Culture Waves HOW THE TIDES HAVE MOVED FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO TODAY

The Renaissance With the discovery of accounting by Luca Pacioli and the advent of currency and trade, there arose wealthy individuals who became patrons of art. Focus: Greek and Roman Mythology Religious themes Madonna and Child Sculpture in marble for biblical figures and Classical antiquity Michelangelo and Donatello The Northern Renaissance featured Biblical scenes set in contemporary settings.

The Reformation With the advent of Gutenberg s printing press came the ability to print and disseminate ideas. Products include: Translations of the Bible by Wycliffe and Luther Tracts, leaflets and letters Major works such as Calvin s Institutes Results: Lens grinding in Holland to make spectacles for better reading Polemics to attain the upper hand in the war of ideas

The 17 th Century The goal was to establish traditions, so persuasive rhetoric was of utmost importance. People were executed if their argument failed.

The Enlightenment of the 18 th Century Folks were worn out with wars, vitriol and power mongering of established institutions like monarchy and church. The goal was to imbue the people with innate rights. Rousseau: Government was a Social Contract Locke: Rights are innate to the individual Montesquieu: Powers must be divided and accountable Greek thought was employed to bring politics, religion and the people into parity. This set the stage for Revolution. Portraits were in vogue.

Romanticism The principles of the Enlightenment became encrusted and the resulting bloody revolutions and industrialism made people want something inspiring. Characteristics: Meaningful Ideals Personal Significance Natural Beauty Keats Odes found meaning and significance in symbols and motifs. The Bronte sisters brought in the novel, with dark themes and aspirations. Beethoven moved from the complexity of Mozart to clear thematic elements.

Realism Romanticism was inspiring, but the realities of empire-building and industrialization set in. Art took on the feelings of this era in the form of cubism and surrealism. Picasso took a subject and formed it in the way he felt about it. Munch s The Scream made a psychological visual of angst that was felt in this era. Literature also took on the feelings of this era, and made people think about change. Charles Dickens grasped the hard realities of industrial England and applied pressure for reform. Emerson and Thoreau did not want to enter into this banality, but rise above it. (Transcendentalism)

Modernism People knew they had angst, but Modernity came in with force to deal with it, in different ways with didactic outcomes. Conrad s Heart of Darkness let us know the horror of unavoidable individual accountability. H.G. Wells knew of technology s assault on society, but it works both ways for deliverance. Conan-Doyle s Sherlock Holmes mastered a complex and deceptive world with intelligence. James Joyce moved through life and difficult issues with a stream of consciousness. Robert Frost confronted painful realities by interacting with symbolism in nature. Kate Chopin lived with vexing female issues with feminine strength, un-repressed. Richard Wagner engaged opera-goers with the force of symbolism in mythological context

The 20 th Century With all the vaunted Modernist techniques, wars and depression left most people jaded, even thinking God was dead. Hemingway ran all over the world, but in the end, what did it matter? The Great Gatsby had it all, but was a gilded ping-pong ball with no substance to relate to the people in his world. Faulkner saw an inherited shame and rage behind the gentile Southern veneer.

Post-modernism Being cynical and jaded is not acceptable. Texts like the Bible need a fresh interpretation, so no regard is given to established moorings. A fresh approach to things mean that all that went into crystalized dogma must be deconstructed. Steinbeck wanted to recover personal dignity. Existentialists found truth in personal experience, to the exclusion of the exterior world. Tolkien reinstalled the medieval ethic of honor, duty and right makes might. Harper Lee showed the destructive power of prejudice. Art takes an object and redefines it visually.

Where are we now? Once things are deconstructed, where will we land? Everyone must have a rock to stand on. Two roads diverge in the wood: Back to basics- forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward the future- with Someone We need a keel to the ship and a captain to set the sail. This accounts for all the back and forth we have seen. We cry for meaning and control, then we throw it off. Zombies and Vampires- we are on our own Technology, will to power, and fear curriculum can fill our days. This assumes the world is capricious with a fractured psyche, undead and Frozen. This is not the end

Which Era is this?

What Age does this fit into? O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

From Constitution.Org IF the State is a moral person whose life is in the union of its members, and if the most important of its cares is the care for its own preservation, it must have a universal and compelling force, in order to move and dispose each part as may be most advantageous to the whole. As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also; and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said, the name of Sovereignty. But, besides the public person, we have to consider the private persons composing it, whose life and liberty are naturally independent of it. We are bound then to distinguish clearly between the respective rights of the citizens and the Sovereign, 9 and between the duties the former have to fulfil as subjects, and the natural rights they should enjoy as men.

Attitude? Balaam's ass, also, was wiser than the prophet himself. If God then spoke an ass against a prophet, why should He not be able even now to speak by a righteous man against the pope?

Frozen No right, no wrong, no rules for me- I m free!

But there is no escaping your kid sister!