Las princesas de los videojuegos: algunos antecedentes pictóricos y literarios

RESUMEN: Las dos sagas clásicas de videojuegos de Nintendo, Super Mario Bros., (1985-) y The Legend of Zelda (1986-) tienen entre sus elementos comunes el conocido personaje de una princesa: Peach, en el primer caso; y Zelda, en el segundo. Del estudio de las re-presentaciones formales de estas dos figuras tipificadas se desprende la pertenencia a una tradición literaria y pictórica popular que asienta unos rasgos genéricos determi-nados y las ajusta a un canon literario y pictórico. El análisis diacrónico de la prosopo-grafía femenina con hincapié en los orígenes clásicos y medievales y su posterior desarrollo durante el Renacimiento y el Barroco europeos ayuda a crear un puente de conexión con la estética pictórica novecentista y moderna de corte medievalista y su influencia en el arte del cómic y la animación japonesas, lugar de origen de sendas princesas. ABSTRACT: Nintendo’s classic franchises Super Mario Bros. (1985-) and The Legend of Zelda (1986-) both have as a common element the known character of a Princess: Peach, in the first videogame; and Zelda, in the second one. From the analysis of the formal rep-resentations of these two typified figures, it can be seen how they belong to a popular literary and pictorial tradition that establishes certain generic features and adjusts them to a literary and pictorial canon. The diachronic analysis of female prosopogra-phy -with emphasis on the classical and medieval origins and its subsequent develop-ment during the European Renaissance and Baroque periods- creates a connection with the Victorian and modern pictorial aesthetics of medievalist style and its influence on Japanese comics and animation, origin of both princesses.

Ex Occidente Lux. From Phenomenology of Myth to Geopolitics and Ontology and Vice Versa in the Late Works of Janko Janeff

Janko Janeff’s book Southeast Europe and the German Spirit (1938) is analyzed through the lens of a fundamental Thracian-Dionysian- Orphic myth, i.e. the birth of being or of light from non-being/nothing/ darkness. It is shown how its geopolitical and ontological/theological consequences are to be drawn accordingly to that purely phenomenological premise concerning the supposed Indo-European Renaissance on the Old Continent as per the views expressed by the author.

Adelard of Bath

In the 12th century, a large number of European scholars have travelled to the East in order to learn and ultimately bring back with them new scientific knowledge. Translators played the major role. Among those translators is Adelard of Bath whom this study aims to investigate his original works along with the works he translated from Arabic into Latin. The study will follow his travels from his hometown of Bath to France where he studied, and finally to the East where he learned from the Arabs. It will also briefly highlight the situation of education during the so-called Dark Ages in Europe. Moreover, Adelard’s original works before and after travelling are examined in order to see to what extent Adelard was influenced by the Arabs. Adelard’s translated books into English are used as primary resources for this research, in addition to other secondary references. As a result of conducting this research, it can be seen that the thought of Arabs have prevailed in Adelard’s works as he stressed the importance of the methodology followed by them. Adelard has contributed to forming a cusp between the Islamic Civilization and the European Renaissance; and hence further studies need to be carried out about Adelard as well as his endeavors with East.

Optical Versus Cognitive Perspective: Study of Indian Folk Paintings

Is painting space fundamentally perspectival? In the European Renaissance (14th to the 17th century), the painting space was thought of as having an interior of perspective where one could place an object. It took many years after the Renaissance for European art to come out of this optical or geometrical perspective and realise that the space of painting is fundamentally non-perspectival. Historically in Europe, impressionists (1860) painters are the ones who tried to break away from this optical or single-point perspective and create paintings according to ‘lived perspective’. Optical perspective is one of the visual dogmas which are believed till today; thus, it is tough to appreciate non-perspectival paintings. This paper aims to give technical reasons why painting space is fundamentally not perspectival; the first section of the paper will deal with the question ‘what kind of space is painting space?’, and in the second section, we will compare method of photograph and drawing to find the differences between mechanism of camera and human perception . In the last section of the paper we will use Indian folk paintings, to demonstrate how cognitive or alternative/multiple perspectives open new possibilities in painting space.

Una banca dati per Petrarca e il suo tempo: criteri, modelli e obiettivi

L’articolo presenta le fasi di elaborazione e i modelli del database del progetto PRIN Itinera – Italian Trecento Intellectual Network and European Renaissance Advent. Sviluppata attraverso il framework Cadmus, la banca dati raccoglierà le ricerche sui corrispondenti di Petrarca e quelle sui testi, insieme ai dati codicologici e paleografici relativi alla tradizione manoscritta dei Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.

THE SPECTRUM OF ESTHETIC CATEGORIES IN WORKS OF STANISLAV ORIHOVSKY (1513–1566)

For a long time, Ukrainian and Western European scientists have included all the Latin works to the Catholic values and brought exclusively to Polish literature, and therefore denied the penetration of humanism and Renaissance within the boundaries of the Orthodox Eastern Slavonic world, forgetting that Ukrainian scientists, to which Stanislav Orikhovsky belongs, not indirectly through Polish teachings acquired leading pan-european ideas, but themselves were part of the european renaissance intelligency. In the culture of Ukraine ХІІІІ-XVII centuries there are no interpretations on esthetic issues. However, there are grounds to consider certain reflections on the problems of art and art work in connection with questions of faith and its symbols, values of knowledge and role of sensual experience in the cognitive activity, values of indifferent attitude of a person to the world and to faith and earthly destination of a person. Now, brought into the scientific circulation little known, and even quite unknown, mainly Latin sources strongly testify that the epoch of revival, with its esthetic ideals, has not passed Ukraine as a component of Europe. Stanislav Orikhovsky (1513–1566) is one of the most prominent personalities in the Ukrainian and Polish culture of Renaissance: Philosophy, historian, publicist, polemist, esthette, speaker. The article focuses on the fact that one of the first, in the national renaissance cultural opinion, who considered the question of esthetics was Stanislav Orikhovsky. In works on esthetics, he devoted a lot of his place to problems of good and evil, as a humanist put the importance of man in dependence on her personal qualities, personal integrity, talent and ability to realize them. Interest in esthetics was revealed clearly, complete it, quite concrete content. In his works he considered and outlined ways of solving various problems, in particular, ethical and esthetic. The spectrum of esthetic categories of the Orikhovsky is mainly represented by the following: Heroic, beauty, beautiful – creative; raised – low; harmony is chaos. AND parts: Comic – tragic; irony, mezzis.

Islam and Modernity in Crosshairs of History

Static view of religion is a cause of concern in all religious communities because it not only gnaws at their dynamism, more often it tends to swing history back to the old life patterns which have lost their validity and moral force. On the other hand history moves forward and seeks its direction intuitively. So, traditional view of religion collides with the forces of history in futile effort to cease the torrential stream of time. Resultantly, time or history crush them or throw them in the yokes of slavery of others who entertain ever fresh and dynamic view of history and religion. Same went with Islam. With an advent of modernity after European renaissance when Europe collided horns with Islam, once all the Muslim world submerged in European colonialism.it forced Muslim intelligentsia on serious soul search and brought forth three schools of thought the traditionalist who strictly cling to tradition even if it had relevance to the emerging realities of history or not; the revivalists who seek assuage in pristine Islam and turn the tide of history back while modernists sensing new realities harness materieux of history for moral cause and go hand in hand with history. Modernity is also a departure from mythos to the rationale so the most crucial question of todays’ scholarship is whether Islam and modernity are compatible or poles apart in context of history.

Re-visiting the Arab Cultural Renaissance: Al-Nahda and the Reception of European Literature

Al-Nahda – the Renaissance corresponds to the advent of “modern civilization” (al-tamaddun al-ḥadîṯ) in Egypt and the East through contacts with the West. The Renaissance is opposed to the Middle Ages (al-qurûn al-wusṭâ), times of darkness. It is intended, more than a renewal of old models, a revolution of knowledge and thought. It is born of more or less violent contacts with the outside. Just as the Renaissance of the East is fertilized by the Western contributions so the European Renaissance which preceded it is largely attributed to the philosophical and scientific mediation of the Arabs of Andalusia. My research is a re-consideration of al-Nahda, highlighting the development of contemporary Arabic literature as a result of the late-19th – early 20th cultural rebirth of the Arab world, with a special stress on the French-Egyptian cultural transfer and the importance of translation.