Pathos formulas

The Zeugma Mosaic Museum displays a total of 2,500 square meters of Roman mosaic floors that were rescued by international archaeological teams from the city of Zeugma, which had been built on the banks of the Euphrates in 300 BC and destroyed in 256 AD, before the city was flooded in 2000. This is the largest mosaic museum in the world.

One of the most beautiful and best-preserved 3rd-4th-c. mosaics in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep depicts the abduction of Europa according to the conventions of ancient images. Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, is already sitting on the back of the bull that Zeus transformed into to seduce her. The bull swims with her towards Crete, and to make this more believable, its body ends in a fish tail. For the sake of symmetry, the left half of the picture is filled with a similar pair: a naiad – a sea nymph – sits on the back of a winged water leopard, which also has a fish tail.

It was absolutely not unusual in ancien art for any mammal to acquire a fish tail in a marine environment. The Romans knew from their literary studies that there was a hippo-potamus, a water horse in Egypt, which they imagined as a regular horse with a fish tail. And if there is a water horse, why should not there be a water deer, a water leopard, a water tiger or a sea bear? Vast is the sea, it hides many wonders. For example, the Arion mosaic floor of the Villa Romana di Casale in Sicily, which is roughly the same age as the Europa mosaic in Zeugma, presents us with a multitude of such aquatic mammals:

But there is a strange one among the pictorial conventions that is difficult to explain at first glance. What is the cloth that Europa holds outstreched, to be blown by the wind? And we see the same wind-blown cloth on the Sicilian mosaic above the heads of at least three naiads.

Roman art critics called this formula velificatio, which means velam+facere, that is, “to make a sail” (from one’s own clothes). ANd the one who makes the sail is a velificans. This is how Pliny uses this term in his Naturalis historia 36.29, describing the decoration of Octavia’s portico, on which Aurae velificantes sua veste, the Winds “make sails from their own clothes”. From this we also know what could have decorated Octavia’s portico, which, since the Middle Ages, was used as a fish market in the Jewish quarter, deprived of its original marble covering.

The formula of the velificatio had a double meaning. On the one hand, it suggested dynamics in the mostly static Roman images, which used few elements of movement. It suggested that the scene was actually in violent motion. On the other hand, by the fact that the wind that puffed out the cloth into a sail was actually miraculously blowing “from within”, it also suggested a kind of revelatio, that is, that the veil was lifted from the face of a person who should otherwise remain hidden: that an epiphany was taking place, the manifestation of the divine in this world, similarly to how the light that illuminated Renaissance and Baroque Nativity scenes emanated from the newborn Jesus.

On the eastern side of the Roman Ara Pacis (13-9 BC), the seated Mother Earth or the Peace of Rome is flanked by two nymphs with puffed cloaks, the allegories of  air and water, indicating that, with Augustus, peace had arrived on earth, water and sky.

Neptune’s chariot on a mosaic from Hadrumetum (Sosa Museum, Tunisia). This image also illustrates how the Romans imagined water horses.

Fresco from the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii

The formula was rediscovered from the Renaissance onwards (although it was not completely lost in the Middle Ages): here on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

It is only natural that the Pre-Raphaelites, who imitated quattrocento compositions, also used the formula, as here in John Williams Waterhouse’s Boreas

Modern art history, starting with Aby Warburg (1866-1929), classifies this formula as one of the pathos formulas. According to Aby Warburg’s definition, the pathos formula or Pathosformel is a pictorial topos which, according to the common consesus of the time, should evoke a certain mood or emotional response from the viewer. We do not encounter most of these formulas in real life – such as puffed-up dresses above the head, or a number of Baroque gestures, because Baroque art in particular used such formulas – but viewers still knew exactly what they should feel when they saw these gestures, and which key the formula provided for the interpretation of the picture.

Pictures, even the most realistic pictures, do not depict reality, but use conventional formulas through which the viewer reconstructs a certain image of reality in himself. In this way, pathos formulas are still with us today, even if we do not pay attention to their unreality and do not reflect on the emotional effect they intend to evoke. To illustrate their persuasive power, let me present here that wide-eyed, wide-mouthed figure who, in advertisements, marvels at the wonderful quality or the wonderfully low price of a merchandise, in short on its epiphany.

In view of this figure, we know exactly how we should feel about the merchandise in question, and what we should do: go and buy it. Even if we never encounter such a facial expression in real life – the pictures have taught us how to interpret it. Although never say never: it is part of the effect of the pathos formulas that after a while the viewers also start to use them, since they know how the gesture will be interpreted by other contemporary viewers. Just as the passionate gestures of Baroque paintings became part of social behavior after a while (and not the other way around), or as nowadays we often react to unexpected news with bulging eyes and a gaping mouth. Not as if this were our instictive gesture, but because this is how we, taught by the ads, convey our astonishment to our contemporaries who also know the respective pathos formula.

Lamproba: Lanterns for the dead in Svaneti

It is dark. It is dark even late in the morning, and it is already getting dark in the early afternoon. The only source of light is the snow that has accumulated over the months, while the few objects that still have the desire to stand out in front of the snow, shine in black: fences, tombstones, a few animals returning home. All the colors have been lost, only two remain, the white of death and the black of life.

At the time of this final whitening and blackening of the world, the birch branches of Lamproba, the festival of lanterns, are lit in Svaneti. On the night of February 14, when the more-than-four-month winter has been going on too long even for the living, let alone the dead. The village gathers for midnight mass in the church, a bonfire is lit in front of the church, and after the service, each lights a birch branch from it and places it at the graves of their dear dead.

Anna Kacheishvili has been traveling from the distant capital to Svaneti for the Lamproba festival since 2015. In the winter of the ninth year, she published a photo album and organized an exhibition of her pictures in the garden of the Svaneti Museum. The Mies van der Rohe-style grids of the iron stands desperately try to project some order behind the images, which speak of a completely different, mystical order. Their otherworldliness is also emphasized by the counterpoint of spring nature that, in the meantime, has sprouted behind the photos. The exhibition is titled Gilgamesh, about the man who tried to bring light to his dear friend in the underworld. He failed to bring him back, but he learned from him what death is.

On the border of two Tibets. Dzokchen Monastery (Traveling in Kham 7)

Traveling in Kham: • Jashideley! • Burial in the sky

• Kangding, the gateway of Tibet • The Love Song of Kangding • The monastery of Tagong • The Buddhas of Drakgo

• The towers of the Himalayas • Nomadic wedding in Tibet • On the border of two Tibets. Dzokchen Monastery

“We are invited to stay, but we still have a long way to Dergê”, I finished the last entry about Garzê in our Eastern Tibetan travel diary.

The town of Derge – in Chinese Dege 德格 – was built on the border of Kham Province or Eastern Tibet and today’s Tibet Autonomous Region, in a narrow valley of a tributary of the Yangtze, since the upper reaches of the Yangtze are the border between the two provinces. Back in the 13th century, the Mongols appointed a governor to rule the town and its surroundings, who, after the end of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, declared his small territory – half the size of Hungary – an independent kingdom. This was also recognized by the Chinese Qing dynasty, which conquered Kham in 1720 and bestowed the Derge king with the title of tusi, i.e. Chinese vassal ruler. The kingdom survived until the Republic of China, which gradually absorbed the semi-independent ethnic border provinces previously ruled by tusis into the unified Chinese administration. The Derge Kingdom was annexed to Sichuan in 1918.

In the 9th century, when the Tibetan Kingdom dissolved, and the provincial lords who followed the pre-Buddhist shamanic religion of Bon, began to persecute Buddhism, the kingdom’s official religion, the monks found refuge in the peripheral regions of Tibet, in the western Ladakh and the eastern Kham. The Nyingma order, founded in the 8th century, settled mainly around Derge, among mountains difficult to access. When, in the 11th century, Buddhism became the dominant religion of Tibet again, the Nyingma did not return to the central parts, but continued to keep up their mother monasteries here. We are going to visit some of these now.

Derge Kingdom from the Historical Atlas of Tibet. The border between Kham and Tibet, marked with dashes, has since shifted slightly to the east and runs in the Yangtze (Jinsha) Valley. The red circles indicate the most important monasteries we visited (in this post I will write about Dzokchen, and the others follow in the next ones). On the right edge of the map is indicated Garzê, visited in the previous posts, under the name of Kandze

From Garzê to Derge, the road is only one hundred and eighty kilometers – but what a hundred and eighty! The road first runs in the wide valley of the Yalong River, between small monasteries with golden roofs, and then, leaving the valley to the west, it gradually rises, from two thousand meters to almost five thousand. After a while, the trees disappear, and there remains only the beautiful green lawn. And  the jagged mountain ridges covered with last year’s snow. And the small rivers that flow abundantly from every mountainside. And the nomads and yaks that live everywhere.

The yaks not only live, but sometimes also die, and if this happens unplanned, then the hour of the vultures comes. As we approach the 4,500-meter Haizishan Pass (or rather the five-kilometer tunnel that leads underneath it), we see them circling in the sky, sometimes descending very low and then soaring again. We stop to see if I can get a close-up shot. As I get out, I am shocked to see that there’s one standing a few meters from me, like a well-developed hen, not bothering itself. A little further away, another one, then another. They are standing, then move a little, sometimes flap their wings. What is going on here? I only understand it by looking down into the canyon along the road. These ones are on guard duty here, while the others are feasting on the carcass of a yak down there. Sometimes they quarrel over a bite, but the consumption is basically going on at a good pace. Sometimes one or another guard flies down there, and gets replaced by someone. Some of the guards are watching the promising yak herds grazing on the other side of the canyon. It’s only when I get back to the car that I see, looking towards the pass, what a magnificent guard line they’ve formed.

After a bend in the road leading up the high mountainside, the monastery town of Dzokchen, built around one of the most prestigious monasteries of the Nyingma order, unexpectedly reveals itself. The monastery is not yet visible from here, only a few of its golden domes peek out from behind the green hill on the left edge of the first photo. This is still just the town of Dzokchen, and the large Tibetan-style building in the middle is a modern pilgrim hotel. The town suddenly transitions into the countryside. Past the last houses, immediately come the pastures with nomadic tents, herds of yaks visiting the town, and stones carved with Buddhist holy images and texts scattered across the field.

The monastery of Dzokchen is as grand and magnificent as is fit for a mother monastery. The path to its main temple leads between rows of six large white elephants with six tusks, each of which is the most prestigious symbol of the Buddha. It also impresses the pilgrims, especially the young lamas from distant, smaller monasteries, who visit the temples with great enthusiasm and take photos of each other in front of them. Their enthusiasm reaches its peak when they discover me as the most exotic object in the field, and they all want a picture together with me. In return, I also take pictures of them. They lead me into the great temple, where a ceremony is currently taking place. There are about five hundred monks living in the monastery, many of whom are here now.

Easter Sunday in Sardinia

Every year we return to Oliena for Easter Sunday, the feast of s’incontru, the meeting, when the statues of the risen Christ and Mary, carried by Sardinian men and women, meet each other on the lavender carpet of the main square, and Christ bows before His mother. The ceremony is the same every year, and yet it is always new. The faces are different, the children are a year older, their last year’s costumes are given to new little ones, other boys gather to sing four-part Sardinian folk songs, the young accordionist who last year led the dance in a girl’s dress, now wears a boy’s dress… And even what is the same seems new after a year: how they relive the centuries-old tradition, with full devotion, in traditional dress and ceremony, but as a part of their modern lives, not as a tourist attraction, but as a celebration for themselves, to affirm their own identity.

There had been heavy rain in Sardinia during the previous days, and this morning it was still drizzling, so it’s no wonder that at nine in the morning there are hardly any people in the usually crowded main square. Only the descendants of the bandits are firing rifles in front of the church, the eldest son of each clan with the ancient flint.

We go to the church of the Holy Cross on the edge of the old town, whence the procession of the statue of Christ will start. For now, the church is empty, only its floor is sprinkled with lavender, and a few woman are waiting in- and outside. But soon the procession arrives from the Franciscan church, where the body of Christ spent the previous day and two nights after the deposition from the cross on Good Friday evening. The statue is carried into the church. The assistants, chatting and offering cakes, are waiting for the ten o’clock bell to ring, when the procession will start for the main square.

At the sound of the bells, the statue is raised. The flag bearers of the religious companies stand behind it, and the procession steps out of the church gate. They move slowly, stopping at every corner, waiting for news of how the other procession with the statue of Mary is progressing.

The main square is already full. The villagers, dressed in traditional costumes, stand in two lines on both sides of the path strewn with lavender branches, waiting for the two processions to enter and for the two main characters to meet. As the statue bearers see each other at the end of the two streets leading onto the square, the processions start, and the statue of Christ bows before His mother, the Sardinian men carrying it before the Sardinian women carrying Mary, amidst the deafening gunfire of the bandits.

Then the two processions, joined by the spectators, march up the main street to the parish church, where the Easter mass begins.

Only a part of the participants go into the church. Most of them stay on the church street, where all the bars are open and running at their peak. They huddle in groups, talking and drinking, and some boys practicing four-part Sardinian songs. Not as a performance for the audience: this is also part of the local identity, renewed every year.

At the end of the mass, the people in the church also come out. The accordionists rehearse in the middle of the church square, and then the round dance begins, in which the whole village participates, regardless of traditional costume. This year, another national dress appears on the square: the colorful outfits of four young women from Dubai, which look like Muslim national costumes. They clap and wave happily from the audience, but they do not join in the dance. In the intervals I hear local families coming up to them and inviting them to lunch in broken English.

This is the accordionist boy (?) who played last year as a girl

And the climax of the dance: when the villagers dance not to the accordion, but to a four-part Sardinian choir, as they did for centuries, before the arrival of the first accordion. Everyone feels the solemnity and historical depth of the moment, and at the end they applaud the singers for a long time.

Even in the day of Easter Sunday and s’incontru, in Italy the greatest sacrament is the Sunday family lunch. Being late for it is a bigger sin than being late for church. So after the choir, most of the spectators start to leave. The Dubai girls are herded home by an elderly couple dressed in traditional costume. We also head down to the beach of Cala Gonone, to eat fish at the cave of the sea cows.