General Arts Information Links

Yahoo Directory of Museums, Galleries, and Centers

An example of ACTUAL (past) US arts censorship of Films (Compare to Plato):

The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)

1. Ancient Greek Tragedy (and Aesthetic Theory)

Art and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece and Rome, a resource list compiled by Dr. Freeland. (Use the "Back" button on your browser to return to this page.)

Fragments of Ancient Instrumental Music, by Professor William A. Johnson, University of Michigan. Includes images of ancient musical papyri and clickable versions played on the aulos (flute), as well as samples of ancient scales.

Look on Amazon.com for "Musique de la Grece Antique" to hear samples of various selections.

Perseus Texts of All Classical Authors Here you can find entire texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, etc., on line, as well as the writings of Plato and Aristotle.

2. Chartres Cathedral (and Thomas Aquinas)

Images of Chartres Cathedral

Chartres, by Jeffrey Howe, Visual Arts, Boston College. This page contains links to images of the cathedral's interior and its famous stained-glass windows.

More Images of Chartres Cathedral Super page with many images of all aspects of the building. Takes time to load but it's well worth it. Emphasis on sculptures.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris A brief history.

Notre Dame, Images

Thomistic Philosophy

Comparison/Commentary on Sacred Images and Icons vs. Iconoclasm
The Buddhas of Bamiyan and the Taliban
Photos document destruction of Buddhas, CNN, March 2001
Rebuilding the Bamiyan Buddhas, Newsweek, December 2001
The Taliban: What Prompted Bamiyan?, educational site from the Asia Source group.

3. The Garden at Versailles (and Kant)

Chateau de Versailles, Official Website This is a very gorgeous website. You can follow the links in English unless you prefer French. It plays music, too. Be sure to visit all the garden and park sites,

Versailles:Teachers Guide

Kant on the Web, by Steve Palmquist, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. Intro page that gets you into Kant links on the Web.

Another huge mega-list of Kant links from Richard Lee, University of Arkansas; has many links to professors' lectures on-line for various courses.

Kant's Critique of Judgment, Meredith Translation You can do searches on the text here for words like "genius," "taste," "the sublime," etc. Sometimes handy. Note that this is just one big text file.

 

4. Wagner's Operas (and Nietzsche)

A Page of articles on Parsifal
Remember that some on-line music and books sales sites will allow you to download and play a Real Audio excerpt from tapes or CD's, which you may wish to do if your computer connection can handle it. Here's one to try for Parsifal. Recommended Cuts: Act 1 Prelude; Act Two: Vergeh, Unseliges Weib ("Get lost, you evil woman, Kundry, you!")
It is hard to recommend a video version of Parsifal. The version that features Placido Domingo as narrator should be avoided at all costs! It is a complete disaster. If you are feeling experimental--and patient--try renting the version made in 1982 by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, the German "New Wave" (?) film director (it can be found at Audio Video Plus on Waugh). The movie is rather bizarre but interestingly so. If you understand much about the opera, Syberberg's visionary treatment of the Prelude, using beautiful puppets and vignettes of things to come, is just extraordinary and very beautiful. Otherwise, it will be completely mystifying. (You can see that people mostly hate it--the true Wagnerians--if you are THAT curious--by looking up the customer reviews on Amazon.com; be sure to read all the way through to the one I consider most intelligent, written by reviewer Derrick Everett from Oslo, Norway.

History of Parsifal on Stage. This has good information on Wagner from a theatrical viewpoint and some nice b&w illustrations. Be sure to see the one from Robert Wilson which was done here in Houston in 1991-92. It is described as the "most radical". There is also a link with some information about Wilson. has a pretty cool clickable image map of the Teutonic cosmos
Richard Wagner picture gallery
Synopsis of Parsifal (in English)
The Ring and the Rings, Wagner vs. Tolkien, by Alex Ross, The New Yorker (also mentions Howard Shore's Academy-Award-Winning Wagnerian music for the Lord of the Rings trilogy)
The Star Wars Series and Wagner's Ring
Star Wars Music, from Wikipedia ("Williams revival of a technique called "leitmotif", which is most famously associated with the operas of Wagner").
Bayreuth Festival Home Page (the pilgrimage site for all Wagner fans (in German) --You have to get on the waiting list for 7 years to buy tickets!
Putting Wagner on the stand Controversy when Daniel Barenboim broke the unwritten taboo on performing Wagner in the country when he included the Prelude from Tristan und Isolde as the second encore in his concert with the Berlin Staatskapelle in Jerusalem. (July, 2001)

The Nietzsche Page at Episteme Links, Philosophy Resources on the Internet.

Nietzsche, from The Stanford Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Robert Wicks

 

5. Andy Warhol's "Brillo Box" (1964) (and Arthur Danto)

Andy Warhol Museum Home Page Don't forget to visit the Museum Store. (When it's Warhol, commercialism cannot be far behind!) I couldn't find a Brillo Box item (maybe you can?).
Home Page of the Andy Warhol Foundation
Warhol Biography
Andy Warhol, at Dia Center for the Arts, New York. This page has a brief bio and a few concentrated on-line exhibitions including The Last Supper paintings.
Andy Warhol, American Artist and Filmmaker

Some links to illustrate Danto's article "The Artworld"

• Best image I have found of Peter Brueghel's "The Fall of Icarus." Click to see the enlargement. . If you see it, this will help make a lot more sense out of the article. You will need to look carefully to find Icarus's feet sticking out of the water, where he has fallen in!
• Another view here.
• Want to see more Brueghel Paintings"? Brueghel
• W.H. Auden wrote a famous poem about this painting. You may find it at this location.

Danto's book, After the End of Art (Amazon.com entry + reviews)
Danto, "Art, Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Art", from Humanities, 1983.

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