Analysis Of The Dionysian Embodied In Artworks About The Rape Of Sabine Women

With the advent of Nietzsche’s book The Birth of Tragedy, Dionysian comprising of passion, desire, violence and endless vitality has been drawing attention as an aesthetic concept. It’s the irrational impulse of life and one of the fundamental driving forces of arts. However, Dionysian cannot constitute arts on its own, and it can only be presented by Apollonian. While Apollonian is based on reason and logical thinking, Dionysian is based on chaos and appeals to the emotions and instincts. Plastic arts are often considered as one category of Apollonian, so Dionysian are sometimes neglected in plastic arts. This thesis explored Dionysian in plastic arts through analysis of different artworks.Numerous artists have demonstrated the story that Romulus and his Roman soldiers abducted the Sabine women as their wives in their artworks, ranging from paintings in the early Renaissance, cupboards used as dowry, to works by masters such as Nicolas Poussin and Pablo Picasso.This thesis aimed to analyze the Dionysian embodied in the artworks about the Rape of Sabine Women, including banquet, abduction, conflict and reconciliation.Nietzsche believed that the impulses of Dionysian and Apollonian originate from life, and the real arts are from the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian. This thesis summarized the five aspects of Dionysian via analysis of various artworks.1The Sabine women’s different attitudes and desires during their rejection and reconciliation. Sigmund Freud believed libido is the cause of all human behaviors. Therefore, the conflicts were from abduction and exile, and their desires were satisfied via rejection.2Dionysian means desires express the instincts of life. The muscular and vigorous bodies became the aesthetic targets and sex was the carol of Dionysian.3The predators were described as heroes in some paintings and their vitality was praised. Dionysian’s passion and drunkenness caused the violence, but the painters were in favor of such actions.4Thanks to the unity of Dionysian and Apollonian, the arts of painting transformed from impulse of the instinct of life into the pretty dreams.5Picasso’s criticism and introspection of the aesthetics in "the will to power" revealed that Dionysian and Apollonian made the diversity of arts.Chapter three explored the aesthetic ethics of Dionysian in "the will to power". The natural passion of Human beings is praised, and the beauty of life is combined with Nietzsche’s Dionysian. However, Nietzsche was not promoting unrestricted passion. In his theory, only the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian will revive arts. This thesis demonstrated the relationships between Dionysian and Apollonian in arts and deepened our understandings about the history of Western arts.