Understanding Art 1: Western Art: Reading a lot!

I ordered some books for the first part of course today and I am excited to start reading more about art – today is all about reading about “The Greeks And Their Neighbours” (A World History Of Art).

I am just reading about that the Greek avoided female nudity but celebrated male nudity. And I think it is very interesting that they transformed the goddess for feritility into the clothed goddess Aphrodite (the goddess for love). Because Greeks were very particular about their gods and goddesses and they believed that the gods had the power to decide their fate – maybe that’s why they were afraid of the female nudity, because Zeus wife Hera was one of the most powerful goddesses and in showing nudity there is nothing to hide. They were showing the male nude because they believed in the power of males in society and women maybe weren’t allowed to know about their own power. As it says on page 123 “They symbolized the upper echelon of a male-dominated society which relegated women to the home, smiled on pederasty and seems never to have doubted the superiority of men, in beauty as well as in strength.” (A World Of Art History, 2009). First female nude sculptures were around 300BC and female nudes were always in a pose that expressed that she was shy of her nudity and she protectively concealed her sex and sometimes even her breasts.

I think it’s very interesting that Greek Architecture especially the Doric temples were often based on how the architect’s eye viewed the building/temple he was building – and that the optical refinements gave the building/temple a special signature, the special look of elasticity and movement. And it’s even more interesting how we can’t see all the imperfections in geometry when we would just look at the temple with our bare eyes – only if we would take measurements we would probably notice that the building that seemed so rectilinear and regular isn’t.

I love that there is a way how you were supposed to look at a temple, meaning going around it first and then going inside – but never going through a Greek temple. That was probably because they wanted people to recognize every detail, every little piece of gold that was built into the colums to show off the wealth and importance of that specific temple and if you would just be passing through you wouldn’t take the time to notice these things. Going around first makes total sense to me, the feeling of standing next to this huge building is impressive in itself and if that is the first impression you get then you would automatically assume that the inside would be even more majestic.

è Human figure can’t be “reproduced” it has to be “translated” into another medium (e.g. bronze or marble) and find its place in between naturalism and idealisation.

Reconstructions of Greek sculptures in original colours:

I feel like it would make such a big difference if we would have found ancient Greek sculptures in colour, we would have probably analysed them in a complete different way. I feel like there is much more not only life to them but there appearance transforms from just concentrating on the form and on the fine and detailed work of the body to the artistic choice of colour which makes it look much more powerful. It’s like getting a glimpse of the “wow-effect” that people probably experienced back in ancient Greece times when they entered a temple and 15m above the ground there were these sculptures looking alive and real – walking the line between naturalism and idealism.