I keep forgetting that you have a severely limited understanding of illusionism in art. It's not a wrong understanding as such but just too, too limited. If you require illusionsim to mean precisely imitative of actuality then you are missing most of what it is, the symbolic "as if" actuality and that leaves enormous room for variation or deviation. And what becomes the standard for actuality in your limited definition of the term, some insipid 19C painting? Too ludicrous.
Actuality has infinite measurements, and at least a wide variety in human bodies. This is certainly not to say that Greek sculpture, being a distortion of the body , actually imitates a distorted person or persons (although late examples do exist). It distorts for the sake of illusion. All art is a distortion of something even as it claims to be identical to something. Merely representing somethin absent is a distortion, to say nothing of translations in media, etc. So illusionism, if we give the term any justice at all, must be more than mere efforts to duplicate a model , which is an impossibilitiy. It includes the very things you say about the Parthenon sculpture, the expression of aliveness, and so on. There's ample evidence that the Greeks were aiming at aliveness, a illusion of sensual, physical animate aliveness. They did it abstractly in many ways, of which I mentioned a few. There's more, such as the flow of drapery, illusionistic, suggesting more in both time and space than is actually depicted. Anyway it's annoying to be continually rewritten by you, blinded as you must be by your bad school-day experiences with standard art history books...which may have included an aversion to close viewing and nuance. I've seen dozens and dozens of scholarly books and articles on ancient Greek art and original sculptures, too, and nowhere do I recall anyone saying or seeing that the Greeks strove for or produced narrowly imitative exact copies of the human form, whatever the "model". But then I had a first class education in art history where not one book to be studied was a general art history text. You are still choking on your misreading of Gombrich. Illusionism is a very big word and it's very metaphorical. I can speak of illusionism in Egyptian art, too, of which ample evidence is easily found. Ditto Near Eastern art. In the ancient world, the Romans achieved the most convincing illusionism in their relief sculpture (and some painting) by making stone seem almost to melt into air while distorting wildly. And just for the hell of it, can't you come up with other artists than those few Frenchmen you mention so often? How about a Nazarene or a Pre-Raphaelite, just to change the menu a bit. Grumpy and pushed into sarcasm by your condescending comments. WC --- Derek Allan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Re: 'Yes you can doubt it. It's your nature to be > contrary > to everything, often over mistaken trivialities. ' > > I am disagreeing with *you*, not with 'everything'. > And the question > is by no means trivial. It is quite misleading to > characterise Greek > art - even of the later classical period - as in > search of 'living, > speaking, moving likeness', if that implies a kind > of illusionism; > and it is most certainly not the case for earlier > Greek sculpture - > the Parthenon and earlier. > > Greek sculpture is in its way just as 'stylised' as > Egyptian or > African or any great art. It is simply that its > style often makes more > use of 'naturalistic' devices than many others. The > only style that > approaches true illusionism (with one or two minor > exceptions) is, as > I say, the 19th century academic style and its > modern avatars. And > those of course are abject failures - not art at > all. > > I remember when I was young being told over and over > again - and > reading over and over again - the good old art > history mantra that > Greek art is a 'triumph of naturalism', 'realism' > etc. It was only > when I began to see how misleading this claim is > that I really began > to admire Greek sculpture. The Victory of > Samothrace (eg) is not a > triumph of naturalism at all, and neither are the > Parthenon works in > the British Museum and much else besides. They are a > triumph of > something very difficult to define - a kind of > spirit of freedom, of > human independence, of nobility perhaps - and no > mere illusionism is > ever going to achieve that. (One has only to put a > Cabanel etc beside > a photo of the Brit Museum works to see at a glance > what is at stake.) > > DA > http://www.home.netspeed.com.au/derek.allan/default.htm > > > > > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 8:08 PM, William Conger > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Yes you can doubt it. It's your nature to be > contrary > > to everything, often over mistaken trivialities. > By > > virtual I meant the living, speaking, moving > likeness, > > not an exact measured copy of a particular person > (the > > Romans did that -- and so did some Old Kingdom > > transitional Egyptian portrait sculptors). Even > the > > Greek archaic sculpture was sometimes signed, with > the > > phrase "...made me", suggesting that the image was > not > > simply a representation but akin to a living, > speaking > > person. The classic work was abstract in its > > flattened planarity, true, to emphasize contour > and > > wholeness whereas the later work was > particularized to > > suggest parts to be assembled in visual > experience. > > By 530 A canon was developed for ideal > measuremenrts > > and the distortions of anatomy were due to > external > > observation, not intimate knowledge of anatomy. > The > > most abstract part anatomical unit was the head. > It > > can be reasonably proposed that the forward > distortion > > of the forehead and the straight nose, short upper > > lip, overly rounded jaw, were the result of > efforts to > > manipulate how light affected facial expression, > with > > the aim being that classical calm. Such > distortions > > lessened in the later period. Nevertheless, the
