• Title/Summary/Keyword: ambiguous reading

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Interpretation of C.C.L.Hirschfeld's Theory of Garden Art in Contemporary Meaning and Its Significance (히르시펠트(C.C.L.Hirschfeld) 정원예술론의 의미와 가치의 현대적 해석)

  • Zoh, Kyung-Jin
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.58-68
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    • 2014
  • Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld is often regarded as 'a father of landscape garden art.' He was an aesthetics professor and garden theoretician in the $18^{th}$ century. He put forth the most comprehensive garden theory book in five volumes between 1779 and 1785. His book, Theorie der Gartenkunst, was translated and widely circulated in his contemporary. The book, which dealt with diverse aspects of garden art such as history, design, material, and type, urged to promote the prevalence of landscape garden in European continents as well as in Germany. However, there have scarcely been discourses in the Hirschfeld's garden theory. This essay aims to review Hirschfeld's garden thoughts in his book critically and to reinterpret some issues in the contemporary landscape theory and practice. Hirschfeldian theory was the product of $18^{th}$ century German Enlightenment and romanticism. At that time, Nature was regarded as divine realm. There was a German affinity with natural world. The spread of reading culture and the fashion of travel literature were another background of the success of his garden literature. Several issues in Hirschfeld garden theory will discussed here. First, privileging garden art was the most significant contribution in his theory. He emphasized that garden art was the most advanced art form among all art genres. Second, garden art was grounded on the mimesis of nature. The ambiguous relationship between nature and art still existed in garden making. However, garden art can be flourished when utilizing the potency of nature in itself. Third, there was the association between the image and the idea in experiencing the garden. Some garden scenes stimulated the related emotional responses such as cheerful and merry, softly melancholic, romantic, solemn etc. Fourth, the movement was the essential aspect of garden art. Motion and emotion are come together in garden experience. To represent the landscape garden style in suitable way, the sketch or image seems to be preferable than the plans and views. Finally, garden art was composing of not only the physical space but also the spirit of place. He maintained the garden art as hortus moralis should be a social metaphor. Hirschfeldian garden theory has often been criticized as the lack of practical power and the old fashioned idea. However, his theory influenced on formulating the idea of public park in $19^{th}$ century. Moreover, there are still some visionary aspects of his theory such as the reevaluation of garden art, the emphasis of locality and the introduction of Mittelweg idea. Recently, gardening culture are prevalent in various realms of art and life. Hirschfeld's garden theory as humanistic landscape theory can provide us some insights in the contemporary practices.

Literary Text and the Cultural Interpretation - A Study of the Model of 「History of Spanish Literature」 (문학텍스트와 문학적 해석 -「스페인 문학사」를 통한 모델 연구)

  • Na, Songjoo
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.26
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    • pp.465-485
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    • 2012
  • Instructing "History of Spanish Literature" class faces various types of limits and obstacles, just as other foreign language literature history classes do. Majority of students enter the university without having any previous spanish learning experience, which means, for them, even the interpretation of the text itself can be difficult. Moreover, the fact that "History of Spanish Literature" is traced all the way back to the Middle Age, students encounter even more difficulties and find factors that make them feel the class is not interesting. To list several, such factors include the embarrassment felt by the students, antiquated expressions, literature texts filled with deliberately broken grammars, explanations written in pretentious vocabularies, disorderly introduction of many different literary works that ignores the big picture, in which in return, reduces academic interest in students, and finally general lack of interest in literate itself due to the fact that the following generation is used to visual media. Although recognizing such problem that causes the distortion of the value of our lives and literature is a very imminent problem, there has not even been a primary discussion on such matter. Thus, the problem of what to teach in "History of Spanish Literature" class remains unsolved so far. Such problem includes wether to teach the history of authors and literature works, or the chronology of the text, the correlations, and what style of writing to teach first among many, and how to teach to read with criticism, and how to effectively utilize the limited class time to teach. However, unfortunately, there has not been any sorts of discussion among the insructors. I, as well, am not so proud of myself either when I question myself of how little and insufficiently did I contemplate about such problems. Living in the era so called the visual media era or the crisis of humanity studies, now there is a strong need to bring some change in the education of literature history. To suggest a solution to make such necessary change, I recommended to incorporate the visual media, the culture or custom that students are accustomed to, to the class. This solution is not only an attempt to introduce various fields to students, superseding the mere literature reserch area, but also the result that reflects the voice of students who come from a different cultural background and generation. Thus, what not to forget is that the bottom line of adopting a new teaching method is to increase the class participation of students and broaden the horizon of the Spanish literature. However, the ultimate goal of "History of Spanish Literature" class is the contemplation about humanity, not the progress in linguistic ability. Similarly, the ultimate goal of university education is to train students to become a successful member of the society. To achieve such goal, cultural approach to the literature text helps not only Spanish learning but also pragmatic education. Moreover, it helps to go beyond of what a mere functional person does. However, despite such optimistic expectations, foreign literature class has to face limits of eclecticism. As for the solution, as mentioned above, the method of teaching that mainly incorporates cultural text is a approach that fulfills the students with sensibility who live in the visual era. Second, it is a three-dimensional and sensible approach for the visual era, not an annotation that searches for any ambiguous vocabularies or metaphors. Third, it is the method that reduces the burdensome amount of reading. Fourth, it triggers interest in students including philosophical, sociocultural, and political ones. Such experience is expected to stimulate the intellectual curiosity in students and moreover motivates them to continues their study in graduate school, because it itself can be an interesting area of study.

Dedicatory Inscriptions on the Amitabha Buddha and Maitreya Bodhisattva Sculptures of Gamsansa Temple (감산사(甘山寺) 아미타불상(阿彌陁佛像)과 미륵보살상(彌勒菩薩像) 조상기(造像記)의 연구)

  • Nam, Dongsin
    • MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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    • v.98
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    • pp.22-53
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    • 2020
  • This paper analyzes the contents, characteristics, and historical significance of the dedicatory inscriptions (josanggi) on the Amitabha Buddha and the Maitreya Bodhisattva statues of Gamsansa Temple, two masterpieces of Buddhist sculpture from the Unified Silla period. In the first section, I summarize research results from the past century (divided into four periods), before presenting a new perspective and methodology that questions the pre-existing notion that the Maitreya Bodhisattva has a higher rank than the Amitabha Buddha. In the second section, through my own analysis of the dedicatory inscriptions, arrangement, and overall appearance of the two images, I assert that the Amitabha Buddha sculpture actually held a higher rank and greater significance than the Maitreya Bodhisattva sculpture. In the third section, for the first time, I provide a new interpretation of two previously undeciphered characters from the inscriptions. In addition, by comparing the sentence structures from the respective inscriptions and revising the current understanding of the author (chanja) and calligrapher (seoja), I elucidate the possible meaning of some ambiguous phrases. Finally, in the fourth section, I reexamine the content of both inscriptions, differentiating between the parts relating to the patron (josangju), the dedication (josang), and the prayers of the patrons or donors (balwon). In particular, I argue that the phrase "for my deceased parents" is not merely a general axiom, but a specific reference. To summarize, the dedicatory inscriptions can be interpreted as follows: when Kim Jiseong's parents died, they were cremated and he scattered most of their remains by the East Sea. But years later, he regretted having no physical memorial of them to which to pay his respects. Thus, in his later years, he donated his estate on Gamsan as alms and led the construction of Gamsansa Temple. He then commissioned the production of the two stone sculptures of Amitabha Buddha and Maitreya Bodhisattva for the temple, asking that they be sculpted realistically to reflect the actual appearance of his parents. Finally, he enshrined the remains of his parents in the sculptures through the hole in the back of the head (jeonghyeol). The Maitreya Bodhisattva is a standing image with a nirmanakaya, or "transformation Buddha," on the crown. As various art historians have pointed out, this iconography is virtually unprecedented among Maitreya images in East Asian Buddhist sculpture, leading some to speculate that the standing image is actually the Avalokitesvara. However, anyone who reads the dedicatory inscription can have no doubt that this image is in fact the Maitreya. To ensure that the sculpture properly embodied his mother (who wished to be reborn in Tushita Heaven with Maitreya Bodhisattva), Kim Jiseong combined the iconography of the Maitreya and Avalokitesvara (the reincarnation of compassion). Hence, Kim Jiseong's deep love for his mother motivated him to modify the conventional iconography of the Maitreya and Avalokitesvara. A similar sentiment can be found in the sculpture of Amitabha Buddha. To this day, any visitor to the temple who first looks at the sculptures from the front before reading the text on the back will be deeply touched by the filial love of Kim Jiseong, who truly cherished the memory of his parents.