II: Cultural Interactions Worksheet - Assignment Example

Although the reality of his contribution to this form of music is obscure it was called ‘Gregorian Chant.’ These chants became the most popular spiritually moving music of western culture and its pure soothing music can be found in the Eastern hymn Victimae paschali laudes. The other form of music quoted here, flourished in Europe during that period. It was performed by a lot of musicians, one of the most famous groups being the French trouveres and troubadours. This monophonic melody to which improvised accompaniments were added, made the music rhythmically alive.

This music mostly revolved around the subject of love in all its trials and tribulations of joy and pain. One of the members of trouveres, Adam de la Halle (ca. 1237-ca. 1286), who also went by the nickname of ‘Anonymous,’ had developed a form of music called the motet that usually consisted of two or more contrasting contents and meters combined together. With no regard to conventional harmonies what so ever, one of his most famous works is De ma dame vient! Listening to the pieces, there can be seen a similarity to organum, a kind of polyphonic chant with two melodic lines including simultaneous intervals at the 4th, 5th or octave thus resulting in a hollow sound.

Another aspect I discovered was the interaction of contrary melodic lines sung very slowly on notes long held, similar to tenor (Latin- tenere meaning to hold). I surely enjoyed the pieces, which reflected serenity and sublimity with a free tempo that wavers quite rhythmically. 2. The early conventions of the Archaic Period, which saw the development of fine arts, and sculptures in particular were beginning to be scrutinized by the Greek society around 490 BCE. The Greeks started finding it hard to accept the fact that “kouros and kore” were actually representing them (http://library.

thinkquest.org/23492/). This is because these statues did not have any expression on their face, looking into their face was like looking into vacuum as all they had was a slight curve of the lips. Their posture was rigid and lifeless. Then from this the sculptors made a transition to capture human movements in the sculptures. Here the rigid form was transformed into a more flexible one and the lifeless expression changed to a more moody one. This expression reflected the thinking of philosophers and poets during the time, they were beginning to understand more about the world and themselves.

The movement of the body incorporated the weight shift concept, which indicated that the sculpture was more interactive with the environment. During the next phase sculptures started to represent gods and goddesses. These were created more to represent the ideals of beauty, the ideal of perfection. It can be seen in statues of gods that depict heavy muscles but also beauty, one side is shown to be calm and relaxed whereas the other is kind of tensed. Through this kind of portrayal sculptors wanted to bring in a balance, according to them this was the prefect body.

I do not think it is very idealistic because there is some reality in it, an individual is a perfect individual representation of himself. No one can take his place or become exactly like him, so he is perfect at being himself and has his own beauty and good. In the late classical period sculptures took a more eloquent flowing sort of form. They were three dimensional now and could be viewed from all angles, this gave them the real life view. They appeared to be more