Two recent stories reported in the New York Times about U.S. professors being fired for posting art pieces that students or parents found offensive to their beliefs. One (above) was a painting within a 14th-century Islamic history book supposed to represent G and M. As showed [with much warning] during an art class at Hamline College. The other is the (monumental) Renaissance Michelangelo’s David [exhibited a la Galleria dell’Academia, in Florence]. Whose posting during a Florida sixth-grader class on Renaissance art led to accusations of pornography! These extreme cases of religious beliefs taking over the classroom (and rationality!) remind me of the difference I noticed between teaching in D and W, since in the former institution, classes and tests can take place any day that is not a public holiday, following general secular rules in French public institutions, while in the latter, every possible effort should be made (by the University) to provide an alternative test…
Archive for Renaissance
religions in the classroom
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, University life with tags Florence, Florida, Galleria dell'Academia, Hamline College, Islamic art, Michelangelo, Pennsylvania, rationalism, religious art, religious beliefs, Renaissance, secularism, theocracy, Université Paris Dauphine, University of Warwick, US politics on April 10, 2023 by xi'ana journal of the plague year³ [lazy we]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel, University life, Wines with tags BD, book review, Cayenne, COVID-19, film review, French Guiana, grimdark, Italy, Journal of the Plague Year, Malayalam cinema, manga, Milano, Musée Jacquemart-André, pandemics, Renaissance, Russia, Sandro Botticelli on February 12, 2022 by xi'an
Had the opportunity [Xmas gift!] to visit the Botticelli exhibit at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. Besides the sheer beauty of the paintings, while is timeless, I was also impressed by the activity of Botticelli as an entrepreneur and designer, declining his signature on different media and delegating part of the realisation to employees. 
Read the beginning of the third volume of Raven’s mark, Crowfall, but could not complete the book as the story was terrible and the main character mostly disintegrated (both literally and scenario-wise). Too bad that an initially great if grim universe construction could not keep up till the end. (Involving deities is always risky in this branch of the literature!) Also read another BD taking place near Cayenne and other places we visited, if in the 18th Century.
Watched over a lazy weekend two several admittedly terrible movies whose only appeal was watching in the vernarcular, Major Grom: Plague Doctor, and Minnal Murali. Also was rather disappointed by Don’t look up, because I found the satire too heavy-handed. And hence failing to engage readers about the sloth pace of governments and influencers to face the climate crisis, favouring futile or immediate concerns (as shown by French gilets jaunes putting la fin du mois above la fin du monde, or UK media cycling on BoJo’s partygate when Russia is about to invade Ukraine!). I also presumably missed most of the US-centric undercurrents.
royal Chambord [jatp]
Posted in pictures, Travel with tags château de Chambord, François I, France, French history, jatp, Loire, Renaissance, royal castle, Touraine, vacations on August 2, 2020 by xi'an
Villandry castle [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags Château de Villandry, Cher, France, jatp, Loire, Loire countries, Renaissance, vacations on July 30, 2020 by xi'an
L’œuvre au noir
Posted in Books with tags alchemy, book reviews, L'Oeuvre au Noir, Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian, philosophy, Renaissance on September 28, 2013 by xi'an
L‘œuvre au noir (The Abyss) is a 1968 book written by Marguerite Yourcenar I read decades ago and took with me this summer. It tells the story of Zeno(n), a mediaeval precursor of the Renaissance humanist, involved in medicine, alchemy, engineering and philosophy, but above all fighting or at least resisting the pressure of irrational beliefs and superstitions until they lead him to suicide. As acknowledged by Yourcenar in her notes, the character borrows from Renaissance scientists like Erasme, Giordano Bruno, Mikołaj Copernic, Leonardo da Vinci, and medical pioneers like Paracelsus (very much like Paracelsus!), Michel Serat and Etienne Dolet. Zenon is an atheist at a time when atheism is punished by burning at the stake, and an experimenter in an epoch when alchemy and dissection were assimilated to sorcery. The original title (translated as nigredo) is the first of the three steps in the alchemist transmutation process but also applies to the transformation of Zenon from what the society planned for him into a free and rational man. So free that he could choose himself the time and manner of his death. So rational that he reached a spiritual solitude that made him see his fellow humans with the doctor’s detached compassion and the philosopher’s pessimistic analysis of their superstitions. (The English title is just missing the point!)
This is a 
20th century novel (on which Yourcenar tolled for many years, from three short stories to the final version), which makes the highly modern vision of the imaginary Zenon less remarkable than the steps made by the above real characters, but the text abounds in remarkable discussions and monologues that reminded me of similar passages in Memoirs of Hadrian. Both books are centred on (impossibly and unrealistically) exceptional men with visions that set them out of their historical time. The fate of Zenon is somehow underlying the whole book and his weak and failed attempt at fleeing Bruges and the Inquisition can be understood at the first step towards his philosopher’s suicide, preferring to face the ecclesiastical tribunal and debate of some of his ideas than Flemish smugglers and an inglorious end by being tossed into the North Sea. L‘œuvre au noir is a remarkable if pessimistic book that reflects on science and intolerance in a beautiful style, a book that I put in par with the equally great Memoirs of Hadrian.
