Areopagus Volume LXXI

Welcome one and all to the seventy first volume of the Areopagus, arriving in your inboxes on this very first day of December. For some of you this signals the approach of summer and of warmer days to come! For me, at least, where I am, it foretells of frost and snow.

This was written by Liu Zhongyuan, a Chinese philosopher-poet who lived more than one thousand years ago. Even now his words ring true: no birds in flight, no tracks on the paths, and lonely wanderers among the "cold river snow". But let us stay warm! By whatever light you read may this volume of the Areopagus keep you company on this crisp and darkling December's day...

I - Classical Music

Suite from Christmas Eve

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1895/1904)

Performed by the Scottish National Orchestra
​Winter Landscape by Jacques d'Arthois (1680)

Since December has officially arrived, even if it is not yet Winter, I can't but begin to find myself feeling the quakings of Christmas Cheer at work. Thus I offer you Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve Suite, a collection of five scenes from his opera of the same name, composed ten years earlier. It seems to call up that older sense of Winter, and of Christmas; a time of brief light intermingled with long darkness, of firelight among the frosts, of magic and love and strange tales at work, of ghosts holy or hurtful, of ancient mystery and timeless, quiet, unnameable delight. And this was, we may conclude, intentional. For Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve was inspired by Nikolai Gogol's 1834 short story collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, which tells of Ukrainian folk-tales, and includes among its tableaux the various stories of witches, sorcerers, devils, cossacks, and lovers. But when Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve was first performed in 1895 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg the critics accused him of being "merely" atmospheric, and having sought to conjure the feeling of Winter, of Christmas, and of Gogol's f0lk tales, rather than producing music which had anything to say in its own right. These critics may have been correct, but perhaps that is exactly why Christmas Eve works so well.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, an avant-garde composer well ahead of his time, was one of "The Five". This was a group of Russian composers which also included Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, and Modest Mussorgsky. They sought to create a distinctly Russian style of classical music, if not entirely free than at least fundamentally different from that of Western Europe. They were sceptical of the Conservatories and Academies founded on such principles; none of The Five were academically trained. Opposed to them were the composers and teachers of the Russian cultural elite, who readily accepted the musical traditions of western Europe. And, between them, friends with both sides but intimate with neither, was Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Still, this did not stop Rimsky-Korsakov, who despite his lack of training was a preternaturally talented composer, from being appointed a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory! And, in the end, he was also happy to learn from and adapt western European classical music to his own ends. Such was the context for Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve, then, combining his passion for Russian folk music, rural tales, avant-garde methods, and a sprinkling of traditional western practices. The entire opera is also worth listening to in full.

II - Historical Figure

Vitruvius

Vitruvius is one of the two or three most important architects in history — and yet nothing he ever designed has survived. It may have even been the case that he never designed any buildings at all! What we know about his life we may address with short shrift: his name was Marcus Vitruvius Pollio; he lived in Rome in the 1st century BC; he served as a praefectus fabrum (military engineer) and artilleryman under Julius Caesar, fighting and working as far afield as modern-day Spain, France, Turkey, and Tunisia; and that he later received a pension from the Emperor Augustus.

What makes Vitruvius so important? During his retirement he wrote something called De Architectura, a comprehensive treatise — part history, part guide — on Greek and Roman architecture. This book is the only surviving architectural treatise from the ancient world. That is to say: without this book we would know far less about Classical Architecture, and would have had to reverse engineer our knowledge of the Five Orders and of Proportion by analysing ancient ruins. Vitruvius gives us all of that straight from the horse's mouth.

Its introduction is rather amusing, and reveals something of Vitruvius humble character:

Among the many surprisingly funny parts of De Architectura is when Vitruvius relates a practice from the city of Ephesus he thought the Romans should have adopted — perhaps we ought to ressurect it also:

Many of the principles laid out by Vitruvius are no less true now, or ought to be no less true, than they were two thousand years ago. Air conditioning may have levelled the playing field, but perhaps we should pay attention to what he said:

Vitruvius also set high standards for the architect; he evidently thought of it as a role with great dignity and responsibility. He says, first, that they must have both theoretical and practical knowledge:

He also argued that architects must know about drawing, art, history, music, chemistry, astronomy, poetry, and philosophy, among other things. Why philosophy?

Why music?

Also medicine:

And even law:

But none of this fully explains the importance of Vitruvius. See, although his book survived in many manuscripts during the Middle Ages, copied by hand all across Europe's monastic scriptoriums, it wasn't until the 15th century Italian Renaissance that he became an architectural superstar. When Poggio Bracciolini, a famous manuscript hunter, found a copy of De Architectura in the Abbey of St Gall in 1414 and published it to his contemporaries, it caused an architectural revolution unlike anything else in history.

For good or for bad Vitruvius' De Architectura became the book that any self-regarding, fashionable, up to date architect simply had to read. It was the fount of knowledge and rules according to which Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical architecture were designed and built for the next three centuries. Over the following century more treatises appeared, whether by Alberti, Bramante, Palladio, or Piranesi, all of them further refining the new architectural language of Europe and all them firmly rooted in Vitruvius. We often say that so and so person has "shaped the world"; in Vitruvius' case this is literally true.

He established the three virtues to which all buildings should aspire: Firmitas, Utilitas, and Venustas; meaning Strength, Usefulness, and Beauty. Vitruvius went on to define the five governing principles of all true architecture in Greece and Rome — Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy, each of which he explains and defines in detail. This way of conceptualising architecture, as a fine and noble art bound up with philosophy, appealed to the humanist imagination of the Renaissance.

But, even more importantly, he explained the origins and design specifications of Three Classical Orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. An Order, you may recall, is the name for a column, its capital, and the entablature which rests upon it, along with all associated rules of proportion and decorative motifs. It was these Three Orders — or Five, if you include Tuscan and Composite — which defined Greco-Roman Architecture and all Neoclassical Architecture since then. I shall only quote one part of Vitruvius' delineation of the orders, here regarding the Ionic. It will give you some notion of just how detailed it was, and therefore how useful Renaissance architects found his work in their own attempts to resurrect Classical Architecture:

Make sense of that if you can!

Vitruvius' detailed description of human proportions, which he claimed to be the basis of Classical Architecture, inspired one of history's most famous drawings: Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

Alas, all the fuss about De Architectura as the Bible of Classical Architecture — though that is true — obscures the fact that it is, on the whole, a very peculiar treatise. Upon reading it you will be struck by how much of the book is dedicated to, say, instructions for building siege towers, roads, acqueducts, machines of war, clocks, and water organs:

Where to locate a city:

How to find water:

A guide to the production of colours:

Exhaustive descriptions of the zodiac:

All of this along with detailed guides for the production of bricks, lime, and mortar, and how to construct walls, and so and so forth. He even theorises about the origins of architecture itself, and goes on to relate some interesting anecdotes and musations thereon, as when he compares the achievements of athletes to philosophers:

Vitruvius, who is repeatedly self-critical throughout his treatise, apologising for his unfamiliarity with the arts of fine writing, makes for a compelling character. He evidently revered architecture as a discipline, speaking always with admiration and scrupulousness about its history, laws, and nature. We do not have to agree with him, however, and we may rightfully argue that Classical architecture is neither the best way, nor the truest way, to build. But what we cannot deny is that Vitruvius changed the course of history; De Architectura, we can safely say, is the most important architectural book ever written. There would be no White House, no Buckingham Palace, no St Peter's Basilica, no Louvre, nor any Renaissance, Baroque, or Neoclassical building — or, at least, as we have come to understand them — without Vitruvius. He sought to preserve the learning and the methods of his times; this he achieved in a way he could hardly have dreamed. Next time you see an Doric Order, a pediment, or a voluted capital, and should you like what you say, forget not to say, "thank you Vitruvius!"

III - Painting

Pure Whiteness of Winter

Xu Jing (1441)

If one were to generalise then one might say traditional Chinese art was more concerned with the essence of a landscape than its outward appearance. Thus to paint but a few branches of a single tree was sufficient to convey the sense of the natural world in winter; in Europe, at the same time, such a small detail, devoid of broader context or any apparent narrative, would not have even been considered a proper work of art. Hence Xu Jing's Pure Whitness of Winter, painted in the early 15th century, tells us a great deal about Chinese art as it emerged, developed, and was maintained for well over one thousand years.

One can appreciate this painting without knowing anything at all, of course; it speaks directly to the experiences and sensations of winter by picking out a single aspect of it with which we are all familiar — snow gathered on the branches of a tree against a milky-white sky — and does so with apparently effortless elegance. But there is more going on here: for the plum blossoms of the tree represent one of the most important symbols in the time-honoured traditions of Chinese court painting, established during the Song Dynasty and lasting for centuries thereafter. They would have evoked, for whomsoever saw this scroll flickering in the firelight, thoughts of solitude, romance, changefulness, and the eventual return of Spring. Its title, too, speaks to the nature of Chinese poetry and its long association with painting. These two art forms were closely linked; thus a merely descriptive title would not have sufficed. Pure Whiteness of Winter, like the art we see, is an evocative, lyrical, and delicate title which does not merely describe what we see but becomes part of the work of art itself.

A similar example from one hundred years earlier, painted by the polymath soldier-painter-poet-scholar Wang Mian, is Fragrant Snow at Broken Bridge. It also features plum blossoms withering in winter — and a delightfully poetic title. This should give you some idea, I think, of the immense respect with which artistic traditions were treated in China. The goal of an artist like Xu Jing was not to be "original"; rather, all he could hope was to master the principles passed down to him. "Good on him", one is tempted to say.

And we cannot forget that both of these paintings were painted on silk. Thus the backdrop I mentioned earlier — what seems to be a milky-white winter sky — is, in fact, simply the material on which the branches were painted. To leave parts of a canvas unpainted and say that not only is the painting complete, but that this very unpainted space is part of the painting, would have been unthinkable in Renaissance Europe! I do not mean to say that either approach is better; it seems to me, simply, that they have different goals and achieve different ends. In conclusion I share with you a view of Pure Whiteness of Winter as it really exists — not as a canvas or a mural, but as a hanging silk scroll. Delightful.

IV - Architecture

Flamboyant Gothic

Last Flowers of the Middle Ages

What you are looking at here is the romantically-titled "Hall of the Lost Steps" in the Palace of Poitiers, in Western France, built for the Duke of Berry at the end of the 14th century. No doubt your eyes will have been immediately drawn to that screen of finely carved stone. And you will notice it has been installed in front of the thin "lancet windows", which were a defining quality of early Gothic Architecture. This set of ornamental windows is newer, then, and noticeably different. Here we see the beginnings of the final age of Gothic Architecture in France — a style known as the Flamboyant Gothic. It appeared toward the end of the 1300s and dominated for a further century or two until, eventually, the neoclassical architecture of the Renaissance superceded it.

How best to describe the Flamboyant? Gothic Architecture, which first emerged in the 12th century, had until the late 14th century been tempered by a certain restraint. The Flamboyant cast off its bridle entirely: those once-sober traceries and once-judicious vaults blossomed into wildly elaborate, lace-like forests of finely carved stone. You need only look at Rouen Cathedral, comparing the lower with the upper sections of its towers to see the difference between Flamboyant Gothic and the styles that came before it. Notice the progression from relative simplicity toward baffling complexity.

Recall the three ornamental windows at the Palace of Poitiers; this word — ornamental — almost defines the Flamboyant Gothic. No doubt Gothic Architecture had always been richly ornamented, but any such decoration was almost either in service of a narrative — such as the depiction of a Biblical scene, or the life of a saint — of some imaginative fiction — gargoyles, grotesques, angels — or directly imitative of nature — thistles, berries, flowers, boughs, branches. In the late 14th century and throughout the 15th, however, Gothic stonemasons turned away from this tradition and embraced abstract, purely ornamental design motifs. Compare the doors of Amiens Cathedral, constructed in the 13th century, with the Flamboyant Trinity Abbey in Vendôme. Notice how dramatically the volume of figurative statuary has been reduced, to be replaced with fabulously complex, flowing webs of interwoven stone decoration, all of it abstract.

Another defining feature of the Flamboyant Gothic, coincidental with that of its obsession with ornamentation, was the disintegration of solid walls. Have a look at the Church of St Maclou in Rouen. There, as at the Trinity Abbey in Vendôme, it is actually rather difficult to find a solid surface on which to rest your eyes. Everything is perforated, everything is movement; any sense of solidity has faded beneath a lattice of stonework.

This was technically masterful — some would argue the Flamboyant Gothic represented a certain hubris, as sculptors and masons simply indulged in technical fripperies rather than offering anything of serious meaning or genuine beauty. Be that as it may, the embellished ornamentation of Flamboyant Gothic and the preference of its builders for curvilinear patterns are where its name comes from: Flamboyant means Flaming in French. Notice, in all of the examples here given, the likeness of flames in the decorative stonework. And, here, in the rose window of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris:

This flowering of Flamboyant Gothic in France soon branched off into related but distinct forms around Europe: the Isabelline in Spain, the Manueline in Portugal, the Sondergotik in Germany and Central Europe, and all sorts of peculiar experimentation in northern Italy, especially Milan. Each of them have certain characteristics in common, most obviously that striking accumulation of ornament to the point of overabundance. And, in addition, a clear preference for flowing lines, and for experimental, lacy patterns.

And even if Britain remained unique among European nations with its sui generis style of Perpendicular Gothic, which emphasises austere vertical lines above all else, there were still signs of that Flamboyant mindset in Britain's 14th and 15th and early 16th century Gothic buildings. Take the ceiling of King's College Chapel in Cambridge, or of the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey; this elaborate method of creating ceilings is called "fan vaulting". Thus, it seems, artistic and creative minds all across Europe were being simulatenously drawn toward this maximalist flowering of ornamental Gothic architecture. Everything had become fine, delicate, exuberant, and almost frivolous.

What is Flamboyant Gothic, fundamentally? It represents the final flourish and last stand of Medieval architectecture in Western Europe, the last phases of a school of architecture that had been germinating for centuries and burst into life in the 12th. The classically-inspired architecture of the Renaissance, founded on the principles and rules laid out in Vitruvius' De Architectura, were soon to conquer Europe. Crockets, pinnacles, spires, flying buttresses, fan vaults, gables, and ogival arches were soon to be replaced by rounded arches, entablatures, pediments, domes, and the Five Orders. Some, like John Ruskin, have considered this Flamboyant Gothic (and its many regional variations) to represent the death throes of Gothic Architecture, and even of European art more generally, showing in its absurdly elaborate ornamentation — a corruption of the pure style of earlier centuries — a sort of architectural hubris and spiritual exhaustation. Maybe! But, five centuries on, the ceaseless sophistication of Flamboyant Gothic never fails to impress.

V - Rhetoric

Begging the Question

Rhetoric inevitably blurs over into logic. Why? Much of rhetoric is about argument, and whenever we talk about argument we must deal with rationality. Thus any study of oratory inevitably requires some study of how to construct logically sound arguments — and how to identify and pick apart those which are flawed! I have said before, and shall again, that the purpose of rhetoric is not only to make us better speakers, but also to make us better listeners.

One of the most devious rhetorical sleights of hand, though we often use it without realising, is known as "begging the question." This is when the premises of an argument assume its conclusion. What does that mean? It sounds something like this:

"Begging the question" is a very loose translation from Aristotle, who first wrote about this problem over two thousand years ago. It was then, and remains, a frequent error — or, perhaps, intentional deception! — in all forms of writing and speaking. Aristotle meant something more general in his original formulation. Rather than simply using your conclusion to prove your argument, Aristotle criticised any statement which included premises that had not been proven.

Well, Aristotle would ask, why should we trust these scientists? You haven't proven that what they say is true, or even explained how they discovered that the world is round. Or, say:

Here the speaker is assuming that if a film does not attract a large audience then it must be bad. But they have not proven this; it has merely been bundled into the statement and taken as true. Still, in its most simplified form, "begging the question" looks ridiculous:

However, with a few layers of linguistic variation and syntactic complexity added in, such incoherent arguments can easily be obscured. Alas, language is loose and provides ample opportunity for smuggling in logical inconcistences!

This statement is merely an opinion — the definition of beneficial is that it helps people! — and yet it sounds like an argument. To "beg the question" is a rhetorical sleight of hand, then, because one can make a statement which seems very convincing, and might even convince those who hear it, but which upon closer inspection, turns out to rely on circular or incomplete reasoning.

VI - Writing

A Fool's Cure

Does any writer know of a greater curse than writer's block? A blank page, and... nothing! The internet is filled with solutions for this ancient authorial plague. A related problem is when we feel the urge to write, or when we "want to become a writer", but do not know what to write about. "What should I write about?" is a question people have often asked me.

Here I propose a solution to both of these, and perhaps all, writing problems. I ask you to read the first of the one hundred and eight sonnets that comprise Astrophil and Stella, a sequence of poems written by Sir Philip Sidney in the late 16th century:

How many people, facing writer's block, have been like Sidney biting his truant pen and beating himself for spite? A wonderful description, I think, of the unequalled frustration of sitting before a blank page and finding yourself totally unable to write anything, even a letter or word. And how does Sidney resolve this problem? Fool, says his Muse, you must look in your heart. Is this not obvious? Yes! And yet so few would-be writers seem to abide by the pure and uncomplicated truth of what Sidney's Muse tells him. As soon as we ask, "what should I write about?" we are already losing. That question cannot exist; the question is, instead, "what do I want to write about?" Or, better yet, "what do I need to write about?" In ninety nine cases out of one hundred writer's block is merely the result of trying to write about the wrong thing, or of trying to write about something you don't even want to write about, or of simply trying too hard. Thus, when you suffer this curse, remember Sidney's words: Fool, look in thy heart and write. Whatever it is, however strange or obscure or unclear, follow that lamp within your heart and let it be your guide as a writer!

If that is not enough then I present the ninetieth sonnet from Astrophil and Stella, which contains a similar message:

And love doth hold my hand, and makes me write. There is the cure we seek! Alas, we humans are creatures of confusion who cannot help but fill our minds with preconceptions and pre-judgments, with fears of ought and should and could. Forget all that! Let love — love here representing whatever it is that moves you, excites you, interests you, angers you — be that which moves your hand, and nothing else.

VII - The Seventh Plinth

Why not Duodecember?

Decem means ten in Latin. Thus December means, in Latin, the "tenth month". So why is it... the twelfth month of the year? Well, the first thing you may rightly conclude is that our modern months, and indeed our modern calendar, were created by the Ancient Romans. Specifically, they had an ancient calendar dating back to the earliest days of the city, supposedly created by the mythical Romulus, founder of Rome. This was modified under the Roman Republic and then heavily reformed in 46 BC by Julius Caesar, before being tinkered with by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, thus creating our modern "Gregorian" calendar. There are many fascinating stories from the history of our dating system, including why months have different numbers of days and the "longest year in history", when Caesar's reforms meant that 46 BC had 455 days!

But that is all for another time. Now we only wish to know: why is December the twelfth month? In that ancient Roman calendar, attributed to Romulus, there were only ten months, each of 31 or 30 days, called:

• Martius (Month of Mars)
• Aprilis (Month of Aphrodite)
• Maius (Month of Maia)
• Iunius (Month of Juno)
• Quintilis (Fifth Month)
• Sextilis (Sixth Month)
• September (Seventh Month)
• October (Eighth Month)
• November (Ninth Month)
• December (Tenth Month)

Ancient Rome being then an agricultural society, they simply left the period between December and Martius undated — a long and dark and dateless winter. Thus March was the first month of the Roman year! But during the days of the Republic, as Roman society grew more sophisticated, this system became obviously untenable. Hence two new months were added, called Ianuarius and Februarius, and the start of the Roman new year was moved to Ianuarius. The old months, meanwhile, kept their names — even though they did not make any strict chronological sense. Quintilis was later renamed in honour of Julius Caesar (July), and Sextilis in honour of Augustus (Augustus). This is the naming system which has endured right down to the 2023, and thus December, the "Tenth Month", is the Twelfth.

Question of the Week

Two weeks ago I asked you:

Can money ever make a person truly happy?

And here were your answers:

David M

Mark

Sam A

Sofia Z

Cristina P

Zuza

Sophie

Deborah G

Diane BG

Graham M

Kim S

Marcos F

Jane S

Eric V

David R

And for this week's question to test your critical thinking...

Are video games a form of art?

Email me your answers and I'll share them in next week's newsletter.

And that's all

This Areopagus now drawing to a close, as this brief day closeth also, and night folding in... 'tis time to sleep. Thus we open the long-thumbed leaves of the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney one last time, and turn to the thirty ninth of the Sonnets of Astrophil and Stella, wherein it is written:

Or, better yet, should you be a "night owl" like me, from the ninety ninth:

The certain knot of peace awaits; I bid you Good Night, Gute Nacht, Лека Нощ и сладки сънища — until Friday next, adieu.

Yours,

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