A Universal History of Ruins. From Origins to Enlightenment.
Threshold| N° d'inventaire | 23275 |
| Format | 23.5 x 30 |
| Détails | 744 p., paperback with flaps. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782021282504 |
There are no more men without memory than societies without ruins. This Universal History of Ruins aims to elucidate the indissoluble relationship that each civilization maintains with them. Ancient Egypt entrusted the memory of its sovereigns to gigantic monuments and imposing inscriptions. Other societies preferred to make a pact with time, like the Mesopotamians, aware of the vulnerability of their mud-brick palaces, who buried their commemorative inscriptions in the ground. The Chinese of Antiquity and the Middle Ages entrusted the memory of their kings and great men to inscriptions on stone and bronze, the engravings of which were collected by scrupulous antiquarians. Still others, the Japanese of the Ise sanctuary, destroyed and then rebuilt identically, in an infinite cycle, their wooden and thatched architectures. Elsewhere, in the Celtic world and Scandinavia, as in the Arab-Muslim world, it is poets or bards who are responsible for maintaining memory. The Greeks and Romans considered ruins a necessary evil that must be interpreted in order to master them. The Western medieval world faced the ancient heritage with an admiration strongly tinged with repulsion. Faced with this tradition, the Renaissance undertook a new type of return to Antiquity, considered a model of the present that must be imitated in order to better transcend it. Finally, the Enlightenment built a universal awareness of ruins that has imposed itself on us as the "modern cult of monuments": a dialogue with ruins that aims to be universal and to which this book bears witness. Moving from one civilization to another, Alain Schnapp draws as much on archaeological sources as on poetry. Magnificently illustrated, this collection is the work of a lifetime.
There are no more men without memory than societies without ruins. This Universal History of Ruins aims to elucidate the indissoluble relationship that each civilization maintains with them. Ancient Egypt entrusted the memory of its sovereigns to gigantic monuments and imposing inscriptions. Other societies preferred to make a pact with time, like the Mesopotamians, aware of the vulnerability of their mud-brick palaces, who buried their commemorative inscriptions in the ground. The Chinese of Antiquity and the Middle Ages entrusted the memory of their kings and great men to inscriptions on stone and bronze, the engravings of which were collected by scrupulous antiquarians. Still others, the Japanese of the Ise sanctuary, destroyed and then rebuilt identically, in an infinite cycle, their wooden and thatched architectures. Elsewhere, in the Celtic world and Scandinavia, as in the Arab-Muslim world, it is poets or bards who are responsible for maintaining memory. The Greeks and Romans considered ruins a necessary evil that must be interpreted in order to master them. The Western medieval world faced the ancient heritage with an admiration strongly tinged with repulsion. Faced with this tradition, the Renaissance undertook a new type of return to Antiquity, considered a model of the present that must be imitated in order to better transcend it. Finally, the Enlightenment built a universal awareness of ruins that has imposed itself on us as the "modern cult of monuments": a dialogue with ruins that aims to be universal and to which this book bears witness. Moving from one civilization to another, Alain Schnapp draws as much on archaeological sources as on poetry. Magnificently illustrated, this collection is the work of a lifetime.