Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix, b. Apr. 26, 1798, d. Aug. 13, 1863, was the leading exponent of romantic painting in France (see romanticism). In 1815 he entered the studio of the neoclassical painter Pierre Narcisse Guérin, where he met Théodore Géricault, a romantic painter by whom he was much influenced.
At the 1824 Salon he admired John Constable's English landscapes, which reintroduced into France the baroque coloristic tradition that the neoclassical painters had earlier discarded.
Characteristic of Delacroix's pictures is unresolved tension and a romantic obsession with human mortality. Greece Dying on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1827; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux), for example, commemorated the defeat of the Greek nationalists gathered there around Lord Byron in the early 1820s. Delacroix saw in the Greek struggle for independence against the Turks an affirmation of the ideal of liberty. In the painting, Greece is personified as a young woman with supplicating gesture. The blood-spattered ruins on which she stands indicate defeat, and the greenish tint on the woman's breast, suggesting imminent death, symbolizes the defeat of a noble cause.
The painting in many respects prefigures Liberty Leading the People (1830), in which the heroine is now the triumphant figure of liberty.
In 1832, Delacroix accompanied a French embassy to the sultan of Morocco. While at Tangiers he filled notebooks with drawings of local details, amassing facts for the paintings with Oriental subjects he would introduce into French art. Yet his Oriental pictures are never mere descriptions of local customs, for Delacroix always insisted that imagination was the essential gift of the painter. In Lion Hunt (1861; Art Institute of Chicago), a Rubenesque picture filled with men, horses, and wild animals, such details as turbans and wild, non-European expressions are fused by the unreal color into an imaginative vision.
Literature was another powerful stimulus to Delacroix's imagination. The theme of Hamlet especially appealed to him because Shakespeare's hero was also tortured by the uncertainty of existence. In Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (1859; Louvre, Paris) the figures appear amid reminders of human death. The ground slopes away under a sky filled with blood-red clouds. Painted with tenuous brushstrokes, the figures' surroundings seem to share their restlessness, and a fantasylike atmosphere pervades the scene.
Delacroix's career was studded with honors. He was awarded (1831) the medal of the Legion of Honor and was commissioned to decorate the Library of the Senate in the Luxembourg Palace and the Library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Bourbon Palace (both completed 1847). He was elected to the Institut de France in 1857.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Chap. 30 - Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet, French Painter
1832 - 1883
There is only one true thing: instantly paintwhat you see. When you've got it, you've got it.When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.
—Edouard Manet
1832 - 1883
There is only one true thing: instantly paintwhat you see. When you've got it, you've got it.When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.
—Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet was born on January 23, 1832 in Paris. He is often identified with the "Impressionists," and was influenced by them. However, because of the Paris art world's generally hostile regard for Impressionism, he chose not to exhibit with them. He preferred to show his work in the more conservative exhibitions sponsored by the French government.Manet learned to paint in the traditional style, but his work became more spontaneous after his exposure to Claude Monet and the other "Impressionists." He used expressive outline, severe lighting contrasts, bold color and rich texture to portray the world around him.Manet scandalized the people of Paris with a number of works containing nudes painted in bold poses with direct, outward gazes. While it was popular during his time to paint scenes from the Bible and ancient history, Manet painted scenes from 19th Century history, including one work featuring the execution of Emperor Maximillian of Mexico in 1867.
Realism
Edouard Manet. Woman with Fans (Nina de Callias). 1873. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.
Surprised Nymph. (Nymphe surprise). 1861. Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina I present to you Manet
My writings (continuation)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Philosophy of Romanticism
(chap 27)
In the romantic period, the most known philosophers were German. Some like Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) were influenced by idealists as were Locke and Descartes which thought that “the truth of empirical experience were not self-evident” and that “the truth of the mind were not clear and distinct” . However Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was the most influential philosopher of that time. From his point of view, the world merged of a single divine nature, that he called “spirit” or “absolute mind”. He created a dialectic which consists of a condition (“thesis”) that is put against the opposite condition (“antithesis”), which results in a synthesis. At the end it went all towards the “ultimate goal of spiritual freedom”. Reality was all operating with his dialectic.
The Philosophy of history (1807) was his works brought together with the notes of his students (because his profession was being a teacher at the University of Berlin). For him “the essence of spirit is freedom”. He used his dialectic to explain that human beings possess free will, his “thesis”; his “antithesis” is that free will is used over property, but limited by the universal will and the synthesis being individual coming into harmony with universe duty. This last stage which is real freedom was used in the late nineteenth century nationalism and eco
nomic theories of Karl Marx.After Hegel there was a British scientist called Charles Darwin (1809-1882) also viewed nature as always changing. In his early ages he was mostly working on biological and geological data. The theory of Evolution as maybe some people think, did not originate form Darwin himself, other philosophers have thrown such an idea. The idea that all forms of plant life have evolved from a single primeval plant like Goethe and the French biologist Jean Batiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) said. Although the idea did not originate from him, he was the one that demonstrated the theory by doing all of the explanations to let people understand the meaning of it.
Romantic Music
(chap 29)
Poets, painters and composers all started a new way to write words, music or paint. They changed the “rules” of the classical world. It metamorphosed to a more expressive form of art in all three domains. They wanted their works to have a much bigger emotional impact. For the music portion of art this could happen thanks to the improvement of the instruments from the time. Trumpets and tuba gained pitches, clarinet and flute changed to facilitate tuning and fingering, violin gained greater power and piano increased in brilliance in tone and greater expressiveness. In the times of Mozart and Haydn orchestras were pretty small from what we know now. From the Romantic period it has changed. Since instruments were improved, the sound and varieties of instruments were lasrger, which led to the formation of bigger orchestras in the nineteenth century.
Most of the composer’s pieces were representing themes of love and death or nature and nature’s moods. The inspiration of their works were current events, heroic subjects and from legends and histories heard from their native land. In all compositions, small or more complex, the purpose was to obtain a perfect union between music and poetry. Composers were usually also performers. Some of them started to write pieces that only few musicians could play, they were virtuoso pieces. One example of this was Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) a fabulous violinist. He didn’t even want to publish those pieces; he just performed them like no other violinist could. But eventually those pieces got published maybe not all and are now available. Some even thought that he gained his virtuosity by a pact with the devil.
I present to you
Jascha Heifetz plays Paganini Caprice No. 24 
Programme 5
Concert of Nicolò Paganini,
Concert of Nicolò Paganini,
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 6 July 1832
Friday, March 23, 2007
Chap. 27-29 - Romanticism
Introduction to Romanticism
Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.
Nature
"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. For example, throughout "Song of Myself," Whitman makes a practice of presenting commonplace items in nature--"ants," "heap'd stones," and "poke-weed"--as containing divine elements, and he refers to the "grass" as a natural "hieroglyphic," "the handkerchief of the Lord." While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both to describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing "sensuous nuance"--and this is as true of Romantic landscape painting as of Romantic nature poetry. Accuracy of observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.
Other Concepts: Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self
Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.
Individualism: The Romantic Hero
The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama. In another way, of course, Romanticism created its own literary types. The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.)
In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master. Although in both Germany and England there was continued interest in the ancient classics, for the most part the Romantics allied themselves with the very periods of literature that the neoclassicists had dismissed, the Middle Ages and the Baroque, and they embraced the writer whom Voltaire had called a barbarian, Shakespeare. Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.
The Romantic Artist in Society
In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror. ("Nothing succeeds like excess," wrote Oscar Wilde, who, as a partial inheritor of Romantic tendencies, seemed to enjoy shocking the bourgeois, both in his literary and life styles.) Thus the gulf between "odd" artists and their sometimes shocked, often uncomprehending audience began to widen. Some artists may have experienced ambivalence about this situation--it was earlier pointed out how Emily Dickinson seemed to regret that her "letters" to the world would go unanswered. Yet a significant Romantic theme became the contrast between artist and middle-class "Philistine." Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.
Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.
Nature
"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. For example, throughout "Song of Myself," Whitman makes a practice of presenting commonplace items in nature--"ants," "heap'd stones," and "poke-weed"--as containing divine elements, and he refers to the "grass" as a natural "hieroglyphic," "the handkerchief of the Lord." While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both to describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing "sensuous nuance"--and this is as true of Romantic landscape painting as of Romantic nature poetry. Accuracy of observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.
Other Concepts: Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self
Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.
Individualism: The Romantic Hero
The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama. In another way, of course, Romanticism created its own literary types. The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.)
In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master. Although in both Germany and England there was continued interest in the ancient classics, for the most part the Romantics allied themselves with the very periods of literature that the neoclassicists had dismissed, the Middle Ages and the Baroque, and they embraced the writer whom Voltaire had called a barbarian, Shakespeare. Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.
The Romantic Artist in Society
In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror. ("Nothing succeeds like excess," wrote Oscar Wilde, who, as a partial inheritor of Romantic tendencies, seemed to enjoy shocking the bourgeois, both in his literary and life styles.) Thus the gulf between "odd" artists and their sometimes shocked, often uncomprehending audience began to widen. Some artists may have experienced ambivalence about this situation--it was earlier pointed out how Emily Dickinson seemed to regret that her "letters" to the world would go unanswered. Yet a significant Romantic theme became the contrast between artist and middle-class "Philistine." Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Chap. 24 - John Locke
John Locke
Life
Locke's father, who was also named John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna,[1] who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. His mother, Agnes Keene, was a tanner's daughter and reputed to be very beautiful. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset, about twelve miles from Bristol. He was baptised the same day. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton.
In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and former commander of the younger Locke's father. After completing his studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through his friend Richard Lower whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the English Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member.
Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's degree in 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1674, having studied medicine extensively during his time at Oxford and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and Richard Lower. In 1666, he met Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for a liver infection. Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue.
Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 moved into Shaftesbury's home at Exeter House in London, to serve as Lord Ashley's personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a major impact on Locke's natural philosophical thinking — an impact that would become evident in the An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation (then life-threatening itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.
It was in Shaftesbury's household, during 1671, that the meeting took place, described in the Epistle to the reader of the Essay, which was the genesis of what would later become Essay. Two extant Drafts still survive from this period. It was also during this time that Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, helping to shape his ideas on international trade and economics.
Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke's political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France. He returned to England in 1679 when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Around this time, most likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government. Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but also to counter the absolutist political philosophy of Sir Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that period in English history.
However, Locke fled to the Netherlands, Holland, in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, which was a plot against King James II (though there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme). In the Netherlands Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688. The bulk of Locke's publishing took place after his arrival back in England — his aformentioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession upon his return from exile.
Locke's close friend Lady Masham invited him to join her at the Mashams' country house in Essex. Although his time there was marked by variable health from asthma attacks, he nevertheless became an intellectual hero of the Whigs. During this period he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton.
He died in October 28,1704 after a prolonged decline in health, and is buried in the churchyard of the village of High Laver,[2] east of Harlow in Essex, where he had lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham since 1691. Locke never married nor had children.
Events that happened during Locke's lifetime include the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. He did not quite see the Act of Union of 1707, though the thrones of England and Scotland were held by the same monarch throughout his lifetime. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke's time.
Influence
Locke exercised a profound influence on philosophy and politics, in particular on liberalism. He was a strong influence on Voltaire, while his arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In addition, Locke's views influenced the American and French Revolutions. But Locke's influence may have been even more profound in the realm of epistemology. Locke redefined subjectivity, or self, and intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel argue that Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) marks the beginning of the modern conception of the self.[3]
Constitution of Carolina
Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in general, and also to appraisals of the United States. Detractors note that he was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal Africa Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Shaftesbury's secretary, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having justified the displacement of the Native Americans. Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists. Most American liberal scholars reject these criticisms, however, questioning the extent of his impact upon the Fundamental Constitution and his detractors' interpretations of his work in general.
Theory of value and property
Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labour.
Locke believed that ownership of property is created by the application of labour. In addition, property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his social theory.
Political theory
Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another’s “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” Locke never refers to Hobbes by name, however, and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day.[4] Locke also advocated governmental checks and balances and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Constitution of the United States and its Declaration of Independence.
Limits to accumulation
Labour creates property, but it also does contain limits to its accumulation: man’s capacity to produce and man’s capacity to consume. According to Locke, unused property is waste and an offense against nature. However, with the introduction of “durable” goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and thus not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process. Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,” since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. However, not all elements of his thought form a consistent whole. For example, labour theory of value of the Two Treatises of Government stands side by side with the demand-and-supply theory developed in the Considerations. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.
Locke on price theory
Locke’s general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory. Supply is quantity and demand is rent. “The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers.” and “that which regulates the price... [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.” The quantity theory of money forms a special case of this general theory. His idea is based on “money answers all things” (Ecclesiastes) or “rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough,” and “varies very little…” Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as far as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated by its quantity. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply, goods in general are considered valuable because they can be exchanged, consumed and they must be scarce. For demand, goods are in demand because they yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalization, such as land, which has value because “by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income.” Demand for money is almost the same as demand for goods or land; it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange or as loanable funds. For medium of exchange “money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life.” For loanable funds, “it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income … or interest.”
Monetary thoughts
Locke distinguishes two functions of money, as a "counter" to measure value, and as a "pledge" to lay claim to goods. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it.
Locke argues that a country should seek a favorable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock.
Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates. The latter is less significant and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country’s money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, it will cause the country’s exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do.
He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups (landholders, labourers and brokers). In each group the cash requirements are closely related to the length of the pay period. He argues the brokers – middlemen – whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of labourers and landholders, had a negative influence on both one's personal and the public economy that they supposedly contributed to.
The Self
Locke defines the self as “that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends,”[5] but Locke does not ignore the “substance.” He writes “the body too goes to the making the man."[6] The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware, self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body. In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an “empty” mind—a tabula rasa—that is shaped by experience. Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline for how to educate this mind; he expresses his belief that education makes the man, or more fundamentally, that the mind is an “empty cabinet” with the statement, “I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."[7]
Locke also suggested that “the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences."[8] He argued that the “associations of ideas” that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self—they are what first mark the tabula rasa. In the Essay, in which he introduces both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting “a foolish maid” convince a child that “goblins and sprites” are associated with the night for “darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."[9] "Associationism," as this theory would come to be called, exerted a very powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory. Nearly every educational writer would warn parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley's attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).
Life
Locke's father, who was also named John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna,[1] who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. His mother, Agnes Keene, was a tanner's daughter and reputed to be very beautiful. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset, about twelve miles from Bristol. He was baptised the same day. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton.
In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and former commander of the younger Locke's father. After completing his studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through his friend Richard Lower whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the English Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member.
Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's degree in 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1674, having studied medicine extensively during his time at Oxford and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and Richard Lower. In 1666, he met Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for a liver infection. Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue.
Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 moved into Shaftesbury's home at Exeter House in London, to serve as Lord Ashley's personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a major impact on Locke's natural philosophical thinking — an impact that would become evident in the An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation (then life-threatening itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.
It was in Shaftesbury's household, during 1671, that the meeting took place, described in the Epistle to the reader of the Essay, which was the genesis of what would later become Essay. Two extant Drafts still survive from this period. It was also during this time that Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, helping to shape his ideas on international trade and economics.
Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke's political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France. He returned to England in 1679 when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Around this time, most likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government. Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but also to counter the absolutist political philosophy of Sir Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that period in English history.
However, Locke fled to the Netherlands, Holland, in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, which was a plot against King James II (though there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme). In the Netherlands Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688. The bulk of Locke's publishing took place after his arrival back in England — his aformentioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession upon his return from exile.
Locke's close friend Lady Masham invited him to join her at the Mashams' country house in Essex. Although his time there was marked by variable health from asthma attacks, he nevertheless became an intellectual hero of the Whigs. During this period he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton.
He died in October 28,1704 after a prolonged decline in health, and is buried in the churchyard of the village of High Laver,[2] east of Harlow in Essex, where he had lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham since 1691. Locke never married nor had children.
Events that happened during Locke's lifetime include the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. He did not quite see the Act of Union of 1707, though the thrones of England and Scotland were held by the same monarch throughout his lifetime. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke's time.
Influence
Locke exercised a profound influence on philosophy and politics, in particular on liberalism. He was a strong influence on Voltaire, while his arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In addition, Locke's views influenced the American and French Revolutions. But Locke's influence may have been even more profound in the realm of epistemology. Locke redefined subjectivity, or self, and intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel argue that Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) marks the beginning of the modern conception of the self.[3]
Constitution of Carolina
Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in general, and also to appraisals of the United States. Detractors note that he was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal Africa Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Shaftesbury's secretary, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having justified the displacement of the Native Americans. Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists. Most American liberal scholars reject these criticisms, however, questioning the extent of his impact upon the Fundamental Constitution and his detractors' interpretations of his work in general.
Theory of value and property
Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labour.
Locke believed that ownership of property is created by the application of labour. In addition, property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his social theory.
Political theory
Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another’s “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” Locke never refers to Hobbes by name, however, and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day.[4] Locke also advocated governmental checks and balances and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Constitution of the United States and its Declaration of Independence.
Limits to accumulation
Labour creates property, but it also does contain limits to its accumulation: man’s capacity to produce and man’s capacity to consume. According to Locke, unused property is waste and an offense against nature. However, with the introduction of “durable” goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and thus not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process. Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,” since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. However, not all elements of his thought form a consistent whole. For example, labour theory of value of the Two Treatises of Government stands side by side with the demand-and-supply theory developed in the Considerations. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.
Locke on price theory
Locke’s general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory. Supply is quantity and demand is rent. “The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers.” and “that which regulates the price... [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.” The quantity theory of money forms a special case of this general theory. His idea is based on “money answers all things” (Ecclesiastes) or “rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough,” and “varies very little…” Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as far as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated by its quantity. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply, goods in general are considered valuable because they can be exchanged, consumed and they must be scarce. For demand, goods are in demand because they yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalization, such as land, which has value because “by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income.” Demand for money is almost the same as demand for goods or land; it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange or as loanable funds. For medium of exchange “money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life.” For loanable funds, “it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income … or interest.”
Monetary thoughts
Locke distinguishes two functions of money, as a "counter" to measure value, and as a "pledge" to lay claim to goods. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it.
Locke argues that a country should seek a favorable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock.
Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates. The latter is less significant and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country’s money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, it will cause the country’s exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do.
He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups (landholders, labourers and brokers). In each group the cash requirements are closely related to the length of the pay period. He argues the brokers – middlemen – whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of labourers and landholders, had a negative influence on both one's personal and the public economy that they supposedly contributed to.
The Self
Locke defines the self as “that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends,”[5] but Locke does not ignore the “substance.” He writes “the body too goes to the making the man."[6] The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware, self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body. In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an “empty” mind—a tabula rasa—that is shaped by experience. Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline for how to educate this mind; he expresses his belief that education makes the man, or more fundamentally, that the mind is an “empty cabinet” with the statement, “I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."[7]
Locke also suggested that “the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences."[8] He argued that the “associations of ideas” that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self—they are what first mark the tabula rasa. In the Essay, in which he introduces both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting “a foolish maid” convince a child that “goblins and sprites” are associated with the night for “darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."[9] "Associationism," as this theory would come to be called, exerted a very powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory. Nearly every educational writer would warn parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley's attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Chap. 22 - Handel
Handel
"Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived.I would bare my head and kneel at his grave" -- L.v. Beethoven (1824)
Born in Halle (50 miles from Eisenach, Bach's birthplace) in the same year as Bach, Handel studied with Zachau, and became a friend of Mattheson. In 1703 he was appointed violinist-composer for Hamburg's German opera. Handel sojourned in Italy in 1706 where he met Corelli, and both Scarlattis (Alessandro and Domenico). His return to Hanover, four years later, was to assume the post of Kapellmeister to the Elector (soon to become king George I of England). In 1712 Handel moved to London where, upon the accession of the house of Hanover, two years later, he gained immediate access to the royal circle of England. In 1717 Handel succeeded Pepusch as chapel master to the Duke of Chandos. Handel's London years were occupied primarily with the writing of Italian operas. After suffering a stroke and the failure of his operas (largely because of the success of the Beggar's Opera), Handel wrote oratorios, including "Messiah" (1741). Handel's eyesight failed him in later years and he eventually became completely blind. In addition to operas and oratorios, Handel wrote Psalms, motets, anthems, passions, cantatas, instrumental chamber works, and works for keyboard (primarily harpsichord).
In 1719 Handel returned to his birthplace, Halle, for eight days. At that time Bach lived in Cöthen, twenty miles away. Bach's admiration for Handel is evident from his having copied, with the help of his wife, a passion and other works by Handel. Knowing that Bach wanted to meet Handel, Prince Leopold lent Johann Sebastian a horse. For reasons that remain a mystery, the meeting never took place. Spitta indicates that Bach's admiration for Handel was not reciprocated.
In one of the curious ironies of music history, both men would be afflicted with cataracts in their old age and undergo surgery at the hand of the same oculist, John Taylor. By today's standards, this surgery was extremely crude, and any improvement to the visual impairment would have been minimal at best. It involved physically shoving the cataract-covered lens back into the eyeball in an attempt to allow a little more light to enter. (Bach would die from septicemia induced as a consequence of contaminated instruments). As this surgery was done without anesthesia, the courage and physical constitution of both men must have been amazing! Bach owned a copy of Handel's Brockes Passion, "Armida abbandonata" and the Concerto grosso in F minor. Thematic similarities in some of Bach's cantatas suggest that he may have been familiar with Handel's opera, "Almira". Handel is mentioned in a letter (1775) from Carl Philip Emanuel to Forkel as one whose works his father had especially valued in later years.
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"Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived.I would bare my head and kneel at his grave" -- L.v. Beethoven (1824)
Born in Halle (50 miles from Eisenach, Bach's birthplace) in the same year as Bach, Handel studied with Zachau, and became a friend of Mattheson. In 1703 he was appointed violinist-composer for Hamburg's German opera. Handel sojourned in Italy in 1706 where he met Corelli, and both Scarlattis (Alessandro and Domenico). His return to Hanover, four years later, was to assume the post of Kapellmeister to the Elector (soon to become king George I of England). In 1712 Handel moved to London where, upon the accession of the house of Hanover, two years later, he gained immediate access to the royal circle of England. In 1717 Handel succeeded Pepusch as chapel master to the Duke of Chandos. Handel's London years were occupied primarily with the writing of Italian operas. After suffering a stroke and the failure of his operas (largely because of the success of the Beggar's Opera), Handel wrote oratorios, including "Messiah" (1741). Handel's eyesight failed him in later years and he eventually became completely blind. In addition to operas and oratorios, Handel wrote Psalms, motets, anthems, passions, cantatas, instrumental chamber works, and works for keyboard (primarily harpsichord).
In 1719 Handel returned to his birthplace, Halle, for eight days. At that time Bach lived in Cöthen, twenty miles away. Bach's admiration for Handel is evident from his having copied, with the help of his wife, a passion and other works by Handel. Knowing that Bach wanted to meet Handel, Prince Leopold lent Johann Sebastian a horse. For reasons that remain a mystery, the meeting never took place. Spitta indicates that Bach's admiration for Handel was not reciprocated.
In one of the curious ironies of music history, both men would be afflicted with cataracts in their old age and undergo surgery at the hand of the same oculist, John Taylor. By today's standards, this surgery was extremely crude, and any improvement to the visual impairment would have been minimal at best. It involved physically shoving the cataract-covered lens back into the eyeball in an attempt to allow a little more light to enter. (Bach would die from septicemia induced as a consequence of contaminated instruments). As this surgery was done without anesthesia, the courage and physical constitution of both men must have been amazing! Bach owned a copy of Handel's Brockes Passion, "Armida abbandonata" and the Concerto grosso in F minor. Thematic similarities in some of Bach's cantatas suggest that he may have been familiar with Handel's opera, "Almira". Handel is mentioned in a letter (1775) from Carl Philip Emanuel to Forkel as one whose works his father had especially valued in later years.
var site="sm4WellTemperedClavier"
I present to you
John Williams conducts Handel's Messiah
My writings
Monteverdi (1567-1643) and the Birth of Opera
(chap 20)
Claudio Monteverdi, a chapel master of Saint Mark’s in Venice, was the greatest Italian composer of the early seventeenth century as well as the first master of the baroque music-drama. He wrote religious music like ballets, madrigals and operas. He also set aside the original way to write Renaissance chamber music and made it much more dramatic, with contrasts. He wanted his music to express much more than music was expressing until that time. He associated specific sounds with specific emotional states: anger, for instance, with the high voice register, moderation with the middle voice register, and humility with the low voice register. Because he was so concentrated on music as well as speech, he finally gave birth to a new kind of music which is called opera: a form of theater that combines all aspects of baroque artistic expression- music, drama, dance, and the visual arts.
Opera was used to revive the music-drama of ancient Greek. However none of the humanists were able to put a sound on the Greeks music which led them to only imitate the ancient unity of music and poetry. The first performance of an opera was very similar to what was the Renaissance masque, a form of musical entertainment that included dance and poetry, along with rich costumes and scenery. But what mostly differentiated operas from masques was the music complexity and dramatically cohesive. By 1700 in Italy, there were seventeen opera houses built, the first one being in Venice. As we can see, operas became very popular. Some of the opera houses were magnificent with their life-sized sculptures and illusionist frescoes, which were aesthetically indistinguishable from Italian baroque churches and chapel interiors.
Monteverdi’s first opera (full-length) was called Orfeo which he composed in 1697. The text for the opera, called libretto, wasn’t written by him, but by Alessandro Striggio and was based on the descent of Orpheus (the Greek poet-musician to Hades).
Emperor Akbar (at the top of this image in
a white gown) directs building work at
Fatehpur Sikri. (1570 - 1574 AD)
Absolute Power and the Aristocratic Style in India
(chap 21)
Absolute Power and the Aristocratic Style in India It is in the sixteenth century that the Muslim dynasty called the Moguls (name deriving from “Mongol”) has united all of India. Before that, Muslims ruled only some parts of the country for almost a century. Moguls managed to rule India as absolute monarchs from 1526 to 1707. As Louis XIV imported Italian culture into France, the moguls imported the Persian culture and language into India. The new Indian cultural style was a mix of Muslim, Hindu, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and African traditions. There was also an aristocracy in India, similar to the one of the Sun King ( served as an adjunct to majesty).
Akbar was a thirteen year old boy that came to the throne and was the founder of the Mogul empire. Since Emperor Asoka, Akbar was the most dynamic ruler. Because India wasn’t united and different religion groups lived in all India, Akbar was tolerating the religions practiced. He even finally took the time to bring in to his court learned representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions to debate with the Muslim theologians.
The lower class of India was very poor because they had to pay enormous taxes to finance all the luxuries of the upper-class elite. But India was the wealthiest state in the world; they surpassed France’s revenue by ten.
One of the Mogul innovations was the recording and illustrating first-hand accounts of specific historical event as a miniature of the birth of Akbar’s son (The Humanistic Traditions book 4 48). These kinds of miniatures representing an event are still present on Asian carpets.
Agra, Red Fort, Jahangiri Mahal (1565 AD)
Agra, the new city, Fatehpur Sikri (1570 AD)
Bach and Religious Music
(chap 22)
Very near the castle in Eisenach where the first tra
nscript of the Bible in German was written by Martin Luther was where Bach was born. Bach wrote music to God, he was asked to compose music for each Sunday services at the Lutheran Church of Saint Thomas in Leipzig and also for all holy days. Bach himself even dedicated his works “to the glory of God” because he got his inspiration from Luther’s teachings and Lutheran hymns tunes. Bach did not travel very far during his life, a couple of hundreds miles was the further he got from Eisenach. Bach was known as the finest of organ virtuos and was a consultant for the construction of baroque organs which were the glories of the Protestant churches thanks to the ornately embellished casings.His vocal music were oratorios, Masses, and cantatas. The cantata is a multi-mouvement work with a text in verse sung by chorus and soloists and accompanied by a musical instrument or instruments. As is the oratorio, cantatas may be sacred or secular in subject matter and lyric or dramatic in style. Bach has 195 cantatas that survived and they were usually inspired by the simple melodies of Lutheran chorales. The basic of his instrumental compositions were also taken from religious work, the Protestant chorales as well as the 170 organ preludes written to precede and set the mood for congregational singing. Bach’s music invested Protestant Christianity with a sublime and deeply personal sense of human tragedy.
One of Bach's preludes bwv995
Bach's traveling map
Baroque Instumental Music
(chap 23)
Instrumental music became much more popular, not surprising after the writings of some of the earliest composers which led to the improvements and refinements in tuning. It came to the point that composers where composing even more instrumental music. The principal instruments that were perfected were the violin, viola, and the cello, as string instruments and the organ and harpsichord. During the early eighteen century equal temperament was adopted by musician. The equal temperament is a system of tuning in which the octave was divided into twelve half-step of equal size. Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach’s fugues and his collection of preludes showed how Bach could use that tuning system and create sublime music with it. He wrote two pieces in every possible key. All these efforts to improve the quality of music of the instruments as well as the techniques mirrored the efforts of scientists and philosophers of the time to bring perfection and uniformity also to the tools used as well as the scientific inquiry.
stradivari violin
The world center for violin manufacturing during the seventeenth century was in northern Italy. Great quality violins were made at that time. Some of the names are The Amati, Guarneri, and Stradivari families of Cremona. They had their techniques that became famous, because violinists playing in the greats courts of Europe have purchased those kinds of violins. The techniques used were kept very secret, it only passed from father to son and even to this day, violin manufacturers cannot imitate them. It has always been unsuccessfully. As for other instruments, around the year of 1650, they were standardized and refined. The instrument known as the shawm wasn’t going to be unique anymore, all of those instruments became the modern oboe.
The Encyclopedic Cast of Mind
(chap 24)
In the eighteenth century there was something that had a huge impact on the culture of the time, it was the Encyclopédie. However it wasn’t understood by the majority, rather the minority of the people, it fostered an encyclopedic cast of mind. All work done from that time, was stored, accumulated, preservated which had a direct link with the Scientific Revolution and to the Enlightenment “bible”, Newton’s Principia.
Chemistry, Biology, Electricity and medical sciences were the fields which have known enormous amounts of advances during the eighteenth-century by scientists. What had appeared in society’s everyday lives? The mercury thermometer, the stethoscope and an introduction to the science of immunology to the West - about 7 centuries after the Chinese.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) - the Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, chemistry which was an exact science
Carolus Linnaeus (1701-1778) - systematic method for classifying plants
Georges Luis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist (1707-1788) - made landmark advances in zoology
In the domain of arts, the same strategies were adopted - accumulating and classifying knowledge. The first dictionary of the English language was published by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) as well as the first Western dictionary of music by Rousseau. As for the social sciences, in 1756, a seven-volume general history written by Voltaire was considered as the new model of history-writing. Voltaire recognized that Europe had a debt to Arab science as well as Asian thought. He was a very critical man when it came to the role of the Catholic Church in Western history, he rejected explanations based on faith and not rationality. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) went to the point to say that Christianity was to blame for the collapse of the Roman Empire. His interpretation of ancient cultures was later on written in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776.
In the East however, these “encyclopedias” weren’t comprehensive collections of contemporary knowledge, but anthologies of the writings of Chinese artists and scholars.
(chap 24)
In the eighteenth century there was something that had a huge impact on the culture of the time, it was the Encyclopédie. However it wasn’t understood by the majority, rather the minority of the people, it fostered an encyclopedic cast of mind. All work done from that time, was stored, accumulated, preservated which had a direct link with the Scientific Revolution and to the Enlightenment “bible”, Newton’s Principia.
Chemistry, Biology, Electricity and medical sciences were the fields which have known enormous amounts of advances during the eighteenth-century by scientists. What had appeared in society’s everyday lives? The mercury thermometer, the stethoscope and an introduction to the science of immunology to the West - about 7 centuries after the Chinese.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) - the Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, chemistry which was an exact science
Carolus Linnaeus (1701-1778) - systematic method for classifying plants
Georges Luis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist (1707-1788) - made landmark advances in zoology
In the domain of arts, the same strategies were adopted - accumulating and classifying knowledge. The first dictionary of the English language was published by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) as well as the first Western dictionary of music by Rousseau. As for the social sciences, in 1756, a seven-volume general history written by Voltaire was considered as the new model of history-writing. Voltaire recognized that Europe had a debt to Arab science as well as Asian thought. He was a very critical man when it came to the role of the Catholic Church in Western history, he rejected explanations based on faith and not rationality. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) went to the point to say that Christianity was to blame for the collapse of the Roman Empire. His interpretation of ancient cultures was later on written in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776.
In the East however, these “encyclopedias” weren’t comprehensive collections of contemporary knowledge, but anthologies of the writings of Chinese artists and scholars.
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