Chapter 14: Nature, Knowledge and Technology
NATURE, KNOWLEDGE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Art can imitate, praise, or criticize the world around us. That world consists of animals, plants, and the earth. It also contains the things that humans build, such as knowledge systems, technology, and cities.
Landscape Imagery
A landscape image is different from the actual outdoors. Landscape images are carefully created translations of reality that often have deep social or religious meanings -Landscapes tended to have a nationalistic look: German landscapes were marked by melancholy or morbidity English landscapes emphasized the open-air expansiveness of farm scenes.
Flowers and Gardens
Art gives us: composed, transcendent images of flowers gardens as living sculptures for human enjoyment water in the garden as central motif Little Bouquet in a Clay Jar, is a display of fresh flowers and insects. Bruegel's flower arrangements never existed in real life. He combined meadow flowers and exotic varieties in a vase and included flowers that bloom in different climates and seasons. Bruegel painted only from life, using a magnifying glass, sometimes waiting months for a certain bloom
Informative Images
Andreas Vesalius published De Humani Corporis Fabrica, a study of bones, muscles, and internal organs based on the dissection of human bodies. This is considered the beginning of modern science. - De Humani Corporis Fabrica, by Andreas Vesalius, is a study of bones, muscles, and internal organs based on human dissections. This is a work of anatomical science and a work of art. It also reflects attitudes about human nature that were prevalent at that time. These studies corrected errors in old sources and added new knowledge. The work is a comment on the wonder of the human body and its inevitable disintegration.
Observed Anima
Animals likenesses—without embellishment—are sufficient justification for a work of art. -One of 100s of rock art images from western Libya, in what is now the Sahara Desert, this area once supported vegetation and large animals, like the elephant. There are also paintings and carvings of humans, giraffes, antelopes, and domesticated animals.
Ecological Concerns
Artists who deal with the land and with landscape often have ecological concerns as part of their motivation to make art. Ecological concerns are clearly political and social issues. The Social Mirror, by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, focuses on the problem of waste caused by growing populations and consumerism. -A New York City garbage truck was fitted with gleaming mirrors, transforming it into a piece of sculpture. The Social Mirror also has a performance element, as the truck was part of a parade. -The mirrors reflect the faces of the public, making them aware that they make the trash. Mirrors also glamorize the garbage truck and raise the status of workers, whose labor is not respected but is absolutely necessary.
John James Audubon. Carolina Paroquet, USA, 1827
Birds of America, is both artistic and scientific. Carolina Paroquet, shows several birds in scientific detail, with markings and in their habitat -Audubon eliminated the background to emphasize the birds'defining silhouettes. Drawings in the service of science continue to be made, an artist's drawings can emphasize details that do not stand out in photographs. Audubon's work on birds in North America is still a valuable research resource today. .
Anselm Kiefer. Breaking of the Vessels, Germany, 1990
Breaking of the Vessels, consists of a 3-tiered bookshelf with volumes whose pages are made of sheets of lead. Above, are the Hebrew words Ain Soph, meaning "the Infinite." The sheer mass of the sculpture becomes a metaphor for the accumulated struggles to acquire and preserve human knowledge. Books can make knowledge inaccessible, or they may rot and fall apart.
Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty, USA, 1970
Contemporary earthworks are large-scale environmental pieces in which the earth is an important component. Earthwork artists not only use natural materials but also are responsive to the site. The monumental scale of earthworks, is an attribute of both ancient and modern art. There is an emphasis on minimal, simple shapes, as in Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Smithson saw his earthworks as unifying art and nature.
The ancient Greeks invented fantastic creatures that were either threats to humans or represented them
Harpies-woman-headed birds who lured and fed on men. Centaurs were man- headed horses known for their lustfulness. Satyrs, men with goat or horse attributes, were prone to drunkenness and sexual excess.
The Critique of Learning
Gods of the Modern World, is a warning to the academic who is completely occupied with sterile research or learning that has no value outside of academia. Orozco believed that sterile education passes for knowledge, but it actually keeps the young busy without giving them any real wisdom or understanding.
Mask of Hanuman Cont
His heroics, included rescuing Rama's wife from a demon and bringing medicinal plants to the wounded. This mask represents a mythical monkey seeming fantastic because of the rich materials and exaggerated facial features.
Art and Intuited Knowledge
Humans experience the external environment and the internal realm of the mind and the metaphysical world. Art deals with knowledge that humans grasp intuitively but aren't always able to articulate. This kind of knowing is the product of dreams, visions, and speculative guessing. -Surrealism, an early 20th C. art movement explored the unconscious, especially through dream imagery. Surrealists believed the unconscious or dream world was as real as, and probably more important than, the external world.
KNOWLEDGE
Humans systematically study and examine the world in an attempt to understand (and often control) its course. All art is a kind of knowing: helps explain a specific body of learning provides glimpses into areas of intuited knowing critiques what we consider knowledge
Hunter and Kangaroo, Australia
Hunter and Kangaroo,is meant to be an educational aid. The painting shows the instant the hunter's spear is about to enter the animal. The animal is shown in x-ray style---both external silhouette and internal organs, to assist the hunter with the kill. This is a work of art as well as an educational diagram about kangaroo anatomy.
Wild animals are found in Thai art,used as metaphors for humans
In many Hindu and Buddhist tales, they act in ways not suitable for humans---lust, drunkenness. They show the realistic side of human nature as opposed to the idealized.
combine poetry, painting, and calligraphy.
Qian Xuan was one of the first to combine poetry, painting, and calligraphy. The poem that accompanies Pear Blossoms is: All alone by the veranda railing, teardrops drenching the branches, Although her face is unadorned, her old charms remain; Behind the locked gate, on a rainy night, how she is filled with sadness. How differently she looked bathed in golden waves of moonlight, before the darkness fell.
Site Specific Art
Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. The artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific artworks cannot be moved without changing them. The work is permanently attached to a particular location. Site-specific art resists traditional ideas about the art object.
Op Art
Some art is experiential, conceptual and educational. Bridget Riley's, Current,is a painted pattern of undulating lines that affect our visual perception. The work pulsates, flickers, similar to experiments to test the limits of visual perception. This pattern reveals aspects of how the human eye works. Op Art
Fantastic creatures can express forms of power
TRelief Depicting a Priest Making an Offering, and a Snake behind Him, is a 6th C. BCE, Olmec figure. The warrior wears a jaguar-serpent helmet. Towering over him is a large serpent with a bird-like crest. The animal attributes protect the man as well as heighten his powers.
TECHNOLOGY
Technological Advances - we most likely think of the world since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th C. Technology advanced rapidly in the early 20th C., causing cities to expand, producing structures in shapes and sizes never seen before.
Hunt and Preservation; Grape Harvest and Wine Making, wall painting from the tomb of Nakht, 18
Technology has long been part of human history and has often made life easier. We can see this in Bird Hunt and Preservation; Grape Harvest and Wine Making, a series of wall paintings from the tomb of Nakht at Thebes, Egypt. The image gives a sense of cooperation arising from human labor, human technology, and nature.
The City, by Fernand Léger, was influenced by Cubism.
The City, by Fernand Léger, was influenced by Cubism. Industrialism and modernism has produced forms and shapes that artists have found exciting and innovative. The painting suggests the newness and excitement industrial structures and the precision and efficiency of machines.
Chinese landscape paintings embody both Buddhist and Taoist ideals
The Taoist love of nature and the broad, misty Vistas that express the Buddhist principle of emptiness.
Often a group of people feels so connected with an animal that they use it to represent themselves and their interests.
The dingo is a wild dog that has a coat in colors representing the native Aboriginal people and has the ability to pass through fences The dingo has the ability to pass through fences. This work represents: the wild animals' right to the land in Australia the aboriginal way of life It protests the fencing, farming, and grazing Australia---European practices that aggressively altered the land.
Earthworks and Site Pieces
The earth itself and natural phenomena can become sculptural materials. This work of art incorporates the ground, the sky, and weather activity.
Earthworks and Site Pieces
The earth itself can become sculptural material. Hundreds of years ago (Great Serpent Mound,900-1300) North American indigenous people used dirt to construct large ceremonial mounds.
Qian Xuan. Pear Blossoms
The painting contains: refined brushwork elegant curves crisp ink strokes off-balance, irregular composition unexpected forms in nature beauty simplicity timelessness
The Unicorn in Captivity
The unicorn is depicted: as a brilliant white horse captured in a paradise garden surrounded by flowers and plants with soulful expression surrounded by a fence wearing a jeweled collar chained to a pomegranate tree
José Clemente Orozco.
The red background implies urgency, the world is on fire, but no guidance or concern can be found among the learned. Their posture is aloof, frontal, stiff, and unresponsive. The rhythm of the lines is the result of strong verticals--- the academic robes, the black and white skeleton's ribs, the parade of book spines. This painting is in the library of a U.S. college seen by students and professors.
José Clemente Orozco. Gods of the Modern World, Mexico, 1932-1934. Fresco, 126" 3 176"
The red background implies urgency, the world is on fire, but no guidance or concern can be found among the learned. Their posture is aloof, frontal, stiff, and unresponsive. The rhythm of the lines is the result of strong verticals--- the academic robes, the black and white skeleton's ribs, the parade of book spines. This painting is in the library of a U.S. college seen by students and professors.
NATURE
The relationship of humans and animals is very complex we: hunt them love them eat them breed them extinguish them identify with them project our highest aspirations and deepest fears onto them
Monkey Magic—Sex, Money and Drugs
The surface of this painting is colorful and shiny with thick beads of paint and layers of glitter, which emphasizes the imagined rather than the real.
In Meso America the monkey was thought of as a "failed " human
They were kept as pets and often linked to dancers because of their quick fluid movements. The spider monkey was often associated with uninhibited sexuality (lust). The monkey has pierced ears like humans and when shaken, the monkey makes a rattling noise like the chattering of monkeys.
In the pre-Columbian Veracruz culture, animal-shaped vessels were common
Vessel in the Form of a Monkey is so naturalistic that its species can be identified: it is a spider monkey. The artist captured the animated expression and energy of the animal. Monkeys were linked to dancers, because of quick, agile movements, or to uninhibited sexuality.
Breaking of the Vessels refers to:
all human endeavor is subject to periods of decline and entropy mystical Hebrew writings that tell of the uncontainable Divine whose power shattered the vessels of the universe upon Creation the introduction of evil into the world the atrocities of Kristallnacht, when the Nazis vandalized Jewish neighborhoods in Germany and Austria in 1938
Beyond the Solitary Bamboo Grove shows:
a blur of misty mountains an isolated hut distinctive silhouettes of various trees Inspiration came from poetry and Taoism---that nature is a visible manifestation of the ultimate substratum from which all things come. -Nature also reflected Taoism's rhythms, changes, and transformations. Chinese landscapes are carefully composed imaginary scenes.
In comparison to Islamic garden traditions, the Japanese have different traditions for gardens:
a plan around a pond or lake, featuring rocks, winding paths, bridges and ever-changing vistas a rock display, where visitors do not walk through, but sit along the edge meditating
The Shaman's Amulet depicts
animal forms as a source of power and protection. Shaman - a person with supernatural powers, able to bridge the human, animal, and spirit worlds
Animals
appear in art in every culture, real and imagined. Animals were likely the subjects of humans' first drawings
The Nazca drawings
are located on a rocky, arid plain, no wind and essentially no rainfall--- undisturbed for years. The drawings were made at least 1,400 years ago by scraping the brown surface of the desert floor. The Nazca drawings are remarkable for their regularity, simplicity, and lack of detail.
The Lightning Field
consists of a large, flat plain surrounded by mountains in New Mexico, in which 400 stainless steel poles are arranged in a rectangular grid measuring 1 kilometer by 1 mile. The Lightning Field requires effort and endurance on the part of viewers. It is remotely located, and a visitor must get permission from the Dia Foundation.
The Haywain
depicts a meadow in the distance, with a farm scene in front. Constable's work appealed to people who had migrated to industrial cities and missed contact with nature. His work grew from Romanticism, which elevated nature and immediate experience.
Medieval Europeans were interested in fantastic animals
from antiquity and made up several of their own. Medieval beasts, often acted like humans in narratives that had a moral purpose. The unicorn was very popular in Medieval culture.
Most prominent animal is the sea serpent swallowing a human
indicating the shaman could operate in both the animal and human worlds. bear for strength bird ability to fly
Mask of Hanuman
is a headpiece representing the monkey-hero and follower of the Rama. This mask : represents a divine monkey has white fur is adorned with jeweled teeth displays crest of white hair that shines like diamonds red, black, and green outline his fierce bulging eyes and snarling mouth gold serpents curl at his ears. Hanuman is modeled from the leaf-eating langur from India
The city
is rendered abstractly referring to industrial forms uses repeated colors and shapes, suggests staccato city sounds contains letterforms referring to billboard advertisements is populated with robot-like humans
Symbolism:Ryoanji Zen Garden of Contemplation, Japan
raked quartz gravel represents the void of the universe and the mind dark rocks represent material substances and worldly events the raked gravel signifies waves boulders represent mountains the fifteenth "boulder" can only be seen through the mind's eye after spiritual enlightenment
Paintings from all over the world
record scenes of humans, using their handcrafted tools, scenes of cooperation that results from human labor, human technology, and nature. Two examples from Japan are Uji Bridge, with the water wheel in the foreground, and The Printmaker's Workshop, showing women producing wood- block prints using cutters, rollers, and other tools. slide 89
Gardens often carry
symbolic and philosophical meaning
The monkey, a stand-in for human behavior
t holds an empty vessel trying to capture sex, money, and drugs, represented by three clumps of dried elephant dung. A British artist of Nigerian descent, Ofili uses dried elephant dung to reference the African ritual use of it.
There are two different meanings for the unicorn :
that of Jesus, hunted by men, brutally killed, then rose back to life pomegranates dripping red juice onto the unicorn may symbolize Christ's sacrifice (or human fertility) or true love in the Age of Chivalry, the unicorn (man) enduring terrible ordeals to win his beloved The collar = a chain of love
Ashurbanipal II Killing Lions
the lion's muscles, veins, and bones show its strength, fierceness, and agility. The Assyrian elite admired the beauty of the lion, but slaughtered them in the royal lion hunt. By fighting and killing fierce lions, Assyrian rulers affirmed their own bravery and fitness to rule. Assyrians believed that the longer a man or beast took to die, the higher the layer of heaven was attained
Claude Monet
was motivated to capture the subtle qualities of light and reflection. By mixing vivid strokes of pure color, he achieved the effect of sunlight upon water as seen in, The Japanese Footbridge.. Monet worked outdoors on his paintings in an effort to capture the color and brilliance of natural light.
The painting, Babur Supervising the Layout of the Garden of Fidelity, illustrates key concepts of Islamic gardens that represent Paradise:
water in 4 directions, representing rivers of Paradise 4 squares repeated or subdivided yet maintaining the integrity of the original layout---proliferation of squares represents the abundance of Allah's creation
Flower paintings
were particularly popular in both China and Japan. In Japanese culture, flower arranging is considered an important art form, on the level of painting, calligraphy, and pottery.
In China and Japan, landscape paintings
were popular among upper- and middle-class urban populations, especially in noisy and polluted areas. Paintings like Beyond the Solitary Bamboo Grove made pristine nature once again available.
