vince’s ear

We saw some illusions in painting before with some examples of trompe l’oiel (to fool the eye) such as a painted oculus in a ceiling with cherubim looking down, and we even looked at some anamorphosis such as a giant skull super stretched so you can only see it in one angle. Now feast your eyes on some of these illusions of other sorts.

Do you first see the nine dolphins in the middle of that jug? Didn’t think so. When shown to young children all they can make out is the dolphins. The naked intimate couple is not part of their previous experience so they simply don’t see it. But that’s the first thing you saw, right? Get your mind out of the gutter!

Maurits Cornelius Escher was the master of what is called the paradoxical illusion. One famous example above shows the impossible staircase with people ascending and descending at the same time.

And then there’s the Escher with the water from the waterfall feeding itself again at the top- sort of a perpetual motion mill.

M. C. Escher pictures are amusing on different levels.

This one I like. Cover the top half, then cover the lower half. Which way is the window facing?!

Salvador Dali is another famous one for making illusions in his paintings. The one above is an ambiguous illusion called Visions of Don Quixote where we see the Man of La Mancha with his companion Sancho Panza, but at the same time we see the bust of a man. This is just one of many from the Spanish Surrealist.

Similar is this man/couple with sleeping dog.

If you look closely you can actually see Salvador Dali in this illusion.

Many of Dali’s illusions involved skulls.

A bowl of veggies?

This is taken from the introduction of the book Masters of The Renaissance by the author of the vince’s ear blog. The posts Cave Paintings, Early Eastern Arts, and Religious Art are all from introductory chapters from the book.

What Is Art?

What actually is art? If you ask twenty people, you’re likely to get twenty different answers. What art means to the individual relies very much on that person’s upbringing, personality, and beliefs. One’s core values comes into play when deciphering a work of art. Do you look at a splattered canvas and think the artist is a genius for conveying what you think is a strong statement? Can someone find a bunch of tossed away bric-a-brac, glue it all together haphazardly and call it modern art? What is considered beautiful, what is aesthetically pleasing? Is the art tasteful? Does it even qualify as art? In short “art” means different things to different people. Even the mere definition is more varied than the world’s cultures.

And what is culture? To understand the art of the world we must first define “culture.” Culture, anthropologically speaking, is everything about humanity that hasn’t been inherited biologically. In short, it is our human expression. Besides basic human traits and characteristics, everybody that has walked this Earth shared and learned a wealth of knowledge and customs of the people in the areas they lived. Depending on what corner of the land on the corner of the planet one came from, the language you spoke, the clothes you wore, and the means of self expression were generally apart of the culture of your people.

Ever since man became a cognitive entity, homo sapiens sapiens, or “Thinking thinking man,” he has needed to express himself in one way or another. The origins of language could have been a series of grunts and gestures, a way of communicating thoughts and ideas in tangible ways. Long before alphabets and writing came into play, symbols were created to represent ideas, and were painted on the walls and other surfaces to convey messages. This early way of putting ideas into visible cues is the origin of art.

Art, therefore, is and has always been a means of self expression. The power to ponder and associate thoughts and ideas, the ability to differentiate dreams from reality, and the assigning of perceived value and significance to real objects are what separates us from our chimpanzee cousins. Since the beginnings of humanity, our feelings and ways to express them have been a staple for our survival as a species. Once the basics of communication have been established, ways of showing others a higher form of feeling must be achieved.

This is art as we know it. Individuals with their own unique thoughts are expressing it in ways their fellow people can understand. Early art was animals painted on the walls of a cave. Fellow cave dwellers looked at the art and knew instantly what it was and what it meant. Certain methods of portraying people and events in art became commonplace in any given community. The leaps and bounds of art throughout history, however, have been a challenging of such readily accepted ideals. Society as a whole has their own set of values of what is acceptable and many pioneering artists who were ahead of their time were shunned.

Like anything else, art has its fads and fashions. What’s news today is tomorrow’s fish wrapper. Throughout history, each society and period of time had its styles. From early art to recent times, art had a propensity toward realistically representing nature. The figure was portrayed to look human, at first ideally, and then gradually more realistic. The 19th century brought some new ideas such as Impressionism, which sought to express landscapes and events by the impression of the light reflected off surfaces. Eventually the abstract art of the early 20th century challenged realistic representation altogether by showing expressions of thoughts and ideas with no recognizable elements besides colors and gestures. The minimalists made a statement about how art is a continuous subtraction since the beginnings or art, therefore art will eventually be no more than a black canvas. Blank canvases and simple geometric shapes become a fad to demonstrate this statement.

We all know that art and its trends of course did not eventually reduce itself to nothing, and representational art is still very much alive. If anything on may say that art has been cyclic, starting with symbols and basic shapes, going to ideal figurative art, to realistic representation, all the way to photo realism, back to abstract symbols, and finally back to realistic representation again. One thing is for sure, no one can predict the future, therefore it is impossible to say where the art of tomorrow can be headed.

So, in a nutshell, art is what you make of it. You, as an individual, have the power to decipher art, and to express your own art in any way you see fit. Art can exist anywhere. It can be the small crafts one makes for seasons and holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. It can be the consumer versions of these in the form of statues for sale which were mass produced and stocked on the shelves of any department store- someone had to design them, right? Artists of all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds produce their art in their own way. Not all art is going to be as great as Michelangelo‘s David, and this is important in your critiques of what art actually is. Good art, crummy art, corporate art, scribble drawings, advertisements, finger paintings, rug designs, body painting, found art, digital paintings, you name it- it’s all art. So it is unfair to the artist to say that something simply isn’t “Art” because you don’t understand it, and it may not smile back at you like the Mona Lisa.

Whether you believe in God or not you can’t deny the importance of religion in society. Atheists being a minority, a large percentage of the world’s population belongs and has belong throughout history to some form of religion or spiritual community. This is evident in the cultures across the world and the effect this has had on art throughout art history is tremendous.

Early Art

Saying the phrase “early religious art” would be redundant. It seems in much of early art history we see the majority of artistic expression involving some religious theme in one way or another. Cave paintings often depicted rituals and ceremonies. Even if it seems only wild animals running or a hunt, it is very possible the paintings themselves were meant as a sort of prayer for good luck to supply the people with meat.

Before alphabets were even invented, symbols and images of the air god and other deities decorated the buildings of ancient Mesopotamia. People from this earliest of civilizations believed in a higher power and held rituals for important events such as burials, and began to record their beliefs. Places of worship were erected to pay homage to their many gods. These temples would be important examples of architecture in the culture of ancient Mesopotamia as would the temples and houses of worship of every other culture through the ages to this day.

Temples were an important part of the indigenous peoples of the Americas such as the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs. They believed in human sacrifice and would have stepped temples where the person would be offered to the god on top, closest to the sky. We know about the religions of these societies by studying their writing systems, which consisted of hieroglyphs. These hieroglyphs were a series of symbols painted on ceramics, or carved in wood, stone, or molded in stucco.

In the Eastern hemisphere, art history is mostly dominated by Buddhist beliefs and thus Buddhist art. Starting around 1 A.D. in the Indian subcontinent, Buddhism would influence much of the culture of the whole of Asia and prevail for centuries. Buddha was mostly represented in sculpture and sometimes bas-reliefs. These Buddhas can be pre or post-enlightenment. The pre-enlightenment Buddhas have a whole subcategory called “Bodhisattvas.” These beings were on the way to enlightenment and offered support for others on their journey.

Medieval And Renaissance Art

The art of the Middle Ages is dominated by religion. The majority of paintings are mostly Christian-themed, representing stories mostly taken from the bible. The Church knew that most of the uneducated masses couldn’t read, so paintings were meant as a way for the peasantry and illiterate to learn the ways of God. These paintings and frescoes were painted all over churches and public walls and portrayed the lives of the saints, Jesus Christ with the Mother of God, and the Holy Spirit, as well as many other biblical passages.

Some of the finest pieces of architecture in European history belong to the magnificent cathedrals and churches that dot the landscape. In cities throughout the world, such as Philadelphia, there seems to be a church on every corner housing a plethora of different religions dating from all periods of time, some centuries old. Indeed these building structures were meant to last, with some cathedrals having about as much stone beneath the surface as was above. It is no surprise people took refuge in the old churches in time of war. The styles and attributes of these cathedrals with their arches, steeples, and flying buttresses are the subject of a much more detailed article to come in the future.

The people of the Middle Ages in general were a highly religious bunch. Christianity had a stronghold on most of the European countries and the priest and bishops were the highest ranking public officials. With plagues and other hardships, as well as basic philosophical unrest it was easy for the religious leaders to control the masses with promises of damnation or salvation. A tithe of 10% of one’s income ensured favor with the priest, thus buying favor of the saints. For a small fee one can reduce the time in purgatory of a recently deceased loved one. It is no surprise that the cardinals and popes of centuries ago as well as today are grandly dressed with gold jewelry and worshiping with fine holy instruments of precious metals.

Prayers were offered in the form of icons. Small art objects were made which were meant as an offering to God. To this day icons are an important part of religious art, ranging from modern crucifixes to tabernacles and chalices. To the people who pray and have prayed to these icons, the object is not a mere work of art, but rather a sacred object with a very special function. The making of these icons was a delicate task undertaken usually by a monk. Strict rules and guidelines had to be adhered to in order to make the object holy. The immaculate surface was painstakingly painted and was the equivalent to the writing of scriptures.

Throughout the Renaissance of the late Middle Ages, much of the early religious art stayed the same. Churches were built extravagantly in accordance to modern styles, and Christian art was still sacred and served a purpose for more than just viewing. But around this time, private patrons were beginning to commission and purchase art for themselves. Guilds of painters became artisans to serve the public, rather than just the Church and government. This meant subjects were beginning to stem away from dominant religious themes and the art was much more free. Religious themed art began to see the patrons themselves painted right alongside the saints or even the Holy Family. With advances such as the understanding of perspective, as well as the emergence of landscape paintings for their own sake, art in general started to become more diverse.

Some religious themes took on a more secular spin to them as well. Sculptors such as Michelangelo created artworks such as the biblical David but made them in a more realistic way rather than the usual religious practice of portraying people ideally. Caravaggio’s holy themes with simple humble looking subjects took the religious art world at storm. Portraying the Virgin Mary alongside peasants with dirt on their feet was a bit much for the traditional Catholics. But times were changing.

Religious Art of Modern Times

Wassily Kandinsky the Russian abstract painter stressed the importance of spirituality in art. His book, Concerning The Spiritual In Art tells us how spiritual life is like a large triangle with the point being occupied by only those who “bring sublime bread to man.” He says the artist has the task and mission of bringing others to the top through the use of his talent. During bad times, he says, souls fall to the bottom of the pyramid and seek only material success, and ignore the spiritual. Kandinsky goes on to explain some of the psychology involved in observing a painting. When we look at colors, he says, two things happen. One is a physical reaction to the colors which may bring us joy comparable to eating a tasty treat. The other is a spiritual vibrating of the soul.

Many contemporary artists still produce religious art in traditional ways. God or gods and important scriptural stories are portrayed as they always were. Much religious art of today is kitschy, with statues of saints and Blessed Virgin Marys being produced by the thousands for the religious masses to consume. People wear jewelry such as crosses and other examples of religious artifacts that they probably take for granted.

Religion in general has inspired, and will continue to inspire, artists to express their beliefs as offerings or homages to a higher spiritual world, or as messages meant to influence, inspirit, or educate society at large.

This is the absolute first post in vince’s ear, the blog. I started this blog so that I may share my own personal insight about all kinds of art with the general public. You can never have too much culture, and I look forward to sharing and gaining information with all of you.

In my posts you’ll hopefully find a wide array of topics pertaining to the art world. My favorite subjects being painting and sculpture, you’ll see a lot on those, but also drawing, architecture, crafts, cartoons, animation, some graphic design and much more. I will touch on certain exhibits and galleries, mostly being around my hometown of Philadelphia but going as far as New York. I’ll write about some paintings and artists I like, as well as create some photo-journal type articles on my art adventures.

Without a doubt I believe writing this blog will be an adventure in itself and it is with great excitement that I start my first web journal. Let’s see what lies ahead, shall we? Take care and have fun!

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