There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet, Shakespeare
This painting is: Le Festin des Dieux, The Feast of the Gods, by the Dutch painter Jan van Bijlert c.1635–1640. It is in the Musée Magnin, Dijon, France. It is one of several paintings in western art depicting the theme of the feast of gods.
The figure in the center is Apollo whose symbol in Greek mythology is the lyre. On the left side, we can recognize Mars, Venus, Eros and Flora, the goddess of spring. The peacock is a symbol of Hera who may have been depicted on the left-hand side of the painting, which is reputedly lost.
On the right are Hercules and Neptune with his trident. Bacchus eating grapes and a dancing satyr are in the foreground.
Here is another example of a painting depicting the pagan theme of a feast of the gods. In this case, at the marriage of Thetis, the Greek sea goddess and Peleus, the mortal king of Phthia–who were the parents of Achilles–the couple on the right side. Eris is recognized by the golden apple of discord that she brought to the festival as revenge for not having been invited.
A controversy at the Paris Summer 2024 Olympic games was sparked when those outraged, exclaimed with knee-jerk insistence that the pregame voguing performance directly mocked Christ and his disciples, particularly as depicted in da Vinci’s The Last Supper; and therefore was a direct and intentional blasphemy of Christianity.
The Olympics games are a solid fact of Greek history and predate Christ by about 800 years–the first Olympic festival was held in 773 BC. The Olympic games were part of an annual religious festival to honor Zeus the father of the Olympian gods and goddesses.
Because the Olympic games are totally established as Greek history and culture–and not Christianity–cooler, more rational heads, who have studied for 5 minutes outside of their Christian religion, and have stepped outside of their county lines, would readily see that the pregame voguing performance was more likely alluding to the above painting, The Feast of the Gods, and not to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
By the widest stretch of imagination, there were no actors in the pregame voguing performance who even remotely characterized or gave any semblance to Christ; or to any other persons depicted in The Last Supper ! How can any reasonable person seriously believe that the pregame show of the 2024 Olympic games had anything at all to do with da Vinci’s painting or Christianity in general? While watching the pregame show, Jesus Christ or da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper hardly comes to mind ! The aesthetics of the two are light years apart.
As the Olympic games are firmly established in Greek history as a part of pagan religious festivals, it is more likely that the performance was alluding to the Le Festin des Dieux, the artist of which was nicknamed Aeneas by the way, and which depicts a pagan Greek religious festival–and not to Christianity.
It is also possible that the pregame voguing performance had no intention of alluding to any religion, and was instead just their expression of pure camp aesthetics. The concept of camp was described by Christopher Isherwood in 1954 in his novel The World in the Evening, and later by Susan Sontag in her 1964 essay: Notes on "Camp".
Do you actually think that the creators of the pregame show were sitting around, spending their time, dreaming and scheming about just how they could make the show as offensive as possible to you ?!
How embarrassing for the outraged who rushed to judgment; because they demonstrated their apparent ignorance of any history, mythology, religion, culture or art outside of their self-imposed intellectual silos. Many people are so quick to act outraged; but more likely, they are just virtue-signaling.
The very first thing to do when someone offends you, instead of knee-jerk outrage, is to ask whether or not it was their intention to offend you.
The Olympics organizing committee apologized: “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance,” the Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps told a press conference. “We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offence (sic) we are really sorry.” Thomas Jolly, the artistic director said “religious subversion had never been his intention.” I watched both Mr. Jolly and Ms. Descamps speak these words; and I thought they were genuine and actually magnanimous.
If, as in the case of the Olympic officials and artistic creators of the offending performance, they said that they had no intention to offend; then one has two choices: either to believe them–or not and go on hating. Many will prefer to go on hating. My understanding of Christian teaching is that we are to forgive “seventy times seven.”
Consider this: da Vinci’s The Last Supper was painted c. 1495–1498.
The above painting Le Festin des Dieux "The Feast of the Gods" was painted c.1635–1640.
And the above referenced The Golden Apple of Discord by Jacob Jordaens, was painted in 1633.
Both these paintings depicting pagan Greek religious festivals were painted after
da Vinci’s The Last Supper. At that time, did any Christians swell with sanctimonious outrage, saying the paintings “reminded them” of The Last Supper and therefore were a direct, intentional blasphemy of Christianity? Of course not; because that would have been ridiculous!
The 2024 Paris Olympic pregame voguing performance was ostentatious, crude, vulgar and tasteless by my standards. It was “utterly without redeeming social value.” But it was not a planned, intentional blasphemy of Christianity.
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