Cesare Borgia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
countenanceofchrist) wrote2014-03-06 12:50 pm
countenanceofchrist) wrote2014-03-06 12:50 pm
Even The Devil Appreciates Art...
The changing ages brought many new things - industrial advancements, sanitation, textile, governmental...
But some things never changed. Chief among them was humankind's passion to create art, the need to express itself visually and beautifully. Mostly beautifully. Art to shock and horrify had gained a great deal of momentum in recent decades. Nothing was taboo, nothing was sacred, nothing was held untouchable or unquestionable.
Cesare both loved and reviled it. He liked to consider himself a man of a torn nature, but he supposed it was simply part of the Borgia blood. They had always been a pack of hypocrites, aspiring to sainthood while living as sinners. But hadn't man always been obsessed with sin? The doing of it, the judging of it, the admonishing of it and the rising high above it? God or no, that was the eternal struggle. Morality against nature.
Even today, in the art produced in this modern world where video had killed not only the radio star but God Himself, man had not shaken the shackles of sin. The old tablaus were revisited and retreaded again and again. Here the hint of an angel, there the leering face of a devil. Though the subject matter of the paintings Cesare was currently eyeing were entirely modern - and all sharp lines and harsh, geometric angles - the impressions were ancient.
He had only even bothered attending this particular show because the local Diocese spoke out against it's lewdness and blasphemy. He couldn't quite remember when something as natural and unremarkable as nakedness and death had become lewd and blasphemous, but he had left the church in the late 1490s and had little to do with it after the death of his father. Catholics were greater hypocrites than Borgia.
"I could shit more lewdness than this," he muttered, shaking his head and turning to take a glass of wine from a passing server. The art was beginning to bore him. Perhaps the art appreciators would hold more inspiring and engaging views.
But some things never changed. Chief among them was humankind's passion to create art, the need to express itself visually and beautifully. Mostly beautifully. Art to shock and horrify had gained a great deal of momentum in recent decades. Nothing was taboo, nothing was sacred, nothing was held untouchable or unquestionable.
Cesare both loved and reviled it. He liked to consider himself a man of a torn nature, but he supposed it was simply part of the Borgia blood. They had always been a pack of hypocrites, aspiring to sainthood while living as sinners. But hadn't man always been obsessed with sin? The doing of it, the judging of it, the admonishing of it and the rising high above it? God or no, that was the eternal struggle. Morality against nature.
Even today, in the art produced in this modern world where video had killed not only the radio star but God Himself, man had not shaken the shackles of sin. The old tablaus were revisited and retreaded again and again. Here the hint of an angel, there the leering face of a devil. Though the subject matter of the paintings Cesare was currently eyeing were entirely modern - and all sharp lines and harsh, geometric angles - the impressions were ancient.
He had only even bothered attending this particular show because the local Diocese spoke out against it's lewdness and blasphemy. He couldn't quite remember when something as natural and unremarkable as nakedness and death had become lewd and blasphemous, but he had left the church in the late 1490s and had little to do with it after the death of his father. Catholics were greater hypocrites than Borgia.
"I could shit more lewdness than this," he muttered, shaking his head and turning to take a glass of wine from a passing server. The art was beginning to bore him. Perhaps the art appreciators would hold more inspiring and engaging views.
no subject
Cesare didn't know where he stood on that particular issue. He didn't believe in the god of the Catholic Church any longer - hadn't, since his father still lived - but he knew there were things beyond the knowledge of living man.
He was one of those things, in many ways.
no subject
Which was about as religious as she tended to get.
"Where you from, anyway?" she asked her mysterious companion. "Can't place the accent."
no subject
Not entirely lies, but not entirely truth. His line was Spanish through his father but he'd been born in Italy. And 'reborn a son of France', or so Louis had always liked to say.
"My accent is that of the world. And you? Where do you call your home?"
no subject
She assumed.
Actually, Sam was doing a lot of assuming tonight. Which was probably reckless and would make Avery knit his brow at her. But she could live with a rapping on her knuckles.
Young people were supposed to be stupid, weren't they?