Life and thought in those days were bound up with the Arts and the Greeks were very well-rounded people. The great Philosophers were men of action who serve Athens at battlefields as well as in public places and Theaters since one of the main responsibilities of a citizen was to foster the Arts. Art in Greece became a generating force by which the Athenians identified themselves with their fellow-citizens and with the entire rhythm of life around them. And through Art human experience has been raised to its highest level. Not only did they use Music in their system of Public Education, but they also incorporated it in their incredible Dramas and Tragedies (let us mention, for example, “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles – one of the most successful playwrights of the time). Aristotle in his “Poetics” says that “Be that as it may, Tragedy – as also Comedy – was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped”. “Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type, not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain”.
Not only did they believe that Poetry and Music are the same, but they also had the Chorus that often put interesting commentaries on the drama and unified it. Friedrich Nietzsche writes that “If music, as it would seem, was previously known as an Apollonian art, it was, strictly speaking, only as the wave-beat of rhythm, the formative power of which was developed to the representation of Apollonian conditions. The music of Apollo was Doric architectonics in tones, but in merely suggested tones, such as those of the cithara. The very element which forms the essence of Dionysian music (and hence of music in general) is carefully excluded as un-Apollonian; namely, the thrilling power of the tone, the uniform stream of the melos, and the thoroughly incomparable world of harmony”. “According to this view, we must understand Greek tragedy as the Dionysian chorus, which always disburdens itself anew in an Apollonian world of pictures. The choric parts, therefore, with which tragedy is interlaced, are in a manner the mother-womb of the entire so-called dialogue, that is, of the whole stage-world, of the drama proper. In several successive outbursts does this primordial basis of tragedy beam forth the vision of the drama, which is a dream-phenomenon throughout, and, as such, epic in character: on the other hand, however, as objectivation of a Dionysian state, it does not represent the Apollonian redemption in appearance, but, conversely, the dissolution of the individual and his unification with primordial existence. Accordingly, the drama is the Apollonian embodiment of Dionysian perceptions and influences, and is thereby separated from the epic as by an immense gap. The chorus of Greek tragedy, the symbol of the mass of the people moved by Dionysian excitement, is thus fully explained by our conception of it as here set forth” (“The Birth of Tragedy”).
As we have mentioned before, the Romans adopted Greek inventions and developed them on a much larger scale. In Ancient Roman Villas – country houses of nobility rectangular in their shape – they combined Perystilium (a garden surrounded by columns reminding of the Medieval Cloister) and Atrium (the most important part where the guests were greeted) complemented by Compluvium (a square roof opening) and Impluvium (a pool for rainwater). Villas in Pompeii were richly decorated with frescoes of different styles – creating the illusion of marble or panoramic view (like “a window”), emphasizing the flatness of the wall with figures “floating” on it or reintroducing architecture and jumbling together fragments of buildings – and all of them can be seen at the House of Vettii.
And yet, there was a tendency in Roman Philosophy towards individualism and agnosticism (Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism). People were more interested in entertainments, such as Gladiatorial Fights, execution of Christians at the Colosseum and Nero’s singing. It is said that Nero ordered to burn Rome in order to clear the space for his new palace – Domus Aurea designed by Fabulus. It was embellished with gold and decorated with Grotesques which inspired Raphael to create his Loggias in Vatican (and we also have their copies at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg). After the Emperor’s death the Golden House was filled with earth and built over (Flavian Amphitheater, Baths of Trajan, etc.). By the way, the plan of the Trajan’s Forum reminds of the embracing arms of the Bernini Colonnade, while the structure of Caldarium – a special room with hot water pool at the Roman Baths which had a dome with an opening or oculus – calls to mind the Octagonal Room in the Domus Aurea and the Pantheon. Surprisingly enough, there even was an Ancient Roman Baroque Style, in other words, architects used traditional vocabulary in a different way including too ornate decoration, projections, recessions and broken pediments in their projects (for example, the Market Gate of Miletus in Berlin).
Homer is considered to be the father of Western Civilization and Vergil’s “Aeneid” as an epic traces the general form of “The Iliad” (which tells us about Achilles who managed to overcome his rage and returned Hector’s body to this father Priam) and “The Odyssey” (in which the main hero Odysseus is going back home after the Fall of Troy and experiencing different kinds of hospitality – Cyclopes, Nausicaa, Dionysian Music performed by Sirens, etc.) but in the reverse order. That is to say, the wanderings of Aeneas and his people come first (“Odyssey”) and then the war starts (“Iliad”). J.L. Borges in one of his lectures at Harvard said that “The Geeks had no use for books or no great use for them, it is a fact indeed that most of the great teachers of mankind have been not writers but speakers”. “However, we need not worry too much about the fate of the Classics because Beauty is always with us”. Suffice it to mention the Mysterious smile of Ancient Kore.
Temples of Culture I
The most extraordinary thing about Ancient Greek architecture is their idea about the Sight, that is to say, the organization of space is based on special viewpoints. Here were are in the Theatre of Delphi looking down and all the buildings arrange themselves in such a way as to be viewed obliquely as fully plastic objects.
Basically, the Greek Theater (the Theater at Epidaurus, the Ancient Theater in Tauric Chersonesus, etc.) is an open-air structure composed of a partial circle (Theatron) organized around the Orchestra where action takes place and a backstage (Skene) behind it. And one of the most powerful things is that like in the case of temples – for example, the Temple of Segesta in Sicily – they find a special place that needs to be clarified and make visible its uniqueness that otherwise would be lost.
The Romans, on the contrary, prefer free standing structures frontally oriented and densely packed into a city. Let us have a look, for instance, at the Theater of Marcellus in Rome. Typologically, it conserves quite a lot from the Greeks, but the architectural edge closes the space off. Moreover, the Flavian Amphitheater – a giant object in the city of Rome – consists of two semicircles merged together and is by no means open-ended. Another allusion to the Greek architecture is that the décor of the Colosseum combines different orders – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian – and yet, the columns are not free standing (the Parthenon in Athens) but they are engaged in the walls (like in the Maison Carrée in Nimes).
The Romans were abscessed with technology and that allowed them to build in a very different way. The arch became the fundamental element of Roman architecture enabling them to erect bridges (The Alcántara Bridge), aqueducts (Devil’s bridge in Tarragona) and even the Pantheon – a temple to all the gods with a lot of altars.
The Romans were more interested in entertainment than in dramatic performances. And yet, the situation has been changing and not long ago they have started to organize concerts at the Colosseum, such as “The Three Tenors” in 1994.
How to Understand a Work of Art? Step I
There are places and works of Art that could change your life right away.
“The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini located