He Makes My Day

The “trickster” from last week was at it again this week. “Must be done immediately” screamed an email and telephone call. That continued lack of civility has been a little soul-crushing as of late, but then Wednesday afternoon I was grading papers and I came across this weekly assignment of the Journal Sheet for AP Art History. This assignment is just a way for students to look over the previous week and choose from their own file of insights and reflections in order to make sense of the art and history we studied that week. The following is from a student I have known since the first week of the school—a young man whose enthusiasm, commitment, and decency never falters. This isn’t even the best thing he has ever done, it is just an example of what I get to read every week from a young man whose prowess with the English language has grown stratospherically (is that a word? I like the image!) since those early days in August, 2007. I feel like a young pop with snapshots, but here are his thoughts:

AP Art History.
Journal Sheet.

My Masterpiece of the week:
My masterpiece of the week is The Arch of Constantine circa 315. This arch which would be a sign or an indicator of triumph for Romans is indeed a triumphal arch, however, with one exception. Instead of being related to war, physical contact and physical victory, it’s about a victory of the soul, a victory of the essence and of a religion, Christianity; it’s about an invisible victory that is translated into art. Being such a sponsor of Christianity, Constantine could have the credit for enabling Christianity to spread and become legal instead of being “Superstitio.” In this arch, Constantine celebrates his heavenly victory by providing strong propaganda for the new religion by taking something old and recycling it into something powerful but with special and distinctive ideals and goals. By doing so, Constantine became an indirect Sacerdotal Intermediary that is connected both to God and to his people. It’s smart because it takes something usual and loved by the people to reach them but with different morals to teach, in fact, a completely different subject, not art, not Greece but Christianity. This will become the standard of the church in dealing with the people. The church will later reach the people in a smooth way using old morals but with some twisting and changes, thus, it becomes efficient.

Best textual example from the week and why:“For several centuries, mosaic, in the service of Christian theology, was the medium of some of the supreme masterpieces of medieval art.” This quotation from our textbook reveals to us as historians the strategy the church used to convey its ideas, the church used art, and in fact, various kinds of art. This shows us that the church was interacting with the people through something they all knew and recognized, art in its various forms. It explains the strong propaganda that was intended by producing such art works. But For us as art historians, we wonder whether these art works were done for the sake of art or for the sake of religion for it makes a difference even it was a slight difference. Was it intended to be unique to express themselves or was it because they followed Christianity that they felt they had to represent it? We don’t know. However, such issues show to us that many motivations and morals could encourage the people to produce art, that religion which is one of the most important motivations plays a huge role not only in shaping the people’s minds but also their lives and their art. For example, after Christianity, Romans didn’t have nudes, “Khalas,” [that is an Arabic word for “okay, enough!] no more nudity; it’s time to be polite and mature. Again, here we see the power of art and its influence.

Best insight from a peer this week:
Faris said that building the church of Sainte Peter on the site where Sainte Peter and other Christians died is the same as when Augustus Caesar built the Ara Pacis (altar of peace) at the field of mars where wars would start. I think that this insight was smart and connecting the dots. It connected two different things but in a way that explains both of them better. This insight assures that Constantine who is the voice of Christianity at his time behaved like Caesar; he wanted people to recognize that Christianity didn’t have victory until these people sacrificed themselves who are Sainte Peter and others. It’s the same with Caesar; he built the altar on a place where Romans and soldiers sacrificed themselves for the benefit of Rome. So now, the Pietas, the devotion, of Christians is not to Rome, but to the church and the Pope.

Best insight from Mr. John this week:
One of Mr. John’s great insights was when he said that by bringing statues and panels form old Roman temples and buildings and putting them on the arch made Constantine a Summative Emperor. By saying so, Mr. John justified and explained why Constantine would do such a thing. This was very helpful for me because it inspired me with some ideas. One of them is that Constantine is continuing something but at the same time transforming it, meaning that he is everything good and thought to be great and possessed it which would indicate that he is even better than those prior to him. What Constantine is doing is the same as what Rome and the church did. They something and make it better and thus they become better and greater. It also triggered the idea that Christianity and its victory made Constantine a great emperor which shows how religion could affect people and their social status especially if someone is a Sacerdotal Intermediary like Constantine.

Best vocabulary word or phrase form the week:“Superstitio” is a Latin word that means witchcraft and evil and it was used by the Romans to describe Jesus and his new religion. The Romans used this word specifically to warn people for that evil, that new idea, that new life, that new way of living and that new power (According to what they thought of it). It’s interesting to look at this and then look at it after the Edict of Milan. The thing that was evil became good and legal. The usage of this word shows us how proud and thoughtful the Romans were of who they were. They were so satisfied by themselves to the extent that they would not hear any other thing but Rome, Glorious Rome. They want to be in charge, to be powerful, to be dominant and to control everything. They want to control in the name of Rome, conquer in the name of Rome and live in the name of the civilization their “Pietas” belongs to. It explains a great deal about how the Roman leader and their people had the same ideals and goals, bring glory to Rome.

I suppose reading some unknown-to-you student’s homework is akin to looking at another family’s photo album of that “great trip out west!!!” or going to the school play of students you don’t really know. It may be lovely, but…you know…okay, I understand.

If you are not a long-time reader of the blog, then go back to November 19, 2007 and find the entry about this student. Hamzeh has long been one of the most exciting and rewarding features of this sojourn to the Holy Land (I am remembering the Thoreau essay about when HDT imagined traveling to this region and encountering the holy sites) and I have the good fortune to teach Hamzeh again in his junior year. He came to us with gifts of energy and desire but a weak background in English. He had attended a government school that did not provide adequate English instruction and people worried in the fall of 2007 if he could handle the rigors of our education. Look at that homework. When he refers to us “as historians,” it just busts my buttons with pride at knowing how hard he has worked to become a skilled academic. None of his work above is from the textbook, save the quotation, and each of those insights represents his own thoughts—not summary from class or quick descriptions from our syllabus.

When I stand in front of the class every day and we look at art works, I hope my pedagogical choices enable a student to do several things: acquire knowledge from the mass of trivial data and facts; make meaning of that knowledge, and empower the student to transfer that knowledge and answer any question that comes along.

Tricksters are everywhere. They come in every size, every language, every administration and organization. But knowing a young man like Hamzeh, and enjoying the thrill of watching him do this every week, well, it may be another family’s photo album or trite school play to some, but for me, it encapsulates why you keep on keeping on.

Last week I was asked by a new colleague, “how did you keep going in the first months of the school?” followed by, “how do you keep on doing it now? I feel it’s so hard.”

The next blog entry will contain my answers…

Oh, again, I feel like the old days of the 60s show Batman with the suspense!

I’ll see you again.

Same Bat Time!
Same Bat Channel!