Dionysus Even Though That Dionysus

Dionysus Even though that Dionysus is a pagan god of Ancient Greeks, his image has influenced modern culture in many different ways. Dionysus was a Greek pagan of wine, sex, love, joys and pleasures. But at the same time his image has a deeper meaning for the modern culture and universal human culture in general. Being half human and half pagan, Dionysus had combined lots of positive spiritual features of a man and he was an example of harmony of human body and human soul.

That's why his imagine was glorified by the artists of renaissance period who depicted bacchanalian celebrations, full of pleasures and orgies with participants that included all Dionysus suite. This theme was one of the favorite of such famous masters as Titian, Rubens, Poussen. On those paintings famous artists represents the triumph of youth and beauty, with an inalienable attribute: vine.

The role of vine was key in many ways as vine was associated with the relief from external and internal factors that oppressed will and real human nature; it was an elixir of freedom. Dionysus image and role in ancient culture as well as in modern are in many ways similar. For the modern society Dionysus is nothing more than an ancient myth, associated with ritual orgies and unbridled celebrations. But the fundamental role of his image is deeper and more important.

Dionysus personifies the triumph of manhood and human nature; his mysterious origins were full of magic and dark features. By words of Nietzsche the cult of Dionysus is a cult of land, fertility, a cult of love in its biological and physiological sense. Then he explains that Dionysian origins exist in every individual, and they exist on the hand with Apollonian origins (the cult of Apollo is a cult of rationalism, science and mind).

But Dionysian origins in human's nature being wilder and barbarian are more likely to dominate over his nature and motivate him. That's why many philosophers (primary Nietzsche) state that modern culture is in deep crisis, because rationalism dominates over human instincts and over simple human freedom. If individual releases his "Dionysian nature" he will be free by himself and will have a wider space for self-realization having internal freedom.

These concepts were supported by humanists of renaissance who glorified human, as a living creature who was the master of his destiny and his will. As it's well-known Renaissance, in many ways, was simply a return to the values of ancient Greeks who worshiped the cult of Dionysus and Apollo as two integral parts of a human soul. Adoption of these concepts resulted in the relatively liberal morality of bourgeois societies in Europe in 18-19th century that exist and that proceeded up to the sexual freedom of nowadays.

Dionysian origins of human nature have much in common with Freud's psychology, which implies that human behavior is dominantly motivated by his instincts and primary sexual instincts. Dionysian cult, which is associated with physical beauty of a person, pleasures, sexual instincts and unity with dark powers and mysteries, had been often realized in different forms of modern sub and popular culture types. Bright example is lyrics and songs of Jimmy Morrison,.