Why does a statue created over 2100 years ago still have such a strong presence today?
How was so much of the art of Ancient Greece able to transcend time and achieve a kind of immortality?
What separated these cultural treasures from what did not survive?
Works of genius in whatever age they are created have an aura of classical resonance.
In our hyper-connected world, online media gives everything a kind of digital permanence, easily uploaded, easily copied, instantly archived, freely available.
Yet how much of what passes for permanence will survive even 5 years from now, much less in two millennia? How many of today's bestsellers will turn out to be simply the bestsellers of the hour, quick to flower, quick to fade, soon forgotten.
Moreover, no matter how much we increase bandwidth and storage capacity, there are limits to what our brain can meaningfully absorb and retain. We filter out far more than we take in. And yet some works of art, words of wisdom, and people with presence penetrate the filter because they possess classical resonance, the key to surviving the passing moment.
In a sense, those works with permanence are a celebration of the passing moment.
Venus of Milo outlives the artist and the stone, because it captures the resonance of life itself.
Life leaves traces in stone, from fossil fish to classical art. The ancients created art in stone, as the most permanent substance they could imagine. Yet even without arms, Venus de Milo is complete because of its resonance.
It is easy to appreciate classical resonance, because it is genuine. It has already passed the test of time. It is more difficult to appreciate contemporary resonance, because we cannot know if it will still be meaningful to future generations.
Enough of eye candy!
The classics give you a touch of class, a measure of the marvelous, by which you can appreciate the value of things and people around you.
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