when i was in grad school, i had the good fortune of working closely with a renaissance historian, which was an interesting way of complicating my own notions of creativity, innovation, etc. something i learned to notice through classes/conversations with him is that michelangelo is not a "realistic" painter. if you look at the hyper-muscular figures from the sistine chapel... or the enlarged hands of the david... or most specifically, the radically enlarged torsos of his last judgment, it becomes clear that these figures in no way mirror real-life humans. he used to say that michelangelo builds a figure from the center out; whereas da vinci (and most conventional painters) build them from the head down. i liked that. the abstraction follows the logic of the game, i guess, like you're saying.
Realism is for realitytrevitronNovember 26 2007, 22:45:34 UTC
This would all be really obvious if we could just use "worship" and "game" in the same sentence. You know all those painters were some competitive motherfuckers, and you can sense the joy in the act of painting that is sometimes lost today. I'm sure there are plenty of aspiring painters who are incredibly bored today, and boredom is the worst thing ever.
Re: Realism is for realitydanschankNovember 26 2007, 22:57:01 UTC
This would all be really obvious if we could just use "worship" and "game" in the same sentence.
i'm not sure i understand what you mean here.
as far as joy is concerned, i'll say that the things that get me fired up about painting are rarely other paintings, but when they are, it's like the ebst thing ever. i think it's tough making single images count nowadays because we see so many of them. but i like how irrational it feels to try.
melo xenakis john wooden buster keaton christian renaissancelostcosmonautNovember 26 2007, 06:43:05 UTC
>I'd say that our entire existence is a kind of art, something we create in our daily lives, the remnants and artifacts of which include not only statues and novels, but highways, malls, factories and tennis racquets.
ah'm also interested in not-making distinctions between art + everyday life, James, but ah'm not 100% sure why that kind of blurring is so appealing
mebbe partly because it lowers th bar for people like me who find it hard to imagine writing a novel or building a statue ha ha
ha ha
but it also seem to me like a more TRUE reaction to life, to think of it as a act of creation in every moment
I would also add that the reason why we probably have art as a distinct category is that, as much as life is inherently creative, art allows us to focus all our attention and energy to a game and, moreover, a closed system with its own demands and logic. Art commands our attention in a way that life, unfortunately but necessarily, cannot always do. That's why we sometimes appreciate life so much more after "getting away from it."
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i'm not sure i understand what you mean here.
as far as joy is concerned, i'll say that the things that get me fired up about painting are rarely other paintings, but when they are, it's like the ebst thing ever. i think it's tough making single images count nowadays because we see so many of them. but i like how irrational it feels to try.
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that should say "best".
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I'd pick up Antonio Daniels.
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(The comment has been removed)
ah'm also interested in not-making distinctions between art + everyday life, James, but ah'm not 100% sure why that kind of blurring is so appealing
mebbe partly because it lowers th bar for people like me who find it hard to imagine writing a novel or building a statue ha ha
ha ha
but it also seem to me like a more TRUE reaction to life, to think of it as a act of creation in every moment
...--mza.
P.S. 'nother great entry, Trev
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I would also add that the reason why we probably have art as a distinct category is that, as much as life is inherently creative, art allows us to focus all our attention and energy to a game and, moreover, a closed system with its own demands and logic. Art commands our attention in a way that life, unfortunately but necessarily, cannot always do. That's why we sometimes appreciate life so much more after "getting away from it."
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