I found one reference to the plate saying, God as the Architect.Originally Posted by cacian
I found one reference to the plate saying, God as the Architect.
Les Miserables,
Volume 1, Fifth Book, Chapter 3
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
Funny you should mention Zeus, because that's exactly where the standard image of God (big guy, muscly, gray hair and beard, etc.) came from. Much like the pagan traditions of Christmas, rather than attempt to destroy the blasphemous image of Zeus, the catholic church made it its own.
Long before the Romans stole the books from the Jews, they stole everything from the Greeks. Around 100 BC, Zeus was already becoming the leader of a fallen Olympus and the Romans were beginning to see Jupiter (their version of Zeus) as a monotheistic God. Around half a century later, Cicero wrote about the Roman obsession with monotheism. Zeus (Jupiter) is tacitly implied. So it is probable that many of the images came from the Greeks, although the Romans stole everything they came across and served any rationalized purpose.
I actually like that about the Romans. Why seek to destroy something (religion, culture, stories, ritual, ect) when you can assimilate it? That works much better, much less resistance and loss.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 12-30-2011 at 11:18 AM.
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"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
That was a funny one, JW, considering the rivers of bloodshed and the slaughterhouses the Romans left all over in order to do it.
It could have been worse. They could have wanted everyone and everything on earth to be "Roman," which would more closely resemble the war-makers of the last century. There goes everything.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 12-30-2011 at 11:18 AM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
I read Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars a while back and was appalled by the scale of the butchery told of. They say a million died and another million were enslaved, at a time when the population of Europe wasn't all that high. I have difficulty thinking of other examples of prolific widespread slaughter on the Romans' part though.
Tha depends on how well you grasp the advent of the Third Reich. The Romans were behind it up to their knees. I already gave enough information about this in another thread.
And what about the crusades? What about the persecution of Jews throughout the middle ages and the inquisitions?
Not everyone reads every thread....
By Romans I assumed you meant the Roman Republic and Empire.
Getting back to the original question of the thread, I think I would paint God in an abstract way, with lots of bright colour. Or maybe to reflect my atheism I'd merely leave the canvas blank.
Last edited by Darcy88; 12-30-2011 at 12:32 AM.
I think it'd look sweet to do a kabbalistic thing, there are so many symbols that you could use and I like their concept of god the most out of any modern religion. I'd paint a scene from a city park or something, some pigeons, people, dogs, grass, trees, &c, then I'd superimpose little gold threads throughout everything, winding around everything and inside all of the people and plants and animals. If it's the kabbalah then we've got to use some symbolism, so I'd put a dull little everyday sun in the sky but I'd lace it with the same gold color. I might chuck some lion statuary into the park fountain or fences or something too.
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"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
But they did want that. Dig into the meaning of the word Catholic. Don't confuse the number of casualties in the 20th century due to better weapons with the intentions of the Catholics.
That's too late in the time frame. I obviously can't admire ALL of ancient Rome, the kingdom, republic and empire span over two thousand years altogether. I like how they dealt with (most of) their conquored nations when they were at their prime before they got overzealous. During their expansion they COULD have just razed every non-Roman city to the ground simply for being "not Roman," expunged everything like they did with Carthage, but they didn't. Why put in all of that work to erase a society when it has something to offer? They saw value in the nations that they conquored, not just in it's resources and labour but in the cultures themselves. They were able to admire things which were different, stories, styles and philosophy &c. and so these societies live on (unlike the Carthaginian empire).
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 12-30-2011 at 01:06 AM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
I do not like the look of the beard.
What is the significance of a beard on fresco portray of a character?
The beard clearly suggested age and wisdom... and as others have suggested, was quite likely based upon Greco-Roman models of Zeus as well as images of Homer, Aristotle, etc... and other individuals seen as bearing great wisdom. The initial images of Jesus, on the other hand, were based upon the Greco-Roman God Apollo.
distracting indeed so much nudity..I am still not sure about why baby angels are in the nude too??
Michelangelo would have quite likely have painted God and all the angels naked had he been able to. Why should God, the most perfect being, who created Man and Woman in his image... naked and without shame... need to cover himself? Michelangelo endured heated debates with various clergy during the painting of the Last Judgment as a result of his insistence on painting everyone nude. He argued quite persuasively that surely souls freshly risen from the dead would not be clothed. The church leaders, however, could not abide a nude Virgin Mary or a nude Christ and one of the artist's followers was later employed to add concealing draperies in the more "extreme" areas.
Of course Michelagelo's attraction to the nude also owed much to his own sexuality... a conveyed a great deal of his internal turmoil and frustration... the conflict between physical and spiritual desire.
The "baby angels" or putti (plural of putto) were initially representatives of profane or non-spiritual desire... the desires of the flesh. They were initially employed in art and literature as assistants to Eros/Cupid (and ultimately to Aphrodite/Venus, goddess of physical and erotic love) in promoting physical desire between specific individuals. Later... especially in the Baroque era... they came to be confused with "Cherubs" or "Cherubim" who represented the second order of Biblical angels, and they were employed to represent the presence of God.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
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Having thought about it more...
I think, at this point, I would paint God the same way I would paint Love. Though I am not sure what love would look like... It is difficult to capture a concept.
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
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