*Edit* more info pg1* What you think about this? related to religion, humanism, art, science, education and more...

[NWP]

What does this picture mean to you? Have we forgotten this important message?

[Susan0805]

What message?

[NWP]

Detail from the center:

[NWP]

Need a "cheat sheet"?

http://agutie.homestead.com/files/school_athens_map.html

You can run your curser over the figures to find out who they represent

Sorry, I don't know how to make it clicky...it is clicky on pg. 2

[NWP]

There is a very important message we could all hear right now in this image. I would like to discuss it with the women on this board.

This work was commissioned by Pope Julius II to represent the ideals that made the Renaissance the magic time that it was....It is representing a marriage of Classical (pagan, as in Greek/Roman, noticed Athena and Aristotle sculptures on the wall) and the current Christian philosophies.

The figures in the painting represent Classical thinkers, but are painted using contemporary people as models...such as daVinci and Michelangelo.

Here is a jumping off point of discussion concerning the two central figures:

The two thinkers in the very center, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left, pointing up) *Note, Plato is represented in this image with the face of Leonardo da Vinci* have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incorporated into Christianity. Plato holds his book called The Timaeus.

Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality, and the seat of all truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom.

Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle's Ethics (the book that he holds) "emphasized the relationships, justice, friendship, and government of the human world and the need to study it."

Quoting Susan0805:

What message?

[DivingDiva]

<--- Iz stoopid and culturally illiterate.  I don't get it.  

[Susan0805]

Im mobile, can you make it clicky?

Quoting NWP:

Need a "cheat sheet"?

http://agutie.homestead.com/files/school_athens_map.html

[NWP]

More information:

The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. These figures all lived at different times, but here they are gathered together under one roof.

The two thinkers in the very center, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left, pointing up) have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incoporated into Christianity. Plato holds his book called The Timaeus.

Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality, and the seat of all truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom.

Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle's Ethics (the book that he holds) "emphasized the relationships, justice, friendship, and government of the human world and the need to study it."

Pythagoras (lower left) believed that the world (including the movement of the planets and stars) operated according to mathematical laws. These mathematical laws were related to ideas of musical and cosmic harmony, and thus (for the Christians who interpreted him in the Renaissance) to God. Pythagoras taught that each of the planets produced a note as it moved, based on its distance from the earth. Together, the movement of all the planets was perfect harmony -- "the harmony of the spheres."

Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower right), holds a sphere of the earth, next to him is Zaroaster who holds a celestial sphere. Ptolemy tried to mathematically explain the movements of the planets (which was not easy since some of them appear to move backwards!). His theory of how they all moved around the earth remained the authority until Copernicus and Kepler figured out (in the late 1500s) that the earth was not at the center of the universe, and that the planets moved in orbits the shape of ellipses not in circles.

Raphael included a self-portrait of himself, standing next to Ptolemy. He looks right out at us.

  

[NWP]

Am including more links and info

Quoting DivingDiva:

<--- Iz stoopid and culturally illiterate.  I don't get it.  

[Susan0805]

The pic reminds me of the old testement when people gathered together for commerce and religious teaching. I dont understand the "message" part you are looking for though.

[NWP]

I don't know how...can someone else do this? It is an interactive map that allows you to run your curser over the figures to learn more about them.

Quoting Susan0805:

Im mobile, can you make it clicky?

Quoting NWP:

Need a "cheat sheet"?

http://agutie.homestead.com/files/school_athens_map.html