{Hellenistic Civil War}[20th February 1991]

[Redbook8:273][19910220:1120b]{Hellenistic Civil War}[20th February 1991]

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[continued]

‘The common Latin language, the coinage, the “international” army of the Roman legions, the urban network, the law, and the Greco-Roman heritage of civic culture loomed largest among those bonds that Augustus and his successors hoped would bring unity and peace to a Mediterranean world exhausted by centuries of civil war.’*

**

I am glad to see this description of the fighting between ‘States’ in the Mediterranean World, from at least the beginning of the Hellenic period, as ‘civil war’ – corresponding as it does to the (-G~-)-R~-C period of the 2048 year cycle, on a ‘regional’ scale.

*(my emphasis)

**– E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 15:422

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{Isis}[20th February 1991]

[Redbook8:272][19910220:1120]{Isis}[20th February 1991]

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‘Apuleius’ “Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)” has a hero who has been changed into an ass. After strange adventures he is restored to human shape by the goddess Isis. Many passages, notably the story of Cupid and Psyche, have a beauty [sic] that culminates in the apparition of Isis and the initiation of the hero into her mysteries.’

– E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 22:853

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{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued (4)]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:272][19910219:1155l]{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued (4)]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘Celtic religion did not require natural representations of the gods, or of the other world and its supernatural beings. This does not mean that religious ideas are not expressed in abstract and decorative designs. The large numbers of votive offerings found in sanctuaries, rivers* and meres* suggests that they were. In monumental carving in stone and wood the religious dimension becomes explicit. Here again there are opposing tendencies, towards both the abstract and the natural, and there is a concentration on the head, severed** or attached, as there is in Celtic literature and legend.’

*R~

**R~

***– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2: 217]

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{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued (3)]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:271][19910219:1155k]{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued (3)]}[19th February 1991]

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[continued]

[Plastic style]* inherited from Early style the transformation of men and monsters and the visual punning. But there was a new treatment of man and animal in which mass and contour, body and limb became three-dimensional patterns with their own inner coherence, which is not that of the natural creature. The simplified swirl of contour is shown admirable on bronze openwork fittings of unknown function that were found at Brno Malomerice** in Moravia, Czechosolvakia (Moravian Museum, Brno).’

***

*[Square brackets per ms]

**[Malomeřĭce(?)]

***– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2: 217]

[continued]

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{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued]}[19th February 1991]

 [Redbook8:271][19910219:1155j]{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head [continued]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘One characteristic of the [second or “Waldalgesheim” style of La Tène art],* which was carried over into much later work, is a particular sleight of hand, by means of which designs that appear asymmetric in fact depend on the reversing and transposing of symmetric elements, to form a whole which partakes of both. The subtlety with which compass-work is disguised, and the linear twinings and convolutions that are made to appear organic and floral, which turn out when examined to be abstract and inorganic, all belong to a particular Celtic species of ambiguity.’

**

*[Square brackets per ms]

**– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2]: 217

[continued]

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{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:270-272][19910219:1155i]{Celtic Art: The Sacred Head}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘[La Tène art]* is generally speaking a small-scale art created for a warrior aristocracy that, in Stuart Piggott’s words, “demanded flamboyant display from its head-hunting, charioteering, chieftans and their petty courts; or somber trappings and imagery in the forest sanctauries of a religion in which human sacrifice and the cult of the severed head** played an important part. It is strange and unfamiliar to us as it was to the Greeks and the Romans. So much of the finest work comprises small, intense and intricate pieces of intricate workmanship in gold, silver or bronze, which capture and concentrate preciousness, virtuosity, symbolism and beauty.” It was among the 6th- and early 5th-century BC[E] Celtic-speaking inhabitants of the land lying northward of the Alps that this art was invented, for invention it was. There is no single source, native or foreign, and no gradual unfolding. In fact it is rare to find an art style so different from anything that went before, whose archeological setting can be studied and understood, yet which itself remains profoundly elusive and unpredictable.’

***

*[Square brackets per ms]

**cf Sistine [chapel] ceiling?

or R~

***– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2]: 212

[continued]

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[Antinous as Apollo]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:269][19910219:1155h]{[Antinous as Apollo]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

A statue of Antinous as Apollo.* Delphi Museum.

**

***

*ref [[Redbook8:265][19910219:1155]{Antinous}[19th February 1991],] 265

**– E[ncylopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 2:194

***[Illustrations of this statue are available on the World Wide Web; therefore the ms photocopy is not reproduced in the ts]

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{Christians and Pagans [continued (4)]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:269][19910219:1155g]{Christians and Pagans [continued (4)]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘From the villa at Lullingstone, Kent: another example of Belerophon and the Chimaera* (in situ).’

**

***

*[See [Redbook8:267-268][19910219:1155d]{Christians and Pagans}[19th February 1991]]

**– E[ncylopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 2: 207

***[Illustrations of this mosaic are available on the World Wide Web; therefore the ms photocopy is not reproduced in the ts]

[continued]

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{Christians and Pagans [continued (3)]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:268][19910219:1155f]{Christians and Pagans [continued (3)]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

Note the turning (male) deer on the left side.

*

‘From the Hinton St. Mary mosaic: the Head of Christ. The pomegranates on either side are symbols of immortality. British Museum, London.’

**

*[Illustrations of this mosaic are available on the World Wide Web; therefore the ms photocopy is not reproduced in the ts]

**– E[ncylopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 2: 207

{cf IX. [] 152}

[continued]

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{Christians and Pagans [continued]}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:267-268][19910219:1155e]{Christians and Pagans [continued]}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘Compromise was impossible between the ever stricter Christian beliefs of the emperors and the ethos of the last pagans – “Not by one path alone can man attain so great a mystery” proclaimed the great Symmachus (AD382[CE]) in trying to persuade the Emperor Valentinian II to give the Altar of Victory back to the Senate.’

– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2]: 210

[continued]

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{Christians and Pagans}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:267-268][19910219:1155d]{Christians and Pagans}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘The Corinium mosaics display a well-mannered paganism, which, as in S. Constanza, would not have been obnoxious to Christians. Indeed Christian and pagan motifs are combined in mosaics from Frampton (no longer extant) to Hinton St. Mary (British Museum, London), both laid by the firm of mosaicists from Dorchester, Dorset. Both depict the Christian “Chi-Rho” and the latter the head of Christ as well; but they also portray Bellerophon on Pegasus slaying the Chimaera,* and at Frampton the head of Neptune, and figures of Bacchus and Venus and Adonis are shown as well.’

**

*[cf [Redbook8:269][19910219:1155g]{Christians and Pagans [continued (4)]}[19th February 1991]]

**– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2]: 208-9

[continued]

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{Orpheus and Dionysus in Britain}[19th February 1991]

[Redbook8:266-267][19910219:1155c]{Orpheus and Dionysus in Britain}[19th February 1991]

19910219.1155

[continued]

‘An especially notable floor depicting Orpheus and the beasts was laid at the palatial residence at Woodchester – did it belong to the governor of Britannia Prima? Orpheus occupies a central roundel which is encircled by an inner register of birds and an outer one of quadrupeds. A similar but simpler mosaic was laid in the villa at Barton Farm, just outside the walls of Cirencester (Corinium Museum). Mosaics from Chedworth, Gloucestershire, and Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, portrayed Dionysos.* The latter, known only from an engraving, showed the god with his panther in a circular medallion surrounded by a rich border (incorporating a running scroll which appears to issue from the head of Neptune). The Chedworth mosaic can be presumed to have been the centrepiece of a floor, which retains part of its octagonal, segmented surround containing vigorous portrayals of nymphs and satyrs.’

**

*{(sic)

(as G[ree]k?)}

**– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 2]: 208

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