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Almost all eras have extreme, overdone, or ridiculous works done in it. We tend to forget such over time and remember the good ones, or at least the most contro
by tabtab 7y ago
Almost all eras have extreme, overdone, or ridiculous works done in it. We tend to forget such over time and remember the good ones, or at least the most controversial or novel ones.
Some of the depictions of hell around the early renaissance can make one cringe just as much as some "modern" art. The flying wanker from the Roman Pompey ruins is also a hoot.
The lack of perspective in medieval art is still a curious puzzle, because the pre-Christian Romans had be using fairly decent forms of perspective. The knowledge existed. It's as if the early Christians intended the result to look abstract and symbolic to remove it from mortal-hood.
- whateveracct 7y agoI'm pretty sure the lack of realism in medieval art has to do with the commandment against worshiping false idols.
- tabtab 7y agoIsn't abstract (flat) art kind of an idol itself? I'm not sure how they equated "false" with "3D". I suppose that was just their particular interpretation of the commandment, but I find it rather derived and not inherent. If you forked Earth and reran that commandment over different cultures, I doubt the flat interpretation would be the majority.
- michaelscott 7y agoThe move toward a flatter perspective was deliberate and religiously motivated, in order to remove art from the potential for idolatry. It's why illuminated manuscript is such a big deal artistically and why there are so few sculptural works from the period as well. There are parallels in Islamic art as well, where the artistic focus is on calligraphy and architecture as opposed to the more regular forms seen in the West before and after the medieval period.
- goto11 7y agoHow did a flatter perspective remove the potential for idolatry? You are still depicting religious figures.
- michaelscott 7y agoThe idea was basically more perspective == more realistic and therefore closer to a temptation to worship (not all figures depicted in the period were necessarily religious). It's not a particularly compelling argument but there's a lot from the thinking in that period that wasn't very logical.
- tabtab 7y agoMaybe Heaven is 2D. Practice on a flat harp (not flat notes).