Brief Notes on the History of the Human Flock 1: The Pagan Era

Late Roman marble copy of a Kriophoros

by the ancient Greek sculptor Kalamis 

(5th-century BC)

 

 

Many of us have what might be termed an Animal Farm moment of revelation when we look from A to B, and from B to A, and from A to B again, but are unable to tell which is which [1].

For example, at a certain point it becomes clear that there is no real difference between a punk and a hippie and that you should never trust either. Similarly, the distinction between pagan and Christian is impossible to maintain as soon as one reads a little religious history.

 

Take, for example, the idea of a human flock ... 

 

This is something I believed to be an exclusively Christian concept, referring to the followers of Jesus who styles himself as the good shepherd - i.e., one who not only knows and cares for his sheep, but is prepared to lay down his life for them [2]. 

But, thanks to Michel Foucault, I now discover: 

 

"The idea of a power that would be exercised on men in the same way as the shepherd's authority over his flock appeared long before Christianity. A whole series of very ancient texts and rites make reference to the shepherd and his animals to evoke the power of the gods or the prophets over the peoples they have the task of guiding." [3].

 

In ancient Egypt, for example, pharaohs received the emblems of the shepherd during their coronation ceremony; Babylonian and Assyrian kings were also awarded the title of shepherd, signifying their duty to safeguard the people over whom they ruled on behalf of the gods. 

 

By contrast, the ancient Greeks weren't so keen on thinking of themselves as a flock of sheep (or their rulers as shepherds) and the theme of pastoral power seems to have occupied only a minor place in their cultural imagination - even whilst it was customary amongst sculptors to produce figures known as Kriophoroi [4].

 

Foucault writes:

 

"The Homeric sovereigns were indeed designated as 'shepherds of the peoples', but without there being much more than a trace of ancient titulature. But later the Greeks don't seem to have been inclined to make the relation between the shepherd and his sheep the model of relation that must obtain between the citizens and those who command them." [5]

 

Of course, there were exceptions to this: Plato, for example - whom Nietzsche regards as a proto-Christian, preparing the ground for a slave revolt in morals - discussed pastoral power at some length in the Statesman, when he determines to define what the royal art of commanding consists in. 

 

However, it's important to note that Plato qualifies the idea and argues that, ultimately, the modern political leader must be more weaver than herdsman; i.e., one who who is able to pull together all the complex social elements and different classes of people into a single fabric. 

 

As we will see in part two of this post, it will take "the spread of oriental themes in Hellenistic and Roman culture for the pastorate to appear as the adequate image for representing the highest forms of power" [6]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring here to the famous ending of George Orwell's 1945 novel, in which it becomes impossible to distinguish between pigs and humans around the card table.   

 

[2] See John 10:11-15: click here. 

 

[3] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 2021), Appendix 2, p. 302. 

 

[4] Often intended as representations of the god Hermes, Kriophoroi were figures bearing a sacrificial ram upon their shoulders. However, the figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb, simply as a pastoral vignette, was also common in ancient Greece and known by the same term. 

      The Christians adopted the image and made it their own; the Good Shepherd being the most common symbolic representation of Christ found in early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome (before such imagery could be made explicit), and it continued to be used in the centuries after Christianity was legalized in 313. Initially, it was probably not understood to be a portrait of Jesus. However, by the 5th century the figure had taken on the conventional appearance of Christ in Christian art; the robes, the halo, the long flowing hair, etc.

 

[5] Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 303.

 

[6] Ibid., p. 304.      

    

 

To read part two of this post - on the human flock in the Judeo-Christian era - click here.

 

 

Jeff Koons: Apollo (The Golden Boy of American Art Meets the Golden God of the Greeks)

Jeff Koons: Apollo Kithara (2019-22) [1]  

Jeff Koons on Instagram

I. 

 

Apollo is the golden boy of ancient Greek mythology: the god of sunlight, music, poetry, and healing; the perfect embodiment of the Hellenic ideal of καλοκαγαθίᾱ [kalokagathia], that is to say, of reason, beauty, and virtue. 

 

Almost too good to be true, it's no wonder Nietzsche seemed to hate him and to privilege the more mysterious (and more troubling) son of Zeus, Dionysus; the god of wine and dance, irrationality and chaos, representing the emotional-instinctive forces. 

 

Only, of course, that's not quite true and the Apollonian/Dionsyian distinction is not so black and white, even in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), where Nietzsche develops (but does not invent) these philosophical and literary concepts [2]. 

 

Placing the two gods in dialectical opposition, Nietzsche advances the argument that tragic art is the result of a fusion (or synthesis) of the Apollonian and Dionysian impulses. But he does not wish for one to be valued more than the other (although in his later writings he will proudly declare himself as a disciple of the latter).

 

For Nietzsche, the tragic hero or thinker is one who struggles (ultimately in vain) to impose order and meaning upon a chaotic world of fate. Without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks form and structure, and without the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and passion. And thus, for Nietzsche, the attempt to make art and philosophy an optimistic affair of moral reason, i.e., exclusively Apollonian in nature, was profoundly mistaken [3].

 

 

II.

 

But I digress: this post was simply intended to notify readers to the fact that Jeff Koons has a new exhibition on the Greek island of Hydra, honouring Apollo, including the animatronic sculpture shown above, in which the god not only holds a kithara (the seven-stringed version of a lyre), but has to contend with a massive snake flicking its forked-tongue out [4].

 

For those - like me - who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing we like; whereas, on the other hand, for those - like Byung-Chul Han - who hate everything Koons does and represents, then this piece of Apollonian kitsch will just be another reason to damn him. But I think that's a shame. 

 

The fact that Koons has returned to antiquity is no real surprise; all artists, writers, and philosophers look back to the Greeks and Romans at some point. The trick is to find a way to recontextualise ideas and put a contemporary spin on the myths and images from the ancient world, thereby liberating us in a certain sense from the disadvantages identified by Nietzsche in both antiquarian and monumental models of history [5].

 

In a recent interview Koons spoke of trying to play metaphysically with time and in his new show I think we can see what he means by this. Koons gives us a vision of Apollo that is an amusing mix of pagan and postmodern, then, now, never was and might be tomorrow.

 

Inspired by a sculpture from the Hellenistic period that Koons viewed in the British Museum, Apollo Kithara has precisely the smooth, digital look that Byung-Chul Han objects to, though one might have thought he would at least acknowledge the amount of time and care that Koons puts into each of his works. 

         

At any rate, that's what I admire: Koons may, like Keats [6], appear to be a blank idiot when wearing Apollo's famous laurel wreath, but he isn't. 

 

As for all his talk of universal humanity and shared meanings - his insistence that we and the peoples of the past feel the same things and have similar thoughts and values - well, that's the sort of regrettable idealism that many artists like to believe and why, ultimately, as Herbert Grönemeyer, once said: Trust art, but never trust an artist ...

 

Jeff Koons 

Apollo Windspinner (2020-22)     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Koons's Apollo Kithara is an animatronic sculpture featured within the exhibition Jeff Koons: Apollo, at the Slaughterhouse, Hydra, Greece, in association with the DESTE Foundation  (21 June - 31 Oct 2022). For more details, click here. 

 

[2] In his Preface to the 1886 edition of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche makes it clear that he finds the book questionable to say the least; a Romantic work born of an overheated sensibility; "badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused [...] lacking in any desire for logical purity, and even suspicious of the propriety of proof, a book for initates [...] an arrogant and fanatical book that [...] has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new and secret paths and dancing-places." 

      In other words, too much Dionysian frenzy and not enough Apollonian calm. It is, by some margin, my least favourite of Nietzsche's books, although, it is perhaps his best known and most widely read text outside of philosophical circles, with the exception of Zarathustra. 

      See 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism', Preface to The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside, (Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 5-6. 

 

[3] Interestingly, someone who advocates for the Apollonian is the American feminist writer Camille Paglia. Whilst she broadly accepts Nietzsche's definition of the Apollonian and Dionysian, she attributes all human progress to the former (associated with masculinity, reason, celibacy and/or homosexuality) in revolt against the Chthonic forces of nature (including womanhood and procreation): "Everything great in western civilization comes from the struggle against our origins."

      See Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, (Vintage Books, 1991). The line quoted is on p. 40.  

 

[4] Those familiar with Greek mythology will recall that Apollo killed a huge serpent, called Python, who, it is said, not only persecuted Apollo's mother during her pregnancy, but wished to prevent Apollo from establishing his own temple and oracle at Delphi.   

 

[5] See Nietzsche's essay 'On the Use and Abuse of History for Life' (1874), in Untimely Meditations. 

 

[6] I'm referring to the poem by Keats entitled 'Hymn to Apollo' (not to be confused with his 'Ode to Apollo', though both works were probably written in 1815). Click here to read on allpoetry.com

 

 

This post is for MLG Maria Thanassa.  

 

And Venus Among the Fishes Skips

Ana de Macedo: the Venus of Alentejo

Photo used with permission from her Instagram account 

@ana_macedo

 

 

 I. 

 

Venus rising from the sea - or, as the Little Greek would say, αναδυομένη Αφροδίτη - is, of course, one of the iconic figures within the cultural (and pornographic) imagination of the West.  

 

According to Athenaeus, the idea was inspired by the ancient Greek courtesan Phryne [1], who liked to let down her hair and step naked into the sea, particularly during the time when the Eleusinian Mysteries were being celebrated, or festivals held in honour of Poseidon . 

The renowned painter Apelles created a much-admired picture of this event [2], whilst the equally renowned scuptor Praxiteles - who was one of Phryne's many lovers - is believed to have used her as the model for his statue of Aphrodite (the first life-sized nude female form ever sculpted in ancient Greece). 

 

Although some historians have pooh-poohed the story of Phryne's skinny dipping in the sea as sensationalised fabrication [3], I can happily believe it, and see how it might inspire artists. For as D. H. Lawrence writes, we glimpse the gods in the bodies of men and women [4] ... 

 

 

II. 

 

In his poem 'The Man of Tyre', for example, Lawrence describes a man watching as a woman who had waded into the pale green sea of evening in order to wash herself, now turns, and comes slowly back to shore:

 

 

Oh lovely, lovely, with the dark hair piled up, as she went deeper,

      deeper down the channel, then rose shallower, shallower,

with the full thighs slowly lifting of the wader wading shorewards

and the shoulders pallid with light from the silent sky behind

both breasts dim and mysterious, with the glamorous kindness

      of twilight between them

and the dim blotch of black maidenhair like an indicator,

giving a message to the man. 

 

So in the cane-brake he clasped his hands in delight

that could only be god-given, and murmured:

Lo! God is one god! but here in the twilight

godly and lovely comes Aphrodite out of the sea

towards me! [5]

 

 

However, Lawrence also catches sight of the gods in the bodies of animals too. Thus, in the poem 'Whales weep not!', he informs us that Aphrodite is a happy hot-blooded she-whale:

and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin

she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea

she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males

and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.

 

 

These are surely some of the loveliest lines in Lawrence's poetry and, crucially, they encourage us to reconsider (i) the relation we have to ourselves and our own flesh; (ii) the relation we have to others and their bodies; (iii) the relation we have to animals; and (iv) the relation we have to the gods.

 

And, surely, that's the purpose of art, isn't it?    

 

 

Fresco from Pompei, Casa di Venus, 1st century AD 

A classic example of Venus Anadyomene

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Phryne, whose real name (somewhat ironically) was Mnesarete, was born c. 371 BC and became a notorious member of that highly educated class of companion women known as hetaerae [ἑταῖραι]. She is perhaps best remembered for her beauty and for her trial for impiety (a capital offence), where she was defended by the orator Hypereides (another of her lovers). 

      When it seemed as if his arguments might be falling on deaf ears, Hypereides removed Phryne's robe and bared her breasts before the judges in order to arouse their pity. This seemed to do the trick; the judges decided they could not condemn a priestess of Aphrodite to death. And so Phyrne was acquitted. Little wonder that modern poets and artists have continued to find her irresistable.     

 

[2] Sadly, this picture is now lost. It is mentioned, however, in Pliny's Natural History [XXXV, 86-87] According to the Roman author, Apelles employed Pancaspe (aka Campaspe) - mistress to Alexander the Great - as his model. 

 

[3] See for example Christine Mitchell Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art, (The University of Michigan Press, 1995). 

 

[4] See the post 'I Shall Speak of Geist, of Flame, and of Glimpses' (29 Sept 2021), where I speak of Lawrence's idea of glimpsing something divine in mortal being with reference to his poetry. 

      And see also 'The Southend Venus' (26 Aug 2016) and 'The Southend Venus (Alternative Version)' (27 Aug, 2016), where I write of glimpsing the goddess in the girl on a beach in Essex. 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Man of Tyre', in The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 606-607.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Whales weep not!', in The Poems, Vol. I, ibid., pp. 607-608. Lines quoted p. 608.

 

 

For a related post to this one, discussing Rimbaud's poetic take on the idea of Venus anadyomene, click here. 

Talaria: On the Secularisation of Winged Footwear from Hermes to Jeremy Scott

 

Adidas Originals by Jeremy Scott 

JS Wings 2.0 Gold (2014)

 

 

As everybody knows, the first pair of winged sandals belonged to the Greek god Hermes ...

 

Made of imperishable gold, they enabled him to fly as swift as any bird and to move freely between worlds (which is handy when employed as a divine messenger). They also magically ensured that he left no footprint at the scene of a crime (which is convenient when out on the rob). 

 

Interestingly, Perseus famously wears the sandals to help him slay the Medusa. But how he came to be in possession of them - and what happened to them afterwards - I don't know.  

 

What I do know, however, is that we live today in a very different world; one in which, thanks to irreverent American fashion designer Jeremy Scott,  everyone is entitled to wear wings on their feet, not just gods and heroes ... 

 

Determined to become a fashion designer from a young age, Scott launched his own brand in Paris, in 1997, just a year after graduating from the Pratt Institute in New York, mixing street style, pop culture, and high fashion in a distinctive style. Although considered neither serious nor commercial by many within the fashion establishment, Scott became a cult figure with an enthusiastic fan base.

 

Recognising his talent and his appeal, Moschino appointed him as their creative director in 2013. But that's not what interests me here. What interests me here, rather, is his extraordinary collaboration with Adidas beginning five years earlier ...

 

When Adidas Originals launched Scott's eye-catching collection of footwear in 2008, his winged high-tops transformed the sneaker market and elevated him to superstar status with mass appeal. Since then, there have been various versions of the shoe, including my favourite version shown above from 2014, designed in reflective gold patent leather, with a gum sole speckled with gold dust.       

 

Who could ask for more? They make the talaria made by Hephaestus pale in comparison and John O'Connor's winged boots designed for Mr Freedom in the early 1970s - as famously worn by Elton John (and written about by Paul Gorman here) - look somewhat clumsy and clownish.

 

 

Gymnosophy 1: On the Naked Philosophers of the Ancient World

Medieval image (c. 1420) of Alexander encountering the γυμνοσοφισταί

I.

Ascetic - often militant - nudity has a very long history, predating skyclad witches, free-loving hippies, and German naturists preaching their vitalist philosophy of Lebensreform and whilst I'm mostly interested in the modern world, I thought it might be fun to provide some ancient historical context for more recent expressions of Nacktkultur. 

The term, gymnosophists, was used by Plutarch when describing an encounter between Alexander and a group of Indian wisemen who regarded both food and clothing as detrimental to a life of pure contemplation and so followed a strict vegetarian diet and went around naked at all times.

What Alexander made of these holy fools who prided themselves on their extraordinary impassivity and indifference to suffering, I don't know. But reports of these (and other) naked thinkers obviously got back to Greece and seem to have influenced the development of various schools of thought; they are believed, for example, to have served as role models for the Cynics, who loved to sit naked in the marketplace.    

It's also worth noting that Pyrrho - along with Anaxarchus - had accompanied Alexander on his trip to Asia and exposure to Eastern philosophy seems to have inspired his own ideas and ethics. Having said that, however, it's important to remember that his ideal of ataraxia has roots in earlier Greek philosophy and it would be mistaken, I think, to push the Indo-Greek connection too far here.   

Similarly, the Greeks didn't need any foreign encouragement to go round naked ...

II.

In Ancient Greece - as in other ancient Mediterranean cultures - male nudity, particlarly within an aesthetico-athletic context, was the cultural norm.

Only women were expected to do the decent thing and cover up and, apart from Aphrodite, goddesses too were normally portrayed clothed in the Classical period, or posed in a modest manner with hands strategically placed. It might surprise some readers to discover that the (admittedly misogynistic) phrase Put 'em away, love is first recorded in a fragment of text by the comic playwright Aristophanes.

Socrates and his mates would often head down to the gymnasium to admire the bodies of youths working out or competing in sports. The love of beauty was an important component of Greek philosophy and this certainly included the beauty of the human form; indeed, this was often regarded as the most exceptional form of beauty - the mark not only of civilisation at its highest, but an unfolding of the sacred. Thus it was that participants in religious ceremonies were also often nude. 


III.

Whilst there are still plenty of naked saints and gurus wandering round India, devoted to their gods, practicing yoga, posing for the tourists, etc., the modern Greeks have pretty much covered up and full nudity is not officially sanctioned even on beaches (although often tolerated in practice).

As for gymnosophy, the term was bandied about in the late-19th and early-20th century by several groups and movements in Europe and the USA, denoting an ideology that insisted truth loves to go naked and that mankind needs to return to a more natural way of living (one that often involved asceticism and meditation, as well as nudity and eurythmics).

The English Gymnosophical Society was founded in 1922 and numbered Gerald Gardner among its early members. Gardner, of course, would later become a central figure within naturism and neopagan witchcraft or Wicca, as he termed it. I shall explore these and other connections in future posts ...   

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked Germans, should click here.

Readers interested in part three of this post on naked witches, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

At the Gym with D. H. Lawrence

Natural born pedagogue and former Croydon school teacher, D. H. Lawrence, was keenly interested in the subject of education and spilt a great deal of ink addressing the question of what its purpose is and how it might be reformed upon non-idealistic lines. That is to say, turned from an intellectual pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, into an activity that awakens the primary affective centres.

Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, Lawrence was a passionate advocate of games and physical instruction and valued the sports hall or gym as a place of vital learning as much as the science lab or art class: "Let us have a gymnasium as the Greeks had it, and for the same purpose: the purpose of pure, perilous delight in contest, and profound, mystic delight in unified motion." [158]

Lawrence wants boys to learn how to fight - "like young bantam cocks"- with fists and with foils: "Teach fencing, teach wrestling, teach jiu-jitsu, every form of fierce hand to hand contest." [159] Football, however, would be taken off the curriculum - as would self-conscious body building or any wilful attempt to keep fit. Lawrence loathes the thought of someone sweating and grunting in the gym merely to develop muscles and perversely flaunt their healthy physique. He writes:

"The modern athlete parading the self-conscious mechanism of his body, reeking with a degraded physical, muscular self-consciousness ... is one of the most stupid phenomena mankind has ever witnessed. The physique is alright in itself. But to have your physique in your head, like having sex in the head, is unspeakably repulsive. To have your own physique on your mind all the time: why, it is a semi-pathological state, the exact counterpoise to the querulous peevish invalid." [157-58]

Clearly, for Lawrence, who subscribes to a system of dualism in which mind and body are forever distinct in polarised opposition, the problem is that modern athletes and keep-fit fanatics mix the two modes of consciousness; they prostitute the primary self to the secondary idea (which, of course, is Lawrence’s definition of masturbation).

What, then, are we to make of this? I suppose, in reply, I would wish to make three points:

Firstly, not all invalids are querulous or peevish and most do not wish for others to define, categorise, or stereotype them by their disability or illness, let alone allow it to obsessively dominate their own thoughts and behaviour. Lawrence, who spent a good deal of time in bed either ill or recovering from illness, may be speaking for himself and from his own experience here, but he shouldn’t generalise in such a manner.

Secondly, I’m sensitive also to Lawrence’s problematic gender politics and the fact that he only considers the physical education of boys in the above. The girls, presumably, will be too busy making their own dresses "and delicately unfolding the skirts and bodices, or the loose Turkish trousers and little vests, or whatever else they like to wear" [152-53]. They needn’t concern themselves with contest and naked wrestling, because, according to Lawrence, the soul of woman resides in fashion not fighting: "She puts on her clothes as a flower unfolds its petals, as an utterance from her own nature, instinctive and individual." [153]

Finally, despite referring his own model of a physical training facility back to ancient Greece, I’m not sure Lawrence fully appreciates to what extent the γυμνάσιον also functioned as a place for socializing, communal bathing and, crucially, engaging in intellectual pursuits. The nakedness of the athletes encouraged an aesthetic appreciation of the male body glistening with oil, and lectures and discussions on philosophy and the arts were frequently held at the gymnasia.

The Greeks certainly didn’t suspend all moralizing and put off all idea when they stripped for exercise as Lawrence likes to imagine; provisions were made not only for physical training, but ethical instruction. Plato’s Academy was, first and foremost, a gymnasium. As was the Lyceum, at which Aristotle established his school.

In sum: agon is a wider, more complex, and more ideal concept than Lawrence seems to realise ...

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 85-166.

Aspasia

Aspasia on the Pnyx, by Henry Holiday (1888) 

Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

According to Nietzsche, great philosophers - like great artists - are sensual individuals full of excess vitality; lovers not just of the wisdom that resides in language, but of the truth located in bodies. Thus it's no surprise to discover that even old Socrates couldn't help being crazy with desire for Aspasia; the beautiful and accomplished courtesan who captured the heart of Pericles.

As a member of that class of women known as hetaerae, Aspasia enjoyed a level of independence and influence far above that of most other women in Greek society at this time. Renowned for her artistic and intellectual abilities, as well as her skills in the bedroom, she actively took part in symposia alongside male members of the social and political elite and her opinion was both highly respected and frequently sought out. Indeed, despite her somewhat illicit reputation, Plutarch informs us that many of these men even encouraged their wives to listen to her converse. 

Of course, she was not loved by all and Aspasia faced many personal and legal attacks from those envious of her fashion sense and her powerful position. She was accused, for example, of corrupting the young women of Athens due to her distinctive style and put on trial for impiety. Aristophanes even attempted to hold Aspasia responsible for the Peloponnesian War - labeling her the new Helen.

After Pericles died in 429 BC, Aspasia took up with Lysicles, an Athenian general. Unfortunately, little is known of her after this date. She is believed to have died shortly before the execution of her admirer Socrates in 399 BC.

Her name and her fame, however, have significantly lived on and not only does she appear in numerous works of modern art and literature, but, like Sappho, she is an important source of inspiration for many feminists, poets, and philosophers (both male and female).

An untimely figure, Aspasia both embodied and abolished all history in her person. She lived beyond judgement; accepting the abuse of those who spoke against her with stoicism and a wry smile. We can only ask: what's not to love about this astonishing woman?