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Tag: Exhibits
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On Civilization 31
The Ever-unfolding Marriage of
Loewenmensch and Venus of Hohle Fels
It started slowly, bubbling up through the mosaic floors, and leaking beneath the inlaid doors, of the 17th century. Neither sandbags, nor tarps, nor monogrammed toweling – nor the gilded vestments of the supreme church, could stem the flow of the words of the Enlightenment. The talk was of reason and logic and the unheard-of thought of an individual’s right to authority over their own being.
How could there possibly be a consummate culture when only a minuscule portion of the extant population was able to fully participate? Thus, flushed by the inexorable tide of new scientific discovery and secular thought, the struggle for an equitable and educated society, what some might characterize as the criteria for a civilization, had begun.
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On Civilization 23
The Ever-unfolding Marriage of
Loewenmensch and Venus of Hohle Fels
The empire known in history as Rome had disintegrated as a result of its own entropy, internal flaws, and the infiltration of uneducated northern Europeans. The candles lit by Cleisthenes and Pericles and Aristotle and Socrates and Plato have painfully extinguished. The establishment of social division: royals/priests; farmer peasants; serfs/vassals/slaves, slowly became institutionalized into a structure that, today, we can begin to recognize and relate to. This all began approximately 1,500 years ago.
Mensch and Hohle Fels with Charlemagne The areas of academic knowledge: research in science, philosophy, literature, and the arts were confined into the dominant church and ultimately became “Christianized.” Some say the church, at least, maintained progress in these areas of study; ideas that had begun in the middle east, developed in Greece, and continued by the Romans. Others might question why this activity was not shared outside the walls of the church.
Mensch and Hohle Fels with Justinian I 
Mensch and Hohle Fels with Umar I 
Mensch and Hohle Fels with Tai-Tsung Meanwhile, Mensch and Hohle Fels maintained estates in Paris, Rome, Constantinople, and Baghdad. They partied across the continents: in the courts of Charlemagne, the Byzantine palace of Justinian the Great, with the Islamic Caliph Umar I, and the Emperor of China, Tai-Tsung. They took time to travel the various rural roads, admiring the beauty of their natural landscapes; taking little notice of the vassals and serfs cultivating these lands for others’ benefit. They had little memory of their dank and laborious lives in the dark caves of Bavaria and its relation to these workers. After all, that had occurred more than 30,000 years ago.
