/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Classical Greece considered anatomy only as it was becoming a series of slave states. A shift to a mass existence causes artists to think more mechanically, and hence anatomically as well. That's not always a good thing for art in general.

>>3789314
We fucked up after the fall of Rome and stopped caring about the shit that the smart ancient societies figured out because we were too busy worrying about surviving plague/famine so art wasn't that important - then we started caring again in during the renaissance by copying the greeks/romans - I guess we had more time on our hands and everyone was doing a bit better. Art stops being as important if people are getting fucked up.

The christians decided that depicting nature was God's job, so banned the depiction of objects as they appear in nature. The depiction of anatomy correctly begins to reassert itself only after the church loses some of its political power around the time of the Renaissance. Also the christians fundamentally rejected the idea of knowledge. Stupid people are easier to govern, and art is a very good medium for conveying stories and political thought, so the church kept art and knowledge under their thumb.

>greeks invent physics, art, and philosophy, with the goal of achieving perfection in these areas
>roman empire falls apart due to Christian retardation and german Forrest furries
>Dark ages start
>all previous knowledge lost or forbidden

Guys like socrates and plato were lost in time, the only reason their philosophy survived was because muslims studied and preserved it

>>3789314
other than knowledge lost
it was a dead end career for middle age artists
kings are to busy spending money fighting or securing power
everyone else are trying to survive from the plague, famine or war
not many people want to pay for artwork

>>3789427
This assertion isn’t supported by modern historians anymore, read a medieval history book written in the last ten years.

>>3789328
>>3789427
How did the Greek and the Romans perfect the art so quickly?

>>3789398
>stupid people were easier to govern yet all that knowledge still lead to the downfall of an entire empire
What went so wrong?

>>3789486
loomis

>>3789398
>>3789427
>Dark Ages

>>3789314
Naturalism in art wasn’t always seen as superior, in fact the most realistic paintings of the ancient world (see the Fayum mummy portraits) weren’t put on display but were buried underground.

If you want a comprehensive understanding on the subject look up Coomaraswamy’s writings. Here are a few quotes:

“The greater the ignorance of modern times, the deeper grows the darkness of the Middle Ages.”16 The Middle Ages and the East are mysterious to us only because we know, not what to think, but what we like to think. As humanists and individualists it flatters us to think that art is an expression of personal feelings and sentiments, preference and free choice, unfettered by the sciences of mathematics and cosmology. But medieval art was not like ours “free” to ignore truth. For them, Ars sine scientia nihil:17 by “science,” we mean of course, the reference of all particulars to unifying principles, not the “laws” of statistical prediction.”

‘The modern mind is as far removed from the ways of thinking that find expression in Medieval art as it is from those expressed in Oriental art. We look at these arts from two points of view, neither of them valid: either the popular view that believes in a “progress” or “evolution” of art and can only say of a “primitive” that “That was before they knew anything about anatomy” or of “savage” art that it is “untrue to nature”; or the sophisticated view which finds in the aesthetic surfaces and the relations of parts the whole meaning and purpose of the work, and is interested only in our emotional reactions to these surfaces. As to the first, we need only say that the realism of later Renaissance and academic art is just what the Medieval philosopher had in mind when he spoke of those “who can think of nothing nobler than bodies,” i.e., who know nothing but anatomy.”

>>3789506
Continued:

“As to the sophisticated view, which very rightly rejects the criterion of likeness, and rates the “primitives” very highly, we overlook that it also takes for granted a conception of “art” as the expression of emotion, and a term “aesthetics” (literally, “theory of sense-perception and emotional reactions”), a conception and a term that have come into use only within the last two hundred years of humanism. We do not realise that in considering Medieval (or Ancient or Oriental) art from these angles, we are attributing our own feelings to men whose view of art was quite a different one, men who held that “Art has to do with cognition” and apart from knowledge amounts to nothing, men who could say that “the educated understand the rationale of art, the uneducated knowing only what they like,” men for whom art was not an end, but a means to present ends of use and enjoyment and to the final end of beatitude equated with the vision of God whose essence is the cause of beauty in all things.”

>>3789506
>Naturalism in art wasn’t always seen as superior, in fact the most realistic paintings of the ancient world (see the Fayum mummy portraits) weren’t put on display but were buried underground.
Simply untrue. The Fayum portraits were made in Roman times, where realistic paintings where very well publically displayed (see Pompeii). They weren't hidden underground - it's their unique condition that made them survive all these years.

>>3789496
pointless waxing on, Mt 7:16

When one takes into account the progress of mathematics as the tool and engineering achievements as the effect, it's plain to see that scientific progress in Christian Europe stagnated for a millennium and only started to pick up right before Renaissance.

The most funny part is when Timmy jerks off to how everyone's so stupid (compared to him) yet when it comes to "Jesus never existed!" he drops the ball.
The only direct evidence for historical Jesus are 2 or 3 mentions in contemporary sources. Problem is we only have access to copies of copies and not originals. Copies made by people who had interest in having these mentions in there, no less. I've yet to hear a convincing argument other than "it's ridiculous to believe otherwise". Not saying that he didn't exist, it's just isn't as clear that one can dismiss such claims with rolling eyes and sighs.

>>3789314
Religion makes everything more retarded

>>3789496
a lot of that "medieval time were actually great" comes from the naive belief that finding one item proving something was good meant it was widespread in the whole kingdom. It's like finding an advanced physics book in the desert and assume you found a civilization of engineers.

>>3789490
Kek
/board

>>3789314
holy fuck that op image is crazy meme magic.

>>3789314
>using a single image to try to set the standard of art for several centuries

>>3793490

>>3793491

>>3793490
> be any civilisation with Indo-European influence
> "just put a swastika in everything"

>>3793490
Are those buck teeth on the gridman beneath the swastika bros?

>>3793490

>>3789427
Based middle easterners

>>3793754
lulz
I see it.

>>3789398
How could you be more wrong?