Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism
Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism

Author: Daniele Iozzia

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-03-12

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1472572335

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Whilst aesthetics as a discipline did not exist before the modern age, ancient philosophers give many insights about beauty and art. In Late Antiquity Plotinus confronted the problem of beauty and the value of the arts. Plotinus' reflections have an important role in the development of the concept of the value of artistic imagination during the Renaissance and the Romantic era, but he also influenced the artistic taste of his time. Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism reconstructs the aesthetic philosophical views of Late Antiquity, and their relation to artistic production of the time. By examining the resonance of Plotinus' thought with contemporary artists and with Christian thinkers, including Gregory of Nyssa, the book demonstrates the importance of Plotinus' treatise On Beauty for the development of late ancient aesthetics. The Cappadocian fathers' interest in Plotinus is explored, as well as the consequent legacy of the pagan thinker's philosophy within Christian thought, such as the concept of beauty and the narration of the contemplative experience. Uniquely utilising philological and philosophical insight, as well as exploring both pagan and Christian philosophy, Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism represents the first comprehensive synthesis of aesthetic thought of Late Antiquity.

Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism
Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism

Author: Daniele Iozzia

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9781474219891

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Whilst aesthetics as a discipline did not exist before the modern age, ancient philosophers give many insights about beauty and art. In Late Antiquity Plotinus confronted the problem of beauty and the value of the arts. Plotinus' reflections have an important role in the development of the concept of the value of artistic imagination during the Renaissance and the Romantic era, but he also influenced the artistic taste of his time. Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism reconstructs the aesthetic philosophical views of Late Antiquity, and their relation to artistic production of the time. By examining the resonance of Plotinus' thought with contemporary artists and with Christian thinkers, including Gregory of Nyssa, the book demonstrates the importance of Plotinus' treatise On Beauty for the development of late ancient aesthetics. The Cappadocian fathers' interest in Plotinus is explored, as well as the consequent legacy of the pagan thinker's philosophy within Christian thought, such as the concept of beauty and the narration of the contemplative experience. Uniquely utilising philological and philosophical insight, as well as exploring both pagan and Christian philosophy, Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism represents the first comprehensive synthesis of aesthetic thought of Late Antiquity

Plotinus on Beauty
Plotinus on Beauty

Author: Ota Gál

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-03-21

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 9004510206

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The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. In this book, Ota Gál presents a new analysis of Plotinus' conception of beauty, beginning from a close reading of treatises I.6 and V.8, which link beauty with the unified multiplicity of Intellect. This account is subsequently placed in a hierarchical and structural context in VI.2 and VI.6 and connected to illumination in VI.7, enabling us to determine the meaning of the predicate “beauty” at different ontological levels. For Plotinus, beauty is ultimately the illuminated unity in multiplicity of Intellect, which, as the manifestation of the Good, simultaneously enables the soul’s ascent and threatens to bind the soul to itself.

Plotinus
Plotinus

Author: Eyjólfur K. Emilsson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-02-24

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1134328753

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Plotinus (AD 205–270) was the founder of Neoplatonism, whose thought has had a profound influence on medieval philosophy, and on Western philosophy more broadly. In this engaging book, Eyjólfur K. Emilsson introduces and explains the full spectrum of Plotinus’ philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time. Beginning with a chapter-length overview of Plotinus’ life and works which also assesses the Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic traditions that influenced him, Emilsson goes on to address key topics including: Plotinus’ originality the status of souls Plotinus’ language the notion of the One or the Good Intellect, including Plotinus’ holism the physical world the soul and the body, including emotions and the self Plotinus’ ethics Plotinus’ influence and legacy. Including a chronology, glossary of terms and suggestions for further reading, Plotinus is an ideal introduction to this major figure in Western philosophy, and is essential reading for students of ancient philosophy and classics.

The Reception of Plato’s ›Phaedrus‹ from Antiquity to the Renaissance
The Reception of Plato’s ›Phaedrus‹ from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Author: Sylvain Delcomminette

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-07-06

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 3110683970

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This volume explores the tremendous influence of Plato’s Phaedrus on the philosophical, religious, scientific and literary discussions in the West. Ranging from Plato’s first readers, over the Church Fathers and the Platonic commentators, to Byzantine and Renaissance thinkers, the papers collected here introduce the reader to the first two millennia of the dialogue’s reception history. Thirteen contributions by both junior and established scholars study the engagement with the Phaedrus by such major figures as Aristotle, Galen, Origen, Clemens of Alexandria, Plotinus, Augustine, Proclus, Psellus, Ficino, Erasmus, and many others. Together, they cover the wide range of topics discussed in the dialogue: the value of myth and allegory, religion and theology, love and beauty, the soul and its immortality, teaching and learning, metaphysics and epistemology, rhetoric and dialectic, as well as the role and the limits of writing. By placing the dialogue in this broad perspective, the volume will appeal to readers interested in the Phaedrus itself, as well as to classicists, literary theorists, and historians of philosophy, science and religion concerned with the dialogue’s reception history and its main protagonists.

Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian Visual Culture, c.500–900
Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian Visual Culture, c.500–900

Author: Francesca Dell’Acqua

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-20

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 3030247694

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This book uses Pseudo-Dionysius and his mystic theology to explore attitudes and beliefs about images in the early medieval West and Byzantium. Composed in the early sixth century, the Corpus Dionysiacum, the collection of texts transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, developed a number of themes which have a predominantly visual and spatial dimension. Pseudo-Dionysius’ contribution to the development of Christian visual culture, visual thinking and figural art-making are examined in this book to systematically investigate his long-lasting legacy and influence. The contributors embrace religious studies, philosophy, theology, art, and architectural history, to consider the depth of the interaction between the Corpus Dionysiacum and various aspects of contemporary Byzantine and western cultures, including ecclesiastical and lay power, politics, religion, and art.

Painting in the Shadow
Painting in the Shadow

Author: Fabio Troncarelli

Publisher: V&R Unipress

Published: 2023-10-09

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3847016253

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The almost invisible images of a hitherto unknown painter called Eusebius, who worked in San Vitale Ravenna and in Vivarium, are a gallery of portraits of his famous contemporaries such as Theodoric, Vitiges, Amalasunta and a visual commentary of Justinian's tyrannical behaviour. Living between two ages, without belonging to either, this solitary man represents the fullest embodiment of a type of cultural "hybridisation" that is well attested throughout history. Eusebius is a spiritual brother of those "hybrid" artists, who have left extraordinary examples of "grotesques" populated by fantastic beings. After having embodied for so long the unbiased tolerance which had been the core of his own life and those of his companions in Ravenna: that mixture of confidentiality, intelligence, pointed irony, fantasy, and – why not? – touch of madness which had helped him to navigate through the troubled waters of his age, always leaving at the margins the demons who haunted him.

Plotinus and the Moving Image
Plotinus and the Moving Image

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-11-13

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9004357165

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Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film. Contributors are: Cameron Barrows, Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Michelle Phillips Buchberger, Steve Choe, Stephen Clark, Vincenzo Lomuscio, Tony Partridge, Daniel Regnier, Giannis Stamatellos, Enrico Terrone, Sebastian F. Moro Tornese and Panayiota Vassilopoulou.

Gregory of Nyssa as Biographer
Gregory of Nyssa as Biographer

Author: Allison L. Gray

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2021-05-17

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 316157558X

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La 4e de couverture indique : "The theologian Gregory of Nyssa wrote biographies of his sister, a local bishop, and Moses. Allison L. Gray shows that he adapts techniques from Greco-Roman biographical writing in these texts to create narratives that are suited to a specifically Christian form of education, focused on virtue and scriptural interpretation."

This Thing Called Theory
This Thing Called Theory

Author: Teresa Stoppani

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-11-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 131540625X

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22 White, wide and scattered: picturing her housing career -- 23 Toward a theory of Interior -- 24 Repositioning. Theory now. Don't excavate, change reality! -- Part VII: Forms of engagement -- 25 (Un)political -- 26 Prince complex: narcissism and reproduction of the architectural mirror -- 27 Less than enough: a critique of Aureli's project -- 28 Repositioning. Having ideas -- 29 Post-scriptum. 'But that is not enough' -- Index