Posts tagged Art
Making sense of art
Feb 2nd
I was going to put Brian Hoffman’s post Aniakchak Art – The Bone Face into a Vidi post. Instead I’m posting separately because:
- He’s got a really interesting problem, one faced by archaeologists across the world.
- He’s got some nice photos, and I’m a sucker for nice photos.
So here’s the problem. You’re digging in Alaska and you find a bit of bone with a face carved on it. Now what?
In the past I’ve tended to ignore much of Art and Art History. My earliest introduction to it was as art appreciation which I’ve tended to feel alienated from for various reasons. It doesn’t help that my memories of Art class were killing time in Pottery because the Technical Graphics class didn’t have enough space. So I never really understood Art. I still don’t understand Art, but now for much more interesting reasons.
Art is much more interesting when you don’t merely look at form, but also process. The favoured story at the moment is that Art exploded as part of some great leap in thinking around 35,000 years ago. I don’t agree, it’s a terribly Eurocentric perspective and African archaeologists have pushed back the dawn of art twice as far at the very least. More >
The Drawings on the Wall
Feb 7th
The image is an example of the sort of shape they’re talking about. You can see it bigger at Flickr.
Well yes that may be true, but it’s not just Palaeolithic men who’d want to venerate them. Slightly more seriously art is ambiguous. The Minoans are known for their bull symbolism, but it’s unlikely any of the bulls would appreciate their role in the sacrifice.
Thanks to the tip from Archaeozoology and the reminder from Remote Central, I’ve been listening to The Drawings on the Wall. It’s one of those series of 15 minutes documentaries that the BBC sometimes does. George Nash, who’s discovered Neolithic rock art, is the presenter and he does a great job. Really cave art should be one of those subjects that makes awful radio, just a step away from the All-England Live Mime Championship, or Harpo Marx in his own words. On the contrary he does a really good job of capturing the interest and passion of the archaeologists working in the caves.
He also talks about some of the reasons why rock art matters. It’s difficult because he has little time to do this in, but rock art is one of the hot fields in archaeology at the moment, not More >
How Art Made The World – Revisited
Oct 23rd
While looking for something else I found this snippet from How Art Made the World. It deals with the exaggerated features of the Ice Age Venuses. Yes they’re unrealistic images of women, but why do they look unrealistic? The answer might be found in the actions of gulls. This segment filled me with ambiguous feelings, so it’s good to have the opportunity to watch it again.
I had to flip back to my original comments, because I remembered feeling quite negative about it. Yet looking at that clip it seemed that Nigel Spivey was an engaging presenter. It is an interesting topic and a change from the chronological histories and disaster porn which make up a lot of is history television.
The other clips available online made it clear what I disliked about the programme. It was the disjointed connection between prehistory and history, which can be seen in the clip below. (more…)
Art in the eye of the Beholder?
Sep 10th
It’s a deer. This is the most easily seen of the carvings.
I went up to Creswell Crags on the bank holiday weekend to see the Ice Age art which had recently been discovered. As a trip I can highly recommend it. Even though it was a Bank Holiday weekend, there weren’t that many people there, which is odd because regardless of the archaeology the site is beautiful.
The gorge was formed millions of years ago, but the archaeological interest comes from occupation during the Ice Age. There’s evidence of Neanderthal settlement around 40kyr from the tools found in several caves in the gorge. The people would have been following animals to the summer grazing grounds. These could have been long migrations as Great Britain was still connected to the European mainland. There is some slight evidence for modern humans around 29kyr or so. This came to a halt when the climate became colder. The polar ice cap grew down to within 20 miles to the north of the caves, which suggests the tundra in the area was barren.
Around 13kyr the climate eased enough for modern humans to return. The tools of the period made Creswell the type-site for an Upper Palaeolithic culture. More >
Anthology Cover: It wasn’t all me
Jan 16th
I’ve seen a couple of comments on the cover, so to avoid taking credit for something I haven’t done: The base of the above image is by Emin Aykut Erdogan and is available from iStockPhoto. (more…)
Monet the Astronomer?
Oct 8th
[Cross-posted to Revise & Dissent and i-Science]
Monet's Houses of Parliament
Is Monet’s painting of the Houses of Parliament above an accurate painting of London? The story that it could well be broke in August but I’ve delayed commenting on it because I wanted to sit down with the original paper.
A Picasso, so it could be anything.
I tend to be sceptical of claims that art can be read scientifically. For instance does this really look much like a woman with a guitar? The Monet paper had the added problem of stating that the time of painting could be dated. Astronomy is usually a terrible way to date things. It really only works if you already know the period of the thing you’re dating, which is why the paper ‘Solar position within Monet’s Houses of Parliament‘ by Jacob Baker and John E. Thornes makes a lot of sense. It’s an example of good interdisciplinary thinking.
The reason it works so well is that Baker and Thornes are able to use historical material to eliminate a lot of speculation. Monet’s life is well studied and many of his letters survive, so they are able to place the period during which Monet was in London. To examine the painting More >
It’s ok, it’s Art – there’s a fat kid on a nearby wall
Sep 15th
“What? Tawnee says what she does is Art, sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?”
“Yeah, but…” Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.
“No urns,” he said at last.
“What urns?” asked Nobby.
“Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded weak even to him, so he added, “or a plinth. Both is best, o’ course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”
“What about a potted plant?”
“That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”
“What about if it’s not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?” said Nobby.
“Have you got one in mind, Nobby?” said Colon suspiciously.
“Yes, The Goddess Anoia* Arising from the Cutlery,” said Nobby. “They’ve got More >
Sun Symbolism and Cosmology in “Michelangelo’s Last Judgment” by Valerie Shrimplin
Jul 13th
[Cross-posted to Revise & Dissent]
Valerie Shrimplin’s Sun Symbolism and Cosmology in “Michelangelo’s Last Judgment” is a difficult book to write about. I like it, but it tackles such a varied range of sources that it raises a lot of intriguing questions. Certainly more than can be covered in one blog post so, for now, I’ll leave them for a later post. For now I’ll start from the popular, if incorrect, view of the arrival of Copernicanism.
Sometime in the 16th century Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that contrary to the teachings of the church, the Earth went round the Sun. Fearing condemnation by the Church he refused to publish his theory until his death. The next day Galileo buys a copy of the book and is inspired to discover Jupiter’s moons with a telescope. This proves Copernicus’s theory and he tells the world about it. In the Vatican all hell breaks loose, figuratively speaking. The Inquistion is sent to deal with Galileo, much to his surprise, and so the church becomes an army of darkness in the War for Enlightenment.
The above is nonsense, but perhaps a fair stereotype of the Science vs. Religion battle that continues to this day. So what would it mean More >
The Michelangelo Code
Apr 12th
Last Judgement. Fresco in the Sistene Chapel by Michelangelo.
IN THE MIDST OF ALL assuredly dwells the Sun. For in this most beautiful who would place this luminary in any other or better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? Indeed, some rightly call Him the Light of the World, others, the Mind or ruler of the Universe: Trismegistus names him the visible God, Sophocles’ Electra calls him the all-seeing. So indeed the Sun remains, as if in his kingly dominion, governing the family of Heavenly bodies which circles around him.
The most interesting talk of the NAM historical session was the excellently titled Michelangelo Code. Valerie Shrimplin based her talk on part of her PhD thesis Sun Symbolism and Cosmology in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ available from Truman State University Press. It tackles something that initially doesn’t seem to be a problem. She also covers this in her paper of the same title in the Sixteenth Century Journal (Vol 21.4 1990 pp 607-44 JSTOR) which I’ve lifted the above quote from. The text above seems a reasonable description of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. In fact it’s from De Revolutionibus, by Nicholas Copernicus describing his heliocentric cosmology. Did Michelangelo paint Copernicus’s heavens More >
Nothing dates like the Future
Nov 12th
Cyberman 2006 edition. Photo uploaded by Irregular Shed.
The Cybermen were always going to be a difficult enemy to update for the new Doctor Who. For Americans, or anyone else who hasn’t followed the series the Cybermen are a species that’s altered their bodies with technology and seek to convert biological lifeforms into biomechanical hybrids. They’re an implacable enemy and go around shouting “Resistance is useless!” in an emotionless way.
Given the budget for Doctor Who they were never going to be able to compete with the Borg prosthetics, which will no doubt also look terribly dated within a couple of decades. Going back to Metropolis was a stroke of genius.
Metropolis – Der Maschinen-Mensch/Maria. Photo by Dirty Bunny.
Roll on the Méliès revival.
