The Framed Eye
(2596 previous messages)PN2 - May 1, 2006 8:31 am (#2597 of 2750)
Are Rubens and Beuys Colleagues?
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ART AND PHILOSOPHY OR SCIENCE
Another treatise by Stefan Beyst.
Anybody know this guy?
QM - May 1, 2006 8:46 am (#2598 of 2750)
Give me some more time to read your links, PN!
How many pages does he dedicate to the subject?
Now, I will have to go back and quote. I believe it was several sentences, but put into different paragraphs here and there which underscored the statement.
- May 1, 2006 6:45 pm (#2599 of 2750)
In his chapter on Dutch art, Gombrich refers to Franz Hals' the Company of St George. I thought we should look at the group portrait. 
- May 1, 2006 6:56 pm (#2600 of 2750)
Edited by May 1, 2006 7:06 pm
Now for a comparison to Hals's painting of illustrious citizen let's take a look at Renbrandt's famous "Night Watch" Both group paintings were commissioned by governing boards. How very different they are! 
- May 2, 2006 3:17 pm (#2601 of 2750)
Edited by May 2, 2006 4:11 pm
What I find interesting in this contrast is that Franz Hals' painting of "The Company of St. George" is a highly artificial collections of portaits thrown together presumably to display the unity of tthe members of this business association. Taken as individuals, there are not bad, but as a group portrait they are awful. By using this unnatural concepion the artist has created a musealized image of dignitaries which would fit into a mausoleum
There is no doubt that Rembrandt's "NIght Watch" is a much more memorable picture. While he also depicts the members of a civic associations, the persons portrayed by his are so much more alive than Hal's burghers. Rembrandt 's painting resembles the work of a skillful producer. He kinows how to put his figures into a dramatic franework which gives a lot of movement and credibility to these figures.
QM - May 4, 2006 7:35 pm (#2602 of 2750)
Strange. I was going to say the opposite.
Frans Hals picture looks like the men in it are just about to go home after a costume show and enter our living room. They look incredibly "real".
Conversely, the people in Rembrandt's pictures make me wonder, sometimes, if people looked somehow different a few hundred years ago. Due to diet, or whatever.
Frans Hals picture shows: no.
LaPerlaNera
- May 4, 2006 9:34 pm (#2603 of 2750)
Edited by May 4, 2006 9:34 pm
I was going to say the opposite.
Then you should have. The dialectic also leads to interesting conclusions, often far different from that which we would have initially thought.
It is often worthwhile to say the opposite towards stimulating the debate, even if one does not really believe in it.
- May 5, 2006 1:08 am (#2604 of 2750)
Edited by May 5, 2006 1:24 am
It is often worthwhile to say the opposite towards stimulating the debate, even if one does not really believe in it.
I wholeheartedly, agree with you, Perla. I am always ready to engage in arguments because they often help to nuance my assertions which doesn't mean of course that I am always liable to be proven wrong.
Strange. I was going to say the opposite.
Frans Hals picture looks like the men in it are just about to go home after a costume show and enter our living room. They look incredibly "real".
QM,my quarrel is not with the individual portraits, which are of high quality, but with the total effect of this group painting. As an ensemble members of the Company of St. George look awfully artificial.
The twelve good burghers, who I think were first posing individually,
don't fit at all into this group picture. Yet Hals was compelled to bring them together as if he had caught one moment during a session of the worshipful company. The members of St.George's might have loved the painting, but to most people today the picture looks both eery and ridiculous.
LaPerlaNera
- May 5, 2006 7:28 am (#2605 of 2750)
Moi? .... envieux?
That "banquet" setting reminded me of so many "business club" pictures I've seen over the years.
A bunch of fat cats congratulating one another for "having arrived", even if they hadn't really known where they were going.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
- May 5, 2006 12:48 pm (#2606 of 2750)
Edited by May 5, 2006 1:05 pm
Gombrich is very good atn explaining the origins of Mannerism a movement which was at odds with the dignified style of Italian Classicism. Some of these artists, great admirers of Michelangelo overstressed certain aspects of the style of the great sculptor and draughtsman.
Michelangelo had loved to draw nudes in complicated attitudes --well if that was the right thing to do, they would copy his nudes, and put them into their pictures whether they fitted or not. The result was sometimes ludicrous --the sacred scees from the Bible were crowded out by what appeared to be a training team of young athletes.. Later critics, who saw that these young painters had gone wrong simply because they imitated the manner rather than the spirit of Michelangelo's work, have called the period during which that was the fashion the period of Mannerism. But not all young artists of that period were so foolish as to beliefe that all that was assked of art was a collection of nudes in difficult postures....Some wanted to undo them in the matter of invention. They wanted to paint pictures full of significance and wisdom ---such wisdom, indeed, thata it should remain obscure, save to the most learned scholars. Their works almost resemble picture puzzles which cannot be solved save by those who know what the scholars of the time believed to be the true meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and of many half-forgotten ancient writers. 
Parmigianino Madonna of the Long Neck (1534) 
El Greco Baptism of Christ (1608-1614 
Benvenuto Cellini Salt Cellar of chased gold and enamel on a base of ebony (1543)
- May 5, 2006 12:58 pm (#2607 of 2750)
Edited by May 5, 2006 3:00 pm
As I am fascinated by Mannerism, I have read various works about this movement. According to one critic Mannerism reflects a spiritual crisis of the period which was reflected n in the odd and often hermetic works of these artists. Interesting as it is I find this explanation too far-fetched to understand the significance of these works of art.
The eccentic and mentally disturbed Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II collected art works which were to a large part represented by Mannerist artists. The melancholy monarch was well into astrology and the dark arts, and was keenly interested in clever works which in an obscure way reflecte mysterious connection. Archimboldo's clever portraits catered to the Emperor's excentric tastes. 
Aegidius Sadeler. Official Portrait of the Emperor (1603)
The painting below is said to represent Rudolf II 
Guiseppe Archimboldo Summer
Claude Dorsel - May 5, 2006 1:12 pm (#2608 of 2750)
Isn't that movement linked to Gongorism, Erwin, or am I just dreaming ?
- May 5, 2006 1:20 pm (#2609 of 2750)
Edited by May 5, 2006 1:22 pm
What is Gongorism, Claude? I take it rto refere to the stylistic idiosyncracies of the Spanish poet Gongora.
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The Framed Eye