Welcome

Welcome to follower Nam Hoai, a Vietnamese architect with two blogs: nhomthangmuoimot, about 19th and 20th century art from different parts of the world, and nguyenhoainamkts, which covers a miscellany of subjects, including architecture, photography, and music.

The Water Organ

I’ve been reading Lindsey Davis’s Falco series, and as the Roman History Reading Group is due to read Last Act in Palmyra in December, I thought I’d blog a few items. (book cover copied from librarything)

One reason for our hero travelling to the Eastern edges of the Empire is to track down a missing hydraulis player. The hydraulis or water organ is said to have been invented by Ctesibius in the 3rd century BC. In Ctesibius’s version, water was used to regulate the flow of air through pipes to produce music from a keyboard, but as time went by the use of bellows became as popular as water. Both versions of the instrument died out in the West after the fall of the Western Empire, but survived in the East. In 757, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus presented Pepin the Short, King of the Franks and father of Charlemagne, with a bellows-operated version which was further developed over time to become the church organ as we know it today.

The article on hydraula from the LacusCurtius edition of the 1875 Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities provides links to the textual evidence about the hydraulis. We do not have to rely purely on textual evidence, however. The hydraulis is shown in mosaics.

This part of a mosaic comes from wikicommons, which does not give any information about the source, but it appears to be based on a mosaic found in Nennig in 1852.

This part of a mosaic comes from wikicommons, who have taken it from the page on the Villa Dar Bur Ammera mosaic at livius.org.

The remains of a hydraulis were found in excavations of Aquincum (modern Budapest) in 1931. The pamphlet guide to the Aquincumi Múzeum in Budapest shows a display of excavated pieces and a modern reconstruction.

Parts of another hydraulis were found at Dion, near Mount Olympus, in 1992. archaeologychannel.org has a rather old page with a radio interview about the hydraulis and a video interview and demonstration. The page does have other links to information, but unfortunately they are all broken. The video dates back to the early days of streaming (the radio interview thoughtfully explains what streaming is) and is rather small and jerky. You can see a rather better video of the hydraulis in action below:



Musica Romana, a modern group specialising in the recreation and performance of Roman music, include an extract from a piece called Aulos et Hydraulis on their myspace page. (except where noted, illustrations in this post come from wikicommons).

Another Welcome

Welcome to H. Niyazi from Three Pipe Problem, the three pipes being art, history, and mysteries.

The Death of Socrates in Art

In my last post I talked about hemlock, but I’d forgotten that Gary Corby of A Dead Man Fell From the Sky also covered hemlock quite recently. We’ll continue by looking at some artistic depictions of Socrates’s death.

Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy’s Death of Socrates was painted in 1650. It is now in Florence, some sites say in the Galleria degli Uffizi, others say in the Galleria Palatina. Neither shows the picture on its website. (Picture from Larousse used by permission)

Jean Francois Pierre Peyron painted two pictures of the Death of Socrates in the 1780s. The above version is in Copenhagen’s Statens Museum for Kunst, while Peyron’s other picture on this theme is in Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum. (public domain picture from wikicommons)

Working at the same time as Peyron, David painted this picture of the Death of Socrates which is now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. (image from Metropolitan Museum, used by permission)

Hemlock

The episode of House shown the other night was Knight Fall. The patient, Sir William, was a re-enactor who became ill during a mock-mediaeval joust. One of the possibilities put forward as the cause of his illness was hemlock poisoning. I was surprised by this as his sufferings were completely different to the image of hemlock poisoning I was familiar with from Plato’s description of the death of Socrates. (The pictures are by H. Zell and Fabelfroh and come from wikipedia, used under a GNU Free Documentation Licence)

And when Socrates saw him, he said: “Well, my good man, you know about these things; what must I do?” “Nothing,” he replied, “except drink the poison and walk about till your legs feel heavy; then lie down, and the poison will take effect of itself.”

At the same time he held out the cup to Socrates. He took it, and very gently, Echecrates, without trembling or changing color or expression, but looking up at the man with wide open eyes, as was his custom, said: “What do you say about pouring a libation to some deity from this cup? May I, or not?” “Socrates,” said he, “we prepare only as much as we think is enough.” “I understand,” said Socrates; “but I may and must pray to the gods that my departure hence be a fortunate one; so I offer this prayer, and may it be granted.” With these words he raised the cup to his lips and very cheerfully and quietly drained it.

~~~

He walked about and, when he said his legs were heavy, lay down on his back, for such was the advice of the attendant. The man who had administered the poison laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said “No”; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And again he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said—and these were his last words—“Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius. Pay it and do not neglect it.” “That,” said Crito, “shall be done; but see if you have anything else to say.” To this question he made no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito when he saw it, closed his mouth and eyes.

Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, who was, as we may say, of all those of his time whom we have known, the best and wisest and most righteous man.

(Plato  Phaedo, translated by Harold North Fowler )

(Although Plato doesn’t actually mention hemlock, just calling it φάρμακον (drug, poison, medicine), we do know from elsewhere that hemlock was used to administer the death penalty in Athens.)

House’s patient, on the other hand, suffered from a seizure, bleeding eyes, vomiting, a rash, heart and kidney problems. It was long drawn out and painful (but not, thanks to modern medicine, fatal), not like Plato's description of Socrates’s gentle death at all.

The difference between Plato’s account and more modern accounts of hemlock poisoning have led to charges that Plato falsified his description to give Socrates a more fitting, philosophical death. It turns out, however, that there are two different, related, plants called hemlock: poison hemlock (conium maculatum) and water hemlock (cicuta virosa), plus a non-poisonous tree called hemlock because the crushed leaves smell similar to poison hemlock. The description of Socrates’s death fits poison hemlock, as discussed in Enid Bloch’s article: Hemlock Poisoning and the Death of Socrates: Did Plato Tell the Truth?

Most modern descriptions of hemlock poisoning, on the other hand, are based on water hemlock, a small amount of which House’s patient had eaten, which in the final solution exacerbated problems he’d laid up for himself by abusing steroids. Polite Dissent discusses the medical aspects of this episode of House.

Belated Welcomes

A belated welcome to new followers:

Amalia T. of Good to Begin Well, Better to End Well, who writes on mythology and history

Mufti G M of Lout de Chevalier, who writes in Indonesian about the oil industry, and has a great soundtrack

William Wolfe

Nachtigalle of Playground Canvas, who writes in German

Fazleybayim

Zsuzsi

Just Another Sarah

Georgia Memon

Persephone: the 18th and 19th centuries

Having looked at Persephone in the 16th and 17th centuries, we now turn to 18th and 19th centuries.

Our first picture, Psyche Obtaining the Elixir of Beauty from Proserpine is by Charles Joseph Natoire and dates from around 1735. It is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.



In 1866 Swinburne wrote a poem called The Garden of Proserpine, an extract from which, accompanied by animations, appears in the above video.

In 1874 Dante Gabriel Rosetti painted the above picture of Persephone with a pomegranate, now in London's Tate Gallery.

Lord Frederic Leighton chose an unusual moment form the legend to paint in his 1891 "The Return of Persephone", now in Leeds Art Gallery. (all images in this post are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

Persephone: the 17th century

In my last post we looked at the story of Persephone in the 16th century, when the rape (i.e., kidnapping) of Persephone was a popular theme from the story. We now move on to the 17th century, looking first at pictures of the rape and then a few pictures of Persephone in the underworld.

In the first decade of the century, Hendrik van Balen painted Pluto and Persephone, which is now in the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.



Bernini's 1621-1622 statue of Pluto and Proserpina is now in Rome's Galleria Borghese. (public domain image from Museum Syndicate)



Rembrandt painted the above Rape of Persephone in 1631, which is Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, but does not appear to be on their website.



Pignoni's 1650 above L'Enlèvement de Proserpine is now in Nancy's Musée des Beaux-Arts.



In the early 1680s Giordano painted a series of oil studies or modelli which are now in London's National Gallery. These were preparation for a series of frescoes in Florence's Palazzo Medici Riccardi, one of which, showing the rape of Proserpina, is shown above.



Turning to the theme of Persephone in the underworld, the above detail from a 1622 picture of Hell by François de Nomé. The complete picture is now in Besançon's Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie.(image used under creative commons licence, courtesy of baroque-in-art.org) Paris's Louvre has a painting of Orpheus before Pluto and Persephone by Perrier and dating from 1647-1650. (unless otherwise ascribed, all images in this post are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

To finish this look at Persephone in the 17th century here is an extract from the overture to Lully's opera Proserpina. YouTube also has extracts from Act III amongst the related videos.

Persephone: The 16th century

Next in Ovid's Metamorphoses is the story of Proserpine, or as she is better known under her Greek name, Persephone. Paintings of Persephone in the 16th century concentrated on the Rape of Persephone ("rape" here meaning kidnapping). (picture of pomegranate from wikicommons used under creative commons licence. Other images are in the public domain and also come from wikicommons.)



Our first picture was painted by Niccolò dell'Abbate, probably shortly before his death in 1571. The painting is now in the Louvre. At about the same time Christoph Schwarz was producing a Rape of Proserpine, now in Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum.



Paris Bordone must have painted his Rape of Proserpine some time before this as he died in 1571. The painting is now in Milan's Galleria Salomon (scroll down).



In 1581 Hans von Aachen painted the above Rape of Persephone, which is now in Sibiu's Brukenthal Palace. In 1598 Joseph Heintz the Elder painted a Rape of Prosperine, which is now in Dresden's Gemaldegalerie. Unfortunately, their online presence is in Second Life and so inaccessible to me as I'm not a member.

Vae Victis

In 390 BC or rather more likely 387/6 BC, Gauls defeated a Roman army in a battle at the river Allia and occupied Rome itself, which had been more or less abandoned after the battle except for the Capitol. The stirring events surrounding this are told by Livy in Book 5, sections 34 to 50 of his History of Rome (scroll down). (licensed from wikicommons under GNU Free Documentation Licence)

This has not been a fruitful episode for later artists, but I have tracked down two pictures.



The first, called "Camillus Rescuing Rome from Brennus", was painted by Sebastiano Ricci in 1716, and is now in the Detroit Institute of Arts. (public domain image from museumsyndicate)



The second (really rather disturbing) picture, called variously "Brennus and His Part of the Spoils" or "The Spoils of the Battle", was painted by Paul Jamin in 1893 and is now in a private collection. (public domain image from wikicommons)