People enjoy many kinds of works of arts in life. Music, paintings, poems, and novels give people many indirect experiences. Moon Kwang-hoon, who is a professor of the Dept. of German Language and Literature in CBNU, gave a lecture on the subject. The lecture’s title was ‘The Pleasure of Music, Paintings, and Literature’. He gave the speech at an Open Lectures forum on June 29th. He explained about the pleasures of mixed emotions as well as the simpler pleasures. Readers can also watch his lecture on Naver TV.




1. What are some of the things people can feel when they listen to Bach’s St Matthew Passion?

  Bach’s St Matthew Passion is made up various components. He agonized for a very long time while making this composition because he had to connect three components of the melody. The three components were the bible passages, the chorale, and the literature he used for the lyrics. He used a Luther bible, and the chorales, or musical compositions, he chose were old hymns that had been passed down from the sixteenth century. He cited many authors’ literature for the lyrics such as Gerhardts, Heermann, Heyden, Reusner, and Henrici. The lyrics written by Henrici were especially entrancing, so he cited most of the lyrics from Henrici Picander’s works to compose St Matthew Passion. The end result was a harmony with a beautiful melody and a variety of voices.
People can feel perfectness from this harmony.

2. You said that people feel perfectness. What does this perfectness mean?

  Literal perfectness. The perfectness of nature and art. The perfectness is not only in technique but also in emotion. Music is art and theology to Bach. The beauty of the melodies through the chords made him realize that God existed because he thought the beauty of the melody couldn’t be explained without God and it exceeded the boundaries of human capability. Bach thought music and theology were the will of God. Bach’s innovative attempts, compositions, performances, and experiments were his attempts to reveal God's glory.

3. Please explain about The Calling of St Matthew, Caravaggio’s painting, that you introduced in your speech.

  The background is dark. Spectators can see seven characters in Caravaggio’s The Calling of St Matthew. Five people on the left side are counting coins. The person who is pointing to himself is Matthew. Two people on the right side in the dark are beckoning to Matthew with their hands. They are Jesus and Petros. The light pours like a waterfall over their heads from the right side. Look at the window. It is dark. It refers to the world being dark and gloomy. The light frothe right side indicates purity.

4. Could you tell more about the other paintings you introduced?

  The Martyrdom of St Matthew is a conversion by Matthew about the Ethiopian King Ephesus and his daughter Iphigenia. After the king’s death, the successor, Hirtakus, wanted to marry Iphigenia, but Matthew was against this. Because of the opposition, Matthew was killed, and this scene is shown in the painting. In the middle of the dark background, a young man is stabbing Matthew, and there are also soldiers, people, and an angel. The leaf the angel is holding is a bay leaf, which is a symbol of the revival of a martyr. Caravaggio painted himself in the painting. It seems that he wanted to show that he was a witness of the suffering.
  The Taking of Christ also appears to show a gloomy world by using a dark background. In the middle of the painting, instead of Jesus or his pupils, there are Roman soldiers wearing armor, which depicts that power is what rules the world. Once again, Caravaggio can be found in the painting. He is holding a lamp to show that he will light up the world, despite the futility. Due to the human traits of insults, mockery, and contempt, it seems he is unable to light up the whole world.
  In Ecce Homo, Viceroy Pilate intentionally poses as if he is connecting the inside and outside of the painting. Pilate is asking the spectators about the unfairness of the world. When viewers are invited to view artworks like this, they have a chance to deeply reflect about real life as well as the paintings.

5. There are many songs in St Matthew Passion. Before listening, what should people keep in mind?

  I think every song has a different point to focus on. There are choruses for children describing Jesus as a sheep, and the songs are sung as if the singers are talking. But instead of these traits, I want listeners to focus on the polyphonic musical structure represented by Bach. As I said, to Bach, music is theology. Bach desired to repay and serve God’s love with music. In St Matthew Passion, he tried to express this desire. Jesus and humans are different. However, if we feel sympathy for Jesus’s sacrifice and feel compassion for his death, we will assimilate with him. It reveals a dialectical method of difference, separation, and identification. His musical style is similar to the technique of microscopic implementation. For example, in one of the songs, Jesus didn’t speak out even though there was an unfavorable testimony against him. Through this scene, the listener might wonder if there is an effective way of resisting reality. From this concept, listeners can think there is no stronger resistance than to avoid losing themselves to patience or silence. When people have these thoughts and put them into action, that is an example of microscopic implementation.

6. Then how can people experience microscopic implementation in detail?

  You have to realize it yourself, but effort is needed. You have to express what you feel. To express your thoughts, practice your writing skills. To discover deep thoughts, study philosophy. If these processes are fun, put in some effort. As I said before, every art experience is a microscopic journey. Even a tiny change of the mind or a simple emotional change can be a turning point in life. When we go through these aesthetic experiences, be wary of becoming a philistine, which was a warning most notably expressed by Nietzsche. Agonizing and working for your lifestyle is essential, but showing off, being controlling, or overwhelming others should be avoided.

By Ahn Young-tae l ytann05@cbnu.ac.kr
By Youn Su-o l sy40@cbnu.ac.kr