Sex and fear

In this essay, one of the leading modern French writers, a connoisseur of antiquity and the brilliant stylist Pascal Kignar, based on the analysis of ancient Greek and ancient Roman works of literature and fine art, explores the nature of eroticism and offers his version of the transformation of ancient art, its transition from the cheerful eroticism of the Greeks to the melancholic, poorly hiding horror before the life of the contemplation of the Romans. Sex and fear, according to Kinyar, are two main forces that modify art and reality.
When Emperor Augustus turned Rome into an empire, joyful, anthropomorphic and accurate eroticism of the Greeks was enveloped in frightened melancholy. Take a look at the frescoes, where female faces breathe fear, where their eyes are scared to look somewhere to the side. What the Greeks called the "phallus", the Romans called "fascinus" - enchanting.
In the world of people, as in the world of animals, to enchant means to cling to themselves the gaze of another creature, depriving him of his will, plunging into horror.
Why did I devote so many years of labor to this book? To try to unravel this secret, for pleasure is an act of purification. It exposes what the desire only lifts the veil over.
Pascal Kinyar