Re: Art history

"Erik A. Mattila" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Thur wrote:
> > x-no-archive: yes
> > How can it be explained that the Classical Art of Greece,
> > and Rome, was replaced by what seems like very inferior
> > works, but also that it took so long before anything approaching
> > this level of skill and artistic interpretation reappeared.
>
> If you want to make it an art history debate, Thur, I think you have to
> do some house-cleaning on the topic:  you wouldn't be using terms like
> "inferior" and if you do use terms like "level of skill" and "artistic
> interpretation" you really need to define what you mean very carefully,
> to avoid ambiguities.
>
> For example, I would say that classic Greek art involved "less artistic
> interpretation" than, say, early Christian sculpture, on the basis that
> the "model" is more faithfully represented in classical Greek art and
> more "idealized" in early Christian art.  Even when the Greek art is
> distorted from a purely "in situ" observation to meet the axioms of a
> mathematical proportion, I would say the Christian symbolisim infused in
> representations were more "interpreted" (if we're using nature as the
> standard of measure.)
>
> >
 It would be an aesthetic argument.  Like I
> could say, "I disagree, art got much more supreme once it was liberated
> from the stigma of Greek Classical conservatism."  That's not art
> history, though.
>
> > Is the praise of Classical Art acceptable, or is it just that modern
> > tastes happened to coincide for a time, and actually those pots,
> > sculptures, bronzes and buildings were just ordinary?
>
> Yes, it's acceptable...of course.  It's just has very little to do with
> the nuts and bolts of "art history."  From a historian pov, the
> transitional periods are of the greatest interest, when the old form is
> debased from the standards the older forms aspired to, and the new form
> had not reached it's zenith of refinement.
>
> >
> > In the opinion of newgroupers, does the quality of art rise and fall?
>
> Mark Twain wrote "If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs,
> if we had some eggs."  Along this line, you could say "yes, the quality
> of art rises and falls."  But, of course  you have to have something in
> your head about what constitutes "quality."  Once you have it, and see
> that all art does't reach it, your statement then becomes a truism.
> What's really afoot is change.  If you want to say that you like Roman
> art better than late Roman art, then what you are really expressing is
> your preference between art that represents observation over art that
> represents ideas.  Nothing wrong with that, of course.  It's your
> preference, if you make such a claim.  But what's really interesting is
> that for the last 5000 years or so, humans have been making art that
> addresses observation, and art that represents ideas.  That's
> fascinating, in my opinion.  And to add to the mystery, it plays off
> both ways in known historical sequences of art productions of specific
> cultures.  For example, the sequence of Neolithic Greek art to
> Hellenistic art represents a step by step development from a purely
> idealized and abstracted human form, such as a Cycladic sculpture
> http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/crete/cyclad1.jpg to an Archaic
> http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21101m/00/lk01m015.jpg to a classic
> http://www.greeklandscapes.com/images/athens_museum/DSC00860.jpg to a
> Hellenistic http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/sculpt/miloven.jpg .
>
> It creates this neat little art-darwinism with its ingrained ideology of
> "progress" and superiority gained by accumulate effort over time and so
> on.  Yet, the Romans adopted the sequence, and did a fine job of
> recapitulating Hellenic sculpture and even adding splashes and dashes of
> their own with spendid results.  But then they played an anti-darwin
> game and contorted the fine art of observation back to abstraction.  The
> Mayas did the same thing with Olmec art.  There's also an 800 year
> seqence of rock art in Baja California where the oldest are very fine
> representations based on careful observation and the newest are very
> abstract and ideological.
>
> > Is it fair to compare contemporary Western Art with the Classical Age?
>
> Fair?  You either do it or you don't.  I think there is some value in
> it, but it may have more to do with anthropology than art.  But really, >
> What is it that enabled an art that rose to such a supreme quality
> > in Ancient Greece, and what was missing from about AD500 -
> > AD1400?
>
> Again, you're making the kind of value judgement which really isn't part
> of the work of art history.
> it's pretty interesting, because ultimately it brings you to the
> question of why certain works of art are produced and under what
> conditions etc.
>
> > Is there a "style" which future art historians can say exists in our
times,
> > or has our modern culture enabled the individual to produce a
hotch-potch
> > of changing and changeable tastes?
>
> I think this is where art historians do us a disservice - or maybe more
> fairly editors of art history tomes.  There's an idea of the "spirit of
> the age" which circulates in academic thinking, and to enshrine the
> "spirit of the age" all evidence that contradicts the notion gets
> suppressed.  People at any given time seem to produce a lot of diversity
> in artistic representations, and, as we know, only a few survive over
> years, centuries and beyond.  I found a volume "American Indian
> Pornography" in a dark corner of a library (naturally) once - now how
> many of us ever imagined that the nobles tribes and nations had a
> healthy porn industry going on?  It's one of those things that gets
> repressed.  Like Nazca pornographic pottery - we never hear about that,
> even though it was the rule rather than the exception.
>
> > If so then where do they see our art going in  a general sense?
> > Will there ever be a style that schoolkids can recognise, (as they
surely
> > must have in Ancient Greece) that will still be used when they are
adult?
>
> There's no answer to that, I think.  It's something the people of the
> future will decide.  If you encase all your work in atomic-age resin you
> might get on the "spirit of the age" list in 3003.
>
> Erik
>
> >
> > I hope that people will not regard this as a troll, but something that
is
> > hoped to stimulate debate.
> > Thur
> >

Whilst I don't agree with some of your post, this is just what I had hoped
for.
Thanks for contibuting.

On the statements:-
> > What is it that enabled an art that rose to such a supreme quality
> > in Ancient Greece, and what was missing from about AD500 -
> > AD1400?
>
> Again, you're making the kind of value judgement which really isn't part
> of the work of art history.

Historians of all kinds are not just data compilers, and I don't believe
that
you are saying this.
Historians have to assess data and select.
For example, they would not be interested in an object that was inferior in
skill
to a similar object, unless that inferiority had something to say - in this
case
about art.
So Art Historians actually sift through their data and present it to support
their
views which are offered to us in noted books.
The avoidance of all judgement cannot be supported.
So where does your view and mine differ? Perhaps my views and judgements
go further. What use would any knowledge of Art History be if it were not to
put views and styles from different eras in context?
When we look at a Renaissance work, we are much better able to see the work
in say, the way the painter saw it, and be more capable of forming a view or
opinion on the worth of it when we use comparisons with other works, other
eras and styles.
Art History is not only about history, or the emotionless accumulation of
data,
but essentially emotional, and not likely to be understood if not containing
views that allow such "value judgements".
I know that some academicians will, if reading this, jump from a great
height,
but I would like to know how much use is Art History without judgement?
Thur