Posted on 11/06/2016 8:10:43 AM PST by A_perfect_lady
I recently went to the Getty Villa on the Malibu coastline in California, and wandered around looking at the antiquities of ancient Rome and Greece. Currently, the display features some very intricate mosaics, decorated vases, and several funereal portraits that would apparently decorate the mummies of the aristocratic dead.
What struck me most is how detailed, beautiful, and lifelike were the renditions of humans and animals. The lions snarled, the snakes writhed, the warriors flexed, and the portraits of the dead, almost all of them tragically young, gazed with hope and eagerness, and bright expressive eyes. Western art has always celebrated the musculature and grace of the living form, animal and human. There is scarcely an example of art from the antiquities that doesn’t feature life. This is the culture Christianity inherited.
It’s a peculiarity of Islam that it forbids the depiction of humans and animals. One wonders what the point of such a restriction is until one considers the possibility that it was included specifically in order to set it up in opposition to Judeo-Christian culture.
Islam seems determined to be incompatible with the rest of the world, nonabsorbable. Like the wrong blood type, trying to inject it causes uncontrollable clotting and death.
It seems to me a very plausible notion that this was deliberate: that Muhammad and his followers were determined to create something that would immediately have conflict with others woven right into the warp and woof of it. From its inception, it would be impossible to co-exist because the traditions of those around it were the actual cause of the clash. Islam not only demands, inherently, that subjugated cultures change utterly, but that their past be eradicated. The Buddhists have already seen the result of this mentality in the destruction of priceless antiquities because they depicted a human form.
If this incompatibility is deliberate, it seems evident that Islam cannot co-exist with other religions--except in the draconian form of dhimmitude, where practitioners of other religions are allowed to live submissively, under punitive taxes and laws, which of course is not “co-existence” at all. The artistic prohibition is an inherent hostility that cannot be reconciled, and it might behoove us to consider the implication: that the founder of CAIR was correct when he said that Islam is not here to be equal to other religions, but to dominate. There can be no negotiating with someone who feels that the most precious elements of your culture’s past are offensive, sinful, and should be eradicated.
A compelling argument.
A compelling truth.
They plastered over and whitewashed the magnificent murals and frescoes of Hagia Sophia (the Church of Holy Wisdom, the largest Christian church in the world in what used to be Constantinople), and turned the gutted interior into a mosque. It was later turned into a museum, but it's reverting to mosque literally as we speak.
They did the same in their brutal conquest of India: eradicating art and images.
Somebody once said, "Islam is not a civilization: it's a graveyard of civilizations."
Unfortunately, the cathedrals of Europe are already abandoned, because the Faith is abandoned.
See tagline..
There can be no negotiating with someone who feels that the most precious elements of your culture’s past are offensive, sinful, and should be eradicated.
One would have to include socialists for that matter.
Also the destroyed most of the ancient written works now call “lost”.
*** brutal conquest of India: eradicating art and images.***
To be truthful, some Indian art looks like it came out of an X rated hard core porn magazine.
That is why film makers show those particular temples from a distance.
I agree with the point you are making, in general.
But more important to your rather pedestrian observation is why you demean Christianity and identiy it as a second to and a product of Western Culture.
“There is scarcely an example of art from the antiquities that doesn’t feature life. This is the culture Christianity inherited.”
I’m not demeaning Christianity, I’m simply noting that this artistic tendency to portray humans existed before Jesus lived.
“I’m not demeaning Christianity, I’m simply noting that this artistic tendency to portray humans existed before Jesus lived.”
I see.
In contra distinction from Islam.
I didn’t see your sentence being that narrow. It came out a bit different than you meant to imply.
Or you didn’t read it carefully.
The former.
No, my dear. You came here looking to be offended, manufactured an excuse, and when you find there is no cause, you cannot back down and admit it. Now, your time with me is through. But I command you to make one final remark. I won’t be satisfied until you do, mind. I like knowing someone is waiting for me to reply.
I’m not offended nor saying this to personally insult you.
I read your initial response and accepted it.
Yet you decided to get defensive and snarky.
You don’t realize it but given that one sentence, the second one below, that you compromised the actual title of your piece:
“There is scarcely an example of art from the antiquities that doesn’t feature life. This is the culture Christianity inherited.”
Your title should be “Islamic Art is the anti-Western”
Yet, you are all over the place. You cite Buddhism as having images of “a human form” as well.
Why isn’t it anti-Buddhist? Or anti-Eastern?
Sorry, but as long as you insist on attention, your essay isn’t all that coherent.
I certainly agree with your last paragraph and your point, but your essay is far from perfect.
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