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In Whose Name?

Reflections on 25 Years of Teaching
at Harvard Extension School

Ivan Galantic

For 25 years Harvard Extension has provided me with the space and the facilities which have enabled me to speak to many audiences, audiences often composed of very well-educated men and women. They have been coming to listen to what I wished to say about the aesthetic and spiritual experiences I have derived from contemplating and studying works of art. Now I am here to be honored for having enjoyed this extraordinary and most satisfying privilege.

Ivan Gallantic, Professor of Fine Arts, Emeritus, Tufts University

What should the theme of an address by a teacher be on such an occasion? Many would think it appropriate to speak about the experience of teaching, about the very practice of that art, which, of course, always varies according to, first, the subject taught, and second, the motives which impel one to teach.

For this occasion, considering that the audience is composed of individuals pursuing diverse studies and using correspondingly differing methodologies, I find it helpful to start by keeping in mind the classical division among academic disciplines: "philosophy," currently called "the sciences," and "poetry," now encompassing the "humanities, jurisprudence, and theology." Only the sciences and humanities concern me here. At the present time it is important to characterize each because our very quality of life depends on understanding the problem of the progressive separation of these two roads to learning and education, and the increasing tendency to subordinate the second to the first.

I would define a fundamental difference between scientists and humanists by asking the following questions: Of the former, "What do you know?" Of a humanist, "Whom do you know?" The differences implied by these questions produce vastly differing methodologies and results: specialization and subsequent fragmentation in the first case, and integration in the second.

We know that scientists pursue and then communicate knowledge--codified, verifiable knowledge--a knowledge of things. Do humanists, on the other hand, seek factual knowledge of human beings? Humanists are always considering and seeking to know the reality of the whole person rather than a panoply of fragmented humanity, as is the case with psychologists or sociologists and other social scientists. The humanist, admitting no exceptions, pursues understanding and knowledge of all persons only as integral human beings, and these not in isolation, but in action within large human contexts.

Where does the humanist find subjects of study? Great examples of humanity can be found only in history because it is only from a distance, or, shall we say, with adequately developed perspective, that one can judge greatness, of which an essential part is an observable effect on posterity. (Speaking for a moment as an art historian, I note the obvious: Most great museums exhibit the works of dead artists only. A critical and qualitative judgment concerning every specific influence on posterity is important.)

It is clear that any person interested in the humanities is above all an historian. The definition of historian is given by those who invented history as a discipline of learning and education, a discipline which goes well beyond collecting and recording facts and happenings (which is the job of the chronicler). In ancient Greek the word histor meant witness. The historian was always expected to be a witness to the significance of selected men and women whose great deeds were expressed in various forms--that is, through political, religious, scientific and other activities, including poetry, music, and other arts.

If we accept the pursuits of the scientist to be codified and verifiable knowledge, what are the pursuits of the humanist, the histor? Could anybody really claim to know, say Homer, or Michelangelo, or Beethoven, or, for that matter, the Buddha, or Jesus Christ? In scientific, that is, in factual, verifiable terms--as, for example, the birth and death of the person studied, or the material of which a statue is carved and other technical details (which in the case of history could correspond to the research of the chronicler)--yes, for sure; those are, in fact, the first and necessary steps toward knowledge. But for a scholar in the humanities--or to use the more precise, but, unfortunately, untranslatable classical term, studia humanitatis--such knowledge is not sufficient to become an histor, a witness to the creative act of a great artist.

What is there that an historian must do to become a witness to significant creativity in any field of the humanities? That I don't know. I do know, however, that it is not by an act of will, a flash of intelligence, or even hard work that one becomes an histor, a witness. The histor must be able to enter into the creative act. Then we must also ask, "Who creates?"

Proceeding from the idea of a divine creator, we also attribute creativity to artists. The ancient Greeks held that the artist's creativity was the result of divine action moving through him. That process was explained by two words: en theos, from which we derive our word "enthusiasm," meaning "god within." Thus the sixteenth-century humanists called Michelangelo "divine." He, probably more than any other great artist, was conscious of the role "enthusiasm" played in the creative act. He explained that in his poetry and expressed it in his art.

When the historian is moved by the kind of enthusiasm which is the same as or similar to that which moved the historic personality in his or her activity, when there exists one and the same God linking the two, we may think of such a communion as a true divinely creative act. Then and only then has the historian become an histor, a witness.

No one has explained the nature of such a communion better than Solomon in his Song of Songs: "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love, till he please." The true lover of virtue is blessed by virtue and becomes its gifted histor, its dedicated witness. I can imagine Titian saying to a prospective art historian, or Verdi to an eager tenor, assuming in each case that the aspirant is intent on becoming witness to one or the other: "Show me your enthusiasm, and if I don't recognize it as being of the same kind as mine, you have no business to act as my histor, my witness."

It is obvious at this point that I have to say something about the witness who stands before you, about myself. Let me therefore describe two crucial experiences in my life which I consider to be determinant in generating and guiding the nature of enthusiasm I have experienced, the kind of witnessing I have always practiced and the kind of teacher I turned out to be.

The first experience took place very early in my life and taught me to practice criticism, taught me to ask pertinent, even ultimate, questions. I was still a teenager living with my fullness of enthusiasm intact when World War II started. In the spring of 1941 Germany attacked and crushed the former Yugoslavia, the country where I was born. Only a few days later, Italy occupied a part of the Adriatic coast of what is presently the Republic of Croatia, where I grew up.

It was on a sunny spring afternoon that a small Italian war vessel docked in my tiny village, Malinska. Almost the entire population spilled onto the dock to see what was going to happen. We stopped about 20 yards from the boat, and only one man stepped forward, Mr. Mario Martesic who was in charge of the port. We could all clearly hear the words exchanged between the two authorities, the one from the boat and the other from the land. The captain from the boat said in measured and dignified tones: "Sono venuto in nome di Vittorio Emmanuele III, Re d'Italia a occupare questo villaggio." ("I have come in the name of Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy, to occupy this village.")

Then I heard the courageous words of an unforgettable question expressed by our man in uniform. Speaking calmly, but with the reassuring theos of his "enthusiasm" shining through, he asked: "In nome di chi?" ("In whose name?") "In nome di Vittorio Emmanuele III. Capito?" ("Got it?") said the voice from the boat. Our man replied: "Capito, Signore." ("Yes, Sir, I got it.")

We all got it. The new situation was clear to everyone: We have been occupied by a foreign force, and will be ruled by an oppressive regime. The whole event made me experience a totally new reality. It was like an awakening, but not at all marred by despair. I trusted that not all was lost. There had to be an answer to those magnificent and deeply meaningful words which had the effect of a kind of baptism, an initiation, a commencement. The whole situation generated, absurdly as it may sound, a sensation of freedom, in the sense of placing one above certain things.

It didn't take long before I found myself on the same pier in the custody of the Italian carabinieri, who were transferring me from the local jail to a concentration camp in Italy. My father came to see his only son being taken away. He embraced me, but I couldn't hug him back because I was handcuffed. Again: "In whose name?"

The second event happened two and one half years later in Ciociaria, a region between Rome and Naples. After September 8, 1943, when Italy surrendered, we, the inmates of the Concentration Camp Fraschette, found ourselves free. Free also from being fed. There was no food. The only consolation and encouragement came from the sound of canons. The allied forces were fighting very near at Cassino, and we expected their arrival any day. But days and weeks, even months passed, and life became very difficult without food. The poor peasants, the poorest in Italy, living in the mountains surrounding the camp, were not very eager to see us around. By posters the Germans had let them know that whoever helped political internees would be shot. It was also a well known fact that the German troops were very efficient in carrying out their orders. True, there were few Germans to be seen in the mountains, but one could never know.

I was very, very hungry all the time. At my age a few berries and fallen fruits were not enough. One day in late October I made the decision that I had to eat. I chose a peasant house, somewhat isolated, with the intention of stealing some food. I waited until early evening when all the members of the family had gathered inside to eat their main meal. When I saw through the open door that the meal had been brought to the table, I entered. On the very low table there was a home-made wooden platter with some cornmeal poured into it--they call it polenta, on top of that they had spread a vegetable called cicoria, all was then sprinkled with hot olive oil flavored with garlic. There were more than half a dozen stools around the table and the same number of forks pitched into the polenta. They all ate from the same platter.

What followed couldn't have taken more than ten to 15 seconds. I greeted them, said that I was thirsty and asked if they could give me a little water to drink. They looked at me without answering the silly request. All the time I had my eyes on that polenta with a clear plan to scoop some up with both hands and escape. But I saw that the Dutch door was locked with one of those latches which, with my hands full, I knew I couldn't open. To jump over the upper part of the door was equally impossible; it was too high, especially with hands full of food.

While facing that predicament, and with my eyes still glued to the warm meal, I heard the most beautiful words of my life, accompanied by the pulling of one more stool to the table, and the planting of one more fork into the polenta. Not in Dante, nor in Shakespeare, not even in the Gospel could one find more beautiful words (even if uttered in a very heavy dialect): "Che po fa; pur'isse e figlie de mamma." ("What is there to do, he, too, is son of a mother.")

The first lesson received two and one half years earlier on the dock in Malinska taught me how to think about guarding my freedom, my dignity, and my self-respect; it taught me to question any order or message addressed to me. Whether coming from king or high priest or the policeman directing traffic or indeed, from Raphael or Picasso or anybody expressing anything, it is always: "In whose name?" But it did not teach me what to do, how to act. It was the other lesson in Ciociaria, with its special theos and different enthusiasm, which showed me the way. In that peasant house I witnessed the greatest value man has ever known, or could ever wish to know. I saw goodness.

I don't know what I said to those people to thank them for the nourishment I received in their house. Probably I said nothing, for nothing was expected. They perhaps did not realize what sort of nourishment they had provided to a hunted, frightened man who, suddenly and unexpectedly, was treated as a human being. The theos, the "god" of their "enthusiasm" which had realized itself in their humanity, was of the highest nature: it was truly divine. That realization finally gave me the answer to the question: "In whose name?" Had I read Plato by then, perhaps I would have quoted him: "You are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others." I don't know a better description of enthusiasm or a more compelling invitation to become a witness.

There I learned what humanism has since meant to me. Among the many forms of humanistic thinking, the usual model for the Western world posits the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras' statement: "Man is the measure of all things." Actually that formulation is not clear to me, because it stops at the level of metaphysics, of abstraction. I cannot be a witness to abstractions. I have instead relied on humanism as I have experienced it, as I have seen it realized.

There is only one humanism valid for me, and it has guided me in my approach to the greatest of artists as well as to my "C" students. That is the one I learned and experienced in the peasant house in Ciociaria: "He, too (that is every person), is the son of a mother."

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