Museographs: Art, Myth, Legend and Story

Caron Caswell Lazar

Description

Despite a current trend toward individuality and cultural disparity, the fact remains that we have powerful tools that unite us all – our collective imagination, hunger for explanations, and the artistic images that they inspire. Irrespective of geographical location or industrial advancement, people from every corner of the globe cling to the myths, legends and stories that have organized and continue to organize whole societies, dictated religious and moral ideologies, and explained the mysteries of the universe.

Museographs' Art, Myth, Legend and Story invites you to indulge your mythic side! Develop a better understanding of the origins and purposes of these beloved creations, and familiarize yourself with the themes and characters that make them possible. Meet Tiddalik, the Australian frog who was so thirsty he drank all the water in the land, leaving nothing for his creature friends. The White Serpent, one of the most popular surviving Chinese legends, or taste Forbidden Fruit with an African tale that explains the origin of the serpent found in creation accounts.

Peruse bold images such as Herakles on a Greek vase, the life-giving Toltec rain god, Tlaloc, and Benjamin West's painting, Noah Sacrificing After the Deluge.

This issue is as visually striking as it is textually informative. It consolidates and impressive selection of cross-cultural myths, legends and stories accompanied by relevant and powerful images. As an integral reference tool or as a beautiful compendium for the art and story enthusiast, it supplies a list of additional myths, legends, stories, and artistic renderings found in other volumes of the Museographs collection.

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• Art

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 02 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456615710
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

MUSEOGRAPHS
Art, Myth, Legend and Story
 
 
by
Carôn Caswell Lazar

Copyright 2013 Carôn Caswell Lazar,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1571-0
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
The Museographs monographs are publications of The Lazar Group, Incorporated
 
Museographs Illuminated Manuscripts , Copyright 1993 Carôn Caswell Lazar
All rights reserved
No reproductions of this newsletter, or its attending materials, in whole or in part or in any form may bemade without written authorization of the copyright owner.
 
Museographs Titles:
 
Japanese Satsuma Pottery
Contemporary African-American Folk Art
Shaker Design
Mexican Painting of the 19th & 20th Centuries
American Indians I: The Sioux
Appalachian Handicrafts
American Indians II: The Cherokee
The Art of Islam: A Survey
The Old City of Jerusale m
Illuminated Manuscripts
Mexican Folk Art
American Indians III: Kanien’kehaka
The Art of the Celts
Art, Myth, Legend and Story
 
Art: The conscious use of skill; taste and creative imagination in the production of aesthetic objects; works so produced.
 
Myth: A traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the worldview of a people or explain a practice, belief or natural phenomenon. A person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence.
 
Legend: A story coming down from the past; one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.
 
Story: History. An account of incidents or events. A statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question.
 
Webster’s Third International Dictionary
 

Mosaic of Athena (Minerva), Roman, ca. 2nd-4th century CE
Courtesy of the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas
 
To Begin With
 
In the pantheon of legendry the definitions as they are stated above are generally accepted. And for this very reason peoples the world over often reject the use of the word myth being applied as a description of their cultural liturgy. Many indigenous societies around the world do not even have words in their languages equating to myth or legend . More often they view these recountings as stories.
Interestingly, although since the far removed time of Pindar (5I8-438BC) the word myth — stemming from the Greek muthos — has been more normally associated with the Latin word fabula — something essentially fictitious — it was originally more closely associated with the Greek logos , or a true historical tale. However in its primary sense muthos was simply anything that was imparted orally, by word of mouth, and so at its most basic root it denotes speech in general. From this the conclusion can be drawn that instead of being a sophisticated literary device, a myth as originally formulated was simply a response to a question. This question might have been posed internally by an enquiring mind, or a question asked directly, such as the query of a child: where do I come from ? In the end the earliest myths were virtually all concerned with that singular question and they are known as creation myths.
 
Most often thought to have been formulated to answer the basic “where from?” “how?” “why?” questions of life, myths should have begun to disappear as humankind developed seemingly more logical, scientific explanations apparently supported by incontrovertible proofs. Yet they were not passed over or forgotten. Quite to the contrary many myths, thousands of years old, have survived and been cherished, lovingly and carefully handed down from generation to generation. Their persistence indicates that regardless of the human race’s acquisition of more and more extensive information about the ‘real’ nature of the universe, concurrent with that acquisition of information myths moved away from a sphere where their acceptance was dependent on their physical accuracy into one fulfilling a deeper purpose for mankind. In fact, throughout histories long passage during periods of upheaval the myths, legends and stories enjoy resurgence. The importance of the myth lay in what it communicated to the believer. The notion of a believer often coincides to the spiritual organization of a group or society.
 
An alternative thought as to their origin is that the myths are, like legends, based in fact and recall ancient origins no longer understood in their original historical context. The fact that so many scholars, writers and storytellers have liberally translated, revised, abridged and interpreted the original forms in order to read contemporarily and to be “relevant” to their times has indeed helped to muddy the truth about tales. More insidious editing was directed at enforced assimilation into a conqueror’s belief system.
 
Myths not only express the reflections of human beings on the fundamental meaning of life, they also have provided the foundation for the organization of individual societies because the way in which a society is organized derives its authority ultimately enshrined in its mythology. The role of the myth, seen from a societal vantage, is that of guardian or propagator of a moral code, providing its inhabitants with models on which they may base their own lives.
 
No longer merely narratives or symbolic accounts of how and why phenomena occurred, myths recount the actual workings of the supernatural. Whenever they are told or recounted they are often deemed to release or set in motion supernatural activity. For this reason, in some societies the names of certain deities are too sacred to be uttered except by elect and sanctified custodians of deep knowledge.
 
A myth is a historical narrative that may or may not turn out to be true. It is not simply beautiful literature grown out of an oral tradition it is access to the world view of a people, of their understanding themselves, their society, their relation to others and to their God or gods.
 
 
Exploration, Conquest & Expansion
 
In the beginning mythologies were relevant only to a particular people. However, inevitably exploration, conquest and the expansion of trade routes brought awareness of the existence of other mythologies, beliefs and religions — along with the unavoidable comparisons, syncretism, adaption and adoption.
 
Through this assimilation process a large number of references and even whole stories have transferred into the literatures of other peoples. Popular examples of this include the adoption of Christmas trees and Easter bunnies and eggs into popular celebration among Christians. In fact, these symbols of the season are rooted in northern European and Celtic paganism, the Christmas tree as a manifestation of early Druid tree worship and the bunnies and eggs as common fertility symbols appearing each spring with the renewal of the earth. Early Christians adopted these symbols, and incidentally, timing, of other people’s rites in order to make conversion to an easier process for the convertees. In the case of Christmas the date of celebrating Jesus’ nativity was actually shifted to coincide with a long-standing celebration on the northern isles, while the unofficial incorporation of spring fertility symbols enhanced the concept of a renewed world through the resurrection and ascension of the Master Christian. In actuality many scholars consider it much more likely that Jesus would have been born late spring.
 
Often multiple traditions — some conflicting — existed side-by-side and later writers chose the tradition that best suited their purposes, or altered details selectively. Pindar, for example, was known to have ‘moralized’ some of the myths he reproduced in his writings. A millennium later Western explorers who came into contact with the islanders of the Pacific tended to equate the myths they encountered with those they had been brought up with inside their own cultures. One result of this was an attempt on the Westerners’ part to identify a supreme being, where in fact none was actually being referred to.
 
The term angel derives from a Greek translation of the original Hebrew mal’akh or ‘shadow side of God’ but later came to mean messenger. In their original forms angels were not. The corporeal visage of the benevolent messengers of God are cherished by Jews, Christians and Moslems alike, historically evolved from a cross-breeding of Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Persian supernatural beings encountered by the Jews while held captive in strange lands among strange gods. This genetic interaction of ideas produced the outward appearance of the winged angels we know today. By the first century C.E. this essentially Jewish creation was adopted by the new religion and six centuries later by the Moslems. Interestingly, though most still regard the image of an angel to be winged and anthropomorphic, in recent history the outward image of blessings is giving up its wings and in some cases its corporeality altogether.
 
 
Unity of Theme
 
The world over, peoples and societies have developed common story themes to explain creation, behavior and cultural distinction. And there are also the stories associated with cataclysmic events. The most obvious example of this is the unbelievable number of flood and regeneration stories which appear all around the globe. Some two hundred date back to the Hebrew patriarch Noah’s deluge story of some 11,600 years ago. These similarly timed stories come from Kenya and throughout Africa, India, the American Indians of North, Central and South Americas, China, the Russias and of course Plato’s Atlantis.
 
Other common stories include the appearance of messengers sent to redeem a people, celestial events, and chronicles