Visual Art

2020 ◽  
pp. 6-31
Author(s):  
G. O. Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Visual Detail ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Group Structures

Visual art shows the ancient interest in motion palpably, and helps in perceiving both differences between depictions in art and literature and aspects they have in common. Mostly well-known works of art are chosen for detailed discussion. A Corinthian arbyallos shows leaping in a dance as an action admired in itself; a Boeotian skyphos gives a dynamic picture of Odysseus blown by the wind. The stele of Dexileos presents a moment of motion just before a decisive event, as does a wall-painting of Pentheus. Still further back before events come the discus-thrower (Discobolus) and a painting of Medea. A wall-painting of Hades and Persephone and Exekias’ vase-painting of Dionysus show gods in motion at the start and in the sequel of events. Artistic depictions exploit space, visual detail, and the regularity of motion; the viewer’s knowledge is important, as in literature. Lessing misguidedly thinks that literature is more suited to depicting motion; literature can do more with time, but less with physical detail and space. The contribution of the reader’s or listener’s imagination does not reduce the significance of described motion, any more than the contribution of the viewer reduces the significance of depicted thought. Part of literature’s interest in art is an interest in motion, as in ekphrasis or Pindar. Art and literature together show important variables (like speed), oppositions (as between individual and a group), structures (as of male and female). In literature, language is important to what motion arrests attention.

Atalanta as Model: The Hunter and the Hunted

1996 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith M. Barringer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Male Perceptions ◽  
Material Record ◽  
Insight Into

Atalanta, devotee of Artemis and defiant of men and marriage, was a popular figure in ancient literature and art. Although scholars have thoroughly investigated the literary evidence concerning Atalanta, the material record has received less scrutiny. This article explores the written and visual evidence, primarily vase painting, of three Atalanta myths: the Calydonian boar hunt, her wrestling match with Peleus, and Atalanta's footrace, in the context of rites of passage in ancient Greece. The three myths can be read as male and female rites of passage: the hunt, athletics, and a combination of prenuptial footrace and initiatory hunt. Atalanta plays both male and female initiatory roles in each myth: Atalanta is not only a girl facing marriage, but she is also a female hunter and female ephebe. She is the embodiment of ambiguity and liminality. Atalanta's status as outsider and as paradoxical female is sometimes expressed visually by her appearance as Amazon or maenad or a combination of the two. Her blending of gender roles in myth offers insight into Greek ideas of social roles, gender constructs, and male perceptions of femininity. Erotic aspects of the myths of the Calydonian boar hunt and the footrace, and possibly also her wrestling match with Peleus, emphasize Atalanta as the object of male desire. Atalanta challenges men in a man's world and therefore presents a threat, but she is erotically charged and subject to male influence and dominance.

Landscape

Cyclops ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 36-78
Author(s):  
Mercedes Aguirre ◽  
Richard Buxton
Keyword(s):  
Wall Painting ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Geographical Locations

Where did the Cyclopes live, and where did they work? The answers are surprisingly complex. Some of the complexities derive from the fact that the Cyclopes are linked with distinct types of work—building, metalworking, herding—each of which relates differently to the natural setting. Then there are divergences between genres: epic, satyr play, pastoral, vase painting, and wall painting each has its own characteristic ways of evoking landscape; moreover, needless to say, individual narratives also exploit particular nuances. Next, various topographical features appear in myths of the Cyclopes, including cave, sea, seashore, mountain, volcano, island, pastureland, and city, the last mentioned being enclosed by that indispensable boundary, a wall; the interplay between all these features complicates the overall picture. Finally, there are significant diachronic shifts, involving especially the various geographical locations in which chronologically disparate sources place the pastoral ogres. In this chapter Aguirre and Buxton try to tease out these intricacies, and to investigate how they impact on wider issues about Cyclopean mythology.

A Medieval Latin Development of the ‘Etymology’ of St. Martin's Name: (Anecdota Martiniana III)

Traditio ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (S1) ◽  
pp. 189-201
Author(s):  
Bernard M. Peebles
Keyword(s):  
Single Word ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Jacobus De Voragine ◽  
Legenda Aurea ◽  
Hilary Of Poitiers ◽  
Lives Of The Saints ◽  
Narrative Element

The lives of the saints and other sacred narratives contained in the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine are often seen as sources of late-medieval works of art and literature. Little of such importance, however, has been ascribed to a non-narrative element which appears at the head of many of the chapters — an ‘etymology’ of a saint's name set out to show that one can find in that single word, if its elements are duly discerned and interpreted, an indication of some of the virtues which were especially characteristic of the saint. Jacobus' handling of the name of St. Hilary of Poitiers is typical: Hilarius dictus est quasi hilaris, quia in seruitute Dei ualde hilaris fuit, uel dicitur Hilarius quasi alarius, ab altus et ares uirtus, quia fuit altus in scientia et uirtuosus in uita [a third etymology follows]. (p. 98)

Hearsay

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina Kleege
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Autobiographical Accounts ◽  
Mental Imaging

This chapter returns to Denis Diderot and speculates on how his life-long fascination with blindness may have influenced his theories on visual art. For example, why does he open “Notes on Painting” (1765) with a description of a blind woman? His Salon Reviews, which are considered by many to be foundational works of art criticism, employ a number of techniques to describe art work for people who could not see it for themselves. This chapter closely examines his account of his friendship with a young blind woman, Melanie de Salignac, and compares their conversations to autobiographical accounts of other blind writers, activists, scientists, and artists discussing their tactile perceptions and mental imaging.

On the Popcultural Life of Historical Works of Art in Humorous Advertising

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Anna Stwora
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Works Of Art

The paramount objective of this paper is to discuss the popcultural life of historical works of art in selected humorous ads. Firstly, the workings of the incongruityresolution theory of humour and script opposition are presented. Then, the author proceeds to the topic of popculturing visual art in ads. Finally, attention is paid to specific instances of popculturing and funification in several art-related multimodal ads, which makes it possible to see the mechanisms of humour elicitation resultant from the ongoing displacement of historical works of art and their transference into the pop-cultural and advertising realms. To this end, the author gathered a collection of ads in English in which visual art is used in order to introduce humour.

The art of deceit: Pseudolus and the nature of reading

1996 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Sharrock
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Art Critics

Reading is delusion. In order to read, we have to suspend certain standards of reality and accept others; we have to offer ourselves to deceit, even if it is an act of deception of which we are acutely aware. One way of considering this paradoxical duality in the act of reading (being deceived while being aware of the deception) is more or less consciously to posit multiple levels of reading, whereby the deceived reader is watched by an aware reader, who is in turn watched by a super-reader; and so it continues. The ancient art critics, obsessed as they were with deceptive realism, provide in anecdotal form a good example of such multiplicity of perception when they tell stories of birds trying to peck at painted grapes, horses trying to mate with painted horses, even humans deceived by the lifelikeness of works of art. Such stories act as easy but potent signifiers of ‘realism’ in ancient art criticism, by showing the reactions of a ‘naive reader’ (the animals) whose deception the aware reader can enter into but also see exposed. In verbal or visual art parading itself as realistic, the artistic pretence of a pose of reality is, at some level, intended to be seen as deceptive; when it is non-realistic, or anti-realistic, or even stubbornly abstract (which it rarely is), art still demands that the reader suspend ordinary perception. But deception alone is not enough: ‘deceit’ only becomes artistic when a viewer sees through it, for a work of art which is so lifelike that no-one realizes it is not real has not entered the realm of art. The appreciation of deception happens at the moment when the deception is undone, or by the imaginative creation of a less sophisticated reader who has not seen through the deceit. That is what happens in comedy, more overtly than in other artforms, but in the same way.

Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters

1965 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 90-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Vase Painting ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Artistic Style ◽  
Rule Of Thumb ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Rare Combination ◽  
Works Of Art

Rather less than a century ago Morelli began a revolution in art-historical method by demonstrating that every painter has his formulae for rendering details—ears, eyes, hands, drapery-folds and so on—amounting to a personal system; and that, for attribution, a study of these minutiae affords a valuable check on, if not a sounder basis than, a general sense of style; or rather that the two together form the only sound basis. There is no rule of thumb. Formulae are the artist's servants, not his masters. They appear and vanish, change and merge, according to the development of his technique and style, the influences he undergoes, the speed at which he is working, all the circumstances of his art; but in much of any painter's work they will be found recurring; rarely, as a system, in another's. Morellian method can only be effectively used by one who, like Morelli himself, is sensitive to works of art not only as aesthetic achievements but as expressions of personality; but without the tools of his forging it is impossible for sensitivity alone to make much headway. The study of Italian painting before Morelli was a chaos of unchecked traditions and conflicting hunches. Despite fine work by Hartwig, Furtwängler and others, the study of red-figure vase-painting remained much the same (without the traditions) until Beazley brought to it a rare combination of sensitivity to personal artistic style with Morellian discipline.

scholarly journals Widening Sphere of Modern Art and Literature in Nepal: A study of the interface between them

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-27
Author(s):  
Abhi Subedi
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Great Role ◽  
Cultural Consciousness ◽  
Art Students ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Basic Argument

I see modernism in painting in this region as an evolutionary process that should trigger discussions about its constituent features. This argument harps on the two questions. Is modernism only an emulation of the Western style and methods in paintings and literature, or is it also the evolution of native cultural consciousness that is reflected in the experiments made by painters in art and by writers in creative literary works? To answer these questions, this article includes discussions about evolutions of modernism in paintings and culture in meta-artistic and literary discourses. Examples are drawn from very selective discussions about literature and works of art for reason of space. The basic argument of this article is that modernism in Nepali paintings should be seen in its evolutionary process. Modernism in art is not a condition that we see in palpable form today. It has grown over a long period of creative engagements and efforts both by painters and literary writers. Nepali art students' exposure to art education in Kolkata and literary writers' engagements with print-capitalism in Banaras over a century ago have played significant roles in introducing modernism in both paintings and literature. But I have said clearly that the use of the Western techniques and education has played great role in this process. We can see that in the interface between art and literature, which should be seen in the widening sphere of such sharing in terms of both techniques, and native orientations.

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