Who should apologize to who when a difference in cultures leads to a misunderstanding of one culture’s art? That question ought to be considered in light of how numerous people reacted to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In another post, this writer questions the sanity of the choices made by the planners of that ceremony. That is because he knew how that ceremony would be interpreted by Americans. They just wouldn’t figure out that they were witnessing a depiction of a Bacchus feast.
Yeah, that oversized Smurf who consumed magic mushrooms was an obvious clue that the ceremony was not depicting Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper.
Instead, the ceremony referred to the painting Le Festin des Dieux (The Feast of the Gods) by the Dutch painter Jan Hermansz van Bijlert.
The latter painting is in the French national museum Musée Magnin located in the city of Dijon.
In the opening ceremony, that oversized Smurf was the Greek god Dionysus a.k.a. Bacchus.
“When a giant silver dome lifted to reveal singer Philippe Katerine reclining on a crown of fruit and flowers, practically naked and painted blue, audiences who didn’t think he was Papa Smurf may have guessed that he represented Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy.”
The ceremony’s planners looked at the ceremony from the perspective of people who know what a Bacchus feast is. Apparently, they forgot that their perspective was not universal.
So, should the ceremony’s planners apologize for creating something that was misunderstood by an international audience, or should those who misunderstood apologize for them misunderstanding?
By the way, in his painting The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci himself expresses his misunderstanding of the ancient Jewish culture of 2,000 years ago. No, Jesus and his disciples did not do as depicted in the painting. Yes, they ate a meal together, but they did not do so in the Western European way that da Vinci was accustomed to. Also, da Vinci’s painting depicts people of an ethnic stock that is Western European, not Middle-Eastern.
Because it expresses such falsehoods, this writer does not consider the painting to be a symbol of faith in Messiah Jesus. Instead, it is a symbol of ethnocentric thinking.
Personal Note: This writer apologizes for a mistake in his other post about this topic. The mistake is his lack of identification of what the Olympics opening ceremony depicted. This writer should have identified the Smurf as being Dionysus/Bacchus.
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