EDITORIAL

 
At certain times in a life, one comes upon crossroads. Most of the time, I think, we just keep moving straight on, whether afraid of the risks of deviating or because things are generally going all right.

Yet, confessions are always useful at these crossroads. Taking the mantle of being the co-editor of the web journal Humanist Art Review was probably, in retrospect, an error. Not because it is not an attractive medium for trying to speak about the unspeakable but because of my own general un-preparedness. What is Humanism? How is Humanist art distinguished from other arts? These basic questions still baffle me no less than at the beginning. The tone of the journal was always characterized by a certain love for the subject but I don’t feel that I have ever managed to penetrate fully into the crux of the matter. The task of setting out a cogent set of discursive categories in my mind still remains. So along with contemplating the meaning of Bernini’s Obelisk on an Elephant, let us also cast a thought or two about Humanism and its art:

“What does it mean to be human?”

Before the coming of Christ - I say as a believer - the idea of who God is, was not clear. One way of interpreting classicism is to think that Greek architecture embodied the dynamism of the human mind striving to come to terms with the puzzle of divine origins. Greek myths describe how human character and events are determined by the moods of the gods. If we can get past the fairy tale like quality of the stories, they provide a fascinating interpretation of man and nature.

As internal squabblings weakened Greek power, the Romans emerged as the dominant force in the Mediterranean and as the principal inheritor of the civilizing impulse. The search for meaning crossed borders and conquered Europe bringing the Greek inquiry to a wider audience.

With the coming of Christ, the world changed because it became plain who God is. Then as the believers ruled and time passed, men became curious again about the times when there had been doubts. The intellectual brilliance of the ancient orators and artists took hold of the imagination of the humanists and filled them with visions of great beauty. However they were also aware that these very grand societies eventually crumbled. Why exactly civilizations could not be sustained we can only speculate, but there were probable dangers in delving too far into the divine order without the necessary bastion of faith. In short, paganism failed them.

The humanist artists were believers but they sought fresh insights and proffered the humane interpretation of the classical past, recognising the achievements of the classical mind but at the same time wanting to surpass them. This was their liturgy of mercy. Precisely because we find it so hard to come to terms with the divine order, the thing that we need the most is really, after all, forgiveness. By re-energizing this central tenet of Christ’s teachings (“forgive those who trespass against us”), the paganism of the classical past too may be forgiven. This renewal of confidence in humanity itself and the subsequent redimensioning of classical thought is what we might call Humanism. The forms will be new but the languages will be old and immutable. From this simple mental shift a new kind of beauty emerges and Art thrives!

So the crux of the matter is to remember that humanist thought energised a complex cultural re-integration that we now call the Renaissance. In reappraising the classical past, human history was reassembled. Much of what we understand about the antique oratory and philosophy is the legacy of the meticulous labours of the Renaissance humanist scholars. It was a period of rare moral clarity. It was a moving forward, not in the sense of progress but in its promotion of the virtues. It had its internal contradictions but it manifested, at least in the arts, as a celebration of human vocations. A deeper appreciation of the Renaissance spirit is necessary to move on from this stubborn age of rampant materialism. At certain times in life, one must feel sure, at the crossroads. I would say that these are the thoughts that David Mayernik and I carry into those precious spare moments of free thinking.

 
Good Writing is also what HAR is about and on this issue we welcome two new contributions from two distinguished scholars, Professor Samir Younés, the director of Rome Studies at the University of Notre Dame contemplates The Value of Monuments while his colleague in Rome, Dr. Ingrid Rowland reflects on the humanist leanings of Athanasius Kircher and the Musaeum Kircherianum. David Mayernik elaborates on one of his abiding themes: what a creative individual may learn from the eternal city, with his latest article Roma Docet. Happy new year's reading to our dear fellow humanists!

Taeho Paik, Co-editor
 

 
 
"Humanism is a stream into which flow all the waters of the past, mingling the most diverse forms and ideas, fusing Christian allegory with the ancient symbols of the barbarian religions."
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 121