-Index-

Presentation

Introduction: Art, Criticism and Mystic

Bento SILVA SANTOS

Original title: Apresentação: Arte, Crítica e Mística

Keywords: Art, Criticism, Mystic.

Special Issue

Fables in Bayeux Tapestry: interrelations between margin and center in the narrative of the 11th century conquering of England

Jaime Estevão dos REIS, Adriana ZIERER, Lúcio Carlos FERRARESE

Original title: As fábulas na Tapeçaria de Bayeux: inter-relações entre margem e centro na narrativa da conquista da Inglaterra no século XI

Keywords: Bayeux Tapestry, England., Fables, Margin.

This article’s objective is to comprehend the role that the fables depicted in the marginal illustrations of the Bayeux Tapestry perform towards the main narrative. We present the historical context of the source’s creation, concerning the Battle of Hastings of 1066, the relations between the narrative and its context, with the fables. Thus, we have observed that these perform an auxiliary role for the comprehension of the main narrative, presenting exemplary and moralistic stories that interact directly with the central images.

The anagogical contemplation in Saint-Denis Abbey (XII century)

Ricardo da COSTA, Tainah Moreira NEVES

Original title: A contemplação anagógica na Abadia de Saint-Denis (séc. XII)

Keywords: Medieval Art, Medieval Philosophy, Saint-Denis, Suger.

“Bright is the noble work; but, being nobly bright, the work should brighten the minds, so that they may travel, through the true lights, to the True Light where Christ is the true door”. This phrase was inscribe by orders of Abbot Suger (c. 1081-1151) in one of Saint-Denis Abbey’s bronze doors. It emphasizes the anagogical character, provided by Suger to art, at the basilica’s reconstruction. In this philosophical and religious process, described by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in the fifth century, the medievals ascend from the physical light, the material, to the spiritual light, immaterial, guided by Art, and then reach elevation. It is a continuous, cyclical movement, produced by the arduous search of entitys towards the Being. In order to accomplish such aesthetic investigation, we propose to analyze three extracts from the Liber de Rebus in Administratione Sua Gestis, by Suger, in which the Abbot describes the reasons of his idealized and directed reedification at Saint-Denis. More specifically, the first addition to the church and the santuary’s doors (I, XXV – De ecclesiæ primo augmento, XXVII – De portis fusilibus et deauratis). Based on them, we intend to defend the hypothesis that, to reform the Abbey with a new aesthetic (later to be known as gothic), Suger used art to convey his interpretation of Christian theology, and so materialize, artistically, tangible means by which one could ascend from the material to the immaterial. By creating this anagogical atmosphere that, by the contemplation of the materials forms occurs the contemplation of the immaterial, of the immutable, Suger managed to express artistically, at the abbey, the celestial hierarchy.

Sacred Architecture and Nature in the Cantigas de Santa María

Ricardo da COSTA, Bárbara DANTAS

Original title: A Arquitetura Sagrada e a Natureza nas Cantigas de Santa María (séc. XIII)

Keywords: Cantigas de Santa Maria, Medieval Art, Medieval Literature, Nature.

The Middle Ages was the time of insertion of man in Natural environment. More than that: it was, mainly, the time of the conquest of space, the large land clearance, the architectural constructions (sometimes in the middle of Nature), and the expansions at the expense of the environment. The monastic movements were the drivers of this increase. In this sense, the monks were, par excellence, the pathfinders, the lords, the domesticators of Nature, both subjects as objects to induce this process of understanding, civilization. Theology itself so allowed (“For every sort of beast and bird and every living thing on earth and in the sea has been controlled by man and is under his authority”, Jas 3, 7). The Western civilization was the daughter of this process, of this relationship, of this symbiosis, often unintended, between Nature and Culture, Civilization and Barbarism, raw and cooked. The purpose of this study is to analyze the iconography of the illuminations of two songs and one praise present in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a work attributed to Alfonso X, the Wise. Our methodology consisted of thematically define the presence of Nature in those three illuminated, so when we fix the following artistic tops: 1) The Sacred Nature (cantiga 10), 2) The Supplicant Nature (cantiga 93) and 3) The Saving Nature (cantiga 7). In order, from Nature that surrounds and adorns the Virgin to Nature, which witnesses the passage of time, in a paradoxical duality between the eternal time of Nature and the fleeting and fickle weather of Art. Meanwhile, the Nature who pleads isolates the leper in his retreat, and, ultimately, the saving Nature is one that involves with his heavenly robe who ask the intercession of the Virgin.

St. Bonaventure’s aesthetic ideas as possible doctrinal source of Trecento Italian iconography

José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ

Original title: Ideas estéticas de San Buenaventura como posible fuente doctrinal de la iconografía del Trecento italiano

Keywords: Aesthetics, Iconography, Italian painting, Mariology, Patristics. Medieval Philosophy, St. Bonaventure, Trecento.

This paper attempts to highlight the influence that the primary Aesthetics designed by St. Bonaventure could have had on some paintings of the Italian Trecento. Therefore, the work is divided into two parts essentially linked. Firstly it analyzes in detail the first two levels (of the six proposed by the saint. plus a seventh of pure ecstasy), by which man can and must ascend from the world to contemplate God: on those two initial levels, linked to the sensory knowledge, man uses his sensitivity to appreciate the material things of this created world as footprints and traces of their Creator. In the second part several paintings by Giotto, Simnone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Agnolo Gaddi and Taddeo Gaddi are analyzed, in order to see if one can perceive in them some influence of the initial phase of the Aesthetics of Bonaventure, that implies a remarkable enhancement of the physical world and the senses by which we perceive it with full cognitive validity.

Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) and the philosophical-rethorical efficacy of sermon: Art and Philosophy

Ricardo da COSTA, Gustavo Cambraia FRANCO

Original title: São Vicente Ferrer (1350-1419) e a eficácia filosófico-retórica do sermão: Arte e Filosofia

Keywords: Art, Medieval Rethoric, Philosophy, Saint Vincent Ferrer, Sermon.

The aim of this work is to analyze some aspects of the philosophical discourse and the medieval rethoric elements contained in the sermons of Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), especially his thoughts about a theme currently and universally present in the Christian Middle Ages: the moral virtues or cardinal virtues. For this, we will utilize a specific sermon wrote in Latin language (the Vth Sermon of the IVth Sunday of Advent), in which the preacher relates the four cardinal virtues with episodes of the life and deeds of Christ, as reported in the Gospels. The theme will be related with some artistic representations of the saint: the paintings of Joan Macip (1540-1545) and the most famous, of Alonso Cano (1601-1667), “Saint Vincent Ferrer Preaching” (1644-1645), as well as the central altarpiece of the Dominican Convent Church of Cervera (Segarra c. 1456), which represents Saint Vincent Ferrer and the Mother of God (Apocalyptic Virgin) of Pedro García de Benabarre (1445-1485). Our iconographic analysis is based on the theoretical perspective of Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), and in the definition of image for the period according with the considerations of Jean-Claude Schmitt (1946- ).

History through Image: an iconological analysis of the Saint George’s Altarpiece by Bernat Martorell

Carlos Vinicius Costa de MENDONÇA, Bárbara Lofiego Pimenta LOFEGO

Original title: A História através da Imagem: uma análise iconológica do Retábulo de São Jorge (1425-1437) de Bernat Martorell (c. 1390-1452)

Keywords: 15th century, Bernat Martorell, International Gothic, Medieval Art, St. George.

This work aims to establish an iconological analysis based on the art historian Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) methodology of analysis. The addressed work is the St. George’s Altarpiece (1425-1437) by the Catalan painter Bernat Martorell (1390-1452). The major goal is to data the collection of St George’s legend and the copic texts that tells his life, highlighting the chivalrous ideal represented by this saint in the fifteenth century medieval society. This work also aims to provide a comprehensive overview of this society, which was identified whth St. George’s image, in that particular period.

The Envy in Curial and Güelfa and its representation in the Middle Ages autumn art

Ricardo da COSTA, Armando Alexandre dos SANTOS

Original title: A Inveja em Curial e Guelfa e sua representação na arte do outono da Idade Média

Keywords: Capital Sins, Medieval Art, Medieval Philosophy, Medieval Theology.

In the anonymous chivalric novel Curial and Guelfa (XVth century), the Envy, one of the seven capital sins of the Medieval Septenary, offers a literary background (but also a philosophical-moral one) and is the foundation of both the plot teatralization and the characters poetic construction. As a recurrent theme in Medieval Philosophy, Theology and Homiletics, therefore, the Envy can also be considered as the novel’s leitmotiv. The purpose of this work is to present some initial remarks concerning this theme in Curial and Guelfa, and especially, relate it to some artistic representations of Envy in the period, such as, for example, the Arena Chapel Fresco (1308) of Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266-1337), The Last Judgement (c. 1393), of Taddeo di Bartolo (c. 1362-1422), besides, naturally, the famous iconographic representation of the theme by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516): The Seven Capital Sins (c. 1485). To this purpose, our analysis will be methodologically based on the literary narrative method of Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), as exposed in his classic The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919).

The allegorical representation in the Bad Women by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828): narrative and iconological analysis

Alexandre Emerick NEVES, Sabrina Vieira LITTIG

Original title: A representação alegórica na obra Mulher Má de Francisco de Goya (1746-1828): análise narrativa e iconológica

Keywords: Allegory, Francisco de Goya, Iconography, Sorceress.

We present a study about of allegorical elements of representation from female figure in the work Bad Woman by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Through stemming images of popular imagination that throw themselves in time and serve to reinforce decadent social stereotypes, we propose a brief discussion of the allegory its significant and symbolic structures. The iconological approach of some narrative aspects of these artistic formulations indicates how the popular imagination contributed to the development of the witch myth, creature represented as evil reference by the artists of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, pernicious enemy of religious and moral structures. We emphasize the symbolic and conceptual relationships in the modern development of these figures in Goya's work.

The representation of Eroticism in Art and Literature

Almerinda da Silva LOPES, Lívia Santolin BORGES

Original title: A representação do Erotismo na Arte e na Literatura

Keywords: Art, Eroticism, Literature, Sade.

The present work is focused representation of eroticism as a literary and artistic genre. For the development of this proposal, it was necessary to define the term eroticism, but also explain how to use this theme in art and literature. To that end, we need to address, commenting since the period of cave painting, through classical Greek art, Roman and Oriental art, until you get to modernism; as well as review the literature in Portugal in the twelfth century, the literature in the Renaissance and the French Revolution and the works of Marquis de Sade.

The Aesthetics of the Interpretation of Dreams

José Eduardo Costa SILVA, Ernesto HARTMANN

Original title: A Estética da Interpretação dos Sonhos

Keywords: Aesthetics, Freud., The Interpretation of Dreams.

This paper presents a philosophical study of the tensions and interconections between Aesthetics and Logic in The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). We wish to demonstrate how Freud in this text which is strategic for the establishment of psychoanalytic praxis and that resonates in contemporary artistic movements, establishes a method supported in the accuracy of observation and logic and, at the same time, invocates in aid to this method notions of representation, form, content and unit, seemingly opposing thus the idealist philosophical tradition, historically founded in the distinction between the intelligible and the sensible.

Flexibility of musical hearing

Gaspar PAZ

Original title: A flexibilidade da escuta musical

Keywords: Aesthetic experience, Artistic criticis, Artistic languages, Flexible listening, Music.

Herein we analyze some aspects of the artistic criticism and aesthetic experience, which stand out in Gerd Bornheim’s interpretations. For him, the critical disposal should follow the creative process and the expressive praxis. In this way, we will assume musical language as an inflexion point highlighting the contrast between two forms of perception: the intellectualist listening and flexible listening to the music. Such instances symbolize the buildup of an interpretative and practical boldness in which the role of sound is stressed. There are at least two plausible hypotheses in bornheimnian approach. The first one, phenomenological, handles the music as language towards a dialectic of social relations and it takes into account the historical alternations of subjectivity. The second trends to a broader analysis of artistic expressions, in which the dialogue between music, theater, poetry, cinema and art is emphasized. It is therefore important to appreciate the critical relevance of Bornheim’s work and the special place he assigns to the relationship between arts, philosophy and politics.

The aesthetic anamnesis of Umberto Eco

Ricardo da COSTA

Original title: A anamnese estética de Umberto Eco

Keywords: Anamnesis, Medieval Aesthetics, Middle Ages, Umberto Eco.

The purpose of this paper is to present and analyze the aesthetic ideas of Umberto Eco (1932- ) in his book Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages (1987), particularly the aesthetic sensibilities and interests of medieval themes in the metaphysics of light (claritas), symbolism and allegory, and the aesthetic vision of the universe. For this we will use the Anamnesis Eric Voegelin's concept, exposed in their work – ANAMNESIS - From Theory of History and Politics (2002) – in which the author applies his philosophy of consciousness to your retrospective existential dimension, added to the aesthetic's considerations by the philosopher Roger Scruton (1944- ).

Articles

The myth as tool of persuasion in Plato’s Phaedrus

Barbara BOTTER, Rodrigo Danúbio QUEIROZ

Original title: O mito como ferramenta de persuasão no Fedro de Platão

Keywords: Myth, Phaedrus, Plato, truth.

The article aims to analyze Plato’s Phaedrus. Centralizes the importance of myth as a persuasion tool to achieve true dialogue. For this, a reflection took place, through dialogue, the structure of the myth; its symbology and the possibility of Plato recognize the limits of philosophical knowledge in wanting to reach the truth. The philosophical argument used by Socrates is based on the myth erotic speech. This discourse, in its mythical route reaches lovers and persuades regarding the definition of the soul, of its participation in the divine and beauty fashion. Therefore, it is evident that Plato recognizes the influence that non-rational world has about the very possibility of understanding the rational statements. The event that takes place in the dialectical movement of his maieutic.

The Christ and the History: a dialectical perspective of the Christological quarrels

José Pedro LUCHI, Helio Pedro Pretti PERIM

Original title: O Cristo e a História: uma perspectiva dialética das querelas cristológicas

Keywords: Christology, Councils, Dialectic, Incarnation, Katabasis.

This research atempts to trace the progress of the historical and theological comprehension of the Person of Christ by exposing the positions risen before Nicea, as well as those developed during the first four ecumenic councils, in order to investigate the competence of the formulae throughout achieved. Two major works will be of aid to this quest, namely The Ecumenical Councils, by the historian Hubert Jedin, and The Incarnation of Christ, by the philosopher and theologian Hans Küng, which assumes the dinamics of the Hegelian dialect all along his work. The concepts of katabasis and anabasis, both borrowed from the mythological analysis tradition, will be summoned to the actual research and resignified by their new usage in the Judaeo-Christian theodissey. Concepts whose meanings are broadly urdestood in the Christian context like kenosis, incarnation and humanization will also be utilized. The research will climax in the Council of Chalcedon, the one in which the ultimate definition of Christ’s nature was arranged. It’s formula is crucial to understand the relationship between Jesus, God and man in the subsequent medieval thought.

Moses and the gnosiology of God, according Gregory’s of Nyssa interpretation in Canticum Canticorum

Eirini ARTEMI

Original title: Moses and the gnosiology of God, according Gregory’s of Nyssa interpretation in Canticum Canticorum

Keywords: Agnoia, Canticum Canticorum, Gnofos, Gnosiology, Gregory of Nyssa, Ignorance, Knowledge, Moses.

This paper seeks to provide an exposition on Gregory of Nyssa’s work on how Moses could “know” and “see” God. Humanity and God stand on two very different planes of existence. Moses “knew” God, because he tried to leave with God’s order. Every time that Moses made a movement that included a kind of his sacrifice, God appeared to him. God presented Himself to Moses through the burning bush. Gregory underlined that that every person, included Moses, can know the essence of God – one cannot know what God is. However, one can know “that God is” – meaning that we can know that God exists. Moses had many “visions” of God and Gregory explained that it is not possible for any man to describe these God’s revelation to Moses, because “Humans are not capable of this knowledge because it is “other than” or “beyond” them”. Moses wanted to see God all the time. Gregory reminded his audience that erotic desire mirrors spiritual desire only in part; spiritual desire – and ultimately the divine nature – cannot be limited to erotic desire. Thus, Gregory of Nyssa highlighted both God’s imminence and God’s transcendence. Moses wanted to see the same face of God. His desire was expressed to God. He knew that Salvation is achieved through knowledge about God, but in Christian dimension. This knowledge determined both humans and the form and content of their life. The knowledge for God is no longer man’s work in Christian teaching. It is the work of faith to the revealed truth. For this high feat-conquest has as assistant only the faith of man to God and the grace of God to man.

Breuitas in the work of Festus of Tridentum

Moisés ANTIQUEIRA

Original title: A breuitas na obra de Festo de Tridento

Keywords: Breuitas, Festus, Latin historiography in the Fourth Century AD.

The paper intends to point out how the epitomator Festus of Tridentum dealt with the ideal of brevity – the Latin breuitas – in his historical compendium. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to mention that Festus did not use that rhetorical tool in an unvarying manner.

Erudition and Charm Poetry in Anglo-Saxon England: Solomon & Saturn I and the Nine Herbs Charm

Elton O. S. MEDEIROS

Original title: Erudição e Poesia Encantatória na Inglaterra anglo-saxônica: Salomão & Saturno I e o Encantamento das Nove Ervas

Keywords: Charms, Christianity, Old English, Solomon & Saturn.

Here can be found the first unabridged translation to Portuguese of one of the texts that is part of the group of sources known as The Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, followed also by the first translation of the Nine Herbs Charm from the Lacnunga manuscript, both from the period of Anglo-Saxon England (5th - 1th centuries). In a parallel analysis, these texts might be considered one of the most enigmatic and – concerning the first one – the less studied by the tradition of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literary studies. With a content that share elements from the Germanic past, Anglo-Saxon popular magical practices, elements from Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian apocryphal literature.

An internal analysis of Heidegger’s ontological dasein: the external criticism of Edith Stein

Giannina BURLANDO

Original title: Un analisis interno del dasein ontológico de Heidegger: críticas externas de Edith Stein

Keywords: Edith Stein, Heidegger, Impracticability, Ontological Dasein.

Accordingly with Walter Biemel, when he asserts that “We can either view this thinking [Heidegger’s philosophy] from outside and seek to analize and critize it or we can endeavor to understand it from within”, my own aim in this paper, nontheless, shall not choose any of these exclusive approaches, but rather attempts to do both. Thus, I would like to enter into Heidegger’s philosophy to undertand and appretiate the positive dimention, perhaps hidden, of his view about the Dasein, to show in turn that the wishful ascent of Dasein in his path to being, as Heidegger proposed suffers from a lack of practicality. In other words, we shall emphasize first the novelty of Heidegger’s research on the self: as an ontological self par excellence, and secondly, we shall review insufficient or impractical aspects of his view, which follow from Edith Stein’s critique.

Augustine and Wittgenstein on language: the meaning problem

Bento SILVA SANTOS, Filicio MULINARI

Original title: Agostinho e Wittgenstein em torno da linguagem: o problema da significação

Keywords: Augustine, Language, Linguistic signs, Linguistic turn, Signification, Wittgenstein.

The influence of Saint Augustine (354-430) on the contemporary philosophy themes is in fact great. Inside these themes, one stands out in the contemporary philosophy: the theme of language. It is no accident that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), one of the great philosophers of language of XX century, kept a swinging correlation with the Augustine theory. In this sense, with support in the Augustine’s works Confessiones and De magistro, and with support in the Wittgenstein’s Tractacus-Logico Philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (1953), this article aims analyze the theoric connection between Augustine and Wittgenstein on the linguistics signals. With this connection, aims presents a scrutiny about the link between linguistic signals and referencials objects, with function of explore the discussion about the referencial words conteudistics topic, an important topic in the language’s metaphysics and for the philosophy of language.

Archaeology and his break: the need for genealogy and the appearance of power relations in Michel Foucault thinking

Thana Mara de SOUZA, Bruno Abilio GALVÃO

Original title: A arqueologia e seu rompimento: a necessidade de uma genealogia e o aparecimento das relações de poder no pensamento de Michel Foucault

Keywords: Archaeology, Genealogy, Knowledge, Speech, power.

Breaking the boundaries of archeology is the result of a long trajectory of Foucault’s thought that in L’Archéologie du savoir, becomes unable to analyze the new issues that arise: the subject and social grounds relating to the choices of themes and theories that make certain discourse. The question of the subject presented in archaeological history from the beginning, in Histoire de la Folie, linked to the concept of historical a priori, as it always refers to a “someone” involved in discursive practices. But the “social foundation” appears in L’archéologie du savoir when Foucault investigates the strategic formations of a speech. From that moment, to explain the emergence of knowledge linked with social practices in which the subject is inserted, Foucault opts for a genealogy of power. So the aim of our work is to show how the breaking of boundaries of archeology, a fact that drives Foucault to look at the thought of Nietzsche, genealogy as a method that provides continuing with their studies occurs. As we reach the archaeological limit Foucault entering his genealogical period, we will see the emergence of the issue of power and its relation to the discursive practices presented during the term of archeology.

The compliment to the night in Vladimir Jankélévitch (1903-1985)

Clovis Salgado Gontijo OLIVEIRA

Original title: O elogio à noite em Vladimir Jankélévitch (1903-1985)

Keywords: French contemporary philosophy, Mystical theology, Nocturnal experience, Symbology of light and darkness.

Vladimir Jankélévitch concedes to the image and experience of nighttime a proeminent place, both in his ontological and musicological reflections. Contradicting what is usually observed in Western philosophical tradition, the French contemporary philosopher elaborates, in different moments of his work, a kind of “compliment to the the night”, worthy of study. Therefore, the current article intends to point out the main factors which contribute to the extreme positivity of the nocturnal motive in Jankélévitch’s thought. Through this analysis it will be possible to recognize some of the fundamental influences which, in some cases reinterpreted, compose the original perspective of the philosopher. Among them, stand out the Romantic and Impressionist musical poetics, the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and a whole mystical and apophatical tradition, in which certain nocturnal image is equally valued.