Jean Seznec

Seznec won a place at the French Academy In Rome in 1929, where he studied under Emile Male , whose Methodology influenced his own work. At the outbreak of World War II , Seznec returned from his position in Florence as director of the French Institute , to enlist. His great work, as '' La Survivance Des Dieux Antiques ,'' was published in 1940, just as France fell. After the war he accepted positions in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University , edited exhibition catalogues and the edition of Paris Salon art criticism written by the '' Encyclopédiste '' Denis Diderot between 1759–81, a primary resource that has become a major tool for understanding the history of taste.

Thanks to largely to Seznec, it is widely understood that the Olympian Gods , and the earlier spirits of field and spring, did not die with the advent of Christianity , but lived on. They went underground to feature in Folk Culture , took on strange new guises and were transformed in various ways, their myths recast to suit some of the mythic saints of Late Antiquity , and their imagery permeated Medieval intellectual and emotional life. The transformed mythology re-emerged in the iconography of the early Tuscan Renaissance , with new attributes that the ancients had never imagined, and enjoyed tremendous renewed popularity during the Renaissance.

Seznec's thesis benefits from the illustrated formats it has been receiving in modern paperback formats. His work can be termed seminal. Studies such as Joscelyn Godwin 's '' The Pagan Dream Of The Renaissance '' (2002) depend on it. Godwin further explores Seznec's theme, how pagan deities captivated the Renaissance Europe an imagination during the Renaissance, taking their place side-by-side with Christian Symbol s and doctrines.

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Aby Warburg

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Jean Seznec