View allAll Photos Tagged sacral
vista of the original Gothic Louvre palace behind St John Baptist
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
property of the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland
provenance: Czulice, Lesser Poland (Malopolska region)
IMHO the statue is a little older
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
Baptism of Christ on the other side of the panel
provenance: St Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice
location: East Slovak Museum in Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
Altar of the Doctors of the Church, 1510-1520
author of the statues: Master Paul of Levoča
author of the paintings: Master Petrus
location: Šariš, eastern Slovakia
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
I think is very amazing the church of Our Lady of Rosary, in Guarulhos. For a few months I have been passing front that every morning when I go to work and either when a I come back to home. It´s nearby my home and sometimes I frequent the mass on Sunday with my family. In the the past Saturday morning I invite my daughter to make some sketches of that, we sat on the opposite side of the Avenue St. Louis, nearly
20 minutes, sufficiently to drew, me on Molesquin and the Amanda in her notebook. This is my point of view of that amazing church.
A igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário em Guarulhos é uma construção que acho muito simpática. Há alguns meses passo todos os dias em frente, de manhã quando vou ao trabalho e também quando volto para casa. Este igreja fica bem perto de casa e algumas vezes assinto a missa do domingo com a minha família. No sábado passado de manhã eu convidei a minha filha para fazer alguns sketches da fachada. Ficamos sentados na Avenida São Luis por aproximadamente 20 minutos, que foi tempo suficiente para o registro a lápis no Molesquine, e a Amanda no caderno dela.
interior of the church of dürnstein. austria.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Luminance HDR 2.2.1 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk06
Parameters:
Contrast Mapping factor: 1
Saturation Factor: 0.9
Detail Factor: 10
------
PreGamma: 0.33
Altar of the Doctors of the Church, 1510-1520
author of the statues: Master Paul of Levoča
author of the paintings: Master Petrus
location: Šariš, eastern Slovakia
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
property of the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland
provenance: Lesser Poland
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
Interesting document of the counter-reformation sacral art - 17th century roman-catholic Gothic Revival altarpiece in the style of local late Gothic altars with wings and predella. The upper part with the medallion depicting David with lions is a Baroque addition from 1687.
location: East Slovak Museum, Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
property of the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
"La sacralidad del monumento es posible establecerla a partir de una serie de testimonios literarios y epigráficos, que encuentran en el santuario portugués a cielo abierto de Panoias (Vila Real) una de sus expresiones más claras: además de las peñas talladas, cuya parte superior ha sido allanada para albergar diversas cavidades, el sitio ofrece inscripciones latinas que nos informan sobre los sacrificios realizados. De una de las inscripciones se deduce que el sacrificio tenía lugar en un edificio que coronaba la construcción. Mientras las entrañas de las víctimas se quemaban en unos nichos o cubetas y la sangre vertía en otros similares, al tiempo que se rendía culto a las divinidades, algunas de ellas indígenas. Por tanto el sacrificio comprendía varias fases y en lugares distintos; se trataría de un ritual de iniciación que ofrece un orden y un itinerario determinado, que forzosamente hay que relacionar con la variada morfología de estos monumentos.
De esta manera cabe dar cierta cobertura a la reconstrucción idealizada de sacrificios de animales con vertido de sangre que podrían haberse realizado en el altar de Ulaca. Por último, la coincidencia de la orientación del altar con la cumbre más alta de las alineaciones de Gredos visibles desde Ulaca, el Pico Zapatero, podría no ser casual y estar intencionadamente buscada quizás en asociación con algún fenómeno celeste de conocimiento ya en la Edad del Hierro."
www.castrosyverracosdeavila.com/cyv/index.php?ver=castros...
Rimavské Brezovo, like many other municipalities in the region, is associated with mining history. The originally early Gothic church, towering over the silhouette of low village houses, used to be dedicated to the Birth of the Virgin Mary before the Reformation. The name of the village was given according to the first written historical reference from the year 1334 as Brezou and, for some time, it was also the county seat of Malohont. The single-nave church was probably built in the first half of the 14th century with a square-ended chancel and a rib vault. Due to the population increase connected with the establishment of iron works facility in the village at the end of the 18th century, the church capacity was insufficient. Therefore, the largest reconstruction of the temple was undertaken in 1893. The original sacristy on the northern side was demolished, the entrance was walled and the nave was extended southwards. The older chancel thus lost its role and started to be used as a sitting space. Thanks to this reconstruction, medieval murals were found under layers of lime paint and their restoration was then devoted to I. Möller and I. Huszek. Unfortunately the work was not always done in the most sparing way. Quality interior paintings in the original Gothic section are probably the work of artists from the workshop of the Master of Ochtiná chancel. The most striking element is Christ in Glory, the figure of the blessing Christ in the shining circle with the Sun and the Moon, depicted in the eastern part of the vault. The winged lion and the golden-winged eagle on the sides symbolize the evangelists Mark and John. Opposite to them are an angel and a winged bull as Matthew and Luke. The Marian theme is elaborated in two bands around the perimeter of the entire chancel. The lower band of the northern wall belongs to the depiction of the Death of the Virgin Mary, above this composition we find a quite unique, for this region, Italian-Byzantine motif of the Assumption with the figure of Christ in the mandorla. A small child stands on his knees as the soul of the Virgin Mary, the whole scene is held by four stylized angels. Beneath the Marian cycle, the entire perimeter of the walls is painted with a template ornament, into which the strip of four-leaf-shaped medallions with heads of prophets is inserted. This part of the paintings appears to be the least affected by the re-paintings and is preserved in a very good condition and in the original colours. On the walls of the nave, due to various building modifications, the frescoes were preserved only in fragments. The most intact frescoes are on the southern part of the triumphal arch: the Christ in a mandorla, a blessing angel, or St. Bartholomew, who was skinned alive, he carries the skin on a stick. Remnants of the Christological Cycle, such as the Christ carrying the cross or the Crucifixion, were preserved on the northern wall of the nave. The southern wall was largely destroyed during the redevelopment. However, research has revealed a depiction of St. Anne as a madonna with a child in her arms, with women carrying gifts in baskets walking into her direction. They also carry young pigeons to prepare a traditional strengthening soup for the fresh mother. This scene is very likely utterly unique on the territory of Slovakia. Comprehensive restoration and research were carried out in successive stages from 2005 till 2019, and the original approximately 700-year-old paving in the chancel was a valuable discovery as well. The restoration of the chancel was awarded by the main prize of the Cultural monument of the year 2012, the artworks were renewed by M. Janšto and R. Boroš. The church logo symbolically depicts a fresco of a young maiden attacked by devils in the hell from the church nave
The High altar of Saint Nicholas in the parish Church of Saint Nicholas in Prešov, eastern Slovakia, was erected already in late Gothic period (1490-1506, sculptor Ján Weiss). After the fire of 1673 the Gothic shrine with more than life-size carvings survived and was incorporated to the new Baroque altar construction of 1696 with statues by Jozef Hartmann, with the dominant Saint Sebastian. The prominent position of Saint Sebastian in the altar dedicated to Saint Nicholas can be explained by the intervention of the city mayor, donor of the altar, whose patron saint was Sebastian.
(please do not use without permission)
Chiropractic adjustments in the Studio are performed by our chiropractor, Dr. Aaron McMaster, using his hands to provide specific and gentle input into dysfunctional spinal joints (subluxations) to restore healthy movement. The effects of a spinal adjustment have been shown to improve coordination, proprioception, muscles activation, strength, and human performance
A fir tree alley of sacral proportions at the Vuojoki Mansion park, Eurajoki. Think of getting married here on a beautiful summer day.
location: Central Slovak Museum, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
provenance: Selce pri Banskej Bystrici
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
Ankh model of the chakras system is presented in the form of sacral or spiritual symbols of ancient India and Egypt. Such known elements as ida, pingala, sushumna and 7 main chakras are presented in this model. Date Source Own work Author Shatilov Konstantin
Baptism of Christ on the other side of the panel
provenance: St Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice
location: East Slovak Museum in Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
credits: background sacral-stock.deviantart.com/art/Background-2-55153415
gown: Leezu
necklace and bangle: Mandala
Parish church of the Holy Cross, Kežmarok, Spiš county, Slovakia
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
Martyrdom of St John Evangelist on the other side of the panel
provenance: St Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice
location: East Slovak Museum in Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
wahibi desert. Sacral experience? Nah. Locals bring on the whiskey in a strange night of drunkness in a more or less strict muslim country
location: Central Slovak Museum, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
provenance: Selce pri Banskej Bystrici
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
location: Central Slovak Museum, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
provenance: Selce pri Banskej Bystrici
height: c 120 cm
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
The fortified early Gothic church from the first half of the 14th century was built on the site of an older building. In the 15th century it was fortified with a wall and a wooden bell tower was built on the grounds in 1657. The single-nave space with a square-ended presbytery and a built-in sacristy has a painted cassette ceiling from 1758, the presbytery is characteristic by its rib vault. The mural paintings date back to the 60s of the 14th century and the creator of at least a part of them is the Master of Ochtiná presbytery. These interior frescoes were discovered in the early 20th century by I. Huszka who was restoring them in 1905. All the paintings, interior and exterior ones, were completely restored between 1983 and 1985 by J. Josefík, L. Székely and I. Žuch.
Within the almost intact medieval church, the murals have a uniquely strong impression and informative value, thanks to their scale and complexity of preservation. Thematically they focus on individual scenes from the Marian and the Passion cycle, but they do not have a uniform concept unlike the upper belt on the nave’s northern wall with a complete depiction of the St. Ladislaus legend.
Altar of the Doctors of the Church, 1510-1520
author of the statues: Master Paul of Levoča
author of the paintings: Master Petrus
location: Šariš, eastern Slovakia
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
provenance: Okoličné, Liptov county, central Slovakia
property of the East Slovak Museum in Košice
The master´s quality is manifested through the depiction of faces, introspective,
full of dignity and melancholic lyrism that is enhanced with a delicate sfumato.
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
The third point that receives highlighted significance in the perspective of László András, and therefore must be addressed, is right-wing attitude. Traditionality is a complex perspective that encompasses all aspects and levels of human existence – yet it can be said that tradition, as the worldview of ancient man, and traditionality, as a contemporary human perspective in opposition to modernity, have two pillars: spirituality, which refers to the set of tools, procedures, and paths that enable a person to transcend themselves toward their ultimate divine totality; and politics in the broadest sense, which refers to the hierarchical structuring of human society and the state. While the former is marked by Freedom, its ultimate goal being the transcendence of all conditionality, so that man may recognize himself as an unconditional totality of being, the Absolute, the latter is marked by Order, which is the earthly reflection and manifestation of the celestial world, and whose task is to provide a framework, both collectively and individually, that allows for a life in harmony with divine principles. For the earthly Order must harmoniously fit into the heavenly Order in every respect; in other words, because the normative goal of society must always coincide with the normative goal of the individual; the normative goal of the collective must always serve what the normative goal of the individual is. And this always happens: because as everything is enveloped by sacrality in the ideal traditional society, in the "ideal" modern society, everything is enveloped by consumption.
The archaic age, or generally the age of the traditional man, lived almost unconsciously and without any form of objectification what can be called right-wing attitude in the original sense of the word. In contrast, left-wing orientation in the modern sense is hardly older than a few hundred years: it only appeared in the late period of the dissolution of Tradition, and from its appearance onward it gained increasing dominance in the form of the gradual leftward shift of the relative and current political center (the absolute center, of course, never changes). This leftward shift is still ongoing—even though today every significant party is almost entirely left-wing. What is considered right-wing today, or the party that defines itself as right-wing, from a traditional perspective can only be considered right-wing in a very relative sense. This applies equally to today’s parliamentary right and far-right, as well as to the far-right movements of the first half of the 20th century: these, although not to the same extent, were and are so contaminated by left-wing ideas that if we were to designate their place between absolute right-wingness and absolute left-wingness, they would all fall closer to the left-wing endpoint than to the midpoint between the two endpoints, that is, the absolute center.
As for right-wing attitude in the traditional sense, it is not at all identifiable with what is today understood as “right-wing” – and not because it is less, but because it is much more right-wing: a maximal right-wing attitude untainted by leftist ideas. Right-wing attitude does not belong among those qualities and values that are optimally ideal, but among those that are maximally ideal. The expression “far-right” is therefore actually a contradictio in adiecto: right-wingness has no extreme variant and cannot have one, because only that which has an optimum point can have an extreme variant, by exceeding that optimum point. What is today nevertheless called “far-right,” if it is extreme in any sense at all, is not extreme because of its right-wing attitude—that is, not because it exaggerates the representation of right-wing values—but for other reasons (aggressive anti-leftism, violence, populism, demagogy, etc.).
What are the criteria of maximal right-attitude?
In the negative sense, the rejection of the ideological components of left-wing attitude,
– whether it is democratism, which manifests the reign of quantity in the social sphere, that is, the principle of popular sovereignty, which can be expressed as civil democracy (“mob rule,” as Plato says) or as communist dictatorship (the latter having to disappear from the political stage due to its low efficiency and its almost conservative nature compared to the former);
– whether it is socialism, which is nothing other than humanism on a social level, that is, society’s orientation toward itself, a kind of “social narcissism”;
– whether it is nationalism and internationalism, which are successive stages of the dissolution of the old order and the realization of a new counter-order;
–whether it is egalitarianism, which disqualifies individuals, or liberalism, the theory and practice of universal value deprivation, which does the same with ideas, and while proclaiming the free competition of ideas, reserves the position of external organizer for itself;
– whether it is revolutionary ideology, whose basic principle is that if two factors are hierarchically arranged above and below each other, then the higher one inevitably oppresses, exploits, and abuses the lower one, and therefore the latter must resort to “revolutionary violence” to shake off the yoke of the former;
– whether it is relativism, which appears in countless levels and variations,, this par excellence samsaric worldview, which seeks to relativize every truth except its own;
– whether it is rationalism, which arises when the purely instrumental reason (ratio), which knows only the question of “how?” and is essentially executive, shakes off the “chains” of the suprarational intellect (the intellectus, which always sees the part in the whole and is solely competent in the questions of “what?” and “why?”), and either becomes autonomous or directly enters the service of subrational forces;
– whether it be the secularized messianism inseparable from both basic forms of left-wingness, that is, utopianism, which, the more systematically it works toward the “Holy Goal,” the more it seeks to conceal the true nature of the “end of history” and the dismal role it assigns to the “last man”;
– whether it is self-service religiosity, which signifies not the elevation of man but the continuous degradation of the level of religion;
– whether it be the only cycle known to modern man: the increasingly frantic pace of the hamster wheel of production and consumption;
– finally, let us not forget that both basic forms of left-wing attitude go hand in hand with materialism as a doctrinal system (social democracy), and with materiality as a mentality (liberalism).
But leftism manifests on a »psychological« level as well: for when today everything is directed toward the instincts being liberated and reaching a ruling position, the inhibitions ceasing, the desires continuing to grow and seeking further satisfactions, then in reality nothing else happens than that what has its place below and in bondage is allowed to break forth and rule (one of the most dreaded words for the modern leftist post-Freudian man is »repression«). This psychological principle, which became the foundation of twentieth‑century psychology, is nothing other than the penetration of leftism into the psychological sphere.
Leftism is in every case a political exploitation of the conjuncture determined by kali-yuga – that is, leftism does not give direction to the changes, as some of its theorists believe (for example, Friedrich A. Hayek), but merely serves a blind mechanism.
Generally speaking, leftism – at least in its liberal, now solely progressive variant – likes to have things arranged by themselves, that is, to let them run free within certain loose frameworks (self-regulating systems, laissez faire), which naturally results in a continuous inflation, leveling, and loss of value in every area – whether it be economy, culture, religion, etc. However, if this process is not at the desired speed, or if the given category has already reached its natural level and further sinking is no longer expected by itself, it often tries to "arrange" – disorganize! – them based on principles that are beneath them and result in further descent.
Positively formulated, pure right-wing attitude starts from a worldview that has God at its pinnacle, and tries to arrange every area of life in an analogical way, or through representations, so that it is in harmony with this Principium Principiorum (cf. "as in heaven, so also on earth"). The lower is always aligned with the one above it, and the one above is aligned with the one above that, all the way up to the Most High, which ultimately determines everything.
In this way, the right is principally theocratic, and this divine rule is realized through monarchic and aristocratic (class-based) transitions. At the intersection of heaven and earth stands the king, the par excellence man, in whom humanity – interpreted not as a given but as a possibility – has been fulfilled, and who is the embodiment of that central principle which permeates the whole "under heaven" and manifests itself in a specific manner according to the given domain.
The State and the Church, or in other words, the profane and the sacred spheres, are not separated by right wing attitude, since essentially both point towards the same ultimate Point from which they originate.
The basic word of the right-wing arrangement of traditional society has therefore always been Order – and Order is always a structure based on a higher principle, a higher organizing principle (Sanskrit dharma). Tradition was and is conscious that for the people or the masses it is not freedom that is fitting, but Order. José Ortega y Gasset excellently pointed out that the mass is not made a mass by its numerical superiority, but by its inertia. The mass is that which can be "mobilized." This is something that Tradition has always been fundamentally aware of: it was conscious that the people and the mass, powerless and by their powerlessness always inclined to sinking, must be held from above; and it goes without saying that if the sustaining force of Order weakens or ceases, the mass begins to sink due to the inertial force of its own weight (this is the "strength" of the people: its own inertial momentum). That is why traditional peoples, when encountering secular culture and civilization, almost immediately begin to degenerate and perish: because the bonds that held them relatively high are severed. However, this mere "abandonment," which was characteristic of the transitional period between traditionality and modernity, is aggravated in the modern, and even more so in the postmodern age, by the activation of distinct descending forces.
Naturally this does not mean that the traditional world rejected Freedom. On the contrary: it was only in the traditional world that it received its true dignity and appropriate rank. Freedom as a capacity and virtue was the privilege of the few – the exceptional – while Order was everyone’s task. The “ancient man” was conscious that Freedom cannot be democratized, because a virtue tied to high qualities (in the original sense of the word virtus, that is, manly vigor/virtue) cannot simply be distributed. Freedom is not a given that can be secured for people, but a capacity to be won. Neither the trade union, nor the parliament, nor the women’s movement can fight out freedom for anyone – because the freedom they secure is never real freedom. The one who needs to be liberated is the servant, and even when freed, the servant remains a servant: a freed servant. Only the victor is free; only he who is capable to rule – and above all he who is able to rule over himself! For just as the basis of all knowledge is self-knowledge, so too the basis and culmination of all rule is self-rule. And rule is connected not only with Freedom, but also closely with Order: the choice of Order already points toward Freedom, that is, a serious step taken in the direction of Freedom – because Freedom can only be attained through Order, only through the surpassing of fulfilled, maximized Order. It would be foolish to think that freedom could be realized without strength and power – specifically without personal strength and personal power. And likewise it would be foolish to think that anyone other than the high-ranking could be free; the low-ranking, precisely because essentially they are always – even at the peak of political power – below, can never be free. For only he can be free who is above, and rule can only be exercised from above downward.
What the modern leftist/liberal masses know is in reality not freedom, but liberation and unleashing: emancipatio. Liberation and unleashing are not the result of personal strength and victory, but of being deprived of constraints – which, however, can indeed be carried out by an external institution. Freedom requires strength; on the contrary, unleashing requires weakness and relinquishment. The mass has no stability — this always requires an internal regulating force; the mass never holds itself up, but is held up from above: by its nature it always lets itself go. Therefore, when the force of Order that holds and sustains ceases, the mass enters a state of relinquishment. This is liberation and unleashing. The masses always feel free when they are released from above and can finally yield to their own weight’s pulling force, the ontological mass attraction that always acts upward from below but pulls downward from above. The freedom of the masses is therefore not the freedom of the man who overcomes his own inertial force in free ascent, but the freedom of the man in free fall. And in this way, what today is glorified as freedom is the diametrical – and at the same time parodistic – counterpart of true freedom.
www.amazon.com/Solum-Ipsum-Metaphysical-Andr%C3%A1s-L%C3%...
photographed against two sources of light
property of the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland
provenance: Ludzmierz, Lesser Poland
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
location: Central Slovak Museum, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
provenance: Selce pri Banskej Bystrici
height: c 120 cm
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
Martyrdom of St John Evangelist on the other side of the panel
provenance: St Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice
location: East Slovak Museum in Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
property of the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland
provenance: Czulice, Lesser Poland (Malopolska region)
IMHO the statue is a little older
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
AMDG
property of the Slovak National Gallery Bratislava, Slovakia
height 150 cm
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
Het hoogkoor vormt het sacrale centrum van de kerk, met de rijke uitstraling die het heeft gekregen begin vorige eeuw. We betreden de ruimte waar het mysterie wordt voltrokken. Enkel zo laat zich deze ruimte lezen… In het eucharistie-vieren realiseert zich telkens weer de zin van Christus’ zelfgave waaraan de gelovigen delen. Deze spirituele denkwereld heeft vorm gegeven aan dit hoogkoor.
Van de muurschilderingen van de Luikse schilder Adolphe Tassin uit 1904 hadden enkel de grote taferelen de modernistische ‘overschilderwoede’ van de jaren 60 overleefd… De restauratie van 2020 heeft alle overige figuren en motieven weer blootgelegd of hersteld. Bij onvolledige fragmenten in de profetengroepen bovenaan werd het onderscheid tussen oorspronkelijke en nieuwe laag bewaard.
Onderaan herhaalt zich rondom het motief van de pelikaan. De goudkleur geeft een levendig lichteffect. De pelikaan die – volgens legende – zijn jongen voedt met eigen bloed is een vroegchristelijk symbool van Christus’ zelfgave in de kruisdood.
De grote taferelen zijn zgn. voorafbeeldingen uit het Oude Testament van het Christusgebeuren. In het neo-thomistisch geloof van de 20ste eeuw reveleren deze ‘prefiguraties’ hoe Christus ‘van eeuwigheid’ is en zich realiseert in verleden, heden en toekomst. Verschillende aspecten van dit heilsgebeuren worden betekend: voedsel, heling en bevrijding voor het leven van mensen.
Aan weerszijden van de bogen uitgevend naar de zijkapellen worden de vier grote rivieren afgebeeld die de Tuin van Eden bevloeien: Phison, Gehon, Tygris en Eufraat (Gn 2,10-14). Het hoogkoor verbeeldt zo de paradijselijke wereld die door God wordt bereid. Helemaal bovenaan staan in groepjes twaalf ‘profeten’ uit het Oude Testament (inclusief koning David en Job). Ze dragen een banderol met een vers uit hun eigen profetenwoorden. De teksten zijn allemaal messiaans en eschatologisch van inslag. Deze profeten reveleren de ‘eindtijdelijke’ zin van leven en dood van Jezus: hoe Christus uiteindelijk bepalend is voor mens en wereld, al wat dood en kwaad is overwint – zij het niet zonder strijd en conflict – en garant staat voor een toekomst vol vreugde en leven. In het vieren van de eucharistie wordt hierop geanticipeerd.
Martyrdom of St John Evangelist on the other side of the panel
provenance: St Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice
location: East Slovak Museum in Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
michel-foucault.com/2024/02/21/foucault-quote-kairos-choo...
Franz Werfel (1890–1945) ends his novella Pale Blue Ink in a Lady's Hand with the protagonist Leonidas dozing off: “While sleeping under the oppressive dome of the ever-louder music, Leonidas knew with inexpressible clarity that today an offer of salvation had been made to him—dark, muted, vague, like all such offers. He knew that he had missed it. He knew that such an offer would not be made again.”
The ancients had a word for the joy and the sorrow of an opportunity that suddenly presents itself but is just as suddenly gone: kairos. The word goes back to before Homer.
One of the meanings of the Greek kairós is a crucial but vulnerable part of the body. This sense of the word is closely related to the Homeric to kairion: the part of the body can be "hit" to most devastating effect, the place where life is most in danger (Iliad 8.48), or the place where the rock that Hector threw hit Teucros: "just between the shoulder and the neck" (Iliad 8.326). Kairos is the point that makes sacral "passage" possible, the right place, the "target," the place where the knife pierces the skin.
Doro Levi's extensive study shows that the Homeric kairos was part of a group of related words of uncertain origin: kèr: death; keraïzein: to plunder, to slaughter; kèr: heart; kèrainein: to be anxious; kar: lock of hair; keiein: to split; keirein: to cut. All of these related roots have at their kernel the idea of splitting or division, an action of sacrifice in a ritual context.
Gradually kairos came to connote a complex system of signification linking time and space, qualitative and quantitative elements, at a hermeneutic intersection, a knot or node so perfect that it provided the only possible "occasion." The knot is "fit" to intervene, where the moment is "striking." If, however, a single parameter of the intersection were lacking or out of balance, then the knot would unravel and the occasion would not present itself. This is why kairos is also a mirror of cosmic perfection. In the world of Pythagoras, kairos reigns as measure, harmony, and equilibrium. His mystical number is seven, a cyclic "point of crisis." Kairos turns, turns into; he marks the Wendepunkt. Kairos is therefore border, threshold, and limit, as well as transition, change, and progress.
For a long time, kairos had no anthropomorphic form. A Homeric hymn to Hermes has the earliest reference to Kairos as a fair young man and a son of Zeus. Both Hermes and Kairos have winged feet (or even winged shoulders), an epithet that would later be reflected in the iconography, referencing the speed and decisiveness with which both Hermes and Kairos change the elements of the world. Both also carry a weighing scale and/or a razor.
Kairos teaches people to recognize the right moment for quick and calculated action. Late classical texts describe Kairos as bald but for a flowing lock of hair on his forehead: the forelock to be grasped. This provided the subject of Matzke's linguistic study To Take Time by the Forelock. The author investigated the Italian expression tener la fortuna pel ciuffo or pel ciuffetto, alongside the English to take time by the forelock and the Dutch de gelegenheid bij de haren grijpen.
In an epigram, Posidippus of Pella (mid-third century B.C.) described a now-lost bronze sculpture of Kairos by the sculptor Lysippus (last quarter of the fourth century B.C.) in the following terms (in John E. Matzke's translation):
Who, whence is thy maker? Sicyon. His name is what? Lysippus. What art thou? Kairos, the all-subduer. Why doest thou stand on the tips of thy toes? I turn forever. Why hast thou double wings on either foot? I fly carried by the wind. In thy right hand why carriest thou a razor? To men a sign that quicker than any edge I am. But thy hair, why is it over the eye? In order to be grasped, forsooth, by him that meets me. The back of thy head, why is it bald? Because he, whom I have once rushed by with winged feet, will never grasp me afterwards, though he desire it. Why did the artist fashion thee? For thy sake, o stranger, he placed this warning lesson into the doorway.
Besides literary descriptions we now also have copies of the image on gems and on stone reliefs, including a very fine example (second century B.C.) in Turin's Museo di Arte Greco-Romana. The Turin version shows how Lysippus achieved a virtuoso balance between proportion, movement and detail. The dichotomy between the movement of the legs and the torso runs through into the neck and the head. The double antithetical movements are in a sculptural dialectic with the integration of movement. The Greeks expressed such ideas of antithesis, integration, synthesis, and captured moment with the concept of erèmia: the "pregnant pause" between two successive moments. The pregnant pause is the combination of two distinct movements captured in a single image, frozen as an artistic manifesto of the capabilities of sculpture and, by extension, of what Kairos as the god of occasion can contribute to the definition of the arts.
In the first century B.C., Plutarch of Chaeronea wrote in his Moralia: "Beauty is achieved through many numbers coming into congruence [kairos] under some system of proportion and harmony whereas ugliness is immediately ready to spring into being if only one chance element be omitted or added out of place."
Artists saw a particular challenge in the theme. The Kairos figure's afterlife in Western intellectual and art history is not simple, as the transposition of the concept into Latin and the vernaculars also led to iconographic transformations. In the Latin Bible, kairos was consistently translated either as tempus, so losing some of the specificity of its meaning, or was replaced with the concepts occasio and fortuna—both of which, grammatically, change the masculine gender to feminine.
In his Father Time, Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968; IAS Faculty 1935–1968) provided the first study of these semantic and artistic mutations. In his view, from the eleventh century onwards the figure of Kairos cross-fertilized with descriptions and depictions of another concept, namely fortuna. The Carmina Burana (eleventh to twelfth century) indeed sing of Fortuna: "the forehead may have hair, it is true, but it is generally followed by a bald crown." The author sees the classical Kairos, but speaks of Fortuna.
As a result, the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity saw a range of iconographic ramifications around the concept of time: Fortuna on the wheel, Occasio as a woman on a flying globe, and a bearded, old man as Chronos.
A particularly interesting example can be seen on a grisaille from Mantua, produced in the workshop of Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506). A female figure with a bunch of hair over the front of her face moves forward with winged feet on a globe. She is Kairos transposed into a female Occasio. Her clothing flutters dynamically in the wind, in contrast to the two static figures beside her. On a solid, rectangular base that also contrasts with the flying globe, a woman with a headdress is holding a young man as though to restrain him from grasping or chasing after the woman on the globe. She is penitence, Poenitentia. The pathos is confirmed by the young man's arms, stretching in vain towards Occasio. It was Aby Warburg (1866–1929) who linked this iconography not only to Occasio/Poenitentia, but also indicated that it is an almost literal illustration of an epigram by Ausonius (ca. 310–ca. 395) in which there is a dialogue between Occasio and Poenitentia (Greek: Metanoia, penitence, repentance).
An important aspect of the Christianization of Kairos lies in the preference for a tension between opportunity and penitence. This made Kairos part of a moral discourse, both in a religious context and in the courtly and political world.
The scene in Mantua plays upon this. Just look at the sober woman's marked restraint, the young man's impulsiveness, and the ambivalent way in which Occasio looks back at the boy rather provocatively. The artist interpreted Occasio as a fickle, capricious Fortuna as opposed to the virtue of constancy that keeps the youth from impetuosity in decisions and in life.
The grisaille was described by Mario Equicola (1470–1525), a courtier of the Estes, in a letter written to the Duke of Gonzaga on June 12, 1503. He wrote that the old poets said that fate was a winged woman with hair before her face so that she cannot be recognised and once having passed she cannot be called back.
Dicono li poeti essere una donna alata et tucti li capelli sonno voltati denanti al vulto per non essere cognosciuta et ad ciò fugendo, non possa per capelli essere revocata.
And indeed, no less a figure than Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) describes in The Prince (1513) how the able ruler recognizes and seizes the right moment.
It is generally thought that the painting that Girolamo da Carpi (1501–1556) produced for Ercole II d'Este (1508–1559), Duke of
As a result, the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity saw a range of iconographic ramifications around the concept of time: Fortuna on the wheel, Occasio as a woman on a flying globe, and a bearded, old man as Chronos.
A particularly interesting example can be seen on a grisaille from Mantua, produced in the workshop of Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506). A female figure with a bunch of hair over the front of her face moves forward with winged feet on a globe. She is Kairos transposed into a female Occasio. Her clothing flutters dynamically in the wind, in contrast to the two static figures beside her. On a solid, rectangular base that also contrasts with the flying globe, a woman with a headdress is holding a young man as though to restrain him from grasping or chasing after the woman on the globe. She is penitence, Poenitentia. The pathos is confirmed by the young man's arms, stretching in vain towards Occasio. It was Aby Warburg (1866–1929) who linked this iconography not only to Occasio/Poenitentia, but also indicated that it is an almost literal illustration of an epigram by Ausonius (ca. 310–ca. 395) in which there is a dialogue between Occasio and Poenitentia (Greek: Metanoia, penitence, repentance).
An important aspect of the Christianization of Kairos lies in the preference for a tension between opportunity and penitence. This made Kairos part of a moral discourse, both in a religious context and in the courtly and political world.
The scene in Mantua plays upon this. Just look at the sober woman's marked restraint, the young man's impulsiveness, and the ambivalent way in which Occasio looks back at the boy rather provocatively. The artist interpreted Occasio as a fickle, capricious Fortuna as opposed to the virtue of constancy that keeps the youth from impetuosity in decisions and in life.
The grisaille was described by Mario Equicola (1470–1525), a courtier of the Estes, in a letter written to the Duke of Gonzaga on June 12, 1503. He wrote that the old poets said that fate was a winged woman with hair before her face so that she cannot be recognised and once having passed she cannot be called back.
Dicono li poeti essere una donna alata et tucti li capelli sonno voltati denanti al vulto per non essere cognosciuta et ad ciò fugendo, non possa per capelli essere revocata.
And indeed, no less a figure than Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) describes in The Prince (1513) how the able ruler recognizes and seizes the right moment.
It is generally thought that the painting that Girolamo da Carpi (1501–1556) produced for Ercole II d'Este (1508–1559), Duke of Ferrara, arose in Machiavelli's milieu.
The painting translates the awareness that the prince's dynastic inheritance needs to be "earned" with the virtue of Kairos. This virtù reveals itself in alertness to recognize the moment, then to turn it into political decisiveness and action for a whole community.
To recap:
Both etymologically and metaphorically, Kairos is active in the field of splitting, targets, transition, passage, and entering through an opening. By analogy, Kairos is goal-oriented but ephemeral, sudden but unavoidable. He shares these characteristics with the wind, which can likewise arise out of nothing and die down even faster. His waving forelock suggests he is driven forwards by the wind at his back.
Kairos is kin to angels and spirits as prototypical personifications of the wind. Kairos unites aspects of the wind to human destiny: to the wheel of fortune, the vanes of the mill that has energy and effectiveness thanks to the wind.
There Kairos suddenly appears: in the fleetingness of a sigh, in the quivering of a breeze, in the unexpected movement of a lock of hair. The Greeks put it so beautifully: in the erèmia, the "pregnant pause."
Such as between two notes of music
Interesting document of the counter-reformation sacral art - 17th century roman-catholic Gothic Revival altarpiece in the style of local late Gothic altars with wings and predella. The upper part with the medallion depicting David with lions is a Baroque addition from 1687.
location: East Slovak Museum, Košice
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission