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71 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Cultural History
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Analyses how people tried to give meaning to the world
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Merovingian culture (Ca. 500-750 AD)
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- Lack of central state authority since decline of Roman empire
- Growing influence of Salian Franks, rule of Merovingians - Highly influenced by classical culture |
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Carolingian Renaissance (Ca. 750-850 AD)
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Attempt to liberate classical culture from the monasteries
- Mostly for small elite - Important feature: comprehensiveness, world as a unity - Contributions: - manuscripts - encyclopedias - education |
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Charlemagne
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- ‘Successor’ of Roman Emperors BUT receives his power from the Pope (Leo III)
- Realisations: - attempt unifying handwriting return to Latin letters |
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Romanesque culture (Ca. 1000-1200 AD)
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- Context: - Feudalism
- Conflicts (e.g. Investiture Controversy) - Religious reforms in Cluny 10th century °first pan-European cultural movement since Roman Empire - General features: - Very theocentric and hierarchical (powerful God) |
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Gothic culture (Ca. 1200-1500 A.C.)
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More anthropocentric, less hierarchical
- Closeness to God - Growing interest for the ‘Earthly City’ horror vacui - Importance of emotions (Virgin Mary!) new mysticism through human emotions & experiences - Earthly things represented as symbols - In philosophy: ‘human turn’ (discovery of Aristotle) Thomas Aquinas: certain emancipation of philosophy from theology |
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Conclusion of Middle Ages
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We can see Middle Ages as the history of an attempt to reach an integrally Christian society (City of God)
BUT: lasting importance of the other two cultures (Classical and Celto-Germanic) that paid much more attention to the Earthly City |
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Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
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On the one hand: stress on austerity and humility
On the other hand: not everybody can achieve this asceticism see passage ‘on consideration’ Main experience leading to God: love Bernardine mysticism = different ways to experience love for God - By being struck by Christ’s Beauty - By feeling Christ’s pain - By considering the maternal tenderness of Mary |
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Consequences of Bernard’s mysticism
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- Positive judgement of purely human affections
- Love for nature and human life - Much more positive reading of the earthly life than generally in Romanesque culture An immense impact on Gothic Culture: Mary worship, the idea of the suffering Christ, Christ as a child The ‘sensualisation’ of religion |
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Recapitulation of Middle Ages
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MA as history of attempt to reach integrally Christian society (=City of God)
Failed because of clash with classical and Celto-Germanic heritage (~ Earthly City) Evolution from abstraction (Carolingian period) over symbolism (Romanesque Period) to realism ( Gothic culture). Bernard of Clairvaux as bridge from Romanesque to Gothic culture: Bernardine mysticism key figure in La divina commedia |
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Divine Comedy
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- no ‘comedy’
- setting: travel through 3 realms of death, Holy Week 1300 - 3 parts: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise - poetic illustration thought Thomas Aquinas classical and christian heritage reconciled - is this purely medieval? |
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Humanism
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= Scholars who wanted to revive classical culture in its ‘purest’ form
Classical languages and literature: Editing classical works, discover new work e.g. Virgil, Cicero,… Greek rediscovered, Latin purified Art / senses > humility / introspection |
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Renaissance
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Rinascita, Rebirth, Revival ~ positive idea Antiquity
= A broader movement: revive the classical cultural ideal - Anthropocentric ~ individuality - ‘Lay’ culture ~ earthly fulfillment - Self confidence ~ active role of men in history - Uomo universale ~ universality but also public figure |
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Reformation
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Return to the roots of Gothicism
→ close relation between the human and the Divine Reaction (~ PROTESTantism) against excesses → against a religion that was too human (~ human weaknesses) → against a religion that was a commodity for the satisfaction of emotional and material needs → reformation started as a movement of purification NOT intention to start second church - Importance of printing press: spread through pamphlets |
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Lutheranism
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Rational ways of getting closer to God. Closest to Renaissance.
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Calvinism
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Rational ways of getting closer to God. Closest to Romanesque.
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Anabaptism
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Emotional ways of getting closer to God
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Counter reformation
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Late 16th, 17th Century
Catholic reaction towards Protestantism Severe repression (e.g. Charles V, separation of the Netherlands) Internal reforms: Counter Reformation, Council of Trent (1546-1563) - Confirmation of the central role of the pope - Unification of Catholic education system - Ecclesiastical tradition as second source of truth - Unification of liturgy ~~> less space for individualism ~~> unbridgeable gap |
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Baroque
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New self confidence within the Catholic Church
17th Century: huge propaganda campaign to spread Counter Reformation (also music, e.g. Palestrina) |
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Erasmus (1466-1536)
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New self confidence within the Catholic Church
17th Century: huge propaganda campaign to spread Counter Reformation (also music, e.g. Palestrina) |
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Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
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Ideas
The debate about heliocentrism got symbolical meaning in a larger ‘battle between science and religion’ BUT: Galilei was not anti-religious at all, ONLY anti- Thomist or anti-scholastic Galilei: Bible contains a divine revelation Empirical science can only help to reveal the true meaning of the Bible to contemporaries So: Bible has to be accomodated to science, not the other way around (Augustinian inspiration!) |
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image of light in enlightenment
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belligerent, militant and polemical
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René Descartes
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RATIONALISM (deduction). Authority of Reason > classics
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Francis Bacon
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EMPIRICISM (induction). Authority of empirical observation > classics
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Enlightenment attitude towards religion
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FRANCE: harsh anticlericalism
not so much atheism / materialism (D’Holbach) but: deism / agnosticism OTHER COUNTRIES: ‘Enlightened Christianity’ -- > Bible as source of truth but not as ruler of all aspects of life |
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Enlightenment attitude towards science
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Ally against dogma ~~> popularization
Empiricism: tradition in ‘Enlightened’ England Rationalism: tradition in ‘Enlightened’ France Finally: Prussia (Immanuel Kant) -- > choice between Empiricism and Rationalism was not necessary; ‘use both’ |
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enlightenment attitude towards politics
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Everywhere: reaction against absolutism
Society based on tolerance and human rights Man has good potential (↔ Christianity) This potential has to be defended and developed Atmosphere of respect for natural law is necessary This can only be guaranteed by popular sovereignty … … a voluntary social contract (Rousseau) between the ruler and the people Many possibilities: - Representative system - Enlightened Despotism ~~> cosmopolitan ideal of the nation |
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enlightenment attitude towards economics
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Adam Smith: Economic liberalism replaces mercantilism
- Division of labour - Laissez faire, laissez passer |
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enlightenment attitude towards art
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Only consistency: aversion for Gothic ideal
France: 17th Century Baroque did not really take root ↔ CLASSICISM (~ Renaissance art) 18th Century (influence of the Enlightenment): ROCOCO: Looser, sensuality Dynamism of Baroque + rationalism of Classicism in music: ‘galante style’ (e.g. Gluck) Late 18th Century: NEO-CLASSICISM Very academic + conventional Strong admiration for examples of Antiquity - re-evaluation of Gothic art ~ intro Romanticism |
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Voltaire (1694-1778)
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Philosophical dictionary (1764)
First published as Dictionnaire portatif Censorship ~ purpose: revolution on theological, philosophical and ethical level Purpose: revolutionary book had to be cheap Series of essays (theological, philosophical and ethical), universal interests Means: scientific analysis of (biblical) texts is it true? is it good? ~~> ‘philosophical’ ~ free thinking / rationalism ‘dictionary’ ~ form (alphabetical headings) Variety of styles, but always polemical |
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Chronology of Romanticism
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Most countries around 1780 (after a period of pre-Romanticism)
End: 1848 (Parisian Revolution)… … but persistence in popular culture and world views |
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Why no school of romanticism
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No ‘school’ of Romanticism
Because of: - Individualism - Anti-dogmatism, spontaneity |
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weakness of romanticism
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end of creativity
~~> Romantics revalued irrational aspects (‘inspiration’) |
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sensibility (romanticism)
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Sensibility > reason as touchstone to life
Rousseau, The New Heloise (1761) Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) Consciousness of own melancholy Sadness: ‘Poetry of night and tombs’ |
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vision of nature (romanticism)
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Nature as a living being, not as a machine
Untamed, undomesticated, unspoiled Emotional nature corresponding to inner self Exaltation of ‘natural man’: unspoiled and true (Noble savage) |
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History of Romanticism
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Historical revival (drama, novels, parades, painting…)
Series of historical novels by Sir Walter Scott (e.g. Ivanhoe) Rehabilitation of Middle Ages (associated with stability) Gothic revival |
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Politics of Romanticism
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Politics
Conservatism: Importance of the past ‘Gemeinschaft’ > ‘Gesellschaft’ village community urban society Against Revolution - Liberalism: Importance of freedom (individualism) In favour of liberal revolutions of 1830 Nationalism: Importance of self-government In favour of (progressive) independence movements |
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Positivism (ca. 1848-1914)
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belief that the method of natural science provides the sole model for the attainment of true knowledge
+ idea: ‘Science will lead to progress’ |
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Positivism Context Mid-Nineteenth Century
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Economic Growth
Political triumph of liberalism Imperialism (Berlin Conference 1884) ‘Age of science’ ~~> °triumphalism of the scientific, liberal, European culture |
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Comte's Course of positive philosophy (1830-1842)
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Three stages in history:
The stage of preclassical superstition (theological stage) The stage of classical abstraction (metaphysical stage) The stage of physics (phase of positive science) - Observation of the relations between phenomena - Exclusion of imagination (<-> Romantics) - Discovery of laws to understand present and predict future Later also: °scientific religion (scientist as a saint, mystical excesses) |
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Sociology (Comte)
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General laws that rule society (~ natural sciences)
Conservative! |
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History (Hippolyte Taine)
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History of English Literature, published in 1864-1865
‘Race, milieu, moment’ as determining forces of history Literary work should always be analyzed as a product whose nature is defined by these features Literary criticism and history of literature raised to scientific level |
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‘Scientific socialism’ (Marx and Engels)
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Struggle of classes was the central law of social development
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‘Social darwinism’ (Herbert Spencer)
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Struggle for life as motor of human progress
Economic competition (as natural selection) leads to progress Sometimes a racist outlook (natural selection as a process of competition between races struggle in terms of groups rather than of individuals) |
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Realism and Art
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A new range of subject matter
Preference for ‘low’ subjects ~ ‘democracy in art’ Fascination (in later Naturalism) for the ‘vulgar’ and the ‘ugly’ ‘Truth’ in painting Refusal to idealize Objective, impartial depiction (~ Comte’s third stage) |
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Characteristics of Impressionism
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Name Critic: merely ‘impressions’
- Impression as a new way of ‘seeing’ (~ laws of optics) Importance of direct observation (barely interested in narrative painting / open air painters) ‘extreme’ Contemporaneity / spontaneity (e.g. light at a specific moment) |
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Double Paradox of Impressionism
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(1) Lasting success ~ subjective evocation > scientific approach
(2) Reality is ever changing, misses solidity ~~> Impressionists were criticised for their materialism, but they undermined in a scientific way the materiality of reality ~~> They prepared the way for the relativism of the modernist movement |
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Characteristics of Modernism
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Artistic world shaken (~ paradox of Impressionism)
Realism reached a dead end, reality found to be unstable, ever changing + no longer trust in scientific method as only source of truth ~~> Crisis of Confidence - Painting: rise of photography - Literature: rise of the social sciences - positivist world view of realism was criticize |
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Modernism definition
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artistic expression of and reaction against a rapidly modernizing world
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CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882)
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Man = evolved animal ~~> ° idea that world is ruled by coincidence
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SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
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Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899)
Incoherence of the dream: the mind’s way of communicating the most complex and subtle visions Things that the mind consciously had never perceived, become equally important in the understanding of man Many artists adopted the dream as a paradigm for the world reality and unreality, logic and fantasy, the banal and the sublime form an inexplicable unity |
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Subconsciousness
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thriving force of human existence
“Ich” controlled by “Über-ich”, “Ich” only manifests itself during dreams and therapeutic sessions Man is reigned by social conventions and mystical forces, not by reason |
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FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)
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Nothingness remains. How to fill it in?
- With the Superhuman (Übermensch) Will to power (= cosmic inner force, rather than domination!) Art Life as something dangerous, intuitive and original live as such and you are Übermensch, if not, Untermensch The modernist artists and thinkers tried to fill in the void Nietzsche left behind Idea revaluation of all values very influential |
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Avant-Gardism
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Celebrating revolutionary aesthetic and moral values
- Artist = part of elite (avant-garde) - Ahead of the masses, opening pathways for society - Bifurcation low/high culture much of the art needs inside information to be understood - Artist as a prophet > observer |
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Basic characteristics of Modernism
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- Importance of originality (~ Romanticism)
- Context of a rapidly changing world ~~> historical continuity was broken - End of ‘historicism’: look at the future - Feeling even stronger after WWI (fragmented world) |
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Artistic implications of fragmentation
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Self-consciousness: artist ‘invents’ reality
~ atonal music (e.g. Schoenberg) Representation of reality becomes impossible ~ anti-representationalism (e.g. Abstract art) Perspective is everything (Nietzsche) Cubism Stream of consciousness novels and poetry (e.g. James Joyce, Ulysses) Relativity physics |
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TRIUMPHANT MODERNISM
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Embrace modern science, technology and political life
Worship the machine aesthetics |
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ALIENATED MODERNISM
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Progress in question
The power of the masses and technology seem ambiguous |
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Expressionism
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Does not represent outer reality, but inner emotions
Everything is unstable, centre can not hold (Yeats) Deformation and bright colours have to strengthen these |
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Futurism
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MANIFESTO
Destroy the old, worship the modern age (~ Nietzsche) Movement, violence and the Machine |
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Cubism
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e.g. Picasso
Different angles at the same time Inspired by the simple geometries of African sculptures |
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Abstract Art
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e.g. Malevitch
Radically ‘Modern’: Non-representational painting Picture finds its meaning in its own pictorial means: form colour, line, structure, etc. Painting in its ‘purest form’ Influential throughout the rest of the century |
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Dada
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e.g. Marcel Duchamp
Anti-Art. Destroy the existing notions of beauty Nonsensical poetry, collages of paper, ‘ready mades’, performances... Very influential on late 20th-century ‘conceptual art’ |
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Surrealism
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e.g. Dali, Magritte
Dream and unconsciousness: mind is freed Inspired by Freud |
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Constructivism
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e.g. Walter Gropius
- Mainly architecture - Influence from abstract art, Cubism and Futurism - Soberness: ‘Less is more’ Popularisation. Mass-produced technologies Form follows function - Triumphant modernism: Admiration for the engineer - Dream to rebuild Europe after the destructions of WWI |
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Existentialism
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E.g. Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Stress on ‘Nothingness’ (no God), but also on the free will of man People must be judged by their actions rather than by ‘what they are’ -- > they are entirely what they do: existence precedes essence |
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1960s American reaction in the Arts
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‘Modernism is sterile’
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1970s French reaction in Philosophy
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↔ metaphysical basis of Western thought
↔ the Enlightenment Project (belief that the world can be known through science and reason) |
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Characteristics of Post-Modernism
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Critique on ‘Master Narratives’ or ‘Great Narratives’
These narratives mask contradictions in society Defence of small narratives that are situational and provisional Impossibility to come to transparent communication Distrust of language... ...BUT: Reality is linguistic (Linguistic Turn) The Subject is imprisoned in language’s cage The idea of a stable/permanent reality disappears Effects in Literature: - End of sharp distinction between fact and fiction - Stress on intertextuality (texts referring to other texts) - The role of the reader is clearly stressed |
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Irony
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gap or incongruity between understanding/expectation and what actually happens
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Post-Modernism
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Post-Modernism is both a reaction against a simplified modernism (the belief in modernity and science) and a way to bring modernism to fruition
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