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Scientific Revolution

First, what is the scientific revolution?

The scientific revolution is a period of time starting in the late 16th century. Our Lumen video lecture says it arbitrarily is connected to Copernicus’ development of the heliocentric system. It is extremely far from arbitrary but there is not time to explain that in this post, likely Unit Project 4 will shed some light on this. The key features of the scientific revolution would include the development of the heliocentric system, Isaac Newtons advancements in understanding of Physics, the refinement/development of the scientific method as we know it today, and a variety of other science or science-adjacent findings.

Reflect on what cultural shifts had to occur for the scientific revolution to take shape in Europe. You might consider people's view of their place in the world, individualism, humanism, education, the role of religion, technological advances, exploration, politics, printing, and so forth. In other words, how is European culture moving away from medievalism and toward beliefs we recognize as modern?

One of the major shifts would be the inquisitiveness that seems to be becoming more culturally acceptable. People are asking more questions, and when they do not find the answers already found, they look for them themselves. People as individuals could learn things, they did not swallow spoon-fed information as easily as they once had. This is still something people are learning today.

“Jan Matejko, Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, 1873: Oil painting by the Polish artist Jan Matejko depicting Nicolaus Copernicus observing the heavens from a balcony by a tower near the cathedral in Frombork.“ -from ‘The Scientific Revolution’ Lumen article.

The picture fairly simply illustrates the idea that people are making new ideas as in the image Copernicus is drawing a diagram the heliocentric system itself.

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The witch trials seem to have come about through the growing belief of Christians in the 14-16th centuries, that witchcraft is a demonic art and may have caused the plague. Our reading noted that a bunch of people were accused when James VI(James I of England) came to Denmark and that they were so simply because of the bad weather. Misogyny seems to sort of have a part in the trials, but at the same time there's a lot more than that. It seems like Christianity was looking with fear at anything that might be trying to hurt them in any way. Jumping at shadows, if you will. Underlying beliefs obviously include that so called witchcraft is bad and actively trying to wreak havoc. This could potentially follow a logic train all the way to the idea that Christianity is shaken at this point. Catholicism doesn't want more trouble after the Reformation. (I'm not sure what specifically this prompt was getting at so hopefully this is fine) Witch Hunt in the modern vernacular is generally used in an attempt to martyrize someone. This makes some amount of sense given the history, but at the same time it can be used in questionable contexts. Some may argue that not all 'witches' were completely innocent even if their crimes didn't include literal witchcraft, but this has fairly little meaning on the term witch hunt as it can be used today. Whether the term is used correctly or not really has no bearing on the fact that it means "someone innocent(or mostly innocent) is being unjustly called out for something, or is being persecuted beyond reason".

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Unit 2 Projects

There were a ton of fantastic projects today to choose from. It was fascinating to see three different sets of sonnets that took on different themes and topics, but stuck to roughly the same forms. The sonnets really helped clarify to me how difficult it was to write good ones. It shows that even though so many ‘high-class’ people wrote them at this time, it’s fairly difficult to make them good. 

Isaiah’s project on Machu Picchu really helped show how complex the city was. Breaking it down into mostly black and white helped to show what was going on and distinguish things from each other better than a picture of the moss-covered city could.

I think what was reflected today in the projects is the idea that so many things were happening in the Renaissance, and people were trying to experiment with the options that were given them. There’s countless sonnets and poems we have from the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh and Shakespeare and it really shows how popular they were and how much everyone wanted to try them. The Globe was sort of the poster child of the idea that theater was praised at this time, instead of shunned by the church as it had been in the past(knowledge courtesy of my Theatre 105 class but I won’t go into that). For the various fashion projects, especially those centered on Europe, it really showed that people were starting to have more options, but then with sumptuary laws and unwritten expectations, there were still very specific ways about how things should be done. Or layered, in the case of dresses. I suppose what I’m saying is that culture is starting to lose strict rules in some areas, not extensively yet, but the advent of sumptuary laws exemplify that things are changing, even though not everyone of the time wants them to.

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Class Blog Post #7

When we think of the renaissance, we usually think of things like Shakespeare plays, bards with lutes, and dresses that lace up on the front. Everything seems bright and colorful and it seems like a cool time to live. But there’s also the parts of it like not having indoor plumbing, garbage getting dumped in the streets, and public executions, that make us take a step back and go ‘huh, maybe not such a cool time.’ 

Since the English Renaissance is very literature and theater based, I have studied a lot of this information in the past. The most ‘surprising’ thing I found in the Lumen article was that C.S. Lewis said “if there had been one[an English Renaissance], it had “no effect whatsoever.”” In the video lecture I was familiar with much of the information as well, but the most interesting piece of information I didn’t know was about ‘Cambises’ short for “A lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth,conteyning the life of Cambises King of Percia, from the beginning of his kingdome unto his death, his one good deed of execution, after that many wicked deeds and tirannous murders, committed by and through him, and laſt of all, his odious death by Gods Juſtice appointed, doon in such order as foloweth.” I must say this title surprised me.

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“Children’s Games”, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1560.

“The Last Supper”, Leonardo Da Vinci, 1498.

In both the Italian, and the Northern Renaissance, art grew leaps and bounds in new ways. In the Italian, it showed in things like realism through the accurate and complex representation of humans in 3D space. In the North, it shows in realism through precise details and in the development of advanced oil painting techniques:

“In the Northern Renaissance, we see artists making the most of oil paint—creating the illusion of light reflecting on metal surfaces or jewels, and textures that appear like real fur, hair, wool or wood.“-Khan Academy ‘Northern Renaissance art under Burgundian Rule’

During the Renaissance art became even more patron-centered than it had been before. In the North, the Dukes of Burgundy were major art patrons while in Italy the Medicis proved vital to the production of art. 

In both places, art and the general humanities seemed to be evolving rapidly as was what they were interested in. In Italy at this time painters, sculptors, and the like took interest in the extremely accurate representation of just the human figure, and while usually still church-related, there was more leeway and less utilitarianism. The North at this point seemed to be less specifically interested in humans and more interested in creating overall accurate compositions and perspective. Our Lumen reading, ‘Flemish Painting in the Northern Renaissance’ states the Northern artists: “were known for making significant advances in illusionism, or the realistic and precise representation of people, space, and objects.” They also seemed to have less directly religious art than would be in previous times, and the Christian art they did make was generally in the forms of altarpieces and diptychs/polyptychs.

The two above paintings have drastically different subjects and compositions. ‘Children’s Games’ has a large open space with many humans placed in it that are doing a lot of different things. ‘The Last Supper’, obviously has a much more ’simple’ design which allows the painter to have more complexity to the details instead of to the structure of the design. In the first painting it is interesting to note that the artist is using single-point perspective for the piece when two-point might serve him well, since one-point perspective breaks physics ever so slightly in large compositions when the vanishing point is to one extreme side of the piece as it is here. In the latter painting one-point also seems to be used, but due to the nature of the piece it serves perfectly.

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Who is the artist, what is the title, and what is the year for this piece of art? The artist is Peter Bruegel the younger, the title "The Tower of Babel", and the year 1563. Who or what is the subject of this work of art? The subject, quite plainly, is the tower of Babel. The painting is based on the Biblical story of people trying to build a tower that reached to heaven. What can this tell you about how people in the Renaissance thought about the purpose of art? (You might look at the "Defining Art" reading for some ideas.) Well during this time artists (according to the 'Defining Art' reading) were starting to play with the idea of aestheticism, or to make things pretty for little other reason than being pretty. What artistic features do you notice? Linear perspective? Chiaroscuro? Realistic scenery? Be specific as to where you see these techniques in the work of art. There's definitely some use of perspective, as we can see simply from the sense of immense depth. In the reddish portion at the top of the tower we can see distinct linear perspective. As an artist who dabbles in some of the complexities of perspective, it must be said that at the edges of the base of the tower the realistic perspective seems to devolve ever so slightly as some of the curves do not arch quite in the way they should. This could be intentional and I'm just reading the piece wrong, but it could be worth noting. What other connections can you draw between this work of art and one of our course readings or video lectures? Please use one direct quotation. "Was replaced with mathematically accurate images with dimension and depth" This quote from the video lecture is interesting because it reminds us that perspective was something relatively new. This is odd to think about as people who are taught at least a little about perspective early in life. For this painting in particular, I look at it and see what I perceive as inconsistencies but only because I have been taught to look for them. The painter is clearly extremely skilled in a variety of ways, but because we've come farther in our understanding of space, we can look at it and say that some of the lines are wrong even though the painting is generally wonderful in other ways. Lastly, why did you select this particular work of art to analyze? I liked the way it looked and I wanted to talk about the way the tower base doesn't look correct.

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End-of-unit reflection

What are some major themes you can identify when looking at medieval cultures? (A theme is a complete sentence and idea--so not "power" but rather, "The question of how power is represented is an important theme.") For each theme, please include 2-3 specific examples. 

An important theme was how art was supposed to affect the public and what it was supposed to represent. In European cultures art was often religious and intended to portray important religious scenes. Meanwhile in Islamic art, geometric designs were prevalent with the intent of showing the infinite nature of god. Overarching is that art was generally supposed to mean something, or accomplish some task, a concept that permeates into the modern world. It wasn’t generally simply for the purpose of ‘looking pretty’, underlying was a desire to show power, or further a narrative, or become closer to a god. In, for example, England and Japan, the respective warrior classes were expected to have skill/education in the literary arts, so in this case being able to create poetry was something of a status symbol.

In China during this time, Buddhism was on the decline due to its perceived lack of practical applications, and the country turned to the more every-day applicable Confucianism, which was not a religion but a philosophy. Taoism also saw fluctuations in popularity, as what would be seen as a passive, go with the flow kind of lifestyle. 

What are some of the key forces that shape the geopolitics of the Middle Ages? 

The silk road was instrumental in the spread of ideas, and made it possible for all the religions to spread their views throughout Eurasia, when they normally would be localized.

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On the Analects of Confucius Book 4

What do you notice about how this text is structured? 

It seems to be all dialogue, with no action and minimal dialogue tags. It seems that it is intended to be a story, but it reads more like poetry without any of the extra writing.

What can you infer about the values of this culture from this text?

Well, the text itself is intended to teach values. What seems to be the overall idea is that instead of complaining about your circumstances, a person should better themselves as a person with the aim of deserving better circumstances.

This implies, to me, that there is a certain underlying belief of ‘be good and good things will happen to you’.

What connections can you make to our readings about medieval China?

The Lumen Article ‘The Song Dynasty” states:

“Song[Dynasty] intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian Classics. This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism, which was then largely regarded as foreign and as offering few solutions for practical problems.” 

It makes a lot of sense that it emphasizes intellectuals’ interest in these writings, since this book in particular suggests bettering yourself in intellectual/spiritual ways rather than seeking other forms of success. which would seemingly align with an ‘intellectual’ lifestyle.

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Lamp Stand Analysis

Lamp stand with chevron pattern, A.H. 986 / A.D. 1578–79. Iran. Brass; cast, engraved, and inlaid with black and red pigments, 13 1/4 x 6 5/8 in. (33.7 x 16.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1929 (29.53)

Looking at this without the caption, it could be difficult to figure out what this object is. With the caption however, comes the knowledge that it is a lamp stand. It could completely be a normal lamp stand for use in a home, admittedly an upper-class home at the very least. It could also be for ceremonial use in a mosque or similar location. A common habit among archaeologists is to label artifacts as ‘ceremonial’ when they may or may not know what it was actually for.

An interesting feature of this piece is that the red inlayed pieces on the middle and upper portions appear to be calligraphy on close inspection, yet they bland seamlessly with the purely decorative segments. Designs seem fairly organic but uniform, with flowy elegant lines that are appealing to look at. 

The artist unifies the whole thing by keeping the same delicate lines and curves throughout the piece that bland into, and out of, the calligraphy.  

It’s difficult to say whether the artist was successful in their design since we can’t ask them what they were going for. Although, it is safe to say they made an aesthetically pleasing product that smoothly transitions through the different elements beautifully. 

‘Around the shaft are two couplets by the Indian poet Amir Khusrau Dihlavi, each from a different lyric poem (ghazal). Read the following text translated from Persian:

There is not a moment that my soul is not burning from love for you. Which heart is not burning from that artful coquetry? I am burning from jealousy because you set fire to another. You set fire to another, yet no one else is burned but me.’

Knowing what the script actually says is fascinating because I don’t think we would expect to find such a personal poem on the side of an ancient relic. One might expect to find something like a prayer or a nature poem, but not angsty poetry.

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The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes c520, mosaic, Ravenna, Northern Italy

Christ Feeding the Five Thousand, c1200, stained glass, France

As described in Lumen’s “Art in Society” entry, both of these Christian art pieces are intended to convey a tenet of the theology and history. In this example, the pieces depict the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people with a very small amount of food. It’ s one of the many miracles depicted repeatedly in church iconography with the intent of showing Jesus’ godhood-a vital idea to the basis of Christianity as a religion. 

We could assume from the very specific subject matter, that the artists were members of the church, or were employed by the church and at the very least didn’t completely despise it’s teachings. The culture surrounding the art would logically be at least somewhat Christian as those are the individuals who would most likely appreciate and/or commission such decidedly Christian art. 

The pieces themselves are fairly different in style due to the difference in medium. As a mosaic, the first is able to have more fine detail without needing thick lines separating the colors like in the second piece which trades detail for very saturated and vibrant colors. The differences in clothing, hair length, and numbers of people should be noted as well. The mosaic depicts five men with short hair where the four apostles wear matching robes, while the stained glass shows longer hair, more clothing variation, and also depicts some of the crowd along with Jesus and the apostles. There could be some underlying symbolism behind some of the differences like color choices, but it’s difficult to know without having a stronger art history background. Perhaps the purpleish hue in Christ’s robes is significant to the mosaic’s creator, but I can’t make those assumptions without knowing more historical context.

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