Classicism, Classicism,Classicism

by Paul Henrickson, Ph.D.

The Times of Malta came out with the following announcement:

Sunday, 7th February 2010

Reviving our roots (the endeavor as described by the title supplied by The Times of Malta)
.A group of graduates and lecturers is planning to set up a Malta Classical Association with the aim of raising the profile of Classics in Malta. This title suggested that the Classics had, in some way, originated here, or had, in ancient times, found roots here so I was quite interested to learn how that might be. Questions concerning the probability of there having been a Greek settlement here at one time kept recurring for the matter of the Greeks knowing of Ogygia was not in doubt only that this terra firma might have had the experience of its culturecertainly the rest of the world has done over time so why should there not be physical evidence of it in Malta. Why should, especially Gozo, to say nothing of Malta be singled out for a mere reference, an unsustainable reference written by a man whose personal and singular existence is also in doubt. It used to be a staple of local pride to report that if, for any reason, one needed to escape the notice of the world that Gozo would be the place to go to for noone has ever heard of it and should a tracker, by chance, land here and to question the natives about a stranger he would learn absolutely nothing at all. While, in fact, everyone knows everything the official social facade ignores realities when, because of the close knit familial relationship it is often thought best to ignore some unfortunate pecadillos All in all, while recognizing the contribution of A.A. Caruana in his late 19 th century research into what he reported as Greek structures, subsequent research seems to indicate that those discoveries may have been more likely to have been Roman since the Romans used mortar and the Greeks did not. All of the above aside it is generally a profitable suit to study anything for it is not merely a virtue to keep the mind working, it seems to be both a physiological and psychological necessity to do so, it is also, as we may recently have learned, that it is a socio-political necessity to learn the truth. So, on that basis alone (which is considerable in any event) I support the efforts of the Malta Clasical Society and will do what I can to further it.

All of the above aside, it is, in general, a profitable suit to study anything for it is not merely a virtue to keep the mind working it seems, as well, to be both a physiological and psychological necessity to do so. It is also, as we may recently have learned, that it is a socio-political necessity to learn the truth. So, on that basis alone (which is considerable in any event) I support the efforts of the Malta Classical Society and will do what I can to further it.

When I received word from somewhere (I shouldnt identify the source, for it would be too anamolously heuristic) that a professor at the University of Malta was either originating or was backing (it sounded like the former was the intended intepretation) an intellectual movement to establish some hereditory intellectual legitimacy for Malta in attempting to associate 21st century contemporary discourse on a subject with an earlier, or, in this case, a non-existant, unreal cause. I now think it more likely that, as elsewhere, the interest in the classical spirit gets revived from time to time and that in the case of Malta, more specifically Gozo, while the Greeks seem to have known about Gozo, as witness their references to Calypso and Odysseus and Dido and Aeneas, but from such evidence we should not conclude that the Greeks had settled Britain or that Henry Purcell was Greek. There has been little, if any, scholarly researched evidence except that of A.A. Caruana dated 1888. However, the following extracted from an online ecyclopedia states: the Greeks laid their masonry without mortar but with joints cut to great exactness. Marble was not generally used until the 5th cent. Where coarse stonework or crude bricks were used, a coating, composed of marble dust and lime rubbed and highly polished, was applied to them. Even marble itself was sometimes so treated. Although it was long thought that buildings in ancient Greece retained the unbroken white of the marble, in fact colors and gilding were customarily applied to emphasize decorative sculpture and certain details; remaining traces of these have been found. Having discovered in the simple column and lintel an adequate method of construction, they used it exclusively, drawing from it the maximum of dignity and beauty.
B.C.

It becomes a rather hairy maneuver to reattach a post-event label to a specific priorly existant period, whether or not historical, and expect thinking students not to recognize the essential plastic nature of the effort. In short, and more to the point, wouldnt it be logical to query the intention of any of the various generative forces in an epoch (5thC.B.C. Greece, for eample) whether they became, what we later identify them to have become, had been their initial intention to be? Did they have any identifiable intention at all? It seems, as in so many of my classes at University, I am raising non-classical considerations about a subject whose classical characteristics are a factor of the discussion itself and have little,if anything, to do with the ostenstensible subject, which is, by faulty definition, fifth century Greece. No matter, really, no matter what the subject the factorial analysis seems always to obscure experiential evidencenot unlike a cat covering its exrement. The classicist linguistic maneuver to limit meaning, with all honors to Wittgenstein, moves the focus of the subject from the subject to the language about the subject which becomes the new subject and the socially acceptable rational for a Ph.D.and in this process looses meaning, although it might, later on, regain it. In my experience Malta excells in only one socially acceptable expression of personal achievement and that is its vocally projected volume. By way of contrast it is difficult for me to identify one proper Bostonian who ever became an opera singer. In Malta it is far from being unusual. There is yet another characterstic, however, which fails to achieve the level of respectability of the operatic voice and that is its (Maltas) drive for guilt ridden paranoid effort to achieve public notice in any of the various endeavors to which it aspires of which there are many. The touting of the circus barker far exceeds any measureably legitimate performance. And the obverse side of that coin reveals the portrait of the anti-hero, that is, no one but a Maltese is worthy of recognitionin Malta that is.unless the individual such as Caravaggio (who was Italian) and (who was British) their reputations appear incontestable, quite impossible to ignorein which case such individuals quickly become products of the Maltese environment they were petri-bred in Malta. The need for universal admiration is so dire that the legitimate ways of achieving it have long been forgotten in favor of contrived hype. Unfortunately, those who have reconized this as the modus operendi are rarely able to recognize legitimate achievement and when they do they discount itif it resides in a non-Maltese. As of this date the most recent expression of this quite nearly psychotic phenomenon is the announcement, as of April 9, 2010 (a most powerful series numerically), of the formation of the Malta Classics Association. In this regard, in respect to its title, its identification label, I remain uncertain as to whether this organization identifies itself as an orgnization of individuals interested in classical Malta, (which is a question of historical origination) or an Association in Malta of individuals interested in the classics (which posses a concern of quite different matter, that is, one of aesthetics)and then, of course, whose aesthetics? Well, it is certain that without acomplishing anything at all that might by way of an intended or expected product the annoucement alone has already proved its heuristic potency. All of which goes, perhaps, to indicate that where there is an action there is also a reaction. I, for example would not have been induced to preparing a response if there hadnt been something peculiar about the proposal. And what I suspect I intuitively sensed about this present classical interest was its consistency with Maltas history, most especially that of Gozo, or Ogygia, the home of the underground and water nymph Calypso, or, in Greek which means to cover, conceal, hide way, and, by extension of course unobserved, so, having be social expression of this response might be: me too, do not forget about me is quite understandable in the need for personal affirmaton and also the functioning of the abstract conceptions of social order as one generally sees it in governance, intelletual activity and law courts. These make of Malta not a reality but an opinion. In Maltas defense it might be added that, in this regard Malta is up to date, but by default, of course, not by any effort of its own. Now, for a person like myself, who sought a refuge from a criminal and oppressive reality elsewhere Gozo, or Ogygia, is just the place to be where, hidden away, I might have the opportunity undetected to give expression to who I am, or, who I want to bea time away from anywhere to use in a reherasal for a later and more perfect performance.

It is largely in this light that I view the present effort to legitimize the Maltese ethos by attempting to establish classical connections. In so far as I know there is no evidence of classical (or non-classical) Greek achievement on these islands while there is more impressive prehistoric achievements which predate the Egyptian and raise, in my view, extremely important questions

regarding the relationship between architecture and social organization The dating and understanding of the various phases of activity in the temples is not easy. The main problem found, I have been told, is that the sites themselves are evolutionary in nature, in that each successive temple brought with it further refinement to architectural development which is what one turistic promotional source brings to our attention. The consensus is that these structures predate the Egyptian

architectural contribution.

UR,c.18THc.B.C. The Pyramids of Gizah c. 2,600 B.C.

My question has been how is it the structues on Malta appear so much more organic

in conception than those of Ur , Gizah, or elswhere, and why did this architetural form disappear? One is tempted to consider the possible relationship between architetural form and either matriarchal or patriarchal social systems.
[Maltese Egyptian Greek] Encyclopedic sources tell us that for the works or study of works from classical antiquity, see Classics Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seeks to emulate.[As for the matter of taste which is a very real factor of course, where dicussion of this type take place, but, in practice it becomes very illusory] The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained. This definition of classisim is the one generally used whether or not it applies to any Greek period. That period of Greek production which is generally identified as classical took many decades, perhaps two or three centuries, to develop and lasted, one might say, for no longer than a half century before it, once again, mutated along the line of its initial impetus which was the ever increasingly detailed representaton of a physical reality, that is one that made no editorial comment on the physical condition of that mortality, or atypical physical appearance. It is in this respect that the Egyptian and the Greek dvelopements were coincident in their aims at some points. The technical excellence and exellence of observation of Egypt exceeded that of Greece at most points and by the time the technical excellence of Greece achieved that of Egypt Greece had already moved on to a yet another aesthetic dimension and in a shorter period of time than the Eyptian. It should be pointed out, as well, that there is evidence indicating that where individual physical anomalies did occur in the person they were eliminated in the fabrication of their official images. Now, whether the element of time in its relation to development of a culture has more meaning to its political formulation than to its aesthetically formal one has yet, I think, to be investigated. However, as things stand it does seem to appear that the aesthetic rule of thumb for Egypt was that of authoritya desendent authority, and that of Greece as one of individual investigative interest for it is with the Classical Greek that the remains of Greek effort include the names of

individuals. So, while Egypts expression remained static

that of Greece had, already by the 1st.century

BC gone into decline so that in the end it might be observed that while technical excellence was encouraged in Egypt it was restrained and the pyrotechnics of the show off unknown. As this map of the Eastern Mediterranean indicates the various stages of Greek, or succeeding cultures that were Greek influenced not one of them over period nearly three quarters of a milleneum ever left any material evidence of there having been any classical Greek influence, direct or indirect on the island of Malta. Even Paul of Tarsus who, it has been reported, as having been shipwrecked on Malta failed to mention anything of the sort that had been reported. Now, there is a troublesome local legend that Calypso kept Odeysseus comfortable over a period of seven years in a cave just down the street from my house, but I have not heard of anyone finding any material evidence that would support the claim. In any event, there appear to be no ruins that would help us settle the matter and I am, consequently, encouraged to believe that the founding of this organization is another of the numerous efforts on the part of many contemporaneous Maltese to give both legitimacy , however false. and dignity to their claims of and search for self-respect. My advice to them, were I to be asked, would be to follow the advice of Polonious to Laertes.

There may always be some danger when one attempts to reduce experienced reality to an equation, but if it helps to clarify a point

let me present the following graphic devices as a starting point: on the left we have what we might call classic lines, simple, regular, unemotional, straight forward and on th right we have a breadth of expression, extremes in texture, variety of direction and dramatised opposition. In short, there is the antithesis of the classical. These characteistics might also be observed here in a pair of works that made their appearance some 1,750 years later and only 200 years apart. One by the Frenchman Jacques Louis David and the oher by the Dutchman Willem DeKooning.

Jacques Louis David

Willem DeKooning

Jacques Louis David was, perhaps the best known exponent of the neo-classical style developed in Europe and in this work the attachment to the romance of classicism is apparent in the subject matter, The Death of Scorates over, it appears, of all things, an educational philosophy. The equanimity with which Socrates approached his death and the cup of posionous hemlock being handed him, the technical clarity of the work, the unadorned clothing, the controlled grief of the man in the doorway all speak of what has been considered as the classical attitude and the very word itself, classical is so strongly welded to the popular idea of Greece that the two are quite inseparable. If David exemplifies the Apollonian DeKooning certainly does the Dionesian in what he makes and how he perceives the womankind about him in his mind, background or environment, if not in how he behaves as a social person. Would it be permissable to indicate that with David the expressive vehicle is control and that with deKooning it is not unlike the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel in the song about spring. June is Busting Out All Over http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I-790dGx-o The following appears to be a cautious approach to the identification of a critical area of study. I can, however, imagine that there may be some who would find its suggested parameters too vaugely defined, too unretrained in its own classical properties to be acceptable, but, in the sprit of a ten year-old male wishing to pilfer apples , I would like to assay the potential of explorative behavior in testing the tolerance of the accepable borderlines. To begin with the expression a high regard for classical antiquity suggests a strong, non-objective, and prejudicial position so there are, in consequence, some positions which are definitively non grata. However, I shall risk admitting to a greatly substantial admiration for a performance of Aristophanes Lysistrata given at the amphitheatre below the Athenian Acropolis in 1973. The performance, as one might expect, given the circumstances, was delivered in Greek a language about which, at that time, I knew very little, yet, the soliloquy delivered by the principle character had been so intensly focused I was under the impression I understood every word. This suggests an interesting point, that is, that there is more to comprehension than the understanding of the language. Classicism We have been advised that for the works or study of works from classical antiquity, see Classics Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seeks to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained. It can also refer to the other periods of classicism. Classicism is a force which is always present in post-medieval European and European influenced traditions, however, some periods felt themselves more connected to the classical ideals than others, particularly the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment and some movements in Modernism. The force in particular formed movements labelled "classical" or were referred from the perspective of the 20th century as having been classical. This includes classical economics and classical physics, both of which were related to the more general ideals of classicism from that time period. The majority of art historians and classicists today believe that the model for the Greek kouros can be found in Ancient Egypt,

where such sculpture did exist. rather stiff forward stidingpose) as an aspect.

They do share frontalism

(the

During what might be called Greeces Golden Age however, the very strict classicism of Egypt was forgotten or a different understanding of the human being emerged and found sublime expression in delivering the body from its block.

Polyklitus

SCOPAS

CYCLADIC= PROTO-GREEK revealing the characteristics of classical reductionism and divergent expression as in the harp player

HENRICKSON admits that both the classical and the expressive play a role.
Michelangelos slave (left) remains unfinsihed. This probably not what he had intended it to look like BUT, as it is it as been quite probably more creatively influential than it otherwise would have been. Just as 19th century ignorance about painted Greek statuary was intrumental in creating, once again, an entirely unintended resulting judgment so that, consquently several generations have been born, matued and gone believing that the pure and beautiful was white and not painted brightly.

Calamis

Alexander

SCOPAS

Individuation vs. the ideal and emerges

victorious..temporarily.

Elvis Presly

Kumsal Sezen

Some how or other it occurs to me that in the formal dissolution of classical primciples such as balance, proportion, symmetry one meets in the field of battle between Apollo and Dionysis, the orderly and the dissolute, good and evil, God and Satan and in the resultant morass we must find our individual ways..with help, on occasion. I have included in this discussion the image of the, presumably, unfinished slave of Michelnagelo. It was intended for the Tomb of Pope Julius II but despite Michelangelos being quite nearly constantly at work, there were times, and he complained about then, when he was simply overwhelmed. However, for this accident of time and events we, today in the 20th & 21st centuries would not have been exposed to yet another aesthetic dimension enlarging, thereby our vocabulary for affective experience. One assumes that had Michelangelo completed this slave as he may have intended it it would not now be an exquiste example of order emeging out of chaos, form out of nothing, Except, and this is a part of the enigma, what we actually see, the thing we perceive, is there for us to see it. It is there. It wast what was intended, but it is there and had it been there as intended my wager is that it would have been less instructive, impressive and rewarding. Out of the battle between Apollo and Dionysis comes a new formulation. i

Callimachus (katatxitechnos) Roman? If we focus our attention more on he drapery of these two figures our attept to clarify the concept of what is classical and what is not may become more clear. On the left the drapery hangs from a still and tranquil body form. On the right the drapery appears, or is made to suggest to us that the figure is or has been very recently in rather active movement and that the drapery has responded to that movement. It is that movement, that pictorial drama which breaks away from the classical notion of balance and that notion is carried over, as well, into

certain architectural details, as in the Corinthian column pictured here.

and certainly in this scene of a

bludgeoning of a satyr where the forms, the motion, the disquieting subject matter and all, with the exxception of the technical execution required of the sculptor when dealing with the marble,underscores action which is by defintion, not in balance, or, at least, series of alternating out of and resumed balances.

Kritios Dolly Parton

SCOPAS

Venus of Malta

HEIGEA

IVAN MESTROVIC

Ivan Mestrovic is another artist whose work exhibits charateristics of both the ideal and the individual, but , it seems, in Mestrovic the ideal in man is constrained by ideal geometry as though to indicate you have freedom, but within limits. Perhaps what all the evidence above is signalling is that Malta, and most especially Gozo, will finally emerge out of its historic isolation and promote the creative and intellectual leadership the world requires. After all, it has been maintained that all the world really needs is one good idea.
MALTA CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION From: Malta Classical Association [mailto:classicsmaltasoc@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 3:36 PM Subject: Malta Classics Association

Dear recipient, I have been instructed by Mrs Maria Zammit of Lija to write to you about the Malta Classics Association. The basic facts about the Association are outlined here: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100207/education/reviving-our-roots http://www.um.edu.mt/malti/ahbarijiet#item_88169 http://www.um.edu.mt/newsoncampus/features#item_88001 We are in the process of setting up the Classics Association. In fact, on April 9th, all those who have expressed an interest in the Association are invited to come to the Archaeology farmhouse at university (at 18:30) where we shall hold our first general meeting to elect the committee.

The committee will then finalise the statute and start working in earnest. The Association will be formally launched on July 29th. Our goals are to promote the study of Latin and Classical Greek. This will be done by holding numerous events comprising: 1) public lectures on the classical world 2) public readings of Latin and Greek literature (a lot of these readings will be in Latin and Greek) 3) plays from the ancient playwrights 4) poetry recitations 5) Courses in Latin and Greek 6) the production of an academic journal and a general newsletter 7) co-operating with schools and colleges to encourage students to study Greek and Latin at some level or other. If you are interested in joining the Association, let us know and we'll include your email address in our database. You are invited to the first general meeting but it is important that you confirm your attendance by noon on Monday 5th April. If you do not confirm your attendance we shall assume that you will not be coming. The Archaeology Farmhouse is to be found here: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=35.90145,14.481026&num=1&t=h&sll=35.897508,14.482521&sspn=0.018078,0.032015&ie=UTF8&ll=35.901 105,14.481483&spn=0.002312,0.005681&z=18 There is ample parking behind the farmhouse. Finally, if you have no interest the Association please let us know so that we may delete your email address from our contact list. This will prevent you from receiving our emails unnecessarily.

regards and thanks Joseph Anthony Debono