Beauty and the Gods
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Beauty and the Gods
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See moreHow ideas and experiences of beauty informed human relationships with the divine in ancient Greece
How ideas and experiences of beauty informed human relationships with the divine in ancient Greece
Beginning with the earliest Greek literature, the epics of Homer and Hesiod, beauty was seen as having a special connection with the divine. The gods of ancient Greece were defined by their exceptional beauty; even today, 'to look like a Greek god' is proverbial for human beauty. In Beauty and the Gods, Hugo Shakeshaft explores the relationship between the beautiful and divine in ancient Greece, principally in the Archaic period (ca. 750-480 BCE). Analysing evidence that ranges from poetry, art, and philosophical texts to architecture and the natural landscape, Shakeshaft shows how ideas and experiences of beauty shaped Greek relations with the divine.
With a powerful call for the place of beauty and aesthetics in the writing of history, Shakeshaft uncovers the cultural dialogue between beauty and the gods in a variety of contexts in the Archaic Greek world: in forms of divine worship; in poetry, music, and dance; in attitudes to the natural environment; and in architecture and art. This early chapter of Greek history, he argues, holds an unrecognised key to understanding some long-running threads in the histories of religion, art, and aesthetics, from Plato's aesthetic theories to beauty's status in contemporary discourse. Beauty's deep past and divine connection in ancient Greece can help us see beauty now in sharper focus.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780691250205
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 25 March 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Illustration: 76 color + 28 b/w illus. 1 map.
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 156.0mm
Height: 235.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 528
About the Author
Hugo Shakeshaft is the A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He previously held fellowships at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence and the University of Oxford and in 2023 received the College Art Association's Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize.
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