Inspiration: Bacchus and the Cultural History of a Creation Myth

426 Pages·2005·4.34 MB·English

by  John F. Moffitt

INSPIRATION
BACCHUS AND THE CULTURAL
HISTORY OF A CREATION MYTH
PHILOSOPHY
OF
HISTORY AND CULTURE
Series Editor
Michael Krausz, Bryn Mawr College
Advisory Board
Annette Baier (University of Pittsburgh), Cora Diamond (University of
Virginia), William Dray (University of Ottawa), Nancy Fraser (North-
western University), Clifford Geertz (Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton), Peter Hacker (St.John’s College, Oxford), Rom Harré (Linacre
College, Oxford), Bernard Harrison (University of Utah), Martha
Nussbaum (University of Chicago), Leon Pompa (University of Birmingham),
Joseph Raz (Balliol College, Oxford), Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Brandeis
University),Georg Henrik Von Wright (University of Helsinki)
VOLUME 22
INSPIRATION
BACCHUS AND THE CULTURAL
HISTORY OF A CREATION MYTH
BY
JOHN F. MOFFITT
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2005
Cover illustration: “St. Mark,” author-portrait from the Gospel Book of Ebbo, ca. 830.
Épernay, Bibliothèque Municipale.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN 0922–6001
ISBN 90 04 14279 7
©Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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PRINTEDINTHENETHERLANDS
Dedication
This philological study is dedicated to all inspired, would-be vanguard artists,
for it is they who do really need to know these essential art-historical materials.
Epigraphs
“Formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem...et inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum
vitae...”
—Genesis 2:7.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that
which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing
under the sun [nihil sub sole novum].”
—Ecclesiastes 1:9.
“Io non dipingo per arrichire mà solamente per propria sodisfazione, èforza
il lasciarmi trasportare degl’impeti dell’entusiasmo ed esercitare i pennelli
solamente in quel tempo che me ne sento violentato.”
—Salvatore Rosa (letter to Antonio Ruffo, 1666)
“Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.”
“Pour me tirer des pleurs, il faut que vous pleuriez.”
—Nicolas Boileau (Art Poétique, 1674)
“Genius has ever been supposed to partake of something divine. Nemo unquam
vir magnus fuit, sine aliquo afflatu divino [Never was there a genius who did
not benefit from divine inspiration].”
—Edward Young (Conjectures upon Original Composition, 1759)
“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
—T. S. Eliot (“Burnt Norton”)
“Alas! Hegel was right when he said that
we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.”
—George Bernard Shaw
“Like other wares, art is dependent upon producers and consumers.”
—Rudolf Wittkower

CONTENTS
Dedication & Epigraphs ............................................................ v
List of Illustrations .................................................................... xi
Introduction: A Personification of “Inspiration” ...................... 1
PART I
“INSPIRATION”: ANCIENT DIONYSUS TO THE
HUMANISTS’ BACCHUS
Chapter 1: The Modern Condition of “Inspiration” .............. 11
“Self-Expression”: A Modernist Perspective on “Inspired”
Creation .............................................................................. 11
The Mythology of the Modern Artist .................................. 17
“Modern”: A Brief History of a Loaded Word .................. 21
From Orthodox Modernism to Postmodernism .................. 25
Chapter 2: Michelangelo’s Bacchus as a Historical Metaphor 33
An Interpretive Context for Michelangelo’s Bacchus .......... 33
Michelangelo, Mimesis, and the Humanist Mysteries ........ 37
Michelangelo, Pliny, and Ekphrasis ...................................... 44
The Making of Michelangelo’s Bacchus ................................ 51
Chapter 3: The Classical Sources of “Inspiration” ................ 56
Plato’s Phaedrus, Melancholic Creation, and the Poet’s
Divine Inspiration .............................................................. 56
Praxiteles’s Dionysios and Bacchantic Frenzy ........................ 66
How Dionysiac “Inspiration” was Described in Classical
Culture ................................................................................ 74
Ancient Evaluations of “Enthusiastic Inspiration” and
Poetic Creativity ................................................................ 81
How “Inspiration” is Described by Modern Science ........ 85
viii contents
Chapter 4: Post-Classical and Christian “Inspiration” ............ 94
A Depiction of Classical “Inspiration” in Medieval Art .... 94
The Complementary Conditions of “Inspiration” and
“Hysteria” .......................................................................... 108
The Complementary Conditions of “Inspiration” and
“Dreams” ............................................................................ 110
The Case for “Possession” as a Cause of Inspired
Creativity ............................................................................ 114
The Installation of the “Christian Bacchus” ...................... 120
Chapter 5: The Neoplatonic Bacchus of the Renaissance .... 129
Bacchus Reborn in the Renaissance, “all’antica” .............. 129
Neoplatonic “Noble Intoxication” ........................................ 134
Bacchus in Ficino’s Phaedrus .................................................. 142
Bacchus in Ficino’s Symposium .............................................. 146
Titian’s Bacchanal of the Andrians ............................................ 148
Chapter 6: The Emblematic Bacchus and “Inspired”
Art-Making .................................................................................. 151
Bacchus in Renaissance Mythology and Emblematics ........ 151
“Inspiration” in the Rise of “God-like” Artistic
Creation .............................................................................. 158
Liberal Art-Making and Michelangelo’s Bacchus .................. 167
“Difficulty” and the Hermeneutics of Michelangelo’s
Bacchus .................................................................................. 175
PART II
“INSPIRATION” FOR THE NEO-DIONYSIAC
MODERNISTS
Chapter 7: Post-Renaissance “Inspiration,” from the
Enlightenment to the Romantics .............................................. 183
“Inspiration” and Aesthetics in the Age of
Enlightenment .................................................................... 183
The New Exaltation of “Genius” ........................................ 187
“Genius” and “Inspiration” Among the Romantics .......... 199
Goya, Schopenhauer, and the “Suffering Genius” ............ 205
Nietzsche’s Moment of Involuntary Epiphany .................... 216
contents ix
Chapter 8: A Dionysus Reborn for the Symbolist Era .......... 220
The Dionysus of Friedrich Nietzsche .................................. 220
Dionysus and Orpheus Among the Symbolists .................. 225
Dionysiac “Ecstasy” Revived by the Symbolists .................. 230
Éliphas Lévi, a Model for Inspired Symbolist
“Initiation” .......................................................................... 233
Chapter 9: Dionysiac Ecstasy and Modernist Art-Worship .... 241
“Ecstasy” and the Power of Modernist Music .................... 241
Dionysiac “Ecstasy” Exalted by the Formalist Art
Critics .................................................................................. 251
The Ubiquity of an Archetypal Modernist
“Artist-Priest-Prophet” ........................................................ 254
The “Artist-Priest-Prophet” Installed by French
Symbolists and Occultists .................................................. 263
A Modernist Proclivity: Art-Worship .................................... 267
Chapter 10: Surrealist Dionysian Myth and Gestural
Performance Art ........................................................................ 275
“Automatism” and the Dionysus of the Surrealists ............ 275
Antonin Artaud and the Surrealist-Dionysiac “Theatre
of Cruelty” .......................................................................... 281
A Dionysian Niche for Hermann Nitsch and
Chris Burden ...................................................................... 288
Dionysus and the Formalist “Gesture”: The Energetic
Example of Jackson Pollock .............................................. 291
Chapter 11: The Inspired Shaman-Artist: The Case of
Joseph Beuys .............................................................................. 303
Neo-Dionysiac Performance Art: The Messianic Example
of Joseph Beuys .................................................................. 303
The “Inspired” Modern Shaman-Artist in Historical
Records of Magical Practice .......................................... 310
Beuys’ Aktionen as a Modern Cult Action ............................ 319
Chapter 12: Something Like a Post-Modernist Finale .......... 325
Towards a Disgruntled Postmodernist Perspective
on “Inspiration” .................................................................. 325
x contents
A Postmodernist Update on the “Divinity” of
Michelangelo’s Masterpieces .............................................. 329
Late Modernist Neo-Primitivism and Regressive Art
Education ............................................................................ 331
“Inspiration”: Old Stereotypes, New Findings .................... 344
Illustrations
Bibliography ................................................................................ 357
Index .......................................................................................... 377