3 ms·

"At no point is any of the art intended to be realistic." Well, except that, say, Jesus is supposed to be Jesus. Adam and Eve are supposed to be Adam and Eve.

"At no point is any of the art intended to be realistic." Well, except that, say, Jesus is supposed to be Jesus. Adam and Eve are supposed to be Adam and Eve. The garden in which Adam and Eve are depicted is supposed to be the Garden of Eden in the Bible. In the various depictions of the Last Supper, Jesus is depicted as having supper with his disciples, and that is supposed to depict exactly that. Jesus is shown as breaking bread in those paintings, just as he does in the Biblical story, etc, etc, etc... Not to say there isn't a lot of symbolism in Christian art, but it's not all symbolic.

iammisc 5y ago
I suppose it's realistic in the sense that Christ is depicted as a human as are adam and eve, instead of something else, but there is no presumption that christ actually looked like the way he was drawn.
- frutiger 5y ago
  But by that logic the person seeing your church centuries later could assume there _was_ a dog there, it just wasn’t necessarily a Dalmatian?
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Fortunately for believers, the interpretation of frescos forms the theological foundation of no major religion.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Except if they were familiar with christian mythology they would not. You cannot view the image and then ascertain the mythology without reference to both written documents and traditional culture. You have to first study the documents and the existing culture and only then interpret the image. I am accusing the author of not having sufficiently studied the cultures traditions or it's written words.
stewbrew 5y ago
Do you actually think people believe Jesus to look like an Italian movie star.
watwut 5y ago
"Realistic art" does not mean "represents something". You can represent things and not be realistic, majority of drawings made by humans are in this category. Neither adam nor eve could plausibly look like this: https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYXNzZXRzLzM5MTQyNmNhZWI5YmRhY2ZiMF9SREQ2TkIuanBnIl0sWyJwIiwiY29udmVydCIsIiJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA4MSAtYXV0by1vcmllbnQiXSxbInAiLCJ0aHVtYiIsIjEyODB4PiJdXQ/RDD6NB.jpg https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYX... - altrough proportions are roughly right.

iammisc 5y ago

I suppose it's realistic in the sense that Christ is depicted as a human as are adam and eve, instead of something else, but there is no presumption that christ actually looked like the way he was drawn.

frutiger 5y ago
But by that logic the person seeing your church centuries later could assume there _was_ a dog there, it just wasn’t necessarily a Dalmatian?
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Fortunately for believers, the interpretation of frescos forms the theological foundation of no major religion.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Except if they were familiar with christian mythology they would not. You cannot view the image and then ascertain the mythology without reference to both written documents and traditional culture. You have to first study the documents and the existing culture and only then interpret the image. I am accusing the author of not having sufficiently studied the cultures traditions or it's written words.

stewbrew 5y ago

Do you actually think people believe Jesus to look like an Italian movie star.

watwut 5y ago

"Realistic art" does not mean "represents something". You can represent things and not be realistic, majority of drawings made by humans are in this category. Neither adam nor eve could plausibly look like this: https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYXNzZXRzLzM5MTQyNmNhZWI5YmRhY2ZiMF9SREQ2TkIuanBnIl0sWyJwIiwiY29udmVydCIsIiJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA4MSAtYXV0by1vcmllbnQiXSxbInAiLCJ0aHVtYiIsIjEyODB4PiJdXQ/RDD6NB.jpg https://assets.atlasobscura.com/media/W1siZiIsInVwbG9hZHMvYX... - altrough proportions are roughly right.