Transcript Reality and Interpretation of Scripture:

Renaissance &
Reformation:
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Recap: What is a worldview?
A worldview is habituated way of seeing and
doing.
A worldview is the “big picture” that directs our
daily decisions and behavior.
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Respond to the following quote:
“How can playwrights be thinkers, when
everyone knows that they’re feelers? They deal
in emotions, not ideas-don’t they?”
~Richard Gilman, “Introduction,” The Playwright as Thinker by Eric Bentley (New
York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987 [1945]), xix, emphasis in original.
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Respond to the following quote:
“Art tries, literally, to picture the things which
philosophy tries to put into carefully thought-out
words.”
~Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker.
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Respond to the following quote:
“All art is a language-a language of color, sound,
movement, or words,” poet Dana Gioia observes.
Gioia goes on to say, “When we immerse ourselves
in a work of art, we enter into the artist’s worldview.
It can be an expansive and glorious worldview, or it
can be cramped, dehumanizing worldview.”
~ Poet Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; key note address at a conference titled,
“Artists as Reconcilers,” International Arts Movement (February 2006). Comments condensed by Nancy Pearcey,
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Saving Leonardo, 76.
Respond to the following quote:
In a book review over William Faulkner’s, “The
Sound and the Fury,” Jean-Paul Sartre asserted, “I
like his art, but I do not believe in his metaphysics.”
~ Jean-Paul Sartre
~ Jean-Paul Sartre, “On The Sound and the Fury,” in William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, ed.
David Minter (New York: Norton, 1994), 265, 271.
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What about style?
“…aesthetic elements grow ultimately out of worldviews.
This can be a difficult concept to grasp. In popular music, for
example, most people readily recognize that the lyrics express
the songwriter’s perspective and experience. But they tend to
assume that that the musical style is neutral. That is a
mistake. Artistic styles develop originally as vehicles for
expressing particular worldviews. As painter Louis
Finkelstein says, ‘The sense of all stylistic change is that the
underlying view of the world changes.’” ~ Nancy Pearcey,
Saving Leonardo, 76-77.
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Basic Movements To Know:
Geometric Greeks: Ultimate Truth Found In Mathematics & Geometry.
For example, Pythagoras discovered that musical harmonies depend on
geometric patterns. “God always geometrizes.”
Linguistics is how do we communicate what we know.
Epistemology is how do we know that which is.
Metaphysics is what is that which is (the nature of existence).
Reality is that which exists (or is).
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Geometric Greeks: Focus on the
universals from the particulars.
Metaphysics and epistemology:
Geometry is the key to eternal truths.
Pythagoras discovered that musical
harmonies depend on geometric patterns.
“God always geometrizes.”
1.
Style: Balance, proportion, symmetry,
& clarity.
2.
3. The arts are particular individuals that
reveal universal types or ideals.
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Aristotle-Aquinas
1.
Metaphysics and epistemology: Geometry is the key to
eternal truths. Pythagoras discovered that musical
harmonies depend geometric patterns. “God always
geometrizes.”
2.
Style: Balance, proportion, symmetry, & clarity.
3. The arts are particular individuals that reveal universal
types or ideals.
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Byzantine Culture & Christian Neoplatonism:
1.
Greek thought with Eastern Mysticism.
2.
Distinct dualism:
3.
a.
sensible realm is that of corruption, evil, decay,
and death.
b.
Spiritual realm: withdraw from the senses and
contemplate the realm of universals by means
of the inner eye of reason.
Freedom from physical body unto spiritual realm. Ascetic
practices; the secular is divided from the sacred.
4. Emphasis is on the divinity of Jesus Christ (not
humanity).
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Byzantine Culture & Christian Neoplatonism:
A mixture of Greek thought with Eastern mysticism. The
result was a sharp dualism. The world was the realm of
death, evil, corruption, and decay whereas the path to
wisdom was to withdraw from the physical realm known
by the senses in order to contemplate the realm of ideal or
universals known by the inner eye of wisdom.
The ultimate goal of life was to escape from the prison
house of the physical body and ascend to the spiritual
realm.
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Neo-Platonism
1. Around 5th century we see
impact of neo-Platonism on
arts with the artists losing
interest in portraying the
ordinary world.
2. Byzantine icons the emphasis
was on Jesus’ deity, not
humanity.
3. Typically Jesus was portrayed
as the all-powerful Judge and
Ruler of the Universe.
Mary was not portrayed as a
poor peasant girl from Galilee
but the Mother of God exalted
on high.
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Renaissance:
In Giotto’s Lamentations:
1. Neo-Platonism is discarded
and replaced with the notion
that the physical world is no
longer a prison from which to
escape. Rather, the physical
world is the nexxus whereby
the human, the divine, the
physical, the spiritual, the
temporal and eternal converge.
Best illustration of this for14
Giotto is Christ.
Renaissance:
It was an incarnational theme
that Renaissance artists began
to elaborate upon and give
realistic details in the
background.
The use of perspective begins
to underscore the message
that these events have
happened in our world
whereby the spiritual realm
entered into physical, ordinary
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living.
Welcome to the Renaissance:
During the Renaissance the Platonic Academy in
Florence revived neo-Platonism. In fact, some
philosophers like Marsilio Ficini believed that
neo-Platonism is a “perennial” wisdom given by
God to Gentiles. Thus, the idea of harmonizing
Christian theology with Platonism could be done.
But what they did do is introduce Renaissance
humanism. How?
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Answer: Reflect God’s Image.
Remember, the neo-Platonic worldview believed that
human flesh was corrupted, subject to death, and is evil
whereas the spirit or soul is trapped in the body. To
overcome this dualism, he promoted the notion that we
are “created in the image of God.” As a result, we must
become a “terrestrial god.” In other words, we reflect
God by being a “god of the animals.” Just like God
governs people, the idea is that we govern animals.
Instead of withdrawing from the world, we are to be its
masters.
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Vitruvian Man: The Unifier between
Heaven & Hell:
Leonardo Vitruvian Man exemplifies what it
means to be the ideal man.
For Leonardo, the painter was a “god” who
created images at will. This artwork captures
the neo-Platonic notion that a human is a
microcosm uniting the two realms of spirit
and matter.
The square is a symbol of the earth whereas
the circle represents the eternity of heaven.
Thus, the ideal human is “both of this earth
and heaven… the unifier of the universe.”
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Renaissance:
Leonardo’s Last Supper
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Reformation:
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Reformation:
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Reformation:
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