Paganism In Greek, Roman And Greek/Roman Religions

As Michelangelo once said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it” ("Michelangelo Quotes"). During the Greek/Roman periods prosperity was scarce, and to the early citizens who lived during this time one of the only values was personal religious beliefs/ideas - mostly pagan. The expression of these beliefs/ideas were most commonly portrayed through paintings, sculptures, and buildings. During the Renaissance periods prosperity was on a steady but slow growth. This growth was still accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature, and especially art. Renaissance arts mostly portrayed the beliefs of Christianity. Acknowledging the years passed between the Greek/Roman to the Renaissance, art was still valued as one of life’s great prosperities in both times. Against the backdrop of different political stabilities and prosperity statuses both time periods were jointed by the importance of personal desires and one's beliefs. While the Renaissance and Greek/Roman time periods were different in many ways, the two time periods had similarities including the expression of the human form, the confidence with the body, and different religious beliefs.

Paganism had three main beliefs in the Greek/Roman time periods. First, is being the sense of piety. Piety meaning the natural religious instinct to respect something greater than yourself, and that humility plays a role in order to understand man's subordinate place in the great scheme of things. Moderation and temperance went along with this. In classical civilizations, some had mottos “Nothing too much” and “Know thy self”. To man, Pagan as well as Christian, moral rules were absolute. They were unyielding and unquestionable. This ...

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...hard times of both time periods neither tended to lose their light in standing in what they believed in spiritually and physically. The expression and love for art seemed to grow more and more as the years went on. Although Pagan and Christianity practices had their fair share of difference they were similar in some ways. Both religious theologies believed in standing your ground, protecting what is yours, and helping thy neighbor. In contrast, Pagans believed in a more hostile aspect of protecting what was theirs, while Christians liked to take a more compromisable approach. As Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Where if the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” The wonderment of the human form, the confidence within oneself, and the different views of religious preference made the Greek/Roman vs. the Renaissance time periods differential but similar.