Ancient Greece influenced on Renaissance
Hello readers, hope you had a fantastic week! We all heard about the word: Renaissance. Renaissance means rebirth in French (Part 1:1.6). But some of you might ask: what was the Renaissance a rebirth of? Today we are going to dig into this question and discuss how Ancient Greece influenced on Renaissance. Like Donatello, Dante, and Botticelli, I was intrigued by Ancient Greece’s mythology stories. Ancient Greek believed polytheism. Inside the Parthenon, 12 gods and goddess habitat in it. This is different than the Christianity which believed that there is only one God. I like Greek myth because Greek gods and goddesses are natural. Per Madeline Miller: You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see (Miller 14).They have emotions and struggles. They make mistakes and regrets; They have love stories and unethical affairs; they have ruthless fights. In Greek myth,Gods are not perfect.
Also, Ancient Greek believed human body was creation of god. Human body had aesthetic beauty. In the Greek language the word for beauty is aesthetics (Part 1:1.6). The more athletic we are, we are more divine and closer to gods. Like Aristotle said: "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."One thing I learned from Ancient Greek was the Olympic. Athletes were compete naked. Before the competition started, athletes would pour olive oil on their body to purify themselves. Athletes were exploring the beauty in momentum. Like the sculpture below, Discobolus by Myron, The sculptor caught the moment when the athlete was ready to throw discus. At this moment, the athlete was powerful and lively. It was the beauty of human body that Ancient Greek likes. Unlike in middle age period, strict religions control people's everyday life and taught people that human beings are all sinners and naked body is sinful. Ancient Greek appraised for athletics human body. We can see it from Greek sculptures.
One interesting fact i knew was that more than 24% of gym were named using Greek letters (Bachelor). Also, Ancient Greek gestures has been widely used even in nowadays. When I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I noticed a common gesture for a lot of Ancient Greek sculptures. For a standup round sculpture, the figure usually put weight on one leg, so it looks lean towards to one side. Unlike the Egyptian symmetrical sculptures, Ancient Greek arts emphasized natural beauty. Even in nowadays, when we are posing for pictures, most of us are naturally put our body weight on one leg. The Ancient Greece beauty has been impact us in our everyday life such as gym and posing.
work citation:
Miller, Madeline. Circe. Little, Brown and Company; 1st Edition (April 10, 2018)
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”
Bachelor, Robert, Thinking about the Gym: Greek Ideals, Newtonian Bodies and Exercise in Early Eighteenth‐Century Britain, May 24, 2012
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