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2020, American Research Journal of Humanities & Social Science Volume-03, Issue-01
The iconography of the Greek War of Independence is quite broad and it includes both real and imaginary themes. Artists who were inspired by this particular and extremely important historical event originated from a variety of countries, some were already well-known, such as Eugène Delacroix, others were executing official commissions from kings of Western countries, and most of them were driven by the spirit of romanticism. This paper shall not so much focus on matters of art criticism, but rather explore the manner in which facts have been represented in specific works of art, referring to political, religious and cultural issues, which are still relevant to this day. In particular, I shall comment on The Massacre at Chios by Eugène Delacroix, painted in 1824, the 39 Scenes from the Greek War of Independence by Peter von Hess, painted in 1835 and commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and the frieze in the Trophy Room (currently Eleftherios Venizelos Hall) in Otto's palace in Athens, currently housing the Hellenic Parliament, themed around the Greek War of Independence and the subsequent events. This great work was designed by German sculptor Ludwig Michael Schantahaler in 1840 and "transferred" to the walls of the hall by a group of Greek and German artists. The following aspects shall be highlighted with regard to the aforementioned works: (a) the starting point of the war episodes "narrated" in these works is the clash of two worlds, diametrically opposite in religious, cultural, and moral terms, reduced to the conflict between good and evil, and they refer to the clash of civilisations, (b) the heroes of the Greek War of Independence are represented like saints of the Church as well as descendants of ancient Greek legendary figures, (c) the Greek-Orthodox Church is omnipresent, in particular in large figurative ensembles, inextricably linking its existence to the Greek Nation, and (d) certain illustrations show elements of exercising political and cultural diplomacy. Lastly, and as far as large ensembles are concerned, the leaders of the Greek War of Independence were aware of the iconographic programme-indeed, several of them were still alive at the time the works were created-and this shows how the historical facts relating to the Greek War of Independence were both received and perpetuated for generations to come.
This work is an attempt to transfer into written form short lectures normally given in places of historical interest – churches, museums, archaeological sites – or, in the open, where important events took place in the past. It is the result of requests from interested and curious listeners to these talks to be able to take away with them a written record of what was said so as to have the chance of looking at it again later, when they had returned home and been able to think over the experiences gained from the trip, in conjunction with photographs taken. The immediacy of a spoken account on the site of a monument, or in a historically significant place with a beautiful view, cannot of course be translated faithfully onto paper or the computer screen. But the writer hopes that such losses are balanced by the additional information and views which the spoken form precludes but a written version can contain.
Let’s start with a trite question: is the past always the future? Or, another trite question: is the future always already the past? Do the past and the future form a nexus that is impenetrable, intractable, determinate and determined? Is past and future contiguous or contagious?
Greece and Germany have always had an idiosyncratic and strangely asymptotic relationship. Germany paid little to no attention to Greece or Greek antiquity until, in 1755, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in his Reflections, announced that the measure of beauty was the art of ancient Greece, which exhibited a " noble simplicity and quiet grandeur " transmitted through its restraint of expression (where the grandeur of the soul is reflected on the face despite " its deep suffering… Just as the depths of the sea always remain calm however much the surface may rage so does the expression of the figures of the Greeks reveal a great and composed soul even in the midst of passion, " —what Lynn Randolph would later call " the connection between visible surface and invisible depth "); and the translucent purity of the white marble statues: " Color assists beauty; it heightens beauty and its forms; but it does not constitute it, " he wrote in the second volume of his History of Ancient Art. That he was wrong about the whiteness of the marble (most of the ancient marble art was originally painted in bright colors long since faded) and that his reading of Laocoön's expression at the moment of his death (on which the whole " quiet grandeur " bit was based) was not much more than a projection of an affective index that was his own, were beyond his grasp at the time. But this " Winckemannian gaze " (as Louis Ruprecht has termed Winckelmann's encounter with Greek art) took hold, as did the aesthetic theory that beauty resided in whiteness—so much so that one of my professors at university, after explaining to us that ancient art was actually full of colors, ended his lecture by saying, " Can you imagine how gaudy they must have looked! " The German idea of Greece was nothing more than an ideal that had no basis in reality, was not historically founded (the Greeks themselves had not produced the idea of whiteness), did not involve modern Greece at all, and resided in Winckelmann's psyche more than anywhere else. This was a John Berger subject of art if there ever was one. The English and the French had been thinking about Greece since the 1600s, traveling, publishing accounts of their journeys, contemplating the connections between Greek and Roman art and architecture, producing literature and theater inflected by Greece (Corneille 's Médée appeared in 1635). Germans did not. At a time when the entire gray matter of Germany was looking at Rome, Winckelmann, first, thought Greece. He procured Greek books for language instruction through the " gentle art of sponging " off friends and sponsors, as E. M. Butler wrote (1958); spent days on end at private collections looking at art; copied copies; and climbed on the pedestals of statues (once dislodging and breaking one of their heads) in order to take a closer look at the expression of the marble. Was it the translucent hue of the skin on young German youths that Winckelmann so adored (" incapable of loving a woman, " as Butler divines) that led him to the ideal of the Greek statues? " A beautiful body will be the more beautiful the whiter it is, " he says in the second volume of his History and, defining beauty as universally recognized, he looked at busts made from basalt and proclaimed them beautiful despite their " disagreeable color " (1849).
Catwalk:The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style - Global Interdisciplinary ResearchStudies
Amalia Dress: The Invention of a New Costume Tradition in the Service of Greek National Identity, Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style, volume 1, no. 1, pp. 65-90 (2012) Inter-Disciplinary Press.Abstract The arrival in Greece of Queen Amalia in 1837 is a turning point in Greek costume history. Amalia created a romantic part-Greek, part-Viennese costume, known as the Amalia Costume. As in all societies ruled by a monarchy, it was the Court that set this attire in its surroundings. As has been noted by sociology research, fashion often originates in the upper reaches of society and passes on to the middle class and from there to the lower social strata. On the one hand, a series of “Amalia-fied” costumes prevailed at the expense of older costume forms in 19th century Greece. On the other hand, folkloric elements were incorporated in the Amalia style, making it a typical example of how fashion moves “up” from the masses and influences the upper class style, according to Lipovetsky’s model. Until now, researchers of the Greek costume have only superficially studied the costume, describing it as a romantic courtier costume, which served as the national female costume of the Greeks. An in-depth study of this costume indicates that it is a pre-constructed or better yet, an invented, according to Eric Hobsbawm, ensemble, created in a specific moment in history during which there was widespread interest within Europe in the folk culture of newly created states. In Greece, the manufacturing of a romantic national costume, originating in the royal court, seems to have corresponded with the people’s need for the creation of a unifying symbol. In this article, it is attempted to perform a dialectical approach to the Amalia Costume. Our method is based on analysis from a folklore point of view of the costume itself and analysis of its history/anthropology. Particular focus is placed on highlighting its symbolic nature, keeping under consideration that costumes, as all objects of the material culture, serve as codes of message and meaning exchange and as indicators of cultural expressions and specific cultural meanings, according to Igor Kopytoff.
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The Vanishing Double Stoa at Thorikos and its Afterlives2015 •
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Conference On Monumentality book of abstracts
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On Monumentality. Book of Abstracts
On MonumentalityVorbild griechenland. Beiträge zur archäologie griechenlands, v. 3. Jutta Stroszeck – Heide Frielinghaus (Hrsg). Mainz Universitat. Bibliopolis / Möhnesee
Burial Sculpture in modern Athens.The Influence and Wake of the Greek Classical Art on New Attempts.2012 •
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Prints and Impressions from Ottoman Smyrna
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Studies in Musical Theatre, Volume 8, Number 2, p. 129-141
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