Many years ago one of my College Professors recommended me to read a book about Alexander Scriabin. And from that time on, Scriabin’s creativity has captured my imagination. It goes without saying that Alexander Scriabin is one of the most Mysterious Figures of the 20th century. Not only did he compose Music, but he also wanted to Transform the World by using the Power of Art. In other words, he believed that the Performance of his “Mysterium” comprised of different branches of Art could cause Dematerialization and Rebirth of Humanity.
Alexander Scriabin was an extremely versatile person and his Literary and Philosophical works correspond to his Music. The Early period of his creativity (up to 1900) has very much in common with Romantic tradition and then (from 1900 till 1910) the Center of his Aesthetic interests starts shifting towards the Personality of the Artist who is able to Bring Beauty to the World. This “reorientation” triggered radical changes in his Musical Style, namely Functional Inversion, the Emancipation of the Dissonance and the Compression of the Form. During the Late period of his creativity (from 1910 till 1915) Scriabin was fully occupied with the Realization of his Project and most of his last works could be viewed as “splinters” of the Ideal Piece of Art – the “Mysterium”. “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire” is a fine example of the expression of the Idea of the Total Unity since here Music is complemented by the Color Organ Part (Luce) whereas Melody is derived from Harmony and vice versa (“Prometheus Chord”). Interestingly enough, during the last years of his life his Musical Language was changing towards Simplicity and it seems to me that the so-called “Style of Black Line on White Background” (Prelude op. 74 No. 2) fully expresses Scriabin’s Passion for Unity and Beauty.
In this Book the idea of which appeared when I was writing my previous monograph on the creativity of Alexander Scriabin I am going to scrutinize the way in which different Philosophical Ideas have been conveyed in Art. That is to say, we are going to Travel throughout the Whole History of Humanity and I hope that at the end of our Journey we will know more not only about Art, but also about ourselves.
As a matter of fact, I have always wanted to travel around the world, explore cultural diversity. In particular, I have read a lot about Wonders of Italy; hence, it is no surprise that my first destination was Rome. Actually, it was my mother who forced me to go there, metaphorically speaking. So, there I was, flying to Italy on my own. The truth is that, being proud of myself, at the same time I was trembling and thinking – “Is it worth it?”
Little did I know what would come next.
Firstly and most importantly, you could talk endlessly about the charm of Rome as many prominent scientists and artists have done before. And yet, only when you arrive there will you realize what is this all about. On the one hand, Rome is without any doubt the Spiritual Center of the Christian World. It seems to me that even the sun shines more brightly there than anywhere else. On the other hand, Rome has some dark pages in its divine history. It is hard to believe, but before Constantine the Great made the Roman Empire Christian in 313 A.D. Christians were arrested and tortured at the Colosseum.
Secondly, it is extraordinary that, despite all the obstacles, they did manage to preserve the achievements of the past till the present day. Rome is like a multi-storey building and it has its foundation – Antiquity. What I am trying to say is that the Whole History of Art lies in front of you, right under your feet – literally speaking. All you need to do is walk along the curvy streets of the city and look around.
Last but not least, the influence of the Roman Culture has been so huge that one can find a lot of replicas of Italian Architecture in many other countries. I presume, there are two main ways of studying the History of Art. The first one is the shortest and the hardest – you may start from the beginning and go to Rome. Or you could travel around Europe trying to put the puzzle – “pieces of Rome” – together.
To sum it up, it was love from the first sight. I will never forget the ringing of the bells of Santa Maria Maggiore at 9 P.M. If you ask me, I am virtually certain that this Mysterious Sound really is the Essence of the Roman Spirit.
It is undeniable that Ancient Philosophy has had a tremendous impact on Western Culture. Since Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived before Christianity and could not enter Paradise, Dante had nothing to do but put them in Limbo, which is the first circle of Inferno in “The Divine Comedy”. And even there they were having a perpetual seminar and discussing their works with each other.
Some may argue that Ancient Philosophers were not always right (for example, Ptolemy’s Geocentric model of the Universe has become obsolete), but the fact that they were trying to find out the First Principle of All Things – or Arche – is awesome.
It is no wonder that artists tend to insert “quotations” from Ancient sources in their paintings. Let us have a look, for example, at “The Spinners” by Diego Velázquez where he combines two subjects – one from Classical Mythology and the other from the era in which he lives. That is to say, in the background we can see Jupiter’s Rape of Europa waved by Arachne who was turned into a spider by Minerva since she could not find any flaws in Arachne’s carpet. While in the foreground there are real women from Velázquez’s time involved in tapestry manufacturing.
There is the Crown Fountain in the Summer Gardens in Saint Petersburg surrounded by busts of Ancient Philosophers – Diogenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, Aristotle, etc. So that people wandering around in search for some shade could stop for a moment and admire their dedication and commitment in the pursuit of knowledge. Surprisingly enough, Ancient method of “thinking while walking” has not lost its effectiveness nowadays. I practice it all the time especially when I am writing an article or a book since it helps me to concentrate and organize my thoughts.
In the famous “Allegory of the Cave” Socrates tells us about prisoners who live under the earth and can see nothing but shadows projected on the wall from objects being carried along in front of a fire. What I am trying to say is that in order to gain freedom we need to break the chains and walk towards the Light. It may hurt our eyes at first, but we will get used to it in the end.
Pre-Socratic philosophers were asking questions about the nature of things. And their answers were really amazing, for example, the qualitative monism of the Milesians who believed that everything could be reduced to, derived from, one or several elements (water – Thales; air – Anaximenes; fire – Heraclitus; water, air, fire, earth – Anaximander, etc.). According to the double-aspect theory of Pythagoras and Heraclitus, everything is in the process of change and, at the same time, everything is in order which, by the way, could be of different kinds – mathematical order (Pythagoras) or Logos (Heraclitus). Moreover, there was the absolute monism of the Eleatics, the pluralism of Democritus (Mechanism) and Anaxagoras (Teleology), etc. In other words, Pre-Socratics were formulating the philosophical agenda that Western Philosophy has worked with ever since.
While the Sophists were skeptical of the possibility of knowing the truth about reality and turned from the pursuit of knowledge to the practice of Rhetoric trying to persuade people by non-logical means, Socrates, on the contrary, was interested in the cultivation of souls and developed his own method of achieving this result which was called Dialectic. The way in which Dialectic uncovers the truth is very much like the way in which we recollect something. And the object of knowledge is not the world of Particulars (the world of time and change), but rather the reality of Forms, the first patterns that everything else follows.
In “The Symposium” Plato suggests that since Forms are universal an unchangeable and Particulars are always changing and temporal, we should distinguish between the essence of the Ideal Beauty which could be grasped only “with the eye of the mind” and particular beautiful things. We should “begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is”.
Earthly life ought to be harmoniously ordered and unified following the example of the Cosmos, including a human individual who is a microcosm, a part of the whole. Society should encourage the development of the capacity of mind to love and know the ideal order, especially when the training of heroes is concerned. Socrates asks in “The Republic” – “And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? – and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means”. Besides, Plato writes that “musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar”. And yet, adding that “the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish”, he excludes harmonies expressive of sorrow (Lydian), softness and indolence (Ionian) from the educational process and advises to use Dorian and Phrygian harmonies since they stimulate courage and temperance.
Aristotle is a follower of Plato and he is also quite critical of Plato. For instance, Plato believes that Art should imitate transcendent Forms, hence Art that imitates Particulars is twice removed from Reality. As far as Aristotle is concerned, Art is not an imitation of Forms but a representation of life and characters with their emotions and actions. And a good tragedy must be such as to produce Catharsis “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions” (“Poetics”).
Being more “down to earth”, Aristotle suggests that we do not have to think of transcendent Forms but of imminent forms since forms are the forms of Particular things. And any Particular is a composite of form and manner (Hylomorphism); it has an inherent Potential that can be Actualized. Natural potential is in everything and what an artist does is not to create but to Discover natural potentials in the physical elements of this world. That is to say, a sculptor does not create sculptures – he Discovers the possibilities of wood or stone (in this sense, Michelangelo in his “David” managed to actualize the potential of the block of marble abandoned by his predecessor), whereas a musician Discovers potential in the physical sounds. “For from the potentially existing the actually existing is always produced by an actually existing thing, e.g. man from man, musician by musician; there is always a first mover, and the mover already exists actually”, – says Aristotle in “Metaphysics”.
Moreover, Plato writes dialogs, tells stories, while Aristotle is more like an objective scientist analyzing and systematizing facts. As we have mentioned before, Plato thought that certain knowledge is innate. Aristotle, on the contrary, says that thinking processes correlate with the nature of reality and mind contributes to knowledge since it brings a capacity to organize, to structure nature and get the unchanging truth of it. For example, in “Metaphysics” he says that “the white is musical and the latter is white, only because both are accidental to man. But Socrates is musical, not in this sense, that both terms are accidental to something else. Since then some predicates are accidental in this and some in that sense, those which are accidental in the latter sense, in which white is accidental to Socrates, cannot form an infinite series in the upward direction; e.g. Socrates the white has not yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum. Nor again will ‘white’ have another term accidental to it, e.g. ‘musical’. For this is no more accidental to that than that is to this; and at the same time we have drawn the distinction that while some predicates are accidental in this sense, others are so in the sense in which ‘musical’ is accidental to Socrates; and the accident is an accident of an accident not in cases of the latter kind, but only in cases of the other kind, so that not all terms will be accidental”.
To sum it up, we have mentioned several conceptions introduced by Ancient Philosophers. And yet, the question – “Whether or not this Quest for Certainty is ever going to be satisfied?” – remains open.
О проекте
О подписке