Winckelmann’s view of the Greek statues was one that I think a lot of people could relate to and understand. He mentions “good taste” in regards to art. He also, explains that art should be “pure” and “simple” as we saw in the video. I believe that regardless of whether Winckelmann would have voiced his opinion or not it would have had very little impact on the way that we view Greek art today. I believe that what Winckelmann did do was give us something to relate pure art to. Had he of not done that maybe someone else would have or maybe we would have sought after other works of art to relate purity and simple like ideas to. I say this because you have to wonder what does he mean by “purity” is he talking about the art work itself as a whole or is he just referring to art work and its color. When you say that “art” should be pure and you view these Greek images you can see the art work as a pure sculpture and focus on what the sculpture is doing rather than being distracted by colors. In this sense you can see the art work for a pure form of art and accept what it is trying to express to the viewer.
One of the reasons that I believe we can relate to his statement and why his statement wouldn’t have changed our view of purity in art works such as these is because when you view these sculptures they have no color as explained in the lecture. Now, with that in mind if you have someone from Asia view those images they don’t see a pale, mocha, or dark-skinned man they can actually picture someone of their own complexion whether that be darker or lighter (because there are different shades in all cultures) or whatever complexion comes to mind. In addition to this it makes it difficult to criticize the art piece in terms of color or be biased because you prefer a certain type of color over another. Winckelmann helped us who are exposed to these types of cultural art pieces have physical objects that we can all see and relate it to purity in regards to art sculptures like these. As mentioned in the video the Greeks did use color in a lot of their art work. You can see that in their ceramic art work (speaking of which if you notice most of their work there has either colorless or completely dark figures as well), which leads me to believe that maybe their clothing was painted, but not their skin complexions.
Another reason that I believe his ideas of purity and simplicity wouldn’t have affected our opinions of Greek painted art is because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as he stated himself, “color ought to have a minor consideration in the role of beauty” now if that were true we wouldn’t be able to see colors as well as we do or relate to them as well as we do. What I am saying is that color has been a part of art for a long time for us and in most cases it isn’t the absence of color that creates purity but how much of a certain color is being used, when, where, and how. However, what we can do with these images is see a colorless image that we can relate to as an image of a person and imagine a color that we may or may not feel belongs there. Also, all of the images in Greek art have color whether its black, white, bronze, gold, or what have you. So from my understanding it isn’t the absences of color that is creating the purity, but the lack of different colors that may either contrast, enhance, or compliment another color that is creating the purity and in that regard the color that we are viewing is indeed pure to us.
I really liked that you mentioned the bias that could come about if the sculpture skin or complexion would have been painted a certain color. I agree that having them slate white like this give the viewer's just that a blank slate. This way the viewer's can fill in the rest of the details (the color) themselves. They can use their imagination to decipher the art in many different ways without having color to influence them.
ReplyDeleteHi Solomon, It does not matter whether the statuses are painted or not because it is all a matter of opinion. Some think that the paint would take away from the natural beauty but if it is painted just right without the use of bright colors then the statues could be beautiful but if bright colors are used it could give the statues a tacky and a creepy appearance. Either keep the statues white or paint them with using the right colors.
ReplyDeleteSabrina Sundell
Hello Solomon,
ReplyDeleteI feel that you raise some very interesting questions about Wincklemann's opinion on color. I never thought about the "purity" behind the color like you brought up. After reading your blog, I realized that it can be taken in different ways. I automatically assumed that by pure, he meant that Greek art was meaningful and God-like in a way. I also like how you mentioned that with the white color, one can view the sculpture, the way they would want to or the way that they are used to viewing people or the object that the sculpture is based on.
Wincklemann's Ideology made nowadays thoughts totally different. He influenced people that Greek art was created in pure and white marble. as you can see for most of the statutes were made in white. although Wincklemann's opinion is not right. but it still affect our life and perception of art.
ReplyDelete