certain characteristics; opposed
in the sixth century BCE; a term that embraced both sci- to realism.
ence and philosophy until about 1800 CE. northern Renaissance The sixteenth-century cultural move-
naveThe central longitudinal area of a church, extending ment in northern Europe that was launched by the
from the entrance to the apse and flanked by aisles. northward spread of Italian Renaissance art, culture, and
neoclassical style In the late eighteenth century, an artistic ideals. The northern Renaissance differed from the Ital-
and literary movement that emerged as a reaction to the ian Renaissance largely because of the persistence of the
rococo style and that sought inspiration from ancient clas- late Gothic style and the unfolding of the Reformation after
sicism. In the twentieth century, between 1919 and 1951, 1520.
S neoclassicism in music was a style that rejected the emotion- Nouvelle Vague French, New Wave; a late modern move-
N alism favored by romantic composers as well as the dense ment in French film, featuring innovative narrative struc-
L orchestral sounds of the impressionists; instead, it bor- tures and various experimental cinematic techniques.
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GLOSSARY 675

French word for New Wave films in the postWorld paterfamilias Latin, literally the father of the family; the
War II period that experimented with new ways to cap- term applied to the male head of a Roman household who
ture scenes and events. possessed life and death authority over all in his resi-
octave In music, usually the eight-tone interval between a dence, family members and servants alike.
note and a second note of the same name, as in C to C. patricians From Latin, pater, father; the patricians were the
oculus [AHK-yuh-lus] The circular opening at the top of a well-born, landholding class that dominated the Roman
dome; derived from the Latin word for eye. republic for centuries.
Old ComedyThe style of comedy established by Aristoph Pax Romana Latin, the Roman Peace. A term applied to
anes in the fifth century BCE, distinguished by a strong the first two centuries of the Roman Empire when the
element of political and social satire. Mediterranean was at peace, albeit on Roman terms.
oligarchy From the Greek oligos, few; a state ruled by the pediment In classical-style architecture, the triangular-
few, especially by a small fraction of persons or families. shaped area or gable at the end of the building formed by
Olympian deitiesIn Greek religion, sky gods and god- the sloping roof and the cornice.
desses who lived on mountaintops and were worshiped pendentive [pen-DEN-tiv] In architecture, a triangular,
mainly by the Greek aristocracy. concave-shaped section of vaulting between the rim of a
op artA late modern art movement, using abstract, math- dome and the pair of arches that support it; used in Byz-
ematically based forms to create stimulating images for antine and Islamic architecture.
the eyes, such as optical patterns, lingering images, and performance art A democratic type of mixed-media art born
whirling effects. in the 1960s that ignores artistic boundaries, mixing high
operaA drama or play set to music and consisting of vo- art (such as music, painting, and theater) and popular art
cal pieces with orchestral accompaniment; acting, scenery, (such as rock and roll, film, and fads), to create a unique,
and sometimes choruses and dancing are used to heighten nonreproducible, artistic experience. Associated with the
the dramatic values of operas. work of Laurie Anderson.
oratorio A choral work based on religious events or scripture peristyle [PAIR-uh-stile] A colonnade around an open court-
employing singers, choruses, and orchestra, but without yard or a building.
scenery or staging and performed usually in a church or Perpendicular style The highly decorative style of late Gothic
a concert hall. architecture that developed in England at the same time
orchestra In Greek theaters, the circular area where the cho- as the late Gothic on the European continent.
rus performed in front of the audience; in music, a group Persian miniatureA style of miniature painting that flour-
of instrumentalists, including string players, who play ished in Persia from the thirteenth to seventeenth cen-
together. tury; characterized by rectangular designs, the depiction
organum [OR-guh-nuhm]In the ninth through the thir- of the human figure as about one-fifth the height of the
teenth centuries, a simple and early form of polyphonic painting, and refined detail.
music consisting of a main melody sung along with a Gre- perspective A technique or formula for creating the illusion
gorian chant; by the thirteenth century it had developed or appearance of depth and distance on a two-dimensional
into a complex multivoiced song. surface. Atmospheric perspective is achieved in many
PaleolithicLiterally, old stone; used to define the Old ways: by diminishing color intensity, by omitting detail,
Stone Age, when crude stones and tools were used; dating and by blurring the lines of an object. Linear perspective,
from about 2,000,000 BCE to about 10,000 BCE. based on mathematical calculations, is achieved by hav-
pantheism The doctrine of or belief in multitudes of deities ing parallel lines or lines of projection appearing to con-
found in nature; a recurrent belief since prehistoric times. verge at a single point, known as the vanishing point, on
Prominent in nineteenth-century romanticism. the horizon of the flat surface and by diminishing distant
pantomimeIn Roman times, dramatic productions featur- objects in size according to scale to make them appear to
ing instrumental music and dances, favored by the masses; recede from the viewer.
later, a type of dramatic or dancing performance in which Petrine Idea In Catholic theology, the idea that as Christ had
the story is told with expressive or even exaggerated bodily made St. Peter the leader of the apostles (Matthew 16:
and facial movements. 1819), his successors, the bishops of Rome (or popes), in-
paradigm shift The exchange of one worldview or perspec- herited his authority.
tive for another, as, for example, the shift from earth- philosophes [FEEL-uh-sawfs] A group of European think-
centered astronomy to sun-centered astronomy between ers and writers who popularized the ideas of the Enlight-
1550 and 1700; a paradigm is an unconsciously agreed-on enment through essays, novels, plays, and other works,
pattern of thought in a scientific discipline and, by exten- hoping to change the climate of opinion and bring about
sion, any shared set of beliefs and habits of thought; a term social and political reform.
coined by Thomas Kuhn. phonogram A symbol used to represent a syllable, a word,
parchmentA writing surface, prepared from calf-, sheep-, or a sound.
and goatskins, developed in ancient Pergamum. Parch- photomontage An art medium in which photographs, from
ments supple surface allowed the storing of writing on varied sources, but especially from newspapers, are cut
both sides of a page and thus opened the door to the first up, rearranged, and pasted onto a surface, such as a poster
books. board. When done, the photomontage usually sent a polit-
pastoral A type of Hellenistic poetry that idealized rural cus- ical or social message. Starting in 1918, the photomontage S
toms and farming, especially the simple life of shepherds, was part of the Dada movements assault against tradi- N
and deprecated urban living. tional art. L
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Physiocrats [FIZ-ih-uh-kratz]A group of writers, primar- of paint are applied to the canvas in such a way that when
ily French, who dealt with economic issues during the they are viewed from a distance they merge and blend to
Enlightenment, in particular calling for improved agricul- form recognizable objects with natural effects of color,
tural productivity and questioning the states role in eco- light, and shade.
nomic affairs. polyphony [puh-LIF-uh-nee] A style of musical composition
piano Italian, soft. In music, softly. Also, the usual term for in which two or more voices or melodic lines are sung or
pianoforte. played at the same time.
pianissimo Italian, very softly, a musical term. polytheism [PAHL-e-the-iz-uhm] The doctrine of or belief
pianoforte [pee-an-o-FOR-tay] A piano; derived from the Ital- in more than one deity.
ian for soft/loud, terms used to describe the two types of pop art An artistic style popular between 1960 and 1970 in
sound emitted by a stringed instrument whose wires are which commonplace commercial objects drawn from mass
struck with felt-covered hammers operated from a keyboard. culture, such as soup cans, fast foods, and comic strips, be-
picaresque novelFrom the Spanish term for rogue. A came the subjects of art.
type of literature, originating in sixteenth-century Spain, porticoIn architecture, a covered entrance to a building,
that recounted the comic misadventures of a roguish hero usually with a separate roof supported by columns.
who lived by his wits, often at the expense of the high and porticus A covered, usually colonnaded, porch or walkway.
mighty; influenced novel writing across Europe, espe- A porticus might complement one building or serve to
cially in England, France, and Germany, until about 1800; join two or more buildings together.
the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) was the first pi- post-and-lintel constructionA basic architectural form in
caresque novel. which two vertical posts, or columns, support a horizon-
pictogramA carefully drawn, often stylized, picture that tal lintel, or beam.
represents a particular object. post-beam-triangle construction The generic name given to
pier In architecture, a vertical masonry structure that may Greek architecture that includes the post, or column; the
support a vault, an arch, or a roof; in Gothic churches, piers beam, or lintel; and the triangular-shaped area, or pediment.
were often clustered together to form massive supports. postimpressionism A late-nineteenth-century artistic move-
Piet [pee-ay-TAH]A painting or sculpture depicting the ment that extended the boundaries of impressionism in new
mourning Virgin and the dead Christ. directions to focus on structure, composition, fantasy, and
Pietism A religious reform movement among German Lu- subjective expression.
therans, which stressed personal piety, along with sup- postmodernism An artistic, cultural, and intellectual move-
port for social programs for the poor; part of the general ment, originating in about 1970, that is more optimistic
religious ferment of western Europe in the late 1600s and than modernism, embraces an open-ended and democratic
early 1700s and a catalyst for the First Great Awakening in global civilization, freely adapts elements of high culture
British Colonial America in the 1700s. and mass culture, and manifests itself chiefly through re-
pilaster [pih-LAS-tuhr] In architecture, a vertical, rectangu- vivals of earlier styles, giving rise to neoclassicism, neo
lar decorative device projecting from a wall that gives the expressionism, and neorealism.
appearance of a column with a base and a capital; some- poststructuralismIn analytical theory, a set of techniques,
times called an applied column. growing out of structuralism, which were used to show
Pinteresque In the theater, a dramatic style, attributed to the that meaning is shifting and unstable.
British playwright Harold Pinter; characterized by enig- Praxitelean curve [prak-sit-i-LEE-an] The graceful line of the
matic plots and, especially, long pauses in the dialogue. sculptured body in the contrapposto stance, perfected by
PlatonismThe collective beliefs and arguments presented the fourth-century style sculptor Praxiteles.
in Platos writings stressing especially that actual things primitivism In painting, the primitives are those painters
are copies of Ideas. of the Netherlandish and Italian schools who flourished
plainsong Also called plainchant. In music, the monophonic before 1500, thus all Netherlandish painters between the
chant sung in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. van Eycks and Drer and all Italian painters between
plebeians The great mass of the Roman people who eventu- Giotto and Raphael; more generally, the term reflects
ally attained political but never social equality with the modern artists fascination with non-Western art forms,
patricians. as in Gauguins Tahitian-inspired paintings. In literature,
plot The action, or arrangement of incidents, in a story. primitivism has complex meanings; on the one hand, it
podium In architecture, a low wall serving as a foundation; refers to the notion of a golden age, a world of lost inno-
a platform. cence, which appeared in both ancient pagan and Chris-
poetry Language that is concentrated and imaginative, tian writings; on the other hand, it is a modern term used
marked by meter, rhythm, rhyme, and imagery. to denote two species of cultural relativism, which either
pointed archA key element of Gothic architecture, prob- finds people isolated from civilization to be superior to
ably introduced from the Muslim world, which permitted those living in civilized and urban settings, as in the cult
the joining of two arches of identical height but different of the noble savage (Rousseau), or respects native peoples
width. Pointed arches led to complex designs and reduced and their cultures within their own settings, yet accepts
the need for thick walls to support the massive vaults and that natives can be as cruel as Europeans (the view ex-
roofs typical of the Romanesque style. pressed by Montaigne).
S pointillism [PWANT-il-iz-uhm] Also known as divisionism, principate Term applied to the Roman imperial regime in-
N a style of painting, perfected by Seurat, in which tiny dots augurated by Augustus Caesar (31 BCE14 CE), who was
L
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designated princeps, meaning first citizen. The prin- ground. High relief projects sharply from the surface;
cipate lasted until the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE. low relief, or bas relief, is more shallow.
problem play A type of drama that focuses on a specific so- Renaissance [ren-uh-SAHNS] From the French for rebirth;
cial issue; the Swedish playwright Ibsen was a pioneer of the artistic, cultural, and intellectual movement marked
this genre, as in A Dolls House (1879), concerning womens by a revival of classical and humanistic values that began
independence. in Italy in the midfourteenth century and had spread
program music Instrumental music that depicts a narrative, across Europe by the midsixteenth century.
portrays a setting, or suggests a sequence of events; often representational artArt that presents a likeness of the
based on other sources, such as a poem or a play. world as it appears to the naked eye.
prose The ordinary language used in speaking and writing. res publica Latin, literally the public thing; the term the
prosimetric A literary work in both prose and verse. Devel- Romans applied to their government and society, signal-
oped in antiquity, this literary genre was popularized in ing that civic life and duty were the business of allat
the Middle Ages by Boethiuss Consolation of Philosophy least of all male citizens.
and adapted for the vernacular by Dantes La Vita Nuova restrained baroque styleA variation of the baroque style
(The New Life). identified with Dutch and English architects and painters
Ptolemies The name of the dynastydescended from Ptol- who wanted to reduce baroque grandeur and exuberance
emy, one of Alexander the Greats generalsthat ruled to a more human scale.
Egypt down to the Roman conquest. revenge tragedy A type of play popular in sixteenth-century
Puritanism The beliefs and practices of the Puritans, a small England, probably rooted in Roman tragedies and con-
but influential religious group devoted to the teachings cerned with the need for a family to seek revenge for the
of John Calvin; they stressed strict rules of personal and murder of a relative.
public behavior and practiced their beliefs in England and ribbed vault A masonry roof with a framework of arches or
the New World during the seventeenth century. ribs that reinforce and decorate the vault ceiling.
qasida [kah-SEE-dah] In Arabic, ode. An ode composed in rocaille [roh-KYE]In rococo design, the stucco ornaments
varied meters and with a single rhyme; that is, all lines shaped like leaves, flowers, and ribbons that decorate walls
end in the same rhyming sound. The leading poetic genre and ceilings.
in Muslim literature. rococo style [ruh-KOH-koh]An artistic and cultural style
qiblah [kee-blah]In Islamic mosque architecture, a niche, that grew out of the baroque style but that was more in-
often richly decorated, pointing the direction for prayer, timate and personal and emphasized the frivolous and
that is, toward the Kaaba in Mecca. superficial side of aristocratic life.
ragtime A type of instrumental music, popularized by Afri- romance A story derived from legends associated with Troy
can Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth or Celtic culture but often set in feudal times and centered
centuries, with a strongly syncopated rhythm and a lively on themes of licit and illicit love between noble lords and
melody. ladies.
Rayonnant [ray-yo-NAHNN] A decorative style in French ar- Romanesque style [roh-muhn-ESK]A style of architecture,
chitecture associated with the High Gothic period, in which usually associated with churches built in the eleventh and
walls were replaced by sheets of stained glass framed by el- twelfth centuries, that was inspired by Roman architec-
egant stone traceries. Also called Radiant. tural features, such as the basilica, and was thus Roman-
realism In medieval philosophy, the school that asserted that like. Romanesque buildings were massive, with round
objects contained common or universal qualities that were arches and barrel or groined vault ceilings, and had less ex-
not always apparent to the human senses but that were terior decoration than Gothic churches.
more real or true than the objects physical attributes; op- romanticism An intellectual, artistic, and literary movement
posed to nominalism. In art and literature, a mid- to late- that began in the late eighteenth century as a reaction to
nineteenth-century style that focused on the everyday lives neoclassicism and stressed the emotional, mysterious, and
of the middle and lower classes, portraying their world in imaginative side of human behavior and the unruly side
a serious, accurate, and unsentimental way; opposed to of nature.
romanticism. rondeau [RON-doh] (plural, rondeaux) A French verse form,
recitative [ress-uh-tuh-TEEV] In music, a rhythmically free consisting of thirteen lines, or sometimes ten lines, dating
but often stylized declamation, midway between singing from the late Middle Ages.
and ordinary speech, that serves as a transition between rose window A large circular window, made of stained glass
arias or as a narrative device in an opera. and held together with lead and carved stones set in pat-
Reformation The sixteenth-century religious movement that terns, or tracery, and located over an entrance in a Gothic
looked back to the ideals of early Christianity, called for cathedral.
moral and structural changes in the church, and led ulti- sacred music Religious music, such as Gregorian chants, Masses,
mately to the founding of the various Protestant churches. and hymns.
refrainIn music, a recurring musical passage or phrase; sarcophagus [sahr-KAHF-uh-guhs] (plural, sarcophagi)From
called ritornello in Italian. the Greek meaning flesh-eating stone; a marble or stone
regalia Plural in form, often used with a singular verb. The coffin or tomb, usually decorated with carvings, used first
emblems and symbols of royalty, as the crown and scepter. by Romans and later by Christians for burial of the dead.
relief In sculpture, figures or forms that are carved so that satire From the Latin, medleya cooking term; a literary S
they project from the flat surface of a stone or metal back- genre that originated in ancient Rome and was characterized N
L
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by two basic forms: (a) tolerant and amused observation of Severe style The first sculptural style of the classical period
the human scene, modeled on Horaces style, and (b) bitter in Greece, which retained stylistic elements from the Ar-
and sarcastic denunciation of all behavior and thought out- chaic style.
side a civilized norm, modeled on Juvenals style. In mod- sfumato [sfoo-MAH-toh]In painting, the blending of one
ern times, a literary work that holds up human vices and tone into another to blur the outline of a form and give the
follies to ridicule or scorn. canvas a smokelike appearance; a technique perfected by
satyr-play [SAT-uhr]A comic play, often featuring sexual Leonardo da Vinci.
themes, performed at the Greek drama festivals along with shaft gravesDeep pit burial sites; the dead were usually
the tragedies. placed at the bottom of the shafts; a burial practice in My-
scale A set pattern of tones (or notes) arranged from low to cenaean Greece.
high. skene [SKEE-nee] A small building behind the orchestra in
scenographic [see-nuh-GRAF-ik]In Renaissance architecture, a Greek theater, used as a prop and as a storehouse for
a building style that envisioned buildings as composed of theatrical materials.
separate units; in the painting of stage scenery, the art of SkepticismA Hellenistic philosophy that questioned whether
perspective representation. anything could be known for certain, argued that all beliefs
scherzo [SKAIRT-so] From the Italian for joke; a quick and were relative, and concluded that autarky could be achieved
lively instrumental composition or movement found in so- only by recognizing that inquiry was fruitless.
natas and symphonies. slave narrative A literary genre, either written by slaves or
Scholasticism In medieval times, the body or collection of told by slaves to secretaries who wrote them down, which
knowledge that tried to harmonize Aristotles writings emerged prior to the American Civil War; the genre was
with Christian doctrine; also, a way of thinking and es- launched by the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an
tablishing sets of arguments. American Slave (1845); the harsh details of the inhumane
Scientific RevolutionThe seventeenth-century intellectual and unjust slave system, as reported in these narratives,
movement, based originally on discoveries in astronomy contributed to realist literature.
and physics, that challenged and overturned medieval social contract In political thought, an agreement or contract
views about the order of the universe and the theories between the people and their rulers defining the rights
used to explain motion. and duties of each so that a civil society might be created.
scripture The sacred writings of any religion, as the Bible in Social Gospel A Protestant movement, mainly in the United
Judaism and Christianity. States, whose heyday was from 1880 to 1945, which stressed
Second Romanesque The second and mature stage of Ro- social improvement rather than personal piety; the reli-
manesque architecture, about 10801200. Second Roman- gious equivalent of liberal politics.
esque churches were richly decorated and built on a vast socialism An economic and political system in which goods
scale, including such features as double transepts, double and property are owned collectively or by the state; the
aisles, crossing towers, and towers at the ends of the tran- socialist movement began as a reaction to the excesses
septs; associated with Cluniac monasticism. of the factory system in the nineteenth century and ulti-
secular music Nonreligious music, such as symphonies, songs, mately called for either reforming or abolishing industrial
and dances. capitalism.
Seleucids The name of the dynasty (most of whose rulers socialist realism A Marxist artistic theory that calls for the
were called Seleucus or Antiochus) that ruled Syria and use of literature, music, and the arts in the service of the
Mesopotamia after the death of Alexander the Great and ideals and goals of socialism and/or communism, with an
down to the Roman conquest. Seleucus I was one of Alex- emphasis in painting on the realistic portrayal of objects.
anders generals. solipsism In philosophy, the sense that only ones self exists
senate From Latin senex, old man; the senate was the assem- or can be known.
bly of former officeholders at Rome. The senate could not sonata [soh-NAH-tah]In music, an instrumental composi-
pass laws but often issued opinions that were influential. tion, usually in three or four movements.
serenade In music, a lighthearted piece, intended to be per- sonata form A musical form or structure consisting of three
formed outdoors in the evening; popular in the eighteenth (or sometimes four) sections that vary in key, tempo, and
and nineteenth centuries. mood.
serial music A type of musical composition based on a twelve- squinch In architecture, an arch, or a set of gradually wider
tone scale arranged any way the composer chooses; the ab- and projecting arches placed diagonally at the internal
sence of a tonal center in serial music leads to atonality. angles of towers in order to mount a round or polygonal
setting In literature, the background against which the ac- superstructure on a square plan, used in Gothic, Byzan-
tion takes place; in a representational artwork, the time tine, and Islamic architecture (cf. pendentives).
and place depicted. stained glassAn art form characterized by many small
seven liberal arts Essentially, the curriculum of the ancient pieces of tinted glass bound together by strips of lead,
schools. Canonized by Martianus Capella in The Mar- usually to produce a pictorial scene of a religious theme;
riage of Mercury and Philology (late fifth century CE), the developed by Romanesque artists and a central feature of
arts were grammar, rhetoric, dialectic (logic), arithmetic, Gothic churches.
geometry, astronomy, and music. In medieval schools, the stele [STEE-lee] A carved or inscribed vertical stone pillar or
S arts were often divided into the Trivium (grammar, rheto- slab, often used for commemorative purposes.
N ric, and dialectic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geom- stereobate In Greek architecture, the stepped base on which
L etry, astronomy, and music). a temple stands.
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Stoicism [STO-ih-sihz-uhm]The most popular and influ- sical instruments, popular among postmodernist composers
ential Hellenistic philosophy, advocating a restrained way and musicians.
of life, a toleration for others, a resignation to disappoint- tabula rasa [TAB-yuh-luh RAH-zuh]Blank tablet, the
ments, and a resolution to carry out ones responsibilities. Latin term John Locke used to describe the mind at birth,
Stoicism appealed to many Romans and had an impact on empty of inborn ideas and ready to receive sense im-
early Christian thought. pressions, which Locke believed were the sole source of
stream of consciousnessA writing technique used by some knowledge.
modern authors in which the narration consists of a charac- techniqueThe systematic procedure whereby a particular
ters continuous interior monologue of thoughts and feelings. creative task is performed.
structuralismIn postmodernism, an approach to knowledge tempera A permanent, fast-drying painting medium consist-
based on the belief that human behavior and institutions ing of colored pigment and a water-soluble binder, usu-
can be explained by reference to a few underlying struc- ally egg yolk; widely used in early Christian art and then
tures that themselves are reflections of hidden patterns in continuously used until the development of oil paints in
the human mind. the fifteenth century.
studia humanitatis [STOO-dee-ah hu-man-ih-TAH-tis] (hu- tempo In music, the relative speed at which a composition is
manistic studies)The Latin term given by Renaissance to be played, indicated by a suggestive word or phrase or
scholars to new intellectual pursuits that were based on by a precise number such as a metronome marking. (A
recently discovered ancient texts, including moral phi- metronome is a finely calibrated device used to determine
losophy, history, grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. This new the exact tempo for a musical work.)
learning stood in sharp contrast to medieval Scholasticism. tenebrism In painting, a style of chiaroscuro that uses bright,
Sturm und Drang [STOORM oont drahng] German, storm sweeping light to illuminate figures against an intense
and stress; a German literary movement of the 1770s that dark background.
focused on themes of action, emotionalism, and the indi- terza rima [TER-tsuh REE-muh]A three-line stanza with
viduals revolt against the conventions of society. an interlocking rhyme scheme (aba bcb cdc ded, and so on),
style The combination of distinctive elements of creative ex- used by Dante in his Divine Comedy.
ecution and expression, in terms of both form and content. tetrarchyGreek, rule by four. A term applied to the in-
style galant [STEEL gah-LAHNN] In rococo music, a style of stitutional arrangements created by Diocletian, in which
music developed by French composers and characterized rule in the Roman Empire was shared among two Augus-
by graceful and simple melodies. tuses and two Caesars.
stylobate [STY-luh-bate] In Greek temples, the upper step of textureIn a musical composition, the number and nature
the base that forms a platform on which the columns stand. of voices or instruments employed and how the parts are
subject In music, the main theme. combined.
sublime [suh-BLIME]In romanticism, the term used to de- theater of the absurd A type of theater that has come to re-
scribe nature as a terrifying and awesome force full of flect the despair, anxieties, and absurdities of modern life
violence and power. and in which the characters seldom make sense, the plot
suprematism [suh-PREM-uh-tiz-uhm] A variation of abstract is nearly nonexistent, bizarre and fantastic events occur
art, originating in Russia in the early twentieth century, onstage, and tragedy and comedy are mixed in unconven-
characterized by the use of geometric shapes as the basic tional ways; associated with late modernism.
elements of the composition. theme The dominant idea of a work; the message or emo-
surrealism [suh-REE-uhl-iz-uhm]An early-twentieth-century tion the artist intends to convey; used in music, literature,
movement in art, literature, and theater, in which incon- and art.
gruous juxtapositions and fantastic images produce an ir- themes The name for administrative and military districts
rational and dreamlike effect. created in the Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth
swing band A fifteen- or sixteen-member orchestra, which centuries. Soldiers were settled on the land and served
plays ballads and dance tunes; dominated popular music under the local commander, the strategos. The system pro-
in the United States and in large cities in western Europe, vided for defense without that states having to raise tax
from the early 1930s until the early 1950s. revenues to pay soldiers.
syllabic In music, in plainsong, a style of musical setting in theme and variations In music, a technique in which a musi-
which one note is set to each syllable. cal idea is stated and then repeated in variant versions,
symbolic realism In art, a style that is realistic and true to with modifications or embellishments; used in indepen-
life but uses the portrayed object or person to represent or dent works or as a single movement in a symphony, sonata,
symbolize something else. or chamber work.
symphony A long and complex sonata, usually written in three theocracy From the Greek theos, god; a state governed by a
or four movements, for large orchestras; the first movement god regarded as the ruling power or by priests or officials
is traditionally fast, the second slow, and the third (and op- claiming divine sanction.
tional fourth) movement fast. theology The application of philosophy to the study of reli-
syncopation [sin-ko-PAY-shun] In music, the technique of ac- gious truth, focusing especially on the nature of the de-
centing the weak beat when a strong beat is expected. ity and the origin and teachings of an organized religious
syncretism [SIN-kruh-tiz-uhm] The combining of different community.
forms of religious beliefs or practices. tondo From the Italian rotondo, round; a circular artwork S
synthesizer [SIN-thuh-size-uhr] An electronic apparatus with containing a painting or a sculpture, originating in ancient N
a keyboard capable of duplicating the sounds of many mu- Greece and Rome and revived during the Renaissance. L
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680 GLOSSARY

tone A musical sound of definite pitch; also, the quality of nineteenth-century Parisian artists, who assimilated it to
a sound. a Western style that is most notable in the prints of Mary
tone color In music, the quality of a sound, determined by Cassatt.
the overtones; used for providing contrasts. utilitarianism [yoo-til-uh-TARE-e-uh-niz-uhm] The doctrine
tracery Ornamental architectural work with lines that branch set forth in the social theory of Jeremy Bentham in the
out to form designs, often found as stone carvings in rose nineteenth century that the final goal of society and hu-
windows. mans is the greatest good for the greatest number.
tragedyA serious and deeply moral drama, typically in- vanishing pointIn linear perspective, the point on the ho-
volving a noble protagonist brought down by excessive rizon at which the receding parallel lines appear to con-
pride (hubris) and describing a conflict between seem- verge and then vanish.
ingly irreconcilable values or forces; in Greece, tragedies vault A ceiling or roof made from a series of arches placed
were performed at the festivals associated with the wor- next to one another.
ship of Dionysus. vernacular language [vuhr-NAK-yuh-luhr]The language
transcendentalism A literary and philosophical move- or dialect of a region, usually spoken by the general popu-
ment that emphasized the spiritual over the material, the lation as opposed to the wealthy or educated elite.
metaphysical over the physical, and intuition over empiri- vernacular literature Literature written in the language of
cism. Its central tenet identified God or the divine spirit the populace, such as English, French, or Italian, as op-
(transcendence) with nature; popular in early- and mid- posed to the language of the educated elite, usually Latin.
nineteenth-century New England. via antiqua [VEE-uh ahn-TEE-kwah]The old way, the
transeptIn church architecture, the crossing arm that bi- term used in late medieval thought by the opponents of
sects the nave near the apse and gives the characteristic St. Thomas Aquinas to describe his via media, which they
cruciform shape to the floor plan. considered outdated.
tremoloIn music, the rapid repetition of two pitches in a via media [VEE-uh MAY-dee-ah] The middle way that St.
chord, so as to produce a tremulous effect. Thomas Aquinas sought in reconciling Aristotles works
triclinium (plural, triclinia) In the Roman world, a dining to Christian beliefs.
room with three couches for diners to recline on while via moderna [VEE-uh moh-DEHR-nah] The new way, the
eating. In the Middle Ages, the term for a formal reception term used in late medieval thought by those thinkers who
chamber, which could be used for dining or other festive opposed the school of Aquinas.
occasions. video art A type of art made with a video monitor or moni-
triconch A prestigious building type developed by the Ro- tors; produced using either computerized programs or
mans and inherited by medieval builders. The three (tri-) handheld cameras; can be ephemeral or permanent.
conches constituted an apse at one end and two apse-like virtuoso [vehr-choo-O-so]An aristocratic person who ex-
extrusions along the buildings long sides. perimented in science, usually as an amateur, in the sev-
triglyph [TRY-glif]In Greek architecture, a three-grooved enteenth century, giving science respectability and a wider
rectangular panel on the frieze of a Doric temple; triglyphs audience; later, in music, a person with great technical skill.
alternated with metopes. voussoir [voo-SWAR] A carved, wedge-shaped stone or block
trill In music, the rapid alternation of two notes, a step apart; in an arch.
used as a musical embellishment. Vulgate Name for the edition and translation of the Bible into
triptych [TRIP-tik] In painting, a set of three hinged or fold- Latin prepared by St. Jerome (345420). The term derives
ing panels depicting a religious story, mainly used as an from Latin vulgus, meaning the crowd or the people gen-
altarpiece. erally, but specifically those who spoke Latin, not Greek.
trope [TROHP]In Gregorian chants, a new phrase or melody in- westwork The exterior western end of a church; originated
serted into an existing chant to make it more musically ap- by the Carolingians, whose churches were given tall, im-
pealing; also called a turn; in literature, a figure of speech. pressive western ends. Romanesque and Gothic builders
troubador [TROO-buh-door] A composer and/or singer, usu- retained Carolingian height but added sculptural and ar-
ally an aristocrat, who performed secular love songs at the chitectural details so as to create ornate, intricate facades.
feudal courts in southern France. woodcut In art, the technique of cutting or carving an image
twelve-tone scale In music, a fixed scale or series in which onto a wooden block used for printing; originated in the
there is an arbitrary arrangement of the twelve tones late Middle Ages. Also, the print made from the technique.
(counting every half tone) of an octave; devised by Arnold word paintingIn music, the illustration of an idea, a
Schoenberg. meaning, or a feeling associated with a word, as, for
tympanum [TIM-puh-num]In medieval architecture, the example, using a discordant melody when the word pain
triangular space over a doorway set above the lintel, usu- is sung. This technique is especially identified with the
ally decorated with carvings depicting biblical themes; in sixteenth-century madrigal; also called word illustration
classical style architecture, the recessed face of a pediment. or madrigalism.
ukiyo-e [oo-key-yoh-AY] A type of colorful Japanese print, ziggurat [ZIG-oo-rat]A Mesopotamian stepped pyramid,
incised on woodblocks, that is characterized by simple usually built with external staircases and a shrine at the
design, plain backgrounds, and flat areas of color. De- top; sometimes included a tower.
veloped in seventeenth-century Japan; admired by late-
S
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Credits
PHOTO AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS Art Resource, NY; 5.16: Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; 5.17:
Alinari/Art Resource; 5.18: Rome, Italy/Index/ Bridgeman Art Library; 5.195.21:
Chapter 1 Opener: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 1.1: Copper Age/The Bridgeman Scala/Art Resource, NY; 5.22: R. Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection;
Art Library/Getty Images; 1.2: AP Photo/Jean Clottes; 1.3: Naturhistorisches Museum, p. 127 Legacy: Will Pryce/Thames & Hudson/Arcaid Images/Alamy.
Wien. Photo: Alice Schumacher; 1.6 ab: The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Re-
source, NY; 1.7: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 1.8: Courtesy of the University of Penn- Chapter 6 Opener: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 6.1: Photo The Israel Museum, Jerusa-
sylvania Museum image # 150029; 1.9: Photograph: Erwin Bhm, Mainz, Germany; 1.10: lem; 6.2: Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; 6.3: The Jewish
Carolyn Clarke/Spectrum Color Library, London. Heritage Image Partnership Ltd.; Museum, New York, gift of Samuel and Lucille Lemberg, JM 54-52. Photo by John Par-
1.12: Tim Schermerhorn; 1.13: Inge Morath The Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum nell. The Jewish Museum, NY/Art Resource, NY; 6.4: Zev Radovan/www.BibleLand
Photos, Inc.; 1.14: akg-images; p. 22 Interpreting Art: bpk, Berlin/Aegyptisches Mu- Pictures.com; 6.5: www.BibleLandPictures.com/Alamy; 6.6: Richard T. Nowitz; 6.7:
seum, Staatl iche Museen, Berlin/Margarete Bsing/Art Resource, NY; 1.15: Erich Lessing/ Courtesy of Nancy L. Lapp; 6.86.9: Zev Radovan/www.BibleLandPictures.com; 6.10:
Art Resource, NY; 1.16: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1929 Carl Purcell/Words & Pictures; 6.11: Art Resource, NY; 6.12: akg-images/Bible Land
(29.3.2). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Re- Pictures; 6.13: Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library;
source, NY; 1.17: bpk, Berlin/gyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung Berlin/ 6.14: akg-images/Andr Held; p. 147 Interpreting Art: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 6.15:
Margarete Bsing/Art Resource, NY; 1.18: The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Scala/Art Resource, NY; 6.16: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 6.17: Scala/Art Resource,
Resource, NY; 1.19: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY; 1.20: Egyptian National Mu- NY; p. 149 Legacy: Photo by David Rubinger/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
seum, Cairo, Egypt/Photo Boltin Picture Library/The Bridgeman Art Library; 1.21:
Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Reseouce, NY; 1.22: bpk, Berlin/Vorderasiatisches Mu- Chapter 7 Opener: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 7.1: akg-images/Werner Forman; 7.2: Su-
seum, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Art Resource, NY; 1.23: Fred Maroon/Photo perstock; 7.3: F1online digitale Bildagentur GmbH/Alamy; 7.4: C.M.Dixon/Ancient
Researchers, Inc.; 1.24: Persepolis, Iran/ Bridgeman Art Library; p. 30 Legacy: Ber- Art & Architecture Collection; 7.57.6: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 7.7: Foto Marburg/
trand Rieger/Hemis/Corbis. Art Resource, NY; 7.8: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 7.10: akg-images/Peter Connolly; 7.11:
Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library; 7.12: Vanni/Art Resource, NY; 7.13:
Chapter 2 Opener: Vanni/Art Resource, NY; 2.1: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 168 Interpreting Art: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 7.14: 2012
Art Resource, NY; 2.2, 2.3: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 2.4: SEF/Art Resource, NY; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (MS Cod. Vat. lat. 3867 fol 100v); 7.15: Erich Lessing/Art
2.5: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY; 2.6: Craig and Marie Mauzy, Athens, Greece; 2.7: Resource, NY; 7.16: akg-images/Andr Held; 7.177.19: Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 173
Bernard Cox/The Bridgeman Art Library; 2.8: AAAC/Topham/The Image Works; Legacy: Barry Winiker/Photolibrary/Getty Images.
2.9: C.M. Dixon/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; 2.10: The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.130.14). Photo: Schecter Lee. Image copyright Chapter 8 Opener: bpk, Berlin/Muenzkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin/Karin
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; p. 48 Interpreting Maerz/Art Resource, NY; 8.1: Yann Arthus-Bertrand/Corbis; 8.2: State Historical Mu-
Art: The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; 2.13: Vanni/Art Resource, seum, Moscow; 8.3: English Heritage Photo Library; 8.4: akg-images; 8.58.7: Gianni
NY; 2.14: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 2.15: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 8.8: Dumbarton Oaks, Image Col-
York, Fletcher Fund, 1932 (32.11.1). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. lections and Fieldwork Archives, Washington, DC; 8.9: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 8.10:
Image source: Art Resource, NY; 2.16: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY; 2.17: Hirmer akg-images; 8.11: Bibliothque Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library;
Fotoarchiv, Munich; 2.18: Craig and Marie Mauzy, Athens, Greece; 2.19: Staatliche 8.13: Ian Berry/Magnum Photos, Inc.; 8.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 8.16: Gianni
Antikensammlung und Glyptothek, Munich; 2.20: Vanni Archive/Corbis; p. 55 Legacy: Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 8.17: Snark/Art Resource, NY; 8.18:
Philippa Lewis; Edifice/Corbis. The Board of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland/The Bridgeman Art Library Ms. 58, fol. 34r;
8.19: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 8.20: The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 8.21: Snark/
Chapter 3 Opener: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 3.1: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Art Resource, NY; p. 197 Interpreting Art: Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei, MS R II 1,
Munich; 3.2: bpk, Berlin/Staatliche Museum, Berlin/Art Resource, NY; 3.3: Hirmer folio 18 verso. http: wwwbibnat.ro; 8.22: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Germany/
Fotoarchiv, Munich; 3.4: Ara Guler/Magnum Photos, Inc.; 3.6: Erich Lessing/Art Re- The Bridgeman Art Library; 8.23: Archives Larousse, Paris, France/ Giraudon/The
source, NY; 3.7: Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection Ltd.; 3.8 both: Bridgeman Art Library; 8.24: Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany/Bildarchiv Steffens/
Kunsth istorisches Museum, Vienna; 3.9: The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Re- The Bridgeman Art Library; 8.27: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; p. 201 Legacy: Stadt
source, NY; 3.10: The Granger Collection, New York; 3.11: Vanni/Art Resource, NY; 3.12: Aachen, photographer Andreas Hermann.
Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; 3.13: Scala/Art Resource,
NY; 3.14: Ren Burri/Magnum Photos, Inc.; 3.15: Robert Harding/Getty Images/Digital Chapter 9 Opener: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar; 9.1: Reproduced by kind permission of
Vision RF; 3.16: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 3.173.18: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 3.19: the Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, MS.
Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; p. 77 Interpreting Art: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY; 3.20: T.419, f. 40v; 9.2: Vanni Archive/Corbis; 9.3: The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library,
The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; 3.22: Nimatallah/Art Re- Dublin/The Bridgeman Art Library; 9.4: Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, France
source, NY; 3.23: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 3.24: Staatliche Antikensammlung und (Ms Arabe 5847 fol 5v); 9.5: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 9.6: Used by permission of the
Glyptothek, Munich; p. 81 Legacy: Architect of the Capitol. Edinburgh University Library. Or Ms. 161, folio 16r; 9.7: The Granger Collection, New
York; 9.8: Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Art Resource, NY; 9.9: J. Pate/Robert
Chapter 4 Opener: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1909 Harding Picture Library; 9.109.11: Werner Foreman/Art Resource, NY; 9.12: Ronald
(09.39). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; 9.13: Daniel Boiteau/Alamy DAL RF;
NY; 4.1: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1918. (18.145.10). Image 9.14: Jose Enrique Molina/age fotostock/Robert Harding; 9.15: Bibliotheque Nationale
copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; 4.2: The de France, Paris, France (Ms Arabe 5847 fol. 95v); p. 223 Interpreting Art: Art Resource,
Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; 4.3: bpk, Berlin/Antikensammlung, NY; p. 224 Legacy: Jean-Marc Loos/Reuters/Corbis.
Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Christa Begall/Art Resource, NY; 4.5: Scala/Ministero
per i Beni e le Attivit culturali/Art Resource, NY; 4.6: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, Chapter 10 Opener: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 10.1: British Library MS Royal 2 A XXII,
NY; 4.7: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; 4.8: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, folio 220. HIP/Art Resource, NY; 10.2: The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.
Rogers Fund, 1911. (11.90) Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Cotton Claudius B. IV. f.79v; 10.3: Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 232 Interpreting Art ab:
source: Art Resource, NY; 4.9: The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY; 10.4: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 10.5: Snark/Art
4.10: C.M. Dixon/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; 4.11: Art Resource, NY; 4.12: Resource, NY; 10.6: The Granger Collection, New York; 10.7: akg-images/Stefan Diller;
Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY; 4.13: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10.8: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridgeman Art Library; 10.9: Sylvain
Rogers Fund, 1943 (43.11.4). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Sonnet/Corbis; 10.10: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; 10.11: bpk, Berlin/Uni-
source: Art Resource, NY; 4.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 4.15: Pinacoteca Capitolina, Pa versity Library, Heidelberg, Germany/Knud Petersen/Art Resource, NY; 10.12: Sonia
lazzo Conservatori, Rome, Italy/Index/Bridgeman Art Library; p. 99 Interpreting Art: Halliday Photographs; 10.14: akg-images/Schtze/Rodemann; 10.15: akg-images/
Araldo de Luca/Corbis; 4.16: Corbis; 4.17: Louvre, Paris, France/Lauros Giraudon/ Stefan Drechsel; 10.16: Lee Snider/Photo Images; 10.17: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Re-
Bridgeman Art Library; p. 101 Legacy: Courtesy The Saatchi Gallery, London. Art Estate source, NY; 10.18: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 10.19: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY;
of Duane Hanson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. 10.20: Courtesy the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Cor-
pus Christi College, Cambridge MS 2, f. 94r; 10.22: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 10.25:
Chapter 5 Opener: Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 5.1: Alfredo Brian Lawrence/Superstock; 10.2610.27: Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art & Architec-
Dagli Orti/The Art Archive/Corbis; 5.2: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 5.3: The Trustees of ture Collection; 10.2810.29: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 10.30: Jean Feuille Centre
the British Museum/Art Resource, NY; 5.4: American Academy in Rome, Photographic des monuments nationaux (JFX00-9426); 10.3210.33: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich; 10.34:
Archive #6655F; 5.5: Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 112 Interpreting Art: Scala/Art Resource, Snark/Art Resource, NY; 10.35: University Library of Munich, Cim. 15 (= 4 Cod. Ms. 24);
NY; 5.6: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; 5.7: akg-images; 5.9: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art p. 261 Legacy: Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images.
Resource, NY; 5.10: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 5.11: Paul Chesley/Stone/Getty Images;
5.12: Guido Alberto Rossi/TIPS Images RM/age fotostock; 5.13: William A. Allard/ Chapter 11 Opener: British Library, London, UK/ British Library Board. All Rights
National Geographic/Getty Images; 5.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 5.15: Nimatallah/ Reserved/The Bridgeman Art Library; 11.1: Institut Amatller dArt Hispanic. Ampliaciones S
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682 CREDITS

y Reproducciones MAS (Arxiu Mas), Barcelona.; 11.2: Courtesy Library of Congress, Institution, Washington, D. C.: Purchase, F1942.15a.; 16.11: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Re-
Law Library (s65p7). LC classification KJV265 Incun. 1483.N65; 11.3: Giraudon/Art Re- source, NY; 16.12: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection,
source, NY; 11.4: Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, Brussels Ms. 13076-7, folio .24t; 11.5: The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962 (62.598.180). Image copyright The Metropolitan Mu-
RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 11.6: Art Resource, NY; 11.7: Foto Marburg/ seum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.; p. 435 Legacy: NASA.
Art Resource, NY; 11.811.13: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 11.14: Art Resource, NY; 11.15:
akg images; 11.16: bpk, Berlin/Art Resource, NY; 11.1711.18: Galleria degli Uffizi, Chapter 17 Opener: English Heritage Photographic Library; 17.1: From A Diderot Pic-
Florence, Italy/The Bridgeman Art Library; 11.19: Alinai/Art Resource, NY; 11.2011.21: torial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, Dover Publications, 1959, plate #34 (up-

Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; 11.22: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, per), New York; 17.2: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham/The
Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection. 1937.1.41; p. 290 Interpreting Art: National Bridgeman Art Library; 17.3: Superstock; 17.4: Daniel Zupac/Bruce Coleman, Inc./
Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; 11.23: akg-images; p. 293 Legacy: Mark Fiennes/ Photoshot; 17.5: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 17.6: bpk, Berlin/Alte Pinakothek,
Robert Harding World Imagery/Getty Images. Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich/Art Resource, NY; 17.7: RMN-Grand
Palais/Art Resource, NY; 17.8: Copyright The Frick Collection, New York; 17.9: RMN-
Chapter 12 Opener: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.1: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.2: bpk, Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 17.10: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 17.11: National
Berlin/Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain/Lutz Braun/Art Resource, NY; 12.3: Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; p. 451 Interpreting Art: RMN-Grand Palais/Art
Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.4: National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; 12.512.6: Resource, NY; 17.12: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Catharine Lorillard
Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.7: Vatican Museums and Galleries, Vatican City, Italy/ Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931 (31.45). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum
The Bridgeman Art Library; 12.8: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.10: Bill Chaitkin/ of Art/Art Resource, NY; 17.13: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Elisha
Architectural Association, London; 12.1112.13: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.14: Erich Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1961 (61.531). Image copyright The
Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 12.1512.16: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 12.17: Karen Tweedy- Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; 17.14: English Heritage
Holmes/Corbis; 12.18: akg-images/Rabatti-Domingie; 12.1912.21: Scala/Art Re- Photographic Library; 17.15: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; 17.16: Patrick
source, NY; p. 317 Interpreting Art: Galleria degli Uffizi Florence, Italy/Bridgeman Ward/Corbis; 17.17: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Bulloz; 17.18: akg-
Art Library, London; 12.22: akg-images; 12.23: Copyright The Frick Collection, New images; p. 463 Legacy: Michael Ventura/Alamy.
York; 12.24: Bibliotheque royale, Brussels, MS. 9092, fol. 9. DeA Picture Library/Art Re-
source, NY; p. 321 Legacy: Alan Copson City Pictures/Alamy. Chapter 18 Opener: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 18.1:
David Jones/Alamy; 18.2: Muse de lArme/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource,
Chapter 13 Opener: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 13.1: akg-images; 13.2: Hans NY.; 18.3: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; 18.4: Courtesy of the Warden and
Hinz/Artothek; 13.3: British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/The Bridgeman Scholars of New College, Oxford/The Bridgeman Art Library; 18.5: RMN-Grand Palais/
Art Library; 13.4: Museu Nacional de Arte Antigua, Lisbon, Portugal, Giraudon/The Art Resource, NY; 18.6: Art Resource, NY; 18.7: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 18.8:
Bridgeman Art Library; 13.5: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.6: bpk, Berlin/Hamburger Robert C. Lautman Photography Collection, National Building Museum Washington,
Kunsthalle/Elke Walford/Art Resource, NY; 13.7: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.8: Canali DC, 200.3; 18.9: Buddy Mays/Corbis; 18.10: Science & Society Picture Library/The Im-
Photobank, Milan, Italy; 13.9: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 13.10: Monu- age Works; 18.11: National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; 18.12: Yale Center for
menti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, Vatican, Rome, Italy, Photo Vatican Museums: A. Brac- British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA/ Bridgeman Art Library; 18.1318.14: Tate
chetti - P. Zigrossi, Mar. 2004; p. 339 Interpreting Art: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; 18.15: bpk, Berlin/Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Mu-
13.1213.13: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, Vatican, Rome, Italy, Photo Vatican seen, Berlin/Photo: Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY; 18.16: Scala/Art Resource, NY;
Museums/A. Bracchetti - P. Zigrossi 2000; 13.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.15: Cour- 18.17: Private Collection/Index/The Bridgeman Art Library; 18.1818.19: Erich Lessing/
tesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.24; Art Resource, NY; p. 488 Interpreting Art: akg images; 18.20: akg images; p. 493 Leg-
13.16: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.17: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY; acy: Pedro Ugarte/AFP Photo/Getty Images.
13.18: Galleria degli Uffizi Florence, Italy/ Bridgeman Art Library, London; 13.19:
Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.20: Galleria dellAccademia, Florence/Bridgeman Art Li- Chapter 19 Opener: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Mrs. H. O.
brary, London; 13.21: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 13.22: SEF/Art Resource, NY; 13.23: Ste- Havemeyer, 1929. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art
phen Studd/Stone/Getty Images; 13.24: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; 13.26: Scala/Ministero Resource, NY; 19.1: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 19.2: Ronald Sheridan/An-
per i Beni e le Attivit culturali/Art Resource, NY; p. 353 Legacy: D. Dipasupil/FilmMagic/ cient Art & ArchitectureCollection; 19.3: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts,
Getty Images. USA/Henry Lillie Pierce Fund/The Bridgeman Art Library; 19.4: Edouard Manet. Ala-
bama and Kearsarge. John G. Johnston Collection, 1917. The Philadelphia Museum of Art/
Chapter 14 Opener: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 14.1: Art Resource, NY; 14.3: Art Resource, NY; 19.5: Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Surrey/ Bridge-
akg-images/Dieter E. Hoppe; 14.4: Blauel/Gnamm/Artothek; 14.5: The Fogg Art Mu- man Art Library; 19.6: Guildhall Library, City of London/The Bridgeman Art Library;
seum, Harvard University Art Museums. Gift of William Gray from the collection of Fran- 19.7: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; p. 508 Interpreting Art: Samuel Courtauld Trust,
cis Calley Gray. Harvard Art Museum/Art Resource, NY; 14.6: Muse dInterlinden, The Courtauld Gallery, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library International; 19.8:
Colmar, France/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library; 14.7: Scala/Art Resource, NY; Louvre, Paris, France/Lauros-Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library; 19.9: RMN-
14.8: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; p. 366 Interpreting Art: Detroit Institute of Arts, Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 19.10: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
USA/City of Detroit Purchase/The Bridgeman Art Library; 14.9: Nationalmuseum, Rogers Fund, 1907 (07.123). Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image
Stockholm, Sweden/The Bridgeman Art Library; 14.10: The New York Public Library, source: Art Resource, NY; 19.11: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 19.12: Erich
Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations/Art Resource, NY; 14.11: Bildarchiv Preussischer Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 19.13: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/The Bridge-
Kulturbesitz/Hessisches Landesmuseum/Hermann Buresch/Art Resource, NY; 14.12: man Art Library; 19.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 19.15: The Metropolitan Museum of
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 14.13: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 14.14: By courtesy of Art, New York, Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887. (87.25). Image copyright The Metro-
the National Portrait Gallery, London; 14.15: Courtesy Curia Generalizia, Society of Jesus; politan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; 19.16: RMN-Grand Palais/Art
14.16: The Granger Collection, New York; 14.17: S. Tome, Spain/Giraudon/The Bridge- Resource, NY; 19.17: Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.; 19.18: Victoria & Albert
man Art Library; 14.18: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H.O. Havemeyer Museum/Art Resource, NY; 19.19: Yannick Tylle/Corbis; p. 525 Legacy: Columbia/
Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.5). Image copyright The Met- Courtesy Everett Collection.
ropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; 14.19: Art Resource, NY;
14.20: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 14.21: Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY; p. 381 Legacy: Chapter 20 Opener: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 20.1: The Museum of Mod-
Courtesy Everett Collection. ern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. (231.1948). Digital Image
The Museum of Modern Art, NY/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY; 20.2: Philadel-
Chapter 15 Opener: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 15.1: RMN-Grand Palais/Art phia Museum of Art, The Louis E. Stern Collection, 1963. 1963-181-122. The Philadelphia
Resource, NY; 15.2: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 15.3: National Gallery, Lon- Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY; 20.3: Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Purchase
don/Art Resource, NY; 15.5: Alinari Archives/Corbis; 15.615.8: Scala/Art Resource, 00.9; 20.4: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 20.5: Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York,
NY; 15.9: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Mr. Leslie H. Green/The Bridgeman USA/The Bridgeman Art Library International; 20.6: Eileen Tweedy/The Art Archive
Art Library; 15.10: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 15.11: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; at Art Resource, NY; 20.7: Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/The Bridgeman
15.1215.13: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 15.14: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, Art Library; 20.8: Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, Norway. Photo: J. Lathion, Nasjonalgalleriet.
NY; 15.15: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; 15.16: Mauritshuis, The Hague/Bridgeman Art 2012 The Munch Museum/The Munch-Ellingsen Group/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
Library, London; 15.17: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; 15.18: Louvre, Paris, France/The New York; 20.9: Denver Art Museum Collection. Funds from Helen Dill bequest, 1935.14.
Bridgeman Art Library; 15.19: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 15.20: National Denver Art Museum; 20.10: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 20.11: Courtesy
Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; p. 407 Interpreting Art: akg-images/A. F. Kersting; National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.48; 20.12:
15.21: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 15.22: The Granger Collection, New York; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D. C., Gift of Wallace and Wil-
p. 413 Legacy: AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano. helmina Holladay; p. 547 Interpreting Art: Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent
van Gogh Foundation) s 114 V/1962; 20.14: Scala/Art Resource, NY; 20.15: Albright-Knox
Chapter 16 Opener: The Granger Collection, New York; 16.1: The Granger Collection, Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. A. Conger Goodyear Collection, 1965. Albright-Knox Art Gal-
New York; 16.2: Courtesy Department of Library Services. American Museum of Natural lery/Art Resource, NY; 20.16: RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; 20.17: The Museum
History. Photo by Craig Chesek. Neg. #4825(2); 16.3: Bettmann/Corbis; 16.4: Scala/Art of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Digital Image
Resource, NY; 16.5: By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London; p. 422 Interpret- The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; 20.18: Statens Mu-
ing Art: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 16.6: Science & Society Picture Library/ seum for Kunst, Copenhagen. SMK Foto. 2012 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights
S The Image Works; 16.7: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 16.8: Bettmann/Corbis; 16.9: Society (ARS), New York; 20.19: Acquired through the Lille P. Bliss Bequest. (333.1939).
The New York Public Library/Art Resource, NY; 16.10: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art,
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NY/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY; 22.19: Solomon R. Gug-
Society (ARS), New York; 20.20: Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed genheim Museum, New York. Gift, Ruth and Philip Zierler, in memory of their dear de-
by Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), parted son, William S. Zierler, 1980. 80.2747. Photograph by David Heald. The Solomon
New York; 20.21: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York. 1963 Claus Oldenburg; 22.20: Photo: Caroline
(by exchange). Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Tisdall. Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. 2012 Artists Rights Society
Resource, NY. 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; 20.22: The (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; 22.21: Bettmann/Corbis; 22.22: Vanni/Art
Rodin Museum, Philadelphia. Gift of Jules E. Mastbaum F1929-7-127. The Philadelphia Resource, NY; 22.23: Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (980063).
Museum of Art; 20.23: ART on FILE/Corbis; 20.24: Richard Bryant/Arcaid/Corbis; Photo Vaughan Rachel. 2012 Vaughan Rachel/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York;
20.25: Hogan Jazz Archive, Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane 22.24: Courtesy Louis Armstrong House Museum; 22.25: Courtesy Everett Collection;
University; p. 559 Legacy: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Chester p. 627 Legacy: ph: Brigitte Lacombe/The Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection.
Dale Collection. 1963.10.70.
Chapter 23 Opener: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan; 23.1: Patrick Piel/Gamma Rapho;
Chapter 21 Opener: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany/The Bridgeman Art 23.2: Bettmann/Corbis; 23.3: AP Photo; 23.4: Courtesy Carl Solway Gallery, Cincin-
Library; 21.1: Photo akg-images. 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society nati, Ohio, photographer: Chris Gomien. Nam June Paik Estate; 23.5: Gideon Mendel/
(ARS), New York; 21.2: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gift of Ethelyn Corbis; 23.6: Maciej Klos/epa/Corbis; 23.7: Leonard and Eleanor Bellinson Collection,
McKinney in memory of her brother Glenn Ford McKinney, 1943.9.1; 21.3: Library of Con- courtesy The Donald Morris Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan. Philip Pearlstein. Cour-
gress, Washington DC LC-USZ62-95653; 21.4: Bettmann/Corbis; 21.5: AP Photo; 21.6: tesy Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York; 23.8: Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York.
Margaret Bourke-White/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; 21.7: Corbis; 21.8: AP 2012 Susan Rothenberg/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; p. 645 Interpreting Art:
Photo/British Official Photo; 21.9: Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy. The Museum of Modern Anselm Kiefer; 23.9: Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Artists Rights So-
Art, New York. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art, NY/Licensed by Scala/Art ciety (ARS), NY/DACS, London; 23.10: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Acquired
Resource, NY. 2012 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists through the Mr. and Mrs. Victor Ganz, Mr. and Mrs. Donald H. Peters, and Mr. and Mrs.
Rights Society (ARS), New York; 21.10: bpk, Berlin/Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Charles Zadok Funds. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/
Berlin/Jrg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ Art Resource, NY 2012 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 23.11: Photo
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; 21.11: Anonymous Gift. 1950.730 Yale University Art Gallery, New Mark Gulezian/QuickSilver Photographers. Courtesy Sam Gilliam; 23.12: St. Louis Art
Haven, Connecticut. Yale University Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY. Art 2012 Alberto Museum. Funds given by Mr. and Mrs. R. Crosby Kemper, Jr., through the Crosby Kemper
Giacometti Estate/Licensed by VAGA and ARS, New York, NY; p. 580 Interpreting Art: Foundation, The Arthur and Helen Baer Charitable Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Van-Lear
1935 Acquisition confirmed in 1999 by agreement with the Estate of Kazimir Malevich Black III, Anabeth Calkins and John Weil, Mr. and Mrs. Gary Wolff, the Honorable and
and made possible with funds from the Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest (by exchange). Mrs. Thomas F. Eagleton, Museum Purchase, Dr. and Mrs. Harold J. Joseph, and Mrs.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Digital Image The Museum of Mod- Edward Mallinckrodt, by exchange. 23:1992 Gerhard Richter; 23.13: Courtesy Louis K.
ern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; 21.12: Given anonymously. The Museum Meisel Gallery, New York; 23.14: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Helena Ru-
of Modern Art, New York Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by binstein Fund. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Re-
SCALA/Art Resource, NY 2012 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International USA; source, NY. 2012 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 23.15: James
21.13: Alfred Stieglitz Collection, gift of Georgia OKeeffe, 1947.712. The Art Institute of P. Blair/Corbis; 23.16: Courtesy Roy T. Matthews and Christo; 23.17: Jewel Samad/AFP/
Chicago. 2012 Georgia OKeeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York; 21.14: Getty Images; 23.18: Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York; 23.19:
The Philadelphia Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), Photo by Thibault Jeanson. Ann Hamilton; 23.20: Photo credit: Gianfranco Gorgoni.
New York/ADAGP, Paris/Succession Marcel Duchamp; 21.15: The Museum of Mod- Collection: DIA Center for the Arts, New York. Art Estate of Robert Smithson/licensed
ern Art, New York. Given anonymously. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/ by VAGA, New York. Image courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai; 23.21:
Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. Salvador Dali, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dali, Courtesy Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates. Photo William Watkins; 23.22: Wal-
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 21.16: Schalkwijk/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Banco ter Bibikow/Corbis; 23.23: Ken Kaminsky/Photri Images; 23.24: PSL Images/Alamy;
de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D. F./Artists Rights Soci- 23.25: Photograph by Erika Barahona Ede FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. All rights
ety (ARS), New York; 21.17: CNAC/MNAM/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY reserved; 23.26: Ron Wurzer/Getty Images; 23.27: Arcaid Images/Alamy; 23.28: Cour-
2012 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 21.18: Given anony- tesy Everett Collection; 23.29: Photo: Martin Mydtskov Rnne, www.mydtskov.dk; 23.30:
mously (by exchange). (6.1942.ac). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Digital Image Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures; p. 663 Legacy: Ai Weiwei.
The Museum of Modern Art, NY/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2012 Art-
ists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; 21.19: Michael Nicholson/
Corbis; 21.20: Anthony Scibilia/Art Resource, NY; 21.21: Courtesy Everett Collection;
21.22: Photo: akg-images 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New TEXT CREDITS
York; p. 593 Legacy: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images. Chapter 1, p. 13, Samuel Noah Kramer, A Sumerian Father Lectures His Son, A Sume-
rian Father Lectures His Son, excerpt from HISTORY BEGINS AT SUMER (New York:
Chapter 22 Opener: Robert Brenner/PhotoEdit, Inc.; 22.1: Fritz Henle/Photo Re- Doubleday/Anchor, 1959). Chapter 2, p. 46, Sappho, He Seems to Be a God, By Guy
searchers, Inc.; 22.2: Express Newspapers/Hulton Royals Collection/Getty Images; Davenport, from 7 GREEKS, copyright 1995 by Guy Davenport. Reprinted by permis-
22.3 a, b: Judy Chicago, 1979. Collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Gift of The sion of New Directions Publishing Corp; p. 46, Alceus, Longing for Home, GREEK
Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. Photo: Donald Woodman. 2012 Judy Chicago/Art- LYRIC POETRY translated by West (1994) 20 lines from Longing for Home pp. 5455. By
ists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.4: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, permission of Oxford University Press. Chapter 3, p. 71, Xenophon, Oeconomicus, from
Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund. Digital Image The Museum of Modern Art/ OECONOMICUS: A SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL COMMENTARY, translated by Sarah B.
Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY. Art Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by Pomeroy, Clarendon Paperbacks, Copyright Sarah B. Pomeroy 1994, Reprinted 2002.
VAGA, New York, NY; 22.5: Collection of Evander D. Schley. Courtesy Ronald Feldman Reprinted with permission of Sarah B. Pomeroy. Chapter 4, p. 91, Theocritus, Idylls,
Fine Arts, New York. Photo: D. James Dee.; p. 611 Interpreting Art: The Museum of Mod- GREEK PASTORAL POETRY: THEOCRITUS, BION, MOSCHUS, THE PATTERN POEMS.
ern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. Digital Image The Mu- Translated by Anthony Holden. Penguin, 1974. Chapter 5, p. 114, Marcus Cicero, A Col-
seum of Modern Art/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY 2012 The Pollock-Krasner lege Students Letter Home, Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of
Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.6: Whitney Museum of Ameri- the Loeb Classical Library from, CICERO: VOLUME XXVII, LETTERS TO HIS FRIENDS
can Art, New York. Purchase. 55.35. Photograph 2004: Whitney Museum of American VOLUME III, Loeb Classical Library Volume 230, translated by W. Glynn Williams, pp. 365,
Art. 2012 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 367, 369, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929. Loeb Classical Library is a
22.7: Albright-Knox Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Chris- registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Chapter 6, p. 135,
topher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.8: San Francisco Museum of Flavius Josephus, A Jewish Soldier in the Roman Army, THE JEWISH WAR by Josephus,
Modern Art. Gift of the Womens Board (68.52). 2012 Estate of Helen Frankenthaler/ translated by G.A. Williamson, revised with an introduction, notes and appendixes by
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.9: The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: E. Mary Smallwood (Penguin Classics 1959, Revised edition 1981). Copyright G.A. Wil-
Hickey-Robertson. 2012 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.10: liamson, 1959, 1969. Introduction and editorial matter copyright E.M. Smallwood, 1981.
Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. Art Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.; p. 146, Vibia Perpetua, A Martyr in
York, NY. Art Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY; 22.11: Moderna Museet, the Early Christian Church, Excerpt from THE ACTS OF THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS,
KSK, Stockholm. Art Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, edited by Herbert Anthony Musurillo (2000), 149 words from p. 109. By permission of Ox-
NY; 22.12: 2012 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights ford University Press. Chapter 7, p. 157, Priscus, C.D. Gordon, THE AGE OF ATTILA:
Society (ARS), New York; 22.13: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Gift of Sey- FIFTH CENTURY BYZANTIUM AND THE BARBARIANS (Ann Arbor: The University
mour H. Knox, Jr. 1967. Albright-Knox Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY. Bridget Riley 2012. of Michigan Press, 1960). Reprinted with permission of University of Michigan Press.
All rights reserved, courtesy Karsten Schubert, London; 22.14: Photo courtesy of David Chapter 8, p. 188, Liudprand of Cremona, Marriage Diplomacy Nets a Diplomatic Insult,
Finn. Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation. The Henry Moore Marriage Diplomacy Nets a Diplomatic Insult from THE WORKS OF LIUDPRAND OF
Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2012/www.henry-moore.org; 22.15: Collection CREMONA, translated by F.A. Wright (London: Routledge, 1930). Reproduced by permis-
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, 1966. Art Estate of sion of Taylor & Francis Books UK. Chapter 9, p. 218, Paul Alvar, Fears of Assimilation
David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY; 22.16: Tate, London/Art Resource, NY. in a Multicultural Society, INDICULUS LUMINOSUM, J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol.
2012 Estate of Louise Nevelson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 22.17: Allen 121 (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1952), cols. 555556. Translation by Thomas Noble. Used with per-
Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Fund for Contemporary Art and mission. Chapter 10, p. 240, Heloise, The Abbess of Le Paraclete, Founded by Abelard,
gift of the artist and the Fischbach Gallery, 1970. AMAM 70.32 The Estate of Eva Hesse. From THE LETTERS OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, translated and introduced by Betty S
Hauser & Wirth; 22.18: The Newark Museum/Art Resource, NY. Art The George Radice (Penguin Classics, 1974). Copyright Betty Radice, 1974. Reproduced by permission
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of Penguin Books Ltd. Chapter 11, p. 268, Henry Knighton, A View from the Provinces, MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, VOL. II 17211751 edited by Halsband (1966) 432 w from
from his Chronicle. Chapter 12, p. 302, Laura Cereta, In Defense of the Education of pp 321322. By permission of Oxford University Press. Chapter 18, p. 467, Elizabeth
Women, Excerpt from HER IMMACULATE HAND, edited by Margaret King and Albert Bentley, Report of Parliamentary Committee on the Bill to Regulate the Labour of Chil-
Rabil, Jr. MRTS Volume 20, Binghamton, NY 1983. Copyright Arizona Board of Regents dren in Mills and Factories, 1832, Bentley, Elizabeth, in REPORT OF PARLIAMENTARY
for Arizona State University. Reprinted with permission. Chapter 13, p. 346, Giorgio COMMITTEE ON THE BILL TO REGULATE THE LABOUR OF CHILDREN IN THE
Vasari, Life of Michelangelo, Approximately 480 words (pp. 337339) from LIVES OF MILLS AND FACTORIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, 1932, British Parliamentary Pa-
THE ARTISTS VOLUME I by Giorgio Vasari, translated by George Bull (Penguin Clas- pers, Irish Academic Press. Used with permission. Chapter 19, p. 510, Hippolyte Taine,
sics, 1965). Translation George Bull, 1965. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books A Day at the Races, 28 May 1861, Taine, Hippolyte. NOTES ON ENGLAND. Translated by
Ltd. Chapter 14, p. 370, Bartolome de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction William Fraser Rae, 1974 edition, pp. 3739. W. Isbiter and Co. London, 1874. Chapter 20,
of the Indies, Approximately 364 words (pp. 42, 4546) from A SHORT ACCOUNT OF p. 531, Lady Constance Lytton, Notes from a Diary, Constance Lytton (18691923). PRIS-
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES by Bartolome De Las Casa, edited and translated ONS AND PRISONERS, edited by Jason Haslam. Broadview Press, 2008; pp 236237.
by Nigel Griffin, introduction by Anthony Pagden (Penguin Classics, 1992). The transla- Chapter 21, p. 577, Elie Wiesel, Night (2006), Excerpt from NIGHT by Elie Wiesel, trans-
tion and Notes copyright Nigel Griffin, 1992. Introduction copyright Anthony Pag- lated by Marion Wiesel. Translation copyright 2006 by Marion Wiesel. Chapter 22,
den 1992. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Chapter 15, p. 390, Samuel p. 607, Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Recollections of the Moon Landing and
Pepys, Eye Witness to the Great Fire of London, the First Day, PEPYS, SAMUEL, DIARY. Transmittals of the Astronauts Voice, Excerpt from FIRST ON THE MOON: A VOYAGE
Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds), Vol. VII, University of California Press, WITH NEIL ARMSTRONG, MICHAEL COLLINS, EDWIN E. ALDRIN JR., written with
1972. Used with permission. Chapter 16, p. 428, Suzanne Gaudry, Trial Court Records, Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, Little, brown, 1970. Chapter 23, p. 661, Amin
June 1642, Excerpt from WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPE, 11001700: A DOCUMENTARY Maalouf, How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?, Excerpt from ORIGINS: A MEM-
HISTORY, edited by Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters, pages 27475, Copyright 1972. OIR BY AMIN MAALOUF, translated by Catherine Temerson. Copyright 2008 by Cath-
Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press. Chapter 17, p. 459, erine Temerson.
Lady Mary Wortley Montago, Letter, 25 March 1744, THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY

S
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Index
Page numbers in italics indicate pronun- Adonai, 132 legacy of, 525
ciation guides; page numbers in bold- Adoration of the Lamb (H. and J. van Eyck), liberalism and nationalism, 496499,
face indicate illustrations. For readers 287, 288, 288 504505
advertising, 528 limited reforms in, 498499
using the two-volume set of Experience
Aegean civilizations, 3355. See also Greek literature, 508512
Humanities, page numbers 1353 (Chap-
Archaic Age major political events, 498
ters 112) refer to material in Volume I, Dark Ages, 39, 41 map of Europe (1815), 497
and page numbers 294664 refer to ma- map, 35 map of Europe (1871), 500
terial in Volume II Minoan, 3437, 35, 36, 3839 music, 521523, 523
Mycenaean, 34, 35, 36, 37, 3739 national unification in, 498499
timeline, 34 photography, 520, 520521, 521
a capella, 320 Aeneas, 104, 114 religion and the challenge of science,
la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance Aeneid (Virgil), 114, 167, 168 506507
of Things Past) (Proust), 541 aerial (atmospheric) perspective, 305, 306, revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 496498
rebours (Huysmans), 540 316 rise of realism, 507508, 511512
Aachen, Charlemagne at, 198, 198, 199, 201 Aeschylus, 6364 socialism, 497, 505506
Abbasid dynasty, 207, 212, 215 aesthetes, 540 Suez Canal, 502, 504
Abd al-Rahman, 218 Aetolian League, 84 technology, 501502, 503, 504
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammund, 474 Afghanistan timeline, 496
Abdulaziz (sultan of Ottoman Empire), in the Hellenistic world, 85 age of early modernism. See early
533, 534 Soviet invasion of, 631 modernism
Abdulhamid II (sultan of Ottoman Taliban government in, 634635 Age of Exploration, 328329
Empire), 533, 534, 536 United States invasion of, 634635 Age of Globalization. See globalization
Abdulmecid I (sultan of Ottoman Empire), Africa. See also Egypt Age of Infotainment, 662
533, 534 AIDS in, 637 Age of the Masses. See modernism
Abelard, Peter, 240, 241 exploration during the High Renaissance, Age of Metals, 67
Abraham, 130 328 Age of the Railroad, 501
Abraham Lincoln (Brady), 520, 520521 imperialism in, 532, 533, 534 Age of Reason, 437463
absolutism independence movement in, 599, 600 British paintings, 449450, 450, 453
in England, 387388, 444 portrayal of Africans in Hellenistic Chinoiserie, 455, 455
enlightened despotism, 444445, 455 cultures, 84 Encyclopdie, 440441, 441
in France, 384, 385, 385, 386, 444 Roman conquests, 109 legacy of, 463
Hobbes on, 426428 African Americans. See also slavery literature, 432433, 456459
in political philosophy, 358, 384385, 426 black consciousness movement, 603605, map, 438
abstract art, 551552, 553 605 monarchies in, 443445
abstract expressionism civil rights movement, 598 music, 459462, 461
painting, 610613, 611615 film by, 657 neoclassical architecture, 436, 453455,
sculpture, 616617, 617 Harlem Renaissance, 573574 454
abstract painting. See also abstract literature by, 413, 512, 573574, 606607, neoclassical painting, 451, 451452, 452
expressionism 641642 philosophy, 438439
modern, 551552, 553, 579581, 580, 581 music by, 557, 557, 591 Physiocrats, 441, 466
postmodern, 645, 646, 647 painting by, 573, 605, 645, 647 political philosophy, 443445, 455456
abstraction, 548 Afro-American Symphony (Still), 591 prints, 452453, 453
Abu Bakr, 206 Agamemnon, 37, 38, 45, 64 religion, 439440
Abu Zayd Preaching (book painting; Yahya Agamemnon (Aeschylus), 64 rococo interiors, 448449, 449
Ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti), 222 Age of Anxiety. See also late modernism rococo painting, 443, 446448, 446448
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Fo), 643 decolonization, 599600 society, 442, 442443, 450
Achaean League, 84 era of the superpowers, 596599, 599, 600 timeline, 439
Achilles, 45, 48 legacy of, 627 trends in, 437438
Achilles Killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea map, 598 Age of Terrorism, 634636
(Exekias), 48 medicine, 606 Agnus Dei (Machaut), 292
Achilles Painter, 80, 80 Middle East and Israel, 600601 Agnus Dei (Willaert), 352
acropolis philosophy and religion, 602603 Agon (Stravinsky), 623
Athens, 39, 39, 59, 62, 7273, 73, 74 political and social movements, 603605 agora, 39, 61
Pergamum, 86, 87 science and technology, 605606 agriculture
action painting (abstract expressionism), timeline, 597 Age of Reason, 445
610613, 611615 The Age of Anxiety (Auden), 601 crop rotation, 229
Actium, battle of, 106107 Age of the Bourgeoisie, 495525 early Middle Ages, 200
Acts of the Apostles, 142 American Civil War, 500, 502 in Egypt, 15, 16
adab, 214 art and architecture, 494, 499, 512520, forced collectivization under Stalin, 567
Adam, Robert, 436, 437, 453454, 454 513519 High Middle Ages, 229, 229, 260
Adamites, 365 Crystal Palace, London (Paxton), 502, 503 Industrial Revolution and, 466 S
Adams, John, 659 industrialism, 500504, 503, 504 irrigation, 6, 8, 214
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686 INDEX

agriculture (continued) American Civil War, 500, 502 aqueducts, Roman, 119120, 120
in Mesopotamia, 56, 8 An American Exodus: A Record of Human Aquinas, Thomas, 241, 242, 261, 271
Neolithic period, 56, 16 Erosion (Lange), 565 Ara Pacis, 121, 121, 122, 123
Ahmose I, 16 American Revolution, 444, 468 Arab Spring, 224, 492, 525, 627, 635, 638, 662
Ahriman, 30 American Telephone and Telegraph arabesques, 215, 216
Ahura Mazda, 30 Headquarters (Johnson and Burgee), Arabs. See also Islamic civilization, medieval
Ai Weiwei, 663 653, 654 Israel and, 600, 634
Ada (Verdi), 522 Amiens Cathedral (France), 226, 227, 254, pre-Islamic, 203204, 214
AIDS (acquired immune deficiency 256, 256258 Saudi Arabia, 567
syndrome), 637, 637 Amos, 133 unified under Muhammad, 206
Aint I a Woman? (Truth), 512 amphitheaters, Roman, 119, 120 Aramaic language, 142143
aisles, 165, 165 analytic school of philosophy, 575 Arc de Triomphe (Triumphal Arch), Paris,
Akhenaten, 18, 19, 22, 24, 24 Anastasius I, 158 173, 173, 498
Akhnaten (Glass), 659 Anatolia, 208, 238, 327 arcade, 216
Akkadian kingdom, 8, 130. See also anatomy, 358, 359, 421422, 422 Arch of Constantine (Rome), 163164, 164
Mesopotamia The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (Rembrandt), Arch of Titus (Rome), 122, 123
Al Jazeera, 662 422 Arch of Trajan (Algeria), 109
al Qaeda, 634 Anavysos Kouros, 52, 52 Archaic Age. See Greek Archaic Age
The Alba Madonna (Raphael), 342, 343 andante, 460 Archaios, 33
Alberti, Leone Battista, 304, 306, 308309 Anderson, Laurie, 660 arches
Albigensian sect, 238 Aneirin, 189 pointed, 220, 251, 252
Alcaeus, 46 Anglicanism, 367, 371372, 407, 440 rounded, 116117, 117
alchemy, 421, 423 Anglo-Saxons, 179180, 189 archetypes, 538
Alcuin, 182, 186 angry young men movement, 610 Archimedes, 95
Aldrin, Edwin E. Buzz, 607 Anguissola, Sofonisba, 376377, 377 architectural tableaux, 650
Alexander II (czar of Russia), 531 Animal Farm (Orwell), 572 architecture
Alexander VI (pope), 298, 333 Anna Comnena, 185 Age of Reason, 445
Alexander VII (pope), 393 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 512 Bauhaus, 586, 587
Alexander the Great, 6061, 61, 70, 75, 84, Annals (Tacitus), 115 Bronze Age, 6
87, 88, 92, 92, 94, 134 Annie Hall (Allen), 657 Byzantine, 178, 192193, 193, 194
Alexandria, Egypt, 87, 88, 8889 Annunciation (Fra Angelico), 315, 315 classical baroque, 399400, 400
Alexiad (Anna Comnena), 185 Annunciation (Ghiberti), 310, 311 early Christian, 150, 153, 165, 165, 166
Alexius I Comnenus (Byzantine emperor), Anselm, 241 Early Gothic, 246, 251254, 253255
185 Antheil, George, 591 early Middle Ages, 181, 187, 198, 198, 199
Alfred the Great, 183, 228 Anthemius of Tralles, 156, 193 early modernism, 554, 554555, 555
algebra, 424 Anthony, Susan B., 529 early Renaissance, 304, 306308, 306309
Algeria, 109, 599, 600 Anthony of Egypt, 158 Egyptian, 2021, 21
Ali (son of Muhammad), 206 anthropomorphic religions, 10 florid baroque, 392, 392393, 393
alienation effects, 574 antibiotics, 578 Greek Archaic, 32, 33, 39, 39, 49, 4951,
All Cats Are Grey at Night (Gilliam), 647 anticlericalism, 367 50, 54
All My Sons (Miller), 609 Antigone (Sophocles), 6465 Greek Classical, 72, 7275, 73, 74, 78
Allegorical Representation of the Emperor Antigonus, 84 Hellenistic, 9596, 96, 97
Jahangir (Bichitr), 431 Antioch, 85 High Gothic, 226, 227, 232, 239, 240, 251,
Allegory of the Missionary Work of the Jesuits Antiochus IV, 96, 134 254, 256, 256258
(Pozzo), 397, 398 antiphons, 163, 258259 High Middle Ages, 246256, 247249,
alleluia, 258 The Antiquities of Athens (Stuart and Revett), 252257
Allen, Woody, 657 450 High Renaissance, 348350, 349351
Allied forces (Triple Entente), 532, 562 anti-Semitism, 149, 230, 568, 577 Islamic, 202, 208, 215220, 217, 219, 220,
Allies Day, May 1917 (Hassam), 563 Anu, 10 221
All-India Muslim League, 565 Aphrodite, 43, 75, 75, 77, 104, 111 Jewish, 136137, 138
alphabets, 9, 10, 136. See also writing Aphrodite of Knidos (Praxiteles), 77 late Gothic, 270, 275278, 275280
alpha-omega, 147 Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo), 99100, late modernism, 594, 595, 621623, 622
altar of Zeus (Pergamum), 96, 97 100 mannerist, 350, 351
altars Apian, Peter, 417 Mesopotamian, 1415
Hebrew, 132, 132 apocalypse, 133 Minoan, 35
Hellenistic, 96, 97 Apocalypse Now (Coppola), 522 Mycenaean, 37, 37
late Middle Ages, 287, 287288, 288 Apocrypha, 136 neoclassical, 55, 436, 437, 453455, 454,
northern Renaissance, 362363, 363 Apollo, 43, 44, 44, 58, 58, 111 463, 477, 478
Roman, 121, 121, 122, 161, 171 Apollo and Daphne (Dosso Dossi), 352 northern Renaissance, 360
Alvar, Paul, 218 Apollonius, 90 Persian, 28, 29
Amarna revolution, 18, 24 apologists, 145 postmodern, 593, 628, 629, 652657,
Amati, Andrea, 352 apostolic succession, 158 653656
Amati, Niccol, 352 Appalachian Spring (Copland), 590 restrained baroque, 406407, 407
Ambrose (bishop of Milan), 161, 161, 163 Appian Way, 102, 103 rococo interiors, 448449, 449
ambulatories, 251, 252 Appius Claudius, 102 Roman, 116120, 117120, 163165, 164,
S Amen, 18 apse, 165, 165, 198, 199, 251, 252 165
N Amenemhat, 18 aquatints, 453, 453, 473 temple parts, 49, 49, 50
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INDEX 687

architraves, 49, 49 Mesopotamian, 12 Avignon papacy, 266, 267


arcosoliums, 146 Neo-Babylonian, 27 The Awakening (Chopin), 540
Ardagh Chalice, 193, 195 Asturias kingdom, 180 ayas, 209
Ardebil carpet, 216 ataraxia, 93 ayyam al-Arab, 215
Arena Chapel, Padua, 284, 286 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 566 Ayyubid dynasty, 207208
arenas, 119 Aten, 18, 24 Aztecs, 374
Ares, 43, 111 Athanadoros, 99
Argentina, postmodern literature in, 641 Athanasius the Athonite, 178 Baathist party, 600
The Argonautica (Apollonius), 90 atheism, 425 Babylonian Captivity, 27, 133134, 266
Arianism, 158 Athena Babylonian kingdom, 8, 1112, 27, 28, 130,
arias, 521, 522 goddess of wisdom, 43, 111 133. See also Mesopotamia
Aristarchus of Samos, 9495, 418 at Pergamum, 86 The Bacchae (Euripides), 65
Aristophanes, 6566 Temple of Athena Nike, 62, 7273, 73 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 410411
Aristotle, 56 Athens. See also Greek Archaic Age; Greek Bacon, Francis, 424
on anatomy, 421422 Hellenic Age Bacon, G. W., 533
Byzantine writers and, 185 architecture, 39, 39, 62 Bacon, Roger, 272
on geocentric universe, 416417, 417 history of, 4041, 5961, 84 Bactria, 85. See also Afghanistan
Islamic philosophers and, 213 philosophy and, 68 Baghdad, Iraq. See also Iraq
philosophy of, 58, 67, 70 theater, 61, 6366, 64, 66 House of Wisdom in, 212
Poetics, 63, 65 Athletes in the Palaestra, 62 hydraulic technologies in, 214
revival in Scholasticism, 239, 241, 242 Atmospheres (Ligeti), 659 Mongol invasion of, 207
as tutor to Alexander, 60 atmospheric perspective, 305, 306, 316 papermaking in, 213
Aristotle, bust of (Lysippos), 56 atomic bombs, 569, 571, 577 Persian miniatures made in, 220
arithmetic. See mathematics atomic structure, 542 U.S. invasion of, 635
Arius, 158 atomists, 68, 93 bagpipes, 259
Ark of the Covenant, 131, 132, 136 atonality, 556 Bahrain, 635
armor, 260 atrium, 165, 165 Bakewell, Sarah, 381
Armstrong, Louis Satchmo, 591, 624, 624 Attalids, 86 Balaam and His Ass, Psalter of St. Louis IX,
Armstrong, Neil, 607 Attalus I of Pergamum, 9798 256, 258
Arnolfini Wedding Portrait (van Eyck), 288, Attalus III, 86, 106 balance of power, 468
290 attics, 164 baldacchino (Bernini), 393394, 394
Arouet, Franois-Marie (Voltaire), 439, 444, Attila the Hun, 157 Baldassare Castiglione (Raphael), 333
455, 457, 457 Aubry, tienne, 442 Baldwin, James, 606607
arquebus, 391 Auden, W. H., 601 Balkans
Arrian, 116 augurs, 112 disintegration of Yugoslavia, 634
ars nova, 291 Augustine, 161, 162, 180, 186, 187 early modernist period and, 533, 537
art film, 625 Augustus (Octavian), 107109, 108, 114115, outbreak of World War I and, 533
art for arts sake, 520, 525 119120, 121, 121, 122 Roman Empire and, 155, 157
art nouveau, 541 aulos, 66, 116 ballet, 460, 557, 659
Art of Love (Ovid), 115 Aurelian, 153 Ballet mcanique (Antheil), 591
art songs (lieder), 491, 523 Aurelian Walls, Rome, 153 Ballets Russe, 557
Artemis, 43, 111 Ausonius, 163 balustrades, 198, 349
Aryan superiority, 577. See also Nazi Party Austen, Jane, 475, 476 Balzac, Honor de, 511
As Vesta was from Latmos hill Australia, immigration laws in, 578 banking, in the High Renaissance, 328
descending (Weelkes), 379 Austria al-Banna, Hassan, 567
Ash Wednesday (Eliot), 573 Age of Reason, 444445 baptism, 235
ashlars, 116 Austrian-Turkish Wars, 388389 Baptistery doors, Florence (Ghiberti),
aspirin, 578 early modernism, 531, 537538, 541542, 310311, 311313
assemblage artists, 613 556 A Bar at the Folies-Bergre (Manet), 508
Assemblies of God, 539 enlightened despotism in, 444 barbarian peoples, 154155, 157
The Assemblies of al-Hariri (Maqamat), 215, ethnic unrest in, 531 Barberini, Maffeo, 420
220 Ottoman Empire wars, 474 Barbizon school, 517, 518
Assyrians, 2627, 27, 133 revolution/reaction period, 474, 499 bards, 44
astrolabe, 214, 260, 329 World War I and, 533, 562, 564 baroque age, 383413. See also Scientific
astrology, 27, 94, 426 World War II and, 568 Revolution
Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica (Tycho autarky, 92, 93, 94 astronomy and physics, 414, 415419, 417,
Brahe), 414 auteurs, 625 418, 421
astronomy auto-da-f, 376 classical baroque style, 385, 392, 399401,
the church and, 273, 418, 419 automata, 214 400, 401
from Copernicus to Newton, 414, Auxerre Cathedral (France), 240 English limited monarchy in, 387388
418419, 421 Auxerre Kore, 52, 53 florid baroque architecture, 392, 392393,
Egyptian, 19 avant-garde, 537, 572 393
geocentrism, 416417, 417 Avars, 176 florid baroque painting, 394399,
heliocentrism, 417, 418, 418419, 420 Avatar (Cameron), 657 396399, 420
Hellenistic, 9495 Ave Maria . . . (Josquin), 320 florid baroque sculpture, 393394, 394,
Islamic, 212, 212 Averros (Ibn Rushd), 212213, 241242 395 S
late Middle Ages, 273 Avicenna, 212213, 242 French absolutism in, 385, 386, 387 N
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688 INDEX

baroque age (continued) Belley, Jean-Baptiste, 472 blues, 557


impact of exploration and expansion, Bellini, Gentile, 300, 300 The Bluest Eye (Morrison), 642
429432, 431, 432 Bellini, Giovanni, 318319, 319 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 273
international style in, 391392 Bellini, Jacopo, 318 Boccioni, Umberto, 528
legacy of, 413 Beloved (Morrison), 642 Bodin, Jean, 357358
literature, 407409, 408 Belsen Nazi death camp, 570 Boethius, 185
map, 384 Benedict of Nursia, 186 Boffrand, Germain, 448449, 449
meaning of term, 383 Benedictine order, 186, 201, 236 Bohr, Niels, 542
medicine and chemistry, 421423, 422 Bentham, Jeremy, 439, 504 Boilly, Louis-Lopold, 464, 465
music, 409412, 410 Bentley, Elizabeth, 467 Bolsheviks, 567
philosophy, 424, 424425 Beowulf, 181, 189 Bonaventure, 242
political philosophy, 426429, 427 Berbers, 176 Bonheur, Rosa, 517518, 518
restrained baroque, 392, 401407, 403407 Bergman, Ingmar, 625, 625626 Boniface VIII (pope), 235, 266
spread of ideas, 431, 432433, 433 Berlin Academy of Science, 432 Book of Kells, 193, 195
technology, 391, 418, 423, 423424 Berlin Wall, 599, 599, 631, 631 book painting, Islamic, 210, 220, 222, 223
timelines, 386, 416 Berlioz, Hector, 491 The Book of King Charles Against the Synod
warfare, 388 Bernard of Clairvaux, 236 (Theodulf), 186
barrel vaults, 117, 117 Bernini, Gianlorenzo, 392, 393, 393394, The Book of the City of Ladies (Christine de
Barry, Charles, 499, 514 394, 395 Pizan), 275
Barry, Madame du, 448 Bernstein, Leonard, 463 The Book of the Courtier (Castiglione), 297,
Barth, Karl, 602 Berruguete, Pedro, 297 332333
Barthes, Roland, 639 Bessarion, John, 272 Borges, Jorge Luis, 641
Basil II the Bulgar slayer, 176 Betty (Richter), 647, 647 Borgia, Cesare, 333
basilica churches, 150, 151, 165, 165, 166, Beuys, Joseph, 619, 621, 644 Borgia, Lucrezia, 298
198, 198, 199, 246 Bible Bosch, Hieronymus, 363365, 364
Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Apocrypha, 136 Bossuet, Bishop, 426
Hill, Rome, 150, 151, 167, 167 Bury Bible, 250, 251 Botticelli, Sandro, 303, 304, 316317, 317
Basilica Ulpia, Forum of Trajan, 165, 166 Christian, 137, 141143 Boucher, Franois, 447, 447
Bassus, Junius, 168 English-language, 270 Boumedienne, Hourai, 600
The Bath, or The Tub (Cassatt), 545, 546 Hebrew, 136, 137 Bourbon dynasty, 384, 386, 473474, 496
Al-Battani, 212 higher criticism of, 506 bourgeoisie. See Age of the Bourgeoisie
Batthyaneum Library, Alba Julia Romania, Luthers German translation of, 369 Bourke-White, Margaret, 569, 588
197 printed, in vernacular languages, 269 Boy Struggling with a Goose, 97, 97
Battle of Omdurman (Bacon), 533 The Rabbula Gospels, 159 Boyle, Robert, 423
The Battle of the U.S.S. Kearsarge and the Septuagint, 136, 143, 158 Brady, Mathew, 520, 520521
C.S.S. Alabama (Manet), 502 Vivian Bible, 196, 196 Brahms, Johannes, 522523
The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein), 588 Vulgate Bible, 161, 374 Bramante, Donato, 348349, 349, 392
Baudelaire, Charles, 515, 520 Bichitr, 431 Brandenburg Concertos (Bach), 411
Bauhaus (Gropius), 586, 587 Bierstadt, Albert, 515 Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 599
The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl Big Ben (London), 499 Braque, Georges, 551
(Turner), 483, 484 The Big Boss (Wei Lo), 658 Brecht, Bertolt, 574575
Bayeux Tapestry, 234 Billy the Kid (Copland), 590 Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life,
Bayle, Pierre, 432433, 440 Biltmore Mansion, Asheville, North 269270
bayonets, 391 Carolina, 293 The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,
Bayreuth Festspielhaus (Wagner), 523 bin Laden, Osama, 634 Even (Duchamp), 582, 582583
BCE, 141 bipartite estate, 200 The Bridge in the Rain (After Hiroshige) (van
Bearden, Romare, 605, 645 birth control pills, 606 Gogh), 547
Beardsley, Aubrey, 541 The Birth of a Nation (Griffith), 588 bridges, iron, 466
beat generation, 609 The Birth of Aphrodite, 75, 75 Brit Pak, 650
Beatles, 624 The Birth of Venus (Botticelli), 303, 304, 317 Britain
Beatrice (Cameron), 521, 521 Bismarck, Otto von, 498, 499, 530, 539 African colonies of, 532, 533, 534, 537, 599,
Beaumarchais, Pierre, 462 Black Boy (Wright), 606 600
Becket, Thomas, 274 black consciousness movement, 603605, American Revolution, 444, 468
Beckett, Samuel, 609 605 Anglicanism, 367, 371372, 407, 440
Beckmann, Max, 585, 586 Black Death, 264, 265 Anglo-Saxons in, 180
Bede, 186187 Black Mountain College, North Carolina, Asian colonies of, 535, 536
Bedouin people, 203, 214 610 baroque literature, 409
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 490, 490491 Black Wall (Nevelson), 618 baroque music, 411412
beghards, 237238 Black Youth, 84 Civil War in, 387
beguines, 236238 Blake, Peter, 644, 646 decadent literature, 540541
Behn, Aphra, 409 Blake, William, 467 defeat of Spanish Armada, 329, 375
Being and Nothingness (Sartre), 575 Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), 551 Elizabethan, 359361, 360
Being and Time (Heidegger), 575 blaxploitation film, 657 evangelicalism in, 506
bel canto, 410 Bleak House (Dickens), 511 expansion of, 388, 429, 430, 431432
Belgium blind arcades, 252 Great Depression in, 564
S imperialism by, 534 blogs, 638 Great Fire of London (1666), 390, 406, 407
N industrialization of, 501 Bloomsbury Group, 572 Hadrians Wall, 108
L revolution in, 496 The Blue Marble (NASA), 435 Hanoverian kings, 444
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INDEX 689

Hundred Years War, 265266 buttresses, 251, 252 Egyptian, 22, 22


illuminated manuscripts, 250, 251 Byron, Lord, 479, 480481 Ionic, 7374
India, rule of, 565566 Byronic hero, 481 capitularies, 182
Indian independence from, 599 Byzantine Empire. See also Constantinople Caprichos (Goya), 485, 486
industrialization in, 466, 466, 479, architecture, 178, 192193, 193, 194 The Car of History (Franzoni), 81
501504, 503 conquest by Ottoman Turks, 175, 327 Caravaggio, 394396, 396
late Gothic architecture, 275276, 276 Crusades and, 238 caravanserais, 208
late Medieval royal dynasties in, 266 formation of, 153, 155156, 156, 176177 caravels, 329
late Middle Ages literature, 273274 influence on the West, 272, 300, 300, 303 carbon dioxide levels, 639
late modernist sculpture, 615616, 617 legacy of, 201 Cardinal Guevara (El Greco), 376, 377
late-sixteenth-century music, 379 literature, 184185 caricaturing, 473, 517
liberalist philosophy in, 504505 map, 177 Carmelite order, 395
Magna Carta, 232 mosaics, 191, 191192 Carolingian miniscule, 182, 183, 196, 201
map, Carolingian Empire, and, 180 Orthodox Christianity, 178179, 201 Carolingians, 174, 180, 181183, 201
medieval literature, 189, 273274 painting, 190192, 190192 Carousing Couple (Leyster), 404, 405
modernist literature, 571574, 609610 Seljuk Turk defeat of, 207 carpets, Islamic, 216, 290, 291, 300
monarchy in the Middle Ages, 231233 timeline, 176 carte-de-visite, 520
naval power of, 473 trade, 184 Carter, Howard, 26
neoclassical architecture, 436, 437, war technology, 200 Carthage, 106
453454, 454 Cassatt, Mary, 529, 544545, 546
neoclassical literature, 457458, 475, 476 cadenzas, 556 Cassiodorus, 185
Parliament, 233, 266, 387, 444, 466, Caesar, Julius, 107 castanets, 222
498499, 514 Cage, John, 623, 623, 624 Castiglione, Baldassare, 297, 332333, 333
Peasants Revolt of 1381, 268, 269, 273 Cahiers du Cinma, 625 castrati, 450
photography in, 520, 521, 521, 588 The Cairo Trilogy (Mahfouz), 642 The Cast Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, 466
political organization in the baroque, Cajun culture, 540 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Williams), 610
387388 calculus, 421 Catacomb of Priscilla, 146, 147, 148, 148
postwar recovery of, 596 Calendar Mosaic, 126 catacombs, Roman, 146, 146
realist literature, 511512 calendars catapults, 95
restrained baroque, 404407, 406, 407 Christian, 141 Cateau-Cambrsis, Treaty of, 325
rococo response in, 449450, 450 Egyptian, 7, 1920 Cathari, 238
in the Roman Empire, 108, 109 El Djem Calendar, 126 Cathars, 238
romantic architecture, 499, 514 Mesopotamian, 7, 12 cathedrals. See also specific cathedrals
romantic literature, 480481, 509510 Roman, 20 Early Gothic, 246, 251254, 253255
romantic painting, 481483, 482484 Calf Bearer, 148 early Renaissance, 306308, 306308
Seven Years War, 444 caliphs, 206 High Gothic, 226, 227, 232, 239, 240, 251,
social legislation in early modernist Callicrates, 7273, 73 254, 256, 256258
period, 530 calligraphy, Islamic, 209, 215 late Gothic, 275278, 275280
tin from, 6 Calvin, John, 370371, 371 Romanesque, 246250, 247250
utopian socialism in, 505 Calvinism Catherine of Aragon, 371
Vikings in, 183, 231 in England, 372, 387 Catherine the Great (empress of Russia),
in World War I, 562, 563, 566 in France, 386 445, 474
in World War II, 568, 569, 570 map, 367 catholic, meaning of term, 158
Broadway Boogie Woogie (Mondrian), 579, Puritans, 370, 387 Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic
581 reforms of Calvin, 370371 Church
Bront, Charlotte, 509510 in Thirty Years War, 388 Cato the Elder, 110, 113
Bront, Emily, 509 Cambrai, Treaty of, 325 Catullus, 113
Bronze Age, 67, 8, 38 Cameron, James, 657 causality, 456
Bronze Boxer, 99, 100 Cameron, Julia Margaret, 520, 521, 521 cave paintings, 4, 5
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky), 512 Camino de perfectin (Teresa of Avila), 395 Cavour, Camillo Benso di, 499
Bruegel, Pieter, the Elder, 365, 365366, 366 Cames, Luis Vaz de, 328, 329 CE, 141
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 303, 305309, 306308 campaniles, 276, 277, 278 Celestine, Pope, 150
Bruni, Leonardo, 301 Camus, Albert, 602, 606 cell telephones, 638
Bruyas, Alfred, 514, 516 Candide (Voltaire), 457, 463 cella, 49, 49
Buber, Martin, 602 Cannes Film Festival, 626 Celsus, 145, 160
bubonic plague (Black Death), 264265, 265 cannons, 329, 329, 330, 472 cenobitic monasticism, 178
Bulgaria, in World War I, 562 canon, 24, 136 Centaur Versus Lapith, 78
Bulgars, 176 Canon of Medicine (Avicenna), 213, 242 Central Powers (Triple Alliance), 532, 562
bull-leaping, 34, 36 The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), 274, 274 Cereta, Laura, 302
Burckhardt, Jacob, 295 cantus firmus, 259 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 378
Burgee, John, 654 canzone, 244 Czanne, Paul, 548
Burgkmair, Hans, the Elder, 380 Canzoniere (Petrarch), 273 chador, 224
Burgundians, 265266, 278, 280281, 285 Capet, Hugh, 183, 231 chain mail, 125, 239, 260
burial masks, 38, 38 Capetian monarchy, 183, 231 The Chairman Dances (Adams), 659
The Burial of Count Orgaz (El Greco), Capital (Marx), 505 chamber works, 460461
375376, 376 capitals Chambers, William, 440, 455 S
Bury Bible, 250, 251 Corinthian, 95, 96, 117, 118, 349 The Chance Meeting (Haydn), 461 N
Bush, George W., 629, 635 Doric, 49, 50 chansons, 291, 320, 350 L
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690 INDEX

chansons de geste, 243, 259 Christ in Glory (mosaic), Church of Saints Chrysoloras, Manuel, 272, 272
Chardin, Jean, 408 Cosmas and Damian, 170 chthonian deities, 4243, 94
chariots, 3839 Christ in Glory with Four Evangelist Symbols Church of England (Anglicanism), 367,
Charlemagne, 174, 175, 180, 181183, 186, and the Twenty-four Elders (Moissac, 371372, 407, 440
188, 200, 201 France), 250 Church of God, 539
at Aachen, 198, 198, 199, 201 Christ in Majesty (Godescalc Evangelistary), Church of God in Christ, 539
illuminated manuscripts and, 196, 196, 196 Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian,
197 Christ in Majesty (Lorsch Gospels), 196, 197 170, 171
Song of Roland and, 243, 243244 Christ Preaching (Rembrandt), 402, 404 Church of San Vitale (Ravenna), 172
Charlemagne panels, 243 Christian Conservatives, 640 Church of Santa Costanza (Rome), 170, 171
Charlemagne Prize Medallion, 201 Christian Good Shepherd, 128, 129130 Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem,
Charles I (king of England), 386, 387, 404 Christian humanism, 356357 153
Charles I (king of Spain), 324, 325 Christianity, 141148. See also monasticism; Churchill, Winston, 533, 568
Charles II (king of England), 386, 387, 390, Protestantism; Roman Catholic Church Cicero, 113, 113, 114, 188, 301, 357
406, 432 Arianism, 158 Le Cid (Corneille), 408
Charles IV (king of Spain), 485, 485 astronomy and, 418, 419 Cimabue, 282, 284
Charles Martel (the Hammer) (Carolingian Bible in, 136, 137, 141143 cinma vrit, 626
king), 181 calendar, 141 Cirque du Soleil, 413, 413
Charles the Bald, 189, 196, 196197 Council at Nicaea, 158 Cistercian order, 236
Charles V (Holy Roman emperor) Council of Trent, 356, 374, 375, 378, 392 cities, rise of, 7, 8, 8788. See also
banking under, 328 early art, 145148, 146148 urbanization
elected emperor, 324 early churches, 150, 151152, 153, 165, 165, Citizen Kane (Welles), 589, 589
Hapsburg Empire and, 324327, 325 166 city health boards, 330
sacking Rome, 332, 371 early literature, 145, 160163 The City of God (Augustine), 162, 186
wars against Lutherans, 374 early Middle Ages, 176 civic humanism, 330
Charles V with a Dog (Titian), 325 early sculpture, 145148, 147, 148, 165, 167, civil disobedience
Charles VII (king of France), 267 167, 168 Gandhi on, 565566, 593
Charles VIII (king of France), 299, 300 Edict of Milan (Peace of the Church), 153, King on, 604605
Charles X (king of France), 517 163 Thoreau on, 511
Chartres Cathedral (France), 243, 246, 256 evangelicalism, 506, 640 in U.S. civil rights movement, 598
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 273274, 274 Fathers of the church, 160162 civil rights movement, 598
Chekhov, Anton, 540 fundamentalist movement, 539 Civil War (England), 387
chemistry, 423, 489, 507 Greco-Roman cult influence on, 144 Civil War (Spain), 562, 568, 579
Chenard, Simon, 464, 465 historical writing, 162163 Civil War (United States), 500, 502
chiaroscuro, 314, 318, 395 Iconoclastic Controversy, 178179, 185, 191 civilization, defined, 3, 7
Chicago, Judy, 604 Islamic civilization and, 206, 215, 218, 238 The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Chicago School, 554, 554 Jewish influence on, 143144 (Burckhardt), 295
child labor, 467 in late modernism, 602603 claddings, 652
Children of Violence (Lessing), 607608 legacy of, 149 Clarissa Harlowe (Richardson), 458
china. See pottery as legal Roman faith, 153, 157158 class divisions. See political/economic
China liberation theology, 640 development; social classes
communism in, 599 life of Jesus Christ, 141143 classical baroque style, 385, 392, 399401,
film industry in, 658 map of early Christian world, 143 400, 401
Japanese invasion of, 565 map of Europe in 1560, 367 Classical Greek civilization, 57. See also
Marco Polo and, 239 medieval, 234236, 241242 Greek Hellenic Age
technology from, 269 music, 163 classical style, in music, 460462, 461
Tiananmen Square protest, 633, 633 neoorthodoxy, 602 Classicism, 57, 81. See also Greek Hellenic
trade with, 184, 328 Old Testament, 136, 137 Age
China Men (Kingston), 642 Orthodox church, 178179, 201 Claudius, 112
Chinese Americans, 642 Protestant Reformation, 355, 356, 366372, claviers, 411
A Chinese Interpretation of Dutch Traders, 432 381 clay tablets, 6, 9, 13
Chinoiserie, 455, 455 in Roman Empire, 144145 Cleisthenes, 4041
chi-rho, 147 Roman persecution of Christians, 144, Clement VII (pope), 332
chivalric novel, 378 152, 153 Cleopatra, 85, 107
chivalry, 228229, 244 sacraments, 235236 clerestory windows, 165, 252, 253
choirs, in Gothic cathedrals, 251252, 252, Social Gospel, 538 Clio, 81
253 Thirty Years War, 388 clocks, mechanical, 423, 423424
Chomsky, Noam, 603 timeline, 142 cloisters, 249
Chopin, Frdric, 509 transcendentalism, 510511, 513 cloning, 638
Chopin, Kate, 540 Trinity, 158 clothing, of peasants, 229
chora, 39 varieties of, 158159 Cloud Gate (Kapoor), 650, 650
choral music, 350352 warfare towards religious dissent, Cloud Study (Constable), 481483, 482
choruses, Greek, 61 374375 Clouet, Jean, 324
Chrtien de Troyes, 244 Zoroastrian influence on, 144, 238 Clovis, 181
Christ as the Good Shepherd, 146, 147 Christine de Pizan, 262, 263, 274275 Clunaic monastic order, 235, 236, 247, 248,
S Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (Perugino), Christo, 649, 649650 248
N 305, 305 Chronography (Psellos), 185 Cluny, church at, 234, 235, 248
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INDEX 691

Cluny III church, 235, 248 Constantine courtly love, 244


CNN, 492, 662 Arch of, 163164, 164 Coutumes of France, 267
Cnut of Denmark, 231, 232 architecture and, 153, 165, 165 covenant, 130
Coalbrookdale by Night (Loutherbourg), 479 Colossal Statue of, 165, 167 Cows Skull with Calico Roses (OKeeffe),
cocooning, 638 Donation of Constantine, 301302 xxxii, 581, 581
Cocteau, Jean, 575 rule of, 152153, 154 Coyote, I Like America and America Likes Me
Code of Hammurabi, 1112, 12, 13 Constantine V, 178 (Beuys), 619, 621
Codex Amiantinus, 193, 195 Constantine VI, 178 Cranach, Lucas, the Elder, 368, 369
Coetzee, John M., 659 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, 185 The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo), 338,
Coeur, Jacques, house of (Bourges), 270 Constantinople 340
Cogito ergo sum, 424 Byzantine Empire and, 177, 191192, creativity, Archaic Greeks on, 42
coin, Carolingian, 174 191192 Creole culture, 540
cold war, 595, 596599 Byzantine Empire formation, 155156, crescendos, 522
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 480 156, 176 Crete, 34, 35, 36
collage, 551 conquest by Ottoman Turks, 265, 300, Crick, Francis, 606
collective unconscious, 538 303, 327 Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky), 512
colonialism. See imperialism in the Crusades, 238 Crimean War, 537
The Color Purple (Walker), 641642 decline of Ottoman Empire and, 390 Cristofori, Bartolomeo, 460
Colossal Statue of Constantine, 165, 167 founding of, 153, 176 Cromwell, Oliver, 387
Colosseum (Rome), 119, 120 constructivism, 579 crop rotation, 229
Columbus, Christopher, 239, 300 contrapposto, 74, 75, 76, 95, 96, 100, 309 cross vaults, 117, 117
columns convents and monasteries, 236, 237. See also crossbows, 260
Corinthian, 9596, 96, 117, 118, 151, 349 monasticism; religious orders Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee),
Doric, 50, 72, 78 Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds 658, 658, 660
Egyptian, 21, 21 (Fontenelle), 432, 439 The Crucible (Miller), 609
Ionic, 7375 The Conversion of St. Paul (Caravaggio), 395, The Crucifixion (Grnewald), 362363, 363
comedies 396 Crucifixion Scene, Main Door, Santa Sabina
baroque, 409 Coolidge, Calvin, 578 Church, 167
Greek, 6566, 8991 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 418, 418 cruciform churches, 165, 165
Roman, 8991 Copland, Aaron, 590 crumhorn, 380
comedy of manners, 8990 copper, 6 Crusades, 185, 238, 239, 239
Commedia (Dante), 245 Coppola, Francis Ford, 522 Crystal Palace, London (Paxton), 502, 503
commedia dellarte, 643 Coptic Christians, 158 Cubi IX (Smith), 616, 617
Commentaries (Ghiberti), 310 Coptos, 88 cubism, 551, 579
Commentaries (Pius II), 300 Le Corbusier, 586, 587 culture, defined, 3
Common Market, 575 Crdoba, Western Caliphate of, 207, 213, 218 cuneiform writing, 9, 9
Commonwealth, 387 Corigliano, John, 659 curb bits, 200
communes, 229 Corinth, 60 Curie, Marie Skoldowska, 542
communication satellites, 606, 638 Corinthian columns, 9596, 96, 117, 118, Curie, Pierre, 542
communism 151, 278, 279, 349 Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through
in China, 599 Corinthian style, 9596, 96 Germanys Last Weimar Beer-Belly
in Eastern Europe, 599, 599 Corneille, Pierre, 408 Cultural Epoch (Hch), 574
fall of Soviet Union, 631633 cornice, 49, 49 Cybele, 111
Marxism, 505, 506 Corpus Iuris Civilis (Justinian), 155, 160 Cyclopedia (Chambers), 440
in the Soviet Union, 567 Corridor of the Great Hunt, 169, 169 cylinder seals, 11
The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Corts, Hernn, 370 Cynicism, 92
Engels), 505 Corvey, Monastic Basilica of, 198, 199 Cyprian, 144
Company of St. Ursula, 372 Cosmas Indicopleustes, 159 Cyrurgia (William of Saliceto), 243
compass, 329 cosmopolitan ideal, 83, 88 Cyrus the Great, 27, 29, 133
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture cotton, 430, 466 Czechs, 270, 568, 641
(Venturi), 652 The Cotton Bureau in New Orleans (Degas),
computers, 638 530 da Forte, Melozzo, 299
concentration camps, Nazi, 569570, 570, Cotton Plantation in the French West Indies, da Gama, Vasco, 328
577 441 Dacia, 108, 109
conceptual art, 649 Coulouris, George, 589 Dada, 574, 581583, 623
concertos, 412, 461, 491 Council at Jamnia, 144 Daguerre, Louis-Jacques-Mand, 520
conches, 198 Council at Nicaea, 158, 178 Daiei Films, 625
concrete construction, 116 Council of Constance, 267, 270, 299 dAlembert, Jean, 440, 444
condottieri, 297 Council of Florence, 316 Dali, Salvador, 583, 583
The Confessions (Augustine), 162 Council of Trent, 356, 374, 375, 378, 392 Dalton, John, 507
The Confessions (Rousseau), 457 Counter-Reformation, 355, 356, 372375, 381 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Renoir),
congregational mosques, 218, 219, 220, 221 countersubjects, in fugues, 411 543, 545
Congress of Vienna (1815), 473, 496 The Countess Leve, or Morning Party The Dance of Death (Danse Macabre),
The Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius), 185 (Hogarth), 449450, 450 264265, 265
consorts (instrument families), 352 Couperin, Franois, 460 Dante Alighieri, 245246
Constable, John, 481483, 482, 517 Courbet, Gustave, 514515, 516 Darius I, 29, 2930, 41 S
constantia, 110 The Courtier (Castiglione), 297, 332333 Dark Ages, Aegean, 39, 41 N
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692 INDEX

Darwin, Charles, 506507 Les Demoiselles dAvignon (Picasso), 551, 552 Don Juan (Byron), 481
Daumier, Honor, 494, 495, 515, 517, 517 demokratia, 81 Don Quixote (Cervantes), 378
David (Donatello), 309310, 310 The Departure (Beckmann), 585, 586 Donatello, 294, 295, 309, 309310, 310
David (king of Israel), 132 Departure from Cythera (Watteau), 446, Donation of Constantine, 301302
David (Michelangelo), 346348, 347 446447 Donatism, 162
David (Verrocchio), 311 The Departure of the Volunteers (Rude), 498 Donen, Stanley, 626
David, Jacques-Louis, 451, 451452, 452, Derrida, Jacques, 639640 Dont Look Back (Pennebaker), 626
475477, 476 Descartes, Ren, 424, 424425 Dorian mode, 66
David Composing His Psalms (Paris Psalter), Descent of Man (Darwin), 506 Doric style, 4951, 50, 72, 72, 78
192 dtente, 630 Doryphorus (Polykleitos), 76, 76
David Copperfield (Dickens), 511 devotio moderna, 270 Dosso Dossi, 352
De Andrea, John, 647, 648 dhimmis, 206, 218 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 512
de Beauvoir, Simone, 603 Dhuoda, 189 dot-com companies, 634
de Kooning, Wilhelm, 610, 612 Diaghilev, Sergei, 557 Double Portrait of Marcus Gratidius Libanus
de Mille, Agnes, 590 dialectical approach, 47, 490, 505 and Gratidia, 112
de Pizan, Christine, 262, 263, 274275 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Douglass, Frederick, 512
de Stal, Madame, 480 (Hume), 456 The Dove (Bearden), 605
de Stijl movement, 579 Diaspora, 133, 136, 137 Draco, 40
death camps, Nazi, 569570, 570, 577 Dichterliebe (Schumann), 523 drama. See theater
Death of a Salesman (Miller), 609 Dickens, Charles, 511 draped paintings, 645, 647
The Death of Klinghoffer (Adams), 659 Dickinson, Emily, 511 The Dream Play (Strindberg), 541
Death of Marat (David), 476, 476477 Dictionary (Bayle), 432433, 440 Drift No. 2 (Riley), 615, 616
The Death of Socrates (David), 452, 452 Diderot, Denis, 439, 441, 444 dromons, 200
Debucourt, Philibert-Louis, 453 Dies Irae, 491 drum (in Islamic dome), 216, 217
Debussy, Claude, 556 Digges, Thomas, 418 Dryden, John, 408
decadent writers, 539, 540541 DiMaggio, Joseph Paul Joltin Joe, 627 drypoint, 281
The Decameron (Boccaccio), 273 The Dinner Party (Chicago), 604 DTS Digital Sound, 657
Decius, 144 Diocletian, 152153, 153, 163, 164 dualism
Declaration of Independence (United States), Diocletians Palace, Croatia, 163, 164 in Christianity, 144
127, 468 Diogenes, 92, 92 Descartes on, 424425
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Diogenes and Alexander the Great, 92 in Judaism, 133134, 144
Citizen (France), 469 Dionysia, 61, 63, 65 Plato on, 70, 159
decolonization, 599600 Dionysius, 84 DuBois, W. E. B., 573
deconstruction, 639 Dionysus, 43, 58, 58, 61, 65, 94 Duchamp, Marcel, 582, 582583
decorated manuscripts. See illuminated Dionysus and His Followers, 58 Duck Enclosed in a Vine Scroll (mosaic),
manuscripts Dipylon Krater funerary vessel, 47 141
Decorative Figure in an Oriental Setting Directory (France), 469470 Dumas, Alexandre, 522
(Matisse), 585, 585 Discourse on Method (Descartes), 424 Duns Scotus, John, 271272
Decretum (Gratian), 241 Discourses (Arrian), 116 Dunstable, John, 319, 319
deductive reasoning, 417 diseases, 264265, 265, 293, 507, 637, Dura Europos, 139, 140
Deeds of Otto I (Liudprand), 189 637638 Drer, Albrecht, 361362, 362, 368
Deffand, Madame du, 444 Disney, Walt, 571 Dutch culture. See Flemish painting;
Degas, Edgar, 530 The Dispute of a Man with His Soul, 19 Netherlands
Deinocrates of Rhodes, 88 Ditchley portrait (Gheeraerts), 372 Dutch East India Company, 431, 432
Deism, 440 divertimentos, 461462 Dutch Republic, 401. See also Netherlands
deities. See also religion Divine Comedy (Dante), 245246 Dutch West India Company, 431
Christian, 141144, 149, 157159 divine right of monarchs, 358 Dying Gaul, 98, 9899
Egyptian, 18, 25 Diwan-e Shams (Rumi), 214 Dying Slave (Michelangelo), 322, 323
Greek Archaic, 4244 Djenne, Great Friday Mosque of, 220, 221 Dylan, Bob, 626
Hellenistic, 94, 95, 111 Djoser, step pyramid of King, 20 dynamics, in music, 556
Islamic, 206, 208 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), 606, 638
Jewish, 130132, 133134, 149 Do the Right Thing (Lee), 657 Early Gothic churches, 251254, 253255
Mesopotamian, 10, 11, 12 Doctor Atomic (Adams), 659 early mannerism. See High Renaissance;
Minoan, 34, 36, 36 documentary film, 626 mannerism
Paleolithic, 4 A Dolls House (Ibsen), 540 early Medieval Age. See early Middle Ages
Roman, 111 Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem), 215216, 217 early Middle Ages
del Conte, Jacopino, 373 domes agriculture, 200
Delacroix, Eugne, 474, 475, 488, 488489, baroque, 407 architecture, 181, 187, 198, 198, 199
513, 514 Byzantine, 192, 193 Carolingians, 174, 180, 181183
Delian League, 59, 72 early Renaissance, 306, 306307, 307 Charlemagne, 174, 175, 180, 181183, 186,
Delirious New York, A Retroactive Manifesto High Renaissance, 349, 350 188
for Manhattan (Koolhaas), 657 Islamic, 216, 217 education, 182183, 201
della Francesca, Piero, 315316, 316 mannerist, 350, 351 Germanic tribes in, 179180, 186
Delphic Sanctuary, 44, 44 Roman, 117119, 118, 119 illuminated manuscripts, 192, 192, 193,
Demeter, 43 dominate, Roman, 153 195, 196, 196197, 197, 198
S Democritus of Thrace, 68 Dominicans, 236, 271 Latin writing, 185189
N demographics, 328, 635636 Domitian, 120 legacy of, 201
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INDEX 693

map, 180 joint-stock companies, 429 Eliot, George, 511512


Merovingians, 181 laissez-faire, 441, 463, 467, 469, 496, 505, Eliot, T. S., 572573
music, 200 562, 631 Elizabeth I (queen of England), 359, 372, 372
painting, 192, 193, 195, 196, 196198, 197, Marxism, 505506 Elizabeth II (queen of England), 600
198 mercantilism, 386, 413, 441, 466467 Elizabethan theater, 359361, 360
post-Carolingian, 183184 Physiocrats on, 441, 466 Ellesmere Manuscript, 274
timeline, 179 socialism, 497, 505506 Ellington, Duke, 591
vernacular writings, 189 The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (Bernini), 394, 395 Elvis I & II (Warhol), 616
war technology, 200 Edesius, 159 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 513
women in, 297298 Edict of Milan, 153, 163 Eminem, 662
early modernism, 527559 education Empedocles, 6768
architecture, 554, 554555, 555 early Middle Ages, 182183, 201 empiricism, 416
cubism, 551 early Renaissance, 321 enclosure, 466
fauvism, 551 High Middle Ages, 239, 241 Encomium Moriae (Erasmus), 357
imperialism in, 532, 533, 534, 535, 536537 Islamic, 209, 210 Encyclopdie, 440441, 441, 444, 463
Impressionist painting, 518520, 519, 526, public, 528529 Enemy of the People (Ibsen; Miller), 609
543545, 544546 Renaissance Florence, 297, 301, 302 Engels, Friedrich, 505, 506
legacy of, 559 universities, 209, 239, 241, 416 England. See Britain
literature, 539541 The Education of Marie de Medici (Rubens), English East India Company, 430
music, 555557, 557 399, 399 English Perpendicular style, 275276, 276
Orientalism, 537 Edward II (king of England), 276 engravings, 281, 359
Ottoman Empire decline during, Edward III (king of England), 276 of Drer, 361362, 362, 368
533534, 536537 Edwards, Jonathan, 440 Enheduanna, 11
outbreak of World War I, 533, 536 ego, 538 Enki, 10
philosophy, psychology, and religion, Egypt Enkidu, 10
537539 agriculture, 15, 16 Enlightenment. See also Age of Reason
postimpressionist painting, 545, 547, Alexandria, 87, 88, 8889 Encyclopdie, 440441, 441
547550, 548, 549, 550 Arab Spring, 224, 492, 525, 627, 635, 638, ideals of, 437, 438, 463
response to industrialism, 530532 662 philosophy, 438439
science in, 541543 architecture, 2021, 21 Physiocrats, 441, 466
sculpture, 528, 553, 553554 arts, 2125, 2126 political philosophy, 443445
Second Industrial Revolution, 528529 domestic life, 67 religion, 439440
timeline, 539 geography, 15 Enlil, 10
early Renaissance, 295321 Hebrews in, 130 entablature, 49, 49, 50
architecture, 306308, 306309 Islamic Empire in, 207208 entasis, 51
artistic ideals and innovations, 303306 Israel and, 600, 601, 634 environmental art, 651, 652
humanism, schooling, and scholarship, kingdoms in, 1617 Ephrem the Syrian, 163
301 legacy of, 2631, 27, 28, 29 epic poetry, 4445
Islamic influence on, 300, 300, 303 map, 7 epic theater, 574
Italian city-states during, 296298, 300 Muslim Brotherhood, 567, 601, 635 The Epic of Gilgamesh, 8, 1011, 11
legacy of, 321 Napoleons invasion of, 474 Epictetus, 115, 116
music, 319, 319320 Nassers rule, 600, 601 Epicureanism, 92, 93, 113
painting, 311, 313319, 314319 Neolithic, 16 Epicurus, 93, 93
philosophy, 302303 Ptolemaic kingdom, 8586, 87, 88, 91, 94 Epidaurus, theater at, 63
sculpture, 309311, 309313 pyramids, 16, 17, 20, 20 epilepsy, 72
spirit and style of, 300301, 303 religion, 1819 Epirots, 86
timeline, in Florence, 299 science and medicine, 1920 Epirus, 86, 106
timeline of Italian Renaissance stages, 296 Suez Canal, 502, 504, 534, 600 episodes, in fugues, 411
women in, 297298, 302 timeline, 16 epistemology, 49, 67
early Renaissance style, 303 writing, 6, 19, 19 Erasmo da Narni (Donatello), 294, 295296
Earth Goddess with Snakes, 34, 36, 36 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (Kaprow), 623, 623 Erasmus, Desiderius, 354, 355357
East India Company, 430 Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 (Mozart), 462 Erasmus of Rotterdam (Holbein the
Eastern Orthodox Church, 178179, 201 Einhard, 188, 200 Younger), 354, 355356
Eastern Roman Empire. See Byzantine Einstein, Albert, 542543, 575576 Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 95
Empire Einstein on the Beach (Glass), 658659 Erechtheum (Athens), 62, 73, 74, 7475
Eastwood, Clint, 657 Eisenstein, Sergei, 588 Erechtheus, 75
Ecclesia and Synagoga, Strasbourg Ekloga, 177 eremitic monasticism, 178
Cathedral, 232 El Djem Calendar, 126 Eriugena, John Scottus, 189
Ecclesiastical History of the English People El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Erlknig (Schubert), 491
(Bede), 187 375376, 376, 377 Eroica, Third Symphony (Beethoven),
Eckhart, Meister, 237 Eleanor of Aquitaine, 232, 236 490491
Eclogues (Virgil), 114 electricity, 489 eschatology, 133
e-commerce, 634, 638 electronic medical records (EMR), 638 escudo de monja, 408
economic systems. See also political/ electronic music, 659 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
economic development The Elementary Structures of Kinship (Locke), 429
free-market system, 441, 467, 633, 635 (Lvi-Strauss), 603 Essay on Customs (Voltaire), 457 S
Ibn Khaldun on, 213 eleousa, 191192 Essay on Man (Pope), 458 N
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694 INDEX

Essay on the Principle of Population Fanon, Frantz, 603 Medici family in, 298
(Malthus), 467 Fantasyland (Ai Weiwei), 663 painting, 281285, 284, 285, 286, 303, 304,
Essays (Montaigne), 358359 Farouk (king of Egypt), 600 305, 311, 314315, 317
Estates-General (France), 472 fascism, 567568, 568, 584 philosophy in, 302303, 304
etchings, 485, 486. See also prints Fate, 94 sculpture, 309311, 309313
Ethiopia, 159 Fatima (daughter of Muhammad), 204, 205, Florentine Camerata, 379
Etruria, 105 206 Florentine cathedrals, 277, 278, 306308,
Etruscans, 10, 104, 105, 106, 111, 116 Faulkner, William, 572 306308
Etymologies (Isidore), 186 Faust (Goethe), 480 florid baroque
Eucharist, 235236, 369 Faustian, 480 architecture, 392, 392393, 393
Euclid, 95 fauvism, 551 painting, 394399, 396399, 420
eugenics movement, 577578 The Feast of Herod (Donatello), 309 sculpture, 393394, 394, 395
Eumachia, 111 federal period (United States), 477 style of, 392
Eumenes II, 97 Federal style, 463 The Flowing Light of the Godhead (Mechthild
Eumenides (Aeschylus), 64 Federico da Montefeltro and His Son of Magdeburg), 237
Euripides, 65, 68 Guidobaldo (Berruguete), 297 fluting, 51
European Economic Community, 575 Fellini, Federico, 625 flying buttresses, 251, 252, 253, 254
European expansion. See imperialism Female on Eames Chair, Male on Swivel Stool Fo, Dario, 643
European Holy League, 327 (Pearlstein), 644 Fontenelle, Bernard de, 432, 438439
European Union, 630, 632, 634, 635 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 603 foot soldiers, 40
Eurozone, 201 feminism, 603, 604. See also womens rights; forte, 556
Eusebius, 162 womens status/roles fortississimo, 591
Euterpe, 45 Ferdinand (Holy Roman emperor), 327 forums, 119
evangelicalism, 506, 640 Ferdinand V (king of Spain), 324 found objects, 617, 618
evangelists, 141, 640 Fertile Crescent, 78. See also Mesopotamia Fountain of Knowledge (John of Damascus),
Evans, Arthur, 35 ftes galantes, 446 185
Evans, Mary Ann, 511512 feudalism, 228, 324 Four Books of Sentences (Peter Lombard), 241
Eve (Rodin), 553, 553554 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 489 The 400 Blows (Truffaut), 625
Everyman, 359 Ficino, Marsilio, 303 Four Minutes Thirty-three Seconds (Cage), 624
evolution theory, 506507 fiction. See literature; novels The Four Seasons (Vivaldi), 412
Evry Valley Shall Be Exalted (Handel), fiefs, 228 Fourier, Charles, 505, 516
411412 Fielding, Henry, 458, 459 Fourth Lateran Council, 235
The Exaltation of Inanna (Enheduanna), 11 Fifth Symphony (Beethoven), 491 fourth-century style, 75, 79
The Execution of the Third of May, 1808 film Fra Angelico, 315, 315
(Goya), 485487, 486 late modernism, 624626, 625 Fragonard, Jean-Honor, 447448, 448
Exekias, 48 modernism, 571, 588589, 589, 593 France
existentialism, 627 postmodern, 657658, 658, 659, 660 African colonies of, 532, 534, 536537, 599
of Heidegger, 575 film noir, 626 Arc de Triomphe (Triumphal Arch), Paris,
of Sartre and Camus, 575, 602, 606 Film Still series (Sherman), 661 173, 173, 498
theistic, 602 Final Solution, 570 Asian colonies of, 535
Exodus, 130131 fin-de-sicle Vienna, 531 baroque literature, 408409
exploration fireplaces, 391 baroque opera in, 410
during the baroque, 429432, 431, 432 First Great Awakening, 440 Bourbon dynasty, 384, 386, 473474, 496
during the High Renaissance, 328 First Romanesque style, 247248, 247248 Burgundians in, 265266, 278, 280281,
expressionism. See also abstract First Symphony (Beethoven), 490 285
expressionism; neoexpressionism Fitzgerald, Ella, 591 Capetian monarchy, 183, 231
literature, 539, 541 Five Pillars of the Faith, 209 Carolingians, 174, 180, 181183
music, 556 flagellation, 270, 271 cave paintings in, 4, 5
painting, 542, 551552, 560, 585, 585, 586 The Flagellation (Piero della Francesca), classical baroque, 392, 399401, 400, 401
Ezra Portrait, Codex Amiatinus, 193, 195 315316, 316 cubist painting, 551, 579
Flamboyant style, 275, 275 decadent literature, 540541
Fabrica (Vesalius), 358, 359 Flanders. See Flemish painting in the Enlightenment, 438439, 443444,
Facebook, 638 Flaubert, Gustave, 381, 511 456457
factories, English, 466, 467 Flavians, 119, 120 existentialism in, 575, 602, 606
Fairytale (Ai Weiwei), 663 Flavin, Dan, 648, 648 expansion of, 429, 430
The Fall (Camus), 606 Fleischer, Reuben, 525 fauvist painting, 551, 551
Fallen Warrior (east pediment, Temple of Flemish painting film, 625
Aphaia), 54 florid baroque, 399, 399 Franco-Prussian War, 499
families late Middle Ages, 285, 287, 287291, 288, French Revolution, 464, 465, 469472,
in the Age of Reason, 442 289, 290 472, 479
Jewish, 136 Florence, Italy Hapsburg-Valois wars, 324325
in Mesopotamia, 8, 12 architecture, 277, 278, 306308, 306308 Hundred Years War, 265266
in Roman civilization, 110111 as city-state, 298299, 325 impressionist music, 556
Family of Augustus, Ara Pacis, 122 early Renaissance timeline, 299 impressionist painting, 518520, 519, 526,
The Family of Charles IV (Goya), 485, 485 education in during early Renaissance, 527, 529, 543544, 544546
S famine, fourteenth century, 265 301, 302 industrialization of, 501, 529
N fan vaulting, 276, 276 Hapsburg-Valois wars and, 325 late Gothic architecture, 275, 275
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INDEX 695

late medieval royal dynasties in, 266, 267 High Renaissance, 334, 334335, 336340, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris (Rogers
Louis XIV, 384, 385, 385, 386, 388 337342, 342 and Piano), 653, 654
medieval literature, 244245 Jewish, 139, 140 Georgics (Virgil), 114
Merovingian family, 181 late Middle Ages, 284285, 286 Gricault, Thodore, 487, 487488
modernist drama, 575 mannerist, 338, 341 germ theory of disease, 507
Muslims in, 224, 636 Minoan, 34, 36 German Empire, 233234, 499, 530, 536, 562
under Napoleon I, 470, 470471 rococo, 449, 450 German Idealism, 489490
under Napoleon III, 498 Roman, 123124, 125 German Reich, 530
naturalistic literature, 539540 Freud, Sigmund, 81, 538 Germanotta, Stefani Joanne Angelina. See
neoclassical architecture, 454, 454455 friars, 236 Lady Gaga
neoclassical painting, 476, 476477, 477, Friday mosques, 218 Germany
513, 513 Friedan, Betty, 603 baroque music, 410412
northern humanism, 356 Friedrich, Caspar David, 483485, 484 Bauhaus architecture, 586, 587
northern Renaissance, 359 Friends of God, 269270 Berlin Wall, 599, 599, 631, 631
philosophes, 438439, 440 friezes division of, into East and West, 596, 599,
postimpressionist painting, 545, 547, Greek temple, 49, 73, 78, 79 599
547550, 548, 549, 550 Hellenistic, 96, 97 early modernism, 537538
postwar recovery of, 596 Minoan, 34 expressionism, 551552, 556, 585, 586
realism in, 511, 514520, 516519 Roman, 164, 164 fascism in, 568, 568
reform between 1815 and 1830, 473474 Frith, W. P., 503 film in, 588
revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 488, 496 Frumentius, 159 Franco-Prussian War, 499
rococo painting, 446448, 446448 fugues, 411 German Idealism, 489490
romantic literature, 509 Fulda, Monastic Basilica of, 198, 199 Great Depression in, 565
romantic music, 491 fundamentalist movement, 539 Holy Roman Empire, 270, 325327, 384,
romantic painting, 487, 487489, 488, 513, furniture, 391 388, 438
514 Future of Music (Ligeti), 659 imperialism by, 532, 534, 535
Seven Years War, 444 Kulturkampf, 539
Third Republic, 530 Gagarin, Yury, 606 late modernist sculpture, 619
Thirty Years War, 388 Gaia, 44 late-sixteenth-century music, 380
utopian socialism in, 505 Galen, 145, 160, 242, 358, 421422 modernist literature, 572, 574575
Valois dynasty, 265, 266, 324325 Galileo Galilei, 419, 420, 423 modernist music, 589, 590
World War I, 562, 563 Galla Placidia mausoleum, 171, 171 modernist philosophy, 588
World War II, 568, 570 galleons, 329 myth of Aryan supremacy in, 577
Francis Ferdinand (archduke of Austria), gallery, in Gothic cathedrals, 253 Nazi death camps in, 569570, 570, 577
533 galleys, 329 Nazi Party, 568, 568, 577, 588
Francis I (Clouet), 324 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 565566 North German Confederation, 499
Francis I (king of France), 323, 324, 356 garden design, 455, 455 northern humanism, 356
Francis of Assisi, Saint, 236, 237 Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch), 364, northern Renaissance, 361363, 362, 363,
Franciscan order, 236, 237, 271 364365 368
Franco, Francisco, 568 gargoyles, 252, 252 Pietism, 440
Franco-Netherlandish school, 319320, Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 499 postwar occupation of, 596
350352 gas lighting, 501502 Prussia, 444, 474, 498, 499
Franco-Prussian War, 499 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 511 realpolitik in, 498
Frankenstein (Shelley), 481 The Gates (Christo and Jeanne-Claude), Reformation in, 367, 368369, 374375
Frankenthaler, Helen, 611612, 613 649 romanticism in, 480, 483485, 484,
Frankish kingdom, 179, 180, 181 Gates of Paradise (Ghiberti), 312313 489491, 522523
Franklin, Benjamin, 440, 489 Gattamelata (Donatello), 294, 295296 Third Reich, 568
Franzoni, Carlo, 81 Gaudry, Suzanne, 428 Thirty Years War, 388
Frederick Barbarossa (Holy Roman Gauguin, Paul, 549, 549 Weimar Republic, 563564
emperor), 236 Gaul. See also France under William I, 499, 530
Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago Merovingian family in, 181 in World War I, 533, 537, 562563
(Wright), 555, 555 Prefecture of, 155 in World War II, 568, 569570, 570, 577
Frederick II (the Great, of Prussia), 444 Visigoths in, 155, 179 Germigny-des-Prs, chapel at (Theodulf),
Frederick the Wise of Saxony, 368, 368 Gehry, Frank O, 655, 655 186, 187
The Freedom of the Press (Daumier), 517, 517 Gelasius I (pope), 158 Germinal (Zola), 539
free-market economies, 441, 467, 633, 635 general theory of relativity, 543, 576 Gershwin, George, xxxiixxxiii
French Academy, 386 genetics, 541 Ghana, independence of, 600
French Academy of Science, 432, 433 genome maps, 638 ghazal, 214
French Revolution, 464, 465, 469472, 472, genres, literary, 19 Gheeraerts, Marcus, the Younger, 372
479 Gentileschi, Artemisia, 395396, 397 Ghent Altarpiece (Hubert and Jan van Eyck),
frescoes Gentileschi, Orazio, 395 287, 287288, 288
early Christian, 146147, 147 geocentrism, 416417, 417 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 310, 311313
early Renaissance, 305, 305, 313314, 314, geological time periods, 6 Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 298, 336
315 geometry, 95, 425 Giacometti, Alberto, 576
Etruscan, 104, 105 George I (king of England), 444 Gibbon, Edward, 439, 457, 458
florid baroque, 396397, 398, 420 George II (king of England), 444 Gilbert, Olive, 512 S
High Middle Ages, 230, 237 George III (king of England), 444 Gilgamesh, 8, 1011, 11 N
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696 INDEX

Gilliam, Samuel, 645, 647 late Gothic painting, 281291, 282291, Peloponnesian War, 60, 65, 66, 67
Gillray, James, 473 285 philosophy, 6770
Ginsberg, Allen, 609 late Gothic sculpture, 278, 279, 280, 280, political phases of, 5961
Giorgione, 318, 342344, 343 281 pottery, 58, 64, 66
Giotto nineteenth century revival of, 261, 261 sculpture, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 69, 7479
Florence cathedral campanile, 277, 278 origin of term, 250251 theater, 61, 63, 6366, 81
paintings, 237, 281284, 285, 286, 311 Goths, 185 timeline, 60
Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni government. See political philosophy; women in, 71
(Ghirlandaio), 298 political/economic development Greek Hellenistic Age. See Hellenistic Age
Giovi, Paolo, 343 Goya, Francisco, 485, 485487, 486 Greek War of Independence (18211830),
Girard, Franois, 659 Goyton, J., 433 474, 479
Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Anne-Louise, Graham, Billy, 640 greenhouse effect, 639
472 Graham, Martha, 590 Gregorian chant, 200, 257, 259, 378
Giza, pyramids at, 17, 20 Grand Coutumes of Normandy, 267 Gregory (bishop of Tours), 186
Glass, Philip, 658659 Le Grand Macabre (Ligeti), 659, 660 Gregory I (the Great; pope), 180, 182,
The Glass Menagerie (Williams), 610 grandfather clocks, 424 185186, 200
glass technology. See stained-glass grandi, 297 Gregory XI (pope), 266
windows Gratian, 241 Griffith, D. W., 588
The Gleaners (Millet), 517, 518 grave stele of Hegeso, 78, 79, 80 Grimaldi, Giacomo, 166
Glenn, John, 606 gravitas, 110 groined vault, 117, 117
glissando (plural glissandi), 624 gravity, 421 Gropius, Walter, 586, 587, 653
global economic downturn, 635 Great Abbey Church of Cluny, 235, 248 Grosseteste, Robert, 272
global music, 624, 624 The Great Bridge to Rouen (Pissarro), 529 Grotius, Hugo, 426
global warming, 639 Great Britain. See Britain Grnewald, Matthias, 362363, 363
globalization Great Depression of the 1930s, 564565, 565 Guarino of Verona, 301
Age of Infotainment, 662 Great Exhibition of 1851, London, 502, 503 Guarneri, Andrea, 352
baroque age and, 413 Great Fire of London (1666), 390, 406, 407 Guernica (Picasso), 562, 579
climate change, 639 Great Friday Mosque of Djenne, 220, 221 Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
migrations and demography, 635636 Great Mosque, Crdoba, 218, 219 (Gehry), 655, 655
music and, 624, 624 Great Mosque, Isfahan, 220, 220 Guide to Strange Places (Adams), 659
Silk Road and, 184 Great Mosque of Kairouan, 217 Guido of Arezzo, 200
world economic boom, 633634 Great Mosque of Mecca, 202, 203 Guild House, Philadelphia (Venturi), 652,
Globe Playhouse (London), 360 Great Recession, 635 653
la gloire, 388 Great Schism, 266267, 299, 319 guilds, 229
Gloriette (Hetzendorf von Hohenburg), 445 Great Sphinx, 2, 21, 2122 Gulag, 567
Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII (Pietro Greece. See Greek Archaic Age; Greek Gulf War of 1991, 634
da Cortona), 420 Hellenic Age; Hellenistic Age gunpowder, 260, 391
Glorious Revolution (England), 386, 387 Greek Archaic Age Gutenberg, Johannes, 269
Gloucester Cathedral (England), 276, 276 architecture, 32, 33, 39, 39, 49, 4951, 50, 54 Gypsies, 570
Go Tell It on the Mountain (Baldwin), 607 Delian League, 59, 72
Godescalc Evangelistary, 196, 196 legacy of, 55 Hades, 43, 111
Gododdin (Aneirin), 189 literature, 4445 Hadid, Zaha, 655657, 656
gods and goddesses. See deities map, 35 Hadith, 209
Goebbels, Joseph, 568 Minoan influence on, 3637 Hadrian, 96, 108, 118
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 480 myths, 3637 Hadrian I (pope), 196, 198
Gogh, Vincent van, 547, 549550, 550 Persian Wars, 41 Hadrians Wall, 108
gold leaf gilding, 14, 14 philosophy and science, 45, 4749 Hagesandros, 99
Golden Age of Roman letters, 114115 political, economic, and social structures, Hagia Sophia (Isidore of Miletus and
Golden Virgin, Amiens Cathedral, 258 3941 Anthemius of Tralles), 155, 156, 191, 191,
goldsmithing, 6 pottery, 47, 48 192, 192, 193
goliards, 243 religion, 4244 hagiography, 163
Golijov, Osvaldo, 593 sculpture, 51, 5154, 52, 53, 54 Haiti, 471472, 472
The Good Shepherd, Mausoleum of Galla Sparta and Athens, 4041 Hall of Mirrors, Palace at Versailles
Pacidia, 171 technology, 4142 (Lebrun and Hardouin-Mansart), 382,
Google, 463 timeline, 41 383384, 391, 400
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 631 writing, 10 Hals, Franz, 424
Gospels, 141142, 159 Greek Dark Ages, 39, 41 al-Hamadhani, 215
Gospels of Otto III, 197198, 198 Greek fire, 200 Hamas, 635
Gothic style Greek Hellenic Age Hamilton, Ann, 651, 651
Early Gothic churches, 246, 251254, architecture, 72, 7275, 73, 74, 78 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 361
253255 characteristics of, 5758 Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard
features of, 251, 252 history, study of, 6667 (Delacroix), 514
High Gothic cathedrals, 226, 227, 232, 239, legacy of, 81 Hammurabi, 8, 1112, 12
240, 251, 254, 256, 256258 map, 59 Handbook (Arrian), 116
High Gothic painting, 256, 258 medicine, 7072 Handel, George Frederick, 411412
S late Gothic architecture, 270, 275278, music, 66 Hands Holding the Void (Giacometti), 576
N 275280 painting, 80, 80 hanging gardens of Babylon, 27
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INDEX 697

Hannibal, 106 Henlein, Peter, 423 Romanesque churches, 246250, 247250


Hanoverian kings, 444 henotheism, 18 science and medicine in, 242245
Hanson, Duane, 101 Henry II of Anjou (king of England), 232, sculpture, 232, 249, 249, 250, 255, 258
happenings, 619, 621, 623, 623 265 technology, 259260
Happy House (Mantua), 301 Henry IV (king of France), 386, 399 timeline, 233
Hapsburg Empire, 325327, 384, 388389, Henry the Navigator (Prince of Portugal), towns in, 229230, 230, 231
438 328 women in, 228229, 230, 236, 237, 238, 240,
Hapsburg-Valois wars, 324325 Henry VII (king of England), 266 243, 257259
The Harbor at Lorient (Morisot), 546 Henry VIII (king of England), 371, 371372 High Renaissance, 323353
Hard Times (Dickens), 511 Hephaestus, 43, 111 architecture, 348350, 349351
hard-edge technique, 612 Heptameron (Marguerite of Navarre), 356 economic expansion in, 327328
Hardouin-Mansart, Jules, 382, 387, 400 Hera, 32, 43, 4951, 50, 72, 111 High Renaissance style, 330331
al-Hariri, 215, 220 Heraclitus, 48 legacy of, 353
Harlem Renaissance, 573574 Heraclius, 176 literature, 331334
harps, 222, 244 Herculaneum, 450 map of empire of Charles V, 326
harpsichord, 460 Herd of Rhinoceroses, Chauvet Cave, modern sovereign states in, 324327
harquebus, 391 France, 4, 5 music, 350352, 352
Harry Potter film series, 657 heresies, 158, 238, 270 painting, 325, 327, 333345, 334344
Harvey, William, 422 Hermes, 43, 111 science and medicine, 330
Hassam, Childe, 563 Hermes with the Infant Dionysus (Praxiteles), sculpture, 322, 337, 344348, 345, 347, 348
Hasta la Muerte (Goya), 485, 486 79, 79 technology, 328330
Hastings, Battle of (1066), 234 Hernani (Hugo), 509 timeline, 331
Hathor, 17 Herod the Great higher criticism, 506
Hatshepsut, 18, 2021, 21, 2224, 23 Herods palace, Masada, 134136, 135, high-tech architecture, 653
The Hay Wain (Constable), 481, 482, 517 138139, 139 hijab, 224
Haydn, Franz Joseph, 460461, 461 Herods Temple (Second Temple), 133, 134, Hildegard of Bingen, 236, 237, 257259
He Seems to Be a God (Sappho), 46 134, 135 hip-hop music, 662
Hearst, William Randolph, 589 rule of, 134, 138 hippies, 598
Hebrew Bible, 136, 137, 140 Herodotus, 67 Hippocrates, 7072, 242
Hebrews, 10, 129134. See also Jewish Hesse, Eva, 616, 617, 619 Hippolyte and Aricie (Rameau), 460
civilization Hestia, 43, 111 Hirohito (emperor of Japan), 565
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 456, 490, Hetzendorf von Hohenburg, Johann Hiroshige, And, 532, 547
505 Ferdinand, 445 Historical and Critical Dictionary (Bayle),
Hegeso, grave stele of, 78, 79, 80 Hezbollah, 635 432433, 440
Hegira (hijira), 204 hieroglyphics, 19, 19 historical writing
Heidegger, Martin, 575 high classical style, 7576 Age of Reason, 439
Heine, Heinrich, 523 High Gothic style Byzantine, 184, 185
Heisenberg, Werner, 575, 576 architecture, 226, 227, 232, 239, 240, 251, Christian, 162163
Helena, 153 254, 256, 256258 early Middle Ages, 186188
Heliand, 189 painting, 256, 258 Egyptian, 16
heliocentrism, 417, 418, 418419, 420 High Middle Ages, 233261 Greek, 6667
Hellas, 39 agriculture, 229, 229, 260 Hellenistic, 104, 107
Hellen, 39 architecture, 246256, 247249, 252257 High Renaissance, 331
Hellenes, 39 Christian beliefs and practices, 235236, Islamic, 213
Hellenic Age, 5758. See also Greek Hellenic 241242 Jewish, 133, 133, 135
Age Crusades, 238, 239 late Middle Ages, 268
Hellenistic Age, 82101 education, 239, 241 Roman, 115, 157
architecture, 9596, 96, 97 English monarchy, 231233 Histories (Herodotus), 67
drama and literature, 8991 expansion in, 227 Histories (Tacitus), 115
government in, 86 feudal system, 228229 The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel
Jews in, 88, 88 French monarchy, 231 (Rabelais), 356
legacy of, 101 German Empire, 233234 History of Art (Winckelmann), 450
map of successor states, 85 Gothic cathedrals, 226, 239, 240, 246, History of England (Hume), 456
meaning of term, 83 251256, 253258, 275, 275277, 276, History of the Christian Church (Eusebius),
monarchies in, 8486 277, 278 162
philosophy and religion, 9194, 92, 93 government in, 183, 230235 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
portrayal of black figures in, 84 illuminated manuscripts, 235, 236, 237, Empire (Gibbon), 458
Roman conquest of kingdoms, 84, 85, 86, 244, 250, 251, 256, 258, 259 History of the Florentine People (Bruni), 301
106107 legacy of, 261 History of the Jewish War (7579 CE)
science and technology, 9495 literature, 243246 (Josephus), 135
sculpture, 82, 84, 89, 95, 96100, 97100 map of trading routes and towns, 231 History of the Peloponnesian War
timeline, 85 music, 257259, 259 (Thucydides), 67
urban life in, 8689, 89 painting, 228, 230, 235, 236, 237, 239, 251, History Portraits (Sherman), 662
women in, 87 258 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Heloise, 240 papal monarchy, 234235 (Fielding), 459
Helots, 40 peasant life in, 229, 229 Hitler, Adolf, 568, 588 S
Hemingway, Ernest, 572 religious orders, 236238 Hittites, 1617 N
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698 INDEX

Hobbes, Thomas, 426428, 427 in Egyptian art, 2425 Carolingian, 196, 197, 198
The Hobbit (Tolkien), 261 in florid baroque art, 396 early Middle Ages, 192, 192, 193, 195, 196,
Hch, Hannah, 574 in Greek Archaic sculpture, 5152 196197, 197, 198
Hockney, David, 644, 646 in Greek Hellenic sculpture, 74, 7576, High Middle Ages, 235, 236, 237, 244, 250,
hodegetria, 191 76, 77, 79 251, 256, 258, 259, 282
Hodgkin, Howard, 644, 646 in High Renaissance art, 332, 337, 348 Islamic, 210, 220, 222, 223
Hogarth, William, 449450, 450, 453 in mannerism, 348, 348 late Middle Ages, 262, 265, 267, 274,
Hohenzollern dynasty, 438, 444 human-headed winged bulls, 27, 27 280281
Holbein, Hans, the Younger, 354, 355356, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Vesalius), 358, Roman, 167, 168, 169
371 359 illusionism, 397, 398, 420
Holiday, Billie, 591 humanism illustrated manuscripts. See illuminated
holiness movement, 506 civic, in the High Renaissance, 330 manuscripts
Holland. See Netherlands early Renaissance, 301 IMAX format, 657
Hollar, Wenceslaus, 431 Enlightenment, 438 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 596,
Hollywood film industry, 588589, 589, 626, northern Renaissance, 356357, 381 627, 634
657658, 659 humanitas, 331, 357 Imhotep, 20
Holocaust, 570, 570, 577 humanities, Greek origins of, 55 imitation, polyphonic, 320
Holocene epoch, 5, 6 Hume, David, 439, 456 The Imitation of Christ (Kempis), 270
Holy Roman Empire humors, 72, 243 immigration, 530, 577578, 636
under Charles V, 324327, 325, 328, 332, Hundred Guilder Print (Rembrandt), 402, imperialism
371, 374 404 in Africa, 532, 533, 534
Hapsburg Empire, 325327, 384, 388, 438 Hundred Years War, 264, 265266 in Asia, 535, 536
map from 1763 to 1789, 438 Hunefer, funerary papyrus of, 24 baroque age, 429432, 431, 432
religion in, 270 Huns, 155, 157 decolonization, 599600
Thirty Years War, 388 Hunt, Richard Morris, 293 early modern period, 532537
The Holy Trinity (Masaccio), 313, 314 Hurston, Zora Neale, 573574 New Spain, 373374
Home (Morrison), 642 Hus, Jan, 270 impetus theory, 416
The Homecoming (Pinter), 609 Hussein, Saddam, 634, 635 The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde), 540
Homer, 4445, 63, 114 Huygens, Christian, 423, 423 Impression: Sunrise (Monet), 526, 527, 543
Homeric epithets, 45 Huysmans, Joris-Karl, 540 impressionism
hominids, 4, 6 hydraulics, 214 music, 556
Homo sapiens, 4, 5, 6 hydroelectric plants, 501 origin of term, 543
homosexuals, in Nazi death camps, 570 Hyksos peoples, 16, 18, 130 painting, 526, 527, 529, 543545, 544546
hoplites, 40 Hymn to Aten, 19 ukiyo-e woodblock prints, 532, 544545,
Horace, 114115 hymns, 19, 163 546, 547
Horned Altar, 132 Hyrcanus, John, 137, 138, 138 In the Penal Colony (Glass), 659
horsecollar, 260 In the Shade of the Quran (Sayyid Qutb), 601
horses, in warfare, 17, 38, 40, 200, 260 I and Thou (Buber), 602603 Inanna, 10, 11
The Horse Fair (Bonheur), 517518, 518 I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw LIncontro improvviso (Haydn), 461
Horus, 18, 94 the Sky (Adams), 659 incunabula (singular, incuabulum), 269
Hosea, 133 Ibn al-Haytham, 212 Index of Forbidden Books, 372, 418
Hosios Loukos church, 193, 194 Ibn Hazm, 214 India
Htel de Soubise, Paris, 448449, 449 Ibn Khaldun, 213 British rule and, 565566
Houdon, Jean-Antoine, 457 Ibn Rushd (Averros), 212213, 241242 exploration during the High Renaissance,
House of Wisdom (Baghdad), 212 Ibn Saud, 567 328
Housebook Master, 281, 283 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), 212213, 242 independence of, 599
Houses of Parliament, London (Barry and Ibn Thabit, 627 trade with the East India Company, 430,
Pugin), 499, 514 Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo, 218, 219 431
housing Ibsen, Henrik, 540, 609 The Indian Emperor (Dryden), 408
furnishings in the baroque age, 391 Ice Man, 4 Indian National Congress, 565
late Middle Ages, 270 Icon of Christ, 190, 191 Indian of Virginia (Hollar), 431
Mesopotamian, 14 Icon of the Crucifixion, 190 Indiana (Sand), 509
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Icon of the Virgin and Child individualism, 91, 353
Question and Twenty Attempts at an (Constantinople), 192 inductive reasoning, 416, 424
Answer (Bakewell), 381 iconoclasm, 178179 indulgences, selling of, 368, 374
Howl (Ginsberg), 609 Iconoclastic Controversy, 178179, 185, 191 Industrial Revolution
Hrotsvitha, 189 Ictinus, 7273, 73 classical economics and, 466468
hubris, 43 id, 538 in England, 466467
Hucbald, 200 idealists, 67, 69, 335, 490 legacy of, 492
Hudson River School, 513 ide fixe, 491 nineteenth century, 500504, 503, 504
Hughes, Langston, 573, 591 ideograms, 9 response to, 530532
Hugo, Victor, 509, 522 idylls, 90, 91 romanticism and, 479
Huguenots, 357, 386, 459 Idylls (Theocritus), 91 Second, 528529
The Human Comedy (Balzac), 511 Ignatius Loyola, Saint, 373, 373, 397, 398 socialism and, 497, 505506
human figure Iliad (Homer), 37, 4445, 114 timeline, 468
S in early Renaissance art, 309310, 310, illuminated manuscripts industrial-military-state complex, 502, 571
N 311, 317 Byzantine, 179, 179 inertia, 419, 425
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INDEX 699

infanticide, 87 Isis, 94, 95, 111 kingdom of, 131, 132133


The Infernal Machine (Cocteau), 575 Isis with Her Son Harpocrates and God kingdom of Judah and, 131, 133
information technology (IT), 638 Anubis, 95 map of ancient, 131
infotainment, 662 Islam. See also Islamic civilization, Istanbul. See Constantinople
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 470, 477, medieval Italo-Byzantine style, 282, 283, 284
477, 513, 513 date of beginning, 204 Italy. See also early Renaissance; Florence,
Inner Mission, 538 Hadith, 209 Italy; High Renaissance; Venice, Italy
Innocent III (pope), 235, 238, 266 Islamic radicals, 635 baroque music, 412
Inonu, Ismet, 566567 jihad, 209210, 224, 601 baroque opera in, 410
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the life of Muhammad, 204, 206 early Renaissance city-states, 296298, 300
Wealth of Nations (Smith), 441 meaning of term, 203 fascism in, 567568
Inquisition Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), 567, 601, film in, 625
Albigensian heresy and, 238 635 florid baroque architecture, 392, 392393,
Galileo and, 419, 420 Muslims expelled from Spain, 375 393
as judicial forums in High Middle Ages, pilgrimages to Mecca, 202, 203, 204, 206, florid baroque painting, 394399, 396, 397,
235 209 398, 420
late Middle Ages, 270 principles of, 208211 florid baroque sculpture, 393394, 394,
Insect Metamophoses in Surinam (Merian), Quran (Koran), 205, 209, 209, 215 395
417 rise of Middle Eastern states, post-1945 Greek architecture in, 32, 4951, 50, 72
installation art, 604, 650651, 651 and, 600601 Hapsburg-Valois wars and, 324325
Institutes of Divine and Human Readings Salafism, 567 imperialism by, 534
(Cassiodorus), 185 Sharia, 210 industrialization of, 531
The Institutes of the Christian Religion Shiites, 205, 206 Inquisition in, 270
(Calvin), 370 Sufis, 210, 214215, 222 Kingdom of, 499
Interior Landscape (Frankenthaler), 613 Sunnis, 206, 210 late Gothic architecture, 276277, 277, 278
Interior of My Studio (Courbet), 515, 516 Wahhabi sect, 474 late mannerist painting, 378, 379
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 596, Islamic Caliphate, 203, 206. See also Islamic late Middle Ages literature, 273
627, 634 civilization, medieval late Middle Ages painting, 281285, 284,
international style, in architecture, 586, Islamic civilization, medieval, 203224. See 285, 286
587, 594 also Islam late-sixteenth-century music, 378379
internationalism, 91 Abbasid dynasty, 207, 212, 215 Lombards in, 247248, 248
Internet, 634, 638, 662 architecture, 202, 208, 215220, 217, 219, map of states of, during the Renaissance,
The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud), 538 220, 221 CA. 1494, 296
interwar period. See modernism Ayyubid dynasty, 207208 medieval literature, 245246
Intolerance (Griffith), 588 calligraphy, 209, 215 nationalism and unification in, 498, 499
Investiture Controversy, 234 Christians and Jews in, 206, 215, 218 Ostrogoths in, 155, 179
Ionia, 39 Crusades and, 238 Papal States, 181, 234, 296, 299300
Ionic style, 7375, 74, 78 Dome of the Rock, 215216, 217 Pompeii and Herculaneum, 450
Iran. See also Persia education, 209, 210 romantic music, 522
founding of Islamic republic, 600, 634 fragmentation of the caliphate, 207208 Rome, 88, 103104, 106107, 155, 325
Parthia, 85 historians, 213 timeline of cultural styles, 331
Iraq. See also Baghdad, Iraq; Mesopotamia influence on European Renaissance, 300, timeline of Renaissance stages, 296
Baathist party rule, 600 300, 303 Itinerary (William of Rubruck), 238239
calligraphy from, 209 legacy of, 224 iwans, 220, 220
formation of, 563, 566 literature, 214215
Gulf War of 1991, 634 map, 204 Jackson, Michael, 662
U.S. invasion of, 635, 635 mathematics and astronomy, 212, 212 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Vzelay,
war with Iran, 634 medicine, 211, 211212, 213 France, 249, 249
Ireland, modernist literature in, 571, 572, mosques, 216220, 217, 219221 Jahangir, 431
609 music, 221222 James I (king of England), 386, 387, 426, 431
Irene (mother of Constantine VI), 178, 182 painting, 205, 210, 211, 220, 222, 223 James II (king of England), 386, 387
Iron Age, 7, 39, 41 philosophy, 212213 Jamil, 214
iron bridges, 466 post-Muhammad years, 206 Jamnia, Council at, 144
iron curtain, 598 raids on Europe, 183 Jane Eyre (Bront), 509510
iron law of wages, 468 science, 212, 212, 416 Janissaries, 390
iron plows, 200 Seljuk Turk empire, 207, 220 Jansenists, 425
iron weapons, 7, 17, 26 technology, 213214 Janus, 111
irrigation, 6, 8, 214 timeline, 207 Japan
Irving, Washington, 537 Umayyad dynasty, 207, 216, 218, 219, 222 during the baroque age, 431
Isabella (queen of Spain), 324 women in, 205 film in, 625, 657
Isaiah, 133 Islas, Andres de, 408 financial downturn in, 633
Isenheim Altarpiece (Grnewald), 362363, Isle of Iona, 180, 193 imperialism of, 532, 535, 565
363 isorhythm, 291 Meiji emperors, 532
Ishtar, 10 Israel. See also Jewish civilization in the 1930s, 565
Ishtar Gate, 28 Egypt and, 600, 601 postwar occupation of, 596
Isidore, Bishop of Seville, 186 founding of modern, 600, 601 Russo-Japanese War, 532 S
Isidore of Miletus, 156, 193 Israeli-Palestine conflict, 601, 634 trade with, 328, 532 N
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700 INDEX

Japan (continued) Johnson, Philip C., 622, 653, 654 kithara, 116
ukiyo-e woodblock prints, 532, 544545, joint-stock companies, 429 Klee, Paul, 560, 561, 583584
546, 547 The Joke (Kundera), 641 Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 (Mozart), 462
in World War II, 568569, 569, 570 Joplin, Scott, 557 Kneller, Godfrey, 421
Japonisme, 545 Joseph II (emperor of Austria), 445 Knight, Death, and the Devil (Drer), 362, 362
jazz, 557, 571, 591, 626 Josephus, Flavius, 135 Knighton, Henry, 268
Jeanne-Claude, 649, 649650 Josquin des Prez, 320, 350 knights, 228229, 260
Jeanneret, Charles-douard Le Joyce, James, 571 Knossos, palace of Minos at, 34, 35
Corbusier, 586, 587 Judah, kingdom of, 131, 133, 134 Koine, 89, 143
Jefferson, Thomas, 127, 127, 477, 478 Judaism. See also Israel; Jewish civilization Komar, Vitaly, 608
Jehan de Chelles, 255 Hebrew Bible, 136, 137, 140 Konrad von Altstetten Embracing His
Jehovah, 131 influence on Christianity, 143144 Beloved in the Springtime, 244
Jeremiah, 133 legacy of, 149 Koolhaas, Rem, 655657, 656
Jerome, 161162 Mosaic law, 130131 Koran (Quran), 205, 209, 209, 215
Jerusalem Zoroastrian influence on, 134, 144 kore (plural, korai), 51, 52, 53
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 153 Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Korean War, 599
in the Crusades, 238 Holofernes (Gentilseschi), 396, 397 kouros (plural, kouroi), 51, 51, 52
Dome of the Rock, 215216, 217 Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini), 625 Koyaanisqatsi, 658
Temple of Jerusalem, 122, 132, 133, 134, Julius Caesar, 107 Kritios, 75
134, 135, 136137 Julius II (pope), 322, 323, 337, 340, 349 Kritios Boy, 74, 75
Western Wall, 134 July Monarchy (France), 496 Kublai Khan, 239
Jesuits (Society of Jesus), 373, 373, 397, 398, July Revolution of 1830 (France), 496 Kubrick, Stanley, 659
602 Jung, Carl, 538 Kufic script, 209
Jesus Christ. See also Christianity; Roman Junius Bassus, sarcophagus of, 168 Kuhn, Thomas, 639
Catholic Church Juno, 111, 151 Kulturkampf, 539
as Good Shepherd, 146148, 147 Jurassic Park (Spielberg), 657 Kundera, Milan, 641
life of, 141143 jurisconsults (jurisprudentes), 160 kung fu, 658
Second Coming of, 170 Justinian, 155, 160, 172, 179 Kuomintang Party, 599
in the Trinity, 158 Juvenal, 115 Kurds, 207
Jeux deau (Ravel), 556 Kurosawa, Akira, 625, 657
Jewish civilization, 129140. See also Israel; Kaaba, 202, 204, 206, 214 Kutubiyya Minbar (Morocco), 211
Judaism Kadesh, battle at, 17, 26 Kuwait, 634
architecture, 136137, 138 Kafka, Franz, 541 Kyd, Thomas, 359
art and Second Commandment, 138139 Kahlo, Frida, 584, 584585 Kyoto Protocol, 639
Babylonian captivity, 27, 133134 Kaisersaal, the Residenz, Wrzburg kyrie, 258, 291
Diaspora, 133, 136 (Neumann), 449, 450
Exodus, 130131 Kamil, al-Malik, 237 The Lacemaker (Vermeer), 402, 404, 405
Hebrew Bible, 136, 137, 140 Kandinsky, Wassily, 551552, 553 Lader, Philip, 321
Hellenistic and Roman periods, 134136 Kant, Immanuel, 489 Lady Gaga, 353, 353
Holocaust, 570, 570, 577 Kapoor, Anish, 650, 650 laissez-faire economic system, 441, 463, 467,
Jewish Wars, 134136, 135 Kaprow, Allan, 623, 623 469, 496, 505, 562, 631
kingdom of Israel, 131, 132133 Karlowitz, Treaty of, 389, 474 land ownership, 8, 41
map of ancient Israel, 131 Kastura (Stella), 645, 646 landscape architecture
mosaics, 138139, 139, 141 Katherine von Bora, 369, 369 Kew Gardens, 455
origin of, 130 Kayser-I Rum, 327 Versailles Gardens, 400, 400, 405
Roman civilization and, 134136, 139, 141 U.S.S. Kearsage, 502 Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice
sculpture, 131, 132, 138 Kelly, Gene, 626 (Poussin), 400401, 401
Temple life, 132 Kempis, Thomas , 270 Lange, Dorothea, 565, 588
timeline, 130 Kennedy, John F., 606 Langland, William, 273
writings and scriptures, 133, 133 Kenwood House (Adam), 436, 437, 454 languages
Jewish Wars, 122, 134136, 135, 144 Kepler, Johannes, 419 Arabic, 214
Jews Kew Gardens (England), 455 Aramaic, 142143
in Alexandria, 88, 88 key, musical, 460 Biblical, 158
in High Middle Ages, 230, 232 keystones, 117 decoding, 639
Muslims and, 206, 215, 218 Khadija, 204 Koine, 89, 143
in World War II, 568, 569570, 570, 577 Khafre, 17, 20, 22 Latin, 112113, 144, 187188, 301, 392
jihad, 209210, 224, 601 Khafre, Pyramid of, 17, 20 Romance languages, 187188
jinn, 214 al-Khansa, 214 Syriac, 158, 159
Joan of Arc, 265266 Khludov Psalter, 179, 179 vernacular, 189, 243245, 263, 269
John (apostle), 141 Khrushchev, Nikita, 608, 641 Laocon (Hesse), 617, 619
John (king of England), 232, 265 Khufu, 17, 20 The Laocon Group (Hagesandros,
John Bull Botherdorthe Geese Alarming Khufu, Pyramid of, 17, 20 Polydoros, and Athanadoros), 99
the Capitol (Gillray), 473 al-Khwarizmi, 212 lapiths, 78, 79
John of Damascus, 185 Kiefer, Anselm, 643644, 645 The Large Glass (Duchamp), 582, 582583
John Paul II (pope), 149, 149, 640, 641 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 598, 604605, 640 las Casas, Bartolom de, 370
S John XXIII (pope), 603 Kingston, Maxine Hong, 642 The Last Judgment (Michelangelo), 338, 341,
N Johns, Jasper, 611, 612613, 614 Kitchener, H. H., 533 375
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INDEX 701

The Last Judgment, Notre Dame, Paris, 255 Latium, 104, 105 Liberty Leading the People (Delacroix), 488,
The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci), 334, Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 489 488489
334335 law codes libraries
The Last Supper (Tintoretto), 378, 379 Byzantine, 177 at Alexandria, 86, 8889
Late Antiquity, 151173. See also Catholic, 235236, 242 at Pergamum, 86
Christianity; Roman civilization common law, 233 Vatican Library, 299
Christian literature, 160163 Islamic, 210 Library (Photius), 184
legacy of, 173 Jewish, 130131, 136 librettos, 522
secular culture of, 159160 late Middle Ages, 267 Libya, 600, 635
timeline, 152 Mesopotamian, 8, 1112, 12 The Libyan Sibyl, 339
transformation of Roman Empire, 152159 Napoleonic, 469, 470, 473, 509 lied (plural lieder), 491, 523
visual arts, 163172 natural law, 124, 426, 441 Life magazine, 569, 588
late Gothic style Roman, 124125, 155, 160 The Life of the Emperor Charles (Einhard), 188
architecture, 270, 275278, 275280 The Law of War and Peace (Grotius), 426 Ligeti, Gyorgy, 659, 660
painting, 280291, 282291 Lawrence, Jacob, 573 Limbourg brothers, 280281, 282
sculpture, 278, 279, 280, 280, 281 Lawrence, Thomas Edward (Lawrence of Lin, Maya Ying, 648649, 649
late mannerism, 375379. See also Arabia), 566 Lincoln, Abraham, 500, 520, 520521
mannerism Lawrence at Aqaba [in modern Jordan], 566 Linear A, 34
Italian painting, 378, 379 Lawrence of Arabia (Lean), 566 Linear B, 37
music, 378379, 380 lay (literary genre), 244245 linear perspective, 305, 305, 306, 309, 311,
Spanish literature, 377378 lay piety, 236238, 269270 313314, 316
Spanish painting, 375377, 376, 377 Lazarillo de Tormes, 378 Linnaeus, Carl, 489
late Middle Ages, 263293. See also early Le Ntre, Andr, 31, 387, 400, 400 Lion Fountain at the Palace of John
Middle Ages; High Middle Ages Le Prince, Jean-Baptiste, 453 Hyrcanus, 138
architecture, 270, 275278, 275280 Le Vau, Louis, 387, 400 Lion Gate, Mycenae, 37
depopulation and rebellion in, 265 League of Nations, 563 literary genres, 19
Flemish painting, 285, 287, 287291, 288, Lean, David, 566 literature
289, 290 Lebrun, Charles, 382 African American, 512, 573574, 606607,
frescoes, 284285, 286 Lee, Ang, 658, 660 641642
illuminated manuscripts, 262, 265, 267, Lee, Bruce, 658 Age of Reason, 456459
274, 280281, 282 Lee, Spike, 657 baroque, 407409, 408, 432433
Italian painting, 281285, 284, 285, 286 legal codes. See law codes Bourgeois Age, 508512
late Gothic sculpture, 278, 279, 280, 280, Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 421 Byzantine, 184185
281 Leisure Time at the Bath, Medieval decadent, 539, 540541
legacy of, 293 Housebook, 281, 283 early Christian, 145, 160163
literature, 273275 leitmotifs, 522 early Middle Ages, 189
music, 291292 lekynthoi, 80 early modernism, 537
papal monarchy in, 266267 Lenin, V. I., 567, 579 Egyptian, 19
plague, famine and war, 264265, 265 Leo I (pope), 158 expressionism, 539, 541
prints, 281, 283 Leo III, Emperor, 177, 178, 185 Greek, 4445
religion, 269270, 271 Leo III (pope), 182, 198 Hellenistic, 8991
science, 272273 Leo X (pope), 368 High Renaissance, 331334
sculpture, 278, 279, 280, 280, 281 Leonardo da Vinci Islamic, 214215
secular monarchies in, 265266 The Last Supper, 334, 334335 late mannerism, 377378
technology, 267269 Men Struggling to Move a Large Cannon, late Middle Ages, 273275
theology, 271272 329 late modernism, 606610
timeline, 266 Mona Lisa, 335, 335336 Latin, 112115, 145, 301
women in, 263, 268, 274275 as Renaissance man, 317 Mesopotamian, 8, 1011, 11
late modernism, 595627. See also Age of Salvador Mundi, 353 modernism, 571575
Anxiety; early modernism; modernism; science and medicine, 329 naturalism, 539540
postmodernism The Virgin of the Rocks, xxvi, xxvi, 317318, neoclassicism, 456459, 476
abstract expressionism, 610613, 611615 318, 335 northern humanism, 356357
architecture, 594, 595, 621623, 622 weapon design, 330 northern Renaissance, 358361
dates of, 601 LePage, Robert, 413 postmodern, 640643
film, 624626, 625 Lepanto, Battle of, 327 realism in, 508509, 511512
happenings, 619, 621, 623, 623 Lespinasse, Julie de, 444 romanticism, 480481, 509511
legacy of, 627 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 504 vernacular, 189, 243245, 273
literature, 606610 Lessing, Doris, 607608 lithographs, 517, 517
mass culture, 601 leve en masse, 472 Little Fugue (Bach), 411
music, 623624 The Leviathan (Hobbes), 426427, 427 liturgical drama, 259
philosophy and religion, 602603 Lvi-Strauss, Claude, 603 liturgy, Christian, 144
sculpture, 615619, 617620 Lewis, Lawrence, 463 Liudprand of Cremona, 188189, 200
timeline, 597 lex talionis, 12 The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Suetonius),
lateen sails, 200 Leyster, Judith, 404, 405 188
Latin, 113, 115, 144, 182, 187188, 301, 319, Libation Bearers (Aeschylus), 64 Livy, 114, 115
392 liberalism, 428, 496498, 504505, 530 Loading the Wild Animals (mosaic), 169 S
Latin Averroists, 241242, 271 liberation theology, 640 local color, 540 N
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702 INDEX

Locke, John, 427429, 456, 468 Maalouf, Amin, 661 manuscript illumination. See illuminated
loggia, 307 Maccabean family, 134 manuscripts
logical positivism, 575 Macedonia, 6061, 84, 86, 106 Mao Zedong, 599
logos, 94, 145 Machaut, Guillaume de, 291292 maps
Lollards, 268, 270 Machiavelli, Niccol, 332, 333334, 353 Aegean world, 479 BCE, 35
Lombard, Peter, 241 Machiavellianism, 334 ancient Alexandria, 88
Lombard arcades, 247248, 248 machine guns, 571 ancient Israel, 131
Lombard bands, 247, 248 Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 511 ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, 7
Lombards, 176, 181, 247248, 248 Madame Matisse (The Green Line) (Matisse), Athenian empire, 432 BCE, 59
Longing for Home (Alcaeus), 46 551, 551 Black Death, 264
Look Back in Anger (Osborne), 609610 Madame Rivire (Ingres), 477, 477 Carolingian Empire, the British Isles, and
Lords John and Bernard Stuart (Van Dyck), Madden, John, 381, 657 the Treaty of Verdun, 180
405, 406 Maderno, Carlo, 392, 393 early Christian world, 143
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), 261 Madonna, 662 early medieval Byzantium, 177
Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 230 Madonna and Child with Angels (Memling), Europe after the Congress of Vienna,
Lorsch Gospels, 196, 197 288, 289, 291 1815, 497
lost generation, 572 Madonna Enthroned (Cimabue), 282283, 284 Europe after World War I, 564
Louis I (Carolingian Emperor), 182 Madonna Enthroned (Giotto), 283284, 285 Europe at the height of Napoleons power,
Louis IX (king of France) (Saint Louis), 231, Madonna of Humility (Raphael), 342, 343 18101811, 471
238 Madonna with the Long Neck (Parmigianino), Europe from 17631789, 438
Louis XIII (king of France), 386, 399, 408 344, 345 Europe in 1714, 384
Louis XIV at the Royal Academy of Science madrasas, 209, 210, 220 Europe in 1871, 500
(Goyton), 433 madrigals (songs), 379 Europe in 1955, 598
Louis XIV (king of France) madrigals (verse form), 332 Europe in 2012, 630
absolutism of, 385, 386, 413, 426 maenads, 58 Europe on the eve of World War I, 536
baroque literature under, 408409 Magalhaes, Fernao de (Ferdinand European empire of Charles V, ca. 1556,
baroque opera under, 410 Magellan), 329 326
cultural life and, 392, 447 Maggies Ponytail (Rothenberg), 644, 644 European trading routes and towns
French Academy of Science, 432, 433 magic realism, 641 in 1300, 231
palace of Versailles, 384, 386, 387, 391, The Magic Mountain (Mann), 572 expansion of Europe, 1715, 430
399400 Magna Carta, 232 Hellenistic successor states, 85
wars of, 388 Magna Graecia, 40, 72, 104, 105 imperialism in Africa, 534
Louis XIV (Rigaud), 385 magnitudo animi, 110 imperialism in Asia, 535
Louis XV (king of France), 443444, 447, Magyars, 183, 233 Islamic civilization from 622750, 204
448 Mahfouz, Naguib, 642 Italy before the Romans, 105
Louis XVI (king of France), 444, 451, 469 Mahmud II (Ottoman Sultan), 474 Italy during the Renaissance, CA 1494,
Louis XVIII (king of France), 473 Maison Carre (Nmes), 117, 118, 477 296
Louis Philippe (king of France), 474, 488, Malatesta, Sigismondo, 304, 309 religious situation in Europe in 1560,
496, 517 Malcolm X, 604 367
Loutherbourg, Philip Jacques de, 479 Malevich, Kasimir, 579, 580 Roman Empire, fourth-century, 154
Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum (Nouvel), 593 Mali, 220, 221 Roman Empire in the time of Hadrian
Louvre Pyramid, Paris, 31 Mallarm, Stphane, 556 (117138), 108
Loyola, Saint Ignatius, 373, 373, 397, 398 Malpighi, Marcello, 422 Roman West ca. 500, 155
Lucas, George, 657 Malthus, Thomas, 467468 Silk Road, 184
Luce, Henry, 588 Mamelukes, 208 maqamah genre, 215
Lucretius, 113 Man with a Hat (Picasso), 551, 552 Maqamat (The Assemblies of al-Hariri), 215,
Ludovisi Throne, 75, 75 Manao Tupapau: The Spirit of the Dead 220
Ludwig van Beethoven (Waldmller), 490 Watching (Gauguin), 549, 549 Marat, Jean-Paul, 476, 476477
Luhrmann, Baz, 657658 Manchuria, Japanese invasion of, 565 March of the Legions, Arch of Titus, 122
Luke (apostle), 141, 142 Manet, douard, 502, 508, 518520, 519 Marco Polo, 239
Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 410 Manetho, 16 Marco Polo (Tan Dun), 660
luminism, 513, 515 Manichaeism, 238 Marcus, son of Cicero, 114
The Lusiads (Cames), 328, 329 Mann, Thomas, 572 Marcus Aurelius, 107, 116, 123, 124, 160
Lutero, Giovanni di (Dosso Dossi), 352 mannerism. See also late mannerism Marguerite of Navarre (Marguerite of
lutes, 222, 259, 380 architecture, 350, 351 Angoulme), 356
Luther, Martin, 326, 357, 367369, 368 legacy of, 353 Maria Theresa (empress of Austria), 445
Lutheranism, 367, 368369, 440 literature, 332 Marie Antoinette and Her Children (Vige-
Lydian mode, 66 painting, 338, 341, 344, 345 Lebrun), 447, 448
Lyell, Charles, 506 sculpture, 348, 348 Marie de Champagne, 244
lyre, 45, 66, 116 style of, 323, 331 Marie de France, 244245
Lyre, from Sumeria, 14 timeline, 331 Mark (apostle), 141, 142
lyric poetry, 45, 46 manners, Renaissance, 332333 Marlowe, Christopher, 359
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth), 480 Mansfield, Lord (William Murray), 437 Mrquez, Gabriel Garca, 641
Lysippos, 56, 57 mantle (Hamilton), 651, 651 marriage
Lysistrata (Aristophanes), 66 Manuel Chrysoloras Teaching Greek in early Middle Ages, 188
S Lytton, Constance, 531 Florence (Uccello), 272 Greek Hellenic Age, 71
N
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INDEX 703

Hellenistic Age, 87 medicine meaning of term, 7


Mesopotamia, 8 baroque, 421422, 422 Medes, 27
Marriage la Mode (Hogarth), 449450, 450 Egyptian, 20 religion, 910, 12
The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), 462 Greek Classical, 7072 science, 1213
La Marsaillaise (Rude), 498 High Middle Ages, 242243 timeline, 8
Martin, Judith, 353 High Renaissance, 330 writing, 6, 9
Martin Luther (Lucas Cranach the Elder), Islamic, 211, 211212, 213 Messiah, 133
368 late modernism, 606 Messiah (Handel), 411412
Martin V (pope), 267 Mesopotamian, 1213 metalworking
Martins, Peter, 659 modernism, 578, 593 in Archaic Greece, 4142
Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (Titian), 344, 344 nineteenth-century, 507 in the Bronze Age, 6
Marx, Karl, 456, 490, 505, 506, 567 northern Renaissance, 358, 359 in Mycenaean civilization, 38, 38
Marxism, 505, 506, 525 postmodern, 637, 637638 Metamorphoses (Transformations) (Ovid), 115
Mary II (queen of England), 386, 387388 Roman, 159160 Metamorphosis (Kafka), 541
Mary Magdalene, 145, 248 Medieval Housebook, 281, 283 metaphysical change, 68
Masaccio, 306, 313315, 314 medieval period. See early Middle Ages; Metaphysics (Aristotle), 242
Masada, Israel, 134, 135, 138139, 139 High Middle Ages; late Middle Ages Methodism, 440, 506
Masina, Giulietta, 625 Medina, 206 metopes, 49, 50, 78, 79
Masjid-i Jami, Isfahan, 220, 220 Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), 116 Mexican painting, 584, 584585
Mask of Agamemnon, 38, 38 The Meeting, or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet Mexican poetry, 408, 408
Masnavi-ye Manavi (Rumi), 214, 215 (Courbet), 514515, 516, 644 Mexico City (New Spain), 373374
mass culture, 570571, 588, 593, 601, The Meeting, or Have a Nice Day, Mr. mezzotints, 452453
662, 663. See also modernism; Hockney (Blake), 644, 646 Miaphysitism, 158
postmodernism Mehmed V (sultan of Ottoman Empire), Michelangelo Buonarroti
Mass Ordinary, 292 536 The Creation of Adam, 338, 340
Massacre at Chios (Delacroix), 474, 475 Mehmet II (Bellini), 300, 300 David, 346348, 347
masses, 319, 319320, 350352 Mehmet II (Ottoman emperor), 300, 300, Dying Slave, 322, 323
Master of the Cit des Dames, Christine de 327 on Ghibertis doors, 313
Pizan presenting her book to Queen Mehmet the Conqueror, 208 The Last Judgment, 338, 341, 375
Isabeau of Bavaria, 262, 263 Meiji emperors, 532 The Libyan Sibyl, 339
materialists, 47, 67 Melamid, Aleksander, 608 Piet, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence,
mathematical perspective, 263, 272, 313 melismas, 259 348, 348
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Mellon, Andrew, 343 Piet, St. Peters, Rome, 344345, 345
(Newton), 421 Memling, Hans, 288, 289, 291 poetry of, 331332
mathematics Memoires (Marco Polo), 239 as Renaissance man, 332, 336
baroque, 421, 424, 425 Men Struggling to Move a Large Cannon Sistine Chapel ceiling, 336338, 337338
Egyptian, 19 (Leonardo), 329 St. Peters cathedral dome (Rome), 349,
Greek, 47, 55, 69 Menander, 8990 350
Hellenistic, 95 Mendel, Gregor Johann, 541542 Mickey Mouse, 571
Islamic, 212 Mendeleev, Dmitri, 507 microchip industry, 638
Mesopotamian, 12, 31 Menes, 16, 18 micropolyphony, 659
Mathews Band, Lockport, Louisiana, 557 Las Meninas (Nottage), 413 microscopes, 418, 422
Matisse, Henri, 551, 551, 585, 585 Las Meninas (Velquez), 397399, 398 microtones, 221
matriarchal religion, 34 Menkure, 17, 20, 22, 23 Middle Ages. See early Middle Ages; High
Matthew (apostle), 141, 142 Menkure, Pyramid of, 17, 20, 22 Middle Ages; late Middle Ages
Maurice (Byzantine emperor), 185 menorahs, 131, 140 middle class, 442, 463, 479. See also Age of
Maxentius, 153 mercantilism, 386, 413, 441, 466467 the Bourgeoisie
Maximilian with His Musicians (Burgkmair), Merian, Maria Sibylla, 417 Middlemarch (Eliot), 511512
380 Merici, Angela, 372373 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 621623, 622,
Maximus the Confessor, 185 Merisi, Michelangelo (Caravaggio), 653
Mazarin, Cardinal, 386 394396, 396 Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (Lange),
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 499 Merovingian family, 181 565
Mecca, Great Mosque of, 202, 203 Mesolithic period, 5, 6 Migration Series, No. 58 (Lawrence), 573
Mecca, pilgrimages to, 202, 203, 204, 206, Mesopotamia migrations, 635636
209 agriculture, 56, 8 Milan, Italy, 296, 300
mechanical engineering, 214 art and architecture, 1315, 14 Milesian school of philosophy, 47, 67
Mechthild of Magdeburg, 237 Assyrians, 2627, 27 Milestones (Qutb), 601
medallions, 164 British control after World War I, 563 military conscription, 472
Medes, 27 bronze technology, 6 The Militia Company of Captain Frans
Medici, Cosimo de, 298, 299, 303, 309, 315 domestic life, 67, 8 Banning Cocq (Rembrandt), 402, 403
Medici, Giovanni di Bicci de, 298 Hittites, 1617 Mill, John Stuart, 504505
Medici, Giuliano, 298 kingdoms in, 89 Miller, Arthur, 609, 627
Medici, Lorenzo (the Magnificent), 298, 336 law codes, 8, 1112, 12 Millet, Jean-Franois, 517, 518
Medici, Marie de, 399, 399 legacy of, 2631, 27, 28, 29 millet system, 208
Medici, Piero de, 298 literature, 8, 1011, 11 Milton, John, 409
Medici family, 298, 333 map, 7 minarets, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221 S
N
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mat76655_Index_685-720.indd 703 11/28/12 1:05 PM


704 INDEX

minbars, 211, 218 Cistercian order, 236 multinational corporations, 638


miniatures. See also illuminated Clunaic order, 235, 236, 247, 248, 248 mummies, 20
manuscripts in the Counter-Reformation, 372373 Munch, Edvard, 542
baroque age, 431 in early Christianity, 158 Muqaddima (Ibn Khaldun), 213
Carolingian, 196 early Middle Ages, 182 murals. See frescoes
Indian, 431 eremitic and cenobitic, 178 Murat III, 642
Persian, 220, 222, 223 High Middle Ages, 236238 Murray, William, 437
Renaissance, 319 Luthers opposition to, 369 musamarah, 215
Roman, 167, 168 Mondrian, Piet, 579, 581 Muse Melpomene (or Polyhymnia), 89
minimalism, 617, 647649, 658 Monet, Claude, 526, 527, 543 muses, 42, 89
mining, 6, 502 Mongols, 207, 220, 238 Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar (Pei),
Minoans, 3437, 35, 36, 3839 Monk by the Sea (Friedrich), 484, 485 653, 654
Minos, 34, 35 monody, 45 Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New
minstrels, 244 Monogram (Rauschenberg), 613, 615 York City, 573, 610
minuet and trio, 462 monophony, 200 music
Miramax Films, 657 monotheism, 131 baroque, 409412, 410
The Misanthrope (Molire), 409 Monroe, Marilyn, 627 Classical Greek, 66
The Miser (Molire), 409 Monsters of Grace (Glass), 659 classical style, 460462, 461
Les Misrables (Hugo), 509 Mont Sainte-Victoire (Czanne), 548, 549 early Christian, 163
Miss Manners, 353 montage technique, 588 early Middle Ages, 200, 201
Missa Christus resurgens (Willaert), 351352 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 459 early modernism, 555557, 557
missionaries Montaigne, Michel de, 358359, 381 early Renaissance, 319, 319320
in the Counter-Reformation, 373 Monte Cassino, 186 globalization of popular, 624, 624
in the High Middle Ages, 236237 Montesquieu, Baron de, 439, 455456, 457, High Middle Ages, 257259, 259
in New Spain, 370, 373374, 374 468 High Renaissance, 350352
Mistress and Maid (Achilles Painter), 80, 80 Monteverdi, Claudio, 410 Islamic, 221222
Mithra, 144 Monticello (Jefferson), 477, 478 late Middle Ages, 291292
Mnesicles, 74, 7475 mood, musical, 460 late modern, 623624
modernism, 561593. See also early Mood Indigo (Ellington), 591 in late-sixteenth-century Italy and
modernism; late modernism moon landing, 606, 607 England, 378379, 380
abstract painting, 551552, 553, 579581, Moore, Henry, 615616, 617 modernism, xxxiixxxiii, 589591, 590
580, 581 Moral Letters (Seneca), 115 notation, 200, 201
architecture, 585586, 587 moralisme, 359 postmodern, 658660
civil disobedience in British India, 565566 Moravian Brethren, 270, 440 rococo, 459460
documentary photography, 588 More, Thomas, 357 Roman, 116, 163
expressionist painting, 585, 585, 586 Morisot, Berthe, 543544, 546 romantic, 490, 490491, 521523, 523
film, 571, 588589, 589 Morris, Ian, 593 Music and Her Attendants, 291
Great Depression and, 564565, 565 Morrison, Toni, 642 music dramas, 522
legacy of, 593 mortar, in Roman architecture, 116 musical instruments
literature, 571575 mosaics baroque, 410, 411
mass culture, 570571, 593 Byzantine, 191, 191 Classical, 462
medicine, 578 Christian, 161, 170 Greek, 45, 66
music, 589591, 590 Jewish, 138139, 139 High Middle Ages, 259, 259
Ottoman Empire, end of and, 566567 Roman, 124, 126, 161, 169171, 169172 High Renaissance, 351, 352, 352
philosophy, 575 Moschus, John, 184 Islamic, 222
photography, 588 Moses, 130131, 140, 251, 281 late Middle Ages, 287, 291
rise of totalitarianism, 567568, 568 Moses Expounding the Law of the Unclean late-sixteenth-century, 380
science, 575578 Beasts, Bury Bible, 251 Mesopotamian, 14, 14
surrealist painting, 583, 583 Moses Giving Water to the Twelve Tribes of modern, 591
timeline, 578 Israel, 140 postmodern, 658, 659
warfare, 571 mosques, 216220, 217, 219221 rococo, 460
World War I and, 562564 motets, 259, 320, 350 Roman, 116
World War II and, 568570, 569, 570 Moulin Rouge (Luhrmann), 657658 musicals, 571, 626
modes, 66 Mount Athos (Greece), 178, 178 muskets, 391
Mogul Empire, 430 movies. See film Muslim, meaning of, 203. See also Islam;
Molire (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 409 Mozarabs, 218 Islamic civilization, medieval
MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), New Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 461462 Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), 567, 601, 635
York City, 573, 610 Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse (Reynolds), Mussolini, Benito, 567568
Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci), 335, 443 My Faust (Stations): Religion (Paik), 652
335336 al-Muallaqat, 214 My Faust-Channel 5-Nationalism (Paik), 636
monarchies, Bodin on, 358. See also Muawiyah, 206 My Name Is Red (Pamuk), 321, 642643
absolutism Muenster, Treaty of, 389 My Week With Marilyn (Curtis), 627
monasticism muezzins, 218 Mycenaean civilization, 34, 35, 36, 37, 3739
Albigensian sect, 238 Muhammad, the Prophet, 204, 206 mystery cults, Hellenistic, 43, 94, 144
beguines and beghards, 236238 Muhammad Ali, 536 mystery plays, 259
S Benedictine order, 186, 201, 236 Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (Shah of myth of Aryan supremacy, 577
N Byzantine, 177178 Iran), 600 myths, 3637
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INDEX 705

NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Neolithic period, 56, 7, 16 Nixon, Richard, 630
Association), 634 neoorthodoxy, 602 Nixon in China (Adams), 659
Nana (Zola), 539 neoplatonism Nkrumah, Kwame, 600
Nanna, 10, 15, 15 Byzantine, 185 No Exit (Sartre), 606
nanotechnology, 638 in early Christianity, 144, 162 No Name in the Street (Baldwin), 607
Naples (Italy), 296, 300 Renaissance, 303, 337, 338 nominalism, 241, 271
Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I), 470, Roman, 159 nonconformity, in Romanticism, 479
470471, 472, 474 Scientific Revolution and, 417418 nonviolence, 565, 604605
Napoleon I (Ingres), 470 neorealism (postwar film movement), 625, North and South (Gaskell), 511
Napoleon III (emperor of France), 498, 499, 643 North Atlantic Free Trade Association
509, 518 neoromantic music, 659 (NAFTA), 634
Napoleonic Code, 469, 470, 473, 509 Nero, 115, 119 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
naqqara, 222 Netherlands. See also Flemish painting (NATO), 598, 632
Narni, Erasmo da, 294, 295 abstract painting, 579, 581 North German Confederation, 499
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Asian colonies of, 535, 536 northern humanism, 356357, 381
(Douglass), 512 expansion of, 430, 431, 432 northern Renaissance, 357381
narthex, 246247 Franks in, 181 legacy of, 381
Nasser, Gamal, Abdul, 600 invasion by Philip II, 375 literature and theater, 358361, 360
National Association for the Advancement northern humanism, 356357 painting, 354, 359, 361366, 362366, 368,
of Colored People, 573 northern Renaissance, 364, 364366, 365, 369, 371374
National Association of Evangelicals, 640 366 thought and science, 357358
National Constituent Assembly (France), restrained baroque painting, 392, Norway, early modernism in, 540, 542
469 401406, 403406 Not I (Beckett), 609
National Indian Congress, 565 Thirty Years War and, 388 Notes from Underground (Dostoyevsky), 512
National Organization for Women (NOW), trade with Japan, 431 Notre Dame cathedral (Paris), 251254,
603 Neumann, Balthasar, 449, 450 253255
National Socialists (Nazis), 568, 568, 577, neumes, 200 Notre Dame Mass (Machaut), 291292
588 Nevelson, Louise, 616, 617, 618 Nottage, Lynn, 413
nationalism new atheists, 293 Nouvel, Jean, 593
in Italy, 498, 499 New Comedy, 8991 Nouvelle Vague (French postwar film
in Prussia, 499 New Deal program, 565, 588 movement), 625
revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 496, 497 new global order. See also globalization novels. See also literature
romanticism and, 479 developments in, 630631 Age of Reason, 458459
Native Americans, 370, 373374, 429, 431 fall of communism, 631633 modernism, 539541, 541, 571572, 574
Native Son (Wright), 606 post-Cold War world, 631, 633634 neoclassical, 475, 476
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty New Spain, 328, 370, 373374, 374 romantic, 509511
Organization), 598, 632 New Stone Age (Neolithic period), 56, Spanish picaresque, 378
natural law, doctrine of, 124, 426, 441 6, 16 Nubia, 16, 159
natural philosophy, 4749, 67 New Testament, 142143, 143 nuclear power, 605606, 627
naturalism, 275, 539540 New Wave films, 625 nuclear weapons, 569, 577
nave, 165, 165, 226, 253, 254, 257 new world order, 594, 596598, 633. See Nude on a Sofa (Boucher), 447
navigation, 328329 also new global order numerology, 245246
Nazi Party, 568, 568, 577, 588 New York City terrorist attacks, 628, 629, Nuremburg Nazi Party Rally, 568
Nebamun Hunting Birds, 25, 25 634, 642
Nebuchadnezzar, 27, 28 New York Kouros, 51, 51 O Pastor Animarum (Hildegard of Bingen),
needle guns, 502 New York Metropolitan Opera, 413, 413 258259
Nefertiti, 22, 24, 24 newspapers, 588, 589 Oath of the Horatii (David), 451, 451452
Nefrusobk, 18 Newton, Isaac, 415, 419, 421, 421 Obama, Barack, 635
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Hughes), Nicaea, Council at, 158, 178 Ockhams razor, 272
573 Nicholas I (czar of Russia), 343 Octavian (Augustus), 107109, 108, 114115,
Neo-Babylonians, 27, 28 Nicholas II (czar of Russia), 532 119120, 121, 121, 122
neoclassicism Nicholas V (pope), 299 Octavianus, Gaius Julius Caesar, 107
architecture, 55, 436, 437, 453455, 454, Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 70 oculus, 119, 119, 127
463, 477, 478 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 381, 537538, 602 Ode to Joy (Schiller), 491
in the Hellenistic world, 100 Night (Wiesel), 577 Odo of Metz, 199
literature, 456459, 475, 476 The Night Journey of Muhammad, 223 Odyssey (Homer), 37, 4445, 114
music, 590 The Night of the Iguana (Williams), 610 Oeconomicus (Xenophon), 71
neoclassical style, 450451, 474476 The Night Watch (Rembrandt), 402, 403 Oedipus at Colonnus (Sophocles), 65
painting after 1830, 513, 513 nihilism, 639 Oedipus the King (Sophocles), 65
painting before 1830, 451452, 451453, The Nike of Samothrace, 97, 98 Of Grammatology (Derrida), 639
476, 476477, 477 Nile River valley. See Egypt Offa of Mercia, 180
postmodern, 643, 645 9/11 terrorist attacks, 628, 629, 634, 642 Office for Metropolitan Architecture
prints, 452453, 453 1984 (Orwell), 572 (OMA), 655
sculpture, 81, 457 Ninety-five Theses (Luther), 368, 369 oil, 502, 567, 600, 630
in the United States, 55, 81, 463, 463, 477, Ninhursag, 10 OKeeffe, Georgia, xxxii, 581, 581
478 Ninth Symphony (Beethoven), 491 Old Comedy, 65 S
neoexpressionism, 643644 Nitiqret, 18 Old Market Woman, 82 N
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706 INDEX

Old St. Peters Basilica, Rome, 165, 165 Osborne, John, 609610 postimpressionism, 545, 547, 547550,
Old Stone Age (Paleolithic period), 4, 4, 6 Osiris, 94 548, 549, 550
Old Testament, 136, 137, 142, 158 Osiris and Isis (Kiefer), 645 postmodern, 643647, 644647
Oldenburg, Claes, 617, 619, 620 Osman, 208 realism, 494, 495, 507, 514520, 516519
oligarchies, 40 Ostrogoths, 155, 179 restrained baroque, 401405, 403406
Oliver Twist (Dickens), 511 Otto I, 183, 188, 200 rococo, 443, 446448, 446448
Olympia (Manet), 518520, 519 Otto III, 197198, 198 Roman, 124, 125, 126, 168
Olympian deities, 4243 Ottoman Empire romantic English, 481483, 482484, 501
Olympias, 87 Austrian-Turkish Wars, 388389 romantic French, 474, 475, 479, 487,
Olympieum (Athens), 96, 96 conquest of Constantinople, 265, 300, 303, 487489, 488, 513, 514
OMA (Office for Metropolitan 327 romantic German, 483485, 484
Architecture), 655 decline of, 389390, 533534, 536537 romantic Spanish, 485, 485487, 486
Omdurman, battle of, 533 end of, 563, 566 surrealism, 583, 583
Omeros (Walcott), 643 European imperialism and, 536537 Pakistan, formation of, 599
On Ceremonies (Constantine VII in the High Renaissance, 327, 327 Palace Chapel (Aachen), 198, 198, 199
Porphyrogenitus), 185 in the late Middle Ages, 265, 266 Palace of John Hyrcanus, 137, 138, 138
On Germany (de Stal), 480 revolution/reaction period, 474 Paleolithic period, 4, 4, 6
On Liberty (Mill), 504505 rise of, 208, 327 Palestine, 134, 601, 634
On the Administration of the Empire Turkey, emergence of, 566567 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
(Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus), 185 wars with Europe, 17001830, 474, 479 601
On the Cures of Women (Trota), 243 Ovid, 114, 115 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi, 378
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), Owen, Robert, 505 Palladio (Andrea di Pietro), 349350, 351,
511 477
On the Motion of Mars (Kepler), 419 Pachomius, 158 Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (Richardson),
On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 506 pacifism, 512 458
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Padua, Italy, 294, 296 Pamuk, Orhan, 321, 642
(Solzhenitsyn), 608 Pagoda, Kew Gardens (Chambers), 455 Panathenaea festival, 79
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Mrquez), Paik, Nam June, 636, 652 pandore, 222
641 painkillers, 507, 578 Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No, 4
online social networks, 638 The Painter and the Connoisseur (Bruegel the (Kandinsky), 552, 553
op art, 615 Elder), 365, 365366 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 529
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum painting. See also frescoes; vase painting Panofsky, Erwin, 295
Exporting Countries), 630 abstract, 551552, 553, 579581, 580, 581 pantheistic religions, 10, 480
Open City (Rosselini), 625 abstract expressionism, 610613, 611615 Pantheon, Paris (Soufflot), 454, 454455
Opening of the Mouth, funerary papyrus art nouveau, 541 Pantheon, Rome, 117119, 118, 119, 127
of Hunefer, 24 Byzantine, 190192, 190192 pantomimes, 116
opera classical baroque, 385, 400401, 401 papacy. See also Roman Catholic Church
baroque, 410, 411 cubism, 551 Avignon papacy, 266, 267
classical, 461, 461, 462 early Christian, 145148, 148 corruption in, 366367
postmodern, 658659, 660 early Middle Ages, 192, 193, 195, 196, Counter-Reformation and, 372
rococo, 460 196198, 197, 198 Donation of Constantine forgery,
romantic, 521522 early Renaissance, 311, 313319, 314319 301302
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 577 Egyptian, 24, 2425, 25 in the early Renaissance, 299300
Optimates, 107 Etruscan, 104, 105 Investiture Controversy, 234
Orange and Yellow (Rothko), 613 expressionism, 560, 585, 585, 586 papal infallibility, 506
Oration on the Dignity of Man (Pico della fauvism, 551 papal monarchy, 234235, 266
Mirandola), 303 florid baroque, 394399, 396399, 420 Vatican II, 603, 640
oratorios, 411412 Greek Hellenic, 80, 80 papal infallibility, 506
orchestra, in theaters, 63 High Gothic, 256, 258 papal monarchy, 234235, 266267
Ordo Virtuum (Hildegard of Bingen), 236, High Middle Ages, 228, 230, 235, 236, 237, Papal States, 181, 234, 296, 299300
258 239, 251, 258 papermaking
Oresme, Nicholas, 273 High Renaissance, 325, 327, 333345, in China, 213
Oresteia (Aeschylus), 6364 334344 in the High Middle Ages, 260
Orestes Slaying Aegisthus (vase), 64 impressionism, 518520, 519, 526, 527, 529, in the Islamic civilization, 213
Orfeo (Monteverdi), 410 543545, 544546 late Middle Ages, 269
Organ Fugue in G Minor (Bach), 411 Islamic, 205, 210, 211, 220, 222, 223 papyrus, 6, 17
organ transplants, 637 late Gothic, 280291, 282291 parchment, 101
Organization of Petroleum Exporting late mannerism, 375377, 376, 377, 378, papyrus, 6, 17
Countries (OPEC), 630 379, 380 paradigm shift, 639
organum, 259 late Middle Ages, 262, 265, 267, 271 Paradise Lost (Milton), 409
Orientalism, 537, 585, 585 mannerist, 338, 341, 344, 345 parchment, 101
Origen of Alexandria, 145, 161 Minoan, 34, 36 Paris Psalter, 192, 192
Origins (Maalouf), 661 neoclassicism, 451452, 451453, 476, Paris Salon, 444, 450451, 452, 475, 477, 482,
Oroonoko (Behn), 409 476477, 477, 513, 513 507
Orpheus, 94, 147 northern Renaissance, 354, 359, 361366, Salon des Refuss, 518
S Orthodox Christianity, 178179, 201 362366, 368, 369, 371374 Salon of 1841, 517
N Orwell, George, 572 Paleolithic, 4, 5 Salon of 1855, 514515
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INDEX 707

Salon of 1857, 517 Attalus I, 9798 nineteenth-century, 510511


Salon of 1865, 518 emergence of, 86 northern Renaissance, 357358
The Parking Garage (Segal), 617, 620 Galen, 145, 160, 242, 358, 421422 postmodern, 639640
Parks, Rosa, 598 library at, 86 Roman, 115116, 159
Parliament, English, 233, 266, 387, 444, 466, parchment in, 101 romanticism, 489490
498499, 499, 514 Roman conquest, 106 Scientific Revolution and, 424, 424425
Parmenides, 67 Pergolesi, 590 Phoenicians, 9, 10, 106
Parmigianino, 344, 345 Pericles, 60, 60 phonograms, 9
Parthenon (Athens) (Ictinus and Periphyseon (Eriugena), 189 Photius, 184185, 191
Callicrates), 62, 72, 73, 73, 76, 78, 79 peristyle, 163, 164 photography, 520, 520521, 521, 525, 588,
Pascal, Blaise, 425 Perpendicular style, 275276, 276 593. See also film
Paschal I (pope), 191, 191 Persephone, 43 photojournalism, 569, 588
Paschal Song (Sedulius), 163 Persepolis, 28, 29, 30 photomontage, 574
passion narratives, 162163 Persia. See also Iran Phrygian mode, 66
Passover, 144 Abbasid dynasty and, 207 physics, 416, 421, 425, 542, 575577
Pasteur, Louis, 507 Alexander in, 61 Physiocrats, 441, 466
The Pastoral Care (Gregory I), 186 Byzantine Empire and, 176 pianissimos, 522
The Pastoral Rule (Gregory I), 182 Persian Empire, 2730, 28, 29, 41, 59, 152 piano, 556
pastorals, 90 Persian Wars, 41, 133 Piano, Renzo, 653, 654
Pater patriac, 298 Persian Letters (Montesquieu), 457 pianofortes, 460
paterfamilias, 107, 110, 160 Persian miniatures, 220, 222, 223 picaresque novel, 378
Paternal Love (Aubry), 442 The Persistence of Memory, 583, 583 Picasso, Pablo
patriarch of Constantinople, 177 perspective, 24, 124 cubism and, 551
Patrician with Busts of Ancestors, 110 atmospheric, 305, 306, 316 Les Demoiselles dAvignon, xxvi, xxvii, 551,
patricians, 104, 106 by Giotto, 282, 283, 286 552
patronage, 111 linear, 305, 305, 306, 309, 311, 313314, 316 Guernica, 562, 579
patrons of the arts, 301, 331, 340 mathematical, 263, 272, 313 Man with a Hat, 551, 552
Paul (apostle), 142, 144 Perugino, Pietro, 305, 305 Stravinsky, 590
Paul III (pope), 372, 373, 418 Peter (apostle), 142, 144, 158, 165 Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir), 657
Paul V (pope), 166, 393 Peter the Great (czar of Russia), 445 Pico della Mirandola, 303
Paulinus of Nola, 163 Petrarch, Francesco, 273, 301 pictograms, 9, 9
Pax Romana, 109 Petrine Idea, 158 The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde), 540
Paxton, Joseph, 503 Petrine Text, 305 Piedmont-Sardinia, 499
Pazzi Chapel, Florence (Brunelleschi), 307, Phaedo (Plato), 68, 452 Pierrot lunaire (Schoenberg), 556
307308, 308 Phdre (Racine), 408409, 460 Piet (Giotto), 286
Peace and Truce of God, 229, 238 The Phenomenon of Man (Teilhard de Piet, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence
Peace of Lodi, 297, 300, 324 Chardin), 602 (Michelangelo), 348, 348
Peace of the Church (Edict of Milan), 153, Phidias, 79 Piet, St. Peters, Rome (Michelangelo),
163 philhellene, 60 344345, 345
Peace of Westphalia, 388, 389 Philip (Holy Roman emperor), 327 pietas, 110, 344345, 348
Pearlstein, Philip, 643, 644 Philip II (king of France), 265 Pietism, 440
peasants Philip II (king of Spain), 374375 Pietro da Cortona, 420
in the Age of Reason, 443, 445 Philip II (Macedonia), 60, 86 pilasters, 308
in the High Middle Ages, 229, 229 Philip IV the Fair (king of France), 231, pilgrimage churches, 248249, 249
Peasants Revolt (1381), 268, 269, 273 266 pilgrimages to Mecca, 202, 203, 204, 206, 209
Peasants War (1523), 369 Philip the Bold, 278, 281 Pindar, 60
pediments, 49, 49, 50, 54, 78 Philip the Good, 285, 319 Pinter, Harold, 609
Pei, I. M., 31, 31, 653, 654 Philippines, 599 Pinteresque, 609
Pelagianism, 162 Philiskos of Rhodes, 89 Pippin III, 181
Peloponnesian War, 60, 65, 66, 67 Phillips, Tim, 353 Pisa Cathedral (Italy), 279
Peloponnesus, 35, 37, 60 philosophes, 438439, 440. See also Age of Pisan Council of 1409, 267
penance, 235, 236 Reason Pisano, Giovanni, 278, 279, 280
pendentives, 192, 193 philosophy Pissarro, Camille, 529
Penderecki, Krzysztof, 624 Age of Anxiety, 602603 Pitt, William, 473
pendulum clocks, 423, 423424 Age of Reason, 438439, 455456 Pius II (pope), 299, 299300
penicillin, 578 baroque age, 424, 424425 Pius IX (pope), 261, 506
Pennebaker, D. A., 626 early Middle Ages, 189 Pixar Studios, 657
Penses (Pascal), 425 early modernism, 537538 plagues, 264265, 265, 293, 637, 637638
Pentagon terrorist attack, 634, 642 early Renaissance, 302303 plainsong, 259
Pentateuch (Torah), 133, 136, 137 Enlightenment, 438439 Planck, Max, 542, 576
Pentecostal Church, 539 Greek Archaic Age, 45, 4749 planetary laws of motion, Keplers, 419
Peplos Kore, 52, 53 Greek Hellenic Age, 6770 Platina, Bartolomeo, 299
Pepys, Samuel, 390 Hellenistic Age, 9194, 92, 93 Plato, 45, 67, 68, 6970
performance art, 619, 621, 660662, 661 Islamic, 212213 Plato, bust of (Silanon), 69
Pergamum late Middle Ages, 271272 Platonic Academy, Florence, 303
acropolis, 86, 87 late modernism, 602603 platonism, 69. See also neoplatonism S
altar of Zeus, 96, 97 modernism, 575 Plautus, 113 N
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mat76655_Index_685-720.indd 707 11/28/12 1:05 PM


708 INDEX

plebeians, 104, 106 in Mycenaean civilization, 3738 literature, 640643


Plotinus, 159 Napoleonic France, 470 mass culture, 662, 663
plows, 200 New Deal program, 565, 588 medicine, science, and technology, 637,
podium, 96 Ottoman Empire in early modernism, 637639
Poetics (Aristotle), 63, 65 533534, 536537 music, 658660
poetry Republic of Florence, 298299 painting, 643647, 644647
baroque, 408 in Roman civilization, 104, 106, 107, 152 performance art, 660662, 661
early Christian, 163 Politics (Aristotle), 70 philosophy, 639640
Egyptian, 19 Pollock, Jackson, 610, 611 religion, 640
Greek, 4445, 46 Polybius, 104, 107 sculpture, 647650, 648651
Hellenistic, 90 Polydoros, 99 timeline of cultural styles, 632
High Middle Ages, 243246 Polykleitos of Argos, 76, 76 video art, 636, 652
High Renaissance, 331332 polyphony poststructuralism, 639
Islamic, 214215 Council of Trent opposition to, 378379 pottery
late modernism, 608609 early Middle Ages, 200 Archaic Greek, 47, 48
Mesopotamian, 1011, 11 High Middle Ages, 257, 259 Greek Hellenic, 64, 66
modernism, 572574 High Renaissance, 351352 Mesopotamian, 13
neoclassical, 457458 late Middle Ages, 291, 292 Pound, Ezra, 572
postmodernism, 643 polyphonic imitation, 320 Poussin, Nicolas, 400401, 401, 452
Roman, 113, 114115 polytheistic religions, 10 Pozzo, Andrea, 397, 398
romanticism, 480481, 491, 509, 511 Pompadour, Madame de, 443 praetors, 106
point support, 251, 252 Pompeii, 450 prairie houses (Wright), 555
pointed arches, 220, 251, 252 Pompidou Centre, Paris (Rogers and The Praise of Folly (Erasmus), 357
pointillism, 547 Piano), 653, 654 Praxitelean curve, 79
Poland Pont du Gard (Nmes), 120, 120 Praxiteles, 77, 79, 79
German invasion of, 568 Pontifex Maximus, 112 pre-history, 4, 47, 5
late modern music in, 624 pop art, 613, 616, 617, 620 Prlude laprs-midi dun faune (Debussy),
Solidarity movement in, 631, 641 Pope, Alexander, 321, 457458 556
polio, vaccines for, 606 Pope Clement VII Besieged in Castel Presentation Miniature, First Bible of Charles
polis (plural, poleis), 3941. See also Athens; SantAngelo, 332 the Bald, 196
Sparta Pope Sixtus IV Appoints Bartolomeo Platina Presley, Elvis, 601, 616
political philosophy. See also political/ as Vatican Librarian (da Forti), 299 pre-Socratic thinkers, 6768
economic development popes. See papacy; specific popes The Price (Miller), 609
absolutism, 358, 384385, 426428 popular music, 624, 662 Pride and Prejudice (Austen), 476
Age of Reason, 443445, 455456 popular religion, 440 Priestly, Joseph, 489
baroque age, 426429, 427 population growth Prima Porta portrait, 121, 121
in classical economics, 466468 Age of Reason, 441 Primavera (Botticelli), 317, 317
fascism, 567568, 568, 584 during High Renaissance, 328 La Primavera (Vivaldi), 412
liberalism, 428429, 496, 504505, 530 industrialization and, 466 primitivism, 549, 549, 573, 581
Marxism, 505506 Malthus on, 467468 The Prince (Machiavelli), 333334, 353
nationalism, 479, 496499 Poquelin, Jean Baptiste, 409 principate, Augustan, 107109
in northern Renaissance, 358 porticoes, 21 Principia (Newton), 421
realpolitik, 498499 porticus, 165, 198 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
Scientific Revolution and, 426429, 427, Portman, John, 321 (Ricardo), 468
435 Portrait of Braque (Picasso), 551, 552 Principles of Political Economy (Mill), 505
socialism, 497, 505506 Portrait of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley printing press, 269
utopian socialism, 505 (Girodet de Roussy-Trioson), 472 prints
political/economic development Portrait of Don Carlos (Anguissola), 377, 377 aquatints, 453, 453, 473
Age of Reason, 444 Portugal engravings, 281, 359, 361362, 362, 368
American constitution, 456, 468 exploration by, 328, 429 late Middle Ages, 281, 283
baroque England, 387388 imperialism by, 534, 535 lithographs, 517, 517
baroque France, 386 invasion by Philip II, 375 mezzotints, 452453
Byzantine Empire, 176177 sea route around Africa and, 300 neoclassical, 452453, 453
in the Catholic Church, 158 Poseidon, 43, 75, 76, 111 of Rembrandt, 402, 404
under Charlemagne, 181182 postal systems, 501 Priscus, 157
early Middle Ages, 175176 post-and-lintel construction, 14, 20 problem plays, 540
in Egypt, 1718 post-beam-triangle construction, 49, 72 program music, 412
in feudalism, 228229 post-Cold War world, 631, 633634 The Progress of Love (Fragonard), 448
in Frankish kingdom, 180181 postimpressionism, 545, 547, 547550, 548, projectile motion, 416, 419, 425
in French Revolution, 469471, 472473 549, 550 Prolegomena (Ibn Khaldun), 213
Greek Archaic Age, 3941 postmodernism, 629663 prophets, 133, 136, 137
Greek Hellenic Age, 5961, 70 architecture, 628, 629, 652657, 653656 Propylae (Athens), 72
Hellenistic Age, 86, 87 cultural vision of, 636637 prosimetric works, 185
High Middle Ages, 228229, 230235 environmental art, 651, 652 Protagoras, 34, 68
High Renaissance, 324328 film, 657658, 658, 659, 660 Protestantism. See also Calvinism
S in Mesopotamia, 89 installation art, 604, 650651, 651 Anglicanism, 367, 371372, 407, 440
N in Minoan civilization, 34 legacy of, 663 Deism, 440
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INDEX 709

evangelicalism, 506, 640 quantum theory, 542, 576, 577 Reformation Parliament, 372
First Great Awakening movement, 440 quatrefoil, 310, 311 refrains, 412
fundamentalist movement, 539 Quattro libri dellarchitettura (Palladio), 350 regalia, 22
Holy Roman Empire and, 326327 Quran (Koran), 205, 209, 209, 215 Reign of Terror (France), 469
Huguenots, 357, 386, 459 Qutb, Sayyid, 601 relativity, theory of, 543, 576
Kulturkampf, 539 relief sculptures. See also sculpture
legacy of, 381 Ra, 18 early Renaissance, 309, 309, 310311,
Lutheranism, 367, 368369, 440 rabab, 222 311313
Luthers revolt, 326, 357, 367369, 368 The Rabbula Gospels, 159 Greek Hellenic, 62, 75, 78
map of Europe in 1560, 367 Rabelais, Franois, 356 Hellenistic, 92, 96, 97
Methodism, 440, 506 racial issues. See also slavery High Middle Ages, 249, 250, 255
northern humanism and, 355356 anti-Semitism, 149, 230, 568, 577 Jewish, 131, 138
Pietism, 440 civil rights movement, 598 late Gothic, 278, 279, 280
Puritanism, 370, 387, 429 eugenics movement, 577578 Mesopotamian, 1112, 12, 13
Thirty Years War, 388 French Revolution and, 471472 Persian, 28, 29, 2930
timeline, 356 Holocaust, 570, 570, 577 Roman, 92, 121, 121, 122, 123, 123
warfare and, 374375 in immigration, 578 religion. See also Christianity; deities;
Protractor series (Stella), 614 Nazi belief in Aryan supremacy, 577 Judaism
Proust, Marcel, 541 Racine, Jean, 408409, 460 Byzantine, 177179
Prudentius, 163 radioactivity, 542 early modernism, 538539
Prussia. See also Germany radium, 542 Egyptian, 1819
in the Age of Reason, 444 The Raft of the Medusa (Gricault), 487, Enlightenment, 439440
enlightened despotism in, 444 487488 Greek Archaic, 4244
nationalism in, 499 ragtime, 557 Hellenistic, 9194
realpolitik in, 498 railroads, 495, 501, 502, 503 late Middle Ages, 269270, 271
revolution/reaction period, 474 The Railway Station (Frith), 503 Mesopotamian, 910, 12
Psalter from Wrzburg-Ebrach, 259 Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou), 658 Minoan, 34, 36
Psalter of St. Louis XI, 256, 258 The Rakes Progress (Stravinsky), 590 Persian, 30
psaltery, 222 Rame, Franca, 643 postmodern, 640
Psellos, Michael, 185 Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 460 Roman, 111112
psyche, 68, 6970 Ran (Kurosawa), 657 religious orders
psychoanalysis, 538 Raphael, 333, 339340, 342, 342, 343 Carmelite order, 395
psychology, 425, 538 rashidun caliphs, 206 Cistercian order, 236
Psychomachia (Prudentius), 163 Rashomon (Kurosawa), 625 Clunaic order, 235, 236
Ptah, 18 Rauschenberg, Robert, 611, 612, 613, 615, Dominican order, 236, 271
Ptolemaic kingdom, 8586, 87, 88, 91, 94, 107 623 Franciscan order, 236, 237, 271
Ptolemy, 84, 85, 416 Ravel, Maurice, 556 Jesuits, 373, 373, 602
public education, 528529 Ravenna, Italy, 171, 171, 172, 194 Ursulines, 372373
The Public Promenade (Debucourt), 453 rawis, 214 Religious Peace of Augsburg, 374
Pugin, A. W. N., 499, 514 Raynal, Abb, 472 Religious Right, 640
Pulcinella (Stravinsky), 590 Rayonnant style, 254, 258 reliquaries, 249
Pulp Fiction (movie, 1994), 261 Al-Razi, Muhammad, 212 Rembrandt van Rijn, 402, 403, 404, 422
pulpit, Pisa Cathedral (Pisano), 278, 279, Readings from the New Bible (Anderson), 660 Remembrance of Things Past (Proust), 541
280 Reagan, Ronald, 631 Renaissance. See also early Renaissance;
Punic Wars, 106 realism High Renaissance; northern
purgatory, 236 in baroque art, 394396 Renaissance
Puritanism, 370, 387, 429 in Catholic philosophy, 241 origin of term, 295
The Pursuit (Fragonard), 447448, 448 in literature, 508509, 511512 schools of interpretation of, 295296
Putin, Vladimir, 631, 662 magic, 641 timelines of, 296, 299
putti, 170, 171 neorealism, 625, 643 Renaissance Center, Detroit (Portman),
Putti Harvesting Grapes, 170 nineteenth-century painting, 507, 321, 321
putting-out system, 267, 466 514520, 516519 Ren Descartes (Hals), 424
pyramid texts, 19 socialist, 579 Renoir, Auguste, 543, 545
pyramidal composition, 318 symbolic, 290 Renwick, James, 261
pyramids, 17 realpolitik, 498499 Republic (Plato), 70
Egyptian, 2, 16, 20, 20 rebours (Huysmans), 540 Requiem Canticles (Stravinsky), 623
postmodern, 31, 31 la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
ziggurats, 1415, 15 of Things Past) (Proust), 541 (Lucretius), 113
Pyrrhus of Epirus, 106 recitatives, 222, 522 Residenz, Wrzburg (Neumann), 449, 450
Pythagoras, 47, 55, 66, 67, 147 Reclining Figure (Moore), 617 respublica, 104
Pythians, 44 Reconquista, 238 Restoration (England), 387
Reconstruction (United States), 500 restrained baroque, 392, 401407, 403407
Qaddafi, Muammar, 600 The Red Violin (Girard), 659 Revelation, Book of, 142, 170, 249
qasida, 214 The Red Violin Chaconne (Corigliano), 659 revenge tragedies, 361
qiblah wall, 216 Redford, Robert, 657 Revett, Nicholas, 450
qithara, 222 Reformation, Protestant, 355, 356, 366372, Revolution of the Viaduct (Klee), 560, 561, S
Quakers, 471 374375, 381. See also Protestantism 584 N
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710 INDEX

revolution/reaction period, 465492. See late Middle Ages, 266267, 269270 German painting, 483485, 484
also neoclassicism; romanticism lay piety, 236238, 269270 legacy of, 492
American Revolution, 444, 468 liberation theology, 640 literature, 480481, 509511
French Revolution, 464, 465, 469472, 472, map of Europe in 1560, 367 music, 490, 490491, 521523, 523
479 modernism, 539 philosophy, 489490
Industrial Revolution, 466, 466468 in New Spain, 370, 373374, 374 science, 489
legacy of, 492 northern humanism and, 356357, 381 Spanish painting, 485, 485487, 486
military technology in, 472473 papal infallibility, 506 Rome
reactions from 1815 to 1830, 473474 religious orders and lay piety, 236238, Appian Way, 102, 103
timeline, 468 269270 Charlemagne reign and, 175
revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 496498 rise of, 157159 Hapsburg-Valois war in, 325
Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies Roman state and, 158 rise of, 88, 103104, 106107
(Copernicus), 418 Thomas Aquinas and, 242 sack of, 331, 332, 371
Reynolds, Joshua, 443 in the United States, 640 values, 110
Rhapsody in Blue (Gershwin), xxxiixxxiii Vatican II, 603, 640 Visigoth sack of, 154155
Rhodes, 35, 99 via antiqua vs. via moderna, 271 rondeau, 556
ribbed vaults, 251, 252 Vulgate, 161, 374. See also monasticism; A Room of Ones Own (Woolf), 572
Ricardo, David, 467, 468 papacy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 565
Richafort, Jean, 352 Roman civilization. See also Byzantine rose windows, 252, 254, 255
Richardson, Samuel, 458 Empire Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art,
Richelieu, Cardinal, 386 architecture, 116120, 117120, 163165, Cincinnati (Hadid), 656, 657
Richter, Gerhard, 647, 647 164, 165 Rosetta Stone, 86
Riefenstahl, Leni, 588 Augustan principate, 107109 Rosselini, Roberto, 625
rifles, 391, 502 calendars, 20 Rothenberg, Susan, 644, 644
Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 385 Catholic church in, 157159, 160163, 161 Rothko, Mark, 610611, 613
Rigoletto (Verdi), 522 Christian persecution in, 144, 152, 153 The Rotunda, University of Virginia, 127
Riley, Bridget, 615, 616 concrete construction, 116 Rougon-Macquart series (Zola), 539
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, 224 Diocletian tetrarchy, 152153, 153 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 439, 455, 456, 457,
The Ring of the Dove (Ibn Hazm), 214 eastern empire, 155156 463
The Ring of the Nibelung (Wagner), 522 families in, 110111 Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
The Rite of Spring (Stravinsky), 557 Jewish civilization and, 134136, 139, 141 (France), 386, 408, 446, 507
ritornello, 412 law codes, 124125, 155, 160 Royal Academy of Science (France), 432,
Rivera, Diego, 585 legacy of, 127 433
Rivire, Madame, 477 literature, 112115, 145, 163 Royal Society (England), 406, 432
Rivire, Philibert, 477 map of empire, fourth-century, 154 Rubens, Peter Paul, 397, 399, 399
Roads to Freedom (Sartre), 606 map of empire in the time of Hadrian, Rude, Franois, 498
Robie House, Chicago (Wright), 555, 555 108 Rule (Benedict), 186, 236
rocaille, 448 map of western provinces ca. 500, 155 Rumi, 214215, 224
rock and roll, 624 music, 116, 163 Russia. See also Soviet Union
The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak painting and mosaics, 123124, 125, 126, Age of Reason, 445
(Bierstadt), 515 167171, 168172 early modern music from, 556557
rococo Pax Romana, 109 imperialism by, 537
Chinoiserie, 455, 455 philosophy, 115116, 159 industrialization of, 531532
interiors, 448449, 449 political development, 104, 106, 107109 naturalistic literature, 540
music, 459460 religion in, 111112 news networks and websites, 662
painting, 443, 446448, 446448 Roman Empire, 152156 Ottoman Empire wars, 474
rococo style, 445446 Roman Republic, 104, 106, 107 realist literature, 512
Rodeo (Copland), 590 science and medicine, 159160 revolution in, 562
Rodin, Auguste, 553554 sculpture, 110, 111, 112, 120123, 121124, Russo-Japanese War, 532
Roentgen, Wilhelm Conrad, 542 165, 167, 167, 168 after the Soviet Union, 630, 631633
Rogers, Richard, 653, 654 third-century crisis, 152, 153 in World War I, 562
Roman Catholic Church timelines, 104, 107, 152 Russian Tank Driver (Bourke-White), 569
Clunaic revival, 235, 236, 247, 248, 248 trade, 176 Russo-Turkish War, 537
Counter-Reformation, 355, 356, 372375, values, 110
381 weapons and warfare, 125 Saarinen, Eero, 621, 622
Crusades, 238, 239 western empire, 154155 Sabin, Albert, 606
early churches, 150, 153, 165, 165, 166 writing, 10 Sabina, Santa, 150, 151, 167
early Middle Ages, 182, 185187 Roman Republic, 104, 106, 107 sackbut, 380
English conversion, 180181 Romance languages, 187188 Sacre-Coeur, Paray-le-Monial (France), 248,
Gospels and, 142 romances, in High Middle Ages, 244 248
Great Schism, 266267, 299, 319 Romanesque churches, 246250, 247250 Sailing to Byzantium (Yeats), 572
on heliocentrism, 418, 420 romanticism Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Vzelay (France),
High Middle Ages, 235239 architecture, 499, 514 248249, 249
indulgences, 368, 374 characteristics of, 476, 477, 479480 Saint-Simon, Comte de, 505506
Inquisition, 235, 238, 270, 419, 420 English painting, 481483, 482484, 501 Saladin, 207
S Investiture Controversy, 234 French painting, 487, 487489, 488, 513, Salafism, 567
N Kulturkampf in Germany, 539 514 Salk, Jonas, 606
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INDEX 711

Salom (Wilde), 541 postmodernism, 638 Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), 603,
Salom with the Head of John the Baptist: The religion and, 506507 640
Climax (Beardsley), 541 Roman, 159160 Secretum (Petrarch), 273
Salon de la Princesse (Boffrand), 448449, romanticism, 489 Sedulius, Caelius, 163
449 scientific illustration, 359, 417 Segal, George, 617, 620
Salon des Refuss, 518 scientific method, 272 Seleucid empire, 85, 86, 94, 96, 134
salons, 444 Scientific Revolution, 415426 Seleucus, 84
salt, 269 arts and, 433434 Self-Portrait (Drer), 361362, 362
Salutati, Coluccio, 301 astronomy and physics, 414, 415419, 421 Self-Portrait (Rembrandt), 403
Salvador Mundi (Leonardo), 353 ironies and contradictions of, 425426 Self-Portrait (van Gogh), 550, 550
Salvation Army, 506 legacy of, 435 Selim, Sultan, 208
San Marco monastery, Florence, 315, 315 magical and practical in, 417418 Selim III, Sultan, 474
San Vicenzo al Volturno, 198 medicine and chemistry, 421423, 422 Seljuk Turk empire, 207, 220
San Vitale church (Ravenna), 172, 192, 194 philosophy and, 424, 424425 Selket, 25, 26
Sand, George, 509 political philosophy, 426429, 427 semiconductors, 605
Sandby, Paul, 453 spread of ideas, 431, 432433, 433 Semper, Gottfried, 523
sans-culottes, 464, 465 technology, 423, 423424 senate, 104, 106
Santa Cruz de la Seros, Church of San theories of the universe prior to, 416417, Seneca, 115
Caprasio (Spain), 247 417 Senmut, 20, 21
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, 313, 314 timeline, 416 Senusert I, 19
Santa Maria in Domnica (Rome), 191 Scivias (Hildegard of Bingen), 236, 237 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 628,
Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 313, 314 The Scream (Munch), 542 629, 634, 642
Sappho, 45, 46 scriptures, 136 Septuagint, 136, 143, 158
sarcophagi (singular, sarcophagus), 167, 168 Scroll of the Pentateuch, 133 Serbia, outbreak of World War I and, 533
Sarcophagus (Cerveteri), 106 sculpture serenades, 462
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassius, 168 Assyrian, 27, 27 serial music, 590, 623
Sargon, 8, 11 early Christian, 145148, 147, 148, 165, 167, Seurat, Georges, 547548, 548
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 575, 602, 606 167, 168 the seven liberal arts, 182183, 201
satellites, 606, 638 early modernism, 528, 553, 553554 Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence), 566
satire, 115 early Renaissance, 309311, 309313 Seven Years War, 444
Satrapi, Marjane, 593 Egyptian, 2124, 2124, 27 The Seventh Seal (Bergman), 625, 625
Saturday Night Live, 81 Etruscan, 104, 106 Severe style, 75
Satyagraha (Glass), 659 florid baroque, 393394, 394, 395 sfumato, 318, 336
satyr-plays, 63 Greek Archaic, 51, 5154, 52, 53, 54 shaft graves, 38
Saud, Abdul-Aziz bin, 567 Greek Hellenic, 56, 60, 61, 62, 69, 7479, Shaker Loops (Adams), 659
Saudi Arabia, 567 7579 Shakers, 590
Saul, 132 Hebrew, 131, 132, 138 Shakespeare, William, xxixxxxi, 359361,
Savanarola, Fra, 298299 Hellenistic, 82, 84, 89, 95, 96100, 97100 360, 381, 381
Savoye House (Le Corbusier), 586, 587 High Middle Ages, 232, 249, 249, 250, Shakespeare in Love (Madden), 381, 657
Saxons, 180, 189 255, 258 Shamash, 11, 12
Saxony, 183 High Renaissance, 322, 337, 344348, 345, shaped canvases, 612
scenographic style, 348 347, 348 Sharia, 210
Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov), 224 Jewish, 131, 132, 138 Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 481
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, late Gothic, 278, 279, 280, 280, 281 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 481
489490 late modernism, 615619, 617620 Sherman, Cindy, 593, 660662, 661
scherzo, 460 Mesopotamian, 1314 Shiites, 205, 206
Schiller, Friedrich von, 491 Minoan, 34, 36 shipbuilding
Schliemann, Heinrich, 38 neoclassical, 457 caravels, 329
Schoenberg, Arnold, 556, 589, 590, 623 Paleolithic, 4, 5 dromons, 200
Scholasticism, 239, 241 Persian, 28, 29, 29 earliest, 6
Schnbrunn Palace (Vienna), 444445, 445 postmodern, 647650, 648652 galleons, 329
The School of Athens (Raphael), 340, 342 Roman, 110, 111, 112, 120123, 121124, galleys, 329
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 585 165, 167, 168 Mesopotamian, 8
Schubert, Franz, 491, 556 Seagram Building, New York (Mies van der Minoan and Mycenaean, 39
Schumann, Robert, 523 Rohe and Philip Johnson), 621623, 622 steamboats, 501
sciences. See also Scientific Revolution Seattle Central Library (Koolhaas), 656, 657 triremes, 42, 42
early modernism, 541543 Second Bank of the United States, uniremes, 42
Egyptian, 1920 Philadelphia, 55 The Shopper (Hanson), 101
Hellenistic, 9495 Second Industrial Revolution, 528529 Sicilian school of philosophy, 67
High Middle Ages, 242 Second Punic War, 106 Sicily, 106, 499, 531
High Renaissance, 330 Second Romanesque style, 248, 248250, Siddons, Sarah, 443
impact on philosophy, 424, 424425 249, 250 Siege of Vienna, 327
Islamic, 212, 212 The Second Sex (de Beauvoir), 603 Siena, 230
late Middle Ages, 272273 Second String Quartet (Schoenberg), 556 Siena cathedral (Italy), 276277, 277, 278
late modernism, 605606 Second Temple (Herods Temple), signori, 297
Mesopotamian, 1213 Jerusalem, 133, 134, 134, 135, 136, 137 Silanon, 69 S
modernism, 575578 Second Temple of Hera (Paestum), 72, 72 Silence of God (Bergman), 625626 N
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712 INDEX

Silenus, 58 solo lyric, 45 sphinxes


silk, 184 Solomon (king of Israel), 132133 Egyptian, 2, 21, 2122
Silk Road, 184, 269 Solomons Temple, Jerusalem, 132, 133, postmodern, 647, 648
Silver Age of Roman letters, 115 136137 Spielberg, Steven, 657
silver metalworking, 6 Solon, 40 spinning wheels, 267268
Simon Chenard as a Sans-Culotte (Boilly), Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 607, 608 Spiral Jetty (Smithson), 651, 652
464, 465 sonata form, 460 The Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu),
Simple Gifts, 590591 sonatas, 412 455456
Singing in the Rain (Donen and Kelly), 626 Song of Roland, 243, 243244, 256 The Spiritual Meadow (Moschus), 184
Sir Isaac Newton (Kneller), 421 Songs and Stories from Moby Dick sports, in Hellenic times, 61, 62
Sistine Chapel (Anderson), 660 Sputnik, 606
ceiling frescoes (Michelangelo), 336338, The Song of Solomon (Morrison), 642 squinches, 187, 194
337338 sonnets, xxx, 332 St. Catherine monastery (Sinai), 190,
frescoes on the side walls, 305 Sophisticated Lady (Ellington), 591 190191
The Last Judgment (Michelangelo), 338, Sophists, 67, 68 St. Denis church, Paris, 251, 252
341 Sophocles, 6465, 68 St. Francis in Ecstasy (Bellini), 318319, 319,
Pope Sixtus IV, 300, 337 Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz, 408, 408 344
Six Livres de la Rpublique (Bodin), 357 Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz (Andres de Islas), St. Francis of Assisis Trial by Fire Before the
Sixtus IV (pope), 297, 299, 299, 300, 337 408 Sultan (Giotto), 237
skene, 63 The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe), 480 St. Ignatius Loyola (Conte), 373
Skepticism, 9293, 424 Soufflot, Jacques-Germain, 454455 St. Luke, Gospel Book of Otto III, 198
skyscrapers, 554, 554 The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner), 572 St. Maclou church (Rouen), 275
slave narratives, 512 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, St. Matthew Passion (Bach), 411
slavery 605 St. Patricks Cathedral, New York, 261
Age of Reason and, 437, 443 sovereignty, Bodin on, 358 St. Pauls Cathedral, London (Wren),
American Civil War and, 500 Soviet Union. See also Russia 406407, 407
American Constitution and, 468 abstract painting in, 579, 580 St. Pauls Outside the Walls (Rome), 153
French Revolution and, 471472, 472 cold war, 595, 596599 St. Peters (Rome), 166
in the French West Indies, 471472, 472 collapse of, 631633 baldacchino (Bernini), 393394, 394
in Greek Archaic Age, 40 in Europe after World War II, 596, 598, Basilica (Maderno and Bernini), 392, 393
Hellenistic, 86 599 cathedral dome (Michelangelo), 349, 350
Mycenaean, 38 film in, 588 first, 165, 165
New World slave trade, 429, 431432, 443, postwar recovery of, 596 Piazza (Bernini), 393
501 rise of communism in, 567 Piet (Michelangelo), 344345, 345
The Slave Ship (Turner), 501 socialist realism, 579 St. Pierre church, Moissac, France, 249250,
Slavs, 183 in World War II, 568, 569, 569, 570 250
Sleeping Eros, 97, 98 space race, 606 stained-glass windows, 243, 246, 246, 254,
Sluter, Claus, 278, 280, 281 space-time curvature, 576 255, 256
Smith, Adam, 439, 441, 456, 466467, 468 Spain Stalin, Joseph, 567, 596, 608
Smith, David, 616, 617 Armada defeat, 329, 375 stanze, 340
Smith, Zadie, 642 cave paintings in, 4 Star Wars: Episode IIAttack of the Clones
Smithson, Robert, 651, 652 Civil War, 562, 568, 579 (Lucas), 657
Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing colonies of, 429 The Starry Night (van Gogh), 550, 550
the Alps (Turner), 483, 483 fascism in, 568 State Capitol of Virginia (Jefferson), 477, 478
social classes. See also political/economic florid baroque painting, 397399, 398 steam engines, 466, 501
development High Renaissance, 324 steamboats, 501
in the Age of Reason, 442443 imperialism by, 534 steel, in Archaic Greece, 4142
in the French Revolution, 464, 465, 469 Inquisition in, 270 stele, 11, 12, 78, 79
in French Saint Domingue, 471472 irrigation projects in, 214 Stella, Frank, 611, 612, 614, 645, 646
Hellenistic Age, 86 Islamic Empire and, 207, 218, 219, 222, step pyramids, 20
industrialization and, 466, 504, 510, 528, 238, 327 stereobate, 49, 50
559 late mannerist literature, 377378 sterilization, forced, 577
socialism and, 505506 late mannerist painting, 375377, 376, 377 de Stijl movement, 579
social contract, 427, 429 New Spain, 370, 373374, 429 Still, William Grant, 591
The Social Contract (Rousseau), 456 papermaking in, 213 stirrups, 200, 260
Social Gospel, 538 Roman conquest of, 107 Stoicism, 92, 9394, 115116, 144, 145
social media, 638 romanticism in, 485, 485487, 486 Stone Menorah, 131
socialism surrealist painting in, 583, 583 The Story of Cain and Abel (Ghiberti),
European movement, 497 Thirty Years War and, 388 310311, 313
Marxism, 505, 506 Visigoths in, 179 Story of Sinuhe, 19
utopian, 505506 War of the Spanish Succession, 388 Stradivari, Antonio, 352
socialist realism, 579 Spanish Armada, 329, 375 Strasbourg Cathedral, 232
Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 373, 373, 397, 398, Spanish Civil War, 562, 568, 579 Strategikon, 185
602 Sparta, 4041, 59, 60, 68, 84 Stravinsky (Picasso), 590
Socrates, 67, 6869, 69, 70 special theory of relativity, 543, 576 Stravinsky, Igor, 556557, 589590, 590, 623
S Soft Pay-Telephone (Oldenberg), 619, 620 Speyer Cathedral (Germany), 247248, 248 stream-of-consciousness writing, 571
N solipsism, 456 Sphinx (De Andrea), 647, 648 The Street Musicians, 90
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INDEX 713

Street Scene in Medieval Siena (Lorenzetti), Symphonia (Hildegard of Bingen), 258 Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini (Alberti), 304,
230 Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz), 491 308309
A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams), 610 symphony form, 460 Temple Mount, 217
Strindberg, August, 541 Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 Temple of Aphaia (Aegina), 50, 51, 54
string quartets, 460461 (Beethoven), 491 Temple of Athena Nike, 62, 72, 73
Stroke (About March 3, 1953) (Komar and Symphony No. 94 in G. Major (Surprise) Temple of Hera, (Paestum), 32, 33, 4951, 50
Melamid), 608 (Haydn), 460 Temple of Hera, Second (Paestum), 72
structuralism, 603, 639 Symphony of Psalms (Stravinsky), 590 Temple of Jerusalem, 122, 132, 133, 134, 134,
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Synagogue at Hammam Lif, Tunisia, 141 135, 136137
(Kuhn), 639 Synagogue of Dura Europos, Syria, 140 Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem. See Temple
Stuart, James, 450 syncopation, 292, 557 of Jerusalem
Stuart dynasty, 386, 387 Syntactic Structures (Chomsky), 603 temple parts, 49, 49, 50
studia humanitatis, 301 synthesizers, 658 tempo, 460
Studio Libeskind, 628 Syria, 635 Ten Books of Histories (Gregory, bishop of
Sturm und Drang, 480 Systema Naturae (Linnaeus), 489 Tours), 186
style galant, 460 Systematic Theology (Tillich), 602 Ten Commandments, 130131
stylobate, 49, 49, 50, 96 tenebrism, 395
subjects, in fugues, 411 tabla, 222 Ter Borch, Gerard, 389
sublime, 479, 481, 483 tabula rasa, 429 Terence, 113
Such Sweet Thunder (Ellington), 591 Tacitus, 115 Teresa of Avila, Saint, 395
Sudan, 533 Tahkt-i-Sulayman I (Stella), 614 terrorist attacks, September 11, 2001, 628,
Sudden Shower at hashi Bridge (Hiroshige), Tahrir Square, Cairo, 492 629, 634, 642
532 Tain, 189 Tertullian, 145
Suetonius, 188 Taine, Hippolyte, 510 terza rima, 245
Suez Canal, 502, 504, 534, 600 Talbot, William Henry Fox, 520 tetrarchy, Diocletians, 152153, 153
Suez Crisis, 600, 601 tale within a framing tale literary genre, textiles
Sufism, 210, 214215, 222, 474 215 cotton, 430, 466
Suger, 251 Taliban, 634635 English, 267269, 466
Sula (Morrison), 642 tambourines, 222 Indian, 430
Suleyman the Magnificent, 327, 327 Tan Dun, 659660 Islamic carpets, 216, 290, 291, 300
Sullivan, Louis, 554, 554555 tapestries, 234 silk, 184
Sultan Han Caravanserai (Turkey), 208 Taqi al-Din, 212 tapestries, 234
Sumerian kingdom, 8, 9, 9, 1011, 13, 14 Tarantino, Quentin, 261 wool, 267269
Summas (Thomas Aquinas), 242 Target with Plaster Casts (Johns), 612613, Thales, 47, 67
The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), 572 614 Thatcher, Margaret, 627
Sundance Film Festival, 657 Tartuffe (Molire), 409 theater
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Tausret, 18 baroque, 407409
Grande Jatte (Seurat), 547548, 548 taxonomy, 489 Enlightenment, 443
Sunnah, 209 Taylor, Harriet, 505 expressionism, 541
Sunnis, 206, 210 teaching mosques, 220, 220 Greek Classical comedy, 6566, 66, 81
superego, 538 technology. See also sciences; weapons and Greek Classical tragedy, 61, 6365, 64
suprematism, 579, 580 warfare Hellenistic, 8991
Suprematist Composition (Malevich), 579, 580 Archaic Greece, 4142 late modernism, 609610
suras, 209 baroque, 391, 418, 423, 423424 liturgical drama, 259
Surprise Symphony (Haydn), 460 Bourgeois Age, 501502 modernism, 574575
surrealism, 583 Byzantine Empire, 200 naturalism, 540
The Swearing of the Oath of Ratification from China, 269 northern Renaissance, 359361, 360
of the Treaty of Muenster, 15 May 1648 in early cultures, 57 postmodern, 643
(Ter Borch), 389 early Middle Ages, 200 Roman, 113, 115
Sweden Hellenistic, 9495 theater at Epidaurus, 63
expressionist literature in, 541 High Middle Ages, 259260 theater of the absurd, 609
film in, 625626 High Renaissance, 328330 Thebes, 16, 59, 60
Thirty Years War and, 388 Islamic civilization, 213214 Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston), 574
Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song! (Van late Middle Ages, 267269 theme and variations, 460, 491
Peebles), 657 late modernism, 605606 themes, 176
swing bands, 591 Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, 3839 theocratic kings, 18, 86, 112
Switzerland postmodern, 638639, 662 Theocritus, 90, 91
Barth in, 602 postwar period, 570571, 605606 Theodora and Her Attendants, 171, 172
Calvin in, 370 revolutionary period, 472473 Thodore Duret (Vuillard), 559
Jung in, 538 Second Industrial Revolution, 528529 Theodoric, King, 185
Klee in, 560, 561, 584 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 353 Theodosian Code, 160
Le Corbusier in, 586, 587 Teilhard de Chardin, 602 Theodosian Walls, 155, 156
Rousseau in, 456 telescopes, 418, 419 Theodosius I, 158, 161, 171
syllabic singing, 259 television, 601, 662 Theodosius II, 155, 156, 157, 160
Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX), 506 tempera, 123 Theodulf of Orlans, 186, 187
symbolic realism, 290 The Tempest (Giorgione), 342344, 343 theology, Christian, 142 S
Symmachus, 161 Tempietto, Rome (Bramante), 348349, 349 Theosophy, 579 N
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714 INDEX

Theotokopoulos, Domenikos (El Greco), modernism, 19141945, 578 Treaty of Verdun, 180, 183
375376, 376, 377 revolution/reaction period, 468 tremolos, 412
Thermopylae, 41 revolutions in scientific and political Trent, Council of, 356, 374, 375, 378, 392
These Men Wonder at the Star. Harold. thought, 416 Trs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Bayeux Tapestry, 234 Roman Empire, 107 (Limbourg brothers), 280281, 282
Thespis, 61 Roman Republic, 104 The Trial (Kafka), 541
Third Reich, 568 royal dynasties in late Medieval France The Tribute Money (Masaccio), 313315, 314
Third Republic (France), 530 and England, 266 triclinia, 198
Third Symphony (Beethoven), 490491 rulers of France and England in the triconch, 198
Third World, emergence of, 599600, 600 baroque period, 386 triglyphs, 49, 50
The Third-Class Carriage (Daumier), 494, 495 sixteenth century, 356 trills, 411
Thirty Years War, 388 Timgad, Algeria, 109 Trinity, 158
Thirty-nine Articles, 372 tin, 6 Triple Alliance, 532, 562
Thomas, Dylan, 609 Tintoretto, 378, 379 Triple Entente, 532, 562
Thomas Aquinas, 241, 242, 261, 271 Titanic (Cameron), 657 triptych, 364, 364365
Thomism, 242, 261, 271272 Titian, 318, 325, 342, 344 triremes, 42, 42
Thoreau, Henry David, 511, 605 Titicut Follies (Wiseman), 626 Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl), 588
The Thousand and One Nights (Arabian To the Lighthouse (Woolf), 571572 Trojan War, 37, 38, 44, 45
Nights), 215, 224 Tokugawa shogunate, 431 The Trojan Women (Euripides), 65
Three Orations Against Those Who Attack Tolkien, J. R. R., 261 tromba marina, 380
Holy Images (John of Damascus), 185 Tolstoy, Leo, 512 tropes, 257, 259
The Threepenny Opera (Brecht and Weill), Tomb of Bene Hezir, 138 Trota, 243
573574 Tomb of the Leopards, 105 Trotula, 243
The Three Sisters (Chekhov), 540 The Tomb of Tutankhamen (Carter), 26 troubadors, 244
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima tondo, 343 The Troubled Island (Still), 591
(Penderecki), 624 tone color, 460 Truffaut, Franois, 625
Thucydides, 67 Torah, 136, 137, 140 Truth, Sojourner, 512
Thutmose (sculptor), 22 totalitarianism, 463, 567568, 568 truth to materials principle, 615
Thutmose III, 18 Toussaint LOuverture, 472, 472 Tudor dynasty, 266
Tiananmen Square protest (China), 633, Tower of Babel, 15 Tunisia, 635
633 towns, in High Middle Ages, 229230, 230, tupapau, 549
tibia, 116 231 Turkey, in World War I, 562
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 449, 450 Toy Story, 657 Turkish Republic, 566567
Tigris-Euphrates valley, 78. See also traceries, 254, 256 The Turkish Bath (Ingres), 513, 513
Mesopotamia Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Turks. See Ottoman Empire; Seljuk Turk
Tillich, Paul, 602 (Wittgenstein), 575 empire
timelines trade Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 481, 483,
Age of Reason, 439 in the baroque, 402, 413, 430432, 431, 432 483, 484, 501
Age of the Bourgeoisie, 496 Egyptian, 6, 17 Tutankhamen, 25, 26
Byzantine Empire, 176 Far East and Europe, 431, 432 TV evangelists, 640
Christianity to 284 CE, 142 Hellenistic, 88 TWA terminal, Kennedy International
cultural styles, 1945-1970, 597 High Middle Ages, 229230, 231 Airport (Saarinen), 621, 622
cultural styles, 1970present, 632 Internet and, 638 Twain, Mark, 537
early medieval West, 179 Islamic empire, 204, 208 Twelve Tables, 125
early modernism, 539 Islamic empire and Europe, 300, 327 twelve-tone scale, 590
early Renaissance in Florence (14001494), Japan and Europe in the early modernist Twitter, 638
299 period, 532, 532 The Two Fridas (Kahlo), 584, 585
Egyptian civilization, 16 late Middle Ages, 269 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick), 659
feudal monarchies in the High Middle Mesopotamian, 8 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 428
Ages, 233 in metals, 6 Tycho Brahe, 414, 415416, 419
geological time and prehistoric cultural Mycenaean, 36, 38 Tycho Brahe in His Observatory, 414
periods, 6 New World, 327, 328 Tyler, Wat, 268
Greek Archaic Age, 41 Roman, 176 tympanum, 249250, 250, 255
Greek Hellenic Age, 60 Silk Road, 184 tyrants, 40
heirs to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian tragedy
cultures, 26 baroque, 407409 bermenschen, 537
Hellenistic Age, 85 Greek, 61, 6365, 64 Uccello, Paolo, 272, 305
Islamic world, 6301517, 207 northern Renaissance, 361 ud, 222
Italian cultural styles between 1494 and Trajan, 109, 109, 123, 165, 166 The Ugly One with the Jewels (Anderson), 660
1564, 331 Trajans Victory Column, 123, 123 ukiyo-e woodblock prints, 532, 544545,
Italian Renaissance stages, 296 transcendentalism, 510511, 513 546, 547
Jewish civilization, 130 transcept, 165, 165, 246, 252 ulama, 210
late antiquity, 152 transistors, 605 Ulfilas, 158, 159
late Medieval French and English royal transubstantiation, 236 Ulysses (Joyce), 571
dynasties, 266 Travels in Persia (Chardin), 408 Umayyad dynasty, 206207, 216, 218, 219,
S Mesopotamian civilizations, 8 La Traviata (Verdi), 522 222
N Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, 34 A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume), 456 umma Muslima, 203, 207
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INDEX 715

Unam Sanctam (Pope Boniface VIII), 235 slavery, 429, 468, 500, 501 Venice, Italy
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Kundera), transcendentalism, 510511, 513 early Renaissance, 296, 300, 311, 313,
641 Vietnam War, 598, 599 318319
uncertainty principle, 576 in World War I, 562, 563 High Renaissance, 342344, 343, 344
Under Milk Wood (Thomas), 609 in World War II, 569, 569, 570 trade with Islamic civilization, 300
Unforgiven (Eastwood), 657 Universal Postal Union (UPU), 501 Venice Film Festival, 625, 626
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics universities, 209, 239, 241, 416 Venturi, Robert, 652, 653
(U.S.S.R.). See Soviet Union University of Paris, 416 Venus, 111
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space Untitled (to the innovator of Wheeling Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Melos), 99100,
(Boccioni), 528 Peachblow) (Flavin), 648, 648 100
uniremes, 42 Untitled (Yellow Bath) (Whiteread), 651 Verdi, Giuseppe, 521522
United Nations, 594, 595, 596, 627 Untitled #50 (Sherman), 661 Verdun, Treaty of, 183
United Nations Headquarters (Wallace K. Ur ziggurat (Iraq), 15, 15 Vermeer, Jan, 402, 405
Harrison International Committee of Urban II (pope), 235, 238 vernacular literature, 189, 243245, 263, 273
Architects), 594, 595 urban planning, 109 Verrocchio, Andrea del, 311
United States Urban VIII (pope), 394, 420 Versailles, palace at, 382, 383384, 386, 387,
Afghanistan war, 634635 urbanization 391, 399400, 400
African American literature, 512, 573574, in the Age of Reason, 442443 Versailles, treaty of, 1871, 499
606607, 641642 city health boards, 330 Versailles, treaty of, 1919, 563, 568
African American music, 557, 557 High Middle Ages, 229230 Vesalius, Andreas, 358, 359, 422, 422
African American painting, 573, 605, 645, rise of cities, 7, 8, 8788 Vespasian, 120
647 in Second Industrial Revolution, 528 Vesta, 111
black consciousness movement, 603605, Urbino, Italy, 297 Vestal Virgins, 112
605 Ursulines, 372373 via antiqua, 271
civil rights movement, 598 Urukagina, 8 via media, 242, 271
Civil War, 500, 502 usury, 242 via moderna, 271
cold war, 595, 596599, 631 utilitarianism, 504 Vibia Perpetua of Carthage, 145, 146
Constitution of, 456, 468 Utnapishtim, 11 Victoria (queen of England), 499, 507
early modernism, 537, 554, 554555, 555, utopian socialists, 505506 video art, 636, 652
557 Utrecht, Treaty of, 388 Vien, Joseph-Marie, 451
economic downturn of 2008, 635 Utu, 10, 12 Vienna
eugenics movement, 577578 modernism in, 531
feminist thought, 603, 604 vaccines, 606 siege of, 389
film industry, 588589, 589, 626, 657658, Valdes, 238 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington,
659 Valerian, 144 D.C., 648649, 649
First Great Awakening, 440 Valla, Lorenzo, 301 Vietnam War, 598, 599
Great Depression of the 1930s, 565, 565 Valois dynasty, 265, 266, 324325 Vige-Lebrun, Elisabeth-Louise, 447, 448
Gulf War of 1991, 634 La Valse (Ravel), 556 Vikings, 183, 231
happenings, 619, 621, 623, 623 Valses nobles et sentimentales (Ravel), 556 Villa of Livia, Prima Porta, 124, 125
Hudson River school of painting, 513 Van Dyck, Anthony, 404406, 406 Villa Romana del Casale (Sicily), 169, 169,
immigration, 577578 van Eyck, Hubert, 285, 287, 287, 288 171
imperialism of, 532, 535 van Eyck, Jan, 285, 287, 287, 288, 288, 290 Villa Rotunda (Palladio), 350, 351
impressionist painting, 529, 544545, 546 van Gogh, Vincent, 547, 549550, 550 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
industrialization, 530, 530 Van Peebles, Melvin, 657 (Wollstonecraft), 439
Iraq War, 635, 635 Vandals, 155, 169, 179 viola da gamba, 380
late modernist architecture, 621623, 622 Vanderbilt, George Washington, 293 violins, 352, 352, 412
late modernist literature, 606607, 609, 610 vanishing point, 305 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugne, 255
late modernist music, 623, 624 Vapheio cups, 38 Virgil, 114, 168
late modernist painting, 610615, 611615 Varese, Edgar, 659 Virgin and Child (Book of Kells), 195
late modernist sculpture, 101, 616619, Variae (Cassiodorus), 185 Virgin and Child (Hagia Sophia), 191
617620 Variations for Orchestra (Schoenberg), 590 Virgin and Child (Santa Maria in Domnica),
modernist literature in, 572, 572574 Vasari, Giorgio, 346 191
modernist music in, 557, 571, 590591, 624 vase painting Virgin Mary cults, 253
modernist painting in, 581, 581 Archaic Greek, 47, 48 Virgin of Guadalupe Church (Mexico City),
naturalistic literature, 540 Greek Hellenic, 58, 64, 66, 80, 80 374, 374
neoclassical architecture, 55, 127, 477, 478 A Vassal Paying Homage, 228 The Virgin of the Rocks (Leonardo da Vinci),
photography in, 520521, 521, 588 vassals, 200, 228 xxvi, xxvi, 317318, 318, 335
popular music, 624, 662 Vatican City, 181 Virgin of Vladimir, 191, 192
post-cold war policies, 633634 Vatican II, 603, 640 Virginia State Capitol (Jefferson), 477, 478
postmodern music, 658659 Vatican Library, 299, 299 virtue, 68, 94
postmodern religion, 640 vaults virtuosos, 409410, 432
realist literature, 512 barrel, 117, 117 Visigoths, 151, 154155, 179, 186
Revolutionary War, 444, 468 fan, 276, 276 The Vision of Piers Plowman (Langland),
romantic literature, 510511 groined or cross, 117, 117 273
separation of church and state, 640 ribbed, 251, 252 Vittorino da Feltre, 301
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 628, Velzquez, Diego, 397399, 398 Vivaldi, Antonio Lucio, 412 S
629, 634, 642 Venetian school, 318, 342344, 343, 344, 351 Vivian Bible, 196, 196 N
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716 INDEX

Voltaire (Franois-Marie Arouet), 439, 444, muskets, 391 The Woman from Samos (Menander), 8990
455, 457, 457 needle guns, 502 The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood
von Sydow, Max, 625 rifles, 391, 502 Among Ghosts (Kingston), 642
voting rights Roman, 125 womens rights
in Great Britain, 499, 504 steamships, 502 feminist thought, 603, 604
in the nineteenth century, 504 Strategikon, 185 in the French Revolution, 469
in the United States, 504 triremes, 42, 42 in Great Britain and the United States,
for women, 504, 529, 531, 566 uniremes, 42 505, 512, 529, 531
voussoirs, 117 in the world wars, 571 in Mesopotamia, 8
Vuillard, douard, 559 The Weary Blues (Hughes), 573 in Turkey, 566
Vulgate Bible, 161, 374 Wedding Dance (Bruegel the Elder), 365, 366 voting, 504, 529, 531, 566
Weelkes, Thomas, 379 Wollstonecraft on, 439
Wagner, Richard, 522, 523, 555 Wei Lo, 658 womens status/roles
Wahhabi sect, 474 Weill, Kurt, 574575 Archaic Greece, 41, 46, 52, 54
Wailing Wall, 134, 134 Weimar Republic, 563564 in Austens England, 476
Wainright Building, St. Louis (Sullivan), Weir, Peter, 657 in baroque age, 404
554, 554555 The Well of Moses (Sluter), 278, 280, 281 Counter-Reformation and, 372373
Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 609 Welles, Orson, 589, 589 in early Christianity, 145
Waiting for the Barbarians (Glass), 659 The Well-Tempered Clavier (Bach), 411 early Middle Ages, 189
Walcott, Derek, 643 Wertherism, 480 early Renaissance, 297298, 302
Walden (Thoreau), 511 Wesley, John, 440 in Egypt, 18, 23
Waldensians, 238 Western Wall, 134, 134 Enlightenment, 439, 443
Waldmller, Ferdinand Georg, 490 Westminster Psalter, 228 French Revolution and, 469
Waldo, Peter, 238 Westphalia, Treaties of, 388, 389 Greek Hellenic Age, 71
Walker, Alice, 641642 westwork, 198, 199 Hellenistic Age, 87, 91, 93
Die Walkre (Wagner), 522 What a Wonderful World (Armstrong), High Middle Ages, 228229, 230, 236, 237,
wall quadrant, 414, 416 624 238, 240, 243, 257259
Wallace K. Harrison International wheel, invention of, 6 High Renaissance, 333
Committee of Architects, 594 Whirling Dervishes, 214, 222 in Islam, 205, 224
Wanamaker, Sam, 360 The White Castle, 642 in Jewish civilization, 136
War and Peace (Tolstoy), 512 White Light (Pollock), 611 late Middle Ages, 263, 268, 274275
War of the Spanish Succession, 388 White Teeth (Smith), 642 in Lutheranism, 369
war saddles, 200, 260 Whiteread, Rachel, 650, 651 in Minoan civilization, 34, 36
warfare. See weapons and warfare Whitfield, George, 440 in monasticism, 236238, 237
Warhol, Andy, 353, 613, 616, 627 Whitman, Walt, 511 in Napoleonic France, 509
Warsaw Pact, 598 Why the West RulesFor Now (Morris), 593 in the nineteenth century, 529, 529
Warton, Jane, 531 Wieck, Clara, 523 in Roman civilization, 110111, 111
Washington color school, 647 Wiesel, Elie, 577 in romantic literature, 509
The Waste Land (Eliot), 572573 Wife of Bath, 274 Second Industrial Revolution and, 529
water clocks, 214 Wilde, Oscar, 540, 541 in socialism, 505506
water organ, 116 Willaert, Adrian, 351352 women presidents and prime ministers,
water turbines, 501 Willard, Simon, 81 627
water-driven mills, 260, 269 Willendorf figurine, 4, 5 woodcut prints, 281, 380
Waterlily Pond (Monet), 543, 544 William I (king of England) (William of Woodlawn Plantation (Thornton), 463
Watson, James, 606 Normandy, the Conqueror), 231, 232 wool textiles, 267269
Watt, James, 466 William I (king of Prussia), 499, 530 Woolf, Leonard, 572
Watteau, Jean-Antoine, 446, 446447 William III (king of England), 386, 387388 Woolf, Virginia, 381, 571572
Wealth of Nations (Smith), 467 William of Aquitaine, 234 word paintings, 379, 411412
weapons and warfare William of Ockham, 271272 Wordsworth, William, 480
armor, 260 William of Rubruck, 238239 Workers. See also peasants
arquebus, 391 William of Saliceto, 243 child labor, 467
atomic bombs, 569, 571, 577 Williams, Michelle, 627 factory system and, 466, 467
bayonets, 391 Williams, Tennessee, 609, 610 in free-market system, 467
bronze, 38 Williams, William Carlos, 642 in the French Revolution, 464, 465, 469
cannons, 329, 329, 330, 472 Wilson, Robert, 658659 in the High Middle Ages, 229, 229, 230
catapults, 95, 239 Wilson, Woodrow, 563 iron law of wages, 468
condottieri, 297 Winchester cathedral, 198 in the late Middle Ages, 265, 267268
crossbows, 260 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 450 in Marxism, 505
dromons, 200 windmills, 260 nineteenth-century, 495, 504
Greek fire, 200 winged bulls, Assyrian, 27, 27 in the Second Industrial Revolution, 528
gunpowder, 260, 391 Winged Victory, 97, 98 voting rights for, 499, 504
hoplites, 40 Winter Light (Bergman), 625 World Bank, 596, 627, 634
horses in warfare, 17, 38, 40, 200, 260 Wiseman, Frederick, 626 World Health Organization (WHO), 637
iron weapons, 7, 17, 26 witchcraft, punishment of, 428 World Trade Center attacks, 628, 629, 634
knights, 228229, 260 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 575 World Trade Center Project (Studio
S leve en masse, 472 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 439, 481 Libeskind), 628, 629
N machine guns, 571 Woman and Bicycle (de Kooning), 612 World Trade Organization (WTO), 632, 634
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INDEX 717

World War I Hebrew, 136 Yeltsin, Boris, 631


alliances in, 532, 533, 536, 537, 562 Islamic calligraphy, 209, 215 Yemen, 635
events leading to, 533 Latin, 112113, 145, 301 YHWH, 131132
map after, 564 Mesopotamian, 6, 9 Young British Artists (YBA), 650
map prior to, 536 Minoan, 34 Young Italy movement, 499
Middle East and, 566 Mycenaean, 37 Young Mens Christian Association, 506
Treaty of Versailles, 563 Phoenician alphabet, 9, 10 Young Turk movement, 536, 566
World War II WTO (World Trade Organization), 632, 634 Young Womens Christian Association, 506
atomic bombs in, 569, 571, 577 Wrzburg-Ebrach Psalter, 259 YouTube, 638
course of, 568569, 569 Wuthering Heights (Bront), 509 Yugoslavia, disintegration of, 634
Nazi death camps in, 569570, 570, 577 Wycliffe, John, 270
warfare in, 571 Zealots, 134136, 135
World Wide Web, 662 Xavier, Francis, 373 Zeus, 37, 43, 44, 45, 76, 96, 111
The Would-Be Gentleman (Molire), 409 Xenophon, 71 Zhang Yimou, 658
Wren, Christopher, 406407, 407 Xerxes, 41 Zhang Ziyi, 658, 658
The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon), 603 X-rays, 542 ziggurats, 1415, 15
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 555, 555 Zimbabwe, 599
Wright, Richard, 606 Yahweh, 130, 133, 143 Zola, mile, 539540
writing, 187188 Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, 220, 222 Zombieland (Fleischer), 525
Carolingian miniscule, 182, 183, 196, 201 Yathrib, 204, 206 Zoroaster, 30
Egyptian, 6, 19 Yeats, William Butler, 572 Zoroastrianism, 30, 134, 144, 238
Greek, 9 Yeavering Hall, Northumberland, 181 Zsitvatorok, Treaty of, 389

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Matthews
Platt
Noble

Experience Humanities

MD DALIM #1216054 11/12/12 CYAN MAG YELO BLK


ISBN 978-0-07-337665-3
MHID 0-07-337665-5
Experience Humanities
EAN

Roy T. Matthews F. DeWitt Platt Thomas F. X. Noble


www.mhhe.com

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