{"id":6211,"date":"2013-02-28T06:23:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T14:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=6211"},"modified":"2013-02-28T06:30:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T14:30:27","slug":"a-personal-renaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/02\/28\/a-personal-renaissance\/","title":{"rendered":"A Personal Renaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Lorenzo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6218\" title=\"Lorenzo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Lorenzo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"115\" height=\"114\" \/><\/a><\/h6>\n<p>This is the last day of Anne\u2019s and my art-making hiatus here in Oregon. Besides spending maximum hours in the studio, we\u2019ve also had time for a bit of reading, a little writing, daily walks (rain or shine) a few excursions around the area and often an evening video. We\u2019ve also frequented the library. Maybe more typical of a small town, they\u2019ve let us check things out in spite of being out-of-staters and ineligible for a card.<\/p>\n<p>Among the treasures we found was a 36-lecture series by The Teaching Company on the Italian Renaissance. (We noticed we were the first to check them out.) Those lectures afforded hours and hours of listening and half-listening as we worked.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m always amazed when exposed to such at how much has gone before us, how much of it I haven\u2019t known, and how one person could have amassed so much about it.*<\/p>\n<p>Besides the historical appreciation, and better understanding of how we got to be how we are, is the personal take. Each of our lives is in part a microcosm of the larger history. And we may well experience our own personal renaissance.<\/p>\n<p>And that while holding firm to our faith, as many of them also did.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the points that typify the larger Renaissance and our own include:<\/p>\n<p>An appreciation of the value of ideas gone before<br \/>\nAn engaged and active mind, and an appreciation for all learning<br \/>\nAn elevation of beauty as a high value<br \/>\nThe value of elegance in language<br \/>\nOf harmony between form and function in all things<br \/>\nOf architecture, including our own living space<br \/>\nA recognition of a strong economy to support pursuit and patronage<br \/>\nOf love as a general approach to life<br \/>\nA fostering of and appreciation for genius among us<br \/>\nAnd much more<\/p>\n<p>In summary, some say the Renaissance rediscovered, reinvented and defined the autonomous individual, able to create him or herself according to principles recognized as good.<\/p>\n<p>Seems good to me.<\/p>\n<p>How about you?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>______________<br \/>\n*<em>The Italian Renaissance<\/em>, taught by Professor Kenneth Bartlett, University of Toronto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our own lives, looked at in a certain way, are microcosms of the larger history . . . or at least can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6211"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6239,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211\/revisions\/6239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}