11/15/2023 0 Comments Whats harmony in artPeople see beauty in such compositions without asking, what is it? Do we critique a paisley shirt if we can’t tell what its designs depict?Ĭlearly, something besides representation is at play in art. We’ve looked at geometrical designs on ancient pottery, arabesques, and architecture with linear designs. Paradoxically, we admire the brushwork and pigmentation because they vanish in a rich emulation of the object.īut not all art is representational. When we focus on the subject, textures of the medium recede. In this model, viewers’ attention often focuses on the visual subject: what is it? How realistically is the “real thing” depicted? Often, viewers experience impatience or annoyance when they can’t tell what the subject “is supposed to be” or if they feel the technique is awkward or inaccurate. The artifact of the painting produces an image of a visual subject: Let’s take a step back and think about the dimensions of this model of painting. How much do we see and how much do we embellish? The title invites us to think about the ambiguity of all human perceptions of the world around them. Is the tree actually in the landscape or did the painter add it from imagination? The painting raises questions about paintings, and also about The Human Condition. The representational technique appears to be straightforward. The image doubles a selected rectangle of the “natural” landscape, just as paintings are supposed to do. Centered in the pane is a canvas with an apparently, transparent canvas. He paints a window looking out on a landscape. Oil on canvas.Īlmost 300 years later, René Magritte toys with this notion of the painting as a window on the world. (1660), The Painter and his Model as Klio. The distance separating us from the painter invites us to reflect on the artist’s viewpoint, his tools and media, his composition, and our own perception. We illustrated this model with Vermeer’s The Painter and His Model as Klio: the painter at his easel composing his image of a model, all nested within curtained framework of the painting we are viewing. He is Ahasuerus in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Esther.Last week, we explored the Renaissance model of the painting as a window on the world. After the debacle against the Greeks, Xerxes devoted himself to wine and women. He has a thoroughly bad rep: the new Athenian navy won a miraculous victory over his fleet in 480 b.c., and the Spartans and their allies crushed the Persian land forces in 479 b.c. Harmony comes into English via Latin harmonia “conjunction, joining, (musical) melody, agreement among the various parts of the body (in an explanation of the nature of the soul).” Harmonia comes from Greek harmonía, which has all of the Latin meanings as well as many technical ones, e.g., in music, “octave, mode, pitch (of the voice)” in philosophy, “framework of the universe, principle of union,” and in the Pythagorean system, the name of the number “three” in medicine, anatomy, and physiology, “suture, union, temperament” in law and government, “order, good order, settled arrangement, covenant, agreement.” Harmonía ultimately derives from the very complicated Proto-Indo-European root ar-, (a)re-, rē-, ṛ- (with still more variants) “to fit, fit together, join.” Reflexes (derivatives) of this root appear in English arm (of the body), Latin arma “equipment, gear, weapons” and armus “(upper) arm.” Farther afield, Hittite has āra- “proper, fitting” and arā- “friend.” The root variant ṛ- with a suffixed -t forms the noun stems ṛt- and art- “joined together, fitted,” source of Latin ars (stem art- ) “skill, dexterity, art,” artus (noun) and articulus “joint (of the body),” and artus (adjective) “tight, firm.” In the Indo-Iranian languages, ṛt- and art- form the nouns ṛtá- “order, truth, rule” in Vedic Sanskrit and arta (also aša ) “truth, right, justice, right order” in Zoroastrianism, in which arta- is the central principle and the foe of druj “deceit, falsehood, lie.” Arta- is also the first element of the magnificent Old Iranian names Artavasdes, a Hellenized version of Artavazda (“exalting arta- ”), and Artvardiya “doer of arta- ” Artaxerxes (Old Persian Artaxšacā ) “having a just kingdom” is from arta- and xšacā “rule, kingdom.” Xérxēs is the Hellenized form of Old Persian Xšyaršā ( Xšayaṛšā, Xšayaršā ) “ruling over heroes.” Xerxes I ruled the Persian Empire 486–465 b.c.
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