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Religion and Art in Ancient Greece By: Ernest Arthur Gardner (1862-1939) |
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BY
ERNEST A. GARDNER YATES PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND PUBLIC ORATOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
LONDON; LATE DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS
LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
PREFACE
Greek religion may be studied under various aspects; and many recent
contributions to this study have been mainly concerned either with the
remote origin of many of its ceremonies in primitive ritual, or with the
manner in which some of its obscurer manifestations met the deeper
spiritual needs which did not find satisfaction in the official cults.
Such discussions are of the highest interest to the anthropologist and
to the psychologist; but they have the disadvantage of fixing our
attention too exclusively on what, to the ordinary Greek, appeared
accidental or even morbid, and of making us regard the Olympian
pantheon, with its clearly realised figures of the gods, as a mere
system imposed more or less from outside upon the old rites and beliefs
of the people. In the province of art, at least, the Olympian gods are
paramount; and thus we are led to appreciate and to understand their
worship as it affected the religious ideals of the people and the
services of the State. For we must remember that in the case of religion
even more than in that of art, its essential character and its influence
upon life and thought lie rather in its full perfection than in its
origin. In a short sketch of so wide a subject it has seemed inadvisable to make
any attempt to describe the types of the various gods. Without full
illustration and a considerable expenditure of space, such a description
would be impracticable, and the reader must be referred to the ordinary
handbooks of the subject. A fuller account will be found in Dr.
Farnell's Cults of the Greek States , and some selected types are
discussed with the greatest subtlety and understanding in Brunn's
Griechische Gotterideale . In the present volume only a few examples
are mentioned as characteristic of the various periods. It may thus, I
trust, serve as an introduction to a more complete study of the subject;
and may, at the same time, offer to those who have not the leisure or
inclination for such further study, at least a summary of what we may
learn from Greece as to the relations of religion and art under the most
favourable conditions. It is easy, as Aristotle says, to fill in the
details if only the outlines are rightly drawn [Greek: doxeie d' an
pantos einai proagagein kai diorthosai ta kalos echonta te perigraphe.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. IDOLATRY AND IMAGINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. ASPECTS OF RELIGION POPULAR, OFFICIAL, POETICAL,
PHILOSOPHICAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 III. THE CONDITIONS OF RELIGIOUS ART IN GREECE . . . . . . . . . 48 IV. ANTHROPOMORPHISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 V. IDEALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 VI. INDIVIDUALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 VII. PERSONIFICATION, CONVENTION, AND SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . . 108
RELIGION AND ART IN ANCIENT GREECE
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION IDOLATRY AND IMAGINATION
The relation of religion to art has varied greatly among different
peoples and at different periods. At the one extreme is the
uncompromising puritan spirit, which refuses to admit any devices of
human skill into the direct relations between God and man, whether it be
in the beauty of church or temple, in the ritual of their service, or in
the images which they enshrine. Other religions, such as those of the
Jews or of Islam, relegate art to a subordinate position; and while they
accept its services to decorate the buildings and apparatus connected
with divine worship, forbid any attempt to make a visible representation
of the deity. Modern Christianity, while it does not, as a rule, repeat
this prohibition, has varied greatly from time to time and from country
to country as to the extent to which it allows such representations... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Classics (antiquity) |
Religion |
Art |
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