Ruins become more picturesque the more they are subject to decay.
Every work of man is perceived as a natural organism in whose development man may not interfere; the organism should live its life out freely, and man may, at most, prevent its premature demise. Thus modern man recognizes part of his own life in a monument and any interference with it disturbs him just as much as an intervention upon his own organism. The reign of nature, including those destructive and disintegrative elements considered part of the constant renewal of life, is granted equal standing with the creative rule of man.
Everything that once was can never be again... everything that succeeds was conditioned by what came before and would not have occurred in the manner in which it did if not for those precedents.
Alois Riegl, "The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Essence and Its Development," 1903
Definitions of the Month (November 2012)
November saw Reading Pericles / Thucydides, Riegl, and Adorno
- Panegyrist (n): An orator who delivers eulogies or panegyrics; a eulogist
- Glossophobia (n): The fear of public speaking
- Antependium (n): A decorative piece of material that can adorn a Christian altar, lectern, pulpit, or table (as opposed to the vestments worn by the minister or priest); more commonly known as a parament, hanging, or an altar frontal
- Bioluminescence (n): The biochemical emission of light by living organisms; The light emitted in such a way
- Lepidopterist (n): A person who studies or collects butterflies and moths.
- Petsuchos (n): The name given to the live crocodile at Crocodilopolis in Ancient Egypt, which was worshipped as a manifestation of the Egyptian god Sobek
- Schadenfreude (n): Pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune
- Stultify (v): Cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative, especially as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine; Cause (someone) to appear foolish or absurd
- Extradite (v): Hand over (a person accused or convicted of a crime) to the jurisdiction of the foreign state in which the crime was committed
- Rectify (v): Put something right, correct; purify or refine a substance, especially by repeated distillation
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All human will is directed toward a satisfactory shaping of man's relationship to the world, within and beyond the individual. The plastic Kunstwollen regulates man's relationship to the sensibly perceptible appearance of things. Art expresses the way man wants to see things shaped or colored, just as the poetic Kunstwollen expreses the way man wants to imagine them. Man is not only a passive, sensory recipient, but also a desiring, active being who wishes to interpret the world in such a way (varying from one people, region, or epoch to another) that it most clearly and obligingly meets his desires. The character of this will is contained in what we call the worldview (again in the broadest sense): in religion, philosophy, science, even statecraft and law.
Alois Riegl, Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, 1893