One - Sculpting Divine Music

Summary

Chapter one argues for the significance of visualized divine music by situating ancient viewers’ experience of representations of divine music within their ancient contexts, thereby establishing a well-defined space in which divine music could have been seen, imaginatively heard, and experienced. Laferrière takes as her focus a corpus of fourth-century BCE votive reliefs that depict Pan playing his syrinx and the Nymphs dancing; dedicated to these same gods, the reliefs were consistently deposited in cave shrines throughout Attica. Since the clear archaeological record allows for a reconstruction of the worshipper’s religious experience, Laferrière draws attention to the ways the reliefs provoked specific sensory experiences in the ancient worshippers. Within the cave shrines, worshippers could have gazed upon votive reliefs that were visually similar to the physical cave, so that the distinction between image and reality blurred and collapsed. As a result, these reliefs allowed for a fully embodied experience of the Nymphs: by imaginatively listening to the music that Pan plays, and perhaps even contributing their own music, worshippers are invited to join in the Nymphs’ dance.