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Stefan Tanasijević

Stefan Tanasijević

Utorak, 29 Juni 2021 20:21

Plato's Cosmology: The Timaeus

The Timaeus is Plato dialogues mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character Timaeus of Locri, written c. 360 BC. Participants in the dialogue include Timaeus, Socrates, Hermocrates, and Critias. In it, Plato gives his cosmological story as a part of the portrait of Greek thought, and as a facet in the complex entity that was Plato's realm of ideas. Thanks to a translation by Cicero the Timaeus was influential in the Middle Ages and continues to hold a place in the significant literature of philosophy.

A fresco The School of Athens Italian Renaissance artist Raphael painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of his commission Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It is located in the first of the four rooms designed by Raphael, the Stanza della Segnatura which was set to be Julius' library. In particular, this fresco has come to symbolize the marriage of art, philosophy, and science that was a hallmark of the Italian Renaissance.

The painting The Apotheosis of Homer was expressly commissioned by Charles X for the ceiling at the Louvre which is now the ancient Egyptian galleries. Upon receiving the commission, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres conceived the idea for his painting quickly and he had required only an hour to establish the broad outlines of his composition in a sketch. He developed his idea in more than 100 drawings and numerous painted sketches for it that survive. His grandest expression of the classical ideal, this nearly seventeen-foot long canvas reworks Raphael's Vatican fresco, The School of Athens from 1509-1511. Apotheosis of Homer was exhibited in 1827 in the annual Salon and is now exhibited at the Louvre.

In Homer's epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey are personalities, both gods and men. The gods, as well as the people, are very clearly depicted and fully reflect the consciousness, morals, and social relations of the Greeks in Homer's time. Homer portrays the gods as both human-like and god-like. Individuals did not control their destinies. Instead, the gods were responsible for the fate of human affairs.

The Athenian sculptor Phidias already had a great reputation when in 437 BC he and his colleagues Colotes and Panaenus settled in ancient Olympia, on the west coast of today's Greece, about 150 kilometers west of Athens in the temple dedicated to Zeus to make the statue of the supreme god of the Greeks, Zeus, in whose honor the Olympic Games were celebrated. The dates of work in Athens, for the realization of the statue ordered by Greek statesman Pericles: 447 to 438, or 9 years. The statue, which stood in the Temple of Zeus, is now lost, but is shown on countless coins and gems, and was described by the Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias.

Ponedeljak, 14 Juni 2021 10:33

Pinax of Persephone and Hades from Locri

The city of Locri was one of the cities of Magna Graecia. Due to the local peoples' characteristics, Plato called it the "flower of Italy". A major sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Persephone, who was worshiped as the protector of the fertility of marriage. It contained a treasure trove of what are known as pinakes or terracotta tablets with bas-relief illustrations that represent the cult's myth and rituals. One in a series of pinakes from this sanctuary is the pinax of Persephone and Hades, from around 460 BC, which is today located in the National Museum of Magna Graecia, Reggio Calabria.

Gliding through the still air, he made no sound;
Wing-shod and deft, dropped almost at her feet,
And searched the ghostly regiments and found
The living eyes, the tremor of breath, the beat
Of blood in all that bodiless underground.

The Greek myth of Persephone, the daughter of the highest god Zeus and the goddess Demeter who in Greek myth rendered the earth fruitful, before being abducted by the god of the underworld, has great emotional power and because of that was a frequent motif in art. In 1891, the English painter and sculptor Frederic Leighton painted The Return of Persephone, which, as its name suggests, depicts Hermes helping Persephone to return to her mother Demeter after Zeus forced Hades to return Persephone. This painting is now in the Leeds Art Gallery.

Doryphoros or Spear-Bearer of Polykleitos is one of the best-known Greek statues of classical antiquity. Polykleitos made a statue according to the tenets of his treatise, and called it, like the work, the Canon, translated as measure or rule. The lost bronze original of the statue would have been cast circa 440 BCE, but it is today known only from later (mainly Roman period) marble copies. A well-preserved Roman period copy of the Doryphoros is in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.

Discobolus, the motif of a discus thrower, an ancient Greek athlete, is often present in ancient Greek and Roman fine arts. It was depicted on vases, money, reliefs, and statues. The most famous is the statue of the Greek sculptor Myron from the middle of the 5th century BC the Discobolus or Discus Thrower, originally sculpted in bronze. The statue has gained fame largely through its many bronzes and marble copies made by the Romans. Its famous copy, made in marble, exactly according to the original, by Roman sculptors, is today in the National Museum in Rome.

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