Ask me about Art

[grahamguitarman]

Hi fellow writers,
I've started this thread as a research resource for anyone wanting to know about historical art. I'm a professional painter and art teacher, and have a very good knowledge of Art history, and the techniques of many historical arts and crafts.

I often teach the practical side of renaissance painting to my students, and can usually tell you exactly how paintings were executed by painters in any given time period.

So whether its information on historical pigments or materials, or practical information on the methods used in medieval times I can usually answer your questions.

 

[grahamguitarman]

This was originally posted in another thread, but I thought it would be useful to copy it here as its handy information about one particular historical method of drawing.

I do love Leonardo da Vinci. I was just doing some research on his works, but am really at the beginning. I want to recreate some of his anatomical sketches for a historical research project, and I was wondering, could you suggest a medium which would give a close approximation? I was going to use graphite pencil, as I've already got all sorts of those and I've done mostly pencil drawing, but I don't actually know what silverpoint is. Can you shed some light? Having someone to ask the details of is probably just what I need to tip the scale for me and really get me excited about it.

Lol I havn't done silverpoint for 20+ years!

Silverpoint is basically drawing with a silver wire, silver when used for drawing leaves a very precise, light grey mark, which over a period of months oxidises to a warm brown colour.

The parchment was usually prepared first with a mixture of rabbit glue, pigmented with bone ash, which would be just abrasive enough to enable the silver to leave behind a better mark (if the paper isn't prepared properly the lines can be too light)

Recreating a silverpoint drawing is actually fairly easy today. All you need is a piece of silver wire (about 0.5 - 1mm dia), which any jeweller can supply you with, and white some gouache paint (such as Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache).

You will also want some kind of holder to put the wire in, simply to make the wire easier to hold on to while drawing.

Coat a piece of heavy paper with white goauche paint, let it dry thoroughly, and then basically just draw with the wire as if it was a pencil.

As mentioned above, initially the drawing will be grey, but over the months it should turn a nice warm brown, just like Leonardo's drawings.

Here in England there is a wonderful little shop near the British Museum which supplies traditional art materials, including silverpoint supplies such as rabbit skin size pigmented with bone ash:

Silverpoint - Drawing & Calligraphy

Whenever I go to London I always try to make a beeline for this place as its like walking into a timewarp. It hasn't hardly changed since Victorian times, with all the old fixtures still in place, and has shelves full of traditional pigments, and old drawers full of otherwise impossible to find traditional materials.

I often buy 'lump sanguine' from there, which is a natural red chalk sold in raw lumps, and is also often used in Renaissance drawings by Leonardo and Michaelangelo. These days its usually mixed with clay and baked into sticks, but the real thing is soo much nicer to work with, and gives me and my students a better sense of the history of drawing.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Okay, I have a question: Why didn't people start making lifelike paintings until relatively late? From what I can tell, European art only started looking realistic ca the Renaissance or late medieval period. Before that, it seems the further back you go the more stylized the art gets.

I mean, I guess one could argue it's just a matter of progress and refinement but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Greeks were already carving ridiculously realistic statues out of freaking stone. So why do their paintings appear to have, so to speak, kinda sucked in comparisson? The sheer level of sophistication between the two artforms just don't seem to match.

I'm asking because I run this RPG set in a world styled after medieval Asia, but the art style people in this world use is very detailed and realistic. I handwaved it away by claiming the style was recently imported from another region, but it later occured to me I couldn't think of a good reason they wouldn't be able to paint lifelike portraits.

 

[grahamguitarman]

There are a number of reasons for this, the two main ones being physical limitations of the available mediums, the other being the influence of the church.

Firstly, one of the biggest barriers to decent paintings would have been the medium they had available to work in. Up until the renaissance there was only encausrtics and tempera paints.

Encaustic painting is where you use pigmented wax to create a painting, it literally entails melting coloured wax then painting with it while it was still hot. Can you imagine the difficulty of creating a decent painting in hot wax! Most surviving Greek and Roman portraits were created in this way.

Tempera painting is painting with pigments mixed with egg white, it is a very permanent and durable paint finish. And was the method used for the majority of paintings on plaster (ie murals ect), the Sistine Chapel ceiling was done in tempera for example. It was also used for paintings on panels ect. The big problem with Tempera is that the paint dries almost immediately on contact with the painted surface, so there is absolutely no opportunity for blending whatsoever. The only way to create a graduated effect, was to have lots of very fine criss-crossed lines, these lines gradually getting finer as the shadow gets lighter.

So up until the 1500's the shading and subtle graduations needed for a good portrait for example was extremely difficult to achieve in painting. Whereas in sculpture, it was actually quite easy to get a realistic finish.

With the introduction of oil paints all that changed, a whole new set of subtle techniques were suddenly available to artists that would allow much more realistic effects to be achieved. The simple fact that oil paint was so slow drying allowed for amazing levels of blending, which is essential to creating realistic paintings. It was this introduction of oil painting that in fact helped fuel the explosion in the quality of renaissance art. The Mona Lisa for example was one of the early oil paintings, in tempera it would have been impossible to paint.

The Second major factor to take into account is the influence of religion. Don't forget that up till the Renaissance, the Catholic church blocked a lot of scientific research. Many scientists were condemned and even executed as heretics. Which stunted the growth of knowledge, such as perspective and anatomy, both of which were needed for good painting.

The Church was also the only major commissioner of art until then, so they tended to dictate artistic styles too. Much pre renaissance art was more symbolical than representational. The paintings being more in the way of church decorations such as altarpieces and book illuminations. This graphical religious symbolism, which permeated nearly all visual art forms, meant there was no call for realism in painting. In fact the visual style dictated to pre-renaissance artists is still insisted on for religious icon painting today, particularly in the orthodox religions!

One of the biggest factors in the growth of the renaissance was the sudden emergence of a private class of art collector in the 1500's. For the first time a wealthy nobility, seeing the quality of results brought about by the new oil paints, wanted portraits made of themselves. With a more enlightened and discerning customer to work for, the artists finally had an excuse to explore realism in painting. The Monopoly of the church on art had ended, and with the new medium of oils, painting was finally allowed to grow into something new and exciting.

Hope that answers your question

 

[Ravana]

Hmm… I'm not sure either of those could quite justify the majority of pre-Renaissance flat art being only marginally more sophisticated than stick figures.…

Well, I guess I shouldn't say "flat art": some pretty impressive things were done with mosaic from time to time. Even those were more exception than rule, as far as I can tell–I've seen cruddy mosaic work from the same time periods and places. While, contrarily, da Vinci could do incredible things with nothing more than a pen, so it was at least possible to do realism, even if it wasn't the glitzy stuff the average patron wanted. This could be a good reason why none of it survived, but I would have thought at least some of the qualities would have carried over into other mediums. Like proportions. Or poses.

On the other hand, it is worthy of note that even sculpture backslid for quite a while after the Roman period. Many Romanesque [sic] statues looked little different from the figures being painted in, say, the Lindisfarne Gospels. Though sculpture did manage to recover centuries before flat media made its way back even as far as Roman or Byzantine mosaic work.

I've seen the development of accurate perspective rendering (foreshortening) credited to increased awareness of mathematics during the Renaissance–and that's certainly where it first appears, to the best of my knowledge–but this also seems too facile to me. Your thoughts, graham? Was this something that simply got missed for thousands of years… and was never happened upon accidentally, even by the non-mathematically inclined?

In fact the visual style dictated to pre-renaissance artists is still insisted on for religious icon painting today, particularly in the orthodox religions!

No accounting for taste. Especially once it gets tied to tradition.

-

P.S. Just ran across this. It'll be making its way to the resource list eventually.

Digital Scriptorium

 

[grahamguitarman]

I must admit I find it hard to believe that no-one noticed perspective before - I mean you only have to look to see it. Maybe they ignored perspective in the same way they ignored anatomy and realism?

Like I said, there was an emphasis on symbolism and decoration in the pre renaissance period, and this even extended to sculpture at times. Its very easy for our modern minds to say 'how could they ignore reality and not be able to draw in three dimensions'. But it wasn't a case of not being able to, it was a case of not being allowed to. Or not wanting to.

If you look at Chinese art it never attempted to be three dimensional, or even realistic, it was a very linear and stylised style of painting. It was also a very sophisticated artistic style that took years to master. There are examples all over the world of art being stylised instead of realistic. Do you really believe that the Incas, who made all those pyramids and astronomical predictions, were too primitive to have been able to create realism if they wanted? There was actually a south american tribe (whose name eludes me) that did produce realistic face sculptures!

Anyway my point is to not underestimate the power of cultural and stylistic pressures - especially when controlled up by the church.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Hmm… I'm not sure either of those could quite justify the majority of pre-Renaissance flat art being only marginally more sophisticated than stick figures.…

Well, I guess I shouldn't say "flat art": some pretty impressive things were done with mosaic from time to time. Even those were more exception than rule, as far as I can tell—I've seen cruddy mosaic work from the same time periods and places. While, contrarily, da Vinci could do incredible things with nothing more than a pen, so it was at least possible to do realism, even if it wasn't the glitzy stuff the average patron wanted. This could be a good reason why none of it survived, but I would have thought at least some of the qualities would have carried over into other mediums. Like proportions. Or poses.

This is pretty much exactly what I was asking about, actually, though I think you worded it better then me.

I must admit I find it hard to believe that no-one noticed perspective before - I mean you only have to look to see it. Maybe they ignored perspective in the same way they ignored anatomy and realism?

Like I said, there was an emphasis on symbolism and decoration in the pre renaissance period, and this even extended to sculpture at times. Its very easy for our modern minds to say 'how could they ignore reality and not be able to draw in three dimensions'. But it wasn't a case of not being able to, it was a case of not being allowed to. Or not wanting to.

If you look at Chinese art it never attempted to be three dimensional, or even realistic, it was a very linear and stylised style of painting. It was also a very sophisticated artistic style that took years to master. There are examples all over the world of art being stylised instead of realistic. Do you really believe that the Incas, who made all those pyramids and astronomical predictions, were too primitive to have been able to create realism if they wanted? There was actually a south american tribe (whose name eludes me) that did produce realistic face sculptures!

That's sort of my point, actually. I just find it extremely odd that this approach to art seems so universial, even in cultures that should have been artistically advanced enough to figure out stuff like perspective and proportions and anatomy.

Anyway my point is to not underestimate the power of cultural and stylistic pressures - especially when controlled up by the church.

That still doesn't explain why stuff like sculpture wasn't restricted in the same way, though.

 

[Devor]

Its very easy for our modern minds to say 'how could they ignore reality and not be able to draw in three dimensions'. But it wasn't a case of not being able to, it was a case of not being allowed to. Or not wanting to.

I don't really know that I accept either of those answers, without meaning any offense. But it's not like the Renaissance was caused by a Papal decree: "Realistic art is now okay!" There was a huge abundance of realistic religious art almost immediately upon the styles becoming popular, so the Church clearly embraced it. Nor does a "demand" for certain styles stop anything else from being produced.

My guess is that it's entirely about early artwork being unable to last over time. If most art needed to be commissioned by a King or a Church or another big power to find funding, those tend to be long-term players, and I don't think they would want to invest in something that won't last long-term with them. So I would think it's about the then-limited supply of skilled artists driving up prices so that those large players are the only ones who could afford them, and they just had no interest in short-term paintings.

 

[JCFarnham]

Nor does a "demand" for certain styles stop anything else from being produced.

Quite right. What ever might seem logical, History was written by those "in charge" meaning only important things where recorded (and/or preserved) for us to find in the present day. If a king or organised religious sect didn't like something they had a frightening tendancy to burnt it.

Who knows why they'd bother. -shrug-

Anyway, I'm going to bow out of this conversation now and leave the discussion to people who actually know something about art history haha

 

[grahamguitarman]

Ha ha I knew this was going to get overcomplicated.

Art history just doesn't work like other branches of history. With most objects you can look at its form and function, and trace the way in which that object evolved over time. For example if you wanted to know about a type of sword then there are logical steps you can take to research it given access to sufficient material. By looking at its construction, then relating that to other factors such as contemporary armour design and warfare practices. you can extrapolate why a particular sword design came into being. Oversimplified I know but you get the idea. The same methodology can be applied to almost every practical object from a plough to architectural structures.

Even with abstract concepts such as politics and socio economics, sufficient research will reveal why people did certain things at certain points in history.

But art is not a logical concept, it serves absolutely no useful purpose, it is merely decoration. Common sense says that art should not even exist - in any culture, and yet it does. I'm an artist and even I can't explain the existence of art throughout the centuries and in pretty much every culture. And this is where art history is different, it cannot explain itself in terms of social need, political expediency, or practical evolution. Painting and sculpture didn't fill a need or make life easier, and a sword for example doesn't become more efficient if its decorated!

You can see where introduction of new materials enables new techniques to be used, and you can trace the improvements in technique. But you cannot give a logical explanation that would satisfy a scholar as to why art even exists, never mind the form it takes.

This is the problem when trying to answer the question of why cultures adopted specific artistic styles, and persisted in them for centuries.

I quoted the Chinese example because despite not being three dimensional or even particularly realistic, it was a style that has persisted right up until the present day. Why? because it is an intrinsic part of Chinese culture, just as much as Chinese martial arts, and Chinese opera. Chinese painting and calligraphy are considered the highest of arts to its practitioners, requiring a huge amount of skill to master. Culturally, its worth noting that in China, art and language are inextricably entwined, both being based on skilled brushwork.

Some western eyes see Chinese art as being somehow inferior because it is not 'realistic'. But then some Chinese would consider a lot of western art as being vulgar and over worked and lacking in personality. The aim of Chinese art by the way is to depict as much as possible with the fewest amount of brush strokes. The more succinctly you can paint an image with a handful of brush-strokes the greater your skill. So to view Chinese art as somehow inferior is to completely miss the point about calligraphic painting styles!

Even Greek sculpture was not as realistic as some think. As with their paintings the noses were made to meld into the forehead in a straight line without the natural dip that normal noses have, Why? because that was aesthetically pleasing to them. I've yet to meet anyone with a nose like the ones in Greek painting and sculpture, yet this trait was often copied in Roman art too.



So How do you quantify why any given society created art in the style they did when it seems illogical?

Well it is sort of possible if you can think aesthetically, instead of judging art by its 'realism'.

Early Christianity in Europe was not concerned with realism, it was simply using art as decoration for its churches and bibles. It was more about patterns, shapes and colours, than the observation of nature. This applied to sculpture as well as painting. For example the statues you see in the alcoves of churches were designed to harmonise with the gothic arches. They were deliberately stylised for this purpose. Next time you go into a medieval church, instead of just looking at a sculpture and judging it by the level of realism, try judging it by how well it harmonises with its surroundings and you will see what I mean.



The same applied to paintings, they were either used for decorating Bibles, or for Altar decorations and the stations of the cross. very often with lots of gold leaf and precious pigments (the ultramarine pigment was way more expensive than gold) Again the paintings were stylised to enhance rather than make observations. So paintings in bibles ect were flattened to fit in with the knot-work and other decorative elements on the page.



And altar pieces were painted in a a similar manner to harmonise with the architecture in the same way as the statues. The picture below illustrates this beautifully in the way it incorporates the sculpture.



This is largely why pre-renaissance art looked the way it did, for aesthetic design reasons.

To be continued...

 

[grahamguitarman]

Part two...

Its hard to appreciate these days just how much power the church had before the renaissance. They weren't just a religion, the state was actually subservient to the church, even kings were expected to roll over and beg for the pope. The church decided what people should do, how they should do it, and even what they should believe and think. The church was literally the thought police (and that is no exaggeration). If the church didn't approve it didn't happen, any art that didn't glorify the church was not allowed. and we are not just talking about disapproval. You could be burned as a heretic for producing anything they didn't like or condone.

Nor does a "demand" for certain styles stop anything else from being produced

Religious dogma and persecution does though, no artist was daft enough to risk being branded a heretic, and even the nobility were afraid of upsetting the priests.

Lack of materials didn't help either, today we are used to everyone having access to highly disposable paper. Any schoolboy can doodle whenever he pleases, and often does. But consider the situation in medieval times, paper was a very rare and expensive commodity, very few people could afford it, and certainly not the lower classes. Even Leonardo Da Vinci could not afford to waste paper, which is why his notebooks were so small they would fit in your hand, and every spare inch had drawings on it. It wasn't so much a case of other drawings not surviving, as no-one being able to afford to make drawings unless the church or nobility funded it.

Its worth noting also that pre renaissance artists were not held in the high esteem we have grown used to these days. They were just classed as craftsmen, hired by the hour to decorate things for the church, and no more. Even the nobility only saw artists as decorators to make pretty things for their homes. The renaissance changed all that, in many ways not appreciated today.

But it's not like the Renaissance was caused by a Papal decree: "Realistic art is now okay!"

No but then that's misunderstanding the renaissance. The renaissance was a defiance of the church, a way of sticking two fingers up at the pope as it were.

The catholic church by then was a corrupt organisation, full of greed and hypocrisy, Popes were having affairs with multiple women and siring children (remember the Borgias? that was at the beginning of the renaissance). The world was growing sick of the excesses of the papal regime, and as a result were challenging its authority.

By the time the Medicis came to power the catholic church was already weakened by the scandals. In Florence the Medicis became so rich and powerful that they felt confident challenging the papal authority. And so under their patronage the age of humanism began, an age that celebrated the human spirit and intelligence instead of dogma (this was also the beginning of the shift from feudalism to capitalism).

This spark of humanism gradually spread across Europe, shifting the balance of power. It was largely because of the renaissance that the reformation took place, the State gained supremacy over the church in most countries, and protestantism was born. For the first time many states were run to a secular agenda, instead of a religious one.

Art was simply one of the many subjects that found freedom under this shift of power and influence. Because instead of blindly obeying the catholic thought police, Europeans were finally allowed to think for themselves. And it also meant that artists were finally given recognition as more than just craftsmen and could demand huge fees for their work.

Its sort of ironic that the Popes the renaissance artists rebelled against became patrons of the artists themselves, but you have to remember these were the same noblemen who had practically bought their way into becoming cardinals and popes. Because that is where the real money and power was in those days (In fact the Medici family produced four popes themselves).

There was also a sort of cold war going on between the Medicis and the Pope. The more Lorenzo Medici used his immense wealth to rebuild Florence in a grand style and fill it with amazing art, the more the Pope did the same in Rome to prove the catholic church was more powerful. Just like the cold war between America and Russia, the pope and the Medici's (and soon the doges of Venice) were in a battle for the hearts and minds of Europe. Ironically the church in trying to outdo the Merchant princes, helped fuel the very enlightenment that helped destroy its power over the state.

I've seen the development of accurate perspective rendering (foreshortening) credited to increased awareness of mathematics during the Renaissance–and that's certainly where it first appears, to the best of my knowledge–but this also seems too facile to me.

I've given some more thought to this. Mathematics may well have helped refine the science of perspective, but it was also fuelled by the physical observations of people like Leonardo. I can't say for sure why it was never studied before (no-one can). But I suspect it is related to the fact that the only people who would have benefited from such research were the very artists who were being paid a pittance to make decorations. Where was the incentive to study perspective when the church only wanted flat ornamentation?

And why it was never discovered in other civilisations is anybodies guess!

By coincidence, the introduction of oil paint came just before the renaissance, which helped to make the explosion of artistic realism even more impressive (it would have been extremely hard to create the Mona Lisa for example without oil paint). Though having said that the Sistine chapel ceiling was still done in tempera which was testament to the genius of Michaelangelo.

I still haven't fully explained the renaissance and its effects on art and culture, its simply too huge a subject. But I hope I've explained enough for you to understand how art went from decorative artisans being paid by the hour, to highly regarded artists earning fame and fortune as the vanguard of the new enlightenment.

 

[SeverinR]

Maybe the status quo of art was so restrictive no one thought to step outside of the "norm". The paintings that were made famous were of one type. You created what the people wanted? When a group of self important people decide what is "great", who is to go against them.
Look at the music of the 60's, proclaimed by most music critics as terrible or devils music, destroyer of culture, and all the other negitive comments. If people could not hear it and decide for themselves, would it have taken off so well?

I bet the church and traditional art critics made breaking out of traditional art very difficult.

 

[grahamguitarman]

Maybe the status quo of art was so restrictive no one thought to step outside of the "norm". The paintings that were made famous were of one type. You created what the people wanted? When a group of self important people decide what is "great", who is to go against them.
Look at the music of the 60's, proclaimed by most music critics as terrible or devils music, destroyer of culture, and all the other negitive comments. If people could not hear it and decide for themselves, would it have taken off so well?

I bet the church and traditional art critics made breaking out of traditional art very difficult.

Not really, first off, Art critics didn't even exist back then, art was just a lower class trade, like jewellery or tailoring.

Also, you are using a modern analogy in a culture where those sort of conditions didn't apply. The 60's were sufficiently free and democratic that the voice of the people could overrule the tastes of the minority. And more to the point, it was the working class who bought the records, it was literally their buying power that enabled pop culture.

Historically though, most people had no say in art, even after the renaissance. Because they were too poor to have a voice and way too poor to have even the remotest financial stake in art. It was the mega wealthy merchants who fuelled the renaissance, led by the example of Lorenzo Medici. Its debatable whether many of these new patrons were even bothered about art, owning a great painting was more of a social status symbol for many of them. A portrait was especially attractive because it said 'look at me I'm important enough to be painted.

You are right about the restrictiveness, but when the people doing the restriction is the old catholic church it was not just a case of what they wanted, it was doing what they decreed - or else. If you were lucky you would only be excommunicated, if not you could be burned as a heretic.

When the Medici's were temporarily driven out of Florence by the invading French during the early renaissance, the religious leader Savonarola led many book burnings known as the 'bonfires of the vanities'. During which many great paintings and other works of art were destroyed as immoral and corrupt. Many people (especially artists) fled Florence to get away from his hate fuelled preachings. Gives you an idea of how precarious life could be for artists, even after their elevation to a higher social status.

Edit:

I bet the church and traditional art critics made breaking out of traditional art very difficult.

This did happen much later in art history, just not in the renaissance period.

 

[ascanius]

If I remember my history correctly didn't the fall of the roman empire and the subsequent plagues, and wars, and viking raids decimate the European world. Saying the catholic church restricted art to it's will simplifies things way, way too much. It took a very long time for Europe to rebound from those times, and simply put art wasn't important at that time, food, and safety was more so. To say the church was solely responsible for art being unrealistic and stylized I find as inaccurate. hell Rome was take apart by it's inhabitant to build homes and shelters for themselves, not to mention the Logobardians, goth, ostrogoth, hunnic, and all those other invasions that swept across Europe. People need to remember that Europe was struggling to come back from devastating events. Art, and art realism was not a priority. I think this is the most likely reason why Europe went from the classical age of art to almost nothing after the collapse of the roman empire. Also doesn't art reflect the belief system of a culture at that time?
As a side note, the Greeks had an understanding of perspective long before the renaissance occurred. The Pantheon is a stunning example.

Ok I remembered my original reason for looking at this thread. This might be a bit more psychology but how have different styles of art grown among diverse cultures, or isolated cultures. Art is the one thing I have left out except on rare occasion but it always had a social value to it, or historical of some sort. What I mean is I have a culture of people mostly nomadic but they do have a a few permanent cities how would their art, how they decorate their buildings, cloth, etc evolve. I'm having a hard time expressing this question. Ok I want to figure out how a certain people stylized, decorated their clothes, themselves, and buildings. I think what I am asking how society shapes art? I'm looking for specific things that would contribute to the art of their culture. The question is confusing I know but I want to know how these people would create art and what types. What determines those types, style. Basically what contributes to cultures art.
Second you mentioned something about a specific blue costing more than gold? what was it, and were their other instances of pigments costing so much.

 

[Ravana]

It took a very long time for Europe to rebound from those times, and simply put art wasn't important at that time, food, and safety was more so.

Which does not explain the massive resources devoted to religiously-sponsored art, I'm afraid.

As a side note, the Greeks had an understanding of perspective long before the renaissance occurred. The Pantheon is a stunning example.

Not really. Sculpture and architecture don't indicate an understanding of perspective in the same way. (I'm pretty sure you meant the Parthenon, btw: the Pantheon is a Roman structure.) Even for the frieze carvings, you should probably take a closer look: everything is in the same "layer," at the same distance. (Trajan's Column in Rome is another good example of the same thing.) A better comparison would be to Greek pottery decoration–because here, where there are different distances represented, the background ones are clearly not proportioned relative to the foreground ones, and in most cases represent a second discrete "layer," not progressively diminishing figures.

What I mean is I have a culture of people mostly nomadic but they do have a a few permanent cities how would their art, how they decorate their buildings, cloth, etc evolve. I'm having a hard time expressing this question. Ok I want to figure out how a certain people stylized, decorated their clothes, themselves, and buildings. I think what I am asking how society shapes art? I'm looking for specific things that would contribute to the art of their culture. The question is confusing I know but I want to know how these people would create art and what types.

Nomadic cultures tend to favor the easily portable in art as in everything else. Jewelry, textiles, leatherwork, rugs, hangings, small sculptures: all would be common, and are readily attested in real-world examples. In permanent settlements, they may demonstrate a paucity of "art" relative to other cultures, or they might borrow techniques from their neighbors. Though the difference between nomadic and settled populations is itself enough to justify regarding them as separate "cultures," even if they share a common origin, language, religion and so forth. Often, the members of the two branches will themselves look on one another as being different cultures, so great are the distinctions between city-dwellers (or even sedentary farmers) and nomads… with each group looking down its nose at the other, regarding itself as the "true inheritors" of their shared past, and the other as "decadent" or "backwards."

 

[grahamguitarman]

Lol, for a thread that was supposed to be about historical materials and techniques, I seem to be spending a lot of time on art history - Oh well.

Ravanna is right, the church did indeed spend enormous amounts of money on art. More than most nobles were spending.

And you can't include sculpture and architecture in the discussion of perspective. Quite apart from the points covered by Ravana, perspective is the art of accurately portraying three dimensions in a two dimensional medium - such as painting on canvas or drawing on paper.

No offense, but I think the biggest mistake you make is to assume that the fall of the Roman empire ect, killed culture and civilisation. The fall of the Roman Empire was a lot more catastrophic for Romans than it was for Northern Europe. Sure the world was more dangerous, but that was already becoming the case for Northern Europe even before the withdrawal of the Romans. People tend to forget that the reason Rome abandoned the North was because they could not cope with the growing 'barbarian' incursions anymore.

Despite the popular myths, the Roman towns were not abandoned and left as ghost towns when the Roman army left. And the people did not descend into uncivilised ignorance without Roman guidance. Our ancestors didn't degenerate as much as you might think, it was more a case of rejecting Roman culture in favour of a more home-grown cultural identity. For example, British nobles in the dark ages had access to Roman goods and treasures, and often had them in their burials. but they chose to wear germanic/celtic adornments, as a statement that they were not roman but British, and proud of it.

Of course much of this art in northern Europe was not in the classical tradition, but drew instead on Germanic, Celtic and Scandinavian influences. This created a northern European tradition that would eventually become what we now know as the Gothic period. As an example of how powerful those cultural influences can be, just look at the Irish. Even now they still use the intricate Viking knot-work designs that were in use in the Dark ages, not because they are backwards or incapable of modern art but because it is an important part of their cultural identity.

Despite their fearsome reputation as pirates, the Vikings actually contributed more to British/Irish culture than they destroyed, including knot-work (early Celtic patterns were actually based on spirals, not interlaced knots, knot-work was a scandinavian tradition).

Even the Plague cannot be held up as a reason for any perceived loss of artistic skills - after the black death was over, we quickly had the renaissance! probably the biggest explosion of creativity ever.

You can go to just about any corner of the world and find the poorest people subsistence living on the edge of survival, and I'll bet they still have some form of art and culture - even if its only primitive. People find time for arts and crafts regardless of their socio economic situation.

Anyway, to answer your question about nomad cultures, it would be hard to say what artistic style they would have, as art is rarely determined by lifestyle. It would most likely be a mixture of the cultures they came into contact with, their mythology, and whatever visual patterns they made up for themselves.

Not very helpful I know, but no two nomadic cultures are alike, and art does not follow logical or socio economic patterns anyway. In the sahara for example the nomads would have been mostly influenced by Islamic, African and Egyptian art, because that is what they came into contact with. But the nomadic American natives had a completely different visual culture, as did the equally nomadic Mongols, or even the early nomadic Celts.

You see my problem, how do you define a cause for the visual styles of those cultures, that can be specifically pinned down to their nomadic lifestyle, when each nomadic culture was unique?

Your best bet is to work out the practical side of their nomadic existence, eg: clothing, what kind of tent they live in ect, then consider how you would decorate those clothes and tents. Decoration based on beads tends to be rather angular, hence the often geometric patterns of north American natives. Embroidered patterns on the other hand can be very organic. Also written language can have a big impact, visual styles are often influenced by the need to harmonise with the calligraphic style of the cultures writing. But like i said you also have to consider the local non nomadic cultures too.

If they have their own artists you also have to consider how they would be able to make their art making equipment light and easily portable. Inks would be the most likely medium, as it comes in sealed bottles that are easy to transport. Oils are out of the question because of the extended drying times involved. And if your nomads are living in a desert, then watercolours would not be so practical in a world where water is at a premium.

The blue I was referring to was Lapis Lazuli, which was also called Ultramarine. Historically it was a semi precious stone, powdered to make a beautiful blue pigment. In modern times it was replaced with a synthetic pigment which is chemically identical, but with even richer colour and a lot cheaper. This modern replacement is still called Ultramarine, or sometimes French Ultramarine.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Something that I have read about Art history is that, after the Black Death, European art became obsessed with the idea of Death and the ever present fragility of human life... so many paintings of skeletons, suffering and devastation, many of which result highly disturbing for me =(

 

[grahamguitarman]

Something that I have read about Art history is that, after the Black Death, European art became obsessed with the idea of Death and the ever present fragility of human life... so many paintings of skeletons, suffering and devastation, many of which result highly disturbing for me =(

This is true, there were other things painted, but there was a lot of preoccupation with death and mortality.

 

[ascanius]

Not really. Sculpture and architecture don't indicate an understanding of perspective in the same way. (I'm pretty sure you meant the Parthenon, btw: the Pantheon is a Roman structure.) Even for the frieze carvings, you should probably take a closer look: everything is in the same "layer," at the same distance. (Trajan's Column in Rome is another good example of the same thing.) A better comparison would be to Greek pottery decoration–because here, where there are different distances represented, the background ones are clearly not proportioned relative to the foreground ones, and in most cases represent a second discrete "layer," not progressively diminishing figures.

Yup the Parthenon, but I wasn't thinking of the frieze carving but the entire structure. The building was built in such a way to make it seem larger than it actually was. For instance the stairs as they get further from the center they get narrower. If you were to take a laser level and level it at the center of the Parthenon floor on the out side the floor would not be straight but tapers off towards the ends giving the illusion of a greater distance than it actually is. It is similar to the statue of David which is not proportionally correct, the proportions get larger the going up to the head giving the illusion of a proportionally correct man from the viewpoint of observers who are much smaller. That requires an understanding of perspectives by the Greeks just as it did the Michelangelo. Sure it was not a two dimensional medium but perspective still applies if the goal is to manipulate it. Also with the Parthenon if memory servers perspective was manipulated in other ways to give the illusion of the structure being larger, higher, grander than what it actually is.

@grahamguitarman
The whole thing about the plagues and the Roman empire was more about how art was thriving, or at least appreciated but suffered a massive decline towards the end there. I know it didn't die out but in comparison to the scale that it previously was at it declined.

How are pigments made, and what about viable binding agents. You said oil was out, and most likely water, what else does that leave. I myself use graphite, and grow impatient with oils, so I have some understanding on how they work. But what else can be used to paint, and what about mediums.

 

[grahamguitarman]

In a nomadic culture the main medium would most likely be ready made inks. These could be carried around in small sealed bottles to prevent drying out, so would not have required a source of water. The use of inks is possibly the main reason that most nomadic art tends more to simpler calligraphic styles.

The inks would most likely have been made in the larger towns and bought by the nomads when they passed through.

Ink is usually a mix of pigment, binder and water. In ancient times this would most usually have been soot for the pigment, bound in a mixture of gum arabic and water. Sometimes other binders such as rabbit skin glue might have been used.

The pigments would have depended on the part of the world in question, since most pigments were made from local resources.
Earth pigments for example supplied much of the early colours. The right type of soils dried and ground into a powder made up a large selection of early pigments. Earth pigments came in Earthy reds, yellows, browns and greens, and were extremely fade resistant.

Different regions had different earths suitable for pigment making, Italy for example had some of the finest red earth pigments, bur southern france had the best green earths and so on.

Other pigments could be had from mineral sources such as lapis lazuli (incredibly expensive) and other powdered semi precious stones such as malachite (green). Azurite was a blue mineral often found with malachite and used as a cheaper mineral blue.

Another natural mineral was cinnabar which was only found in china, it had a bright red colour (think of the vivid red laquer used on chinese temples and palaces). Cinnabar had to be handled with care though, as it was poisonous (mercuric sulphide).

Some dyes and pigments were made from organic sources such as plants and insects (carmine for example is made from cochineal beetles) These were usually made by boiling the plant or insect to release the colour into the liquid. Then an inert white powder such as chalk was added to the mixture, and the moisture was then evaporated out to leave a powdered precipitate in the bottom of the bowl.

This was called the lake process, and pigments made in this way were often known as lake pigments (such as crimson lake for example). Unfortunately these lake pigments were not especially good in terms of lightfastness so would fade after a few years.

One of the more unusual organic pigments was Indian Yellow, which was originally make from the urine of cows fed only on mango's, which was then dried into a pigment. luckily these days Indian yellow is a synthetic pigment, urine has not been used for about a hundred years.

Very few pigments were made by synthetic means, Black of course was mainly soot produced from burning bones. Cobalt blue or Smalt as it was known back then, was originally blue glass ground into a powder (the blue was caused by cobalt introduced in the glass-making process).

if this is a fantasy culture, then of course you could invent pigment sources so long as they are reasonably believable.

As a rough guide:
Soil would produce earthy yellows reds oranges browns and greens.

Minerals tend to be deep blues, and greens, except cinnabar which is red of course.

And plant/insect colours tend to be bright vivid yellows, reds and pinks