Light and shadows...
Course in Humanities: Fortnight #12
Today I’m sharing my thoughts on the twelfth fortnight of our adapted version of Ted Gioia’s Course in Humanities.
You can find previous parts of this course at the end of this post.
For now, we’ll discuss:
a) Botticelli and Caravaggio.
b) Mozart: Symphonies 39-41.
c) Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars.
Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445 – 1510), better known as (Sandro) Botticelli, was an Italian Renaissance painter. He was inspired by mythology (The Birth of Venus is probably his most famous work) and religion. He also did portraits.
Botticelli lived and worked in his hometown, Florence, but he spent a couple of years in Rome after he was selected by Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel.
His style is associated with the early Renaissance and, while he did find success as a painter during his lifetime, he didn’t enjoy the same level renown some of his contemporaries had until much after his death.
His paintings are beautiful and well-made, but not really my style.
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) was an Italian Baroque painter. Like Botticelli, he was inspired by mythology and religion.
Though he died young in comparison to other mononymously named Italian masters, Caravaggio most definitely left his mark in the world, inspiring a whole generation of Baroque artists, such as Artemisia.
He is renowned by his use of chiaroscuro1, adding drama, one could even say life, to paintings. His contrast of light and dark was so intense it’s called tenebroso (tenebrism) — the dark becomes a part of the composition and the subject appears to be under a spotlight. I also find his work very physical and dynamic, as if the subjects were about to move.
Mozart: Symphonies 39-41
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) was one of the most prolific (more than 800 works in multiple genres) and influential composers of the Classical period. He was considered a prodigy2, enchanting crowds and critics alike from a young age.
I don’t have much to say about the music Gioia recommend for this week/fortnight.
They’re are obviously good (we’re talking about Mozart after all), but didn’t particularly move me. Out of the three, I would say symphony 40 is my favorite.
The Twelve Caesars
Written (finished) in 121 CE by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69 - c. 122), De vita Caesarum (About the Life of the Caesars)3 is one of the most historically relevant books regarding the lives of Julius Caesar4 and the first eleven Roman emperors5, serving as inspiration for dozens of artists, authors and scholars over the centuries.
I did not like it. In fact, I tried to force myself to finish it, but realized I wouldn’t get much out of it anyway so I just gave up.
When it comes to History, I would rather focus on facts and events than conjectures or speculation. For biographies, I need strong references and sources in order to enjoy them, something that might be a bit too much to ask from someone who lived hundreds of years before the scientific method and current journalistic practice.
To add insult to injury, the writer’s style (or the translator’s since I did not read the original text) was not engainging at all. The Twelve Caesares reads like gossip column in which the author’s bias and preferences are almost screaming at you (I have no doubt theses rulers were even worse than he makes them out to be).
This is the kind of book I would read to learn more of the author himself and not the people he wrote about. The problem is I’m not interested in Suetonius.
If your goal is simply to learn about Roman history, I would not recommend his book.
The author is not concerned with the flow of events — he frequently ignores major ones and delves deeply into things we have no evidence took place. Like I said before, he doesn’t even try to mitigate his bias. He mentions people, places and events as if we all knew who or what they were (in his defense, perhaps they were common knowledge in second century Rome).
In case you do feel the need to read it, out of curiosity or as complement to your Ancient Rome studies, I suggest getting a good grasp on the history of that period or, at the very least, the timeline so you don’t get lost or left in the dark.
This is it for today.
I hope you’ll join me for next fortnight.
In case you haven’t read them, here are parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven.
Chiaroscuro (light-dark) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark as a defining feature of composition or as a mean of enhancing the illusion of three-dimensionality
Apparently his sister was a prodigy too, but she wasn’t allowed to explore a career in music (at time time, all girls could do was get married), which is a huge shame: just imagine if we had two Mozarts.
For some reason, most translators choose not to use the original title, renaming the book Twelve Caesars or The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
It seems the first few chapter were lost, so don’t get surprised if you feel like you’re boarding a moving train.
Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian.