On Apr 4, 2008, at 1:36 PM, William Conger wrote:
So, what about all of this and your statement that people normally react against human anatomical distortions? Taste can become so normalized that it's not even recognized as favoring distortions, as in the Sears Standard and in perspectival systems.
The Sears-standard is another version of the Lyssipian v. Polykleitian standard. Or the old 7-head or 8-head rule for the height of a human. Or, it its own way, the preference for Twiggy over "Rubensian" bodies. It's well known that fashion drawings are way too leggy and out of proportion, but then too, no one believes that the runway strut is in any way a normal way to walk. This sense of "taste" (or preference) is more like "fashion," in the sense that, for a while, the artifice is accepted as relatively "natural" or "normal," but then preferences change, other artists come along and, in trying to be noticed among all the others, the new guys shift one or two methods, adopt new tropes, and voila, a new style is accepted and the old style can be seen for what it was, an artifice.
Buy what you claim is still arguing the subordinate point: Instructing, informing, pointing out that when one does X, others will (normally, typically) perceive it this way--that's "percieve" in the strict sense of processing the perceptual data, not construing it in a social or cultural way--is far less susceptible to the influence of taste, per se. But if you then say, "good painting consists of using proper perspective," then you've slipped into the role of taste- mongering, for good or bad.
I remember as a kid learning how to draw with, first, one-point perspective, then two, and then three, and being pretty excited about learning how it worked. But soon enough, I ran into the limitations of each, and by dint of seeing many more pictures, I discerned how the illusion of depth didn't turn on how well one or the other scheme of perspective was executed. But the illusion of depth *did* turn on how convinced I was that the image cohered. The Lorenzettis' Good and Bad Government frescoes, for example, are a great mish-mash of misaligned rooftops, out-of-scale or spatially ambiguous buildings, and other oddities of perspective, but they are at the same time quite charming ... and good paintings. So too, all those medieval illuminations and small altarpiece panels showing, e.g., Christ's entry into Jerusalem, great jumbles of terracotta roofs and what-not. These pictorial elements do not detract from the paintings, and no one misled about the spatial organization of the scenes.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
