Reviving our roots
Athene, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and fair war.
A group of graduates and lecturers is planning to set up a Malta Classical Association with the aim of raising the profile of Classics in Malta.
The association will hold public lectures on aspects of the Classical world, offer basic courses in the Greek and Latin languages and hopes to produce plays from the great playwrights as well as recitations from selected poets. In fact, it is planned to launch the association this summer at an event comprising a play and a recital.
Its plans include launching a publication featuring essays and reflections by members of the public on the Classical world and its relevance today, as well as exercises in Latin and Greek prose and poetry. Another journal would be set up to offer academics a medium in which to publish their work.
The group is inviting anyone interested in the Classical world in joining the association to send an e-mail with their details to Joseph Anthony Debono at classicsmaltasoc@gmail.com.
No knowledge of Latin or Greek is necessary for membership.
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Narcy Calamatta
May 26th 2010, 09:05
As a member of the European Council of Artists, an umbrella association embracing artists' associations from all realms of art, I find in my encounters with fellow European artists that we Maltese are handicapped by the lack of basic knowledge of the classics. Europeans have an edge on us in their conversation because they have the privilege to having been educated in the Classics from a tender age. They are more eloquent because words like mimesis, nemesis and catharsis come natural to them. I recommend that this new association should start targeting the very young with animated cartoons, comics and video games etc based on characters from the Classics. We should endeavor to make things palatable and easily digested not start with the heavy Greek tragedies in academically accepted levels of translation. The original classics were never intended for the elite but for the common citizen. I wish this new association the best of success.
Pule' Carmel
Feb 7th 2010, 15:36
The master craftsmen and artists of the past, who depicted classical art in all forms, depicted the beauty of the human body in such a manner that a classical piece would live forever.
Very recently one student editor at the university was heard to say that, most art have a pornographic content ( Hafna arti fiha OXXENITA and tried to sell oxxenita as art)
The classical piece shown in the photograph, is perfectly dimensioned and the flow of the body and robes follow the perfect contours associated with reality. Many classical nudes depict the perfection of the body, especially the female body, and it takes a skilled person to hew out of a solid block of marble the correct action of the fingers on a hand, and the different textures of the skin on faces, body and hair. The full bosom of the female form, in a classical sculpture carries with it, all the biological and physical requirements, and the stance selected is usually such that there is no monotony in any part of the anatomy and dress depicted. Recently I saw a classical nude statue depicting dancing, and in its static components, it almost moved. It was perfectly Classical.