“The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed.” ~Pablo Casals

 

Left: Giotto di Bondone, Bust of an Angel (after 1304). Polychrome mosaic. The Reverenda Fabbrica of Saint Peter, Vatican City State. © Cittá del Vaticano.

‘Tis the Season of Hyperkulturemia

We can thank the French author, Henri-Marie Beyle (nom-de-plume, ‘Stendhal’) for that strange rush we feel when we first enter a holiday-stocked department store, or stand, be-dazed and bedazzled in front of the twinkling Christmas tree, piled high ‘round with colorful gifts and gadgets. That unfamiliar buzzing of the brain, best described as a trance-like state of immobility (as in, where do I start!?), accompanied by a glazing over of the eyes and a slight numbing sensation around the mouth is not unfamiliar to some. Neurologists have described it well, and art lovers have experienced it—long before it became symptomatic of our Age of Consumer Overload. It is called Stendhal Syndrome, and like so many other sensory excesses traceable to the Italian Renaissance. They should have known better than to wow us with the Sistine Chapel, or The David’s dramatic proportions, those awe-inspiring Duomo’s or Botticelli’s delicate and all-so-very-human gestures in The Annunciation or The Three Graces. These, and so many other of the city’s treasures, await discovery in the city-sized museum called, Florence. artes fine arts magazine

For anyone who has visited Florence and partaken of its wonders, you’ll agree that Stendhal nailed it in 1815, when he described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 travels to Florence in his book, Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio.

When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo are buried, he saw Giotto’s frescoes for the first time and was overcome with emotion. He wrote “I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty… I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations… Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call ‘nerves.’ Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.”

Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place, especially at the Uffizi. The term can also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world.

Another term for this condition, which has largely lost its meaning in the 20th and 21st centuries is “sublime.” Today we think of ‘mellow’ or ‘pleasing to the senses’ when we hear the word, sublime. In a contemporary world, accustomed as we are to excesses of sensory stimulation, we might now use the word to describe a smooth crème brulé, or an aged bottle of wine. But in early years, the word sublime was much more emotionally charged, encapsulating an experience in a single word that inspired awe; that is, ‘a noble or majestic encounter designed to set one’s spirits soaring, possessing supreme qualities.’ It was a target emotion that the Hudson River School of painters aimed for, laboring to capture the majesty of nature’s realm on massive canvases. For an early 19th century Western European and American population, developing a sense—perhaps for the first time—of the world beyond , these paintings served as powerful devices, winning large audiences and record prices for these masterful painters of room-sized postcards from exotic places.

What ranks as sublime by today’s standards? Is it the latest play station with its litany of kill `em games; a new Jaguar automobile, “as alive as you are;” a 3-D movie for young children that sets an expectation for in-your-face action as the new norm (leaving the understated beauty of film noir, or the mastery and time capsule feel of silent films in the dustbin of history); an anti-wrinkle cream that gives you results in one week with the tag line from a flawless model who exclaims, “now that works for me!” How many times have you seen a person on the treadmill at the gym, with headphones on place, listening to music while also texting friends? Staying tuned to that wonderful endorphin rush of a workout is sacrificed in the name of perpetual connectivity, to say nothing of the loss of casual interaction between people all working out for a common objective! Is social isolation the true—but ironic—price of maintaining our network of virtual friends?

Have we become hardened by consumerism and its power to enable us, or can we still to be awed by singular, but profound events of nature? I recently stopped in a department store parking lot to film an extraordinary sunset on my phone (on my phone?!), and when I was done, I found a dozen people around me looking up at a sublime skyscape that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. I commented to a woman nearby that if sunsets only occurred once every hundred years, the event would bring the world to a standstill. Because it is a daily event, nature’s splendor barely attracts any attention.

It is commonplace for those marvels of technology that capture our attention on Monday, to be matter-of-fact by Friday. I’m as impressed as the next person by the iPad, but I still set my alarm to watch an eclipse of the moon, or stop the car to observe an osprey dive for fish in the bay near my home. At this time of the year, Venus traces a course through the sky, just below the moon, as it has for millennia. Scientists believe that the fabled Christmas Star was probably a visiting comet from deep in the galaxy, suspended in the sky high above the desert in the Middle East, more than two-thousand years ago. If it were to return today, would anyone notice in the thrill to be one of the first for a Black Friday (now Thursday!)discounted 58” jumbo TV, the hypnotic blaze of holiday lights, or rush for the last parking spot in a crowded mall parking lot?

Thanks for reading ARTES magazine. Best Holiday Wishes to everyone.

Richard Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor