The Emperor's Faith - Part 4: The New World

TRANSLATE

CUBISM: THE BIG BANG THAT SPAWNED MODERN ART

What had begun as a protest against academia a quarter century earlier became a bold departure into a fragmented vision that would develop into two clear paths of evolution, one abstract the other abstracted.

ACTION HEROES AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION

The ancient Greeks and Romans had their action heroes, the early Christians their supernatural feats. Museums are filled with these depictions. Yet, in today's post-Modern Art era, multi-figurative paintings and sculptures are far from center stage. By contrast, action heroes have had a reprieve, even a renaissance within the comic book medium. Is this just some passing fad or will history view it otherwise?

THE NUDE EXPOSED - FROM CULTURAL GENOCIDE TO ARTISTIC ASCENDANCE

From the golden age of Greek enlightenment, through the fall of Rome, into the dark ages and up until the Italian Renaissance, the human form would move from wholesome and hallowed to vile and heretical. Ironically, it would be the Church, which would eventually embrace the naked figure and raise it to its greatest heights ...literally!

PROTO-IMPRESSIONISM: THE SEEDS OF MODERN ART

Even after a generation of Romantic art, it would still require additional influence from abroad, the invention of the camera and a rebellion of academic instructors before the stranglehold of dated, government sanctioned Neoclassical art could be broken and France's avant-garde recognized.

FRENCH ROMANTICISM AND THE ADVANCE OF AVANT-GARDE

Providing a means to visibly express the emotions of the period, Romanticism's passions and freely applied paint would eventually overcome tradition within the Paris art establishment.

THE RISE, CAPITULATION AND SUBSEQUENT MALAISE OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Having evolved through numerous progressive stages, modern art's inherent revolutionary spirit is today replaced with an elite consumerism wherein aesthetics are supplanted by a proxy valuation determined at the auction gavel.

THE MODERN ART CHEAT SHEET

Since the Industrial Revolution and Impressionism there have been numerous art movement. Within this timeline, very attempt has been made to include key movements that continue to have lasting impact as well as lesser ones too compelling to ignore.

THIS THING CALLED "FINE ART"

The portable camera, the Industrial Revolution and a repetitively saturated art market would forever change the 19th century art world. Today, different, yet no less consequential seeds are being sewn for another departure.

ACTION HEROES AS FINE ART

Instead of gods and angels, we have today's caped crusaders whisking though clouds. Instead of demons and devils, we have brutes and antiheroes as today's persistent antagonists. Painted scenes from ancient mythology have been replaced with legendary superheroes, competing with one another in true form to their earlier Olympian counterparts.

ECUMENICISM, SCHISM, AND CALL TO ISLAM

This final crossing of ecclesiastical swords would at long last signal the end for all times to one united Christian Church. These actions are today referred to as the Great Schism of 1054.

FIRE IN JERUSALEM

The reaction to the Church’s burning at the site of the crucifixion and physical hacking of the temporal resting of Jesus was that of shock and implausible loss. Subsequently, the Church would confound the horror by proclaiming the action to be the work of Revelations’ foretold Antichrist.

THE PAUPER'S CRUSADE

The First Crusade (1095-1099) is divided into two parts. The first was the “People’s Crusade” or more accurately entitled the “Paupers’ Crusade”. The Paupers’ Crusade was more of a pilgrimage of rabble rather than a military expedition.

THE KNIGHT'S CRUSADE

There were a total of nine formal Crusades, or armed expeditions to the Holy Land. In total, there would be 19 military incursions between Europe and the Muslim Caliphates. The Eastern Empire would have numerous territorial wars with Islam, and Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) would eventually fall to the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM

The slaughter that followed has since become infamous. Having thrown away the last vestige of civilization with the cannibalism of Ma’arra, the crusaders were free to perform whatever acts they were physically capable of, without the burden of conscience. A killing frenzy ensued.

EAST AND WEST CRUSADES

With few exceptions, crusading Christians would bother to learn little of Islamic beliefs. As Bernard Shaw would write in his 20th century play, Saint Joan… "the followers of Mahomet profess great respect for Our Lord, and are more ready to forgive Saint Peter for being a fisherman than (Christians are) to forgive Mahomet for being a camel driver."

The Emperor's Faith - Part 4: The New World

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