Life is Short, Art is Long, Crisis is Fleeting Kairos or Weaving the Right Moment*

Abstract

A fabric medallion from a 5th century clavus band from the Egyptian city of Antinopolis, now on display at the Musée des Antiquités in Rouen, depicts a winged putto figure with the inscription kairos on the right. Two other medallions from that same clavus depicting winter (cheimerinos) and spring (earinos) can be found at the Musée du Louvre. Kairos is seen carrying a bunch of grapes in his right hand, a stick slung over his left shoulder with his catch of the day: a rabbit. In conjunction with the other medallions from the tunic, he is said to be the personification of autumn. After all, for Kairos the time is ‘ripe’ for picking grapes and hunting game.¹

Keywords:

• Kairos
• warp
• hair
• tassels
• coptic

Notes

1 The ripening process as the opportune moment is found in wine growing; Smith (2002, 46–57, 51): “The aging of wine – and I am sure that there are many similar processes of maturation - furnishes an excellent example of an organic process in which time takes on a qualitative character. According to the chemistry of wine making, virtually any wine, once it has been constituted, can be consumed while it is ‘young’ but there is, for great wines, a time of maturity - this may involve decades – when the development reaches its peak. It is at this time that the wine will be at its best. There is a critical or ‘right time’ for the vintage and prior to this critical point is ‘too soon’ and after it has passed is ‘too late’”.

2 Loscalzo (2016, 382–390); Portrait of Hippocrates with the aphorism in Ms. Gr. 2144, fol. 10v, 1341–1345, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale; Omont (1929, 59), Pl. CXXVIII.

3 With gratitude to Angelos Chaniotis, lecturing on anankairos at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton on 15 March 2019.

4 The word ‘window’ originates from the Old Norse vindauga, from vindr, ‘wind’, and auga, ‘eye’; this translates as ‘wind eye’. In Norwegian Nynorsk and in the Icelandic Old Norse this form has survived to this day (in Icelandic only as a less used synonym to gluggi). Furthermore, in Swedish the word vindöga remains a term for a hole through the roof of a hut. Nevertheless, in Danish vindue and in Norwegian Bokmål vindu, the direct link to ‘eye’ is lost, just as it is in ‘window’ (Webster's 1828 Dictionary).

5 http://indo-european.info/pokorny-etymological-dictionary/index.htm: Latin: moveo, -ere, movi, motum ‘in Bewegung setzen, hin und her bewegen, rühren, schütteln; fortbewegen, entfernen’; mobilis, -e ‘beweglich’, momen, momentum ‘Bewegung’. Other: commota, oblata.

6 Turin, Museo di Arte Greco-Romana; (Stewart 1978, 164–165), no. 23, with images and a list of surviving copies.- See also Gianfranco Adornato, o.c., p. 159–182, with extensive studies on the ekphrasis literature, the pedigree of the piece in Turin and its attribution as a copy of Lysippos. In his Istoria Diplomatica of 1727, Scipione Maffei accredited the Turin relief to an Etruscan master, convinced as he was that the Greek sculptural arts did not have any winged beings; (Maffei 1727, 236). Antonio Rivautella and Giovanni Paolo Ricolvi saw a copy of the lost bronze sculpture by Lysippos in the relief in their Mamora Taurinsia of 1743, a hypothesis that has not been contested since; (Rivautella & Ricolvi 1743, 4); Adornato’s essay is interesting due to these historical reconstructions (“philological archeology”, Ibidem, p. 160). However, his reconfiguration of the iconography as a possible Chronos is less convincing to me.

7 Boschung (2013, 20): “What is striking is the different position ascribed to the knife by antique sources. According to Posidippus and Himerius [(ca. 315–386) who also gave a description of the Lysippos statue in his Oratio 13,1] it is held in the right hand, while the Turin and Trogir [infra] reliefs show the razor in the left hand of Kairos. This implies that the reliefs represent the statue in a mirror inverted way, as can be demonstrated in other cases, too.” The author is referring to relief copies of Myron’s statue of Marsyas (450 BC, Musei Vaticani); “Relief sculptors were also able to implement three-dimensional models rather exactly according to the requirements of their medium but, at the same time, neglected complicated three-dimensional relations in favour of a uniform direction of movement;” Ibidem, p. 23–24; (Pennella 2007, 76; Himerius 2003).

8 Cook (1965, 859–868, 862), refers to the Greek saying “it stands on the razor’s edge”, like in Iliad 10:173.

9 Dietrich Boschung also shows a relief with a possible leg fragment of Kairos in Athens, Museum of the Acropolis (Ibidem, p. 19) and a relief in Saint Petersburg, The Hermitage (Ibidem, p. 42). The latter Kairos wears a beard according to Tempus (infra). The relief may have been partially reworked in Modern Times.

10 Schädler (2003, 172): “Die Deutung der Waage, dieses uralten Symbols für das Richten und Entscheiden, diennt als Sinnbild für die Zeit nahe. Die beiden Arme des Waagbalkens stellen die beiden Teilstücke der Zeit Vergangenheit und Zukunft dar. Sie werden durch eine hauchdünne Grenze, die selbst keine Ausdehnung hat, getrennt: in der Figur durch die Messerklinge veranschaulicht, bei Aristoteles als das »Jetzt«, to nun, bezeichnet. Der Kairos aber verleiht dem einen Teil der Zeit ein größeres Gewicht, weil er der im Rahmen bestimmter Umstände im Hinblick auf ein zu erreichendes Ziel entscheidende Punkt ist. Es liegt mithin nicht im Ermessen des Menschen, den kairos zu bestimmen. Der kairos erweist sich selbst. Darin zeigt sich die göttliche Qualität, die der kairos im 4. Jahrhundert erlangt hat und die Poseidipp erwähnt.”

11 The topos of the blush brings us to the myth of Pygmalion, as told in the 10^th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses (43 BC–17 AD). In response to his prayer to Venus on the yearly festival in Cyprus, the sculptor Pygmalion sees his own beloved and idealised artistic creation - the ivory girl - come to life. The moment the girl wakes from her artistic covering, she blushes; (Hill 1999, 293–296, 244–297; Dörrie 1974, 12–13; Dinter 1979, 14–15; Stoichita 2008; Baert 2019, 47–49).

12 See www.kairotopia.com for a moving 3D reconstruction “Hollow bronze is one thing, but a copy in marble? Not even Daedalus would have been able to make a marble version of the Lysippan Kairos stand on a single tiptoe without him falling over!” (SeungJung Kim & Dave Cortes).

13 See also the fascinating article by Lessen (1932, 28–31); The author connects the Dutch etymology between lock of hair (plok) and seizing the lock of hair (plukken) with luck (geluk).

14 In the martyrologies of Agnes and Mary Magdalene, hairs miraculously cover the bodies of the saints, as a second pelt or seconde peau; (Baert 2005, 139–168).

15 Onians (1988, 232); Barbara Baert, art. Hair, in Fragments, ed. Stephanie Heremans, (Studies in Iconology, 14), Leuven-Walpole, p. 157–165.

16 An example of a prophet filled with much elixir is John the Baptist, whose head was kept as a relic and became subject to veneration in the cultic artefacts known as Johannesschüsseln; See: Baert (2012).

17 Barguet (1986, 52), no. 5. Horus (the sidelock of youth was also called a Horus lock) was the deity who helped in this process; Schoske and Wildung (1992).

18 Herodotus, Histories IV, 189. In the Arab world, the fringes are called hawfi; Yelles-Chaouche (1990).

19 Full text available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/.

20 Both paragraphs quoted from the important web index of The Role of Women in the Art of Ancient Greece; http://www.rwaag.org/

21 The French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823–1915) describes the mantis in his Souvenirs entomologiques, 10 vols., Paris, 1914–1925, vol. 5, chapters 18–21, as Satan disguised as the pious; Roger Caillois (1913–1978), sociologist, philosopher, literary critic, and surrealist writes in his essay La mante religieuse, in Minotaure, 5, 1934, p. 23–26 about the sexual cruelty of the insect: during coitus, the female rips off the male’s head and eats it. In Provence, the mantis is still associated with teeth. The relationship between sexuality, death, and oral consummation (vagina dentata) in combination with the vaguely humanoid shape have made the mantis one of the most fascinating bugs; See also: Pressly (1973, 600–615).

22 http://www.indo-european.nl/: Lat. artus `eng in Raum und Zeit, straff' (Adv. artOE, ursprµngl. Instrumental wie ¡mart»); ars, -tis `die Geschicklichkeit, Kunst, Art und Weise' (eigentlich `Zusammenfµgung, Gabe richtig zusammenzufµgen' = mhd. art), dazu die Komposita in-ers `kunstlos, tr„ge', soll-ers `geschickt', allers, alers `gelehrt'; arti¡, -ire `fest zusammenfµgen, zusammenpressen' (jµnger artƒre); artus, -³s `Gelenk, Glied', articulus `ds. ; Augenblick, Wendepunkt'; Ibidem: Root / lemma: ar-1*, themat. (a)re-, schwere Basis ar-, rOE- und i-Basis (a)r–¢-, rOEi-.

23 Es handelt sich gleichsam, um ein reduzierte Theodizee; (Thanassas 2013, 79–94, 80). See also: Greenbaum (2015, 44), noot 99: “Kairos belongs to God.”

24 According to Hippocrates (460–-377 BC) dynamis means the capacity of affects: a mana-like fluid. It is an energy that is transmitted from the supra-mundane to the mundane level. Normally, dynamis is not used in the Christian miracle episodes. It refers to a Hellenistic cosmic view of healing, the so-called mana: a place in his theory of the relationships between representatives of the spiritual world and mankind; John M. Hull, (Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, (Studies in Biblical Theology. Second Series, 28), Napperville, 1974, p. 87, and p. 108).

25 For further research on the symbolism of the hem, and more specifically on the motif of the woman with an issue of blood from Mark 5, see (Baert 2011, 308–359). See also: Robertson, 1930–1933). “The border of his garment [tou kraspedou tou himatiou]. The hem or fringe of a garment, a tassel or tuft hanging from the edge of the outer garment according to Nu 15:38. It was made of twisted wool. Jesus wore the dress of other people with these fringes at the four corners of the outer garment. The Jews actually counted the words Jehovah One from the numbers of the twisted white threads, a refinement that Jesus had no concern for.”

26 Greek astrologer Vettius Valens (120 – ca. 175) writes that the gods gave humankind a timely effluence (aporroia kairike) of immortality within the ordered diachronic time of Chronos. Mankind participates in that immortality again and again when they breathe the air around them in and out; (Greenbaum 2015).

27 That is why symmetry is more than just two identical parts, but instead imagery for transformation within two poles, such as between life and death, just like the butterfly undergoes a triple transformation process with the 'nymph': the chrysalis as mediation; Binswanger (1971, 227–236, 228).

28 Davide Stimilli writes: La Mnémosyne invoquée ici n’est certainement pas le gardien bienveillant d’un trésor de délicatesses bibliophiles (Schatzhaus für bibliophile Kostbarkeiten), mais plutôt "le grand sphynx" dont Warburg souhaitait "soutirer, sinon le secret, au moins la formulation de son énigme (wenn auch nicht ihr Geheimnis, so doch die Formulierung ihrer Rätselfrage);” Stimili (2015, 1100–1114, 1110).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Barbara Baert

Barbara Baert is Professor at KU Leuven, Faculty of Arts. [email protected] *This essay was written during my fellowship at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (January–July 2019). The research is part of the KU Leuven project The Right Moment or Kairos: Iconology & Afterlife. See also: Barbara Baert, Kairos or Occasion as Paradigm in the Visual Medium. Nachleben, Iconography, Hermeneutics, (Studies in Iconology, 5), Leuven-Walpole, 2016 and its offspring in: Antwerp Royal Museum Annual, 2013–2014 (appeared in 2016), p. 193–251; Archaevs. Study in the History of Religions, 19–20, 2015–2016, p. 87–150; Iconographica. Rivista di Iconografia Medievale e Moderna, 16, 2017, p. 71–93; Das Münster, 2, 2017, p. 136–150 and Occasio à Mantoue: Pathosformel–grisaille–danse, in Parerga. Etudes en hommage à Victor I. Stoichita, ed. Jean-François Corpataux, Fribourg, 2019 (at press). Special thanks to Lizzy van Rijswijck, Julia van Rosmalen and dr. Laura Tack.