scholarly journals Mensch - Maske - Tier. Zu den Entstehungsbedingungen der Karikatur

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 9-31
Author(s):  
Simone Voegtle
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Figure

Das Tier kann nicht nur auf eine lange und vielfältige Präsenz als Motiv der bildenden Kunst zurückblicken, sondern übte darüber hinaus einen grossen Einfluss auf die Darstellung der menschlichen Gestalt im antiken Griechenland aus. Dieser mehr oder weniger direkte Bezug zwischen der tierischen und der menschlichen Form zeigte sich vor allem in zwei Bereichen – der Maske und der Karikatur. Während im einen das Raubtiergesicht die Gestaltung früher griechischer Masken beeinflusste, griff der andere auf tierische Charakteristika zur Verzerrung der menschlichen Gestalt zurück.   The animal has not only a longue and diverse presence as a motive in the visual arts, but  above that has influenced in a important way the representation of the human figure in Greek antiquity. This more or less direct connection between the animal and the human form becomes particularly apparent in two domains – the mask and the caricature. While the face of the feline predator influenced the configuration of the early Greek mask, the caricature used animal characteristics to distort the human figure.

scholarly journals The creation of beauty by its destruction: the idoloclastic aesthetic in modern and contemporary Jewish art

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Raphael
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Second Commandment

Contemporary commentators are well aware that the Jewish tradition is not an aniconic one. Far from suppressing art, the Second Commandment produces it. And not just abstract art; it also uses halakhically mandated idoloclastic techniques to produce figurative images that at once cancel and restore the glory (kavod) of the human. This article suggests that Jewish art’s observance of the Second Commandment’s proscription of idolatrous images (a commandment that belongs indivisibly with the First) is ever more relevant to a contemporary image-saturated mass culture whose consumption induces feelings of both hubris and self-disgust or shame. The article revisits Steven Schwarzschild’s interpretation of the halakhic requirement that artists should deliberately misdraw or distort the human form and Anthony Julius’s account of Jewish art as one that that mobilizes idol breaking. As an aesthetic consequence of the rabbinic permission to mock idols – and thereby render the ideological cults for which they are visual propaganda merely laughable or absurd – distortive, auto-destructive and other related forms of Jewish art are not intended to alienate the sanctity of the human. On the contrary, by honouring the transcendence of the human, especially the face, idoloclastic art knows the human figure as sublime, always exceeding any representation of its form. Idoloclastic anti-images thereby belong to a messianic aesthetic of incompletion that knows the world as it ought to be but is not yet; that remains open to its own futurity: the restoration of dignity, in love.

Teaching Essential Drawing Principles in Relation to the Human Figure

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Rockman
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Visual Artist ◽  
Principles Of Design ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Applied Arts

There is perhaps no more significant experience in the study of drawing than the study of the human figure. One needs only to look to the ancient Greeks and to the Renaissance masters to recognize the historical importance of the human form in the study of the visual arts and the refinement of visual expression. Although the figure’s presence and significance during the period known as modernism and in contemporary art has ebbed and flowed, its influence is always felt to some degree, and no classical or traditional art education would be complete without a substantial focus on drawing and studying the human form. Much debate is currently taking place about the changing role and responsibility of foundation courses for students studying both the fine and applied arts. If we examine those aspects that the fine and applied arts have in common, we find that a concern for communication is paramount, whether it takes place in a gallery or museum, in a television or magazine ad, on a showroom floor, on a computer monitor, or in any number of other locales. The power of the human form to communicate cannot be overstated, primarily because it is what we are. We have things in common with other humans that we have in common with nothing else. Looking at a human form in any context has the potential to provide us with the experience of looking in the mirror, of seeing our own reflection, so to speak. It follows that any significant experience in visual communication must thoroughly examine the role of the figure, and for the visual artist this requires experience with drawing the figure. The fine and applied arts also have in common a concern for principles of design and aesthetics. If we acknowledge the presence of these principles in nature, then we may also recognize an element of universality. Quite simply, I can think of no finer example of the application of principles of design and aesthetics than the living, breathing human form, and the human form is universal.

Fractured and Effaced Façades

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-185
Author(s):  
Ron J. Popenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Deprivation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Antonin Artaud ◽  
Body Form ◽  
Dynamic Expression ◽  
Marc Chagall ◽  
Dynamic Form ◽  
The Face ◽  
Involuntary Displacement

The rise of Fascism in Europe and its aftermath rest ever in the background of Chapter Six and its collection of ‘Disfigured Bodies’. The face and gaze of Antonin Artaud best characterises the tone of this series of violent destructions, lost ones and the isolated (like Picasso in occupied Paris). Amid ‘Veiled and Displaced Faces’ and ‘Empty Gazes’, involuntary displacement and sensory deprivation haunt representations of the human form. The head and human figures presented here are almost unrecognisable when re-conceived by a metteur en scène like Étienne Decroux or a sculptor like Alberto Giacometti. Marc Chagall, in exile, invents fantasy forms that masquerade the figures of opera and ballet performers with colourful, cushioned exteriors in magical scenographic spaces. Experimentation with actor as object manipulator or manipulacteur, like the scenographic, dynamic form in some of Jacques Lecoq’s work, displace dynamic expression to ‘things’ outside of the body form itself. In Chapter Six, some non-verbal performers search for statements beyond language: texts in the materiality of space itself. The abstracted silhouette speaks as depersonalised, masquerading image.

scholarly journals The Ecopoetics of Reparation: Energy, Air and Cosmos in Marie Darrieussecq’s Tom est mort

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-39
Author(s):  
Enda McCaffrey
Keyword(s):  
Human Form ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Motion Energy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Ontology

This article establishes that reparation from grief is a process of “working through” trauma in which death is a catalyst for a re-imagination of the human form. “Working through” trauma comes about in different ways in Tom est mort. It manifests itself firstly as a process “outside” Judeo-Christian and socio-cultural signifiers and outside traditional limits of cognition and subjectivity. Darrieussecq views reparation as a process of nonanthropocentric and anthropogenic relationality (with other species and other non-human phenomena) in which new coalitions and affinities offer an alternative post-human ontology founded in the reduction and dissolution of human form into atoms and particles. Secondly, reparation finds an ecopoetic continuity and sustainability in the narrator’s proximity to and approximation with the physics and spherical production of motion (energy, air, cosmos) and the reparative possibilities posed by this physics to traditional, psychic forms of communication. Darrieussecq’s vision is the hidden energy that operates in space around us. It is a knowledge of the hidden that comes from an acknowledgement of human redundancy in the face of the planet’s eco-vitality.

A Novel Use of 3D Motion Capture: Creating Conceptual Links between Technology and Representation of Human Gesture in the Visual Arts

Leonardo ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gongbing Shan ◽  
Peter Visentin ◽  
Tanya Harnett
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Motion Capture ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
And Function ◽  
3D Motion Capture

As an unfolding of time-based events, gesture is intrinsically integrated with the aesthetic experience and function of the human form. In historical and contemporary visual culture, various approaches have been used to communicate the substance of human movement, including use of science and technology. This paper links the understanding of human gesture with technologies influencing its representation. Three-dimensional motion capture permits the accurate recording of movement in 3D computer space and provides a new means of analyzing movement qualities and characteristics. Movement signatures can be related to the human form by virtue of trajectory qualities and experientially and/or culturally dependent interactions.

Figure drawing and alternate narratives of artistic mastery

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-187
Author(s):  
Mark Graham ◽  
Fidalis Buehler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Figure Drawing ◽  
Training Skill

Figure drawing is a rich and problematic context for exploring drawing conventions with many connections to contemporary art and visual culture. The human figure can inspire students to more fully develop their own artistic practice and to critically engage with contemporary art and visual culture. Representations of the human body in art and visual culture are also relevant to important issues in the lives of students. Figure drawing has a long history associated with technical skills, ideas about mastery and the artist’s training. Skill, knowledge and drawing techniques, when combined with critical conversations about representing the human body, provide rich topics for discussion and reflection. How the human form is dressed, undressed and depicted in art and popular visual culture reflects vital issues about gender, race, identity, beauty, compliance and agency. This paper describes a range of different methods to give the skills associated with drawing the human form context within contemporary issues and to disrupt conventional and uncritical approaches.

Impressions of the Covered Body

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-33
Author(s):  
Ron J. Popenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Stylistic Changes

This chapter draws parallels between the development of photography as visual culture and images of concealing the face and body. The first section, ‘Veiled Exposures’, notes examples of the costumed and draped human form in late Romanticism through Realism, verismo and Symbolism. A history of Pierrot performances and photo portraits in Paris, Brussels and Marseille maps the stylistic changes that move the white-faced role from the classical to the sentimental and finally to the phantom grotesque. Citing the work of composers, illustrators, photographers and writers, associations with death and masking are introduced. ‘Skulls and Draped Bodies’, the final sub-section, comments upon the anxieties present in fin-de-siėcle images, including the shroud-fabric paintings of Ferdinand Hodler and the skulls in Odilon Redon’s prints and drawings. The chapter also chronicles the importance of professional portrait photography in Paris.

Intact Perception of Biological Motion in the Face of Profound Spatial Deficits: Williams Syndrome

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Jordan ◽  
Jason E. Reiss ◽  
James E. Hoffman ◽  
Barbara Landau
Keyword(s):  
Williams Syndrome ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Genetic Disorder ◽  
Spatial Integration ◽  
Local Motion ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The Face ◽  
Spatial System ◽  
Point Light ◽  
Perception Of Biological Motion

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder that results in profound spatial cognitive deficits. We examined whether individuals with WS have intact perception of biological motion, which requires global spatial integration of local motion signals into a unitary percept of a human form. Children with WS, normal mental-age-matched children, and normal adults viewed point-light-walker (PLW) displays portraying a human figure walking to the left or right. Children with WS were as good as or better than control children in their ability to judge the walker's direction, even when it was masked with dynamic noise that mimicked the local motion of the PLW lights. These results show that mechanisms underlying the perception of at least some kinds of biological motion are unimpaired in children with WS. They provide the first evidence of selective sparing of a specialized spatial system in individuals with a known genetic impairment.

scholarly journals Artworks and the Paradoxes of Media-Transmitted Reality

2019 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Christiane Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Significant Area ◽  
The Face ◽  
Area Of Concern ◽  
Universal Reference ◽  
Current Proposal

This article analyzes selected classic art that influences contemporary images. The basis of this study is an analysis of the transformation of long-established and internationally-recognized artwork through digital technology and social media. This investigation also highlights the symbolic meaning behind the representation and reproduction of media images concerning the political impact of global visual culture.Visual culture consists of images of reality that are constantly being reconfigured. Thus, the visual arts develop consensually, based on democratic ideals and freedom of expression. Nonetheless, transgression occurs due to a lack of universal reference criteria and a dissolution of common human values. This situation explains why visual culture is often misunderstood and remains unassimilated. In addition, actual tragedies in life even become confused with art due to the fact that art so often closely imitates reality.Visual arts, a significant area of concern for media outlets, involves deciphering the meaning of images that have been manipulated and instrumentalized according to particular political and ideological interests. The objective of the current proposal is to help people discern fact from fiction and to look at and understand society’s emergence and relationship to democracy. Therefore, visual arts will be analyzed through a historical and iconological lens to investigate it as a form of communication and current social effects of political images.Finally, it is also considered the artifice of images and the absolute reference values of human existence on visual arts in the face of technological progress and their effects on social networks.Article received: May 14, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Wagner, Christiane. "Artworks and the Paradoxes of Media-Transmitted Reality." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 71-85. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.324.

Functional MRI Analysis of Body and Body Part Representations in the Extrastriate and Fusiform Body Areas

2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 1626-1633 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Taylor ◽  
Alison J. Wiggett ◽  
Paul E. Downing
Keyword(s):  
Body Part ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Entire Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Single Finger ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Occipital Face Area ◽  
Fmri Response

This study examined the contributions of two previously identified brain regions—the extrastriate and fusiform body areas (EBA and FBA)—to the visual representation of the human form. Specifically we measured in these two areas the magnitude of fMRI response as a function of the amount of the human figure that is visible in the image, in the range from a single finger to the entire body. A second experiment determined the selectivity of these regions for body and body part stimuli relative to closely matched control images. We found a gradual increase in the selectivity of the EBA as a function of the amount of body shown. In contrast, the FBA shows a steplike function, with no significant selectivity for individual fingers or hands. In a third experiment we demonstrate that the response pattern seen in EBA does not extend to adjacent motion-selective human midtemporal area. We propose an interpretation of these results by analogy to nearby face-selective regions occipital face area (OFA) and fusiform face area (FFA). Specifically, we hypothesize that the EBA analyzes bodies at the level of parts (as has been proposed for faces in the OFA), whereas FBA (by analogy to FFA) may have a role in processing the configuration of body parts into wholes.

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