Sorry I haven't been up on my posting... with no class on Wednesday and then fall break, I've been slacking. But today's class was really interesting. I love learning about history in general, and I think that religious artwork can be particularly fascinating. It has such a long history and after I read the Da Vinci Code, I like it a little more.
Anyways, the Sistine Chapel had to have been painted by some sort of genius. Did Michelangelo have assistants who painted half of it for him? Even the detail in Ham and his brothers in Noah's little block amazes me, considering how much he painted in just 8 years. Having absolutely no artistic bone in my body, I think it makes me really appreciate those people that can paint.
Of the three PowerPoint artworks, my favorite is the crazy 3 piece panels. (There's some special word for a painting like this, but I can't remember it at this moment in time....) I like the sequence from the Garden of Eden to the depths of hell. There are strange images that the other two pieces of work do not have at all. Like drums, thermometers (?), birds eating a woman, dice and rabbits all jumbled together in hell.
I think that art can be interpreted in a similar way to literature, except the bias of the author's words are not in art. Instead, the way the artist interpreted the original idea is the bias in art. Overall, I really like discussing art as though it is a piece of literature.