2.1 Setting as antagonist Nothing happens nowhere. (Elizabeth Bowen, in Burroway, 2003) Showing the
1.1.1 The Rhind papyrus For a literate civilisation extending over some 4000 years, that of the ancient Egyptians has left disappointingly little evidence of its mathematical attainments. Even though the classical Greeks believed mathematics to have been invented in Egypt – though their accounts are far from unanimous on how this happened – there are now but a handful of papyri and other objects to convey a sense of Egyptian mathematical activity. The largest and best preserved of these is the Rhind papyrus (Ext
4.2 Moral grounds for thinking we are immortal The moral reason (as Hume calls it) for thinking that there is an afterlife has already been touched on. God, being just, would surely see to it that we are punished or rewarded for our aberrant or commendable actions; this punishment or reward doesn't take place in this life, so it must take place after our body's demise. Here is a simple statement of the reasoning: The moral argument for supposing there is an 2.1 Working through the section This section examines Hume's reasons for being complacent in the face of death, as these are laid out in his suppressed essay of 1755, ‘Of the immortality of the soul’. More generally, they examine some of the shifts in attitude concerning death and religious belief that were taking place in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, through examination of this and other short essays. These changes were wide ranging and driven by many factors. Religion touched every aspect of cult 5.1 Revolutionary calendar and metric system We considered earlier the universalist principles of 1789 deriving from the Enlightenment that inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the redivision of France into departments. As the dominant group in the Convention by 1793, the Jacobins regarded themselves as mandated to enact the ‘general will’ of the people in a sense inspired by Rousseau: not as the aggregate weight of the individual aspirations of 28 million Frenchmen, but as the expression of that which, as virtuous men 4 Conclusion The biographical monograph is probably one of the best ways of writing appealing and accessible art history. Helen Langdon's Caravaggio is an attractive and well-written narrative of the life and work of an important and allegedly infamous artist. We learn about a set of artworks in a particular context and at the same time get to know a ‘new friend’ whose personality and environment seem to speak through the illustrations. The biographical structure is also a convenient way of con 1.5 Further reading Battersby, C. (1989) Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics, London, Women's Press. Kris, E. and Kurz, O. (1979) Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment, New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Soussloff, C.M. (1997) ‘The artist in nature: Renaissance biography’, The Absolute Artist: The Historiography of a Concept, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 43–72. White, H. (1990) Content 1.2 The myth of the artist Consider Howard Hibbard's analysis of Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of St Matthew in the Contarelli chapel (Langdon Plate 19 – see the Web Gallery of Art at http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/caravagg/04/index.html) from his monograph, Caravaggio (1983). Hibbard identifies the figure at the rear to the left of the semi-naked executioner as the artist's self-portrait: ‘a bearded, saturnine villain who is none other than Caravaggio himself’. Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: analyse the pros and cons of the biographical monograph in art history examine the strengths and weaknesses of the biographical monograph in relation to other kinds of art history writing. Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: discuss basic philosophical questions concerning the imagination understand problems concerning the imagination and discuss them in a philosophical way. Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to References 2.1 Overview Heritage sites have particular and significant roles in our personal and national identity. They operate as fundamental building blocks in the construction of a sense of self and of ‘pastness’. They are key elements that enable individuals to locate themselves within a larger group past and identity. There are any number of sites – from great house to open-air museum to ancient monument, and to any of the many other places that mark aspects of the past – but together they provide the 6.4 The Edinburgh professorship Whytt, the Edinburgh professor of medicine, died in 1766 and Cullen was chosen to succeed him, largely with the aim of freeing the chemistry chair for Black. Black's transfer to Edinburgh was well received, and he fulfilled these expectations by being an excellent and popular lecturer. However, the Edinburgh chair also marked the end of his active research. One looks in vain for any sequel to his research on magnesia or his work on heat. With hindsight, foreshadowings of this change can be se 3.4 The role of the Edinburgh Town Council This route incidentally leads us to another important feature of the movement, namely the role of the Edinburgh Town Council and its provosts. (The English equivalent would be a lord mayor.) Throughout the eighteenth century, the Town Council, with a policy of enlightened self-interest, promoted the city by sponsoring or patronising its academic, medical and scientific life. The Council regarded the city's university, infirmary and medical school as institutions which, if given enough prestig 2.4 The economy Turning lastly to the late seventeenth-century economy, a similar pattern of historical revision is revealed. Accounts stressing desperate poverty and backwardness have given way to accounts which indicate a more prosperous, vigorous state of affairs. In a survey of the Scottish merchant community, Devine has concluded that although the nation had not fully insulated itself against the calamity of bad harvests, its merchants were forward-looking and ready to innovate. They were not locked int 5.7 Extremes of modernity Between 1826 and 1828, after seeing in London a dramatic adaptation of Goethe’s play, Delacroix made a series of 18 lithographs of Faust (Plates 31–36 are reproductions of six of these). A mixture of the comic and evil, these lithographs encapsulate both the sublime and Hugo’s grotesque. They are peopled by strange, elongated figures, whose features have been described as ‘mantis-like’; they have ‘overt ball-and-socket jointing for elbows and knees’ and are dressed in six 4.6 From Enlightenment to Romantic thinking The Enlightenment had typically expressed, on the one hand, the soul and imagination and, on the other, reason and intelligence in terms of incompatible opposites. Not so Delacroix: What are the soul and the intelligence when separated? The pleasure of naming and classifying is the fatal thing about men of learning. They are always overreaching themselves and spoiling their game in the eyes of those easy-going, fai References Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying the arts and humanities. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.
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