7 Preface 8 What is Art about Prehistoric Art? 32 It’s Very Classical 66 Disegno & Colorito 100 Rationalism and Anti-rationalism 144 Self and World 192 Bibliography and Notes
the world they inhabited. The world inspired the imagination. But prehistoric art went beyond a mere imitation of reality. The imagination of these first “artists” transformed things of the world. As Breuil described, this went beyond the mundane world and elevated all things to a higher level of significance. What we see is a concrete manifestation of his vision of the world. One might think that humans today are more imaginative because our culture is more advanced, but it also seems that the imagination doesn’t require nearly as much artificial stimulation as surrounds us today. In fact, the degree of a person’s creativity is related to how inventive an individual is. We also know that prehistoric humans had to be very resourceful in order to survive: I believe that a long time ago, people didn’t have luxurious lives and everything was
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much more difficult to achieve. In order to find their way to something and make their everyday life more interesting and easier, they kept thinking of new ideas, new approaches to things and materials, and always went for the next step. Nowadays, artists are more flexible to create something. They can refer to older works of art. It is more difficult to stand out of the mass that there is today because of globalization, internet, etc. There are numerous artists, from all over the world, and very often, art becomes a competition and an effort to be unique and different from others, instead of trying to be creative. I believe that when you lack things that make your way easier, you appreciate your mind and imagination more. Maria Amalia Goutaki, pwad i, Fall ’09
impression. There was only nature, a world of perplexity neither understood nor mastered by humans. So the artist of prehistory created pictures that were an expression of brilliant imaginative capabilities. The world of mystery was a catalyst for the prehistoric artist, which inspired them to grasp ahold of an overwhelming reality. Even during the Renaissance, a time when humanism encouraged the cultivation of one’s intellectual abilities and talents—giving rise to some of the greatest achievements in the areas of art, literature, music, philosophy, science, and beyond—the genius, Leonardo da Vinci noted in his famous Treatise on Painting that an artist should train their imagination by conjuring pictures from the stains on a wall just like one sees designs form in the clouds. The pictures he formed in his mind were of his own unique invention, and nature was his model. In his essay, “Leonardo’s Method for Working out Compositions,” the famous art historian Ernst Gombrich noted how Leonardo instructed artists to “rouse the mind to various inventions.” By looking at the “crumbling walls, glowing embers, speckled stones, clouds or mould,” an artist could inspire their imagination. Gombrich actually said that Leonardo “could deliberately induce
What is Art about Prehistoric Art?
Both today’s artist and the prehistoric artist draw inspiration from the world. However, the prehistoric artist did not have the vast world of influences to make an
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Wall painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses, and Aurochs Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Ardèche Gorge, France. c. 32,000– 30,000 bce. Paint on limestone. HIP/Art Resource, NY
The “Kritios Boy” is one of the earliest freestanding marble figures, which exhibits the movement of sculpture from stiff, frontal presentation to imitating more lifelike movement and a more fluid motion through craft. The boy is standing in a curved pose, appearing at ease and displaying his long, elegant body. His face is inviting and curious, asking for the viewer to meet his eyes. The smooth curves of the sculpture carry the viewer’s gaze down through the body to fully admire the human physique portrayed in a classical Greek style. Noemi Biel, Perspectives in World Art and Design I (pwad i), Fall ’09. Sometimes, as in the case of Myron of Eleutherae’s (active 440–480 bce) Diskobolos (Discus Thrower), another Early Classical work found as a Roman copy of an original
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Greek bronze sculpture from c. 450 bce, the Greeks chose to keep a singular vantage point in viewing a sculpture in order to capture the perfect vision of the body in a state of balance. Known to us today, the sculptor Myron depicted the discus thrower when the body was in a state of transition, as the upper arm holding the disc, having reached its highest point, pauses for a moment, and the momentum of the entire body’s weight begins to accelerate in a circular motion. Myron captured the body in its most characteristic position in this state of movement with the wide expanse of the chest appearing frontally while the hip and thigh are positioned from the side view. The repetitious ordering of the body parts, such as the legs and arms with their repeated curves, creates a visual rhythm. The Diskobolos represents the complete harmonization of movement. The figure seems to burst forth with explosive energy in a split moment’s time. Designers have looked to the ideals of rational order and perfection in the Diskobolos as a model for contemporary design objects, which signify not only motion but the ideas of instantaneousness. Time has accelerated in our contemporary world in which we evidence the complete rationalization of movement and speed. Contemporaneousness
Bulgari presented the Diagono in the watch collection. The name was inspired by the ancient Greek work. It evokes a sporty style. Diagono was born from a simple, essential concept: perceiving movement an instant before it occurs, sensing all its force and anticipating its tension. Like the Diskobolus of Myron, which inspired it, its design represents the essence of dynamic, modern style, as realized with a balanced, mechanical technique and no shortcuts. Jae Youn Pyo, pwad i, Fall ’08. In fashion, the traits of the Diskobolos translate into a masculine ideal. The man of today, in the rational world of order we live in, stays apprised of the moment. He is always ready for action, and the tension, both in mind and body, lend to the air of his
It's Very Classical
equates with a kind of awareness of time and being fully apprised of the moment:
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Kritios Boy From Acropolis, Athens. C. 480 bce. Marble, height 3’10” (1.17 m) Acropolis Museum, Athens Scala/Art Resource, NY
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Nike (Victory) of Samothrace Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace. c. 180 bce Marble, height 8’1” (2.45 m) Musée du Louvre, Paris Scala/Art Resource, NY
and mysterious beauty. The Nike is larger than life. Her appearance, like a miraculous vision of a goddess descending upon the mortal world, gives her a lofty presence— powerful and swift, but also graceful—and contributes to our romanticized vision of antiquity. Perhaps the contemporary mind wishes for this lost connection with the past. Sculptures such as the Nike awaken our historical imagination. The sheer fabric of her gown, perhaps drenched in the water from a fountain, ripples in a gust of wind as she strides forward and holds her wings expansively behind her. She is superhuman but enters with dramatic force into the world of temporality. Her presence is breathtaking and seems to come to life before us. During the second- and first-centuries bce, the Hellenistic world gradually became absorbed into the Roman Empire. In the early days of the Republic, Roman art took
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on influences from a wide variety of traditions exposed to them through the cultures incorporated into the growing Roman Empire. During the reign of Augustus (27 bce–14 ce), Roman art evolved into a major vehicle of state propaganda and consciously revived classical ideals. Augustus ensured his lasting reputation as the princeps (first citizen) and pater patriae (father of his country) with Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, in which he recited the glorious history of the founding of the Roman Empire by Augustus’s claimed Greek heir, Aeneas. As Virgil closely associates the two heroes together, in the Aeneid, Augustus attains a godlike stature whose leadership was decreed by divine will. The revival of classicism served to reinforce the political ideology of Augustus, as the emperor wanted to secure his ties with Republican traditions and to create a heroic image of himself. However, Augustan classicism was tempered by Roman ingenuity. The new eclectic style under Augustus also balanced idealism with aspects of realism. Both in sculpture and architecture, the Greek ideal was adopted to affirm tradition while, combined with other traditions, the realism gives emphasis to the cultural the foremost example of Augustan classicism is the famous Augustus of Primaporta, dating to the early first-century ce, which self-consciously adopts the Greek ideal of Polykleitos and asserts the virtues of the supreme ruler: The high marble statue of “Augustus of Primaporta” provides a study on the marriage of the sturdiness of Roman realism and the idealism and grace of Greek classicism. While the emperor’s face is stern, with deep-set contemplative features, and his chest broad and strong, his arm gestures authoritatively towards the heavens. He stands in the classical contrapposto pose. This sculptural dichotomy alludes to Augustus’s effort to be portrayed as a man of Rome, recognizable but ideal in his age, while many had the opinion that he was a divine hero, a descendant of Venus. Furthering this evidence is the fact that Augustus is barefoot, a sign of godliness. Cupid is also there resting at his
It's Very Classical
and political values of Augustus and the specificities of historical truth. In sculpture,
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Raphael School of Athens Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome
c. 1510–11. Fresco, 19’ × 27’ (5.79 × 8.24 m) Musei Vaticani
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historian of the earlier part of the twentieth-century, Edgar Wind, mentioned how little Vasari could appreciate this Venetian manner, for it was Giorgione’s method to treat his allegorical subject matter poetically. Wind’s analysis begins with an observation made by the prolific art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, who noted that the ruins themselves, so obscure in their meaning yet significant in their placement of the composition, seem to stand there as an “emblematic cipher.”16 Broken columns appear in paintings during the Renaissance and were a common emblem of Fortezza and have moral implications. Here, in Giorgione’s painting, the broken columns set the stage while the looming tempest encroaches upon the actors. In the Renaissance, people also would have understood the meaning of Tempesta as synonymous with Fortuna: where storms are governed by Chance, humans must await the fate that lies before them. Something of
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this condition explains the atmosphere of calm surrounding the figures. “Undaunted by the threats of the rising tempest, emblematic of capricious Fortune,” wrote Wind, “they display the martial confidence and the maternal affection that befit ‘a soldier and a gypsy’ (the words of Kenneth Clark) – characters whose unsettled mode of life has made them familiars of Fortuna.”17 Now, the columns, emblems of Fortezza, stand there to remind the viewer of its counterpart, Carità. Wind explained that the lesson implied in this pairing of the two figures—”that astute confrontation of valor and feminine abandon”—was a Renaissance moral where “Virtus,” or Fortezza, and “Amor,” or Carità, come together as one.18 In the allegory Giorgione creates in this pastoral poem, Fortuna sets the backdrop to a drama of the human soul between transient lives of a man and woman whose fate is governed by the vicissitudes of chance. Likewise, in other paintings, such Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus of 1508, the woman presents herself as an enigma. The painting seems dreamful. The mood it creates invites individual responses.
ambiguous meaning … Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” shows the use of colorito. It depicts a naked woman lying on drapery with a background of a landscape, which frames her figure. Her expression seems as if she is sleeping, and her mood is therefore open to interpretation. Colorito is use to make her skin seems as if it were glowing. This piece appeals to me because of its mysterious quality, and it incorporates the nude with the landscape and the facial expression is open to interpretation. Amanda Wong, pwad ii, Spring ’09. Giogione’s Venus reclines on her couch, looking directly before her, as if to intoxicate the viewer by her tranquility. She is, herself, an allegory of the beauty of nature. This dreamy nude, who lures the viewer into the painting with her gaze, placates just as nature does. Her ivory skin tone captures the warmth of the lighting and appears
Disegno & Colorito
These contributions categorize colorito as something that can be open to sensuous and
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Drawbridge Plate VII from the Carceri d’Invenzioni, 1780s etching and engraving, plate: 21 9/16” × 16 3/16” (54.7 cm × 41.1 cm); page size: 26 7/8” × 20 7/8” (68.3 cm × 53 cm) Image Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
devices. He chose warm, vibrant colors, which he applied in broad areas, and then used sinuous black and colored lines to describe bodies and trees. But color and line take on an independent life and lend themselves over to pure expression and sensation: a carnal expression of luxury inspired by the ambience of the small Mediterranean town, where he enjoyed the sweet life of pleasure. Henri Matisse’s “Le Bonheur de Vivre” represents a significant advancement in artistic practice of the modern age in many ways. One characteristic that catches my eyes is the way the colors are applied and his dramatic choice of color. Henri Matisse was an exuberant artist, who painted in an expressive way using bright hues, which he plays around with using primary colors.
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Henri Matisse depicts nude figures, but he paints them with such personal style that they are exaggerated from the natural human figure. He eliminates the details and looks at the overall shape of the bodies. The sole purpose of Matisse’s work is to be expressive in any way possible. He achieved this goal through the use of color, the placement of figures, and facial expressions. His work has such a strong impact on me because he allows you to express all your passion and emotions in a piece of artwork. There is so much mood throughout the painting.. Eun Kyung Kwon, pwad ii, Spring ’09. In certain aspects, Matisse’s picture was a very traditional work. This idyllic picture of nature takes recourse to the pastoral mode of landscape paintings, which can be traced back to the Renaissance in the works of Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, c. 1477/8-1510) and Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1488/90-1576). The pastoral painting is sensuous and warm. It represents humans reclining in natural landscape settings, who take to song and music, the art form most suited to the expression of love. In Matisse’s painting there is a figure with the pipes of Pan in the foreground and a goatherd with a hands in a circle – a springtime dance, perhaps to celebrate the new season and the awakening of love. Other figures engage in amorous dalliance or revel in the scenery, a woman dangling a garland of springtime flowers from her breast while another plucks them from the soil. And there, in the center, lie the two pastoral nudes, who slumber in the warm atmosphere, their serenity enhanced by an expressly sinuous and free classical line that rhythmically contours their rounded figures and is echoed throughout the composition. Le Bonheur de Vivre also precludes many of the creative innovations modern abstract artists were to make in the following years. Matisse explored his use of color and line much like the German Expressionists. In his theory of art, Matisse conceived of expression in art as an emotional experience that an artist revealed through their own
Self and World
flute back to the right. The figures in the background dance to the music while holding
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Fernand Léger Three Women 1921. Oil on canvas, 6’1/2” × 8’3” (183.5 cm × 251.5 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York Digital Image © Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA Art Resource, NY
of the everyday. The Surrealists invented the use of the object trouvet, or the “found object,” which was a common object whose function they changed by altering it in some way. In 1936, Breton, organized an exhibition in Paris, showing Meret Oppenheim’s (1913–1985) Déjeuner en fourrure (Object, or Luncheon in Fur) made that same year, which became the sensation of the show. Picasso himself became the inspiration to the work of art when Oppenheim, at a luncheon with Picasso and Dora Maar at the Parisian Café de Flore, showed them her fur-covered bracelet she designed, and Picasso remarked that one could coat anything with fur. Alfred H. Barr, then the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, viewed the object at the exhibition and purchased it, thereby making the artist’s lasting reputation and the work an icon of Surrealist art. Breton, who gave the fur cup its name after Édouard Manet's (1832-1883) scandalous
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painting, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe of 1863, considered it to be the perfect model of the Surrealist aesthetic. This work of art was the expression of an encounter with real world objects, which, through their combination, resulted in a unique and unusual experience of reality. The cup, saucer, and spoon, mass reproduced objects, which she bought at a department store, cease to be impersonal objects. The Chinese Gazelle fur arouses a sensuous response from the viewer, drawing upon the confused sensations of touch and taste. The eroticism of Luncheon in Fur qualified the work as the ideal Surrealist object for the French Surrealists, who looked to feminine sexuality as a source of inspiration for their art. Of surrealist artists, Meret Oppenheim is one of the artists who offers the most promise of revolutionary change in living. Most of her art works deny all existing functions of the objects. She perhaps cared about the aesthetics of the art object. Through discarding the existing function, the rational object was changed into an irrational object. Oppenheim’s best-known piece is the sculpture, “Object,” or “Luncheon in Fur.” The sculpture consists of a teacup, saucer, and spoon that the artist covered with fur. Oppenheim dressed a lost an original function and utility, but it had obtained new beauty instead. Jaeeun Chung, pwad ii, Spring ’09. As Oppenheim’s Luncheon in Fur proves, the French Surrealists aimed to disrupt the depersonalizing effects of modern day industrialization by creating objects that allowed for an authentic aesthetic experience. Oppenheim disguised the mass reproduced cup, saucer, and spoon with materials that arouse natural associations. She transformed the purely mundane significance of this object into a highly unusual and new experience of it. By stripping the object of its functionality and value, she invested it with another, incantatory aesthetic value. The reaction one has to Luncheon in Fur relates entirely to his or her own sensuous associations. Its inherent contradictions—smooth versus furry,
Self and World
hard cup with fur clothing, so it could not be used for drinking anymore. The cup had