How though, was music used, and in what ways did it function in the courtly society of the ancient Maya? In Classic Maya iconography we frequently find scenes of dance performance, ritual, or palace scenes depicted with musicians. It has the ability to change our daily routine. It is a means by which the ordinary everyday can be transformed into the sacred. It highlights social hierarchies and relationships. One thing is certain: art will never stop trying to fulfill mankind’s need for immortality, to respond to the fear humans have of being forgotten.Music is a powerful force. Western history emphasized the capability of art to eternalize the mind and the spirit, whereas contemporary art, inspired by the latest scientific discoveries, raises questions about the guarantee of a future life, the biological decay of the body, the perishing of human existence. In this series, we will try to analyze how artists chronologically responded to the fears of their era through the power of art from cathedrals that challenge the limit of the sky, portraits that make a loved one last forever, hourglasses painted in a corner that remind us of the inexorable passing of time, to present day art, where the topos of the immortality of the soul is increasingly focused on the immortality of the body. However, artists throughout the ages had different relationships with the concepts of mortality and immortality, depending on the cultural context they were immersed in, on historical, value, and environmental factors. They tell stories about the cycle of nature and also about all the human efforts to interpret it. They both experience the fear of losing life, control, beauty, and they both seek solutions to prevent it. Often experienced as antithetical disciplines, art and science respond to this same urgency. The search for immortality and the challenge against the decay of the human body is just one of the many aspects that brings together art and science. Due to its intrinsic nature, it has always been placed in the philosophical framework of eternity. If life is short, art is perceived as a long-lasting, durable medium. In Western culture, art has always been conceived as the noblest tool for achieving immortality. Mostly, because artists felt they had decisive power in this millenary battle between life and death. The theme of the transience of things, of the ephemeral nature of life, has inspired and tormented artists throughout the ages. Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit is subject to the passage of time, but it seeks a way to make itself eternal, like all of us. This is not just analytical virtuosity, the fruits symbolically represent something that was alive but doomed to perish. Caravaggio’s figs and grapes, if observed more closely, are not perfect shapes – some of them are rotten, others spotty or over-ripe, they are deteriorating. It is something that brings to mind the concepts of life and death, in their natural simplicity. However, there is a quid in their representation that remains unclear and elusive, which goes beyond the limits of its frame, and is what makes this composition so mysterious and fascinating. Caravaggio’s fruits still surprise us with their truthfulness, aesthetic power, realism. If the artist’s intention was merely to depict the beauty of these fruits, this would not be one the most famous still life paintings of all time. In 1599 Caravaggio painted his Basket of Fruit, a wicker box full of colored summer fruits.
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