Reflections 2 - The Classical galleries

July 4, 2018

After the Egyptian galleries, some aspects of Classical art are comforting in their familiarity. I grew up with the Greek myths and with Homer, so one of the pleasures of the Classical galleries has been seeing their representation in art. Although there have been many reminders of what I didn't know or had forgotten, some scenes - Odysseus hiding from Polyphemus under a sheep,  Achilles receiving his armor from Thetis - are indelibly lodged in my mind.  

Furthermore, the "realism" with which the human body is depicted - the way in which musculature and other anatomical features are portrayed, for example - seems completely "natural," in part, I suppose, because Renaissance sculptors adopted similar representational conventions that we have inherited. 

Yet there is a kind of tyranny in these conventions, to the extent that they have shaped our ideas of what the human body should look like.  Bodies like those of Venus or Apollo become the ideals to which we should aspire, no matter how strongly our genetic endowments work against attaining these ideals.  I can't help but compare myself with the young Aphrodite, or Charly with a nude athlete, and we come out wanting.  It's hard to remind myself that Greek sculptors idealized rather than copied the bodies they saw, and that those bodies in any event were shaped through hard training associated with military service. It may be meaningful that I especially like the realistic portrait busts, which show people in all their flawed and wrinkled humanity.  Perhaps I like them because I am at an age where I'm flawed and wrinkled myself!

What I also find myself responding to in many of the objects is the emotions and moods they convey -- grief and mourning, playfulness, excitement.  These seem in contrast to so much of the ritual and formality I associate with Egyptian art.

It is also interesting to think about the Romans' respect for older civilizations and appropriation of their art -- and about our own efforts to legitimize ourselves through the adoption of Greco-Roman artistic elements.  On this Fourth of July, I inevitably think of the obelisk-like Washington Monument, the Greek temple that constitutes the Lincoln Memorial, and the Roman rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial.  The latter two are, of course, symbolic of democratic and republican forms of government -- and it strikes me that these ideals, expressed in architecture, are meant to bring us together.  Maybe it's naive to think of architecture as a unifying force in these fractious times, but I think that at least these monuments have a quasi-spiritual significance for all Americans.