SPECULATIONS ON THE HUMAN FRAME OF REFERENCE IN EARTHLY ART | July 2010

If we were to fly over the southern region of the state of Ohio, we would perhaps see an enormous shape of a snake sculpted out of the earth resting within the Adams County landscape.  This Native American earthwork, constructed nearly a millennium ago, is known as the Great Serpent Mound, and is one of the most famous of such works.  Assuming that we are both connoisseurs of art, and assuming that we both have a limited understanding of its Native American manifestation, we could discuss and analyze the work through a multitude of traditional Western methodologies during our brief trip.  And to some degree, we would probably be correct in some of our assertions.  But such a work brutalizes our conceptions of what art is and how it is meant to be viewed.  Westerners were the first people to see the Great Serpent Mound through an aerial perspective, and nearly a millennium after its construction; it was never intended for Earthly human eyes.  It was sculpted by the Adams County natives to be best visible to their ancestors, thought to be the thousands of stars in the night sky.[1]  This sculpture then leaves our more traditional methods of judging art in a strange predicament.  Its large format is specific to its function: the work’s scale does not allow it to be truly seen when simply standing before it.  If the natives wished to evaluate the work with our methods, only an incomplete image could have been assessed.  And just like a native reference that slips the mind of a foreigner, the earthwork may very well communicate artistries to their mysterious ancestral audience that are lost on us entirely.  So how can we judge a work of art whose major artistic intention, its foremost artistic force, is to be mostly unfelt by those non-ancestors now passing the judgment?

The interest of this problematic question lies in its instructive nature.  It serves as reminder of our vastly differing approaches to the conception of art and the manners in which it is judged.  Because our judgments are so unlike, it acknowledges that what we perceive to be indicators of artistic quality are not necessarily shared amongst all cultures.  Art history is full of unfamiliar works that challenge our preconceptions about art that, after the moment of resistance passes, quickly become part of our accepted canon of great art, or at the very least, examples of the different forms that art can take and still be recognized as such.  This sequence is one that happens again and again.  Following the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, a number of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan artist-monks created a mandala, or a concentric “map” of a part of the cosmos, in New York over the course of several days while various onlookers watched in interest.  Using the painstaking method of applying colored sand by tapping a pen-like instrument, the intricate, memorized work is much more about the tedious, meditative process than the finished mandala; its sand was scattered into the Hudson River upon its completion, destroying the material work.[2]  The notion of valuing process as the most important aspect of a visual work was probably not too alien to those contemporary New Yorkers observing the creation of the mandala, but it must be remembered that Modern Art only recently legitimized this approach to art-making.  And it must also be remembered that Modern Art came about after an opening-up of Western artistic values through widespread contact with non-Western art, as visible by the figures of artists like Pablo Picasso and the “primitive” paintings of Georges Rouault, to name a very select few.  It goes without saying that such painters, with values often foreign and in direct conflict with those of the past, could not have possibly existed or been accepted several centuries ago.

If an all-encompassing observation may be derived from these repeating sequences within art history, it is this: regardless of the culture, there is a common thread that unifies all of the world’s art in some way.  If a foreign notion of art can be wholeheartedly adopted by almost an entire culture within a generation or two, there is something understandable, something of the appealing human experience that exists within that notion.  Because the human experience is in some ways very similar between cultures, places, and times, art that is created from one experience can still be appreciated by a viewer belonging to another experience.  To carry this notion a bit further, there is even much aesthetic and intellectual delight to be had in the web of a spider, the complex construction of a bower bird, the central glow of a galaxy, or various other unconscious products of nature.  In perhaps a more accurate and grander sense, there is something of the Earthly experience to be had in all of the products on Earth, and something of the universal, cosmic experience to be appreciated in all products within the universe.

The connections between human, Earthly, and cosmic experiences serve as more than mere analogies when attempting to understand the unity of all of the “beautiful” objects in the cosmos.  It should be remembered that humans, as well as much of everything else, are made from the same stardust, contain similar elements, reside within the same universe, and abide by the same physical laws regardless of their locations in space.[3]  All organisms, including humans, contain identical guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine (GATC) nucleotides, the individual units of DNA, whose differing combinations account for all of the biological variation on Earth.[4]  A familiar biological process creates such variation, and with it, all organisms’ differing perceptions of the world.  Evolution predicts that all living organisms’ bodies—and in certain creatures, their brains—exist in their present conditions due to environmental pressures that gradually sculpt these current states.  It then follows that all organisms evolved to understand their particular environments in order to assist in their survival.  Those that did not understand their environments as clearly as others perished.  With this understanding comes a unique frame of reference for many different species.  To understand such a frame of reference, consider the following idea: rocks are mostly empty space, but humans perceive them as some of the most solid structures in existence.  This is arguably because the spacing within rocks exists on an atomic level, a world that humans never had to maneuver within.[5]  The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains:

The perception of the world through the eyes of a hypothetical atom-sized organism is thus not any less correct than our own.  Without tools, humans would never be able to perceive the atomic world, but the atom-sized creatures would never be able to perceive the human-sized world.  It is, in the end, a trade-off whose result is dependent upon the circumstances under which the organism evolved.  This is an important idea to consider when thinking about our perceptions of art.

As humans, when we judge a work of art, we naturally (and unavoidably) adopt a human-centric frame of reference that informs our judgments.  The human frame of reference, as we should now be aware, is certainly not the objective frame of reference.  A Western painting that utilizes perspective, for example, does not actually depict how the world is, but rather, how the world looks to the human eye.  A painting of a parallel street, if painted within proper perspective, would show adjacent streets running towards the horizon, diminishing in size and taking on a diagonal direction.  The streets never actually converge at any one point and remain parallel throughout the city.[7]  Likewise, a building like the Taj Mahal (1648) is absolutely enormous to humans, seemingly infinite to ants, just a bit smaller to an Apatosaurus, and rather small to hypothetical extraterrestrials larger than the building itself.  Thus its size, one of the Taj Mahal’s central artistic elements, communicates itself as an artistic strength only to those who are able to experience it as such.

Let us explore our unique frame of reference a bit further through Rembrandt van Rijn’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man (1628), an oil-on-wood painting hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  But before we discuss its aesthetic qualities, we should note the age at which Rembrandt painted this particular self-portrait.  At the age of twenty-two, the young painter produced a work of such apparent quality that most artists would hardly reach in their entire lifetimes.  There is something to be said about such a feat.  The artistic maturity that the young Rembrandt exhibits in this painting is impressive to say the least, but we must consider exactly why we find the artist’s achievement so extraordinary.  A typical human’s lifetime lasts just under a century, and in Rembrandt’s time, usually even less.  A being of a certain expected lifespan evolves to understand what is likely, possible, improbable, or impossible during its existence.  Using another example by Dawkins, a man who crosses the road once a day for eighty years does not truly expect to be killed by a car in their lifetime, but a being that crosses the road once a day for one million years certainly does.  The two organisms have varying conceptions of what is probable, as the probability of an event depends on the timeframe allotted for that event to take place.[8]  In a similar sense, one simply does not find too many artists capable of producing a Self-Portrait as a Young Man at a young age, at least not in our short lifetimes.  Based on all of our experiences, artistic maturity usually takes much longer to achieve.  But like the long-lived being that crosses the road every day without getting hurt, some artists are capable of doing it, and it is those artists that command this type of admiration.  In other words, we find Rembrandt’s feat remarkable due to humans’ own limitations as not just beings with century-long lifespans, but our typically slow pace of artistic maturity as well.  What is more, because our very definition of artistic maturity is based on what is possible within our own lifetimes, a bewildering idea arises: who can tell what Rembrandt, an artist who arguably got better as he aged, may have been capable of had he lived and painted for a thousand years more!

While our perception of the matter of Rembrandt’s age is interesting, the core of the work—its visual qualities—is just as human and Earth-centric.  The heart of the painting is a dash of light that illuminates the young artist’s right cheek, extending its glow to the subtle rounded tip of his nose.  This creates the effect that Rembrandt is peering out of the darkness, and as always, this effect gives a greater illusion of three-dimensional depth.  But why is the illusion stronger with one light source as opposed to multiple?  Anyone who has drawn from a nude model or landscape knows all too well that one light source strengthens this illusion, but isn’t it peculiar given that, one light source or twenty, the model or landscape still exists in three-dimensional space just the same?  Furthermore, it is far easier to accurately draw—to comprehend—the model or landscape with one light source illuminating them.  In keeping with our prior observations about evolution’s role in shaping our perceptions, it is plausible to argue that the illusion and clarity is greater because we evolved in a solar system lit up by only one star.  Most solar systems contain at least two stars, creating either perpetual daytime on their orbiting planets or “flattening” the worlds through these multiple sources of light, or both.  Because our solar system contains just one star, it would be evolutionarily wise to understand our surroundings best while living with what we’ve been given by the sun—namely, a single source of light.  We are able to discern between planes, shapes, and space in paintings better with one light source probably because our ancestors had to discern between predators, foliage, and prey with the very same light source.  Rembrandt is not actually any more three-dimensional with one source of light, but as humans belonging to a one-star system, we perceive him that way.  While it is true that humans have recently been exposed to multiple artificial light sources through torches, candles, oil lamps, and electric lights, the key idea is that we were introduced to them only a few thousand years ago.  Humans, like our ancestors, have lived and evolved in a world with one light source far longer than these comparatively new technological inventions.  Since the emergence of our first eye-bearing ancestors, we learned to visualize the world lit up by the only star we have ever known.

A similar point can be made about our perception of the temperature of the light that dominates Rembrandt’s painting.  The sun’s rays are not yellowish in tone, but the white light that we would ordinarily see gets filtered through our atmosphere, giving it a golden hue.  Because our environment is not that of outer space, we have not evolved to understand the sun as a white object, nor of the sun’s rays as white light.  So if we speak of Rembrandt’s face as possessing a “warm” tone, it is likely due to this very reason.  There is nothing objectively warm about yellow or red.  (Fire comes in every type of color; one needs to only turn on a stove to see “cool” blue flames.  But blue tones certainly do not look warm, even if our better judgment tells us otherwise.  The impact that the sun has had on our perceptions of the world is, yet again, far greater than that of our comparatively minimal exposure to red and yellow fire.)  In fact, white and blue stars, just like their fire counterparts, burn much, much hotter than red or yellow ones.  It is simply that we never evolved observing our most important source of heat and light in its unfiltered state.  Imagine Rembrandt’s face not bathed in yellow light, but in cool white or blue light, very much like that of compact fluorescent bulbs.  The painting’s visual and artistic effect would be much different than the type it exudes with the light’s present temperature.  Any interpretations about the quality of the work that are derived from this dominant effect would vary based upon the evolutionary heritage of the creature, human or otherwise, that is passing the judgment.  A hypothetical intelligent alien, the evolutionary product of a planet without atmospheric filtering, may very well perceive this painting as rather cool in tone, as his own very hot star has always emitted a blue light, not a yellow one.  Our alien and our own viewers would be in everlasting disagreement.

When viewing our most cherished works of art as products of human centricities, it calls the nature of our artistic judgment into question.  Is our judgment of art an objective exercise or just Earthly enthusiasms?  Our collective human experience grants the illusion that we are capable of true objective judgment in matters of art because we have no other beings’ experiences to go by. After all, don’t we all agree that Rembrandt’s picture is a depiction of a face, warm in tone, and small in size?  If speaking from the point of view of most humans, then in all likelihood, the answer is yes.  But as it has been already pointed out, our collective human experience is not the collective universal experience.  It is a much more personal one, as the hypothetical intelligent alien examples suggest.  To drive this point further, let us examine Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man once more.  On how many points will the alien agree with our analysis?

We first judge the painting to be a portrait of a man.  We can safely assert this because we can make out his very faint features in spite of their strong veiling by the darkness.  But even this basic contention is not necessarily obvious to a creature that never studied a humanoid face before, let alone evolved with one for millions of years.  This painting, it must be remembered, is not a physical person.  It takes a certain degree of familiarity in order to understand exactly what is being depicted in this two-dimensional, cognitive format.  Humans see humanoid heads and faces wherever they look: from the patterns on a stink bug, the shell of a Heike Crab, the charring of a grilled cheese sandwich, and even the shadow pattern on a Martian rock, humans swear that they see a face.[9]  To test this further, make two dots horizontally on a paper and a horizontal line right under that.  From this tiny grouping of three simple shapes, the result looks remarkably human.  Although one could argue that we are already familiar with this stylized graphic depiction of a “smiley” face, the reader need only see a few of the countless examples of similar stylized faces produced by many cultures on Earth to understand how universal they really are.[10]  A humanoid head so obscured by darkness may very well be only apparent to us.  Cannot Rembrandt, with his shaggy brown hair and hill-like shape of his shoulders, resemble something like a bush to an alien who is more familiar with such forms back on his own home world?  “Don’t you see it?  Here are the eyes, the nose, the hair, the shoulders…” we try to convince our alien.  “Well, I guess so.  He could have made it more obvious so that I know what I’m looking at.  The man looks too much like a bush.”  What is an expert artistic modeling of the artist’s head to humans—made even more apparent by such an effortless obscuring of the form while retaining its three-dimensionality and clarity—may look like an awkward attempt at a portrait to the alien.  It is a type of awkwardness that may indeed by difficult to overcome, especially if it is shared by everyone in his species, much like any overly glaring “problem” that humans may find in various mediocre works of Earthly art.

The second judgment that we make about the painting is that it is small in size.  It measures approximately nine by seven inches, a miniature painting to virtually any human viewing the work.  But our perceptions of concepts like size, as elucidated by Dawkins’ example of the spacing between rock atoms, are ultimately derived from our body’s own relationship to the object being judged.  If the alien is as small as an insect, the painting would undoubtedly look far larger to it than it does to us.  Perhaps we think that the size of the work is fitting to the humble and contemplative approach that Rembrandt took to paint his self-portrait.  In order to understand what may be immediately apparent to us, the tiny alien would have to view the work in context of the manner of beings that humans are.  To us, Rembrandt’s self-portrait is not a grandiose deification of himself.  For the alien, in order to get past his immediate judgment, he would have to view the painting through the eyes of a human.  There are no obvious observations once beings outside of our experience begin to judge Earthly art.

This simple realization grants a valuable insight about world art, and no doubt, all possible variants of it within the universe.  It is the recognition that all art, no matter where it comes from or what form it takes, can only be judged contextually.  This is to say, from the point of view of its creator, and often through the eyes of its intended audience.  (Though this is not to say, of course, that subconscious meanings do not exist, nor does it say that a work cannot have unintended meanings or effects.)  Notice what the alien had to do in order to understand and appreciate the work.  It used a filter (one could call it a “bias”), known to us as the human eye, to try to see the painting as the artist or typical human observer may see it.  But in our analysis of Rembrandt’s self-portrait, we have mostly discussed the limitations of the alien in observing our work.  This may lead certain readers to assert that human artists are not responsible for the viewing handicaps of the aliens, rendering the alien judgments invalid.  A painter is not responsible for the black image that a blind man sees when encountering his work, so why should the aliens, having similar handicaps, get a pass?  The answer is actually a very simple one: it works both ways.  If we were to imagine ourselves as the handicapped individuals in the creation and judgment of our own art, perhaps we can see the pitfalls of judging all art based on a rigid set of “objective” criteria imposed by beings somewhat removed from our own experiences.  Coming back to Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man, there are many positive things that can be said about the artist’s execution of this painting.  But much of it relies on Rembrandt’s existence as a human, along with the limitations and inadequacies (as well as advantages) that his humanity entails.  In our third judgment of the painting, we can clearly point out the delicate tonal and color gradations that the young artist is able to implement in his self-portrait.  The careful balancing of the red, yellow, and white in the left-center in relation to the blue-green of the background is a superb achievement of the artist’s eye, but here is the point: it is superb perhaps only to the human eye.  If the average alien in our hypothetical species can discern between colors and tones with a sensitivity several thousand times greater than our own, then the painting may very well look more like a jigsaw puzzle of colors and tones than a delicate gradation of them.  The balancing itself would look as insensitive as the gradations.  It would be akin to decreasing the color and tonal depths of a picture in an image-processing computer program, the end result being an image with very visible color and tonal “breaks.”  The artists of the alien species would view their own Rembrandts, whatever they may be, as “delicate,” not our insensitive depictions of the three-dimensional world.  Furthermore, if their worst artists are able to produce a painting of equal quality to Self-Portrait as a Young Man at a comparatively much younger age than Rembrandt did, and within two minutes of painting, what does it say about our own art?  Of course, this is not limited to just technical artistic feats or formal mastery; complexities of meaning and everything else that we may value in our art would be minimized in the eyes of far more advanced and capable creatures.  If the best examples of Earthly art typify a sort of child’s play to the aliens, are we ready to admit that everything that we have ever created as humans is just not that good?

It is unlikely that anyone would be ready to declare that Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Mozart, or any other artist since the dawn of humanity produced nothing of notable artistic value.  And herein lays the problem with the belief that all art can be subjected to one set of objective standards by which to judge its quality.  If the standards are truly objective, then they are universal, not relative to the type of beings that are creating or judging the work.  If a third-rate alien musician were to play us a score many times more complex and “beautiful” than the greatest musical works composed by any human, those subscribing to the notion of one set of objective standards would thus have to admit that their favorite musical works are actually just pitiful human constructions.  It is much more likely, however, that our human biases will favor Earthly music instead.

But still, the term “objective standards” is thrown around all too easily when judging art, often by those who, sometimes unknowingly, wish to lend scientific credibility to their entirely unscientific claims.  To understand what true objectivity and universality demands, consider the following idea: a human physicist can calculate the trajectory by which Shuttle X needs to travel in order to reach Point B on the moon from Point A on Earth with startling accuracy.  If an alien performed the same mathematical operation correctly, then the same exact result would be obtained.  No Earthly or alien biases color the calculations.  The truth of the correct trajectory is objective partly because it does not depend on the type of creature that is doing the calculation.  The truth of a painting’s artistic depth, meaningfulness, or technical prowess is not.  An artistic judgment, as was pointed out, is instead relative to the type of being that is passing the judgment.  But there is another requirement that must be met before a claim is deemed factual and objective.  A truly factual claim has to be scientifically verifiable for one to be able to claim it an objective fact, no matter who is testing the hypothesis.  Using the robust scientific method, what kinds of tests can an “objective” critic propose about a work’s greatness or weakness that can be repeated to the same conclusion by all other critics—human or otherwise?  Even a conservative assertion about an artwork—for example, that Rembrandt’s self-portrait is without humor—can only be “tested” by a poll, hardly a scientific means of examining its truth.  If one critic were to praise the work as delightfully humorous, the best that another critic could say is that the first critic is being ridiculous.  Why?  “Just ask anyone!  No one finds the painting even remotely funny!” would likely be the second critic’s response.  An artwork’s qualitative traits, both good and bad, are not inherent in the work itself, but are instead the biased deductions of the intelligent creatures that are judging it.  This is why the only scientific test that can be conducted regarding this matter is whether or not someone finds the painting funny, not whether the work itself is funny.

The thinkers that subscribe to the purely objective view of art—would they declare the end of human art upon contact with such aliens?  That is yet another problem with this “objective” view; it creates a competition of quality (and a natural hierarchy) between very different artworks through one set of objective standards.  What would happen if the competition escalates to into the aliens’ domain?  With minds vastly superior to our own, there would be no competition.  Humans would not even be able to strive to win, as they are simply limited by what their brains are able to conceptualize and accomplish.  One needs only look at our own animal world for confirmation of the possible differences between intelligences, even between very similar creatures.  An ape’s brain may not have any major differences with a human’s, but our societies, tools, and creations vary considerably, in our view, due to the minute disparities that do exist.  Imagine the differences between our brains (or other comparable organs) and those of intelligent beings belonging to an alien evolutionary history![11]  With such different levels of conceptual and technical ability, human architecture would be relegated to the status of ant hills.  Our music would be no better than pigeon sounds.  Human painting would be the slimy scrawls of a snail.  Earthly literature would be the recorded sounds between apes.  The differences of complexity between what we call human art and the creations of apes would be diminutive by comparison to the art of creatures with a far different biology than our own.  And so, if judgments are made based on this one set of objective standards, and art is created to fulfill them, would humanity have a reason to continue creating art if the objective criteria, extended by our contact with aliens, become impossible to meet?  It is doubtful that humanity would go on sulking about the unprecedented and inimitable complexities of alien art and cease to create.  That is because the underlying human desire to make and experience art is clearly far more complex than the mere satisfaction of some set of criteria.  Although it hardly needs to be demonstrated, one of the simplest ways to test this assertion is to examine the work of the mentally ill or other autonomous artists removed from artistic nourishment or traditional education.  They create and appreciate art uninformed by knowledge of traditional art and are thus motivated by their own inborn impulses.[12]  In this sense, the art that we make is then not really about a competition between works, though it can certainly be stirred by such contests.  The best art is neither an expression of the “greatest” things that humans can do, as that vague term means very different things in different places and times.  Rather, a possible explanation is that it is a reflection of what humans are.  It is what the Modernists knew all along: another manner of viewing greatness in art.  Remember that Rembrandt’s self-portrait looks the way it does not only because of his talents, but also his lack of talents as a human being.  His humanity and artistic power is rooted in limitations imposed by nature, as are all artists’.  We can only manipulate what nature bestowed upon us, and only to the extent that our evolution allows.  Our art is fundamentally a reflection of these circumstances.

The above definition of greatness in art is but one in a long line of proposed explanations of its mysterious realm.  It will surely be replaced by other, more accurate explanations as we grow to understand ourselves just a little bit better.  Hopefully, it is now clear that understanding ourselves and speculating on otherworldly beings are two parts of the same problem.[13]  To see how an alien might perceive our art makes our own human ways of seeing much clearer.  This loose definition has been fashioned by such an exercise.  Great art as a reflection of what humans are is inclusive enough for all world cultures and allows for many smaller domains to reside within it.  By “domain,” we mean the shared artistic space that a certain species, culture, group, or even individual occupies at a certain time, complete with its own set of standards by which to judge art, normally marked by a similarity of ideas and aesthetic principles.  Each domain is usually governed by a larger one, e.g. the universe > a planet > a species > a culture or nation > a smaller group > an individual.  (As a further example, a person’s work can be very unique, but it is fundamentally a human type of art by comparison to aliens.  By the same reasoning, an alien’s art may be unique, but it is still in a semi-familiar form as an object that exists in the universe, created within the limits of our shared physical laws, probably using at least some similar chemical compounds, or, at the very least, composed of either physical matter or energy.)  Humans possess a wide range of interests and beliefs and inhabit an equally diverse range of environments.  Each domain defines what it means to be human differently and hold their own set of standards for judging and creating their work.  If speculating on extraterrestrial art, the definition can also be expanded to include their own domain, reflecting precisely the types of beings that they are.  And so, if beings much more complex than ourselves ever visit and share their art with us, we’d have an entirely different domain, with its own set of standards, reserved for them.  Art will go on because we will not be competing with an alien experience.

This definition of art is given without any pretense of originality.  The twenty-first century art historian is well-aware of the ethereality of artistic standards when faced with very different works of art.  But this is what the extended comparison with aliens seeks to suggest: just as we would not judge extraterrestrial art using human standards, the same attitude must be adopted when judging the different art of our own Earthly domains.  This idea is the core of what is being offered in this essay; a way of strengthening the mainstream view that artistic standards are fleeting and subject to the experiences of the inhabitants of a certain domain.  When this view is scrutinized by comparing the works of semi-alien domains like that of different peoples and cultures, it may not always be very convincing, or perhaps more accurately, it still allows for a bloated sense of superiority to seep in.  But when this view is thrust into a cosmic scale, comparing truly alien art to the art of humans, its truth and value become significantly more obvious.  The comparison between humans and aliens is also not too difficult to appreciate once a basic truth is realized about both of our existences: the alien experience, no matter how different and complex, is just one step removed from our own.  Although all humans share the Earthly domain, both humans and aliens share the domain of the universe, abiding by the same laws of physics, probably being composed of some similar chemical compounds, and traversing, to borrow the phrase of the late astronomer Carl Sagan, the same cosmic ocean.  Humans emerged in Africa and spread throughout the world, creating various domains on Earth.  Likewise, life emerged in the cosmos, although on separate occasions and with vastly different lineages, and colonized the various smaller domains within the universe.  We share one experience: that of coming of age in the cosmos.  We just came of age on different planets, or different domains, reflecting the diverse paths that nature set for us.

The coming of age of people in different cultures and times is thus not too different from humans coming of age on Earth and aliens growing up in their own home world.  As mentioned previously, there are even smaller domains that exist in art.  The judgment and perception of art may vary not just between humans and aliens, culture and culture, and time period and time period, but the variation can also extend from one philosophical mindset to another, down to the individual level.  We can extend our characterization of domains to even the individual philosophical mind because each one of these domains, biological or philosophical, cultural or individual, and no matter how minute, contributes to one’s perception and understanding of art in some way.  For this reason, it is unfair to treat smaller domains as any less valid than larger ones.  If one acknowledges that a domain, with its one set of artistic standards, must be reserved for aliens, it should be understood that it is not simply due to the aliens’ differing biology, a distinction that humans obviously do not possess.  It is more accurately due to a differing alien experience that happens to be sculpted by this equally alien biology, a distinction that all humans very clearly do possess.  Because of their differing experiences on Earth, it is difficult to argue that cultures, peoples, and individual philosophical minds—all belonging to unique experiences—do not deserve the same right to their own domains that extraterrestrials are granted without hesitation.

“There is really no such thing as Art.  There are only artists.”[14]  This declaration by art historian Ernst Hans Gombrich, a man who dedicated his life to study the visual arts in all of its forms, is another perspective on artistic domains.  The suggestion is that art, as a practice, is too expansive throughout different times and between different peoples for one definition of Art to account for all of its variations on our planet.  It also stands as the twentieth century’s paralyzing counterargument against both anti-Modernists and the critics who hold older Western art, or any other culture’s art, above that of any other, and who are, more often than not, the very same people.  If we view great human art as first a poignant reflection of what humans are, and second, as the reflection of the smaller domains that the particular humans inhabit, the singular notion of Art cannot stand to scrutiny.  There are simply far too many domains on Earth with their own standards and definitions of art, let alone of great art.  Since these definitions serve their very own domains, each definition is equally valid; because they do not intrude on other artistic domains, there is nothing inconsistent about art being both one thing and another, as they are different things to different domains.  We have already established that we all view art, at the very least, through a human frame of reference.  It is a human bias that is impossible to get rid of.  But certain critics would still decry cultural artistic biases, as if a cultural bias is more condemnable than a human one.  Although one bias is fixed biologically while the other is ingrained slowly over time, both contribute to a being’s perspective on art in a meaningful way.  Recalling our humbling alien critics, asking a culturally-biased viewer to “correct” his artistic prejudice is akin to an extraterrestrial asking us to correct our own human bias.  No matter the domain—special, cultural, or individual—we almost exclusively judge based on our own particular frame of reference, not outside of it.

In one of his treatises on painting, Leonardo da Vinci wrote a passage entitled “What Painting is the Most Praiseworthy.”  His answer is as brief as the title:

Such a line is but one of many of a similar narrow-mindedness scattered throughout the writings of artists.  Reading it with twenty-first century minds (and if taking it at face value), we can see how poorly da Vinci’s philosophy has aged.  But at the same time, it grants us insight into the spirit of the Renaissance art that the Old Master embodied.  We may disagree with da Vinci’s philosophy now, but as an artist of the larger Italian Renaissance domain, there is nothing erroneous about his judgment.  It may be argued that many artists and critics within this domain shared his view in one way or another.  But more importantly, this philosophy is the reason why Italian Renaissance works looked the way they did.  Its correctness, naïveté, or short-sightedness regarding the scope of all art is really irrelevant, as it was a necessary belief to progress in the manner in which the Renaissance artists did.  A painting like Raphael Sanzio’s The School of Athens (1510) may be considered to be the manifestation of Renaissance ideals, and thus, of the one-line philosophy that da Vinci advocates.  Plato and Aristotle are seen arguing over the nature of reality in the center.  By using the faces of various artists in the painting, including da Vinci for Plato, Michelangelo for the philosopher Heraclitus (lower-center, resting his arm and writing on a desk), and himself for the classical painter Apelles (last figure peering out in profile in the center-right), Raphael suggests that art is also a participant in this philosophical discussion, a legitimate player within the realm of knowledge.  Because the work is a fresco, a type of painting that is as much a part of the wall as the plaster itself, it creates an illusionary window through which the scene is viewed.  This may easily be regarded as a comment about reality, Raphael’s own contribution to the conversation that is taking place.  Perspective and foreshortening give the illusion of three-dimensional space while correct anatomy grants the figures a more realistic appearance.  At this point, it may be helpful to recall da Vinci’s statement that the greatest painting is that which resembles reality most closely.  The manner in which the painting is made lifelike (at least by the Renaissance’s standards) is through the study of reality and the application of the scientific principles that shape our perceptions of it.  From its emphasis on one-point perspective to its insistence on anatomical correctness, the painting’s formal content is derived from the scientific knowledge of the natural world.  The School of Athens exists because of these ideas, because of this desire to get a painting to be “most like the thing represented.”  Without the Renaissance’s bias towards this one particular view of art, Raphael would have never been able to cultivate his ideas and skills to this caliber of painting.  His focus would have been split among the varying approaches to art-making, not the narrow one that this painting exemplifies and demands.  The reason why the painting is considered great by so many is because of its fulfillment of these narrow goals that the Renaissance set for itself, not because of someone else’s “objective” view that refuses to account for them.  If the fresco is not analyzed within the walls of its own domain, this Renaissance bias, which constitutes a great deal of the painting, would be lost and unappreciated by the viewer.  In the end, one must be able to feel a bit of the artist’s own enthusiasm in order to recognize the value of what he managed to create.

A competing notion of art can be found in the aesthetic philosophy of India.  To the Indians, great art is rasavat, or filled with rasa, usually translated literally as the “juice of the fruit.”  The juice refers to the sweetest or “best” part of the fruit, and in turn, of a work of art.  Art historian Vidya Dehejia defines this term as it is used in Indian art:

This “state of heightened awareness” often means a religious experience for the Indians, as many of their sculptural works are both dressed and ornamented to be used in religious rituals or exist as parts of larger religious structures.[17]  We can immediately discern a key difference between the Renaissance philosophy as expressed by da Vinci and that of Indian artists and aestheticians.  While Leonardo perhaps believed that he was taking an objective approach to the creation and judgment of art, we can more accurately describe it as a material one.  Like other Renaissance artists, da Vinci, who created works arguably much more indebted to science and the study of the natural world than to any kind of religious experience, adopted an aesthetic philosophy that reflected how closely one could depict reality.  (Of course, there is much more at work in Renaissance art than this, but this philosophy, along with the scientific interests that fuel it, is certainly one of the primary motivations for the creation and style of such work.)  The physical manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva as Shiva Nataraja (c. 970), or Lord of Dance, for example, is not modeled on the human form in the same way that virtually all Renaissance sculptures are.  The attention to anatomy, defined by components such as visible musculature, the emphasized presence of bones, and a significant degree of truth to actual human form—the hallmarks of a sculptural style influenced by the study of the natural world, is not present in this Indian work.  Every part of the god’s body, from the arms, to the legs, to their orientation, and even the distances between body parts, is modeled on formulas established by the shilpa shastras, instructive writings on the proper construction of the human form in Indian art.[18]  As further evidence of this resistance to physicality, it may be argued that because objects like the Shiva Nataraja are clothed for use in rituals, much of its physical presence is hidden behind various manners of decoration.[19]  It is clear that the Renaissance practice of observing the natural world, and then shaping that vision into a work of art that attempts to mimic it, is an idea indeed foreign to the Indian conception of art.  The emphasis on an often religious mental state led to a style that is more spiritual—immaterial, if you will—than that of the Renaissance, a style that demands a close observation of nature for its successful imitation.

Much of the two-dimensional work of India experienced the same type of resistance to naturalism, but for different reasons.  The Great Monkey jataka (c. 50-25 BCE), a not quite two-dimensional relief spanning several chapters at the west gateway pillar of the Great Stupa in Sanchi, narrates the story of the Buddha Siddhartha in a previous life as a monkey-king.  The narrative begins as a fisherman brings an extraordinary mango to a king.  Wishing to find its source, he follows the river and discovers a group of monkeys eating the fruit.  The king commands his men to kill them: soldiers take position while one archer aims at Siddhartha, who is outstretched across a river to help his monkey subjects cross in order to escape the warriors.  Another monkey, an adversary of Siddhartha, jumps with enough force to wound the monkey-king, but Siddhartha’s act of self-sacrifice does not go unseen by the soldiers and king.  A stretcher is then brought out to carry Siddhartha off of the small battlefield.[20]  The manner in which the scenes are depicted is peculiar to the Indians.  Instead of relying on perspective to show the characters in deep space, the sculptors represent the background as the wall’s higher levels and the foreground as its lower levels.  In other words, characters and objects that are further away are chiseled in a higher section of the wall, while those that are closer are sculpted in a lower section.  Everything maintains a similar size, as there is no one-point perspective to grant the illusion of spatial recession.[21]  The primary reason for this method of representation is clarity.  Objects that are rendered in one-point perspective recede from the viewer as they leave the foreground, becoming smaller in size and losing their definition.  If everything is rendered as if existing in the foreground, all things maintain equal size and clarity.  This is also perhaps why different characters and objects are viewed in multiple perspectives, each one from its most recognizable side.  Siddhartha’s path, for example, is depicted from the top, the soldiers are seen from the eye-level front, and the monkeys and fish are sculpted from the side.[22]  Unnecessary details like unique facial features and attire are also excluded to avoid drawing any attention away from the basic, most recognizable aspects of the narrative.

With all of the differences between Renaissance notions of art and the Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of it, the Indians’ resistance to naturalism looks rather tame compared to that of the Muslims.  In one way or another, in the Middle East and in India, the Muslims practiced an art that was iconoclastic to its very core.  During Renaissance times, much of Europe was immersed within the iconographic tradition, as was India throughout most of its known history.  But for the Europeans, this was not always the case.  The Iconoclast Controversy, taking place between the mid-eighth and mid-ninth centuries, was a conflict within the Byzantine Empire in which supporters of the early Christian church, the iconoclasts, opposed the use of imagery in art.  Those who opposed imagery often referred to the Third Commandment within the Old Testament: “Thou shall not make onto thee any graven image or likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”  Because God has already created the world, recreating it in images was partly viewed as an attempt to undermine, or at the very least, to not give full respect to God’s creation.[23]  Possible idolatry, also strictly prohibited within the Old Testament, was another reason for the resistance to iconography.  One of the central arguments for the use of iconography in art was proposed by a Christian priest, John of Damascus, in the eighth century: superseding the Old Testament was the New Testament, and since God, an entity without a physical manifestation on Earth, sent Jesus into the world in human form, God wished to be physically seen.[24]  But to the Muslims who shared the Abrahamic tradition with the European Christians, the Messiah never came down to Earth, and therefore John of Damascus’ argument for iconography in art was both irrelevant and unconvincing.  This theological and philosophical difference at least partly accounts for the different artistic directions that the two religious groups took.

The Muslims were perhaps the most well-known practitioners of abstract art before its acceptance by the West in the twentieth century.  As theological descendents of the Jews, they must have been compelled by the ancient words of the Third Commandment.  For a long time, their most valued artistic tradition was that of literature—abstract in nature, only using the book as a functional object to articulate their “true” art of words.[25]  When the art of the book began to quickly spread throughout the communities, a rich artistic tradition emerged from it.  What is particularly enlightening about this visual tradition is that it served the literary one.  As Western viewers without knowledge of Arabic or a full understanding of calligraphy, we can surely appreciate these books on purely visual terms.  But it must be remembered that calligraphy carries the word; both the stunning text and the beautiful abstract decorations give its literary aspect that much more force and value.  Islamic architecture produced some of the most astounding works created in any century— the Alhambra (1358), the Taj Mahal (1648), and the Paris Mosque (1926) are a few examples—while mostly avoiding representational forms.  In its most direct interpretation, the mathematics that was required for the construction of Islamic buildings and their complex geometric patterns was the perfect expression of God, materialized by the artists who created them.[26]  In a perhaps more subtle reading, the geometric patterns, with its mirrored forms and complementary colors repeating into infinity, is a reflection of the omnipresence of God.[27]

Indian Muslim structures like the Taj Mahal stand in some contrast to the Hindu architecture that surrounds them: the Minakshi Temple (c. 1336-1736) in Madurai, with its hundreds of intricately sculpted and painted religious figures adorning its façade would have been blasphemous had it been designed by Muslim architects for Islamic expression.  Although depictions of divine figures was considered heresy, some Muslim rulers were able to (dissentingly) approve more direct representation of non-religious figures into the visual arts; the Mughals, or Indian Muslims, were powerful and lived far enough from the Muslim mainland of the Middle East to dissent from traditional religious law.[28]  Although the Mughals exhibited iconoclastic behavior during their invasion of India in the twelfth century, destroying Hindu idols and temples to declare their dominance, the influence of Indian representation would have an immense impact on their art.[29]  There were limits imposed upon such representation, however: figures were not modeled naturalistically through light and shade, perspective was avoided, flattened abstract backgrounds were common, and shadows were never cast, thus preventing figures from being seen as true depictions of God’s creatures on Earth.[30]  It is indeed a far cry from the Renaissance desire to depict the world as accurately and naturalistically as possible.

One could see the diversity of cultural and philosophical ideas that are fundamental to the look and function of every work of art.  In the Dark Ages, theological and philosophical debate legitimized an aesthetic form in the eyes of Western civilization for centuries to come.  After a reawakened interest in science, a new art form emerged out of this newfound curiosity about the natural world.  The spiritual realm is given precedence over the physical world in Hindu art, as their physical forms are often clothed and concealed, as well as constructed from a set of traditional templates, not through the observation of nature.  The Muslims believed that God forbade imagery, and in rejecting iconography, cultivated a rich abstract tradition that would have been impossible to achieve without this narrow-minded approach to art.  And this is the lesson that reveals itself within these comparisons: cultural biases, just like the human bias, are essential to the development and refinement of every work of art.  So-called “objective” criticism cannot account for them.  Every approach to art is a prejudice by its very nature, as it is a particular philosophy that shapes it, or as we discussed earlier, a biology that sets the framework for our human frame of reference.  Recall what the alien, faced with Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as a Young Man, had to do in order to appreciate the painting.  It used a human filter in an attempt to understand the work.  To the alien, the painting was absolutely enormous (as it is an insect-sized being), bordering on self-deification on the artist’s part, a view of the work that would be very difficult for any human to take.  To comprehend how it looks to humans, the alien had to see the painting in the context of what types of beings humans are: large ones, far larger than any being on its own home world.  It is probably not deification if the painting is rather small to the artist who painted it.  Also recall that the differences between our viewpoints may be biological in nature, but in the end, it is a different experience that creates such unlike perspectives of the same artwork, whether it is due to biology or not.  With the vast number of artistic domains on Earth, it is the same differing experience that exists between humans that reflects our diverse notions of art.  We must wear each other’s filters if we ever hope to appreciate the care and artistry imbued in an art that belongs to an experience alien to our own.

Our task as artists, critics, and connoisseurs is not quite as difficult as the aliens’.  We are closer to one another than we could ever be to any other being outside of this planet; we share this Earthly domain even if we inhabit a multitude of smaller ones within it.  When viewing a work like The School of Athens, can we not marvel at the same discoveries that Renaissance artists rejoiced in?  We can feel the infinite presence of God in the geometric patterns that adorn the Paris Mosque even if we are atheists—but only if we make the attempt to see them through the eyes of their makers.  Coming back to that Native American earthwork on a clear and moonless night, we may even try to imagine how the great snake was seen by its builders by viewing it under the same stars that they believed were watching over them.  No matter how foreign some of these ideas seem to be, our common humanity allows these experiences to be conceivable.  The power of expression of an artistic form does not rest on whether or not its underlying philosophy is deemed correct.  But the artist’s or culture’s belief in this philosophy is clearly an impetus for the creation of expressive works.  Once we recognize the fact that we can only fully experience a work of art on its own terms and within its own domain, notions of objective artistic standards and cultural artistic superiority become completely irrelevant to our conception of art.  It is a goal worthy of our pursuit.  An entire universe of art remains to be uncovered.

REFERENCES & NOTES

[1] Anna Blume, lecture for “Studies in American Indian Art,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 31 August 2009.
[2] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 27 October 2009.
[3] Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), p. 242.
[4] Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), p. 89.
[5] Richard Dawkins, “Richard Dawkins on Our ‘Queer’ Universe,” online video clip, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_our_queer_universe.html.
[6] Richard Dawkins, “Richard Dawkins on Our ‘Queer’ Universe,” online video clip, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_our_queer_universe.html.
[7] Anna Blume, lecture for “Studies in American Indian Art,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 16 November 2009.
[8] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), p. 231.
[9] The “charring of a grilled cheese sandwich” refers to an incident in which the face of the Virgin Mary was spotted on a grilled cheese sandwich by a Florida woman in 1994.  The “shadow pattern on a Martian rock” refers to a picture taken by Viking 1 in 1976 of the Martian Cydonian mesa.  A coincidental combination of light and shadow (and a complementary rock structure) created the illusion that a humanoid head was carved into one of the hills.
[10] E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1995), p. 46.
[11] Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), p. 243.
[12] Hans Prinzhorn, “Schizophrenic Configuration and Art,” in Art in Theory: 1900-2000, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p. 122.
[13] “One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue,” from the video series Cosmos, video disc, directed by Adrian Malone (Ithaca, NY: Cosmos Studios, 2002).
[14] E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1995), p. 15.
[15] Leonardo da Vinci, “What Painting is the Most Praiseworthy,” in Artists on Art, eds. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves (New York: Pantheon Books, 1945), p. 54.
[16] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 20.
[17] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), pp. 11-12.
[18] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 13.
[19] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 12.
[20] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), pp. 61-63.
[21] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 63.
[22] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), pp. 63-64.
[23] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 27 October 2009.
[24] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 27 October 2009.
[25] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 27 October 2009.
[26] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 3 November 2009.
[27] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 259.
[28] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 3 November 2009.
[29] Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 264.
[30] Anna Blume, lecture for “Art and Civilization of India,” Fashion Institute of Technology, 3 November 2009.

IMAGES, from top to bottom

1. Great Serpent Mound.  Adams County, Ohio, c. 1070. Credit: David Penney, North American Indian Art (London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2004), p. 36.
2. Rembrandt van Rijn.  Self-Portrait as a Young Man, 1628.  Oil on wood, 22.5 x 18.6 cm.  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Credit:500 Self-Portraits (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2000), p. 134.
3. Raphael Sanzio.  School of Athens, 1510.  Fresco, 500 cm x 770 cm.  Apostolic Palace, Rome, Vatican City. Credit: Wikipedia commons.
4. Shiva Nataraja.  South India, c. 970.  Bronze, h. 67.9 cm.  Asia Society Galleries, New York. Credit: Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 11.
5. Great Monkey jataka.  West gateway pillar, Great Stupa, Sanchi, c. 50-25 BCE. Credit: Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 62.
6. Minakshi Temple, west gateway.  Madurai.  1336-1736. Credit: Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 235.
7. Shah Jahan as Connoisseur of Jewels, c. 1620.  Watercolor and gold on paper, 38.9 x 26.2 cm.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Credit: Vidya Dehejia, Indian Art (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1997), p. 330.

CREATIVITY AND TRADITION: A REFLECTION ON THE ART OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN WEST COAST | December 2009

The American Indian artistic tradition is, in some of the most fundamental ways, just like any other.  Its immensely varied aesthetic reflects the ideologies, aspirations, and surroundings of its equally diverse tribes.  And just like any other tradition, the visual history of its tribal past is continuously mined, appropriated, and reworked as a creative response to the emerging demands of their day.  The natives of the western side of North America, residing in regions as different as California and the British-Columbian coast, are all part of seemingly singular traditions that are nonetheless part of a collective consciousness that transcends both regional and tribal boundaries.  The singularity of their traditions, however, allow them to express their ideas in ways peculiar to their respective regions and tribes, creating a unique tribal aesthetic and approach to the making of art.

The Chumash Cave Painters of the Southern California region are unlike many other tribes.  While most artists who wished to create works directly on the land did so either monumentally or, at the very least, to be in plain view like the region’s many rock art petrogylphs, the Chumash Indians used mineral pigments to paint the insides of caves that were invisible without a fiery light.  The meditative seclusion of the natural rock formation is perhaps suitable for the ritualistic painting that so often took place.  A knowledgeable and religious tribal elder, or shaman, was entrusted with the task of painting for the tribe—art-making, in this particular instance, was certainly not for the layman.  While under the influence of the Datura plant, the shaman experienced visions, hallucinatory transformations, and supposed foresight of the future, all elements that he carefully and chaotically recorded onto the rock.  Although the term “chaotic” is often disparaging within the Western artistic tradition, it is exactly the form that is most sensitive and appropriate to the experience of the shaman.  The Chumash cave paintings depict the elder’s travels to the spiritual realm in which the spirits, often painted as rattlesnakes, frogs, and other creatures, aid the transformed, part-animal shaman in his hallucinatory forecasts.  The heavenly bodies, represented by a multitude of different types of circles, were believed to influence the future, and like gods, were attempted to be swayed through these rituals.  The tribe’s astronomical knowledge and curiosity is apparent in these paintings as well, as cosmic events and planetary movements are depicted; in a cave near Santa Barbara, the solar eclipse of November 1677 may be recorded on one of its walls.  These paintings are called palimpsests, or layered markings, because they are painted on top of older ones, with some caves being visited continuously for as long as 1000 years.  Their preservation is assured by a coat of vegetable oil or animal fat, suggesting that its makers wished to protect them.  Along with the depiction of the shamans’ travels, celestial movements, and occurrences in the night sky, these cave paintings may thus be viewed as a visual record of not only tribal history, but the tribe’s existence within their surroundings.  But this record only exists through the upholding of tribal tradition and the over-painting of that of the past, possibly evolving out of a primarily outdoor petrogylph tradition, and creating new work through the old, a theme that seems to reside within the various tribal communities of the North American West.

Along the British Columbian coast, the men of the Chilkat Tlingit Tribe traditionally carved and painted wooden crests and other objects that depict various animals within a fragmented compositional framework.  Wooden boards were also painted with similar patterns and designs that, like the crests, would be used as templates for women’s woven works.  The imagery often recalls creation myths and other traditional stories, sitting atop or within homes, designating the community of a particular tribe.  Its use during potlatch may have served a very similar function, as using a “signature” tribal object may have legitimized agreements even more.  The theme of borrowing and expanding upon the artistic past is present in the creation of these objects: they are carved and sewn within the form-line tradition, a method and style of organizing and composing a work that predates our nineteenth-century examples of them.  The form-line tradition begins with an outline around the head and body of an animal.  Smaller parts, like the eyes, are placed into the spaces between the outlines, called ovoids.  Body parts that may indicate the animal type, such as claws, are carved or painted within outlined U-shaped forms.  Although it is uncertain how far back the Tlingit template-based weaving tradition stretches, it is clear that trading with the Indians of the southern regions facilitated demand for the designs.  The women’s creative response was the translation of the men’s carvings and paintings into another form—blankets—to be worn during the “chief’s dance,” a performance in which southern tribal leaders asserted their power during potlatch ceremonies.  Some may assume that this is evidence of a hierarchical system of art-making, in which the men, the creators of the “originals,” are above the female copyists.  But it should be remembered that, just like the Blackfeet Lord’s Shirt, the “original” was not coveted as the more important work, and thus, is unlikely to be indicative the crest’s or pattern board’s greater worth.  The blankets, woven with goat wool and cedar bark, also take the imagery out of its original context.  No longer representing the weavers’ own tribe, and perhaps neither the traders’ own creation stories, the southern chieftains that exchanged for them appropriated the blankets for their own purposes.  The meaning and uses of the artwork, from crest to blanket, were transformed when it became a woven, transportable, and widely-traded object.  Although the Tlingit women derived their imagery from the men’s designs, who in turn derived their imagery from the form-line tradition of which they were part, their recreation of them into another form changed the very nature of the work they seemingly imitated.

This appropriation and reinterpretation of a traditional aesthetic into contemporary form is continued by Haida artist Robert Davidson.  Just like the Tlingit men and women of British Columbia, Davidson often works within the form-line tradition to create art reminiscent of the past, but spiritually distant and unmistakably contemporary.  In his Raven Stealing the Moon (1977), the artist used the Western printmaking technique of screen-printing to create the image.  Like the women weavers inspired by Tlingit painted boards and carved crests, Davidson is responding to the changing society in which he lives; blankets were weaved for a trade that demanded them, and prints are created for a Western world that dominates them.  Of course, the choice of medium is not as simplistic as that—there is a desire to be a part of Western society, but at the same time, to retain the tradition of which the Haida artist is part.  The subject matter, the creation myth of how the raven brought light to the world, is rather conservative.  Its presentation seems conservative as well, but there are vast aesthetic digressions from traditional wooden crests and blankets.  Although the form-line convention is retained, the image may be viewed as a cropped version of a blanket or crest.  The vertical symmetry that is present in virtually all of the Tlingit originals is abandoned in favor of a disjointed, pattern-less balance enclosed within a rectangular format.  Cues from Wassily Kandinsky are taken in granting unique shapes and sizes to almost every form within the print, but Kandinsky’s vast assortment of individualized colors are rejected for a more traditional three-color scheme.  In yet another move away from tradition, and much like the Tlingit weavers’ blankets, the conventional subject matter is decontextualized.  While wooden crests may be placed within a chief’s home to represent his tribe, the prints, just like the woven blankets, would be owned by people removed from this tradition—namely, Western collectors.  The mass-production that is intrinsic to the silkscreen printmaking process may perhaps be understood as a commentary on the Western World’s mass exploitation of American Indian culture.  Just as the print is slicker and less tactile than the originals, so are the West’s own kitsch appropriations of similar art objects.  Their aesthetic may be crudely reproduced, but not their spirit. 

Robert Davidson’s refusal to work in the purely traditional spirit may mark him as a traitor to some, but it must be understood that this refusal, compared to the whole of American Indian tradition of artistic reinterpretation, is only a matter of degree.  The Chumash Cave Painters created new, albeit similar works by the very act of over-painting previous ones; the Tlingit women weaved blankets based on traditional men’s designs when demand fostered their production.  It may be argued that Davidson’s deviations are more obvious and radical than those of past collective tribes, but they come in a time in which native art and culture is integrated with and influenced by Western society more so than in any other point in history.  Davidson’s existence as an individual artist also stands in contrast to his historical past.  Because of the collective and non-individualistic nature of art-making among the form-line tradition Tlingit, it may be argued that the notion of individual genius was not present among them, even if we are able to discern among individual works today.  A parallel idea seems to have existed among the Chumash Indians.  While the shaman was believed to have powers beyond the abilities of the common people, he painted while seemingly extracting the collective psyche of the tribe; he did not do it alone.  All three traditions, spread throughout three vastly different eras, still exist as the reworked conventions that preceded them, shaped by both their past and the unique demands of their day.

IMAGES, from top to bottom

1. Chumash cave painting. Credit: David Muench/Corbis, Britannica.
2. Chilkat Tlingit robe, c. 1890. Credit: David Penney, North American Indian Art (London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2004), p. 153.
3. Robert Davidson. Raven Stealing the Moon, 1975. Silkscreen print on paper, 30 x 17 in. Ed. 75. Credit: David Penney, North American Indian Art (London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2004), p. 165.

A FORMAL ANALYSIS OF THE TOILET OF BATHSHEBA | March 2009

In a rarely-discussed work exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Rembrandt depicts Bathsheba being washed and coddled by two servants.  She rests above the final step of the stairs, at the moment of movement’s end, and a lone King David watches her from his palace in the top left corner of the painting.  The peacock in the lower right might too be watching her, but its dim position prevents one from making a definitive judgment.  Bathsheba seems to be the only figure at complete rest, and her stillness is perhaps even more amplified by the painting’s unassuming, contemplative size.  A literal reading of the Toilet of Bathsheba (1643) may then ordain the character a certain lack of motion, but a more perceptive analysis should prove such inertness misleading.  Because the painting does not have the physical size to astound the viewer, its dimensions beckon further examination of the aesthetic, non-literal action that still commands attention from across the large museum room.  This movement seems to be the greatest formal priority of the work.  Any inertness is illusionary, merely serving to intensify Rembrandt’s painted world of unrestrained motion.

Undoubtedly, the first point of interest that the viewer will identify is Bathsheba, sitting in the center of the painting.  Her role as the most prominent figure and object in the work is achieved in several ways, the most obvious of which is her light, radiant tone, much lighter and brighter than anything else in the picture.  Even her servants are darker in color and tone, granting that the judgment was likely made mainly to preserve her luminosity.  Her edges are softened and the background is darkened; in this way, she is built by masses that seem to emerge out of the dark, creating one of the first recognizable movements in the painting.  This “painterly” device, a softer form of tenebrism, fundamentally accomplishes what the noted art historian Heinrich Wölfflin believes chiaroscuro does: like all painterly techniques, it suggests movement by means of light diffusion.[1]  Because such diffusion alludes to movement in several simultaneous directions, tenebrism is able to achieve this illusionary movement better than other linear styles of painting.  But before addressing the main Bathsheba-centered components that create movement within the painting, several other less significant details should be tended to.  The two servants are both performing an action of some sort, creating a variety of opposing moving lines with their bodies and limbs that are also echoed by Bathsheba.  The stairs move upward and downward and are, after all, made for such movement.  The two servants are only partially illuminated, thus suggesting movement from out of the shadows; the contrast of illuminated versus shadowy forms suggest the same idea.  The distant landscape provides a delicate and temporary “exit”[2] out of the picture to further heighten the pictorial movement of the work.

Perhaps the greatest element of movement (and thus, of the painterly style) is the general composition, which exists in several forms, all suggesting the same unrelenting motion.  The two servants help create a diagonal movement that is supported by and passes through Bathsheba, a type of line which, according to Wassily Kandinsky, holds the greatest potential for unlimited movement.[3]  Another subtle diagonal line is created by the faint presence of King David in the upper left corner and the peacock in the lower left, the only other two figures in the painting, passing through the hand that is cupping Bathsheba’s breast.  In turn, this creates an “x” composition that centers on Bathsheba, again clarifying her importance in the work.  The three central figures create a triangular composition—a rising, pointed, and thus freely-moving shape.  The irregular composition of the painting is another element of movement, as it creates a “peculiar tension” between the major and minor sides and establishes an irregularity that seems alive and mobile.[4]  Asymmetry is achieved by the different positioning of the servants relative to Bathsheba, but more importantly, by the placement of the peacock on the lower right corner relative to the emptiness of the lower left side.  Beyond asymmetry, however, the peacock also acts as a small weight that is balanced by the larger grouping of forms that compose the center.  Henry Rankin Poore, an artist and writer on art, uses another term to describe such an asymmetrical composition: the “balance of the steelyard.”  In this type of composition, a heavy side is weighted by a lighter, smaller side, rendering the lighter side absolutely crucial for the successful balancing of the picture.[5]  The mutual and cooperative existence of the heavy side (the three figures) with the light side (the peacock and the falling light) creates a lively and tensioned dialogue between the two parts, a level of activity that is very difficult to achieve with two equally weighted, symmetrical sides.

Although the case for dynamic movement as being the primary formal concern is strong, the final point about the all-encompassing composition should unquestionably close it.  Beyond the individual parts, the bulk of the painting is composed circularly—a composition and shape that breathes infinite movement—with Bathsheba acting as the pivot point for the central motion of the work.  The formal prominence of Bathsheba is not simply for an arbitrary center of interest; on a formal level, she is the center of interest because she is the spinner of the underlying circular movement of the painting and all other components seem to revolve around her.  To establish this circular composition, Rembrandt subdues the four corners of the painting by darkening them, thus eliminating their formal interest, a technique discussed by Poore through other paintings exemplifying it.[6]  Not even the peacock or King David—the only other figures out of the painting’s center—are immune from this sacrifice.  The eye’s circular journey may be traced as follows: the action starts at Bathsheba’s hand cupping her breast, as that seems to be the painting’s center of interest; the direction of the cupping arm flows into the direction of the arm that is supporting her; the identical diagonal of the leg picks up that downward motion into the lit hands of the bottom servant; the eye travels along the curves of her dress to the only other visible adjacent and lit object, the highlighted washing bowl; the journey continues down onto the platform closest to the viewer, and then naturally up the steps, following the band of light that falls down onto the steps (and barely missing the peacock); the direction of the light is picked up by the similarly-formed and orientated foliage, which makes a circular journey around the central figures and into the distant landscape in one long swoop; the eye rests briefly on the landscape, but does not escape into it, as it is too subtle to captivate for too long; the strongest contrast in the landscape’s sky is provided by the outermost shape of the palace which flows back into the land, a contour that the eye inevitably follows; that direction is then captured by the vague, lighter form with the same diagonal; finally, the eye is brought back down to either the bottom servant or the highlighted pitcher; in either case, a circular movement is established and fulfilled.  It is important to understand that, although the eye naturally moves by contours, the movement is created almost exclusively by tenebrism, one of the defining elements of the dynamic painterly style espoused by Wölfflin. 

What this analysis then establishes is that movement, besides being the prominent formal concern of the Toilet of Bathsheba, is created not only by traditional painterly techniques, but perhaps more importantly, also by compositional devices that transcend categorical styles.  Rembrandt is thus able to assign several formal roles to the central narrative figure, using her as a spinner of both painterly and literary tales.  Movement then becomes its most important character, using everything else as a vehicle to express itself throughout the work.

ERIK SATIE: TROIS GYMNOPÉDIES | April 2009

In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, an annual festive dance of young naked athletic and oiled men was introduced to celebrate the beauty of the male body.  The festival was called the Gymnopaedia, and as its name suggests, Erik Satie’s three Gymnopédies (1888) are named after the celebration.  What is strange about this reference is its apparently complete musical irrelevance to the actual event.  Satie, upon meeting with the director of Le Chat Noir, a French cabaret popular with various nineteenth-century French artists and writers, introduced himself as a gymnopédiste—assumingly one who took part in the ancient Spartan event—when he had no paying occupation to name at the time.  (The director simply replied that it was a “fine profession,” likely unsure of what he meant, and later welcomed the young composer into this exclusive circle.)  As it turns out, Satie composed and named the three works after the meeting in order to justify his strange answer.[1]  The eccentricity of such an introduction is certainly typical of the composer himself, but perhaps a grander idea may be inferred from this situation: because the relevance of the works’ names cannot be definitively judged, the conflict between name and content can thus be understood as a peculiar commentary on music’s interpretive subjectivity for listener and musician alike.  In various ways throughout the conception, composing, and interpretive playing of the works, Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies emphasize the very subjectivity of music and establish both a modern and contemporary musical framework of which such subjectivity is a major part.

The three Gymnopédies are a set of similar and fairly short piano works, composed for solo piano and clearly made to be played slowly and softly.  In Gymnopédie No. 1, Erik Satie noted lent et douloureux (“slow and painful”) in the manuscript; the second one is meant to be played lent et triste (“slow and sad”); the third Gymnopédie is instructed to be lent et grave ("slow and grave"); it should also be noted that this text is often included in the title of the Gymnopédies as a kind of descriptive subtitle for each work.  The compositions are sometimes described as having a somewhat impoverished sound that is very much in accordance with Satie’s own financial circumstances throughout his life.[2]  Each work’s solemn and unadorned passages are composed with two simultaneous melodies: the more prominent “subject” of the work, dynamically louder and usually in a higher in scale, and the less prevalent and repetitive “background” rhythm, played with two antecedent-consequent notes with a third slightly different consequent that appears as every fourth note (A-B-A-C-A-B-A-C-A-B-A).  Sometimes, the two melodies momentarily converge during a certain note, a union that is emphasized by a louder strike at the piano.[*]  The next subject note is then played a bit more softly, creating a decrescendo effect in the sequence of notes.  Even more interestingly, sometimes the antecedent of the subject is answered by the consequent of the background melody, and the background’s antecedent by the subject’s consequent.  One can then imagine a musical form emerging resembling that of a wave—the background ocean always low and steady, but gentle subject waves coming up and making their way back down into the ocean to merge with it once again.  Just as the waves are parts of the ocean but hold dynamic characteristics foreign to the ocean’s stillness, the subject melody is too intrinsically linked with the background, though having a character unlike that of the simpler underlying melody.

Each one of Satie’s slower piano works unravels in a very delicate way to the listener.  The “nakedness” of the composer’s music is perhaps best reflected in the Gymnopédies, the least of which is symbolized by the nakedness of the Spartan gymnopaedistes.[3]  There is little variation between the three works and each one is dominated by a solemn subject, but there are a few subtle differences to be felt once all three are heard.  The first, and likely his most famous variation, seems to be broken into two almost identical parts, the second repeating the first.  It is also played slightly slower than the other two, granting the work a greater clarity and emotional neutrality than the other variations.  The second Gymnopédie seems to have a three-part structure in which the first two parts are similar in length but different in subject melodies.  The third part is different in both subject melody as well as length.  It also somehow leaves the most discomforting impression on the listener, possibly attributable to its asymmetrical composition and Satie’s choice of a particularly uneasy mode, especially if heard right after the first Gymnopédie.  The third variation is much like the first in terms of structure and melody, but is, even without its subtitle characterizing it as such, somehow the “gravest” of all of them.  Each one of the Gymnopédies ends with the final notes of the background melody, but only the second variation ends with a major note.  This major note perhaps works as a brief glimmer of hope until the third, most solemn Gymnopédie concludes the set of works throughout the last variation as well as in the final and strongest minor note.  Contextually, each work exists as a subtle interpretation of one main theme, and it is this interpretation, as will be explained, that functions as one of the primary ideas underpinning the works.

The description of the Trois Gymnopédies thus far should reveal the works as rather sparse and melancholy compositions, unappealing to ears accustomed to the multi-layered orchestral sounds that preceded them.  Satie is barely working with any contrasts in terms of melodies and none at all with instruments; the mood does not truly fluctuate from work to work or even within each variation; the subject remains almost exactly the same throughout each Gymnopédie, as does the background melody; dynamics change very delicately, if at all.  If he refuses to use the traditional, time-proven musical techniques to create interest in his work, what is there to recommend in Erik Satie?  The beauty of these three works, it seems, lies in their subtle manipulation of the most basic of musical forms.  His inclusion in musical history can be attributed to his revelation that music does not have to rely on the likeness of the grandiose performances of the past, nor on the layered complexities that naturally came along with them.  The work argues that musical beauty can be created by focusing on its fundamentals.  At around the same time, the French painter Paul Cézanne emphasized the structure of painting through its abstract essentials; Satie worked towards the same end in the realm of music.  Much like other French artists at the time, it may then be argued that he was a forerunner of European Modernism.  But it seems that Satie’s focus on musical essentials is imbued with greater substance than creativity for its own sake.

The almost elementary bareness of the music is what paradoxically appeals to his audiences, just as it did to one admirer of his music who supposedly wrote to Satie:  “For eight years I have suffered from a polyp in the nose… and rheumatic pains… four or five applications of your Gymnopédie No. 3 cured me completely.”[4]  His Trois Gymnopédies seem to thrive on the edge of collapse.  Their existence as soft, solemn works exert the right amount of musical particulars to function as great art—in other words, the compositions are just right.  Any push in either a simpler direction or a more complex one threatens to destroy Satie’s three most famous musical works.  This seems to place a particularly great responsibility on musicians wishing to play the Gymnopédies faithfully.  Principally, one of the main concerns of the performer would be the rubato, as the works simply do not have enough complexity to conceal an incompetent musician’s insensitivity to their prominent rhythm.  The uniqueness and sincerity of an entire interpretation too is given an unusually important role in animating the works, as the Gymnopédies make it difficult to perform them in a unique or exceptional way; they are, after all, on the brink of collapse, leaving little room for experimentation.

The notion of a highly personal and apparent self-expression can be argued to be a particularly nineteenth-century French invention.  While it is impossible to deny that every artist is somehow a reflection of the culture and times that produced them, and their work perhaps a reflection of themselves, apparent subjectivity enjoyed a singular position in the realm of art at this time.  Vincent Van Gogh, although not French by birth, painted Post-Impressionist works that ended up mostly for himself, far removed from Renaissance world of patrons paying for a visual expression of their own ideas.  Such fervent subjectivity may have cost Van Gogh his life, but definitely a career as a paid artist; Impressionists were the scorn of critics who disparaged their work, not realizing that all of their techniques were used to convey the personal, fleeting subject of light; landscape, with its vague, highly personal subject matter, became a popular genre, especially in French painting; Édouard Manet, striving to depict painting as painting and not illusion, was criticized for his flat-painting style and apparent suspension of traditional artistic rules; Odilon Redon, the French Symbolist painter and pastelist created dream-like worlds whose subjectivity he often likened to music; Eugène Delacroix, one of the greatest of nineteenth century painters from any country, inspired Redon with his emphasis on subjective emotion over objective form.[5]  Modernism (and pre-Modernism) itself, striving for a new mode of expression, may be characterized by a revolt against the artistic, musical, and literary norms of the past in the hopes of the expression of a personal artistic vision.  Erik Satie, one of the most important composers of both the country and the time, can too be seen in a very similar way.

This emphasis on subjectivity and interpretation exists in several forms throughout the Gymnopédies.  The first is the obvious aforementioned conflict between the names, referencing the ancient Spartan Gymnopaedia, whose theatrics and festivities are in complete contrast with the somber and naked mood that the almost minimalist works convey.  By suggesting such a name, Satie acknowledges the breadth of possible interpretations and inspirations that can exist in a musical work.  His own eccentricity can also be linked to the new manner in which the works are composed, either in the strictly minimalist mode of the Gymnopédies or the bewilderingly short, contrasting, and dynamically outrageous Les Trois Valses Distinguées du Précieux Dégouté (of which the second is very soft compared to the other two).  But without much contrast in the Gymnopédies and two sparse, relatively simple melodies comprising the entirety of the three works, Satie makes a conscious, personal decision to compose in opposition to the norms of both the past and the present day.  As mentioned earlier, because the bare Gymnopédies rest on the edge of collapse, emphasis is also placed on its musical interpretation.  Since it is difficult to conceal any errors or rhythmic insensitivities, the musician faces a heightened challenge in attempting a unique interpretation of the work, not to mention a convincing one.  The existence of the works as three variations suggests an interpretation of one central musical theme and the similarity of all three Gymnopédies works to confirm that idea.  Almost every aspect of these three works makes a strong reference to the notion of apparent subjectivity and interpretation in music.

The Modernist framework that emerged from Satie’s pre-minimalist approach to composition is certainly worthy of discussion, but perhaps a more subtle contemporary musical connection would prove far more interesting.  The connection should establish the success and influence of the musical framework that, more likely unknowingly than consciously, somehow made its way into the inner cities of the United States.  The idea of doing a lot with a little was certainly familiar to Erik Satie, as both his life and music are intertwined with such poverty, but both he and his music are certainly not the only ones.  One of the defining musical inventions of the late twentieth century is rap, created with the sparsest of melodies, in the sparsest of settings, and with possibly the most basic form of communication—talking.  One of the greatest and most popular works that exemplify such sparseness is Doug E. Fresh’s and MC Ricky D’s (later known as Slick Rick) “La-Di-Da-Di” (1985).  Almost exactly a century after Satie composed his Trois Gymnopédies, the two rappers composed a work in which one musician (Doug E. Fresh) creates a simple melody strictly with abstract vocal sounds—a technique known as “beatboxing”—while the other raps a humorous, faux-autobiographical story over it.  The technique of creating music with one’s mouth, more than just a basic way of creating a melody, implies the same idea of apparent subjectivity in the work in several ways.  It is perhaps the most direct way of creating a melody, as it involves only the person and no other instruments.  The lack of instruments, in context with more traditional music that almost exclusively relies on them, poses the question as to why no instruments are used.  The answer in part, it seems, is that the impoverished musicians of the inner city could afford neither instruments nor training, thus rendering the beatboxed melody an apparent subjectivity, apparent because the question is begging to be asked.  The rapped story, while not truly autobiographical in nature, is convincingly spun and its directness of language and melody—a basic element of rap music—may sometimes make it difficult to remember that the work was conceived as an artistic piece of musical expression and not as a one-to-one reflection of reality.  The rapping may thus be considered an example of apparent subjectivity, in this case apparent because of direct nature of the technique.  One can also make the same argument for rapping as for the lack of instruments; the question of why a musician raps instead of sings, beyond its emphasis reality, is due to a lack of costly vocal training.  The musical conception of doing much with a little can be seen in another rap classic by Nas, titled “One Love,” (1994) from one of the finest rap albums in its history, Illmatic.[**]  Much like the previous example, there are two basic components to the work: the melody, made by non-instrumental computerized synthesizers, and the rapping.  In this case, like in Satie’s Gymnopédies, there is a level of musical interaction between the prominent melody, that of the rap, and the background melody, the synthesized one.  When the synthesized snare makes it most dynamically charged appearance right before the melody loops again, it is coupled with an end-rhyme, usually the most powerful and prevalent word and sound in the rapped line.  This interaction is repeated throughout the song with varying degrees of proximity, usually staying on course but sometimes managing to slip away from it.  The melody then acts as a component that gauges the performance of the rapper.  The difficulty of packing different words and multiple layers of meaning into diverse verses while trying to remain “on beat” to a perfectly consistent machine-melody places an emphasis on the performance of the rapper, and thus, on the only “natural” part of the entire work.  If he slips unjustifiably, it will be audible for all to hear.  Just as Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies work extra hard to gauge the performance their interpreters, “One Love” works hard too in emphasizing the subjectivity of the rapper’s vocal delivery.[***]

Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies are artistic exercises in pushing music to the edge of collapse.  With this pre-minimalist framework, the musician is able to place emphasis on its interpretation, and thus its musical subjectivity—subject to circumstance, subject to interpretation, and in the case of rap music, subject to unknowing reinterpretation.  If one is at liberty to discuss the possibility of “ideas” underlying certain beautiful musical works, then perhaps such apparent subjectivity can be seen to underpin Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies.



REFERENCES

[1] Volta, Ornella, Satie Seen Through His Letters (New York: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1989), p. 29.
[2] Volta, Ornella, Satie Seen Through His Letters (New York: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1989), p. 31.
[3] Volta, Ornella, Satie Seen Through His Letters (New York: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1989), p. 29.
[4] Volta, Ornella, Satie Seen Through His Letters (New York: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1989), p. 35.
[5] Bacou, Roseline, Odilon Redon: Pastels (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1987), p. 154.

NOTES

[*] This is referring to Daniel Varsano’s interpretation of the music, as is the entire essay.  It is found on Satie: Piano Works from the Sony Essential Classics Collection, released 17 November 1992.
[**] Though we are concerned with masterworks serving as examples, it should be noted that they are only such because of the success of their musical frameworks.  The rap examples used here apply to a wide range of songs, too numerous to mention here.
[***] It should also be noted that the synthesized melody was sampled from “Smilin’ Billy Suite, Pt. II,” (1975) a work by The Heath Brothers.  The very act of sampling, or reinterpretation of music by borrowing and remaking certain parts, emphasizes subjectivity by the difficulty of making the final melody convincing as an original work.  Very often, sampling was done without the consent of the source artist, so a level of concealment had to be imposed in order to avoid paying for the rights, further emphasizing the role of reinterpretation in the music.

MILTON GLASER, THE RENAISSANCE, AND NEW YORK | November 2008

Several centuries ago, the most profound visual information of the Western world was the painting, sculpture, and architecture that came out of its cities.  Visual information existed primarily in these forms—there was virtually no graphic design, posters, or the type of commercial art that we are familiar with today.  “The whole visual history of the world was my resource,” says Milton Glaser.[1]  A significant portion of Glaser’s inspirations and resources are the art forms that preceded his field, a field that we today deem “design.”  This “visual history,” at least for him, meant all art, including the works of Renaissance Italy, an artistic period that has always been close to him, and close to the city in which he works.  The artistic practices that fashioned the great cities of Renaissance Italy have always been a part of New York as well, a reflection that is deeply embedded in Glaser’s own work and ideas.  By understanding these connections, one can gain a greater insight into both art and design, its place in New York, and the city’s own position relative to the artistic history of the world.

Milton Glaser maintains an interesting alignment with the history of art.  Glaser believes that he chased down every painting by Piero della Francesca in the world.[2]  He studied under the now-famous painter Giorgio Morandi at the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy.  He has specifically cited the Renaissance as one of his major influences.[3]  He often criticizes the distinction made between “high art” and “low art.”  This alignment is apparent, however, upon the simple act of viewing some of his work.  One of his most famous works, his iconic Bob Dylan poster, was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s Self-Portrait in Profile (1958).[4]   There are many minor examples of Glaser being influenced by notable artists, but perhaps a deeper analysis of only a few works will prove to be far more interesting.  Such an analysis will attempt to illuminate Glaser’s own relationship to the art of the past and the implications that such a relationship holds for our view of modern-day New York.

In a 1985 poster for the School of Visual Arts, Milton Glaser had a photograph taken of a collage taped onto a white notebook.  It was photographed in a way that accentuated the three-dimensionality of the collage elements and tape.  The illusion was so effective that Glaser even witnessed subway commuters attempting to peel the tape off of the posters![5]  Glaser describes his interest in this trick: “How to represent reality convincingly is one of the central themes in the history of art… Although historically, painting has been the appropriate place to explore these ideas, they are equally interesting as subject for exploration in the graphic arts… American artists William Hartnett and John F. Peto explored this approach [of using shallow space] by creating paintings that involved the flat surfaces of cards, newspaper clippings, ribbons, and so on.”[6]  His interest was a traditional concern of painting, one that began with the early Renaissance artists who invented perspective and illusionary volumetric rendering of forms.  Some may argue, however, that he surpassed the aforementioned artists in their playing with illusion and reality.  By placing the work on a train that serves thousands of people every day, the scope of this illusion seems even greater.  In addition, it invites the viewer to explore the illusion by actually touching it, something that can never be done with a painting in a gallery or museum.  This poster is an excellent example of art influencing Glaser, but with the designer using the characteristics of his own medium to engage the city in which it was displayed.

Milton Glaser’s line of work demands uniqueness in order to distinguish his clients in such a competitive field.  For the various cities, guilds, and courts of the Renaissance, competition in the arts also played a vital role in establishing the presence of any such particular group.  In fact, the very nature of competition was responsible for the appearance of many artworks throughout the centuries.  In 1406, the governors of Florence ordered a number of statues to be completed in every empty niche of the Or San Michele church.  Each niche was assigned to a Florentine guild, in which a statue of their particular patron saint was to be built.  Several notable artists, including Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Nanni di Banco, worked for nearly two decades in these niches.[7]  In one of the niche’s reliefs belonging to the Arte dei Corazzai (Armorers’ Guild), Donatello’s St. George and the Dragon (1417), the artist conceived the work much like a painting, complete with barely visible lines that suggest atmospheric perspective and a softness not really seen in sculptural relief.  The marble material is also treated like clay, further emphasizing this softness that contrasted with much of the other artists’ work.[8]  This contrast served to separate the Arte dei Corazzai’s niches from the others, drawing attention to the guild and thus giving them a strong presence in Or San Michele.  Similarly, one of the wealthiest Florentine guilds, the Arte del Calimala (Wool Merchants’ Guild), employed Ghiberti to sculpt their St. John the Baptist (1412).  The guild was aware that his more Gothic style would contrast with the other sculptors’ classical approach, a style that would grant a greater public awareness of their particular niche, and thus, of them.  The use of expensive bronze and bigger-than-life-size scale also served to distinguish their niche from the others.[9] Certainly, the idea of creating contrast within a close context of other works is an idea that prevails in the modern design world.  “For a designer, context is everything,” Milton Glaser explains in his commentary for the cover of the November 1967 issue of Holiday.  For commanding attention, the style of this magazine cover is much more relevant than its content (which was just as true for the Or San Michele niches – all were religious in content, but it was the style of the works that distinguished some particular ones).  It is done completely in black and white, with no gray tones, creating strong, solid forms and a lack of color that would stand out from nearly every colorful magazine in the racks.[10]  The cover draws attention by using the same principles that the Renaissance artists of Or San Michele used; and much like the effect of artistic contrast garnered renown for the guilds, the technique sought to establish the presence of Holidaymagazine and its owners as well.  There are many such examples of getting attention through contrast during the Renaissance and in design.  Consciously or inadvertently, Milton Glaser, much like any good designer, is in a habit of appropriating artistic techniques used during the Renaissance for the same purposes of the present day.  But there still are further connections to be drawn.

“Quality in art seems to come as much from restriction as it does from freedom.”[11]  This contention from Milton Glaser seems to sum up the bulk of Renaissance work, the period from which some of the most prized masterpieces of Western art emerged, all made under such restriction.  The appearance of almost any Renaissance work was as much the vision of the patron (the client) as it was of the artist; the patron wanted a certain object to be made in a specific way, and the artist used his artistic skills to execute that vision.[12]  In Giotto di Bondone’s Last Judgment, for example, like all of his works in the Scrovegni Chapel, the artist painted the fresco in order to communicate several things about the patron of the work, Enrico Scrovegni.  The patron was the son of an infamous practitioner of usury who wanted to disassociate himself from the sins of his father.  In order to accomplish this, one of the many aspects of Giotto’s frescoes was the revolutionary style in which it was painted; the use of realistic volumetric rendering, along with the depiction of strong emotion, was a new style and manner of presenting an old religious subject.  In order to disassociate oneself from the sins of the past, the logic likely went, the past should not be repeated.[13]  This revitalization of an old theme with a new style reoccurs many more times throughout history, as it is an effective way of communicating something about the subject or patron.  It is no surprise, then, that Milton Glaser would use the device as well.

It is apparent that Glaser was also talking about himself in his quote.  Upon the reception of a task from a client, much like almost any Renaissance artist, total freedom was never an option.  It is still clear, however, that such restrictions never hindered his work; in fact, restriction has been one of the most important aspects of his work, as his task was to visualize and execute his client’s aspirations.  As an example, one of his client’s objectives was to portray his company as “sweeping away old thinking and pursuing what was fresh and revolutionary.” Glaser drew part of this identity from the Futurist movement (another inspiration from painting and sculpture) by including an aggressive, manifesto-styled brochure that immediately alludes to looking to the future.  Even more importantly to the subject being discussed, Glaser took the famous yellow smiley-face image, turned it red, turned it on a diagonal, and replaced the smiling mouth with a circle, which was also the point of the exclamation mark that made up its nose. [14]  The effect of the calm, warm yellow and the smiling mouth was literally turned on its head and made into something much different.  Much like Giotto, Glaser reworked a traditional image into something that would fit the aspirations of his client, and it is this reworking that gives the image its power.  This was an important device then, and it is still just as crucial in distinguishing one’s clients now.  As patronage was a defining element of Renaissance art, the same is true of design.  Objects were made to communicate something significant about the patron, and it is not much different today, or throughout Glaser’s own time in the twentieth century.[15]  Patrons restricted Renaissance artists much like companies and other such clients restrict designers.  Even with such constraints, Renaissance artists never became less than renowned artistic masters, and the renowned Milton Glaser never became less than himself.

There is yet another interesting connection to be made, and this time, it is about the cities in which these works emerged.  During the Renaissance, with important cities in fairly close proximity to one another, leaders often wanted to convey certain messages about the places that they ruled.  Whatever works were advantageous to them and their cities, the actual objects that defined them as rulers, were to be implemented.  The rebuilding of fifteenth-century Rome is but one illustrious example.  Throughout the twelfth century, the relocation of the papal court from Rome to Avignon, conflict within the Church, and the papal artistic neglect of Rome all worked to undermine what the city established up to that century, leaving it in near ruins.  After the Great Schism that ended in 1417, the papacy returned to Rome.  It was not until the election of Pope Nicholas V in 1446, however, that conditions started to greatly improve; the year 1450 was to be a Jubilee Year, a time of concentrating on the power of the Church and the city through celebrations, various renovations, and civic artistic endeavors.[16]  Since the end of the Great Schism, various artworks were created to strengthen the look and prestige of the city; the Doors of Old St. Peter’s (1445) by Filarete; the renovation and repairs of the Vatican Palace and other notable landmarks; the Santa Maria del Popolo (1480) and the Sistine Chapel (1481), both possibly by Baccio Pontelli; Michelangelo’s famous Pietà (1499); and many, many other works.[17]  Such an old city-building campaign has a contemporary counterpart in what is probably Milton Glaser’s most famous and most-copied graphic work.

The 1970s were a very uneasy time for New York.  The city became notorious for high crime rates, great welfare expenditure, a weakening stock exchange, and an infamous grant refusal for the city by President Gerald R. Ford.  “Morale was at the bottom of the pit… You were just walking through all this dog shit day after day, in this filthy city, garbage, and so on… One day people said, ‘I’m tired of stepping in dog shit. Get this fucking stuff out of my way.’ …Then suddenly the city simultaneously got fed up and said, ‘It’s our city, we’re going to take it back, we’re not going to allow this stuff to happen,’” says Milton Glaser in an interview with graphic designer Chip Kidd.[18]  “New York was perceived as a crime-ridden, unfriendly if not hostile location, and the campaign using the phrase, ‘I Love New York,’ was meant to change all that,” Milton Glaser explains.[19]  Glaser’s elegant and simple typographical solution was tremendously successful.  A campaign that was intended to promote tourism and growth in the state, particularly in faltering New York City, echoes the rebuilding campaign of Rome by the papacy.  The “I Love NY” campaign was very successful in its objectives, and like the papacy’s successful rebuilding of another great city half a millennium earlier, its success can be attributed to the power of art.

It is not too difficult to argue the case for New York City as one of the most significant art and communication centers of the world.  As such, it holds a distinctive position relative to the world and its artistic and communicative history.  What happens here matters almost everywhere, and its happenings are broadcasted for all of the eyes of the Earth.  Visual communication plays a major role in this city—the architecture, the large advertisements, the televisions, the paintings, the fashions, the posters, maybe a Glaser book jacket, definitely a city campaign adorning thousands of t-shirts—and all broadcast a message about something.  And because New York is the capital of such communications, it makes it that much more important.  When the Arte del Calimala requested Ghiberti to sculpt a huge bronze figure for their space in the city’s Or San Michele church, they were displaying their wealth, power, and superiority over the other guilds.  Similarly, when the Chrysler Corporation requested their architects to construct a very tall, grand, and futuristic-looking building in a New York space, they were trying to portray themselves as an advanced, powerful, and forward-looking automotive company, far better than the rest.[20]  Needless to say, if the Chrysler Building was constructed in a Midwestern potato field and not in New York, and the Arte del Calimala placed their bronze in a remote town instead of Florence, the effect would not have been quite the same.  The parallels between Renaissance cities and New York are not farfetched ones; they are, in fact, far-reaching ones.  The cities of the Renaissance were in the business of broadcasting visual information about themselves and their patrons through art.  New York City is still in that business.  Milton Glaser has been a major contributor to this business, and clarifies these connections through his own work and inspirations, directly and indirectly, consciously or sometimes not.  He is one figure who illuminates this transcendence of location and time.

REFERENCES

[1] Glaser, Milton. Graphic Design. The Overlook Press Inc., Woodstock: 1983, p. 16.
[2] Glaser, Milton. Art is Work. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London: 2000, p. 129.
[3] Glaser, Milton. Interview by the author. 30 July 2008.
[4] Glaser, Milton. Graphic Design. The Overlook Press Inc., Woodstock: 1983, p. 50.
[5] Glaser, Milton. Art is Work. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London: 2000, p. 32.
[6] Glaser, Milton. Art is Work. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London: 2000, p. 30.
[7] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, p. 212.
[8] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, pp. 213-214.
[9] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, pp. 215-216.
[10] Glaser, Milton. Graphic Design. The Overlook Press Inc., Woodstock: 1983, p. 141.
[11] Glaser, Milton. Graphic Design. The Overlook Press Inc., Woodstock: 1983, p. 16.
[12] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, p. 16.
[13] Drogin, David. “The Late Middle Ages in Central Italy: Mendicant Orders and Small Cities.” Class lecture. Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. 3 September 2008.
[14] Glaser, Milton. Art is Work. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London: 2000, p. 223.
[15] Drogin, David. Interview by the author. 23 September 2008.
[16] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, p. 289.
[17] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 3rd ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2005, pp. 291, 294, 303, 311.
[18] Kidd, Chip. “Chip Kidd Talks With Milton Glaser” September 2003. Available from: The Believer <http://www.believermag.com/issues/200309/?read=interview_glaser> 18 October 2008.
[19] Glaser, Milton. Art is Work. Thames & Hudson Ltd., London: 2000, pp. 206-207.
[2o] Drogin, David. Interview by the author. 23 September 2008.

When questioning the reasons for the existence of virtually any work of art created during the Italian Renaissance, the practice of artistic patronage would ultimately prove to be one of the most repeated answers.  At this time, works were created primarily for the prestige of the patron[1] and thus their creation was very much the vision of the patron as it was of the artist. When the aspirations of the patron and the intuitive artistic sense of the artist fused to create a work, interesting parallels may have emerged in different works by the same patron or artist.  In one such case, Andrea del Verrocchio, a Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and painter, was hired by two different patrons in two different cities for two distinct projects.  While the works are vastly different in terms of category, subject matter, location, city of origin, and patron, the very nature of patronage and the artistic sense of the artist both worked to produce rather similar results.

Although the city of Florence may have been labeled a republic in the thirteenth century, it was, in reality, a city run by wealthy families and guilds.  The Medici family is famous for their great patronage of art and infamous for their cunning appropriation of Florentine symbols and intrusions on Republican boundaries that worked to their own advantage.  Verrocchio’s Tomb of Piero and Giovanni de’Medici, built in approximately 1470-1472, was made to commemorate the father and uncle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, respectively.  The tomb appears quite serene and delicately-crafted, two qualities that, at first glance, work to portray the burial place as a rather warm and honorable tribute to Lorenzo’s family members.  This might be a component of its design to be used in case an opponent declares the Medici to be ostentatious enemies of Florentine ideals.  The tomb is constructed from marble, bronze, red porphyry, green serpentine, and pietra serena.  Bronze was expensive and highly prized as a metal in the creation of art, immediately signaling the wealth of the patron.  A bronze diamond-shaped rope pattern adorns the entrance to the tomb, thus acting like a barrier between the world and the sarcophagus.  The diamond shape may have been used because it is the hardest known mineral on Earth; nothing, then, can get through to the Medici.  The combination of red porphyry and green serpentine is a rather intense clash of color in a fairly colorless sculpture, making the inscription on the green stone all the more visible.  The inscription is in Latin, no doubt alluding to the Medici’s breadth of classical learning.[2]  Perhaps the most important material used in the construction of the tomb is the red porphyry, a very hard and exhausted stone that was used in various Roman construction projects and royal classical and Egyptian tombs.  Its toughness speaks about the Medici’s own power, its rarity about their wealth, and its history about their status in Florence.  The most important part of the tomb, the sarcophagus, is made from the rock, directly aligning the Medici with its powerful past.  Because the stone was virtually exhausted, its use generally meant the destruction of other works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt.  This is, in a way, a testament to the Medici’s own status as imperial authorities on art.  By destroying the art of the past, they are metaphorically making way for their own, more important creations, thus toppling the past with their present reign.

The allusion to classical antiquity, and the misuse of its figures and history for themselves, is made even more apparent by the inclusion of four bronze tortoises that support the inscription of the Latin phrase festina lente (“hurry slowly”).  The phrase was the motto of both Emperor Augustus and Constantine[3], and the tortoises, besides being an obvious reference to the motto and an iconographic reference to Augustus, may also allude to the then-believed long life of the Medici.  The undeterred borrowing of historical symbols for the Medici’s own prestige does not merely include antiquity; the city of Florence was up for the taking as well.  The sarcophagus is held up by the feet of a lion, the animal being a traditional emblem of a ruler, and the state’s own symbol for at least two centuries until that time.[4]  What is possibly the most important thematic aspect of the Tomb of Piero and Giovanni de’Medici, however, is its location—at Filippo Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy in the Basilica di San Lorenzo, one of the largest churches in Florence.  The act of burial in a church was, at the time, inappropriate in itself, but burial under the dome of the Old Sacristy makes a direct reference to Christ’s own domed tomb in Jerusalem.  A comparison between the story of the Resurrection and the Medici’s own deaths emerges, suggesting their aspirations for an afterlife,[5] or perhaps more appropriately, their perseverance to rule.  What is more, the Old Sacristy is the burial place of several other members of the Medici family, signifying the idea of a dynasty.

Around the same time that the Medici were dominating the city of Florence, Venice was trying to establish itself as a serious contender for power and influence among the Italian city-states.  Seemingly a world removed from the happenings of the feigned Florentine Republic, the city strived to maintain a true one.  Government powers were limited to that end, and Doges, or “dukes,” served more as figureheads than as supremely powerful monarchs.  It came as no surprise, then, that when Bartolomeo Colleoni, the city’s celebrated condottiere, or military general, willed to be honored with a statue in the Piazza San Marco, Venetian leaders were reluctant to fulfill his wish.  A compromise was reached, and the monument was to be built and placed outside of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, a less central city site than the general’s originally intended location.  Verrocchio sculpted the Colleoni Monument over the span of nearly two decades, completing it in 1496.  Although it is possible that such a monument may have never been built without Colleoni’s request, the act of patronage, even with the general’s own funding for this sculpture,[6] also came in the form of the city’s approval for the work.  The existence of such a monument speaks not only about the strength of the general, but it also suggests the power of the Venetian military as well; the “equestrian warrior” is a common motif throughout the city, a kind of advantageous visual metaphor that propagated Venice’s own might.[7]  The image works because Colleoni looks incredibly tough and ferocious.  He is sculpted from strong and expensive bronze, his muscles are emphasized and clearly defined, his movement is swift and naturalistic, and the expression on his face is truly frightening.

The sculpture is even more successful in the expression of such powerful character once viewed in the context of similar works that preceded it.  One of the only surviving bronze equestrian statues is that of Marcus Aurelius, a second-century Roman Emperor, incorrectly believed to be Emperor Constantine, the ruler responsible for declaring Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire.  TheColleoni Monument is akin to the Equestrian Monument to Marcus Aurelius in its general look, material, the one raised, unsupported hoof, and its stature, an allusion that holds obvious connotations of imperialism and grandeur for the general and the city that permitted the sculpted tribute.  For an emerging city that yearned to associate itself with classical antiquity, such a parallel, like for all of the Italian city-states, attempted to heighten the power and prestige of the city, linking both Venice and the original patron of the work to the great classical past.

Another, more recent work that the Colleoni Monument alludes to is Donatello’s Equestrian Monumentto Erasmo da Narni (completed in 1453), or, as the general is more widely known as, Gattamelata (“honeyed cat”).[8]  This work is a technical and artistic feat.  Not only was it the first known bronze equestrian sculpture since classical times, but it also presented Gattamelata in a much grander way than all previous Venetian military generals, with greater stature, more expensive materials, and a public placement once reserved for much more prominent Venetian figures.[9]  He was, in a way, made majestic.  Its sculptor was an accomplished artist in his own right, and the work was original and crafted with great skill; Verrocchio and Colleoni understood that in order to surpass Donatello’s monument, it could not have been simply copied and presented as another powerful equestrian warrior.  The Colleoni Monument was made partly as an answer to Donatello’s preceding work, with a much more terrifying expression, a much stronger display of muscles and movement, and the horse’s prominently raised and unsupported leg.  This last detail is vital because not only does it make an allusion to classical antiquity (as the Equestrian Monument to Marcus Aurelius features the same detail), but it demonstrates a more sophisticated use of the bronze material.  Donatello’s monument has the horse’s raised leg resting on a cannonball that is attached to the base, adding a thematically-fitting but unneeded element to the sculpture; Verrocchio’s work excludes such a support because he understood that it was unnecessary for the sustainment of the sculpture.  Thus, by including the general and nothing else, greater attention is given to Colleoni and the other elements that constitute Verrocchio’s work.  This possible surpassing of Donatello’s work through expression, emphasis on strength through muscles, an allusion to the glorious classical past, and a greater mastery of the materials all worked for the splendor of Verrocchio and his two patrons, Colleoni and the city of Venice.

There is a congruence of ends for both artist and patron at work in Verrocchio’s sculptures.  The Tomb of Piero and Giovanni de’Medici ultimately lifts the souls of supposedly ordinary Florentine citizens into the realm of royalty.  One of the ways in which this is accomplished is through a dialogue with the classical past.  The use of porphyry, an ancient and classical material, imparts an alignment with antiquity and its sovereign rulers.  Even more, its use conveys a kind of domination of the art of the past, as its destruction was virtually the only way in acquiring the regal stone.  Verrocchio’s own utilization of porphyry suggests a similar theme.  The fact that the artist worked with the stone says something about his status as well; he was, in fact, working with the stone of antiquity, besting past artists’ works by creating a sculpture that exists when their no longer stand.  The Colleoni Monument, though funded by different patrons in different cities with dissimilar systems of government, nonetheless aims to achieve very similar results.  The aforementioned qualities—the more warrior-like expression, prominent muscles, an allusion to antiquity, and a greater understanding of the materials—were likely implemented to surpass Donatello’s own Equestrian Monument.  Three clear winners emerge from this scenario.  Colleoni is commemorated with a work that portrays him as perhaps the greatest Italian general since antiquity; Verrocchio becomes the artistic master who bested the great Donatello; and through such competition, Venice receives yet another splendid monument, this time with ties to classical times, garnering the city recognition as a true power within the Italian city-states.  Both patronage and Verrocchio’s own artistic aspirations worked to accomplish the same essential task, transcending the individual patron, the individual work, and the city from which the work emerged.



REFERENCES

[1] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 16.
[2] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 271.
[3] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 271.
[4] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 271.
[5] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 253.
[6] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 335.
[7] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 335.
[8] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), p. 265.
[9] Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005), pp. 265-266.