"The reason why the style of a group and the style of an age may sometimes be legitimately confused is that a group-style often appears to realize the imperfectly formed aspirations of the age. A style may be described figuratively as a way of exploiting and focusing a language, which then becomes a dialect or language in its own right, and it is this focus which makes possible what might be called the personal style or manner of the artist, as Mozart worked against the background of the general style of his age, yet with a more specific relation to Haydn and to Johann Christian Bach. But analogies with language break down because a style is finally itself treated as a work of art, and judged as an individual work is judged and by much the same standards: coherence, power, and richness of allusion. In current changes of fashion and revivals of interest in one past style after another--Pre-Raphaelite painting, Baroque music--each successive style is almost a solid object, a piece of period furniture to be possessed and enjoyed. Yet such treatment of a period style as itself an objet d'art suggests one possible elucidation of the style of a group. More convincingly than the "anonymous" style of an age, the style of a group represents a synthesis like a work of art, a reconciliation of the conflicting forces of the period into one harmony. It is almost as much an expression itself as a system of expression."
Charles Rosen
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
pp. 20-21
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
pp. 20-21
2 comments:
Hi, Im from Melbourne Australia.
Please check out an essay on Sacred art titled Art Is Love at:
1. www.aboutadidam.org/readings/art_is_love/index.html
Plus the authoes literary masterpiece at:
2. www.mummerybook.org
His Divine Image Art at:
3. www.adidabiennale.org
Hi, John, thank you for stopping by.
A brief look at the materials you noted--sorry I don't have time to look at them more carefully--is enough to convince me that the author you mention is, like many, many others, a gnostic teacher. Gnostics claim that they have a secret knowledge, a kind of light, that they can impart to those who will learn from them.
In the early days of Christianity, there was a great deal of discussion about Jesus' identity. Some people thought he was a gnostic teacher. Some thought he was a demiurge, a creative being somewhere between God and the world.
But a deacon named Athanasius argued that since the salvation promised in the Christian Church is so overwhelmingly hopeful, it could not be promised or effected by anyone but God Himself. It's not a created light that has come into the world, nor just a teacher--someone who can testify to the light--but the True Light who enlightens everyone. "The light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness can never put it out." So Catholicism (with all of Christianity) centers itself around Jesus Christ, not any other teacher, because we believe that He is truly one with God and one with us. As Athanasius said, "God became man so that man could become God." That is why Jesus is the Way.
Best wishes to you, John.
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