This word comes ultimately from the verb beget, which is a formal and somewhat archaic word that means "to become the father of (someone)." It is used informally to refer to a genealogical list, as Robinson uses it above, or to one's offspring. "Your mother told you I would be writing your begats, and you seemed very pleased with the idea." -Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, 2004Īnother word that doesn't appear often in print, but often enough to merit entry into our Unabridged Dictionary, is begats. This last meaning, so far removed from the original use that referred to a type of literature, is now the most common use of apocalypse, and has even shown up in humorous portmanteaus-most notably in snowpocalypse to refer to a sizeable snowstorm. John, and another to refer to any great disaster with far-reaching effects. A few centuries after the word apocalypse entered English to name this style of literature, the word gained two additional senses: one that referred to the final battle between good and evil that's spoken about in the Apocalypse of St. John, were often filled with cataclysmic events that heralded the end of this present age and the dawning of the age to come: fires, earthquakes, heavenly armies fighting. John came to be called Revelation, then: the apocalyptic writings were so called because they revealed or uncovered future events.Īpocalyptic writings, and especially the Apocalypse of St. The Greek word that gave us apocalypse means "to uncover" or "to reveal." You can see how the Apocalypse of St. John of Patmos, more commonly called the book of Revelation. The best-known apocalyptic work is the Apocalypse of St. But when apocalypse came into English in the 1200s, it referred to none of these things.Īpocalypse was initially used to refer to a particular type of Jewish and Christian writing that was common between 200 BC and 150 AD and which used symbolic imagery usually to foretell the end of this world and the future to come.
When we hear the word apocalypse, a number of images run through our minds: fire and flood, earthquakes and tidal waves, crumbling societies, zombies. Many of these alterations have since been reversed, damaging some of the statues."Mulder and Scully were outsider heroes working within a corrupt government, and their questing to expose truth and squelch the apocalypse resonated with the alt-culture vibe and premillennial angst of the 1990s." -Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly, 3 July 2015 The Adam and Eve panels on the Ghent Altarpiece, already equipped with fig leaves by Jan van Eyck, were simply replaced with 19th-century panels copying the figures but clothed. "The fig leaves of decent reticence" which Charles Kingsley described were applied not only to statuary but to literature as well. The age of the rising middle class in Victorian England was, or course, the age of the fig leaf. For free-standing statues this did not work well, and carved or cast fig leaves were sometimes added, such as with the plaster copy of Michelangelo's David displayed in Victorian era London. This has been dubbed the "fig leaf campaign". Often, as in the famous case of Michelangelo's The Last Judgement, drapery or extra branches from any nearby bush was used. This was especially a feature of Northern Renaissance art.įrom about 1530, the developing reaction to Renaissance freedoms and excesses that led to the Council of Trent also led to a number of artworks, especially in churches or public places, being altered to reduce the amount of nudity on display.
Adam and Eve were often shown wearing fig or other leaves, following the Biblical description. During the Middle Ages, only the unfortunate (most often the damned) were usually shown naked, although the depictions were then often rather explicit. This tradition continued in Ancient Roman art until the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, when heroic nudity vanished. In Ancient Greek art, male nakedness, including the genitals, was common, although the female vulval area was generally covered in art for public display.
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