Page 319 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter VI
evitability of the tragic within his personal existence,27 and as such was manifested in his so called somber works as a kind of Tragic Realism – but not as absolute pessimism.
While elaborating on the Dionysian excitation, Nietzsche points out that the dithy- ramb28is essentially different from any other dance in Greek Antiquity.29 In his argumen- tation he speaks of the “abandoning of individuality through the escape to a foreign nature,” as well as of the experience of “transfiguration,” as phenomena which occur during the dithyrambic dance.30 For example, he states: “The virgins that walk into the temple of Apollo while holding the daphne branches in the hand and singing hymns, preserve their personality and their name in the world, whereas the dithyrambic dance is the dance of the transfigured, who have entirely lost the memory of their worldly past and their political situation. They have become the servants of their god, who live out- side of any epoch and any social sphere.”31
In view of the above excerpt, the connection between Nietzsche’s vision of the Diony- sian spirit and Rothko’s abstraction can be observed in the common notions, such as: the state of being transfigured, timelessness and otherness. It could be argued that Rothko introspectively borrowed Nietzsche’s vision of the Dionysian transfiguration, but only as an inspiring epiphany, and therein, through his painting, conveyed a transfiguration of a deeper kind. In a certain peculiar sense, if we were to understand Rothko’s transpar- ently applied layers of colour as nuances of meaning, then the nuance related to Nietzsche and his sense of the dark and tragic becomes most easily observed. However, as Rothko’s
27 It is noteworthy that in Nietzsche’s writing, there is a perpetual desire for an egoless kind of transcendence – within which man exceeds his individual existence in order to merge with the primal and eternal being.
28 Dithyramb (διθύραμβος), which is considered to be the forerunner of Greek Tragedy, was a celebrative song and subsequently became a dance-poetry of an enthusiastic kind; followed by the flute, it was sung by the dancers (men or boys) as part of Dionysian worship. Initially, the dithyramb comprised themes from the life of Dionysus. In his 1872 book entitled The Birth of Greek Tragedy, Nietzsche identifies Greek tragedy with the Dionysian dance: “Such thoughts lead us to consider Greek tragedy as a Dionysian dance, whose overflowing psychological outbursts evaporate again and again in a world of Apollonian imagery. Therefore, within the (Greek) tragedy, the scattered dance segments are, to a degree, a natal channel of each self-proclaimed dialogue, therefore of the entire world of the scene – of the true drama.” Our translation of: «Οι σκέψεις αυτές μας οδηγούν να θεωρήσουμε την ελληνική τραγωδία ως τον διονυσιακό χορό, που οι υπερχειλίζουσες ψυχικές του εκρήξεις ξεθυμαίνουν ξανά και ξανά σε έναν κόσμο απολλώνειων εικόνων. Τα διάσπαρτα, μέσα στην τραγωδία, χορικά κομμάτια είναι επομένως σ’ ένα βαθμό ο μητρικός κόλπος κάθε αυτοαποκα- λούμενου διαλόγου, ολόκληρου του κόσμου της σκηνής δηλαδή, του αληθινού δράματος.» See: Φρίντριχ Νίτσε, Η Γέννηση Της Τραγωδίας: Ή Ελληνισμός και Απαισιοδοξία, μετάφραση, σχόλια: Μαρσέλλος, Χ. Εισαγωγή: Φαρακλάς, Γ. Επίμετρο: Τσέτσος, Μ., Όσμο, Π. («Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας,» 2009), 100.
29 Ibid, 99.
30 Ibid, 99–100.
31 Ibid. Our translation of: «Οι παρθένες που τραβάνε στον ναό του Απόλλωνα κρατώντας κλωνιά δάφνης στο
χέρι και τραγουδώντας ύμνους διατηρούν την προσωπικότητά τους και το κατά κόσμον όνομά τους, ενώ ο διθυραμ- βικός χορός είναι χορός μεταμορφωμένων που έχουν χάσει ολοκληρωτικά την ανάμνηση του κοσμικού παρελθόντος τους κατάστασης. Έχουν γίνει οι υπηρέτες του θεού τους, που ζούνε έξω από κάθε εποχή και κάθε κοινωνική σφαίρα.»
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