INSPIRATION BACCHUS AND THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF A CREATION MYTH PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND CULTURE Series Editor Michael Krausz, Bryn Mawr College Advisory Board Annette Baier (University of Pittsburgh), Cora Diamond (University of Virginia), William Dray (University of Ottawa), Nancy Fraser (North- western University), Clifford Geertz (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Peter Hacker (St.John’s College, Oxford), Rom Harré (Linacre College, Oxford), Bernard Harrison (University of Utah), Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago), Leon Pompa (University of Birmingham), Joseph Raz (Balliol College, Oxford), Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Brandeis University),Georg Henrik Von Wright (University of Helsinki) VOLUME 22 INSPIRATION BACCHUS AND THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF A CREATION MYTH BY JOHN F. MOFFITT BRILL LEIDEN•BOSTON 2005 Cover illustration: “St. Mark,” author-portrait from the Gospel Book of Ebbo, ca. 830. Épernay, Bibliothèque Municipale. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 0922–6001 ISBN 90 04 14279 7 ©Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTEDINTHENETHERLANDS Dedication This philological study is dedicated to all inspired, would-be vanguard artists, for it is they who do really need to know these essential art-historical materials. Epigraphs “Formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem...et inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum vitae...” —Genesis 2:7. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun [nihil sub sole novum].” —Ecclesiastes 1:9. “Io non dipingo per arrichire mà solamente per propria sodisfazione, èforza il lasciarmi trasportare degl’impeti dell’entusiasmo ed esercitare i pennelli solamente in quel tempo che me ne sento violentato.” —Salvatore Rosa (letter to Antonio Ruffo, 1666) “Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.” “Pour me tirer des pleurs, il faut que vous pleuriez.” —Nicolas Boileau (Art Poétique, 1674) “Genius has ever been supposed to partake of something divine. Nemo unquam vir magnus fuit, sine aliquo afflatu divino [Never was there a genius who did not benefit from divine inspiration].” —Edward Young (Conjectures upon Original Composition, 1759) “Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.” —T. S. Eliot (“Burnt Norton”) “Alas! Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.” —George Bernard Shaw “Like other wares, art is dependent upon producers and consumers.” —Rudolf Wittkower CONTENTS Dedication & Epigraphs ............................................................ v List of Illustrations .................................................................... xi Introduction: A Personification of “Inspiration” ...................... 1 PART I “INSPIRATION”: ANCIENT DIONYSUS TO THE HUMANISTS’ BACCHUS Chapter 1: The Modern Condition of “Inspiration” .............. 11 “Self-Expression”: A Modernist Perspective on “Inspired” Creation .............................................................................. 11 The Mythology of the Modern Artist .................................. 17 “Modern”: A Brief History of a Loaded Word .................. 21 From Orthodox Modernism to Postmodernism .................. 25 Chapter 2: Michelangelo’s Bacchus as a Historical Metaphor 33 An Interpretive Context for Michelangelo’s Bacchus .......... 33 Michelangelo, Mimesis, and the Humanist Mysteries ........ 37 Michelangelo, Pliny, and Ekphrasis ...................................... 44 The Making of Michelangelo’s Bacchus ................................ 51 Chapter 3: The Classical Sources of “Inspiration” ................ 56 Plato’s Phaedrus, Melancholic Creation, and the Poet’s Divine Inspiration .............................................................. 56 Praxiteles’s Dionysios and Bacchantic Frenzy ........................ 66 How Dionysiac “Inspiration” was Described in Classical Culture ................................................................................ 74 Ancient Evaluations of “Enthusiastic Inspiration” and Poetic Creativity ................................................................ 81 How “Inspiration” is Described by Modern Science ........ 85 viii contents Chapter 4: Post-Classical and Christian “Inspiration” ............ 94 A Depiction of Classical “Inspiration” in Medieval Art .... 94 The Complementary Conditions of “Inspiration” and “Hysteria” .......................................................................... 108 The Complementary Conditions of “Inspiration” and “Dreams” ............................................................................ 110 The Case for “Possession” as a Cause of Inspired Creativity ............................................................................ 114 The Installation of the “Christian Bacchus” ...................... 120 Chapter 5: The Neoplatonic Bacchus of the Renaissance .... 129 Bacchus Reborn in the Renaissance, “all’antica” .............. 129 Neoplatonic “Noble Intoxication” ........................................ 134 Bacchus in Ficino’s Phaedrus .................................................. 142 Bacchus in Ficino’s Symposium .............................................. 146 Titian’s Bacchanal of the Andrians ............................................ 148 Chapter 6: The Emblematic Bacchus and “Inspired” Art-Making .................................................................................. 151 Bacchus in Renaissance Mythology and Emblematics ........ 151 “Inspiration” in the Rise of “God-like” Artistic Creation .............................................................................. 158 Liberal Art-Making and Michelangelo’s Bacchus .................. 167 “Difficulty” and the Hermeneutics of Michelangelo’s Bacchus .................................................................................. 175 PART II “INSPIRATION” FOR THE NEO-DIONYSIAC MODERNISTS Chapter 7: Post-Renaissance “Inspiration,” from the Enlightenment to the Romantics .............................................. 183 “Inspiration” and Aesthetics in the Age of Enlightenment .................................................................... 183 The New Exaltation of “Genius” ........................................ 187 “Genius” and “Inspiration” Among the Romantics .......... 199 Goya, Schopenhauer, and the “Suffering Genius” ............ 205 Nietzsche’s Moment of Involuntary Epiphany .................... 216 contents ix Chapter 8: A Dionysus Reborn for the Symbolist Era .......... 220 The Dionysus of Friedrich Nietzsche .................................. 220 Dionysus and Orpheus Among the Symbolists .................. 225 Dionysiac “Ecstasy” Revived by the Symbolists .................. 230 Éliphas Lévi, a Model for Inspired Symbolist “Initiation” .......................................................................... 233 Chapter 9: Dionysiac Ecstasy and Modernist Art-Worship .... 241 “Ecstasy” and the Power of Modernist Music .................... 241 Dionysiac “Ecstasy” Exalted by the Formalist Art Critics .................................................................................. 251 The Ubiquity of an Archetypal Modernist “Artist-Priest-Prophet” ........................................................ 254 The “Artist-Priest-Prophet” Installed by French Symbolists and Occultists .................................................. 263 A Modernist Proclivity: Art-Worship .................................... 267 Chapter 10: Surrealist Dionysian Myth and Gestural Performance Art ........................................................................ 275 “Automatism” and the Dionysus of the Surrealists ............ 275 Antonin Artaud and the Surrealist-Dionysiac “Theatre of Cruelty” .......................................................................... 281 A Dionysian Niche for Hermann Nitsch and Chris Burden ...................................................................... 288 Dionysus and the Formalist “Gesture”: The Energetic Example of Jackson Pollock .............................................. 291 Chapter 11: The Inspired Shaman-Artist: The Case of Joseph Beuys .............................................................................. 303 Neo-Dionysiac Performance Art: The Messianic Example of Joseph Beuys .................................................................. 303 The “Inspired” Modern Shaman-Artist in Historical Records of Magical Practice .......................................... 310 Beuys’ Aktionen as a Modern Cult Action ............................ 319 Chapter 12: Something Like a Post-Modernist Finale .......... 325 Towards a Disgruntled Postmodernist Perspective on “Inspiration” .................................................................. 325 x contents A Postmodernist Update on the “Divinity” of Michelangelo’s Masterpieces .............................................. 329 Late Modernist Neo-Primitivism and Regressive Art Education ............................................................................ 331 “Inspiration”: Old Stereotypes, New Findings .................... 344 Illustrations Bibliography ................................................................................ 357 Index .......................................................................................... 377