Evanescent art that isn't

[sartorias]

Thanks to green_knight for this link to a twelfth century boy's doodlesI've always loved these brief glimpses of real people. A treasured memory is the front leaves of a very battered and dull Latin historical treatise aimed at schoolboys, printed in the early 1600s, on which some unknown boy had sketched out different styles of doublets. He'd also practiced

Comments

[asakiyume]

I loved the twelfth-century boy's doodles too! So wonderful, so easy to understand :-)

The video on the Egyptian doodling that you link to was interesting too--I was fascinated to see the notes and writing--so different from formal hieroglyphics!

It's really great to have the window into everyday life and concerns (or into daydreams and imagination) that doodles provide.

[sartorias]

Yes . . . the connection between me and maker seems stronger because of the lessening of the 'art' lens.

[asakiyume]

"Art" is such an abstraction. It's hard to ever know what it means. More concrete reasons or explanations for things are easier. "These are our representations of the gods, that we make to honor them." "This is a picture of my girlfriend, which I drew because she's so pretty and I love her." "This is what that pile of bricks looked like before we started building the wall." And so on.

[sartorias]

In this context I think of "art" as the object created to endure--to represent important things. To cause the viewer to see the thing symbolized (thence the culture of the maker) as the maker wishes it to be seen.

These marginalia so many times seem to be moments captured as they really are. The difference between the formal portrait of the woman in her best gown, carefully posed before the best furniture, her hair arranged and shiny, surrounded by objects displaying her wealthy and taste--and the quick sketch of her bending down after hanging the washing, and stroking a cat. Both of these are "real" representations of the woman, but the first seems (to me) shown through a carefully crafted lens meant to control my reaction, and the second is made without a thought to me at all. It's a beautifully captured moment made by the artist just because.

[asakiyume]

I like those real-life moments too.

What you say about the formal portrait with the objects showing wealth and taste reminds me, tangentially, of the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, which showed families around the world, photographed with what they ate in a week. In some places (Sudan, Kenya, Bhutan), the food was almost entirely unprepared--literally sacks of grain, raw fruits and vegetables, etc.--whereas in other places (Japan, United States, United Kingdom), packaged goods predominated. One thing I noted was that in *every single place* (maybe with one exception), there were bananas.

The same photo journalist, Peter Menzel, apparently has also done a book called Material World, which shows families around the world with their prized possessions.

[sartorias]

Oh, coolness--must check these out. Thanks!