The Villa of the Mysteries: Stylistic and Religious Influence of Hellenistic Civilization

Dionysos is defined as the god of wine, festivity, vegetation, pleasure, and divine intoxication. In the Hope Dionysos, he is depicted as a peaceful and joyful figure that represent happiness in Greek mythology. The statue is sculpted from marble as its medium and is classified as a stone

To conclude, Hellenistic art (painting, sculpture and architecture) was exaggerated, because of the fragmentation of Alexander’s empire into smaller kingdoms. The breakup triggered the artist(previously classic artist) to be more experimental, therefore having more emotions in the sculpture, painting and

The culture where the sculpture was produced was Roman. During this period of time, Dionysus was a religious cult figure at the temples. As a mythological personification, Dionysus was believed to be a youthful, joyful and effeminate figure. He was the God of wine, celebration and divine intoxication of power. The female figure standing next to him is Spes, the Goddess of hope, who brought harmony to society. Both statues together represented peace, calm and prosperity to the lands.

The essence of this mystery tradition was the embrace of one’s whole self through ecstatic ritual. Sexual longings were summoned and embraced as inherent parts of our inner self. The Cult of Dionysus were worshippers who held rites and initiations to bring them in close contact with this God. These secret rites of initiation were the other essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries. The Cult of Dionysus held the secret rites on Mount Parnassus in the winter, and these rites were exclusively for its cult members. An individual had to make the decision to enter the mystery cult through initiation. These rites celebrated Dionysus’s emergence from the underworld with orgies. They focused on the exhilaration wine produced and used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques like music and dance as part of the rituals. It’s believed that at first the songs and dances were designed to stimulate plant growth, and that the orgies were introduced to induce fertility in the vegetation fields. This cult was originally believed to be a wine cult concerned with the cultivation, life-cycle, fermentation, and disinhibiting effects of wine. These rites had a group approach, “which manifests its collective energy through the throbbing patterns of song, dance, and orgiastic sex among its individual participants” (Evans,

Roman art spread as its empire throughout the Mediterranean Sea and was powerfully influenced by the Greeks and Etruscans. Dionysus with Pan, a Roman marble sculpture from 50-150 A.D, depicts Dionysus, -Bacchus to the Romans- the god of wine; and Pan, a mystical forest creature with a head and torso of a human and the legs and horns of a goat. Dionysus myth starts way back before this sculpture was made and I want to discuss how Dionysus was just an excuse people used, to get intoxicated and justify irrational behavior in his name. Dionysus back story started with the myth of his birth. He was the son of Zeus and Semele.

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, theater, fertility and ritual madness, and was worshipped for centuries, but how he was depicted varied greatly throughout time. The “Dionysus Cup,” (fig. 2) a black-figure painted clay pot, was created by the Athenian artist Exekias between 540 and 530 BCE, at the end of the Archaic period. The “Free-standing Dionysos with a panther,” (fig. 1) a marble statuette, was sculpted by an unknown artist between 150 BCE and 100 CE, at the end of the Hellenistic period, or up to the height of Roman dominance in the Mediterranean. These two images of Dionysus are dramatically different in their composition and content. The differences between these objects reflect the shifting role of Dionysus in Greek mythology

In this essay, we are going to discuss how the Hellenistic funerary iconography is different from the Classical period. Due to the space limitation, we will only focus on grave stela and tomb funerary monuments. The conclusion is that the stele’s characteristics change considerably through the time, and the pictures inside the funerary tombs evolve to have the typical features of the paintings from the Hellenistic period. The period we will be looking at goes from the start of the Classical period, in the 5th century BC, until the end of the Hellenistic period, the year 31 BC.

Alexander the Great died and Hellenistic culture began. The Hellenistic time period was Greek-like and embodied many of the traditional Greek values, while modernizing the Middle East. During the Hellenistic Period, art, entertainment and athletics flourished. Many temples were built but the customs were altered to become modern and enjoyable. Stadiums and Gymnasiums were also fabricated, which induced a social aspect to the polis’. The agora, public alters, and libraries were new and exciting additions to the Hellenistic Period which united the people and gave the people more opportunities. These attractions began to pop up all over the Hellenistic world, whether the Jews wanted it or not. Previously Judah was on the outskirts of other cultures,

This work was created between the years of 1574-1580 which were many years after the completion of David and Hercules and Cacus. Giambologna completely created a new and innovative way of sculpting works. Instead of creating static figures like Michelangelo and Bandinelli, Giambologna created intense and dramatic characters. The faces on the figures show great emotion. The Sabine woman is reaching out with a face of distress and uneasiness. The Sabine man on the bottom of the sculpture has a face filled in terror and worry for the woman being pursued above him. The Roman carrying the Sabine woman looks like he is in awe of the woman above him. This sculpture expresses great movement and has a serpentine shape, which was very similar to works from Michelangelo's later career (like Victory from 1527-28). (In the later part of Michelangelo's career he created works with a bit more action, than his earlier works). The shape of the figures makes a helix shape, and the sculpture can be seen differently from all diverse angles. There is an energetic dialogue between the three figures in this work. There are fleshy characteristics in the figures as well. The bodies of the figures are muscular and idealized but they are also naturalistic. Especially the hair on the figures look lifelike and so do the muscles which are accentuated through the contorted positions of the statues. This shows Giambologna's talent and skill in perfecting the human body with such detail and essence. Giambologna wanted to create a sense of balance within this work because without one of these figures in its place, the other figures would fall over. The sculpture also has a sense of weight because the woman appears to be heavy and the man is balancing to keep his stance, but also to lift her up. The Rape of the

This is very similar to other Hellenistic in that the figures seemingly engage with the viewer by their expressive figurative motion and in the way that they interact with the space. The sense of agony is also expressed through the theatricality of the sculpture, which is emphasized by the diagonal and curving lines, which can be seen in the twisting bodies of the figures as well as the entangled forms of the serpents. The placement of the Laoccon’s head in relation to the rest of his body also evokes a strong sense of agony with his head being tilted back, and with his expression being full of sorrow and anguish. The emotional and chaotic pain of the scene is conveyed through the use of writhing movement within the piece. All three figures are joined together by the serpent, and all writhe in pain, and it is the similar movement of the figures and snake that creates a cohesive display. There is a sense of harmony through the repetition of curving lines, which makes the sculpture compelling and disturbing. The movement quality of this piece not only exemplifies the expressive and complex poses seen within Hellenistic sculptures, but it also shows the sculpture’s attempt to evoke the emotional suffering and anguish of the figures in order to stir the

The Hellenistic period lies within history during the reign of Alexander the Great and well into the era of Roman conquest throughout the Mediterranean region. This age was formative for the region as these two forces of power and government conquered the territory, uniting it in some form over time. The Greco-Roman world is what this area is commonly known as. This is the period Paul finds himself. The land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea occupies quite a large land area and the need for communication between long distances was vital. “As a result, the letter became a very important form of communication, both for providing information and for maintaining relationships as a substitute for personal presence”

One way that surviving objects and monuments created by and for Mycenaean kings embodied their power was the way in which they were buried. In the textbook, it is stated, “six deep shafts served as tombs for kings and their families. The excavation of the royal shaft graves yielded many gold artifacts,” for example, the gold Mycenaean mask of a bearded man that was discovered in a royal grave. The way in which they were buried embodies their power in that it shows that they were royalty. A normal Mycenaean may not have been buried the same way as a royal Mycenaean would have been. By being buried with gold and other riches, a Mycenaean was sure to be differentiated as royalty and it would also show the power they possessed as a noble by being

Scott Scullion discusses that the manifestation of Dionysiac ecstasy is about escaping from individuality and allowing the god to fill you up with superhuman strength. This strength is a force that allows you to accomplish a central rite in the act of Dionysian worship -- the tearing apart of a live beast. He mainly argues that tragedy is engaged with religious issues, including many that have to do with Dionysus. However, recent ritual interpretations suggest that if there was no tradition of Dionysian tragedy we wouldn’t feel the need to invent one.

Dionysus with Pan is a sculpture made by the Romans in the 50–150 AD. The Romans worshiped Dionysus. Who was their god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and fertility. This sculpture depicts Dionysus together with Pan, his follower. It is sculpted from the finest marble, artists

The figures in Christ in Majesty are less naturalistic than the ones in the Dionysiac mystery frieze (second style Roman), located in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. The figures of Christ in Majesty seem flatter because their outline is stronger than the ones on the Roman fresco. When the artist outlines a form (a three dimensional figure), the form becomes a shape (a two dimensional figure). The shadows in the Romanesque fresco are represented by thick black lines or by using different tones. Under Christ eyes the spectator sees turquoise circles, instead of black circles. Around the eyes of some of the Apostles, one can see shadows