Comments | baleanoptera: Caravaggio in a chapel

baleanoptera

Caravaggio in a chapel

Nov 04, 2006 19:35

So in a week I’ll be off to Rome, and mostly it will be work, but parts will be leisure. One thing I always do is go to St. Maria del Popolo. Partially to see the Caravaggio paintings in the Cerasi chapel and partially to see if the bag ladies with horrific smell are still there ( Read more... )

art, rome, ramblings on culture

Comments 7

nutmeg3 November 4 2006, 20:38:24 UTC

What a beautiful essay on perspective and what really matters. Thank you. (And thank you for giving me the perfect place to use my Caravaggio icon. *g*)

baleanoptera November 5 2006, 08:37:02 UTC

And such a lovely icon it is! I think the Caravaggio movie is one of those strange art-movies I don't mind so much - mostly because a very young Sean Bean. *g*

And thank you for such wonderful words.

jorun November 4 2006, 20:41:16 UTC

I could not agree more. The personal aspect has long been seen as a bit --rodent like, and sure, sometimes it is, as we know from personal experience. (Blue tongue alert) But sometimes I think it is the academic world that is a bit rash in its denial of the worth of the experience if the art as something more than art. I wonder if v A is the laughing stock of the BM, since he get musicians to come and play on the harding-fiddles, but as he says, they loose their value if they are artifacts only. A good man.

baleanoptera November 11 2006, 16:29:01 UTC

Indeed! In a way I can understand why reducing art to lines, perspectives and traditions is an easy way. It makes it resemble natural science, and it's "easier" to refute it since it's a pure technical discussion.
That said looking at art this way does rob it of a certain value, as well as the important discussion of why we make art in the first place.

The Danbolt-approach (for yes, of course it was him. ;D) also tends to see art as a linear evolution, in many ways separate from the world at large. The Art-institution as a lonely island without important references to other islands. And that? Is just bull shit.

jorun November 12 2006, 15:23:51 UTC

"It makes it resemble natural science, and it's "easier" to refute it since it's a pure technical discussion.
That said looking at art this way does rob it of a certain value, as well as the important discussion of why we make art in the first place."

Yes!
This is a problem with being in the CS today.Being able to tell what creates the color blue, or what it consists of, doesn't really explain it when it is used in art.
Why is it that the CS's are so afraid of coming up with alternative methods all together? Why do we fall back on the NS ways of measuring things, as if they were the only alternatives, as if the use of those methods are what legitimizes the more non-scientific approaches? If something can't me measured, it doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist.

alexandral November 5 2006, 01:31:30 UTC

I love what you say about the context in art. It is amazing as well that the true works of art are always interpreted differently by different people. I know that the artist probably meant something specific when he was creating his painting, but as the centuries go by, the future generations marvel and discover something new every time.

PS: I selfishly hope they have Internet in Rome :)

baleanoptera November 5 2006, 08:42:48 UTC

I know that the artist probably meant something specific when he was creating his painting, but as the centuries go by, the future generations marvel and discover something new every time.

Very true - and it's not always the technical, correct art-historical notions either. I think, in retrospect, this was one of the events that inspired me to look at art from the viewer's perspective - and to look at how art affects us and why.

It was also an event that made me realise that just because someone is a professor, does not mean they have common sense.;)

I selfishly hope they have Internet in Rome

They do! :D *does a dance of joy for that*