September 16, 2006

• ART WARS continued:

  Pandora’s Box

  Part I:
  The Pandora Cross

  “There is no painter in the
  West who can be unaware of the symbolic power of the cruciform shape
  and the Pandora’s box of spiritual reference that is opened once one
  uses it.”

  – Rosalind Krauss in “Grids”
  

  
  
  
  

  (See Log24, Sept. 13)

  Part II:
  The Opening

  Remarks by the Pope on Sept. 12,
  as reported by the Vatican:

  Faith, Reason, and the University:
  Memories and Reflections

  For the result of
  the Pope’s remarks, see
  a transcript of
   yesterday’s Google News
  and the following
  from BBC today:

  
  Click to enlarge the screenshot.

  
  Part III:
  Hope

  The New Yorker (issue of June 5, 2006) on the late Oriana Fallaci:

  “In September [2005], she had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at
  Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence outside Rome. She had criticized
  John Paul II for making overtures to Muslims, and for not condemning
  terrorism heartily enough, but she has hopes for Joseph Ratzinger.”

  For further details, see yesterday’s Log24.
  

  
  Part IV:
  The Sibyl’s Song

  

  – From The Magic Circle,
   a spiritual narrative
   by Katherine Neville

  For more on “the long-mute voice
  of the past,” on “darkness beneath
  the volcano,” and on uncorking,
  see Glory Season and Harrowing.

  Related material from
  Log24 on Dec. 2, 2005:

  Benedict XVI, before he became Pope:

  “… a purely
  harmonious concept of beauty is not enough…. Apollo, who for Plato’s Socrates was ‘the God’ and the
  guarantor of unruffled beauty as ‘the truly divine’ is absolutely no
  longer sufficient.”

  A symbol of Apollo:

  

  and a related
  Christian symbol,

  

  the Greek Cross
  (adapted from
  Ad Reinhardt).

  Moral of the Pandora Cross:

  “Nine is a very powerful Nordic number.”
  – Katherine Neville in The Magic Circle…

  quoted in The Nine, a Log24 entry
  for Hermann Weyl’s birthday,
  November 9, 2004.

  • 11:07 am
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