Essays
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Artistic Analysis |
In the Greek mythological tradition, the so called Ages of Man represent each stage of the human existence. Traditionally, each age is named for a different precious metal, with degrading values as the human condition degrades. Each version of this tale begins with a Golden Age, so named because of gold’s nature in the ancient world as the most valuable of materials. Typically, the ages progress concurrently with the degrading value of the metals (i.e. Silver, Bronze, Iron). Only two versions of this story exist from the ancient world, that of Hesiod and that of Ovid. Interestingly, both versions use the author’s own era as the last, and worst age. This similarity, despite both versions being written centuries apart, implies that humans view their own time, and their own struggles, as the worst ones the world has yet faced.
Hesiod was a Greek poet who wrote between 750 and 650B .C., who is known for The Theogony, and Works and Days, which contains the Ages of Man. Hesiod’s list is composed of a somewhat unorthodox five ages, the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, and the Iron Age. The Golden Age encompasses the reign of Cronos and a first age of humans who lived on Olympus with the gods. The Silver Age deals with the beginning of Zeus’ reign, and a period in which man became particularly impious. Zeus punishes man’s heresy by eradicating them. In the Bronze Age, Zeus recreates a new race of humans from ash trees who are warish and tenacious. The so-called Heroic Age is interesting in that it is the only one not named for a precious metal and is not usually included. It contains the lives of demigods, and those who fought at Troy. Finally the Iron Age is the time of Hesiod’s own life. In it, everything honorable about society is discarded; children disobey parents, brother and brother quarrel, among others. By including all things wrong with the world in the Iron Age, the age he himself occupies, Hesiod makes a very powerful statement; he asserts that in his own lifetime, the world is undergoing the worst strife in history. Furthermore, no age follows the one of Iron, this suggests that no worse time can or will befall the world. Even though Ovid’s version of the Ages of Man was written centuries later, is largely similar to Hesiod’s, but omits the Heroic Age. Ovid’s Golden Age is a time of idyllic peace between men and Titans. In the Silver Age, Jupiter supplants Saturn as the overbeing, and creates the seasons. Men subsequently learn the art of agriculture. Ovid’s Bronze Age is similar to Hesiod’s in that men are warmongering, but not impious. Having chosen to omit the Heroic Age, Ovid moves on to the Iron Age, in which men learn navigation, how to add boundaries to their physical space, and become even more warish, greedy and impious. Though he does change the narrative quite a bit from Hesiod’s prior telling, Ovid leaves the reader with a similar message. He too puts the very worst examples of human behavior in the final Iron Age, the one he lives in. With this, he implies, in the same way as Hesiod, that at the time of his writing mankind is at its worst. His message goes slightly deeper though, as he points out that in the Iron Age, men have developed many new skills and technologies. By placing these in an era filled with evil and strife, Ovid stigmatizes the idea of modern technologies and skills. This is quite counter to the prevailing culture of Ovid’s day, which Augustus had declared an era of peace and Roman supremacy named the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). It is interesting that Ovid makes such jabs at the legitimacy of this Roman peace by implying that his modern era was both filled with impiousness and sin, and that modern developments are equally sinful because that is precisely what Augustus exiled Ovid for in 8 A.D. Ovid places the Ages of Man in the first book of his Metamorphoses. Preceding it (in fact the opening of the epic) is The Creation, the story of the world’s creation. The transition into the Ages of Man is very smooth, Ovid tapers off the story of creation by introducing humans as a race apart from other animals, because they have the ability to stand upright and look to the heavens. This introduces Ovid’s next next tale, which regards the early history of man, seamlessly. Having finished this history, Ovid moves onto his next story, Jove’s Intervention, using Jupiter’s reaction to man’s sinful behavior. Jove’s Intervention is a rather short story, itself only a transition into The Story of Lycaon. |
Ovid’s works were published numerous times throughout the Middle Ages and the European Renaissance, due to the interest of the aristocracy in his writings, particularly the Metamorphoses. This stemmed from the need for a way for aristocrats to write and read about cultural taboos without the church’s scrutiny. Ovid’s Metamorphoses presented a particularly appealing example, as the entire work is Ovid using traditional myths as a vehicle to discuss his own cultural taboos. The Metamorphoses’ attraction in the Middle Ages and Renaissance is extremely fortunate for the modern reader because countless manuscripts, and later books, were created that give us a reasonable approximation of what Ovid actually wrote (in contrast to untold scores of writers whose work has been lost through the centuries). This popularity also means that a great amount of artwork was created to accompany Ovid’s writing in these publications. The artist whose work I chose to analyze was one Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607 - 1640) of Strasburg, who represented very literally what Ovid wrote about in an effort to help the reader understand what happens in each story.
As early as 1639, Baur had prints appearing alongside publications of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These 151 plates were set with text to offer the reader a visual representation of the events depicted in the story. Specific to the tale of the Ages of Man, there are two plates, titled Aetas Argentea, and Aenum Et Ferrum Seculum. In each, Baur responds to Ovid’s writings very plainly, taking little to no artistic license in his portrayal of Ovid’s words. In Aetas Aurea, he depicts on the left a small hovel constructed of unhewn wood fashioned into a crude structure. This is clearly a reference to lines 121 and 122, in which Ovid says, “Then was the first time men went under houses; the houses are caves, and dense bushes, and sticks, having been bound by bark” (I.121-122). Because Baur has only a small space to convey as much information as possible, he chooses to show only one of humanity’s new homes. The other large statement Ovid makes about men in the Silver Age is that then was when man learned the art of agriculture. He says that, “Then was the first time Cerean grain was covered by long ditches, and the having been bound bullocks groaned from the yoke” (I.123-124). Again, Baur illustrates this this quite plainly. On the right is the very same bullock, with a yoke about his neck, and in the background, there are men with other bulls, sowing grain. The rest of the plate is taken up with other domesticated animals, further showing man’s new adeptness at agricultural activities. Baur’s straightforward depictions of Ovid’s writings, while not reimagined under the lense of a new time, still do their job very well, as they were designed to assist in the reader’s understanding of Ovid’s writing, and not to be singular pieces of art. Baur accomplishes a very similar goal in Aenum Et Ferrum Seculum, which goes with the text concerning the most sinful Iron Age. Beginning in the top left, Baur shows trees atop a small hill or mountain, clearly referring to the trees which were made into keels “which first had stood upon the high mountains, [and now] danced about in the strange waves” (I.133-134). Ovid describes the Iron Age was one from which “modesty and truth and faith fled; and into the place of which came up deceits and and robberies and ambush and force, and the evil love of having” (I.129-131). Baur depicts these atrocities across the entire bottom of the plate. Moving from left to right, Baur shows three of the worst crimes men can commit, rape, murder, and robbery, all of which are consistent with Ovid’s depiction of the age. Finally, the background of the plate is made up of a walled citadel under siege. This is the first real instance of Baur taking creative license, as Ovid does not mention anything about besieging cities in his text. However, this is still extremely relevant to the tale, as it is completely within reason that the same men who are able to commit horrors such as to commit murder and thievery, would be capable of the barbarous act of besieging a city. Yet again, Baur takes a very conservative view on his accompaniment, choosing to very literally represent Ovid’s words, rather than adapt the centuries-old work to unleash his own muses. (At the bottom of the page, a link to the images discussed can be found, along with a link to more images of The Ages of Man) |
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