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09/15/2011 04:31:36 AM · #51 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by posthumous:
Michelangelo never met David. So obviously, he was not documenting David. You don't spend days chipping away at marble to "document" someone. Clearly, you are creating an art object. Really, Doc, what a terrible counter-example. You can do better! LOL |
I disagree. You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? I doubt the magic or art of the piece is caught up on the persona of the subject. Heck, we know many artists of the time used Biblical themes and subjects only because it was their ticket to a paycheck. So I agree it wasn't his objective to "document" David, but it WAS his objective to document the human form. At least he meant to replicate the human form in marble accurately (a sculpting verion of "in the sharpest detail possible").
But you do hit on something important. It seems to me the artistic merits of a piece are inexorably bound with the motive of the artist. If someone sets out to document something just to document it, that motive will rarely produce art. But someone may wind up documenting something quite accurately and produce art because their motive was elsewhere. |
But "David" wasn't created to just capture a memory of a specific person.
"David" expresses Michaelangelo's vision of the "ideal" human form, not as a document or record of any human that has ever walked this planet. It's certainly not that of his uncle, or his cousin or any one person at any one time or as part of any specific event. He was known for creating idealized figures, not anatomically correct figures as DaVinci might have done. If you look at David's head and hands, you can see that they're proportionally too large.
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09/15/2011 04:33:22 AM · #52 |
Originally posted by raish:
I'd suggest the question of art or not art did not arise for the likes of Michaelangelo. He went to great lengths, including running of the risk of capital punishment, to study and record the human form. He did so faithfully and realistically. David even has stonemason's hands. In the context of this thread, though, and the usefulness of the object ... |
You have Michaelangelo confused with DaVinci, who is famous for his anatomical (and other scientific) studies. |
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09/15/2011 05:05:52 AM · #53 |
Michelangelo's anatomical studies.
I gather that it was considered criminal, and punishable by execution, to disect corpses. Outlawed by the church - there... |
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09/15/2011 07:11:09 AM · #54 |
| When did "art" and "document" become mutually exclusive? |
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09/15/2011 07:33:44 AM · #55 |
Originally posted by bvy:
When did "art" and "document" become mutually exclusive? |
It's a good question. My inclination is to say that they are mutually exclusive, but in defense of that position I'd probably have to allow some caveats. For example, a document can come to be seen as art (probably), and art can come to be seen as a document (definitely), but I'm not convinced that a thing can start out as being both art and document simultaneously.
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09/15/2011 07:38:48 AM · #56 |
?
Garry Winogrand - 1964
Message edited by author 2011-09-15 07:40:24. |
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09/15/2011 09:11:26 AM · #57 |
Originally posted by bvy:
?
Garry Winogrand - 1964 |
Damn caveats; they always bite you in the arse!
OK I'd say it was a documentary photograph by birth, and I reckon Mr Winogrand would as well. Then it becomes art, for some folks. I don't actually think it is art, Brian. |
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09/15/2011 09:14:45 AM · #58 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by posthumous:
Michelangelo never met David. So obviously, he was not documenting David. You don't spend days chipping away at marble to "document" someone. Clearly, you are creating an art object. Really, Doc, what a terrible counter-example. You can do better! LOL |
I disagree. You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? I doubt the magic or art of the piece is caught up on the persona of the subject. Heck, we know many artists of the time used Biblical themes and subjects only because it was their ticket to a paycheck. So I agree it wasn't his objective to "document" David, but it WAS his objective to document the human form. At least he meant to replicate the human form in marble accurately (a sculpting verion of "in the sharpest detail possible").
But you do hit on something important. It seems to me the artistic merits of a piece are inexorably bound with the motive of the artist. If someone sets out to document something just to document it, that motive will rarely produce art. But someone may wind up documenting something quite accurately and produce art because their motive was elsewhere. |
Thus, if you are shooting for a challenge, you are not making art. And conversely, if you are making art and submitting it to a challenge, DNMC. I've always considered challenge topics to be "commercial" topics, with the voters being the customer.
Tim
Tim |
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09/15/2011 09:18:15 AM · #59 |
I find it amusing that they refer to "David" as "anatomically perfect", when he's anything but. In addition to the out-of-proportion head and hands, he's missing a muscle in his back. |
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09/15/2011 09:34:27 AM · #60 |
I think my head is going to burst.
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09/15/2011 10:24:39 AM · #61 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
I think my head is going to burst. |
Now if I were to snap a pic of that it would be documentary, but what if it looked like a Jackson Pollock?
Message edited by author 2011-09-15 10:35:31. |
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09/15/2011 10:27:11 AM · #62 |
Originally posted by ubique:
Originally posted by bvy:
?
Garry Winogrand - 1964 |
Damn caveats; they always bite you in the arse!
OK I'd say it was a documentary photograph by birth, and I reckon Mr Winogrand would as well. Then it becomes art, for some folks. I don't actually think it is art, Brian. |
I would differ. I call that picture art, not documentation. The light and composition create a stillness that exists only in the photograph. |
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09/15/2011 10:31:54 AM · #63 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? |
I'm not implying it. I'm saying it outright. The position of David is unlike any other David depicted before him. He is relaxed, victorious. The statue has something to say about God and the personal relationship to God. Funny that I have to tell you that.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
but it WAS his objective to document the human form. At least he meant to replicate the human form in marble accurately (a sculpting verion of "in the sharpest detail possible"). |
Again you are dead wrong. He was interested in the ideal form, as were so many other neo-Classicals, not accuracy.
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09/15/2011 11:20:25 AM · #64 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
I find it amusing that they refer to "David" as "anatomically perfect", when he's anything but. In addition to the out-of-proportion head and hands, he's missing a muscle in his back. |
Two excuses I've heard are the mechanical, the state the marble was in when he began (another sculptor started on it but screwed it up), and the stylistic, the out-of-proportion hands etc. supposedly being suggestive of someone not yet fully grown. |
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09/15/2011 11:25:53 AM · #65 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? |
I'm not implying it. I'm saying it outright. The position of David is unlike any other David depicted before him. He is relaxed, victorious. The statue has something to say about God and the personal relationship to God. |
Meh... I don't know. It seems to me that Renaissance sculptors were more interested in emulating the bronzes and marbles of the Greeks and Romans, and doing it in the only language possible (the language of the church). His innovative David strikes me as more anti-establishment than spiritual. In fact, it's downright carnal, reveling in the human form the way it does. |
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09/15/2011 11:26:31 AM · #66 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
[quote=DrAchoo]but it WAS his objective to document the human form. At least he meant to replicate the human form in marble accurately (a sculpting verion of "in the sharpest detail possible"). |
Again you are dead wrong. He was interested in the ideal form, as were so many other neo-Classicals, not accuracy. |
Right Don.
The discussion takes too many under-tones and the political ones, the way we understand them now are superfluous.
I throw just a few lines:
- expressing oneself deliberately is a new notion - the artists painted on commission. Very few had the idea, need or desire of painting their own bedroom or their pretty landscape outside their window. They integrated though their surroundings or friends in the large paintings, sometimes as innocent jokes (see Giotto and the fly, the first trompe l'oeil in a fresco). But there were exceptions. Rembrandt despised most of the portraits he had to paint but at night painted his portrait. Conversely, Velasquez was notoriously ... hmm, how shall I say, a bit too enamored by a good life and honors and did not paint continuously. When he had to paint a large canvas he tried his hand first, thus the magnificent portrait of his servant //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Pareja
- the artists were happy to get a "job" even if it killed them. Michelangelo hated his Sistine Chapel that otherwise destroyed his eye sight and health. He was painting "for a challenge". But remained true to himself even if he totally disliked what he did (he was not interested in painting as a medium).
- Brunelleschi had to invent first a scaffolding in order to build his Duomo. No time to "document" his times although they all did it. We are all the children of our times.
- until recently, there was a need for art. Now it's a surplus of art (well, there was certainly a surplus of bigger or smaller scale, see the Louvre where one has to go on roller skates). And we all grope.
- any discussion is better than none but the less artists speak, the better. I have to remember that! |
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09/15/2011 11:33:25 AM · #67 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? |
I'm not implying it. I'm saying it outright. The position of David is unlike any other David depicted before him. He is relaxed, victorious. The statue has something to say about God and the personal relationship to God. |
Meh... I don't know. It seems to me that Renaissance sculptors were more interested in emulating the bronzes and marbles of the Greeks and Romans, and doing it in the only language possible (the language of the church). His innovative David strikes me as more anti-establishment than spiritual. In fact, it's downright carnal, reveling in the human form the way it does. |
I have to agree with Louis on this one. I don't think the statue loses any of its artistic value if we foist an artifical title upon it and call it "Jonathan". I'm sure people have later read their own meanings into the statue and how it represents the relationship between God and man. It should probably be noted that it was carved before the Reformation and the idea of a "personal relationship with God" is an anachronism for the time period. The Reformation would not come for another decade (and in Germany not Italy) and Evangelicalism (where that phrase really takes on significance) not until the 1700s.
Message edited by author 2011-09-15 11:36:42. |
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09/15/2011 11:40:58 AM · #68 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Spork99:
I find it amusing that they refer to "David" as "anatomically perfect", when he's anything but. In addition to the out-of-proportion head and hands, he's missing a muscle in his back. |
Two excuses I've heard are the mechanical, the state the marble was in when he began (another sculptor started on it but screwed it up), and the stylistic, the out-of-proportion hands etc. supposedly being suggestive of someone not yet fully grown. |
If you look at excerpts from Michaelangelo's writings about the work, he acknowledges the missing muscle and cites the dimensions of the marble block and the rough work done earlier as the reason. The block of marble was purchased and work was begun 11 years before Michelangelo's birth in 1464 by Agostino who quit 2 years later followed by Rosselino 10 years after that who also quit soon after starting.
Message edited by author 2011-09-15 11:41:53. |
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09/15/2011 11:44:17 AM · #69 |
I think that this is a matter of semantics, and as I am always up for some antics, let me give it a stab.
Art has mixed with money over the years, Shakespeare certainly was paid for his work, and one of the biggest wedding mistakes anyone can make is to include the
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments" sonnet- as this is not about romantic love and marriage, but about the relationship between the Bard and his Patron. Great example with "The Night Watch" - Rembrandt was at the top of his game.
When art imitates life in an age when there is no camera- it does not necessarily equal a "documentation." Perhaps its a "depiction." I mean, the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, was there a lot of depicting or documenting going on- hell yes. Was there art going on- equally yes.
Whats wonderful about photography is, you point, you shoot, you get what you get. art, sometimes. |
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09/15/2011 11:56:16 AM · #70 |
| I think one thing that frustrates some people while others revel in it is that Art is not in the domain of Science. There is no final arbiter of "what counts as art". It is in the eye of the beholder and artist. Someone may declare a piece to be art while another may declare it to be nothing of the sort. Who is right? I suppose both are. |
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09/15/2011 11:58:05 AM · #71 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You are right on Michaelangelo never meeting David, but are you implying that the statue would be different to a viewer who doesn't know who David was or one who was deceptively told it was a statue of someone else? |
I'm not implying it. I'm saying it outright. The position of David is unlike any other David depicted before him. He is relaxed, victorious. The statue has something to say about God and the personal relationship to God. |
Meh... I don't know. It seems to me that Renaissance sculptors were more interested in emulating the bronzes and marbles of the Greeks and Romans, and doing it in the only language possible (the language of the church). His innovative David strikes me as more anti-establishment than spiritual. In fact, it's downright carnal, reveling in the human form the way it does. |
Hmmm...while the staue was originally intended to go on top of the cathedral in Florence, the actual work was sponsored by a group of merchants as a gift to the church. It didn't go on top of the cathedral because they had no way to lift it that high. This David is not the typical post victory David but rather a pre-battle David. While his pose is relaxed, his face is anything but. He's intense, readying himself for combat. He's at that point where he has decided to act, but hasn't yet taken action.
As to appearing like the marbles of Greek and Roman times, of course it does, but the Greeks and Romans weren't really interested in accuracy either. Michelangelo was also lknown to have buried some of his own sculptures only to dig them up later and pass them off as original Greek/Roman works. You'd think that if discovered, he'd have been in hot water, but in one case, the patron who purchased the buried work commissioned another statue from the artist after finding the true nature of his original purchase. |
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09/15/2011 11:59:42 AM · #72 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I think one thing that frustrates some people while others revel in it is that Art is not in the domain of Science. There is no final arbiter of "what counts as art". It is in the eye of the beholder and artist. Someone may declare a piece to be art while another may declare it to be nothing of the sort. Who is right? I suppose both are. |
It's the same kind of argument that drives all of those "How could some idiot possibly vote a "1" on this ribbon-winning photo?" threads |
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09/15/2011 12:24:59 PM · #73 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
but the Greeks and Romans weren't really interested in accuracy either. |
I'm going to have to challenge you on this. What purposeful inaccuracies were being introduced by the Greeks and Romans in their sculpture to what purpose?
It's one thing to be inaccurate because of skill or material. It's another to be inaccurate on purpose. |
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09/15/2011 01:08:20 PM · #74 |
Originally posted by ubique:
Originally posted by bvy:
When did "art" and "document" become mutually exclusive? |
... I'm not convinced that a thing can start out as being both art and document simultaneously. |
How about illuminated manuscripts from the "Middle Ages" or all the highly stylized Arabic calligraphy which decorates many buildings throughout the Middle East ... and the Taj Mahal seems to me to be both "documentary" and artistically done ... |
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09/15/2011 01:29:31 PM · #75 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
When is a yam a sweet potato? What's your point? Do you think art should never be judged? |
You know, I've come to the conclusion that as long as you keep putting words in my mouth...we will eventually say the exact same thing...;-P
Anyways, to address your question "Do you think art should never be judged?"
Those who are qualified to "judge" art really should spend their time more productively creating it...;-P
You speak of definitions and principles. Yet, the Fine Art Jury presented this image as the winning choice of the Fine Art Challenge.
When I first saw this image, immediately I was blown away not by a definition or a principle "Ah HA! Now THIS is fine art." For me, this image became not an answer, but a QUESTION.
In the end, I stopped trying to force the question of this image to become an answer or a defining principle, and I simply connected with the experience and made peace with the unconditional strength of its presence. In addition, I am quite grateful to the artist, Ubique, for allowing me the gracious space to find that place in my heart...;-)
You push me to have a point. But, I don't have one! All I have are more questions...;-)
Such as, when is art more about creating options and less about making judgements and defining principles?
P.S. but in regard to the issue of the sweet potato vs. yam? I'm going to go with sweet potato because I like sweet potato chips and "yam chips" just sounds silly...;-P
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