The Emperor's Faith - Part 2: Empire

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.

THE EMPEROR'S FAITH - PART 1: ANTIQUITY

Christianity began with the shedding of Christ's blood. It grew with the blood of its early martyrs. After the Roman Empire turned towards Christianity and against ancient polytheistic beliefs, the blood would continue to flow. No longer that of martyrs, the stoning, beatings and torture would turn to street fights and full-blown riots between competing, often conflicting, sects within Christianity.

IRONIC FULFILLMENT OF THE JUDAIC MESSIAH

Ironically, by the beginning of the fourth century, some three hundred years after the passing of Christ and almost two hundred and fifty years after the fall of Jerusalem, Constantine the Great would more faithfully fulfill this specific messianic prophecy. However, he would do so as the sword bearing messiah of Christendom and not the much prayed for Jewish deliverer.

RISE OF BYZANTIUM, ORPHANED WEST

The growing tide of Christianity was reshaping beliefs as well as becoming a major factor in government policy. After Diocletian’s abdication in 305 CE and the death of Constantius the following year, civil war would again ensue. It would then take the insight of Constantine the Great to harness a growing tide of Christianity and sweep himself onto the throne.

POST-NICEAN LAPSES AND AFTERMATH

Even after Constantine the Great burnt the Arian scriptures at the Council of Nicaea, his own son, Constantius II, would become an Arian follower, (ruling from 324 until 337 CE). Later, Emperor Valens, also of Arian belief, would rule as emperor (from 364 until 375 CE).

WESTERN RENEWAL, EASTERN DECLINE

After Scirii (East Germanic tribe) invader Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476 CE, it had to come as quite a surprise to eastern Emperor Zeno when peace, prosperity and effective government actually began to return to the western Latin half of the empire.

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The Emperor's Faith - Part 2: Empire

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