Eleventh and final module for GNED 1201 (Aesthetic Experience and Ideas). This one ever so briefly covers the aesthetics of the Enlightenment. I only had a single lecture available to me so it only really covers the topic in a very cursory way. This course is a required general education course for all first-year students at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. My version of the course is structured as a kind of Art History and Culture course. Some of the content overlaps with my other Gen Ed course.

1. Lecture 11
ENLIGHTENMENT
AND THE ARTS
1650-1780
AESTHETIC
EXPERIENCE
AND
IDEAS

2. Last class we saw that
from 1550-1650,
Europeans were engaged
in an orgy of killing, all
in the name of God (and
maybe also in the name
of geopolitics).
By 1648, Catholics and
Protestants, while not
exactly tolerant of each
other, were no longer
hell bent on
exterminating each
other.

3. Over the next 150 years, educated
Europeans began applying their reason and
power of observation, less and less to
questions about God and more to the natural
and social world around them.
The result was the so-called Scientific
Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp, 1632

4. In
Caravaggio
light
represented
the divine;

5. Now light
represents
knowledge
and reason

6. Vermeer,
The Astronomer
1668

7. A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery
by Joseph Wright, 1766

8. How do you evaluate the merit of an
idea?
Aristotle: 1. Evaluate its internal logic
Aristotle: 2. Compare it to other ideas
In the 16th and 17th centuries another option began to be
used: test the idea through controlled experiment
The spread of this approach to ideas is usually referred to
as the scientific revolution.

9. The instrumental success of this scientific approach
influenced more than just how people thought about
the natural world.
It also transformed the way people think about:
• Politics
• Society
• Ethics
•• Ourselves
• The Past
• The Future

10. This transformation is usually referred to as
the Enlightenment.
It refers to style and approach of a range of
influential thinkers and writers working in
the 17th and 18th centuries.

11. Some historians and philosophers believe that we
still are in the Enlightenment, meaning that the way
we think about ourselves, about truth, politics,
nature, history, etc is by and large the same as that
propagated by the great Enlightenment thinkers.

12. Illustration of traditional geocentric (earth-centered)
view of universe, influenced from
Ptolemy

13. Europeans embraced this model because:
1. It matched their experience and observation =
common sense
2. It was handed down from the Ancient world =
authority
3. It fit scripture = worldview

14. The problem with geocentric approach is the problem of retrograde motion of some of
the planets. This retrograde motion is especially noticeable with Mars.

15. To solve this problem, the Ptolemaic model put the planets on
epicycles. By the 16th century, the Ptolemaic model was very
accurate at predicted/explaining the motion of the planets.

16. Nicholas Copernicus On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres
[1473-1543] [1543]

19. Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]

20. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems [1632]
Upon its publication, Galileo was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of
heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

21. Galileo and Copernicus’s books were not removed from
the Catholic Church’s index of banned books until 1835.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the Church
had made a mistake in its opposition to the heliocentric
model.

22. Johannes Kepler [1571-1630]

26. Influence of Newton’s achievements:
Humans began more and more to feel that
the world in which they lived was
potentially knowable and explainable.

27. Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768

28. Art during the 17th and 18th centuries
became less and less focused on religious
themes, especially in Protestant lands.
While mythological themes continued to be
popular, portraits, landscapes, still lifes,
and genre scenes (scenes from everyday
life) became progressively more popular.
This was especially true in Holland, a
Calvinist country that became quite
wealthy in the 17th century.

29. Peter Paul Rubens
1617

33. Italian paintings of the Renaissance and the
Baroque are an expression of a textual culture
in that they are meant to be “read”, i.e., the
allegorical, historical, mythological or
philosophic meaning must be read from the
visual cues in the painting.

34. Dutch paintings arises within a truly
“visual” culture; hence the values or
meaning in the paintings are seen not
read.
Dutch art of the 17th and 18th centuries
thus described the world as seen by its
subjects … it was a visual culture that was
inline with the new scientific
breakthroughs happening in Holland and
elsewhere …

35. This can also be readily seen in paintings
that depict events from everyday life
(genre scenes) were a favorite of Dutch
public.
One of the masters of this style was Jan
Vermeer (though we only have 34
paintings by him).

36. Vermeer,
Milkmaid
1660

37. Vermeer,
Girl with the Pearl Earring
1665

38. The Love Letter
Vermeer
1669

40. Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window
Vermeer
1669

41. The Little Street
Vermeer
1658

43. Another popular style were still lifes,
paintings dedicated to the representation
of common household objects and foods.

49. “Chardin has taught us that a pear is as living as a
woman, a kitchen crock as beautiful as a precious
stone. The painter has proclaimed the divine equality of
all things to the mind that reflects upon them, in the
light that embellishes them. He has made us leave
behind a false idealism in order to explore a more
ample reality where, on all sides, we rediscover
beauty” -- Marcel Proust

50. Portraits continued to be an important
genre.

51. Philip IV [1631, 1644]
Diego Velázquez

52. Las Meninas [1656]
Diego Velázquez

53. Perhaps the greatest master of the portrait
during the 17th century was the Dutch
painter Rembrandt van Rijn.

55. Rembrandt’s used light to animate the
figure, but unlike Vermeer or Caravaggio,
where external light falls on the sitter,
with Rembrandt the light appears to
emanate from the people themselves.

59. Night Watch, 1642

60. Rembrandt was an inveterate painter of
self portraits … he painted almost 100 over
a 40 year time span.

61. 1629 (23 yrs old)

62. 1632 (26 yrs old)

63. 1635 (29 yrs old)
A year after wedding

64. 1640 (34 yrs old)
Rembrandt’s work was
exceptional popular and at
this point he had a very
large income.

65. 1643 (37 yrs old)
Rembrandt’s wife and
three of their four children
were dead by 1642.

66. 1655 (49 yrs old)
Declared bankruptcy
in 1656. Lived
common law with his
maid.

67. 1657 (51 yrs old)

68. 1659(53 yrs old)
Forced to sell his house
in 1660 and prohibited
from selling his works

69. 1669(63 yrs old)
His common-law wife
and son died in 1668.

70. Elsewhere in Europe, the time period after
the religious wars was a time period in
which the power of the state grew as did
the relative power and wealth of absolute
monarchs such as France’s Louis XIV (1643-
1715) and England’’s Charles I (1600-1649).

71. Louis XIV

72. Charles I

73. Palace of Versailles, France

75. Hall of Mirrors
Palace of Versailles

76. The elaborate visual art from the
mid 17th century to the mid 18th
century is sometimes referred to as
rococo, which continues the
elaborateness of baroque and
emphasizes asymmetry and
decorative detail.

77. Peter Paul Rubens,
Arrival of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles
1621

81. Andrea Pozzo, Triumph of St Ignatius 1691-4 Church of Saint Ignazio, Rome

84. Antoine Coypel, The Eternal Father Promising the Coming of the Messiah, 1709-11, Versailles

86. Another related feature of rococo
art is the focus on the high life of
the aristocracy (along with a love of
sensuous pleasures).

91. François Boucher
Madame de Pompadour (ca. 1758)

94. Thomas Gainsborough
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews
1748

95. This art style perfectly exemplifies the French
high society’s taste at the time, summed up in
the words of Emilie du Châtelet, mistress of the
famous writer Voltaire: “We must begin by saying
to ourselves that we have nothing else to do in
the world but seek pleasant sensations and
feelings.””

96. During an era where France was the epitome of
flamboyance, and when everything was elaborate
from furniture to hairstyles, these paintings
captured the ideal embodiment of the Rococo
spirit where the upper classes were preoccupied
with their own amusement and luxuries while the
common folk lived in misery.

98. “Après nous, le déluge”
“After us, the deluge (the flood)”
-- Madame de Pompadour (or Louis XV)
For others and those who live after us,
things will get terrible, but who cares,
let’s party!

99. The music of this time period is usually
(and perhaps somewhat confusingly) given
the name baroque.

100. Recap: Medieval Music
The principal form of Western art music in
Monophonic (with parallel melody lines)
the early medieval era was Gregorian chant,
which was monophonic.
Polyphonic music emerged in the later
medieval era as chants were embellished
with additional melody lines; in time, purely
Polyphonic Texture
y ; ,p y
original polyphonic music was also
composed.

101. 17th and 18th Century Music
Like baroque and rococo painting and
sculpture, the music of this era was
theatrical and elaborate.

102. The Baroque era marks the rise of instrumental music to
an equal footing with vocal music in the Western world.
One of its key features was major-minor tonality, which
denotes that a composition is both tonal (centred around
a fundamental note) and based on major and minor
scales (another innovation of the baroque era).
Major-minor tonality dominated Western music
throughout the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods
(and continues to flourish in pop and rock music, film
music, and musical theatre).

103. One can even view baroque orchestral
(i.e., no singing) music as the first purely
abstract art (i.e., no meaning) in western
culture.
Abstract visual art doesn’’t appear until
the 1920s but happens in music in the 17th
century!

104. The orchestra emerged in the Baroque era, serving
initially as accompaniment for opera. As opera
developed and expanded, so did the orchestra.
Baroque composers also composed pieces for smaller
ensembles (solo, trio, quintet, etc). These smaller pieces
are sometimes referred to as chamber music.

105. Baroque Composers
Monteverdi [1567-1643]
Lully [1632-1687]
Pachelbel [1653-1707]
Corelli [1653-1713]
Vivaldi [1678-1741]
Scarlatti [1685-1757]
Bach [1685-1750]
Handel [1685-1759]

106. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was the musical director
of St. Marks in Venice. He introduces a new musical art
form, the opera.
Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) is generally considered the first
opera. Indeed opera is the oldest continuous musical art
form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb2TURdBeEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wni1GVRlMtc

107. Lully [1632-1687] was a French court composer for Louis
XIV, and introduced conductor (an orchestral version of
the absolute monarch) and uniform playing by all
members of the orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKrMv1HnMTM [Overture]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOxpsvWvi8k [Overture]
Overtures were the musical introduction to a ballet or opera. Lully’’s
overtures are slow, stately, and grand.
Lully combined music, drama, and dance in his operas.
He limited vocal display and brought focus to the words.
It also emphasized mood, costume, and stage effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhA7r-7mdc

108. The atmosphere at a
18th century opera
was quite different
than today. The
audience would talk,
move around and
visit, and play cards.
That is, the
audiences treated
the entertainment on
the stage sort of like
modern families
treat television: part
of routine life rather
than masterpieces by
geniuses.
It was perhaps like
that of a baseball or
soccer game today:
the audience might
seem inattentive,
but would be focused
when something
interesting
happened.

109. Corelli [1653-1713] was an Italian composer who
innovated in sonatas as well as concertos. Subsequent
composers extended his approaches.
A sonata was generally a three (or four) movement piece
(fast-slow-fast) where one instrument is given the main
melodic line.
A concerto is also usually three movements, and one (or
sometimes two) solo instrument(s) is accompanied by an
orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJsXxPj19Lk [Sonata]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0rdZo7gYQ8 [Concerto]

110. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk5DWqls0gg [Pachelbel’s Canon]
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal compositional technique that employs
a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a
given duration (e.g., quarter rest, one measure, etc.). The initial melody is
called the leader (or dux), while the imitative melody, which is played in a
different voice, is called the follower (or comes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPTWBf7jXhg [Scarlatti]
Scarlatti was one of the most creative keyboard composers of the 18th
century. His keyboard sonatas use binary form (there are two sections,
each repeated, with the second section modulating more, but with sections
returning to the original tonic key).

111. The main keyboard instrument of
the baroque was the harpsichord.
It produces sound by plucking a
string when a key is pressed.
By the later 18th century, the
harpsichord was by and large
replaced by the piano.

112. Johann Sebastian Bach [1685-1750] was a German
composer who worked in almost all styles of music. His
music is characterized by an unprecedented richness and
complexity.
He worked initially as a church organist, and later as a
court concert master.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlXDJhLeShg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QpHP7_bVS8
Bach’s choral works would have been performed as part of a church
service
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlG6LMQR9M

113. Opera of the baroque era was divided into two types:
opera seria (serious opera) and opera buffo (comic
opera).
Opera seria almost always used plots from classical
antiquity, and consisted of recitatives (talking or
musically accompanied talking) that move the plot
forward, and arias (singing), which repeated a single
thought or emotion and allowed the singer to show off
his or her vocal talents. They also made use of castrato
(castrated me n) voices.
Opera seria was oriented more towards the aristocracy,
and involved heroes or kings performing good deeds.

114. Handel [1685-1759] was a German composer who is best
known for his English oratorios and his Italian operas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGjEssEsD68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thtjvyk5Er0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGjEssEsD68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GmVsWN-QfQ

115. Opera buffa was an Italian style that was more satirical,
typically involved some type of love plot, and was more
oriented to the general public.

116. The new music of the 18th century served a variety of
social roles.

117. Well-off aristocrats could hire musicians to play
concerts. Most composers at this time were paid salaries
or worked on commissions paid for by rich aristocrats.

118. Amongst the middle and upper classes, amateurs often
played with and for family and friends. By the early 19th
century, the majority of a composer’s income came from
the sales of sheet music.

119. In Italy, opera was analogous to Shakespearean theatre
(in London) in that it was enjoyed by all ranks of society.
In the rest of Europe, opera was generally a middle- and
upper-class only entertainment.

120. Between 1750 and 1830, Vienna was the center of
musical innovation in Europe.

121. Haydn [1732-1809] Mozart [1756-1791] Beethoven[1770-1827] Schubert[1797-1828]
The best best-known composers from this period are Joseph Haydn Haydn, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert.
Other notable names include Luigi Boccherini, Muzio Clementi, Antonio Soler, Antonio
Salieri, , François Joseph Gossec, Johann Stamitz, Carl Friedrich Abel, Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach, and Christoph Willibald Gluck, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Mauro
Giuliani, Friedrich Kuhlau, Fernando Sor, Luigi Cherubini, Jan Ladislav Dussek,
and Carl Maria von Weber.

122. Unlike Athens and Florence in their golden ages, Vienna
of the 18th century had a political culture which was
dominated by its conservative aristocracy.

123. Vienna was the capital city of the Austrian Empire, and
in Mozart’s day, a new emperor Joseph II was the new
ruler.
Joseph II saw himself as an Enlightened ruler. He
abolished serfdom, the death penalty, and judicial
torture. He also introduced compulsory elementary
education for all children (male and female). He also
introduced official religious toleration and cut back on
the power of the Catholic Church.
He was an enthusiastic patron of the arts, especially
music.

124. A key cultural institution in Vienna was the
coffeehouse. It provided a venue for both
leisure and intellectual exchange. They
functioned as the public spaces that
allowed citizens to debate and criticize
(perhaps in a similar way that the agora or
piazza did for Athens and Florence).

125. The style of music created by Haydn and Mozart is
usually called classical and is related to newer aesthetic
tastes that were rejecting the elaborateness of baroque
and rococo.
The aesthetic of classicism is defined by simplicity,
clarity, and balance.

126. In music, these characteristics are particularly evident
in phrasing: whereas Baroque phrases tend to be
relatively long and intricate, Classical phrases are short
simple, and dominated by tuneful melodies.
https://www www.youtube youtube.com/watch?v v=HlXDJhLeShg [Bach Baroque]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v v=meop0rG3tLc [Mozart Classical]

127. Mozart is widely considered one
of the greatest (if not the
greatest) composers in the
Western tradition.
He was a remarkable prodigy: an
accomplished harpsichord player
at 5, composing at 6,
harmonizing on the fly at 7, he
composed his first symphony at
8 and his first opera at 12.
He also was incredibly prolific.
Though he only lived for 35
years, he composed over 600
works.
Before he was even 18, he had
composed 34 symphonies, 16
quartets, five operas, and over
100 other works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaXQQbcgw0

128. Later in his life, Mozart refused to work for rich
aristocratic patrons (he complained that he was
treated no better than the gardeners and
cleaners), and as a consequence his last ten years
were blighted by a real shortage of money.

129. During his life, Mozart’s music was considered too
unusual, too intellectually demanding, and
emotionally too enigmatic and problematic.

130. Four of his last operas (Le Nozze di Figaro, Don
Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, and The Magic Flute) in
particular were very avant garde and challenging
not only the musical tastes of the day, but also
challenged attitudes about class, gender, power,
religion, and art.

131. Indeed, these operas are considered by many to be the
greatest operas ever composed and still have relevant
things to say to a modern audience.
Before Mozart, operas were mainly about pretty singing
and ridiculous soap opera like plots. After Mozart this
remained mainly true until the 20th century.
Mozart’s great operas however are profound reflections
on conflicting societal beliefs and behaviors.

132. They probe the social consequences of values associated with
the old regime as well as the values of the modern world as
envisaged by the new philosophy of the Enlightenment.
They still are remarkably contemporary because of how the
social conflicts between old ways of life and the newly
emerging world of bourgeois capitalism are examined through
the lens of gender relations.

133. Unlike any prior operas (and to be honest, almost none
after either), Mozart’s four great operas combine
comedy with serious commentary.
As well, in these operas Mozart projects complex
characterization not just through words but more
through the music itself.

134. Baroque operas prior to Mozart mainly consisted of long
arias connected by spoken recitatives with the
occasional duets and very brief ensembles.
It was technically difficult to blend voices singing
different words, and for that reason, prior to Mozart,
duets and ensembles tended to be short and/or had the
singers singing the same words together.
Recitatives were thus used to move the plot forward.

135. By contrast, Mozart’s late operas contain many duets,
trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, septets, octets, and
even larger ensembles.
These voices are often singing different words at the
same time. Indeed, they are often expressing
simultaneously diametrically opposed emotions, an
innovation of Mozart’s.
“Only opera can exploit the paradox that we all have different
responses to the same situation, even when we are saying the
same words. And for us – the audience – it is a moment of
complete chaos made clear. The music gives it form and
meaning.”
Peter Hall, Exposed by the Mask

136. Baroque operas emphasized vocal pyrotechnics in long
arias, and made frequent use of the “unnatural” castrati
voice.
Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro used no castrati (though the
role of a young male teenager is played by a female).
Indeed the opera contains little if any individually
spectacular singing.
Instead, it blends together “normal” voices to create
something spectacular.

137. Furthermore, the story itself was socially very radical
and subversive, involving the triumph of a male and
female servant (Figaro and Suzanna) over a powerful
philandering (but jealous) aristocratic Count. In this they
are helped by the Count’s long-suffering wife.
Because you are a great Man, you fancy yourself a great Genius.—““Which way?—How
came you to be the rich and mighty Count Almaviva? Why truly, you gave yourself the
Trouble to be born! While the obscurity in which I have been cast demanded more
Abilities to gain a mere Subsistence than are requisite to govern Empires.
…
your Justice is the inveterate Persecution of those who have the Will and the Wit to resist
your Depredations.” But this has ever been the Practice of the little Great; those they
cannot degrade, they endeavour to crush.

138. The plot is a bit complicated. The Count is trying to buy
Susanna (his wife’s maid) sexual favors, and to do so, he
is trying to postpone the wedding of Susanna and Figaro
(his valet). To this end, the Count enlists the help of
some shady characters who are trying to force Figaro to
either marry an elderly lady (Marcellina) or go to jail
instead.
However, Susanna and Figaro are too clever, and not only
are they able to marry, thanks to an elaborate deception
using disguises and role changes, they expose the Count’’s
philandering nature, and broker a (no doubt temporary)
reconnection between the Count and the Countess.

139. A decade later, Napoleon said of the work, “it is the
Revolution already put into action”.
The 1990s movie Shawshank Redemption used an aria from this opera as
the vocal encapsulation of a hope for a better life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjqmg_7J53s

140. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez7aU 97uBU {English v ez7aU_version]
p Perhaps its g greatest achievement is the finale of Act ,
2,
which contains 20 minutes of continuous music (i.e., no
recitatives), with the plot moved forward strictly
through singing.
This finale “starts as a duet, just a man and wife
quarreling. Suddenly the wife's scheming little maid comes
in unexpectedly - a very funny situation. Duet turns into
trio. Then the husband's equally scheming valet comes in.
Trio turns into quartet. Then a stupid old gardener -
quartet becomes quintet, and so on. On and on, sextet,
septet, octet!” [from the play Amadeus, Peter Shaffer]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3A7FZUcXDE

141. “I tell you I want to write a finale lasting half an hour! A
quartet becoming a quintet becoming a sextet becoming a
septet. On and on, wider and wider - all sounds
multiplying and rising together - and then together
making a sound entirely new . . . I bet you that's how God
hears the world! Millions of sounds ascending at once and
mixing in His ear to become an unending music,
unimaginable to us!”
Peter Shaffer, Amadeus

142. Mozart’s Don Giovanni is a disturbing examination of the
relationship between beauty, power, and money on sex. The
plot revolves around a good-looking male aristocrat who tries to
sleep with as many women as possible, using either seductive
language, his social prestige, or pure violence to achieve his
goals.
The Don is a nihilistic libertine. He takes pleasure subverting all
values that might sustain a social order. He exploits his
manservant, kills an authority figure, disrupts marital and
romantic relationships through seduction and attempted rape.
The opera opens with a rape and a murder, and ends with
Giovanni choosing to go to Hades (not hell) rather than recant
his ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLPnrwzpKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fccdGBi9JUs

143. Mozart’s Cosi fan tutti (All women are like that) was disparaged
for its seemingly cynical attitude towards emotions and love,
and to this day some people also find it disturbing, even
misogynist or misanthropic.
The plot involves two soldiers who are in love with two sisters.
They agree to a wager by an older philosophic man, who bets
them that via disguises they will be able to seduce the other’s
partner in less than a day, which, through the help of the
sisters’ cynical maid, ends up being the case. All four lovers
apparently emerge at the end wiser about the nature of human
emotions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbWgFBDZqe0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioqqyTJs1J0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xufSNSDoHlY

144. Yet, Mozart’s music turns the plot into a searching
examination of the power of beauty, and how it can both
create and undermine happiness and contentment.
The exceptionally beautiful Act 2 duet between
Fiordiligie and Ferrando is a case in point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF3IwInTMN4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9lYu3pv-m8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6JoxcEsUqA
Mozart presents an intensely human dramatic situation,
in which depth of character is pitted against a strong
emotional force, namely love. And what appears to be
the triumph of love is but the culminating stage of an
extended deception.
It is as if Mozart is telling us that beauty is not truth, but
is often a lie.

145. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjqCq155_Y
Ultimately, the opera ends ambiguously. Perhaps the original
couples are back together and more wiser about themselves and
the power of emotions.
Alternately, throughout the music of seductions, it has become
clearer that the original couples were mismatched and the new
arrangements are actually better. But here, like often in real
life, the couples can’t break away from their past and are fated
to much future unhappiness.
The way that Mozart ends the opera with music and singing that
is simultaneously savagely unhappy and joyous does I think
indicate that there is no single answer: life is complicated and
ultimately, once you mature, always simultaneously bitter and
sweet. Mozart was (and is) unrivalled in his ability to present
concurrently several complex emotional states.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09p-rkFDmbY

146. His last opera was The Magic Flute (Zauberflote), and
was only completed months before his death at 35 in
1791. This opera has a symbolism-heavy fairy tale plot
and is filled with truly wonderful and melodic music.
In it, Prince Tamino, in order to win/free Pamina, must
first learn about, and then master, the nature of the The image cannot be displayed. Your computer may not have enough memory to open the image, or the image may have been cor upted. Restart your computer, and then open the file again. If the red x still appears, you may have to delete the image and then insert it again.
world from a shadowy Masonic-type group that is
devoted to truth and reason. He is helped in his quest by
the bird man Papageno. He has to pass various ordeals
given to him by Sarastro, the head of this group, while
the Queen of the Night tries to stop him.

147. This opera has motivated a wide variety of interpretations.
Some see it as an allegory portraying the advancement of
humanity from superstitious religiosity to rational enlightenment;
others as a critique of the Enlightened absolutist state.
Some see it as sexist, while others see it as a strongly feminist
work.
The opera has also motivated Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian, and
other psychological readings.
A recent movie has transplanted the opera to the trenches of
Word War 1, and transforms Sarastro’s group into proto-UN
peace keepers.

148. This is one of the common features of all great art that
we have looked at in this course: they are conducive to
multiple interpretations, and that we can learn different
things from them at different times in our lives.

149. There are plenty of times when it is nice to enjoy
simple, uncomplicated pleasures.
But one of the characteristics of maturity is that
eventually you will want subtly and complexity rather
than straight-forward and simple.
The art and literature we have looked at in this course is
also subtle and complex, rewarding frequent reappraisals
and which you will (hopefully) appreciate more and more
as you get older and more experienced in the ways of
life and living.