Report to Greco

by Nikos Kazantzakis

In Greece, as everywhere, once realism begins to reign, civilization declines. Thus we arrive at the realistic, magniloquent, and faithless Helleuistic era, which was devoid of suprapersonal ideals. From chaos to the Parthenon, then from the Parthenon back to chaos—the great merciless rhythm. Emotions and passions run wild. The free individual loses his powers of discipline; the bridle which maintained instinct in strict balance flies from his hands. Passion, emotionality, realism . . . A mystical, melancholy yearning suffuses the faces. The fearful mythological visions become merely decorative. Aphrodite undrapes herself like an ordinary woman, Zeus acquires roguishness and elegance, and Heracles regresses to a brute. After the Peloponnesian war Greece begins to disintegrate. Belief in the fatherland is lost; individual self-sufficiency triumphs. On the stage the protagonist is no longer God or the idealized youth, he is the wealthy citizen with his lascivious pleasures and passions—a materialist, skeptic, and libertine. Talent had already replaced genius; now good taste replaces talent. Art becomes filled with children, coquettish women, realistic scenes, and men either brutal or intellectual.