HUM2020_FinalVocab

Beowolf

700 - 1000. The rigidly hierarchical nature of feudal society is probably nowhere better demonstrated than in the oldest English epic poem, Beowulf. In the poem, a young hero, Beowulf, comes from afar to rid a community of monsters, headed by the horrific Grendel, who have been ravaging it. He returns home to his native sweden and rules well for 50 years, until he meets a dragon who is menacing his people. Beowolf demonstrates his fierce courage and true loyalty to his vassals by taking the dragon on, but it kills him. The lesson drawn from his fate is a simple one: "So every man must yield/ the leasehold of his days". Beowulf concludes with the hero's warriors burning his body along with his treasures on a funeral pyre, thus rounding out a story that opens with a burial as well. The findings at Sutton Hoo, as well as the ship discovered at Oseberg, suggest that Beowulf accurately reflects many aspects of life in the northern climates of Europe in the Middle Ages. The poem was composed in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, handed down first as an oral narrative and later transcribed. Its 3,000 lines represent a language that predates the merging of French and English tongues after 1066, when William the Conquerer, a Norman duke, invaded England. The poem survived in a unique tenth-century manuscript, copied from an earlier manuscript and itself badly damaged by fire in the 18th century. It owes its current reputation largely to J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of The Rings, who in the 1930s argued for the poem's literary value. Beowulf is an English poem, but the events it describes take place in Scandinavia. One of the most notable literary features, common to Old English literature, is its reliance on compound phrases, or kennings, substituted for the usual name of a person or thing. In a sense, then, these compound phrases are metaphoric riddles that context helps to explain. Beowulf contains many such compounds that occur only once in all Anglo-Saxon literature - hapax legomena, as they are called, literally "said or counted once" - and context is our only clue to their meaning. There is nothing in this poem to suggest that this is the Christian God. There are no overtly Christian references in the work. The poem teaches its audiences that power, strength, fame, and life itself are fleeting - a theme constant with Christian values, but by no means necessarily Christian. And although Beowulf, in his arguably foolhardy courage at the end of the poem, displays a Christlike willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good, the honor and courage he exhibits are fully in keeping with the values of feudal warrior culture.

Islamic Spain, Library at Cordoba

750. Like Islamic Africa, Islamic Spain maintained its own indigenous traditions while it absorbed Muslim ones, this creating a distinctive cultural and political life, In 750, the Abbasids, a large family that claimed descent from Ababas, an uncle of Muhammad, overthrew the Umayyad caliphs. The Abbasids shifted the center of Islamic life from Mecca to a new capital in Iraq known as Baghdad. Meanwhile, Spain remained under Umayyad control, initially under the leadership of And ar-Rahman, who had escaped the Abbasid massacre of Ummayads in Syria in 750 by fleeing to Cordoba. The spain he encountered had been controlled by a Germanic tribe from the north, the Visigoths, for more than three centuries, but he gradually solidified Muslim control of the region, first in Cordoba, then in Seville, Toledo, and Granada. In the last years of his reign, secure in his position, And ar-Rahman built a magnificent new mosque in Cordoba, converting an existing Visigothic church into an Islamic institution. Under the Umayyad caliphs, Muslim Spain thrived intellectually. Religious tolerance was extended to all. Spanish Jews, who had been persecuted under the Visigoths, welcomed the Muslim invasion and served as scientists, scholars, and even administrators in the caliphate. Classical Greek literature and philosophy had already been translated into Arabic in Abbasid Baghdad. The new School of Translation established by Umayyads in Toledo was soon responsible for spreading the nearly forgotten texts throughout the West. Muslim mathematicians in Spain invented Algebra and introduced the concept of zero to the West, and soon their arabic numerals replaced the Roman system. By the time of And ar-Rahman Cordoba was renowned for its medicine, science, literature, and commercial wealth, and it became the most important center of learning in Europe. The elegance of Abd ar-Rahman III's court was unmatched, and his tolerance and benevolence extended to all, as Muslim students from across the mediterranean soon found their way to the mosque-Affiliated madrasa that he founded- the earliest example of an institution of higher learning in the Western world.

Empire of Charlemagne

768 - 814. The Franks would come to control most of Western Europe under the leadership of Charlemagne, "Charles the Great." Charlemagne brought one after another pagan tribe into submission, forcing them to give up their brand of Christianity and submit to Rome;s Nicene Creed. Charlemagne's kingdom grew to include all of present-day France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, almost all of Germany, northern Italy and Corsica, and Navarre in northern Spain. Even larger areas paid him tribute. In return for his Christianization of this vast area, Pope Leo III crowned him emperor on Christmas day 800, creating what would later be known as the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne's military might was the stuff of legend. For centuries after his rule, tales of his exploits circulated throughout Europe in cycles of poems sung by jongleurs, professional entertainers or minstrels who moved from court to court and performed chansons de geste "songs of deeds". But literacy was anything but widespread. Charlemagne sought to remedy this situation at his court at Aachen which soon attracted leading scholars and artists, whose efforts Charlemagne rewarded. There was also a specifically religious motive in educating the people. Charlemagne believed that to spread the gospel, people should be able to read aloud and sing in church, to say nothing of grasping the fundamental truth believed to be revealed in the Bible. Education this furthered the traditional role of the Church. It provided a means for the Church - and Charlemagne's state as agent of the Church - to insert itself into the lives of every individual. Charlemagne imposed on all monasteries in the Frankish kingdom the rule of Benedict of Nursia, an Italian monk who had lived two centuries earlier. The Rule of Saint Benedict defined monastic life as a community of like-minded individuals, all seeking religious perfection, under the direction of an abbot elected by the monks. Monks were to live a family life in the pursuit of religious perfection. In about 820, Charlemagne sent a plan to the Swiss monastery of Saint Gall, near Lake Constance, representing his ideal monastery. Although there is no evidence that it was ever actually employed, its functional, orderly arrangement was used in many Benedictine monasteries.

Norman Conquest and the Bayeux Tapestry

1070 - 1080. The Bayeux Tapestry - actually a 231- foot embroidery - was sewn between 1070 and 1080, almost certainly by women at the School of Embroidery at Canterbury, in Kent, England. It is one of the few surviving works by women we have from the period. The embroiderers of the tapestry worked with twisted wool, dyed in 8 colors, and used only two basic stitches. It was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, half-brother of William, Duke of Normandy, whose conquest of England in 1066 it narrates in both pictures and words. Like the Column of Trajan in Rome, its story is both historical and biased. The tapestry was designed to be hung around the choir of Odo's Bayeux Cathedral - an unabashed act of self-promoting propaganda on the part of the Normans. William was particularly unhappy with Harold of Wessex's claim to the throne. Harold had visited Normandy, sometime between 1064 and the end of 1065m at the insistence of King Edward. The tapestry narrates the Norman point of view, so its reliability is uncertain, but according to both the tapestry and other Norman sources, during his stay, Harold recognized William as Edward's heir. Whether Harold did so willingly is debatable - even the tapestry shows Harold being taken prisoner by a vassal of William. The Tapestry shoes him in February with Haley's Comet in the sky - interpreted by the Anglo-Saxons as a portent of disaster and resulting, the tapestry implies, from his having broken his oath. Harold turned his troops southward, but exhausted from both battle and the hurried march, they were defeated by William's army at Hastings on October 14, 1066. Harold died in the battle. The embroidery ends with a simple statement - "and the English turned and fled" - as if there is nothing more to say. For seven centuries, the tapestry was cared for at Bayeux Cathedral, where it was hung round the nave on feast days and special occasions. It escaped destruction in the French Revolution in 1789, and was taken to Paris in the early 18th century when Napoleon exhibited it in his own propaganda campaign as he prepared to invade England.

Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias

1098-1179. One of the foremost woman of the age was Hildegard of Bingen, who ran the monastery at Bingen, near Frankfurt, Germany. She entered the convent at the age of eight and eventually became its abbess. Extraordinarily accomplished - she wrote tracts on natural science, medicine, and the treatment of disease, an allegorical dialogue between the vices and virtues, as well as significant body of devotional songs - she is best known as the first in a long line of female Christian visionaries and mystics, a role anticipated in Western culture by the delphic priestesses. Her visions are recorded in the Scivias, a work whose title derives from the Latin Scite via domino, "Know the ways of the lord". The Scivias was officially designated by the pope as divinely inspired. A zealous advocate for Church reform, Hildegard understood that this recognition lent her the authority to criticize her secular and Church superiors, including the pope himself, and she did not hesitate to do so. Later in the Scivias, Hildegard has a vision of the devil embodied as a monstrous poem who oversees a marketplace full of material goods. After describing her vision, she interprets some of the key images. Hildegard's impulse to interpret her own words is typical of religious literature in the Middle Ages: Its primary purpose was to teach and instruct. But, more than that, Hildegard's Scivias shares with other visionary and mystical writing of the period an impulse to make the unknowable vividly present in the mind's eye of her audience. Like the Delphic priestess, she directly encounters the divine through revelation and vision.

Birth of the Gothic Cathedral: Abbey Church of Saint-Denis

1137-1151. Gothic. Even as a pupil at the monastery school, Abbot Suger had dreamed of transforming the Abbey of Saint-Denis into the most beautiful chiurch in France. The dream was partly inspired by his desire to lay claim to the larger territories surrounding the Ile-de-France. Super's design placed the royal domain at the center of French culture, defined by an architecture surpassing all others in beauty and grandeur. After careful planning, Suger began work on the Abbey in 1137, painting the walls, already almost 300 years old, with gold and precious colors. Then he added a new facade with twin towers and a triple portal. Around the back of the ambulatory he added a circular string of chapels, all lit with large stained-glass windows, "by virtue of which the whole would shine with the miraculous and uninterrupted light." This light proclaimed the new gothic style. In preparing his plans, Suger had read what he believed to be the writings of the original Saint Denis. According to these writings, light is the physical and material manifestation of the Divine Spirit. Super would later survey the accomplishments of his administration and explain his religious rationale for the beautification of Saint-Denis. The church's beauty was designed to elevate the soul to the realm of God.

Jamb Statues, West Portal, Chartres Cathedral

1145-1170. Romanesque. Although they seem almost Byzantine in their long, narrow verticality, feet pointing downward, the jamb sculptures on the west portal mark a distinct advance in the sculptural realization of the human body. These and 4 more sets flank the three doorways of the cathedral's Royal Portal. The jamb sculptures represent figures from the Hebrew Bible considered to be the precursors of Christ. These works have little in common with Romanesque relief sculpture, typified by the Last Judgement tympanum on the Cathedral of Sainte-Foy in Conques.

Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere , Chartres Cathrdral

1150. When the cathedral was rebuilt in magnificent style, the figure of Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière was installed in the choir, where it is now the centrepiece of a large window, surrounded by thirteenth‑century angels. It portrays a seven‑foot‑tall enthroned Virgin with the Christ Child on her lap, his right hand raised in blessing. His left hand holds a book, showing a quotation from Isaiah: "Every valley shall be exalted." The ethereal quality of the colours of medieval glass has never been approached since, and it is the unbelievably luminous blue, set off by ruby and rose, that makes La Belle Verrière so overwhelming.

Pantheon

118 - 125. Hadrian's Pantheon ranks with the Forum of Trajan as one of the most ambitious building projects undertaken by the Good Emperors. The Pantheon is a temple to "all the gods" and sculptures representing all the Roman gods were set in recesses around its interior. The facade is a Roman temple, originally set on a high podium, with its eight massive Corinthian columns and deep portico, behind which are massive bronze doors. Photography presents little evidence of its monumental presence, elevated above its long forecourt. Today, both the forecourt and the elevation have disappeared beneath the streets of modern day Rome. The facade gives no hint of what lies beyond the doors. The interior of the Pantheon consists of a cylindrical space topped by a dome, the largest built in Europe before the twentieth century. The whole is a perfect hemisphere - the diameter of the rotunda is 144 feet, as is the height from floor to ceiling. The weight of the dome rests on eight massive supports. The oculus admits light, which forms a round spotlight that moves around the building during the course of the day. For the Romans, this light may well have symbolized Jupiter's ever-watchful eye cast over the affairs of the state, illuminating the way. In the vast openness of its interior, the Pantheon mirrors the cosmos, the vault of the heavens. Mesopotamian and Egyptian architecture had created monuments with exterior mass. Greek architecture was a kind of sculptural event, built up of parts that harmonized. But the Romans concentrated on sheer size, including the vastness of interior space. In this sense, the Pantheon mirrors the Empire. It too was a single, uninterrupted space, stretching from Hadrian's wall in the north of England to the Rock of Gibraltar in the south. Like Roman architecture, the Empire was built up of parts that were meant to harmonize in a unified whole, governed by rules of proportion and order. And if the monuments the Empire built to celebrate itself were grand, the Empire was grander still.

Jamb Statues, South Transept portal, Chartres Cathedral

1215-1230. Romanesque but moving toward Naturalism. When Chartres was rebuilt after the fire of 1195, a new sculptural plan was realized for the transept doors. The figures stand before a colonnade, as do the jamb figures on the west portal, but their form is hardly determined by it. Now they stand flat-footed. Their faces seem animated, as if they see us. The monk just to the right of the dividing column seems quite concerned for us. The portrait of the knight Saint Theodore is remarkable. It is meant to evoke the spirit of the Crusades. For the first time since antiquity, the figure is posed at ease, his hip thrusting slightly to the right, his weight falling on his right foot. The strict verticality of the west portal is a thing of the past.

West Facade, Amiens Cathedral

1220-1240. Romanesque but towards Naturalism. The facade of Amiens is elaborately decorated with sculpture. Most of the sculptures were made in a 20-year period by a large workshop in Amiens itself, lending the entire facade a sense of unity and coherence. Also, it was topped by finials, knoblike architectural forms also found on furniture. The textual richness of these forms is evident in the comparison of Chartres Cathedral where they are absent, and Amiens Cathedral where they are abundant. The sculptors who decorated the facade quickly became famous and traveled across Europe, carrying their style to Spain and Italy.

Annunciation and Visitation, Central Portal, West Facade, Amiens Cathedral

1230-1255.The sculptures at Riems break even further from Roman-esque tradition. They are freed from their backdrop, the Angel of Annunciation tells Mary that she is with child. The next two figures represent the Visitation, when Mary tells her cousin Elizabeth that she is with child and Elizabeth in turn announces the divinity of the baby in Mary's womb. Note how the drapery adorning the pair on the left differs profoundly from the figure on the right. The older mary bears little resemblance to the other Mary. The first was probably carved by a sculptor trained in the Roman traditions, the latter by one seeking something less bulky and lighter in feel. The two pairs are as different as the two towers of Chartres Cathedral, which reflect both a weakening of the Romanesque insistence on balance and symmetry and the fact that both were done at different times. And yet the two pairs of sculptures share a certain emotional attitude - the good-humored smile of the angel, the stern but wise concern of Elizabeth. Even the relative ages of the people depicted are apparent, where age would have been of no concern to a sculptor working in the Romanesque tradition. These are, in short, the most fully human, most natural sculptures since the Roman times. During the Gothic period artists developed a new visual language. The traditional narratives of biblical tradition could no longer speak through abstracted and symbolic types, but instead required believable, individual bodies to tell their stories. This new language invests the figures of Jesus, Mary, the saints, and even the Angel of the Annunciation with Personality.

The Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas

1265. Instead of studying heavenly truths and Scriptures, students were studying pagan philosophy, dating from the 4th Century BC. Scholasticism sought to reconcile the two. One of the greatest efforts in this direction is Aquinas' Summa Theologica, begun in 1265 when he was 40 years old. At Albertus Magnus' request, Aquinas set out to write a theology based entirely on the work of ancient philosophers, demonstrating the compatibility of Classical philosophy and Christian religion. The Summa Theologica takes on virtually every theological issue of the age, from the place of women in society and the Church, to the cause of evil, the question of free choice, and whether it is lawful to sell a thing for more than it is worth. The medieval summa was an authoritative summary of all that was known on a traditional subject, and it was the ultimate aim of every highly educated man to produce one. In a famous passage, Aquinas takes on the largest issue of all - the summa of summers- attempting to prove the existence of God once and for all. Notice particularly the Aristotlian reliance on observation and logically drawn conclusions. Such a rational demonstration of the existence of God is, for aquinas, what he called a "preamble of faith". What he calls the "articles of faith" necessarily follow upon and build on such rational demonstrations. So, although Christians cannot rationally know the essence of God, they can, through faith, know its divinity. Faith, in sum, begins with what Christians can know through what God has revealed to them in the Bible and through Christian tradition. Aquinas maintains, however, that some objects of faith, including the Incarnation, lie entirely beyond our capacity to understand them rationally in this life. Still, since we arrive at truth by means of faith and reason - and, crucially, since all truths are equally valid - there should be no conflict between those arrived at through either faith or reason. Although conservative Christians never quite accepted Aquinas' writings, arguing for instance that reason can never know God directly, his influence on Christian theology was profound and lasting. In the scope of its argument and the intellectual heights to which it soars, the Summa Theologica is at one with the Gothic cathedral. Like the cathedral, it is an architecture, built of logic rather than of stone, dedicated to the Christian God.

Cimabue's Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets

1285. Byzantine towards naturalism. It solidified his position as the leading painter in Florence. Although Byzantine roots are clear - following closely, for instance, a Byzantine hierarchy of figures, with the Madonna larger than the figures that surround her - the painting is remarkable on several fronts. First, it is enormous. Standing nearly 12 feet high, it seems to have begun a tradition of large-scale altarpieces, helping to affirm the altar as the focal point of the church. But most important are Cimbue's concern for spatial volume and his treatment of human figures with naturalistic expressions. The throne is especially interesting, creating as it does a spatial setting for the scene, and the angels seem to be standing on the architectural frame; the front two clearly are. If the Virgin and Child are stock Byzantine figures, the four prophets at the base of the throne are surprisingly individualized, suggesting the increasing prominence of the individual personality in the era, an especially important characteristic. These remarkably individual likenesses also tell us that Italian artists were becoming more skillful in painting with tempera, which allowed them to portray the world in ever-increasing detail. Perhaps most interesting of all is the position of the Virgin's feet, the right one propped upon the throne in an almost casual position.

Ara Pacis Augustae

13 BC - 9 BC. Ancient Rome. Augustus commissioned a large monument to commemorate his triumphal return after establishing Roman Rule in Gaul and restoring peace to Rome. Means "Altar of Augustan Peace". He had its exterior walls on the south decorated with a retinue of his own large family, a model for all roman citizens, in a procession of lictors (the class of citizens charged with guarding and attending to the needs of the magistrates), priests, magistrates, senators, and other representatives of the Roman people. Art historians believe the Ara Pacis Augustae represents a real event, perhaps a public rejoicing for Augustus' reign (it was begun in 13 BC when Augustus was 50), or the dedication of the altar itself, which occurred on Livia's 15th birthday in 9 BC. The realism of the scene is typically Roman. A sense of spatial depth is created by depicting figures farther away from us in low relief and those closest to us in high relief, so high in fact that the feet nearest figures project over the architectural frame into our space. This technique would have encouraged viewers - the Roman public- to feel that they were part of the same space as the figures in the sculpture itself. The Augustan Peace is the peace enjoyed by the average Roman citizen, the Augustan family a metaphor for the larger family of Roman citizens. But perhaps above all, the Ara Pacis Augustae offers the peaceful continuity of family life from generation to generation as a metaphor and model for the peaceful continuity of the empire from one ruler to the next. Three generations of Augustus' family are depicted in the relief. It also demonstrates the growing prominence of women in Roman society. Augustus' wife, Livia, is depicted holding Augustus' family together, standing between her stepson-in-law, Marcus Agrippa, and her own sons, Tiberius and Drusus. Livia became a figure of idealized womanhood in Rome. She was the female leader of Augustus' programs of reform, a sponsor of architectural projects, and a trusted advisor to both her husband and son. Elite women modeled themselves on Livia, wielding power through their husbands and sons.

Francesco Petrarca

1304-1374. One of Boccaccio's best friends was the itinerant scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch. Raised near Avignon, in France, where the papacy had established itself in 1309 and where it remained for most of Petrarch's life, Petrarch studied at Montpellier and Bologna and traveled throughout northern France, Germany, and Italy. He was always in search of manuscripts that preserved the priceless literary works of antiquity - copying those he could not pry loose from monastic libraries. As he wrote to a friend in 1351, these manuscripts, in Classical Latin and hard for monks to decipher, were in danger of being lost forever. It was Petrarch who rediscovered the forgotten works of the Roman orator and statesman Cicero, and his own private library consisted of over 200 classical texts. He persuaded Boccaccio to bring the Greek scholar Leo Pilatus to Venice to teach them to read Greek. Boccaccio learned the language, but Petrarch did not. Both benefited from Pilatus' translation of Homer into Latin prose, as well as from his geneaology of the Greek Gods. Perhaps Petrarch's greatest work was his book of over 300 poems, Songbook, inspired by his love for a woman. The majority of Petrarch's verses to Laura take the form of the Italian Sonnet, known as the Petrarchan sonnet because he perfected the form. The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of 14 lines divided into two parts: an octave of eight lines that presents a problem, and a sestet of 6 lines that either attempts to solve the problem or access it as unsolvable. Most influential were the pure love poems. Such poems would have a lasting influence, especially in the poetry of the English Elizabethan Age because they seemed to capture all the emotional turbulence of love.

Giotto di Bondone's The Lamentation, Scrovegni Chapel

1305-1306. naturalism. The total effect is to humanize Christ, the Virgin, and the saints - to portray them as real people. One of the most moving scenes of the chapel, is Giotto's depiction of human suffering, The painter focused on the real pain felt by Jesus' followers upon his death, rather than the promise of salvation. Giotto was the first artist since antiquity to depict figures from behind, contributing to the sense that we are viewing a real drama.

Giotto di Bondone, Madonna Enthroned with Saints and Angels and Prophets

1310. Naturalism. Giotto's was painted just 1/4 of a century after Cimabue's, represents as remarkable a shift toward naturalism. While it retains a Byzantine hierarchy of figures - the Christ Child is almost as big as the angels and the Virgin three or four times their size - it is spatially convincing in a way that Cimabue's painting is not. Giotto apparently learned to draw accurately from life, and his figures reveal his skill. He was a master of the human face, capable of revealing a wide range of emotion and character. This skill is particularly evident in the frescoes of the Scovegni Chapel, named after the family who commissioned the work. The total effect is to humanize Christ, the Virgin, and the saints - to portray them as real people.

Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies

1404. Christine had been educated at a French court by her father, a prominent Venetian physician. But when her husband and father died, she needed to support three children, a niece, and her mother. To do so she became the first female professional writer in European history. In her Book of the City of Ladies, she attacked male misogyny by recounting the accomplishments of women through the ages in an allegorical debate between herself and lady reason. Her most immediate source was Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women, but her treatment is completely different, treating only good women and freely mixing pagan and Christian examples. Her city's queen is the Virgin Mary, a figure whose importance confirms the centrality of women to Christianity. Thus, she opens the book by wondering why men are so inclined to demean women. De Pizan then turns to God for guidance and is granted a dream vision in which the three allegorical ladies encourage her to build an Ideal City, peopled with a variety of women, from Sappho to her own name-saint, all of whom help her redefine what it means to be female.

St. George of Donatello

1416.Early Renaissance "For the Armourers' Guild Donatello made a very spirited figure of St George in armour, expressing in the head of this saint the beauty of youth, courage and valour in arms, and a terrible ardour. Life itself seems to be stirring vigorously within the stone "(Vasari). The youthful period of Donatello is typified by his St George. This statue, executed around 1416, was placed in a niche on the north wall of Orsanmichele. The tensed expression of the young face shows its affinity with the ideal of David in the Bargello. The cloak gathered over the chest in a tight knot falls in folds whose spiral line retains an echo of the Gothic world, as does the position of the statue in its niche. But the problem of space has been overcome, and the St George, turning on the axis of the shield, moves with a great visionary force. The base of the niche, with the bas-relief representing the saint's combat with the dragon for the freeing of the Princess of Cappadocia, also assumes a role of great importance due to the artist's use of the technique known as rilievo stiacciato, or flattened relief. The positive appraisal of the St George in the 16th century is borne out by the writings of Vasari. In later centuries, when Donatello's works were generally ignored or mentioned only in local guides, the transfer (after 1677) of the statue of St George to the tabernacle of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali (made for the Madonna della Rosa), contributed to the diminishing of its beauty and therefore its fame. Donatello was rediscovered in the 19th century and St George, the masterpiece of Donatello was about to become the emblem of early Renaissance statuary.

Ghiberti's Doors of the Baptistry

1425. Renaissance. Known as the Gates of Paradise because they open onto the paradiso, Italian for the area between a baptistry and the entrance to its cathedral, these doors depict scenes from the Hebrew Bible in ten square panels. The borders surrounding them contain other biblical figures, as well as a self-portrait. The artist's head is slightly bowed, perhaps in humility, but perhaps situated as it is just above the average viewer's head, so that he might look out upon his audience. The proud image functions as both a signature and a bold assertion of Ghiberti's own worth as an artist and individual. Each of the panels in the east doors depicts one or more events from the same story. For instance, the first panel, at the upper left of the doors, contains four episodes from the book of Genesis: the Creation of Adam, at the bottom left; the creation of eve, in the center; the temptation in the distance behind the Creation of Adam; and the Expulsion, at the bottom right. This portrayal of sequential events in the same frame harks back to medieval art. But if the content of the space is episode, the landscape is coherent and realistic, stretching in a single continuum from the foreground into the far distance. The figures themselves hark back to Classical Greek and Roman sculpture. Adam, in the lower left-hand corner, resembles the recumbent god from the east pediment of the Parthenon and Eve, is a Venus of recognizably Hellenistic origin. Ghiberti meant to follow the lead of the ancients in creating realistic figures in realistic space. Not only do the figures farther off appear smaller, but also they decrease in their projection from the panel, so that the most remote are in very shallow relief, hardly raised above the gilded bronze surface. Whereas medieval artists regarded the natural world as an imperfect reflection of the divine, Renaissance artists understood the physical universe as an expression of the divine. Ghiberti's panel embodies this growing desire in the Renaissance to reflect nature as accurately as possible. It is a major motivation for the development of perspective in painting and drawing. The work had political significance as well. The only panel to represent a single event in its space is the Meeting of Solomon and Sheba. Here, the carefully realized symmetry of the architecture, with Solomon and Sheba framed in the middle of its space, was probably designed to represent the much hoped for reunification of the eastern and western branches of christian church. Above all, unlike the other panels that depict multiple focal points, this one has a single focus.

Saint Mary Magdalene of Donatello

1454. Renaissance. In the face of her profound faith, Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene her former life as a prostitute while they were in the house of Simon the Pharisee. The subsequent fate of the penitent is narrated in the Legenda Aurea. For thirty years she fasted, living as a hermit in the wilderness of southern France. Once famed for her beauty, by the end she was wrapped only in her long hair. She was exemplary of the renunciation of a sinful life, exchanging it for repentance, pious remorse and prayer. In Donatello's depiction, which manages without the usual attributes (skull, cross and ointment), the unwavering withdrawal from the world of the Magdalene is presented, nourished by profound faith.This polychromed wood sculpture is one of the most expressive of Donatello's works. The emaciated, hollow-eyed, almost toothless figure seems to embody dramatically a mood that was only to surface at the end of the century in Florence under the spell of Savonarola. It is a radical departure from the classical models of his earlier work.

Boticelli's Annunciation

1489 - 1490. Renaissance. The picture, commissioned in 1489, was painted for the church of the Florentine convent of Cestello (today Santa Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi) in Borgo Pinti. Botticelli enables the observer to look through a room structured according to the laws of perspective and across the red floor tiles, along its converging lines, out onto a landscape. The lively movement of the figures contrasts with these spatial dynamics, which lead towards the background. There is a diagonal line running from the edge of Gabriel's robes to his raised hand, and it continues in the arm which Mary is holding across her chest. The angel's robes, which are billowing in great folds, show that he has just made a sweeping landing. Gabriel is kneeling reverently in front of Mary and his mouth, which is slightly open, suggests that he is in the process of speaking the words of St. Luke's Gospel, which are written underneath him in Latin on the painting's original frame: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."

Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper

1495 - 1498. Renaissance. In 1495 Ludovico commissioned leonardo to paint a monumental fresco of the Last Supper for the north wall of the refractory of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The intent was that at every meal the monks would contemplate Christ's last meal in a wall-sized painting. The Last Supper illusionistically extends the refractory walls in a modified one-point perspective, carrying the present of architectural space into the past of the painting's space. The moment leonardo chose to depict is just after Christ has announced to the apostles that one of them will betray him. Each apostle reacts in his characteristic way. Saint Peter grabs a knife in anger, while Judas turns away and Saint John appears to faint. The finishing point of the painting is directly behind Christ's head, focusing the viewer's attention and establishing Chirst as the most important figure in the work. He extends his arms, forming a perfect equilateral triangle at the center of the painting, an image of balance and a symbolic reference to the Trinity. What is unique about this painting of an otherwise completely traditional subject for a refractory is the psychological realism that Leonardo lends to it. We see this in the sense of agitated doubt and confusion among the apostles, their intertwined bodies twisting and turning as if drawn toward self-contained and peaceful image of Chirst. The apostles, even Judas, are revealed in all their humanity, while Christ is composed in his compassion for them.

Michelangelo's David

1501 - 1504. High Renaissance. With the fall of Savonarola, Florence's governing body quickly moved to assert the republic's survival in visual terms. It asked Michelangelo to return to Florence in 1501 to work on a huge block of marble. It was to be another freestanding statue of the biblical hero David, but colossal in scale. The completed figure, over 17 feet high, intentionally references Donatello's boyish predecessor but then challenges it. Michelangelo represents David before before his triumph, sublimely confident, ready to take on whatever challenge faces him, just as the republic itself felt ready to take on all-comers. The nudity of the figure in contrapposto stance as directly indebted to the Medici celebration of all things ancient Greek. Its sense of self-contained, even heroic individualism captures perfectly the humanist spirit. Michelangelo's triumph over the complexity of the stone transformed into an artwork that his contemporaries lauded for its almost unparalleled beauty. It was an achievement that Michelangelo would soon equal. The fate of David underscores the political and moral turbulence of the times. Each night, as workers installed the statue in the Piazza della Signoria, supporters of the exiled Medici hurled stones at it, understanding that the statue was a symbol of the city's will to stand up to any and all tyrannical rule, including that of the Medici themselves. Another group of citizens soon objected to the statue's nudity, and before it was even installed in place, a skirt of copper leaves was prepared to spare the general public any possible offense.

Rediscovery of Laocoon and Sons

1506. Hellenistic. Was rediscovered. New interest in twisting and emotion and sparked interest in showing bodies like this. Michelangelo became enraptured with the twisting. Next movement of art was influenced by this statue. Show human body as an active emotional agent of change. Changed way he did art and the messages he portrayed.

Michelangelo's Work on the Sistine Chapel: Creation of Adam

1510. High Renaissance. The tension between the spiritual and the material worlds is nowhere better represented on the ceiling than in the Creation of Adam. Adam is earthbound. He seems lethargic, passive, barely interested, while a much more animated God flies through the skies carrying behind him a bulging red drapery that suggests both the womb and the brain, creativity and reason. under his arm is a young woman, who may be Eve, who prefigures the Virgin, while God's left hand touches the shoulder of an infant, who may symbolize the future Christ. The implication of the scene is that in just one moment, God's finger will touch him and infuse him with not just energy but soul, not just life but the future of mankind.

Martin Luther's 95 Theses and Protestant Reformation

1517 - 1526. In general terms, Luther detested both the secular or materialist spirit evident in Church patronage of lavish decorative programs and the moral laxity of its cardinals in Rome. He longed for the Church to return to the spiritual ways of the early Church and to back away from the power and wealth that were corrupting it. In particular, Luther found the practice of selling indulgences to be contradictory to scripture. In the 95 Theses, which he nailed to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517 he addressed this. At the heart of his opposition was class division. Only the rich could afford to pay for the remission of their sins and those of their families. If the poor did buy them, they did so at great sacrifice to the well-being of their families. Then they had to watch the proceeds from the practice build the most extravagant, even profligate projects in Rome. Such injustice fueled Luther's rage. It was thus inevitable on January 3, 1521, the Church excommunicated Luther. All his writings were declared heretical and ordered to be burned. By 1526, menaced by threats from France and Turkey, and in order to keep the peace at home, the German emperor granted each German territory and city discretion in choosing whether or not to follow Luther's example. However, three years later he rescinded the order, resulting in 18 German states signing a protestatio, the act of protest that actually gave rise to the protestant reformation.

Michelangelo's Work on the Sistine Chapel: The Last Judgment

1534 - 1541. Mannerism/ High Renaissance. Michelangelo incorporated this serpentine pose somewhat less dramatically into his first commission in Rome after returning in 1534, a Last Judgment fresco for the altar wall of the Sistine chapel. At the top center of the painting, Mary crouches beside Christ, turning her head away toward the left-hand side of the composition, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. Christ himself turns his attention to the saints and martyrs on the right hand side of the composition, such as white-bearded Saint Peter holding gold and silver keys to Heaven. Saint Bartholomew, who was martyred by being skinned alive, sits just below Christ's feet. Many scholars believe that the face on the flayed skin is a self-portrait of Michelangelo, suggesting his sense of his own martyrdom under the unrelenting papal commissions of Pope Paul III. These figures, whose bodies were mutilated and maimed in their martyrdom, have been healed and restored as they rise to heaven. At the bottom of the painting, on the left, angels welcome souls ascending from the grave. At the right, demons drag the damned down into Hell as Charon ferries them across the river Styx. In the bottom center of the painting, directly behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, is Hell's Mouth, and above it, angels trumpeting the arrival of the Last Judgment. Michelangelo's Last Judgment almost immediately provoked controversy because of it presentation of religious figures nude.

Parmigianino's The Madonna with the Long Neck

1535. Mannerism. Even when mannerists did find themselves working in a religious context, they tended to paint works designed to unsettle the viewer. The painting seems , from the very first glance, oddly organized. How much space is there between the Madonna and her attendants, compressed into the left 3/4 of the painting, and the figure of Saint Jerome reading a scroll in the distant space to the right? He appears to be standing just a short step below the Madonna's chair, but because Parmigianino has not accounted for the wide gap between saint and the foreground group, the space in which he stands is visually almost totally incoherent. In fact, he must be standing far below her. We know that Saint Jerome's presence in the painting was a requirement of the commission and it is almost as if Parmigianino is scoffing at his patron's wishes. The painting is over 7 feet high. The virgin's swanlike neck is a traditional conceit, found in medieval hymns, comparing her neck to an ivory tower or column, a sort of vernacular expression of the Virgin as the allegorical representation of the Church. It is not only the spatial ambiguity of the painting that lends itself such a sense of the unorthodox. The uncannily long-legged figure at the left inexplicably holds a long, oval amphora, as if he is offering it to the Virgin. It serves no real allegorical purpose. Rather, it defines the compositional principle upon which Parmigianino has organized his painting. Like the amphora, the Virgin's head is oval, and her entire body sweeps across the canvas forming the same oval shape. The oval is transected by the disproportionately long body of the Christ child, who lies across her lap. The Vrigin seems to withdraw from the Child as if recognizing what will befall him. In one of the painting's oddest effects, Parmigianino has posed the madonna so that, between her glance and the Christ Child's face, the folds of her blouse hang decidedly stiffly from a decidedly pointed nipple. Equally unsettling is the way the Virgin's right foot seems to extend beyond the plane of the support into our own space, so that the gap between ourselves and the world of the painting mirrors the unaccounted for space that lies between the virgin and Saint Jerome.

Council of Trent and the Catholic Counter-Reformation

1545 - 1563. The Counter-Reformation had the support of clergy and laypeople through the newly organized groups such as the Modern Devotion and the Oratory of the Divine Love. These groups encouraged a return to the principles of simplicity, ethical living, and piety that Erasmus had championed. The Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, took a tougher approach. Founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1530s, it advocated a return to strict and uncompromising obedience to the authority of the church and its ecclesiastical hierarchy. Then in 1545, Pope Paul III convened the Council of Trent in order to define Church doctrine and recommend far-reaching reforms in the abuses practiced by the Church, particularly the selling of indulgences. The Council of Trent, which convened in two separate sessions between 1545 and 1563, also decided to counter the Protestant threat "by means of the stories of the mysteries of our Redemption portrayed by paintings or other representations." The arts should be directed, the Council said, toward clarity and realism, in order to increase understanding, and toward emotion in order to arouse piety and religious fervor. While the Council of Trent generally preached restraint in design, its desire to appeal to the emotions of its audience resulted in increasingly elaborate church architecture, so that the severe simplicity of the Calvinist church, devoid of any art, would seem emotionally empty beside the grand expanse of the Catholic interior. Yet the basic configuration would remain the same. For the next 2 centuries both churches would vie for the souls of Christians in Europe and the Americas.

Michelangelo's Pieta, 1547-53

1547 - 1553. Mannerism. The new Mannerist style resulted in distorted, artificial poses, mysterious or obscure settings, and elongated proportions. It is marked by the rejection of the Classicizing tendencies of the High Renaissance and by the artist's display of virtuosity through manipulation and distortion of the conventional figure. Michelangelo's Pieta, one of the artist's last works, is a fully realized example of the new Mannerist artistic vocabulary. The traditional contrapposto pose that evolved from Classical Greek sculpture in order to give a static figure the illusion of potential movement is here exaggerated by the dynamic, spiral turn of Christ's body as he falls to the ground. The result is what would become the serpentine figure, with no single predominant view. The right arm twists away from the body even as Christ's right leg seems to fold forward to the right at a 90 degree angle.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 's Missa Papae Marcelli

1567. Legend has it that the Council rejected the replacement of polyphonic music with plain chant because of a particular polyphonic mass, composed in 1567 by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Papae marcelli. The story is not true, but that it was widely believed for centuries testifies to the power of Palestrina's choral work. The missa papae marcelli is notable for the way it carries out the requirements of the council of trent. Its music is restrained so that the words, when sung by the choir, stand out in utter clarity, especially at the beginning of phrases. Although the voices in the Credo section enunciate each syllable of the text in chordal unison, a constant interplay between counterpoint, in which voices imitate the main melody in succession, and homophony, in which the subordinate voices simply accompany the melody in unison, enlivens the music. Likewise Palestrina often plays one voice sustaining a single note per syllable against a voice engaged in melisma, or many notes per syllable. Above all, the intelligiblity of the texts of paramount concern.

Rene Descartes

1596 - 1650. Enlightenment. Descartes lived in Holland for more than 20 years. It was in Holland that he wrote and published his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in Sciences in 1637. As opposed to Bacon's inductive reasoning, Descartes proceeded to his conclusions by the opposite method of deductive reasoning. He began with clearly established general principles and moved from those to the establishment of particular truths. Like Bacon, Descartes distrusted almost everything, believing that both our thought and our observational senses can and do deceive us. In his Meditations on the First Philosophy, he draws an analogy between his own method and that of an architect. The first thing, in fact, that he could not doubt was that he was thinking, which led him to the inevitable conclusion that he must actually exist in order to generate thoughts about his own existence as a thinking individual, which he expressed in Discourse on Method in the phrase, "I think, therefore I am". At the heart of Descartes' thinking - we refer to Descartes' method as Cartesian - is an absolute distinction between mind and matter, and hence between the metaphysical soul and the physical body, a system of oppositions that has come to be known as Cartesian dualism. The remarkable result of this approach is that, beginning with this one first principle in his discourse on Method, Descartes comes to prove, at least to his own Satisfaction, the existence of God.

Francis Bacon and New Method of Science

1620. Enlightenment. One of the most fundamental principles guiding the new science was the propostition that through direct observation of natural phenomena, one could draw general conclusions from particular examples. This process was known as inductive reasoning, and with it scientists believed they could predict the workings of nature as a whole. When inductive reasoning was combined with scientific experimentation, it produced a manner of inquiry called the empirical method. Published in 1620, Bacon's "New Method of Science" is a passionate plea for the empirical method's use. The greatest obstacle to human understanding, Bacon believed, was "superstition, and the blind and immoderate zeal of religion." A proper understanding of the world could be achieved only if we eliminate the errors in reasoning developed through our unwitting adherence to the false notions that every age has worshipped. He identified four "Idols" all described in his New Method of Science. The first of these, the Idols of the Tribe, are the common fallacies of all human nature, derived from the fact that we trust, wrongly, in our senses. The second, the Idols of the Cave, derive from our particular education, upbringing, and environment - an individual's religious faith or sense of his or her ethnic or gender superiority or inferiority would be examples. The third, the Idols of the Market Place, are errors that occur as a result of miscommunicatiom, words that cause confusion by containing hidden assumptions. Finally, there are the Idols of the Theatre, the false dogmas of philosophy - not only those of the ancients but also those that may yet be composed. The object of the empirical method is the destruction of these four Idols through intellectual objectivity. Bacon argued that rather than falling back on the preconceived notions and opinions produced by the four Idols, "Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of Nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything."

Bernini's Rape of Proserpina

1622. Baroque. This sculpture was commissioned by Cardinal Borghese of the Catholic Church and is still located in the Galleria Borghese—the room for which it was commissioned—in Rome, Italy. It depicts the Roman mythological story of the abduction and subsequent rape of Proserpina by the god, Pluto.This depiction captures the scene at the climax of the moment; Pluto is lifting Proserpina into the air, and she is visibly fighting back. This snapshot in time contains a considerable amount of life-like detail. These details, like the expression of fear on Proserpina's face or the sense of overwhelming force created by the muscular form of Pluto, inform the viewer and tell an entire story with a single moment in time. This dynamic representation, a trait developed by the Baroque masters,7 creates a vivid and believable representation of this myth. The contorted, serpentine configurations of the figures' bodies expand upon this dynamism; they invite the viewer to move around the sculpture, view it from every side, and become a part of the dynamic story. By forcing the audience to actively view the piece, Bernini ensures that the viewer's experience of the sculpture is expanded and dynamic in its own right.The intricate, lifelike details with which Bernini imbued the sculpture further this story and give it an emotional depth that connects with the viewer. The way Proserpina's hand presses into and distorts Pluto's face, and the impression that Pluto's hand makes in Proserpina's leg, serve to tell the story. These details inform us of the unwanted advances, as well as the sexual nature of the scene. The fact that the bodies are partially clothed, their genitalia hidden, only adds to the sensuality of this moment. The story is told through a corporeal representation that reaches to the core passions of every human being. The emphasis on the visceral is a common expository technique in Baroque sculpture.7 While this event is not from Christian beliefs, it still carries with it the same ideals that permeated this time period. The emphasis on the sensuous, bodily experiences, as portrayed through the dynamic poses and the detailed contact between the figures, is characteristic of Counter-Reformation and Baroque thought.

Bernini's David

1623. Baroque. Bernini's David was commissioned be a nephew of Pope Paul V, appears to be an intentional contrast to Michelangelo's sculpture of the same subject. Michelangelo's hero is at rest, in a moment of calm anticipation before confronting Goliath. In contrast, Bernini's sculpture captures the sound hero in the midst of action. David's body twists in an elaborate spiral, creating dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. His teeth are clenched, and his muscles strain as he prepares to launch the fatal rock. So real is his intensity that viewers tend to avoid standing directly in front of the sculpture. In part, David's action defines Bernini's Baroque style. Whereas Michelangelo's david seems to contemplate his own prowess, his mind turned inward, Bernini's David turns outward, into the viewer's space, as if Goliath were a presence, although unseen, in the sculpture. In other words, the sculpture is not self-contained, and its active relationship with the space surrounding it - often referred to as its invisible complement - is an important feature of Baroque art.

Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith and Maidservant with Head of Holofernes

1625. Baroque. Beginning in 1612, Artemisia painted five separate versions of the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes. The subject was especially popular in Florence, which identified with both the Jewish hero David and the Jewish hero Judith. When Artemisia moved there, her personal investment in the subject found ready patronage in the city. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to see the paintings outside the context of her biography. She painted her first version of the theme during and just after the rape trial itself, and the last, Judith and Maidservant, in about 1625, suggesting that in this series she transforms her personal tragedy in her painting. In all of them, Judith is a self-portrait of the artist. In the Hebrew Bible's Book of Judith, the Jewish heroine enters the enemy Assyrian camp intending to seduce their lustful leader, Holofernes, who has laid siege to her people. When Holofernes falls asleep, she beheads him with his own sword and carries her trophy back to her people in a bag. The Jews then go on to defeat the leaderless Assyrians. Gentiles chi lights the scene by a single candle, dramatically accentuating the Caravaggesque tenebrism of the presentation. Judith shades her eyes from its light, presumably in order to look out into the darkness that surrounds her. her hand also invokes our silence, as if a danger lurks nearby. The maid stops wrapping Holofernes' head in a towel, looking on alertly herself. Together, mistress and maid, larger than life size and heroic, have taken their revenge on not only the Assyrians, but also lust-driven men in general. As is so often the case in Baroque painting, the space of the drama is larger than the space of the frame. The same invisible complement outside Bernini's David hovers in the darkness beyond reach of our vision here. Gentileschi was not attracted to traditional subjects like the Annunciation. She preferred biblical and mythological heroines and women who played major roles.

Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son

1662. Baroque. Painted in 1662, The Return of the Prodigal Son (in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) depicts both Rembrandt's beloved son Titus, who would die in 1668 at the age of 26, and the artist himself placing his fate into the Father's hands. The text of the parable invites this meditation on filiality, but it seems only to be thinkable as a return: one must have left the father and embarked on prodigality for the event of return to emerge as the condition of forgiveness. Spent, the son shapes his resolve: "I will go to my father and I will tell him ..." By this decision, he recovers his status of son and restores to his father the opportunity for unconditional welcome that defines him as a father. Rembrandt seems to have been haunted by this story, since he depicted it eighteen times.

Isaac Newton, Principia

1687. Enlightenment. With its publication in 1687, Newton demonstrated through Prinicipia to the satisfaction of almost everyone that the universe was an intelligible system, well-ordered in its operations and guiding principles. First, Newton computed the law of universal gravitation in a precise mathematical equation, demonstrating that each and every object exerts an attraction to a greater or lesser degree on all other objects. The sun exercises a hold on its moon, and Jupiter on its several moons. All form a harmonious system functioning as efficiently and precisely as a clock or machine. Newton's conception of the universe as an orderly system would remain unchallenged until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the new physics of Einstein and others would transform our understanding. Newton's principia marked the culmination of the forces that had led, earlier in the century, to the creation of the Royal Society in England and the Academie des Sciences in France. Throughout the 18th century, the scientific findings of Newton and he predecessors - Kepler and Galileo, in particular - were widely popularized and applied to the problems of everyday life.

John Locke's Essay on Human Understanding

1690. In his Essay on Human Understanding, Locke repudiated Hobbes, arguing that people are perfectly capable of governing themselves. The human mind at birth, he claimed, is a tabula rasa, a "blank slate", and our environment - what we learn and how we learn it - fills this slate. Given this sense that we understand the world through experience, if we live in a reasonable society, it should follow, according to Locke's notion, that we will grow into reasonable people.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony 4th Movement: Ode to Joy

1700. Romanticism. Expression of more personal, emotional feelings as opposed to the structural emphasis of Classicism. Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, byname the Choral Symphony, orchestral work in four movements by Ludwig van Beethoven, remarkable in its day not only for its grandness of scale but especially for its final movement, which includes a full chorus and vocal soloists who sing a setting of Friedrich Schiller's poem "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy"). The work was Beethoven's final complete symphony, and it represents an important stylistic bridge between the Classical and Romantic periods of Western music history. Symphony No. 9 premiered on May 7, 1824, in Vienna, to an overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience, and it is widely viewed as Beethoven's greatest composition. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was ultimately more than three decades in the making. Schiller's popular "Ode to Joy" was published in 1785, and it is possible that Beethoven made his first of multiple attempts to set it to music in the early 1790s. He clearly revisited the poem in 1808 and 1811, as his notebooks include numerous remarks regarding possible settings. In 1812 Beethoven determined to place his setting of "Ode to Joy" within a grand symphony. Ten more years passed before that symphony's completion, and during that time Beethoven agonized over the composition's every note. His notebooks indicate that he considered and rejected more than 200 different versions of the "Ode to Joy" theme alone. When he finally finished the work, he offered to the public a radically new creation that was part symphony and part oratorio—a hybrid that proved puzzling to less-adventuresome listeners. Some knowledgeable contemporaries declared that Beethoven had no understanding of how to write for voices; others wondered why there were voices in a symphony at all.Symphony No. 9 broke many patterns of the Classical style of Western music to foreshadow the monolithic works of Gustav Mahler, Richard Wagner, and other composers of the later Romantic era. Its orchestra was unusually large, and its length—more than an hour—was extraordinary. The inclusion of a chorus, moreover, in a genre that was understood to be exclusively instrumental, was thoroughly unorthodox. The formal structure of the movements, while generally adhering to Classical models, also charted new territory. For example, the first movement, although in Classical sonata form, confounds listeners first by rising to a fortissimo climax in the harmonically unstable exposition section and then by delaying a return to the home key. The scherzo, with all its propulsive energy, is placed as the second movement, rather than the customary third, and the third movement is a mostly restful, almost prayerful adagio. The last movement builds from a gentle beginning into a brazen finale, while recalling some of the themes from earlier movements; once the "Ode to Joy" theme arrives, the musical form essentially becomes that of variations within a broader sonata-form structure.

J.S. Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

1700. What makes Bach unique is his absolute mastery of the strict compositional techniques of the day. His innate talent enabled him to use these formal techniques and structures to their full effect, whilst still making his music expressive, exciting and accessible. Basically, he wrote brilliant tunes for the instruments and voices available to him at the time, but stuck to the rule-book of 18th Century music. In a lesser composer's hands, this might have sounded a bit mathematical, mechanical and boring - but not with Bach! This is especially evident in the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. It's written in two sections: the Toccata (meaning "to touch") - is a sort of free-form introduction, involving lots of fast scales and arpeggios (broken chords); the second part - the Fugue - is characterised by complex overlapping repetitions of a main theme played alongside different counter-melodies. The piece is known for its majesty, drama and relentless rhythm. It's not only Bach's most famous fugue, but also the most famous fugue by any composer, ever.

Denis Diderot and the Encyclopedie

1751 - 1777. Enlightenment. The crowning achievement of the philosophes was the Encyclopedie, begun in 1751 and finished in 1777. Its editors were the teacher and translator Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, a mathematician who was in charge of the articles on mathematics and science. Both were active participants in salon society, and, as we have seen, d'Alembert in fact lived with Julie de Lespinasse. The work was unpopular in the French court. If in fact the Encyclopedie was rather innocently subtitled a Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, the stated intention of the massive 35 volume text was "to change the general way of thinking." Something of the danger that the Encyclopedie presented to the monarchy is evident in the entry on natural law written by the French lawyer in which such thinking on the emphasis of human liberty was fundamental to the Enlightenment and would fuel revolutions in both America and France. Freedom of thought was, in fact, fundamental to the transmission of knowledge, and any state that suppressed it was considered an obstacle to progress. Funded by its 4,000 subscribers, the Encyclopedie was read by perhaps 100x that many people, as private circulating libraries rented it to customers throughout the country. In its comprehensiveness, it represents a fundamental principle of the Enlightenment - to accumulate, codify, and preserve human knowledge. The Encyclopedie claimed to be a collection of "all the knowledge scattered over the face of the earth." The principle guiding the encyclopedic impulse is rational humanism, the belief that through logical, careful thought, progress is inevitable.

Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing

1767. Rococo. The Swing, a work that suggests an erotic intrigue between two lovers. It implies as well the aesthetic intrigue between the artist and the patron, a conspiracy emphasized by the sculpture of Cupid to the left, holding his finger to his mouth as if to affirm the secrecy of the affair. The painting's subject matter was in fact suggested by another artist who was approached by a Baron to paint his mistress "on a swing which a bishop is setting in motion." Much of the power of the composition lies in the fact that the viewer shares the voyeuristic pleasures of the reclining lover. The entire image is charged with an erotic symbolism that would have been commonly understood at the time. For instance, the lady on the swing lets fly her shoe - the lost shoe and naked foot being a well-known symbol of lost virginity. The young man reaches toward her, hat in hand - the hat that in 18th century erotic imagery was often used to cover the genitals of a discovered lover. Even more subtly, the composition echoes the central panel of the Sistine Chapel 's ceiling of the Creation of Adam. The male lover assumes Adam's posture and the female lover God's, although she reaches toward Adam - to bring him to life, as it were - with her foot not her hand.

Mary Wollestonecraft's A Vindication on the Rights of Women

1792. Enlightenment. Reason was above all universal; everyone had access to it and, consequently, everyone should choose to be bound by its decrees. In insisting on the rationality of women, Wollstonecraft drew out the radically egalitarian implications behind the Enlightenment project. The Enlightenment's emphasis on reason created in turn a lively conversation about its apparent opposite: emotion. By the time Wollstonecraft wrote, the idea that emotion belonged to the private sphere of women and reason to the public realm of men had become fairly common, if still controversial. Rousseau's depiction of Sophie, the ideal woman in his educational novel Émile, who is raised to be sweet, docile, and interested only in pleasing her husband, is Wollstonecraft's most explicit target when critiquing this prejudice, but by no means her only one.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

1813. Enlightenment. Although Austen's best-known novels were published in the first quarter of the 19th Century, she was more in tune with the sensibilities of of the late 18th century, especially with Enlightenment values of sense, reason, and self-improvement. None of Austen's heroines better embodies these values than the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet, one of 5 daughters of a country gentleman whose wife is intent on marrying the daughters off. The level of irony of the opening statements of the novel cannot be overstated. For while she describes the fate that awaits any single, well-heeled male entering a new neighborhood, these lines are less direct, but a devastating reflection upon the possibilities for women in English society. Their prospect in life is to be married. And if they are not themselves well-heeled and attractive - that is, marriageable - their prospects are less than that. The novel's plot revolves around the two nouns of its title, "pride" and "prejudice". Where Elizabeth at first can see only Darcy's pride, she comes to realize that her view is tainted by her prejudice. Darcy's disdain for country people and manners is a prejudice that Elizabeth's evident pride helps him to overcome. Together, they come to understand not only their own shortcoming's but also their society's.

Goya's Third of May, 1808

1814 - 1815. Romanticism. It is one of the greatest testaments to the horrors of war ever painted. The night after the events on May 2, Napoleon's troops set a firing squad and executed hundreds of Madrilenos - anyone caught bearing weapons of any kind. The only illumination comes from a square stable lantern that casts a bright light on a prisoner with his arms raised wide above his head in a gesture that seems at once a plea for mercy and an act of heroic defiance. Below him the outstretched arms of a bloody corpse mirror his gesture. To his left, in the very center of the painting, another soon to be casualty of the firing squad hides his eyes in terror, and behind stretches a line of victims to follow. Above them, barely visible in the night sky, rises a solitary, darkened church steeple. Much of the power of the painting lies in its almost Baroque contrast of light and dark and its evocation of Christ's agony on the cross, especially through the cruciform pose of the prisoner. The soldier-executioners represent the grim reality of loyalty to one's state, as opposed to loyalty to one's conscience.

Goya's Saturn Devouring His Children

1820 - 1823. Romanticism. Derived from the story of Kronos eating his children, it is among the legends associated with the pre-Olympian Titans. Saturn is the latin form of the Greek Kronos. At the Quinta del Sordo, the Saturn faced the main door, and it seems likely that Goya did not intent the Saturn myth as a welcoming image. His horrific giant with skinny legs, massive shoulders, wild hair, and crazed eyes is perhaps more an image of society as a whole, the social order, even Spain itself, devouring its own people.

Edouard Manet, Olympia

1863. Realism. Manet's assault on his fellow Parisians' sensibilities continued in 1863 with Olympia, once it was exhibited in 1865 it was once again the object of public scandal. Manet's Olympia is a courtesan, or not quite a courtesan. She possesses the slightly stocky body of the working class - a petite faubourienne, one critic of the day called her a "little factory girl". Perhaps she is one of the many factory girls who, in 1863, found themselves out of work in Paris, a casualty of the American Civil War. Unable to get raw cotton from the South, the cotton mills of Paris had to shut down. Many girls and women turned to prostitution in order to survive. Viewers at the Salon of 1865 were disturbed by her class - a courtesan satisfied upper-class tastes, prostitutes did not - by the position of her left hand, and, above all, by her gaze. Not only is her gaze as direct as the nude in Le Dejeuner, but also it is confidently directed down towards us, the viewers. It is as if we have just arrived on the scene, bringing flowers that we have handed to the black maid. We are suddenly Olympia's customers. And if her body is for sale, then we have entered as well into the economy in which human beings are bought and sold, the economy of slavery.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass

1863. Realism. Vilified because of its supposedly scandalous content or challenging style. The painting evokes the fetes galantes of Watteau and a particular engraving executed by Marcantonio Raimondi after a lost painting designed by Raphael, The Judgement of Paris. Manet's three central figures assume the same poses as wood nymphs seated at the lower right of Raymond's composition, and so Manet's painting can be understood as a "judgement of Paris" in its own right - Manet judging Paris the city in all its bourgeois decadence. It was, in fact, the discord between the seated female's frank nudity - and the fact that she appears to directly confront the gaze of the viewer - and her fully clothed male companions, who seem engaged in a conversation wholly at odds with the sexualized circumstances, that most discomfited the painting's audience.

Claude Monet, Le Gare St. Lazare

1877. Impressionism. The Gare Saint-Lazare was the largest and busiest train station in Paris. Early in 1877, with help from his friend Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet rented an apartment in the nearby rue Moncey and began the first of 12 canvases showing this icon of modernity. He displayed seven of them, including this one, at the third Impressionist exhibition, in April of that year. Legend has it that he arranged to have the standing locomotives stoked with extra coal so that he could observe and paint the effects of belching steam—dull gray when trapped inside the station, white and cloudlike when seen against the sky.

Claude Monet, Cliff Walk at Pourville

1882. Impressionism. In February 1882, Claude Monet went to Normandy to paint, one of many such expeditions that he made in the 1880s. This was also a retreat from personal and professional pressures. His wife, Camille, had died three years earlier, and Monet had entered into a domestic arrangement with Alice Hoschedé (whom he would marry in 1892, after her husband's death). France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession that affected Monet's sales. In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about the upcoming seventh Impressionist exhibition—divisions within the group had become pronounced by this time—and he delegated the responsibility for his contribution to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. Disappointed in the area around the harbor city of Dieppe, which he found too urban, Monet settled in Pourville and remained in this fishing village until mid-April. He became increasingly enamored of his surroundings, writing to Hoschedé and her children: "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!" He was able to do so in June, when they joined him in Pourville. The two young women strolling in Cliff Walk at Pourville are probably Marthe and Blanche, the eldest Hoschedé daughters. In this work, Monet addressed the problem of inserting figures into a landscape without disrupting the unity of its painterly surface. He integrated these elements with one another through texture and color. The grass—composed of short, brisk, curved brushstrokes—appears to quiver in the breeze, and subtly modified versions of the same strokes and hues suggest the women's wind-whipped dresses and shawls and the undulation of the sea. X-radiographs show that Monet reduced the rocky outcropping at the far right to balance the proportions of sea and sky.

Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere

1882. Realism. French painter Édouard Manet presented A Bar at the Folies-Bergère at the 1882 Paris Salon exhibition just one year before his death. The painting is the culmination of his interest in scenes of urban leisure and spectacle, a subject that he had developed in dialogue with Impressionism over the previous decade. On loan from the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery in London, the painting is a masterpiece that has perplexed and inspired artists and scholars since it was painted over 100 years ago.The Folies-Bergère was one of the most elaborate variety-show venues in Paris, showcasing entertainment ranging from ballets to circus acts. Another attraction was the barmaids, who were assumed by many contemporary observers to be available as clandestine prostitutes. By depicting one of these women and her male customer on an imposing scale, Manet brazenly introduced a morally suspect, contemporary subject into the realm of high art. By treating the topic with deadpan seriousness and painterly brilliance, Manet staked his claim to be remembered as the heroic "painter of modern life" envisaged by critics like Charles Baudelaire.In addition to the social tensions evoked by the painting's subject, Manet's composition presents a visual puzzle. The barmaid looks directly at the viewer, while the mirror behind her reflects the large hall and patrons of the Folies-Bergère. Manet seems to have painted the image from a viewpoint directly opposite the barmaid. Yet this viewpoint is contradicted by the reflection of the objects on the bar and the figures of the barmaid and a patron off to the right. Given such inconsistencies, Manet seems not to have offered a single, determinate position from which to confidently make sense of the whole.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

1883 - 1891. Modernism: radical cultrual change through the creation of new values. Friedrich Nietzsche's most accessible and influential philosophical work, misquoted, misrepresented, brilliantly original and enormously influential, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale in Penguin Classics. Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche's utterance 'God is dead', his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic and free. Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) became the chair of classical philology at Basel University at the age of 24 until his bad health forced him to retire in 1879. He divorced himself from society until his final collapse in 1899 when he became insane. A powerfully original thinker, Nietzsche's influence on subsequent writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Jean-Paul Sartre, was considerable. If you enjoyed Thus Spoke Zarathustra you might like Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Enigmatic, vatic, emphatic, passionate, often breathtakingly insightful, his works together make a unique statement in the literature of European ideas' A. C. Grayling

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night

1889. Post-Impressionism. In early May he entered a mental hospital in Saint-Remy, not far from Arles, and there he painted starry night, perhaps his most famous composition. here the swirling cypresses (in which red and green lie harmoniously side by side) and the rising church steeple unite earth and sky. Similarly, the orange and yellow stars and moon unite with the brightly lit windows of the town. Describing his thoughts about the painting in a letter to his brother, Van Gogh wrote, "Is it not emotion, the sincerety of one's feeling for nature, that draws us?" But finally, in July 1890, after a number of stays in hospitals and asylums, he committed suicide in the fields outside Auvers-sur-oise.

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral series

1890s.Impressionism Monet liked to use one and the same motif repeatedly.Thus between 1892 and 1895 he produced thefamous series of twenty paintings devoted toRouen Cathedral. The most remarkable works in that seriesdate from 1894, as do the two paintings reproduced in thisvolume. Monet arrived at Rouen in February 1892 andboarded in a house opposite Rouen Cathedral. From thisviewpoint, at close range, the main paintings in the Cathedralseries were executed. It determined the design of all thepictures in the series: the facade of the cathedral occupiesalmost the entire canvas, the soaring towers cut off by thetop edge of the picture.The upper part of the facade is painted in golden andpinkish hues, and its shadowed lower part in lilac-pink dabs.The summer sky shows above as a patch of blue. The stonearches over the portals are almost ethereal and recognizableonly from their paler shadows; the pattern of the rosewindow dissolves in the dark bluish shade; the outlines of other elements of the building have lost all distinctness;indeed everything looks like one vibrant, palpitating mass ofcolour. The cathedral is flooded with warm evening light.The sun has already begun to sink and its rays, falling on thevertical surface almost at a right angle, make the cold stonescintillate. The houses on the other side of the square castlong shadows extending as far as the lower part of thecathedral façade. In his desire to capture all the wealth andvariety of lighting effects on the cathedral's surface the artistpassed quickly from one canvas to another as the lightingchanged with the movement of the sun. The Cathedral seriescan be regarded as the culmination of the Impressionistmethod in Monet's work. The entire set was first displayed inthe year of its completion, 1895; later it was often exhibitedboth in France and abroad. At present the canvases makingup the Rouen Cathedral series are in different museums ofthe world, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris boasting five of them. This picture shows the central section of the cathedral front surmounted by a tower, the upperpart lit by slanting rays of sunshine and the lowersteeped in shadow. The façade of the cathedral fills almostthe whole canvas, giving the impression that the artistpainted it standing nearby. Yet no details of the building's Gothic massiveness or its structural parts are discernible,nor can one feel the texture of the stone, as the artist'sattention was not focused on them. Monet needed the façademerely as an elaborate flat surface for a masterly recordingof every nuance of lighting.The sun shines from the south, so that the surface of thewest façade is partly or completely shadowed, and only some

Richard Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra

1896. Also sprach Zarathustra was based on Nietzsche's book of the same name, completed in 1885, and predicted the appearance of Superman some thirty years before his arrival from Krypton. At the point where this excerpt ends, he is still living in Kansas. The Fanfare is of course, now best known as the theme from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Originally scored for 4 trumpets, 4 horns, and 3 trombones, all the essentials are covered in this transcription, which is given in the original key. Each player has an interesting and moderately challenging part; first part for alto trombone should be really enjoyable to play with so much solid support. This is a valuable addition to the repertoire for college-level ensemble. First (alto) range is c-[d.sup.2], 2nd (tenor) c-[a.sup.1], bass trombone C-a-flat. Timpani are in C, E and G. Mutes are required for 2nd, 3rd and 5th parts. Jeremy Niles Kempton received his bachelor's degree at the Eastman School of Music as a pupil of Emory Remington, and his master's degree at the University of Illinois, studying with Robert Gray. He is currently active in New York as a conductor.

Virgil's Aeneid

19 BC.Ancient Rome. After Augustus' triumph over Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Virgil retired to Naples, where he began work on an epic poem designed to rival Homer's Iliad and to provide the Roman state - and Augustus in particular - with a suitably grand founding myth.The Aeneid opens in Carthage, where, after the Trojan war, Aeneas and his men have been driven by a storm, and where they are hosted by Phoenician queen Dido. During a rainstorm Aeneas and Dido take refuge in a cave, where the queen, having fallen in love with the Trojan hero, gives herself willingly to him. She now assumes that she is married, but Aeneas, reminded by his father's ghost of his duty to accomplish what the gods have predetermined - a classic instance of pietas - knows he must resume his destined journey. An angry and accusing Dido begs him to stay. When Aeneas rejects her pleas, Dido vows to haunt him after her death and to bring enmity between Carthage and his descendants forever (a direct reference on Virgil's involvement in the punic wars). As his boat sails away, she commits suicide and the goddesses in the underworld view her death as tragic. Virgil's point is almost coldly hard-hearted: All personal feelings and desires must be sacrificed to one's responsibilities to the state. Civic duty takes precedence over private life. The poem is on one level, an account of Rome's founding by Aeneas, but, it is also a profoundly moving essay on human destiny and the great cost involved in achieving and sustaining the values and principles upon which culture - Roman culture in particular, but all cultures by extension - must be based. Augustus, as Virgil well knew, claimed direct descent from Aeneas, and it is particularly important that the poem presents war, at which Augustus excelled, as a moral tragedy, however necessary. In Book 7, Venus gives a shield to Aeneas made by the god Vulcan. The shield displays the important events in the future history of Rome, including Augustus at the Battle of Actium. But in the senseless slaughter that ends the poem, as Aeneas and the Trojans battle Turns and the Italians, Virgil demonstrates that the only thing worse than not avenging the death of one's friends and family is, perhaps, avenging them. In this sense the poem is a profound plea for peace, a peace that Augustus would dedicate himself to pursuing.

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles de Avignon

1907. The figures are faceted, abandons 3-D, as if they have been reassembled, shows an element of primitivism, disrupting the typical male gaze we would have on the nude by the grotesque faces. Multiple perspectives of one work. On the left: if we flipped the canvas it is like she is lying down. Exemplifies the shift in the object of painting from literal to conceptual. Prostitutes frankly address the viewer, inspired by Manet and Ingres greatly inspired Picasso to push the limits of the representation of the female form even further. Influenced by cezanne's mult perspectives within the painting. Wanted to connect the prostitutes to the seemingly authentic forces Ganguin had discovered in the "primitive". Was an act of liberation of past traditions.

William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow

1923. Labeled "Radical Imagism" for concentrating on the stark presentation of commonplace objects to the exclusion of inner realities. The first line of each stanza of William's poem raises expectations which the second line debunks in two syllables. Thus a mere preposition, "upon", follows the urgency of "so much depends". A "red wheel" conjures images of Futurist speed, only to fall flat with the static "barrow". William's aesthetic depends upon elevating the commonplace and the everyday into the realm of poetry, thus transforming them, making them new. The Red Wheelbarrow" is a poem by American modernist poet and physician William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). The poem was originally published without a title and was designated as "XXII" as the twenty-second work in Williams' 1923 book Spring and All, a hybrid collection which incorporated alternating selections of free verse poetry and prose. It is one of Williams' most frequently anthologized poems, and is considered a prime example of early twentieth-century Imagism.

Marc Chagall, The Green Violinist

1923. Modernist. Nostalgia for the artist's rustic village is at the heart of this painting. Fiddlers on rooftops were a popular motif of Chagall's, stemming from his memories of Vitebsk and the Russian countryside he called home as a child. This motif also reflects the artist's deep devotion to his Jewish cultural roots. In Green Violinist, his subject (who may represent the prophet Elijah) is an extension of the rooftops, indicated by the windows and geometric shapes in his pant legs; he is literally a colorful man, a pillar of the community, poised in rhythmic stance.Chagall also recalls with this painting the belief among the Chabad Hasidim in Vitebsk that music and dance represented a communion with God. Incidentally, the 1964 musical "Fiddler on the Roof" got its name from Chagall's paintings.

Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers and The Weary Blues

1926. Jazz. In 1942, Hughes had gone to Paris seeking freedom he could not find at home. He was soon writing poems inspired by the jazz rhythms he was hearing played by the African-American bands. In harlem, Hughes quickly became one of the most powerful voices. His poems narrate the lives of his people, capturing the inflections and cadences of their speech. The poems celebrate most of all the inventiveness of African-American culture, especially the openness and ingenuity of its music and languages. He had come to understand that his cultural identity rested in the vernacular expression of the American black, which he could hear in its music and speech.

Marc Chagall, The White Crucifixion

1938. Although Chagall became well known for his religious and Biblical motifs, the blatant Christian symbolism present in White Crucifixion and other works(particularly his stained-glass windows for several churches)is surprising given Chagall's devout Orthodox Jewish background. However, this work is a clear indication of Chagall's faith and his response to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe at this time; here Jesus's suffering parallels that of his people. Jesus wears a Jewish prayer shawl, and whilst he suffers on the cross, Jewish figures on all sides of him suffer as well, fleeing from marauding invaders who burn a synagogue. The painting rather poignantly inverts the notion that the crucifixion is purely a Christian symbol - indeed that might only serve as a reminder of what divides Jews from Christians. Instead it makes the Crucifixion into a sign of their common suffering.

Primaporta Augustus

20 BC.Ancient Rome. aka Augustus of Primaporta. On January 13, 27 BC Octavian came before the senate and gave up all his powers and provinces. It was a rehearsed event in which the senate "begged" him to reconsider and exact obedience over all of Italy and subsequently all Roman-controlled territory. He agreed to these terms and the Senate, in gratitude, granted him the semi divine title of Augustus "the revered one".Augustus thereafter portrayed himself as a near-deity. The Augustus of Primaporta is the slightly larger than life size sculpture named for its location at the home of Augustus' wife Livia at Primaporta on the outskirts of Rome. Augustus is represented as the embodiment of the famous admonition given to Aenas by his dead father. Augustus, like Aeneas, is duty bound to exhibit pietas, the obligation to his ancestor "to rule earth's peoples." The sculpture, though recognizably Augustus, is nevertheless idealized. It adopts the ideal proportions and pose of Doryphoros. The gaze. reminiscent of the look of Alexander the Great, purposefully recalls the visionary hero of Greece who died 300 years earlier. The right arm is extended in the gesture of ad locutio - he is giving a military address. The military garb announces his role as commander-in-chief. Riding a dolphin at his feet is a small cupid, son of the goddess Venus, laying claim to the Julian family's divine descent from Venus and Aeneas. Although Augustus was more than 70 years old when he died, he was always depicted as young and vigorous, choosing to portray himself apparently, as the ideal leader rather than the wise, older pater.

Basilica of Maxentius

306 - 313. aka Basilica Nova. Constantine's architectural program in Rome would leave a lasting mark on subsequent Christian architecture, particularly his work on the basilica at the southern end of the line of Imerial Forums. Originally built by Maxentius, it was the last of the great imperial buildings erected in Rome. Like all the Roman basilicas, the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine was a large rectangular building with a rounded extension, called an apse, at one or both ends and easy access in and out. It was, similarly, an administrative center - courthouse, council chamber, and meeting hall - and its high vaulted ceilings were purposefully constructed on the model of large Roman baths. Its nave, the large central area, rose to an elevation of 114 feet. One entered through a triple portico at the southeast end and looked down at the nave some 300 feet to the original apse at the other end of the building, which acted as a focal point. The basilica plan, with the apse as its focal point, would exert considerable influence on later Christian churches. These later churches would transfrom the massive interiors from administrative spaces to religious sanctuaries, whose vast interior spaces elicited religious awe.

Constantine Becomes Emperor of Rome

312. In 305, Diocletian retired owing to bad health, ushering in a period of instability. Finally, Constantine I, known as Constantine the Great, won a decisive battle at the Milvian Bridge, at the entrance to Rome, in October 28, 312, establishing himself as emperor. Two years earlier, as Constantine was advancing on Rome from Gaul, the story had circulated that he had seen a vision of the sun for Apollo accompanied by Nike and the roman numeral XXX symbolizing the 30 years he would reign. By the end of his life, he claimed to have seen, instead, above the sun, a single cross, by then an increasingly common symbol of Christ, together with the legend. At any rate, its seems certain that at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine ordered that his troops decorate their shields with crosses, and perhaps the Greek letters chi and rho as well.While constantine himself reasserted his devotion to the Roman state religion, within a year, in 313, he issued the Edict of Milan, which granted religious freedom to all, ending religious persecution in the Empire.

Bronze She-Wolf

500 BC - 480 BC. Depicts an Etruscan foundation myth for the city of Rome. The two suckling figures represent Romulus and Remus. Bronze, which became a symbol of Rome, combines a ferocious realism with the stylized portrayl of the wolf's geometrically regular mane.

Fall of Rome

510-530. Western half of empire falls to Germans and visigoths in 444 BC. Huns moved into Italy and sacked rome. Roman empire had become weak. Moved seat of roman empire to Constantinople and seat of Byzantine Empire. Western half given over to chaos and reforming itseld to feudalism. When civilization starts new tact in west it develops differently from eastern christandom. 2 different development of civilization between west and near east (byzantine).

The Colosseum

72 - 80. The interior corridors of the Colosseum in Rome make use of both barrel and groin vaulting. This huge arena was built by Vespasian, the former commander in Palestine, who succeeded Nero when the latter's lavish lifestyle led to his ouster and subsequent suicide. Vespasian built the Colosseum across from Nero's ostentatious palace. The colosseum formed a giant oval, 615 feet long and 510 feet high, and audiences, estimated at 50,000, entered and exited through its 76 vaulted arcades in a matter of a few minutes. These vaults were made possible by the use of concrete, which was known by the Mesopotamians but perfected by the Romans who learned from the Etruscans to make it set more quickly and stronger. Each level employed a different architectural order: the Tuscan order on the ground floor, the Ionic on the second, and the Corinthian, the Roman's favorite, on the third. All the columns were engaged and purely decorative, serving no structural purpose. The facade this moves from the heaviest and sturdiest elements at the base to the lightest, most decorative at the top, a logic that is both structurally and visually satisfying. It employed a pulley system at the top to shield part of the audience from the hot Roman Sun.

Last Judgement, detail of west portal tympanum from the Cathedral of Sainte-Foy

1065. Romanesque. The tympanum of Sainte-Foy at Conques depicts the Last Judgement. At the center of the tympanum, Christ raises his right arm to welcome those who are saved. His lowered left hand points to hell, the destination of the damned. He sits enthroned in a mandorla, an almond shaped oval of light signifying divinity, a motif imported to the Western world from the Far East, through Byzantium, and one widely used by Romanesque artists. Below Christ's feet, the weighing of souls is depicted as a contest between the archangel Michael and a desperate demon who cheats by pressing his forefinger onto the pan, nevertheless failing to overcome the goodness of the soul in question. The lintel is divided by a partition into 2 parts: on the left, heaven, and on the right, hell. An angel welcomes the saved, while on the other side, a demon armed with a bludgeon shoves the damned into hell's monstrous jaws. Situated frontally under the arches of heaven, the saved give the appearance of order and serenity, while all is confusion and chaos on hell's side. Satan stands in the center of the right lintel, presiding over an astonishing array of tortures. On his left, a figure symbolizing Pride is thrown from his high horse, stabbed through with a pitchfork. Next to them, a bare-breasted adulteress and her lover await Satan's wrath. A figure symbolizing Greed is hung from high with his purse around his neck and a toad at his feet. A demon tears the tongue out of slander. In the small triangular space at right above satan, 2 fiendish-looking rabbits roast a poacher on a spit. In the corresponding triangular space to the left, a devil devours the brain of a damned soul who commits suicide by plunging a knife into his throat. Close by, another hunchbacked devil has just grabbed the harp of a damned soul and tears his tongue with a hook. Such images were designed to move the pilgrim to the right hand of christ not the left.

Moses Window, Abbey Church of Saint-Denis

1140-1144. Gothic. This is the best preserved of the original stained-glass windows at Saint-Denis. Scholars have speculated that Moses was a prominent theme at the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis because of his leadership of the Israelites was the model for the French King's leadership of his people. The purpose of stained-glass programs in all Gothic cathedrals was to tell the stories of the Bible in a compelling way to an audience that was largely illiterate.

Courtly Love in Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot

1170. Because the poetry of courtly love tradition was written in the vernacular - the common language of everyday life - and not in the Latin of the highly educated, a broader audience was able to enjoy it. One of the most popular works of the day, Lancelot, appeared around 1170. Centered on the adventures of Lancelot, a knight in the court of the legendary King Arthur of Britain, and focusing particularly on his courtly-love-inspired relationship with Guinevere, Arthur's wife, the poem is an example of medieval romance.The term "romance" derives from the Old French term romans, which referred to the vernacular of the people. The medieval romance was designed to entertain a broad audience with stories of adventure and love, while it pretended to be an actual historical account of Charlemagne, King Arthur, or Roman legend. Lancelot, subtitled The Knight of the Cart, opens with a challenge offered to King Arthur and his court on Ascension Day by a knight who claims to hold many of Arthur's knights in prison, but offers to free them if any knight dares to escort Guinevere into the forest and defend her against him. Arthur's brother Kay asks to take on the mission, Arthur agrees and the other nights, knowing he is a poor knight, quickly chase after him into to the forest to find his horse riderless and Guinever abducted. Lancelot charges after and his horse is killed, and must ride in a cart that is meant to take criminals off to execution. To board such a cart is a great dishonor, but Lancelot recluctantly agrees. Lancelot faces many challenges and temptations but finally arrives at the Sword Bridge, which he crosses by virtue of his love for Guinevere. He subsequently defeats Meleagant but spares his life at Guinevere's behest. Guinevere, to his dismay, behaves coldly toward him, offended at his earlier hesitation to enter the cart. He should not have put his own honor before love, she explains. After reuniting with Gawain, Lancelot overcomes Meleagant and he and Guinevere are reconciled. Guinevere agrees to meet Lancelot in Meleagant's castle secretly at night. There he kneels before her "holding her more dear than the relic of any saint" a scene in which the "religion of love" - so marvelous in its physical joy that the narrator cannot tell of it, "for in the story it has no place" - is confounded with spiritual ecstasy. This feature is surely indebted to Islamic notions of physical love as a metaphor for the love of God and in the love songs popular in the Islamic Spanish courts, where the bilingual minstrels who inaugurated the troubadour tradition first flourished. The love of woman celebrated in medieval romance and troubadour poetry was equated in the Christian mind with love for the VIrgin Mary. As Mother of Heaven and of Christ, as the all-compassionate mediator between the Judgment seat and the horrors of hell, Mary was increasingly recognized as the spiritual equivalent of the lady of chivalry, crowned the Queen of Heaven, overseeing her heavenly court. Lancelot was written at the request of Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughter Marie - herself named after the Virgin - as its laudatory prologue, a standard feature of the form. Chretien presents himself as the servant of Marie who devotes his writer's skill to doing her bidding, just as the knight Lancelot serves Queen Guinevere with his knightly skill, and as the Christian serves the Virgin Mary. Similarly, Chretien's story transforms the heroism of the Song of Roland, which is motivated by feudal loyalty to king and country, to a form of chivalry based on the allegiance of the knight to his lady. In a medieval romance, the knight is driven to heroic action not so much by the lure of greater glory as by his own desire for his lady. To the knight, the lady is a prize to be won, an object to be possessed. Beyond the drama of his exploits and his lady's distress, the conflict between the sexual desires of both knight and lady and the hypothetical purity of their "spiritual" love gives the story its narrative power. In a medieval romance, as well as in the troubadour poem, perhaps the greatest test the lovers face is their own sexuality - an almost sure-fire guarantor of the form's popularity.

Francis of Assisi and Canticle of Creation

1181-1226. As is widely known, Francis, son of Pietro di Bernardone, a well-to-do cloth merchant in Assisi, had a comfortable childhood. He may have been given the name Giovanni, but from his early childhood people called him Francesco, the equivalent of "Frenchy," probably because his father had business ties which took him to France. Francis's service as a member of the Assisi militia in a disastrous war on nearby Perugia. Many of his friends were killed in battle, and he was captured and imprisoned for a year. Upon his release, he was a changed man. The once extroverted, fun-loving youth became a silent, brooding man. His deep depression lasted eighteen months. Francis rejected his family, more than anything their wealth. He at first sought peace for himself by retreating from society to live as a hermit in a nearby church, San Damiano, but eventually fled the confines of the city of Assisi and lived in the wilderness, where he gained a small band of followers. Finally he and his brothers in misery gained the right to live and work in a rundown chapel in the fields below Assisi, known as the Porziuncula, or Santa Maria degli Angeli. For Francis, having followers was a heavy burden. He was struggling to keep himself sane and healthy but at the same time he wrestled continually with the obligation of having to care for the men who sought him out. He finally sought ecclesiastical recognition for his group of men, with no initial intention of organizing a formal religious order. He had intended a looser association, more like a confraternity. But the Pope eventually recognized Francis and his followers as an order, with Francis as their leader. Although Francis had never actively sought holy orders, and was uncomfortable even in the role of leader, he found himself a deacon. The order grew and Francis grew into leadership, always uncomfortable with the role.The Canticle of the Creatures or Canticle of Brother Sun is based on a particular way of perceiving reality. Francis, who had turned away from 'the world', discovered a different way of looking at it. This is a divine way of perceiving, in which the senses do not grasp reality, but accept it as it communicates itself. This way of perceiving is only possible if one does not attempt to master the environment, but allows one's senses to be weak. It is significant, therefore, that this song of praise was born at a moment of the utmost despair and weakness. The song's content is in line with this weak perception: it is not about Francis who praises God and (or for) His creatures, but rather it is a testimony that the creatures-the elements-are already praising God, and a prayer that He should let Himself be praised by the creatures. Also in line with this weak perception is the fact that the creatures are praised just as they communicate themselves to Francis: as bodies. The theology of this song is that the creatures through their bodies resonate (strengthen, and colour) the blessings that come from God, thereby making His blessing present here on earth. Francis' role is to give a voice and a language to the heavenly praises as they resound in his environment. The transformative power of this song is that we, whether consciously or not, do the same thing when we participate in this song.

Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

1308. One of the greatest medieval Italian writers working in the vernacular was the poet Dante Alighieri. In about 1308, he began one of the greatest works of the literary imagination, the Divine Comedy. This poem records the travels of the Christian soul from Hell to Purgatory and finally to Salvation in three books - the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. It is by no means an easy journey. Dante, who is the leading character in his own poem, is led by the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Virgil cannot lead Dante into Heaven in the Paradiso, since he is a pagan who is barred from salvation. He is thus condemned to Limbo, the first level of hell, a place of sorrow without torment, populated by virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptized children, and others unfit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Among those who inhabit the realm with Virgil are Caesar, Homer, Socrates, and Aristotle. Threre is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad. Virgil is, in fact, the model of human rationality, and in the Inferno, he and Dante study the varieties of human sin. Many of the characters who inhabit Dante's hell are his contemporaries. Dante also makes much of the Guelph/Ghibelline rivalries in his native Florence. He was himself a Guelph, but so divided were the Guelphs among themselves - into factions called the Blacks and Whites, papal versus imperial bankers - that his efforts to heal their schism as one of the Priori, one of the nine leaders of the Florentine commune, resulted in a two-year exile beginning in 1302. Embittered, he never returned to Florence. Dante's inferno is composed of 9 descending rings of sinners undergoing punishment, each more gruesome than the one before it. In the poem's first canto, the poet is lost in a Dark Wood of Error, where Virgil comes to his rescue, promising to lead him "forth to an eternal place". In Hell, the two first encounter sinners whose passion has condemned them to Hell - Paolo and Francesca, whose illict love was motivated, they tell Dante, by reading Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot. The lovers are forever condemned to unreconciled love, to touch each other but never consummate their feelings. In the next ring are the gluttonous, condemned to wallow like pigs in their own excrement. Sinners, in other words, are punished not for their sins but by their sins. Dante finds intellectual dishonesty more sinful than any sin of passion, and thus flatterers, hypocrites, and liars occupy the next lower rings of hell. The violent are further down, immersed for eternity in boiling blood. And finally, at the very bottom of the pit, imprisoned in ice "like straws in glass" are the traitors. Among the lowest of the low are Guelphs and Ghibellines from all over tuscany who betrayed their cities' well being. Finally, in canto 34, Dante once again integrates the Pagan and Christian worlds as satan himself chews on the worst of all traitors - Judas and Brutus and Cassius. In the universe of the Divine Comedy, Virgil, as the embodiment of rationality, can take Dante no further than Hell and Purgatory, since in order to enter Paradise, faith must triumph over reason, something impossible for the pagan Roman. Dante's guide through paradise is Beatrice, the love of his life. Beatrice was the daughter of the Florentine nobleman Folco Potinari, and Dante first saw her when she was 9 and he was 8. Dante's love for her was then the classic love of the courtier for his lady, marked by an unconsummated physical desire necessarily transformed into a spiritual longing that leads him, at the end of the Divine Comedy, to a comprehension of God's love as he contemplates "in a great flash of light" a vision so powerful that he can barely find the words to express it.

Brunelleschi's Dome

1436. During visits to Rome, Brunelleschi had carefully measured the proportions of ancient buildings, including the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the remains of the Baths of Caracalla, and the Domus Aurea of Nero. Using these studies, Brunelleschi produced the winning design for the dome of Florence Cathedral. The design guaranteed his reputation as one of the geniuses of Renaissance Florence. His design for the dome solved a number of technical problems. For one thing it eliminated the need for the temporary wooden scaffolding normally used to support the dome vaulting as it was raised. Although critics disagreed, Brunelleschi argued that a skeleton of 8 large ribs alternating with 8 pairs of thinner ribs beneath the roof would be able to support themselves as the dome took form.

David of Donatello

1440. Renaissance. Donatello's David, which celebrates this Hebrew Bible Hero's victory over the giant Goliath, indicates how completely the sculptor had absorbed Classical tradition. The first life-size free standing nude sculpted since antiquity, it stands in a fully Classical contrapposto pose reminiscent of Greek sculpture such as Doryphorus. It is revolutionary in other ways as well. The contrapposto pose is almost exaggerated, especially the positioning of the back of the hand against the hip. The young adolescents youthful gaze stands in marked contrast to the bearded head of Goliath at his feet. Donatello seems to celebrate not just the human body but also its youthful vitality, a vitality his figure shared with the Florentine state itself. It is difficult, in other words, to imagine that such a slight adolescent figure could have slain such a giant. It is as if Donatello portrayed David as an unconvincing hero in order to underscore the ability of virtue in whatever form to overcome tyranny. And so this young man might represent the vigor and virtue of the Florentine republic as a whole and the city's persistent resistance to domination.

Botticelli's Primavera

1480. Renaissance. In the painting, the nymph stands in the center depicted as Venus surrounded by other mythological creatures, who appear to move through the garden setting from right to left. To the humanists in Lorenzo's court, Venus was an allegorical figure who represented the highest moral qualities. On the far right of the embodiment of the humanities, Zephyrus, god of the west wind, attempts to capture Chloris, the nymph of spring, in his cold grasp. But Flora, goddess of flowers, who stands beside the nymph, ignores the west wind's threat, and distributes blossoms across the path. Primavera captures the spirit of the Medici. It celebrates love, not only in a Neoplatonic sense, as a spiritual, humanist endeavor, but also in a more direct, physical way. For Lorenzo hardly shied away from physical pleasure. He was himself a prolific poet.

Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks

1483. Renaissance. There are two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks, one (the earlier) in the Louvre, Paris and another in the National Gallery, London. The first work that Leonardo executed in Milan is the so-called Virgin of the Rocks, which actually expresses the theme of the Immaculate Conception, the dogma that affirms Mary was conceived without original sin. The name of the picture reflects an iconographical peculiarity: the religious figures are depicted in a rocky grotto, in which they are sitting on a stone floor. The figures are subjected to a strict spatial arrangement called a pyramidal composition. The painting had a considerable influence on Leonardo's artistic colleagues in Lombardy. This canvas was to decorate the ancona (a carved wooden altar with frames where paintings were inserted) in the chapel of the Immacolata in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. On 25 April 1483, the members of the Confraternity of the Conception assigned the work of the paintings (a Virgin and Child in the center and two Angel-Musicians for the sides), to Leonardo, for the most important part, and the brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista De Predis, for the side panels. Scholars now feel that the two canvases on this same subject, one in the Louvre and the other in London's National Gallery, are simply two versions of the same painting, with significant variants. The Paris Virgin of the Rocks, entirely by Leonardo, is the one which first adorned the altar in San Francesco Grande. It may have been given by Leonardo himself to King Louis XII of France, in gratitude for the settlement of the suit between the painters and those who commissioned the works, in dispute over the question of payment. The later London painting replaced this one in the ancona. For the first time Leonardo could achieve in painting that intellectual program of fusion between human forms and nature which was slowly taking shape in his view of his art. Here there are no thrones or architectural structures to afford a spatial frame for the figures; instead there are the rocks of a grotto, reflected in limpid waters, decorated by leaves of various kinds from different plants while in the distance, as if emerging from a mist composed of very fine droplets and filtered by the golden sunlight, the peaks of those mountains we now know so well reappear. This same light reveals the gentle, mild features of the Madonna, the angel's smiling face, the plump, pink flesh of the two putti. For this work, too, Leonardo made numerous studies, and the figurative expression is slowly adapted to the program of depiction. In fact, the drawing of the face of the angel is, in the sketch, clearly feminine, with a fascination that has nothing ambiguous about it. In the painting, the sex is not defined, and the angel could easily be either a youth or a maiden.

Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man

1486. Pico's thinking was based on wide reading in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Greek, and he believed that all intellectual endeavors shared the same purpose-to reveal divine truth. In his Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico argued that humanity was part of the "great chain of being" that stretches from God to angels, humans, animals, plants, minerals, and the most primal matter. This idea can be traced to the Idea of the Good developed by Plato, an idea of perfection to which all creation tends. Plotinus' brand of Neoplatonic thought took it a step further in proposing that the material world, including humanity, is but the shadowy reflection of the celestial, a condition that the pursuit of knowledge allows humanity at lest to begin to overcome. According to Pico, humanity finds itself in a middle position in the great chain of being - not by natural law but by the exercise of its own free will. Humans are not fixed in the middle position. They are, in fact, pure potential, able to make of themselves what they wish. Humanity is god's greatest miracle. For Pico, the role of the philosopher in this human-centered world is as a "creature of heaven and not of the earth." It is imperative in Pico's view for individuals to seek out virtue and knowledge, even while knowing their capability of choosing a path of vice and ignorance. Taking the idea of freedom of judgment to a new level, pico argues that humanity is completely free to exercise its free will. This gift of free will makes humans "the most fortunate of living things." Such thinking reflects what may be the most important transformation wrought by Renaissance thinkers on medieval ideas. Art, literature, and philosphy, as the free expression of the individual's creative power, can, if they aim high enough, express not only the whole of earthly creation but also the whole of the divine. the human being is a "small universe."

Michelangelo's Pieta, 1498-99

1489 - 1499. High Renaissance. Sculpture of Virgin Mary after her son is taken down from the cross. Moving triangular, balanced sculpture. Youth of Mary's force was controversial but face of sanctity that made her accept this painful moment in life because God wanted it. This purity of decision makes you pure and young. Shows Jesus as if asleep, hint at the resurrection. Testament to Michelangelo's ability to carve stone.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa

1503 - 1515. Renaissance. Leonardo's fascination with revealing the human personality in portraiture is nowhere else more evident than in his Mona Lisa, where he fuses his subject with the landscape behind her by means of light. This technique is called sfumato "smokiness". Its hazy effects, which create a half-waking, dreamlike quality reminiscent of dusk, could only be achieved by building up color with many layers of transparent oil paint - called glazing. But it is the mysterious personality of Leonardo's sitter that most occupies the viewer's imagination. For generations, viewers have asked, who is this woman? What is she thinking about? What is her relation to the artist? Leonard presents us with a particular personality, whose half-smile suggests that he has captured her in a particular mood. And the painting's hazy light reinforces the mystery of her personality. Apparently, whatever he captured in her look he could not give up. The Mona Lisa occupied Leonardo for years, and it followed him to Rome and then to France in 1513.

Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi

1573. Post-Renaissance. As early as 1542 Pope Paul III initiated a Roman Inquisition - an official inquiry into possible heresy - and in 1573, Veronese was called before the Inquisition to answer charged that his "Last Supper", painted with life-size figures for a Dominican monastery in Venice, was heretical in its inappropriate treatment of the subject matter. His testimony before the tribunal illuminates the aesthetic and religious concerns of the era. The tribunal concluded that Veronese should improve and correct the painting in 3 months or face penalties. Veronese simply changed the name to "Feast in the House of Levi" and through this strategy Veronese could justify the artistic invention in his crowded scene. They found fault with the depiction of the last supper with "buffoons, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs, and similar vulgarities?".

Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew

1599 - 1600. Baroque. Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1539 and began a career of revolutionary painting and public scandal. His first major commission in Rome was Calling of St. Matthew. The most dramatic element in this work is light. The light that streams in from an unseen window at the upper right of the painting is almost palpable. It falls down where the tax collector Levi and his four assistants count the day's take, highlighting their faces and gestures. They are dressed in a style not of Jesus' time, but of Caravaggio's, making it more possible for his audience to identify with them. With Saint Peter at his side, Christ enters from the right, a halo barely visible above his head. He reaches out with his index finger extended in a gesture derived from Adam's gesture toward God in the Sistine chapel ceiling Creation. One of the figures at the table, it is surely levi, points with his hand at either himself or the young man bent over the corner of the table. All in all he seems to find the arrival of Jesus uninteresting. In fact, the assembled group is so ordinary, reminiscent of gamblers seated around a table, that the transformation of Levi into Saint Matthew, which is imminent, takes on the aspect of a miracle, just as the light flooding the scene is reminiscent of the original miracle of creation. Caravaggio's insistence on the reality of his scene is thus two fold: He not only depicts real people of his own day engaged in real tasks, but also insists on the reality of its psychological drama. The revelatory power of light - its ability to reveal the world in all its detail -is analogous to the transformative power of faith. Faith is fundamentally changes the way we see the world and the way we act in it. Time and again, his paintings dramatize this moment of conversion through the use of the technique known as tenebrism. As opposed to chiaroscuro, a tenebrosity style is not necessarily connected to modeling at all. Tenebrism makes use of large areas of dark, contrasting sharply with smaller, brightly illuminated areas.

English Enlightenment

1650. The new London was in part the result of the rational empirical thinking that dominated the Western imagination in the late seventeenth century. Newly invented instruments allowed scientists to observe and measure natural phenomena with increasing accuracy and perhaps more significantly new methods of scientific and philosophical investigation provided scientists with the theoretical means to exploit the capabilities of these instruments. According to these new ways of reasoning, Scientia, Latin for "knowledge", was to be found in the world, not religious belief.

Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride

1665. Baroque. Rembrandt's colouristic power increases tremendously during his last period, although not all of his mature works display it; some of the single portraits remain largely monochromatic. The so-called Jewish Bride of c. 1665, which may be a commissioned portrait of a couple in the guise of a biblical pair (such as Isaac and Rebecca), belongs to his most brilliant colouristic creations. Even in reproductions it is possible to see something of the fluctuating quality of his late paint, the vibrations of the tones, and the harmonious fusion of the whole; but they can hardly suggest the warmth of the fiery scarlets, the golden yellows, the delicate blues and olives, the powerful whites, and deep blacks of his late palette. The broad, calm, relief-like arrangement of the life-size half-figures recalls a certain type of Venetian Renaissance painting. This reveals a touch of classical taste, but the use of colour in the portrait is quite unclassical. Like The Night Watch, this is another misnamed masterpiece by Rembrandt which it would be insensitive to re-title. To be sure, the painting does not represent a Jewish bridal couple in the sense which the nineteenth century, which invented the title, would have had in mind. The picture would then have been regarded as a romantic costume-piece, its very strangeness and aura of secretiveness suggesting that it showed some exotic rite, which was outside the experience of a predominantly Christian society. There can be no doubt, however, that an intimate relationship between the two figures was intended by the artist. The man places his hand on the woman's breast, while she moves instinctively to protect her modesty, in the classic pose of the Venus pudica which Rembrandt would have known from engravings or casts of classical statues. Yet the couple show every sign of tenderness towards each other, so this is not a common seduction scene (a frequent enough subject in Dutch painting). The theme most widely favoured by modern scholars is Isaac embracing his wife Rebecca while they were being spied on by Abimelech (Genesis, Chapter XXVI), which Rembrandt had previously represented in a drawing. To summarize the Bible narrative, Isaac, staying in the land of the Philistines, passes off Rebecca as his sister, because, if the Philistines had wanted to seduce her and had known she was Isaac's wife, they would have felt obliged to kill him first. One day, Abimelech, the Philistine King, observes the couple from a window making love in secret and guesses the truth, namely that they are man and wife. He reproves Isaac for the deception, pointing out that any man might have lain with Rebecca in all innocence, not realizing she was a married woman, and would thus have brought dishonour on himself and his people.

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Embarkation from Cythera

1718 - 1719. Rococo. Watteau was best known for his paintings of fetes gallantes - gallant, and by extension, amorous, celebrations or parties enjoyed by an elite group in a pastoral or garden setting. The erotic overtones of these fetes galantes are immediately apparent in the Embarkation of Cythera in the pedestal statue of Venus at the right side of the painting and the flock of winged cupids darting among the revelers. The scene is the island of Cypher, the mythical birthplace of Venus. Below her statue, which the pilgrims have decked with garlands of roses, a woman leans across her companion's lap as three cupids try to push the two closer together. Behind them, a gentlemen leans toward his lady to say words that will be overheard by another woman behind them, who gathers roses with her lover as she leans over them both. Further back in the scene a gentleman helps his lady to her feet while another couple turns to leave, the woman looking back in regret that they must depart the garden island.

Aaron Copeland, Fanfare of the Common Man (Symphony #3)

1942. "Fanfare for the Common Man" was certainly Copland's best known concert opener. He wrote it in response to a solicitation from Eugene Goosens for a musical tribute honoring those engaged in World War II. Goosens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, originally had in mind a fanfare "... for Soldiers, or for Airmen or Sailors" and planned to open his 1942 concert season with it. Aaron Copland later wrote, "The challenge was to compose a traditional fanfare, direct and powerful, yet with a contemporary sound." To the ultimate delight of audiences Copland managed to weave musical complexity with popular style. He worked slowly and deliberately, however, and the piece was not ready until a full month after the proposed premier.Fortunately Goosens loved the work, despite his puzzlement over the title, and decided with Copland to preview it on March 12, 1943. As income taxes were to be paid on March 15 that year, they both felt it was an opportune moment to honor the common man. Copland later wrote, "Since that occasion, 'Fanfare' has been played by many and varied ensembles, ranging from the U.S. Air Force Band to the popular Emerson, Lake, and Palmer group ... I confess that I prefer 'Fanfare' in the original version, and I later used it in the final movement of my Third Symphony."

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement

1960s. Martin Luther King jr. led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1963 and decided that Alabama would be their battlefield. Protested "separate but equal". By May 6, over 2,000 demonstrators were in jail. Within 90 days, all lunch counters, restrooms, department-store-fitting rooms, and drinking fountains would be open to all. More and more moderate whites were drawn into the movement. MLK led a march on washington later that summer where he delivered his "I have a dream" speech. Winds of change were blowing.

Augustus Caesar Defeats Marc Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium

31 BC.After Caesar's death on March 15, 44 BC, another civil war begins over who will lead next. Marc Antony allied with Cleopatra against the other claimant Octavion(Augustus), Caesar's adopted son. Augustus is brilliant and wins against Antony in 31 BC with the battle of actium. Ends period of civil war and begins Roman empire.

Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of the Roman Empire

510 BC.On a dark night in 510 bc, the noble, virtuous Lucretia, Roman matron and dutiful wife, was brutally raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the last king of Rome. As the sun rose the next day, Lucretia gathered her family about her and, after recounting her horrific experience the previous night, stabbed herself through the heart to end the pain. Little did she know that her deed would set in motion an uprising that would drive the kings out of the city forever and establish Republican government in Rome for hundreds of years to come. The account of Lucretia given in the first book of Livy's history, written around 27-5 bc, represents the earliest extended account of the myth to survive today. Right from the very beginning, Livy marks Lucretia out as possessing exceptional characteristics. In the contest between her husband Collatinus and Tarquinius to decide who has the best wife, she 'surpasses' all the other men's wives. Lucretia is then viewed in the very heart of her house where a proper wife should be, working her wool with her maids even though it is late at night (1.57.9). The connection of wool working to female virtue was a very traditional ideal in Rome. Later, Livy makes it clear that it is not just Lucretia's appearance that provokes Tarquinius' desire for her, but her chastity as well.Tarquinius initially fails to secure Lucretia's submission to the rape by the threat of a sword: Even death is not enough to induce her to yield.However, Lucretia is forced to surrender to Tarquinius when he threatens to kill her along with a slave, as though he had found them committing adultery.To Livy, it was important that he emphasised it was only because of this dreadful prospect of being caught with a slave specifically that Lucretia justifiably submitted to the rape: her resolute chastity ('obstinata pudicitia') cannot recover from this.Langlands notes that it is her fear of 'what people might think' that finally overcomes Lucretia and not a fear of death or the physical force of being raped. Lucretia is forced to yield and Tarquinius rapes her: She sacrifices her 'pudicitia' in order not to damage her 'fama'. In some respects, it could be argued that Tarquinius has gained her consent by forcing her into making an impossible decision.After the rape, Lucretia acts quickly and calmly. She tells her family that although she has been raped, only her body has been violated, and her death will be testimony to her 'innocent' soul. Lucretia also implores her family to punish Tarquinius.She also feels that she needs to punish herself so that in the future, no unchaste woman will ever live using her as an example.After she has committed suicide, Lucius Junius Brutus takes Lucretia's bloody knife and makes a speech in the Forum, detailing her 'abominable dishonour'('stupro infando') and manages to persuade the people to abolish the monarchy and exile the current royals. Lucretia's body is used as a symbol of the wickedness of the kings, as the rape she has suffered marks a moment of great political change: Beard notes that rape is repeatedly used as a marker of such events in the state's past.Livy makes it clear that her suicide played a pivotal role in precipitating the foundation of a new form of government, and he was also keen to stress Brutus' central part in this, too. However, there is no mention of Lucretia's heroic deeds at her 'funeral'. She then disappears from the narrative altogether. The silent, and in the end unnoticed, body of Lucretia represents the role that women were to play in the Republic.Livy's representation of Lucretia's rape and suicide embodies a complex interplay of male and female tropes.It is difficult to offer a gendered reading of Lucretia's behaviour because it destabilises traditional gender roles and characteristics. Lucretia uses a method, the dagger, usually associated by the Romans with male suicides, and the display of her body was arguably as politically resonant as the display of Julius Caesar's corpse was in 44 bc. In addition, Lucretia's suicide represents a 'moral triumph' over the male characters in her story. She is not only superior to Tarquinius, but even to the foolish Collatinus, who is arguably partly responsible for her rape because of his bet with Tarquinius. Thus, Livy presents to his readers characters in deviant gender roles, as the men display traits, such as rash behaviour, more suited to women in a Roman's eyes. This is furthered when Lucretia has revealed her suicidal intentions: The men talk of personal and private feelings, whereas Lucretia is determined to die because of the benefit it will give to society as a whole. On the other hand, Livy wants to make a specific point about female chastity here, and he is careful to construct her suicide with some femininity. For example, he highlights the fact that she wins the competition of feminine virtues ('muliebris certaminis', she demonstrates 'resolute chastity' in the face of Tarquinius' threats, and she does not want her tale to be used as an excuse by any future unchaste woman. There is also an element of eroticism in the suicide scene, as the dagger entering Lucretia's body imitates Tarquinius' penetration of her body. The rape itself can be read very much as a male action, an event where Lucretia is silent (until afterwards) and we are not privy to her thoughts but see her instead as simply a subject of violation.Lucretia has to perform violence on herself to 'cancel out' the violence done to her by another; the knife 'eradicates unchastity and kills any anomaly in female sexuality'. The dagger was an appropriate means with which to do this because of its phallic shape.Thus, it is clear that, although Lucretia can act as bravely as a Roman male in her death, she nevertheless retains much of the feminine qualities that are so essential to Livy's characterisation of her. Another point highlighting this is that her death takes place in her home. She may commit a seemingly male act, but this is within the confines of a very female context, a domestic setting. She does not die on a battlefield or in a public, political place. Eidinow explicitly links Livy's account of women such as Lucretia with contemporary concerns about uncontrolled female sexuality and its threat to the state, and Langlands suggests that Livy wanted to get his readers thinking about certain aspects of their sexual ethics. This argument can be furthered to include the way Livy presents certain men, such as Tarquinius, acting 'out of control'. Langlands also lists the various symbolic and pedagogical functions of Lucretia's tale, which, in whatever form it appears, 'is designed to illustrate some kind of moral value or ideological statement'. With Livy's narrative, we can relate Lucretia's story to the moral restoration that was taking place under Augustus, which climaxed in his legislation of 18 bc with his law on adultery particularly affecting women more than men. The concerns in this period with regulating sexuality, especially that of women, are demonstrated in this part of Livy's history with his emphasis on Lucretia's absolute submission to her 'pudicitia'. Therefore, Livy's presentation of Lucretia's suicide—the earliest account surviving to us—is already a highly sophisticated one, imbued with a complex set of ramifications for contemporary morality, gender and politics.

Myth of Romulus and Remus

753 BC.Competing with the foundation myth for the city of Rome embodied in Virgil's Aeneid was the myth of Romulus and Remus. An Etruscan legend that had twin infants named Romulus and Remus were left to die on the banks of the Tiber but were rescued by a she-wolf who suckled them. Raised by a shepherd, the twins decided to build a city on the Palatine Hill above the spot where they had been saved (accounting, in the manner of foundation myths, for the unlikely location of the city). Soon, the two feuded over who would rule the new city. In his History of Rome, the Roman historian Livy describes the conflict as an "angry altercation; heated passions led to bloodshed; in the tumult Remus was killed..." By the time of Virgil, the Greek and Etruscan myths had merged. Thus, according to legend, Aeneas' son founded the city of Alba Longa, just to the south of Rome, which was ruled by a succession of kings until Romulus brought it under Roman control. Romulus, it was generally accepted, inaugurated the traditional Roman distinction between patricians, landowning aristocrats, and plebeians, the poorer class.

Arch of Titus

81. During Vespasian's reign, his son Titus defeated the Jews in Palestine, who were rebelling against Roman interference with their religious practices. Titus' second army sacked the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE. To honor this victory and the death of Titus 11 years later, a memorial arch was constructed in Rome. Originally, the arch of titus was topped by a statue of a four-horse chariot and driver. Such arches, known as triumphal arches because triumphant armies marched through them, were composed of a simple barrel vault enclosed within a rectangle, and enliven with sculpture and decorative engaged columns. They would deeply influence later architecture, especially the facades of Renaissance cathedrals. Hundreds of arches of similar form were built throughout the Roman Empire. Most were not technically triumphal, but, like all Roman monumental architecture, they were intended to symbolize Rome's political power and military might. The arch of Titus was constructed of concrete and faced with marble, its inside walls decorated with narrative reliefs. One of them shows Titus' soldiers marching with the treasures of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. In the foreground, the soldiers carry what some speculate might be the golden Ark of Covenant, and behind that a menorah, the sacred Jewish candelabrum, also made of gold. The bend under the weight of the gold and stride forward convincingly. The carving is extremely deep, with nearer figures and elements rendered with undercutting and in higher relief than more distant ones. This creates a sense of real space and, when light and shadow play over the sculptural relief, even a sense of movement.