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December 17, 2007
Long delayed gratification
I finally got down to New York City this weekend, in part to see the classical wing at the Met. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I couldn't resist one or two of their Endymion sarcophagi (follow the link for a full view).
GOSH the newly refurbished south end of the building is something. I should've taken some views, but wasn't thinking. Go here - lots of pictures.
The main floor is filled with stunning stuff, and the second floor is set up for pontificators like me. I hope I wasn't too boring when I started exclaiming "see - that's exactly what I was saying downstairs, but here you can see a metal one and a ceramic one side by side! The ceramicist is imitating the metalworker, not the other way round!" The second floor, you see, has big glass cases packed with stuff arranged to warm the well-informed heart, though it's probably a little less enthralling for people who don't teach the classical courses - except for the Etruscan chariot!
So why can't I resist Endymion? Well, with my selfish medievalist bent, I look at the Endymion scenes on sarcophagi and see the promise of eternal life, eternal youth, and nightly visits from the goddess who loves him (though there is that annoying problem of sleeping forever) and understand that it's a fine example of non-Christian, non-mystery religion interest in a pleasant afterlife -- but then I flash forward to the Jonah sarcophagi. Here's a great picture of one of them. See the similarity between Jonah (in the upper right under a gourd vine) and Endymion (bottom right of the picture above)? I forget how long we've known this, but the standard interpretation of this phenomenon in Early Christian art is that sarcophagus cutters were working out of pattern books. When (probably) pagan sarcophagus makers were asked by Christian customers for an illustration of the Jonah story, someone flipped around in the pattern book and pulled Endymion out for the whiny-Jonah-under-the-gourd part of the story (if you don't remember that part, it comes after the whale - here you go).
It's a great example of how one goes about making art for a new religion -- not an example of syncretism, but of folks using an already accepted visual language to tell a new story.
And that, dear readers, is exactly the kind of thing I'll be teaching in Rome!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at December 17, 2007 8:06 AM