{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1)}[15th April 1991]

[Redbook9:124-125][19910415:0840aa]{Visual Arts [continued –] Art Cycles (1)}[15th April 1991]

19910415.0840

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When I interrupted my rapid journey through the Visual Arts of Europe, just before the Renaissance,* to make a detour into Islam,** it was with the idea that the influence of Islam must be allowed for in the history of Europe. But it is beginning to seem as though that influence is less than I expected. On the other hand, Islamic and Christian cultures are definitely interlinked and interwoven; and comparison of the two may well illuminate the natural sequence of patterns, particularly in the arts, which may or may not be describable in terms of C[ircles] A[nalysis &] S[ynthesis].

For example, an art without living things may initially be compared with the early, geometrical stages of the art cycles of antiquity,*** which may turn out to characterise the first quarter of the rotation of a long cultural cycle (and to be prefigured by the abstract art which ends the previous cycle). In the second quarter of an outer circle one might expect formularised representation, relaxing in the third quarter into a naturalism (and technical mastery) which reaches its peak at around G~ff. Not long after, the breakdown of the cycle may begin to manifest itself in various ways: baroque fantasy, romanticism, ‘dead’ realism (mastery of form without spirit), experiment, and abstract art. I am not sure what the order of this (incomplete) list ought in theory to be.

*[See [Redbook8:350][19910315:1000tt][Gothic Art (3) [continued (22):]] European art in the 15^th century [ce] [continued (9)][15th March 1991]]

**[See [Redbook8:351][19910316:1612]{Arabian Islam}[16th March 1991]]

***[See above, []]

****{See [[Redbook9:133][19910420#]{Art Cycles (2)}[20th April 1991],] 133;

[[Redbook9:9][19910326:2315b]{Fascism and Art [(1)]}[26th March 1991],] 9,

[[Redbook9:19][19910331:1706b]{Fascism and Art (2)}[31st March 1991],] 19}

{& VIII.[[Redbook8:278][19910221:1142g]{Byzantine Art [continued (3)]}[21st February 1991],] 278 re? ‘idealised’art at M~-U~}

[& NB [Redbook8:277-283][19910221:1142f]{Byzantine Art: Iconoclasm}[21st February 1991]]

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