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I am continually flabbergasted by just how sophisticated artistic expression was at the height of the Roman empire. Light, perspective, proportion, detail, all

I am continually flabbergasted by just how sophisticated artistic expression was at the height of the Roman empire. Light, perspective, proportion, detail, all over the empire can be found examples of works that contain all the fundamentals discovered later by the old masters. The Fayum portraits are especially arresting.

polishdude20 3y ago
I mean, if you think about it, humans today have no more innate intelligence than humans back then. We just have more historical knowledge of things. Many people that are great at painting now probably never "studied" painters before them. They just, experimented and practiced for years. All you need is the real world and practice.
- camoufleur 3y ago
  Are you saying that painters become proficient (even great?) from copying from life? I don't understand what you mean here. I don't believe there has ever been an artist that hasn't been influenced by art, discussed art, and personally known other artists.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    Art is innate to us as humans. Cave men drew on walls independently across the world. Children make the entire world their canvas. How is it some impossibility that great self-taught artists exiet, independent of others? Especially given the hundreds of thousands of years of human history? The billions of lives, trillions of human hours lived. You can say definitively that there has never been a singular artist born into a family of non-artists, who mastered their craft without any foreknowledge of those before him? Besides the general absurdity of your claim, how are you surprised that an artist can become great solely by drawing from the world around them? That’s how almost every single artist becomes great. It’s literally one of the most basic forms of practice.
deleted 3y ago
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sacnoradhq 3y ago
The utopian mythology of hockey stick progress denies the existence of declines, both abrupt and progressive. The Romans had industrial scale milling in modern-day France, enough to feed 10-40k people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills Antikythera mechanism predates that by 500 years. I'm curious what technologies were lost for thousands of years. Roman concrete is essentially lost, Silphium is extinct, flexible glass, and Greek fire. Modern technology is lost in bits and pieces: Starlite is one example. Unknown unknowns are the most elusive.

polishdude20 3y ago

I mean, if you think about it, humans today have no more innate intelligence than humans back then. We just have more historical knowledge of things. Many people that are great at painting now probably never "studied" painters before them. They just, experimented and practiced for years. All you need is the real world and practice.

camoufleur 3y ago
Are you saying that painters become proficient (even great?) from copying from life? I don't understand what you mean here. I don't believe there has ever been an artist that hasn't been influenced by art, discussed art, and personally known other artists.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Art is innate to us as humans. Cave men drew on walls independently across the world. Children make the entire world their canvas. How is it some impossibility that great self-taught artists exiet, independent of others? Especially given the hundreds of thousands of years of human history? The billions of lives, trillions of human hours lived. You can say definitively that there has never been a singular artist born into a family of non-artists, who mastered their craft without any foreknowledge of those before him? Besides the general absurdity of your claim, how are you surprised that an artist can become great solely by drawing from the world around them? That’s how almost every single artist becomes great. It’s literally one of the most basic forms of practice.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sacnoradhq 3y ago

The utopian mythology of hockey stick progress denies the existence of declines, both abrupt and progressive. The Romans had industrial scale milling in modern-day France, enough to feed 10-40k people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills Antikythera mechanism predates that by 500 years. I'm curious what technologies were lost for thousands of years. Roman concrete is essentially lost, Silphium is extinct, flexible glass, and Greek fire. Modern technology is lost in bits and pieces: Starlite is one example. Unknown unknowns are the most elusive.