Old Masters and the Renaissance

[Xeon_OND]

I've read Wikipedia about the Renaissance and the Old Masters but still don't quite understand one thing.

How is it possible that each of them (Da Vinci, Durer, Rembrandt etc) are able to reach such insane skill levels all around the Renaissance era?

I'm not sure whether in terms of technical skills and ability, we have the equivalents of the old masters in our current time (2009).

Considering that even top artists nowadays like Vilppu still constantly study from the old masters' work, that really says a lot about the skill levels of the old masters.

How is it possible that in this 21st century, we're still learning from these supposedly more primitive humans who lived several centuries before us?!

Going by logic and looking at other fields, humans are supposed to be smarter and smarter.

I mean, you don't see modern day aerospace engineers reading about the Wright Brothers, nor do you see modern day professional F1 racers studying from those car racers in the early 30s.
And you don't see modern day doctors reading up on medical books written in the 14th century either.

Maybe someone can explain to me. Was it something like a coincidence that hard work + talent + 14 - 17th century period = great artist?

[Parka81]

They are either super talented or they worked super hard.

I would like to think it's the latter.

Imagine if they have the art books/lessons/materials we have nowadays. I bet their work will be god-like.

[Derek the Usurper]

We are still learning from them because a lot of the information was lost and forgotten when the modern art crowd took over the institutions.

Go here and read up on the subject: http://www.artrenewal.org/

[JParrilla]

the examples you gave are technological ones.. and art is not technological. We can look back and have artists of the past be better than artists now because advancements in art are not the same as advancements in technology. Materials rarely become obsolete. People still draw in red chalk and charcoal like artists did in the renaissance. Time really has no impact on the quality of art. Sure computers have made stuff fast and efficient.. but that doesnt compensate for lack of skill. What makes the renaissance artists primitive?? Comparing artists of today admiring Michelangelo and aerospace engineers admiring the wright brothers is totally off.

[The Original [E]]

When has it been proven that man was dumber 500 years ago? From what I've read humans have remained all most completely the same for the last couple thousands of years. The theory of evolution says that drastic changes in a species takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to become evident. You will see no change in any species in only 500 years, so there is no reason why humans today would be any smarter then humans in the renaissance.
And if you would actually study art history, wikipedia is not a very reliable source, you would learn that Da Vinci, Durer, Rembrant and Michelangelo didn't just pop onto the scene and change everything there was about art. It was a gradual process that took many men you and I probably never heard of. Each one discovering something and trying new things, then all the old masters learned from each other.

[Hyskoa]

Better education + no generalized educations up to the age of 16 + more time invested + less distractions + patrons.

So all they needed to do was draw/paint all day, every day.

[Zazerzs]

because art education overall has been a joke for the past 40 years or more with all of the "old" techniques being thrown out in order for the artist to express themselves with out those pesky rules. There by doping the status of art instruction to just a little over arts and crafts.

Also they were all studying the Greek and Roman stuff, they weren't making it up, they to were learning from masters from the past.

[rhymeswithpuck]

not sure about the wright brothers' educational background, but engineers today still have to learn calculus, which was invented by some guy named isaac newton. and it's still really hard to learn.

[SweetPea]

We are NOT smarter than them.. .if anything were less intelligent... we have tv, and video games to kill our intelligence, now i like playing some as well, but hot damn they didnt have any of that.... instead of watching family guy... they studied light and anatomy.... the only difference is that we have more technology now.. jsut as they had more technology in the renaissance than the greeks and romans had..

you dont see aerospace engineers and race car drivers studying the wright brothers and 30's racers because they were COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. aerospace engineers need to get out of our atmosphere... the wright brothers needed to get off the ground.... and you cant even compare the cars and engines from now and 80 years ago...
and as for the doctors studying books from 500 years ago.....well.. they do... doctors and med students still study da vinci's diagrams of the body...

however.... we are still the same human beings taht we were 500 years ago... our faces still look the same... our muscles and bones are still the same...


and here is my kicker..... 500 years ago in the renaissance.. they gave a shit..... ppl now a days dont care about their education and they end up working in mcdonalds.... Da Vinci wanted to know everything!


hope this helps

[alesoun]

Gee, I don't know... How come writers are still learning from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Hemingway, and even the Bible? How are film-makers learning still from Cecil B De Milne or Charlie Chaplin?

Why do dancers still admire Josephine Baker/Pavlova and research what they did and how?

How come the Jazz greats are still the greats?

Maybe the past is the foundations for the future?

Or do we ignore it all and start from here? What do you think?

[ShroudStar]

We still can't build a pyramid or erect a full-scale obelisk like the Egyptians can, even though we possess better technology. The old wonders still baffle us, which makes me think the ancients were much more intelligent than we are now. If anything, we're primitive in our problem solving, despite "enlightenment" and that's what hinders us when we try to replicate an original work (like an airtight pyramid - thank you, NOVA).

The Old Masters will always be relevant, even if classical art ends up being relegated to the dustbin. They figured out perspective and all that jazz, so it makes sense for the pupil to study the works of the teacher. You can't play Canon D Major on violin until you get your scales and basic "Hot Cross Buns" ditty memorized. Besides, to this day, I really don't think I've ever seen any modern artist hold a candle to any one of those Old Masters in their prime. They really are superlative.

[armando]

We are still learning from them because a lot of the information was lost and forgotten when the modern art crowd took over the institutions.

Go here and read up on the subject: http://www.artrenewal.org/

I read that a long time ago when I was super-ignorant, now I'm just regular ignorant. Had some laughs, but I don't feel like reading it again. I believe he blamed Picasso in that?

I don't know a whole lot about the history, but from the little I do know it seems like the academics deserve a lot of the blame too. Here's a Jean Leon Jerome quote I saw on wikipedia "Thanks to photography, Truth has as last left her well"." Did he consider the facts recorded in a photo truth?
Also look at the etchings of Joseph Pennell... pretty weak. It's like somewhere along the line a bunch of guys got over-interested in copying appearance. My best guess is that a lot of students misunderstood their instructers. The renaissance artists don't look like that at all because they inherited the tradition, among other things, of Byzantine art, flat art. So it seems to me we're better off today because of guys like Picasso because they brought our attention back to design, and things of that nature, not just copying appearance. So today we have more possibilities.

[Xeon_OND]

Well, first of all, thanks for the insight, guys! ;)

Regarding that part which says people who lived several centuries ago are more primitive than nowadays humans, well, I remember reading in several articles (can't remember which) that because of improved living conditions, better food, modern day humans have larger brains, are more intelligent, live longer (this is proven) and grow taller / bigger.

It may just be that 14th century humans are better than us in some areas especially in hand-related work (smithing, hunting, drawing etc.).

Leonardo and his gang very well may be prodigies, considering the fact that Leo wasn't only good at art, but at many other areas, such as the concept of helicopters and aviation even before it was thought of by the Wright Brothers. Durer's self-portrait which was done at age 13 is good proof of this. How many 13-year olds, even aspiring hardworking artists, can draw at that age? We're talking about near-perfect / perfect anatomy and perspective.

[TASmith]

If your dad sold you to an artist's workshop when you were about seven, and you did nothng but draw, paint, and sculpt in that workshop until you were about 25 and you started your own workshop, you'd be pretty good too. Plus, Da Vinci had Verrochio as a teacher. Rosso Fiorentino and Pontormo has Andrea del Sarto as a teacher. Donatello and Masaccio had Brunalleschi as a teacher/helper. So this wasn't some random freak occurance, it was a product of the educational system put in place. And there are similar institutions today, although the emphasis is now more on the French 19thC academic tradition.

[Xeon_OND]

If your dad sold you to an artist's workshop when you were about seven, and you did nothng but draw, paint, and sculpt in that workshop until you were about 25 and you started your own workshop, you'd be pretty good too. Plus, Da Vinci had Verrochio as a teacher. Rosso Fiorentino and Pontormo has Andrea del Sarto as a teacher. Donatello and Masaccio had Brunalleschi as a teacher/helper. So this wasn't some random freak occurance, it was a product of the educational system put in place. And there are similar institutions today, although the emphasis is now more on the French 19thC academic tradition.
I see the light now. Thanks for your explanation! :)
I wished my dad sold me off as a slave to an artist when I was a 3 year old kid and that the artist will force me to draw non-stop giving me only 3 hrs of sleep per day. :D

It's a pity a lot of the Renaissance stuff were lost in transition, though.....

[dashinvaine]

You've stumbled across the greatest cultural disaster to strike since the Protestant Reformation. Classical skills and knowledge were still around in the late nineteenth century, as is demonstrated the work of painters like Bouguereau, Frederick Leighton, E.B. Leighton, J.W. Waterhouse, Jean Leon Gerome, Herbert Draper and others. This kind of art was systematically attacked and cast as irrelevant by advocates of movements which were supposedly more modern and progressive. Dealers and galleries soon found that they could make more money from artworks which were quicker to bash out, and which relied for their value not in inherent quality or beauty but on inaccessibility and pseudo-intellectuial bull. The academicists, the custodians of the classical tradition and knowledge, were pillaried and by 'avant-garde' artists and critics collectively unworthy to touch the hem of their garments.

[TASmith]

Xeon, just remember, joining that 15thC atelier wasn't so bad considering what your other options were in Europe at the time.

[dashinvaine]

Give or take a bit of pederasty...

[Xeon_OND]

This kind of art was systematically attacked and cast as irrelevant by advocates of movements which were supposedly more modern and progressive. Dealers and galleries soon found that they could make more money from artworks which were quicker to bash out, and which relied for their value not in inherent quality or beauty but on inaccessibility and pseudo-intellectuial bull. The academicists, the custodians of the classical tradition and knowledge, were pillaried and by 'avant-garde' artists and critics collectively unworthy to touch the hem of their garments.
Damn! It's corporate and human greed at work again.
No wonder the Bible lists Greed as one of the 7 deadly sins. >:{>:{>:{

[Lamp]

We still can't build a pyramid or erect a full-scale obelisk like the Egyptians can, even though we possess better technology.

I hate to get off topic, but what in the world convinced you of this? Using modern technology, OF COURSE we could build a pyramid as well as the Egyptians. In fact we could build a pyramid many times the size of any existing pyramid, and a far more precise one at that. I don't understand how you could think otherwise.

[Anid Maro]

We still can't build a pyramid or erect a full-scale obelisk like the Egyptians can, even though we possess better technology.

I hate to get off topic, but what in the world convinced you of this? Using modern technology, OF COURSE we could build a pyramid as well as the Egyptians. In fact we could build a pyramid many times the size of any existing pyramid, and a far more precise one at that. I don't understand how you could think otherwise.

ShroudStar is probably mangling a widely held sentiment that we could not recreate the pyramids of Egypt if limited to the tools they used at the time. Same goes for the Roman Colosseum (including the underground), just about any building with an oculus, the other six wonders of the ancient world, and so on and so forth.

I tend to agree, we may have much better technology but back in the day you had to be a pretty clever mofo to figure out the things they did with what they had.

To steer this back around to the topic our modern 'loss of technique', if one wants to think in those terms, comes from a variety of factors. Partly is the 'pyramid factor'; ancient techniques that have been lost to us in the modern day, partly is the detour Western art took in the 20th century, partly is the change in tastes (which is now bringing back older styles), partly is the apprenticeship system in place at the time, and pretty much anything else already said in this thread.

Although I don't think the advent of photography has been quite given its due here. Many an artist here who were overly focused on photographic levels of realism have been told why not ditch the brush and pick up a camera (as both a critique and tongue-in-cheek advice). Well imagine being an Academic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_art) painter in the style of Bouguereau at the time photography really started to take hold. That alone does a lot to explain how representational art got sidelined for more abstract forms of Art (with a capital "A").

Of course there were technological advances, stylistic shifts (that began before the camera, e.g. the French Academic/Impressionist split), a couple World Wars, a huge expansion of the sciences, the new insights brought by psychology, and several other trivial little changes that may have played some part in shaping the course of things.

[JJacks]

Damn! It's corporate and human greed at work again.
No wonder the Bible lists Greed as one of the 7 deadly sins. >:{>:{>:{

Erm...you may want to just read up on art history rather than take his summary of it as truth.

(psst....Rembrandt wasn't an artist during the Renaissance. He belongs in the Dutch Golden Age.)

[ShroudStar]

I hate to get off topic, but what in the world convinced you of this? Using modern technology, OF COURSE we could build a pyramid as well as the Egyptians. In fact we could build a pyramid many times the size of any existing pyramid, and a far more precise one at that. I don't understand how you could think otherwise.

I watched a program on Discovery Channel in which the NOVA team attempted to build a smaller scale pyramid using ancient tools and all their mathematics. They eventually had to bring in the crane and the modern tools and they still couldn't get it. The one aspect that baffled them the most was how well cut those stones must be in order for them to be airtight upon placement.

In a later program, they attempted a smaller scale obelisk. They ran into the same issues, so it makes you wonder how the ancients thought back then when even armed with the same mathematics and modern tools, we can't even replicate something similar to that exacting degree of finesse.

[Anid Maro]

...so it makes you wonder how the ancients thought back then when even armed with the same mathematics and modern tools, we can't even replicate something similar to that exacting degree of finesse.

Must've been Egypt's incredibly rigorous apprenticeship program.

[dashinvaine]

Damn! It's corporate and human greed at work again.
No wonder the Bible lists Greed as one of the 7 deadly sins. >:{>:{>:{


Well, the ten commandments are hardly encouraging when it comes to representational art, either, so maybe God is a Modernist.

[dashinvaine]

Erm...you may want to just read up on art history rather than take his summary of it as truth.

(psst....Rembrandt wasn't an artist during the Renaissance. He belongs in the Dutch Golden Age.)

In the words of the devil, don't believe anything I say- including that.

Trouble is if you read up on art history, you've got to be sure whoever wrote it doesn't have a vested interest in promoting the present status quo...

Regarding Rembrandt, it's quite common for 'Renaissance' to be given a broader defininition, expanding from the 14th to 17th century, though a purist would indeed reduce it to the years around the turn of the sixteenth century. Not that I'm that keen on the term anyway, being more of a medievalist. It would almost be worth losing everything produced in Southern Europe the early 1500s to have back everything destroyed in the North during that time. Rare surviving treasures like the Wilton Diptych testify to the quality of the things destroyed and defaced by the Protestants.

[TASmith]

a purist begins the renaissance at the 14th century with Giotto. There was the low and high renaissance period, lasting hundreds of years all told.

[Black Spot]

I watched a program on Discovery Channel in which the NOVA team attempted to build a smaller scale pyramid using ancient tools and all their mathematics. They eventually had to bring in the crane and the modern tools and they still couldn't get it. The one aspect that baffled them the most was how well cut those stones must be in order for them to be airtight upon placement.

In a later program, they attempted a smaller scale obelisk. They ran into the same issues, so it makes you wonder how the ancients thought back then when even armed with the same mathematics and modern tools, we can't even replicate something similar to that exacting degree of finesse.

I do find this amazing as when I was in Yemen in 1978, the masons building houses used to create perfect block after block from granite. It was chip, chip, chip. They didn't use mortar as the the blocks fitted together perfectly.

Since they discovered oil, I would imagine that that skill has now gone by now.

[SweetPea]

ok ummm xeon when u said all the better nourishment longer life larger brain more intelligent thing.... the only thing they can really prove is longer life.... which yes we have longer lives now... and i dont really know about the brains but i imagine theyd be completely dust by now......

regardless... life span, brain size, and intelligence have approximately 0 affect on intelligence.......

[ThabisoMhlaba]

Well...Brain size does have a bet to do with it. Just the trend is that, the larger and more dense the brain is the more intelligent certain creatures seem to be. Its usually also relative to the actually size of the creature.

In any case, many times, the less you have the more you can do with it. If I give you 8 squares, 4 rectangles and 6 circles and say make a car out of this, you might some interesting looking things, but If I give you a triangle and a rhombus and ask you to do the same thing, You might do stuff thats never been done before. Its like having too much freedom sometimes limits your ability to create.

[Lamp]

Well...Brain size does have a bet to do with it. Just the trend is that, the larger and more dense the brain is the more intelligent certain creatures seem to be. Its usually also relative to the actually size of the creature.

The organization of the brain actually has more to do with intelligence than physical size. It is true that the most intelligent animals tend to have proportionally large brains, but there are plenty of relatively big brained dummies in the animal kingdom.

[m0n3y]

"I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science." - Ron Burgundy

[Anid Maro]

Mmm... gotta love Phrenology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology). Nothing says "superiority" like a huge peni... I mean brain.

[Xeon_OND]

"I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science." - Ron Burgundy
This is exactly the kind of shit I love to read. It makes me feel like a real man with a real large phallus. :D

[jvgig]

Although I don't think the advent of photography has been quite given its due here. Many an artist here who were overly focused on photographic levels of realism have been told why not ditch the brush and pick up a camera (as both a critique and tongue-in-cheek advice). Well imagine being an Academic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_art) painter in the style of Bouguereau at the time photography really started to take hold. That alone does a lot to explain how representational art got sidelined for more abstract forms of Art (with a capital "A").


I think that photography is one of the main contributing factors to the general populations' disregard for Renaissance "realistic" painting, if it can even be called realistic. Almost everything in life comes to finding a balance between quantity, quality, and utility. The Renaissance style almost completely disregards quantity. I will not try to argue utility in any example as I feel that all styles of art have equal potential to forward an argument. Photography comes around and you can make an image that looks very similar to a painting (disregarding brush strokes) in seconds instead of years. Thus, to the vast majority of people, by using photography you have equal utility, equal quality, and higher quantity, thus it is better.

However, to the discerning artist/art historian and, hopefully, any doctor, it is often quite easy to notice that these "realistic" paintings have very few true to life elements. The figures are often sculpted over several years to develop a very specific expression, often one that is nearly impossible to replicate on a real human's face (the famous Mona Lisa smile). Their figures are arranged with more focus on composition and expression than bone structure. Sure, upon quick glance, everything seems believable, but if you look at how far the spine is twisting or the position of the head, you realize that these figures, had they been posed in that position for any measurable amount of time, would have emerged with serious health problems. (The Battle of Anghiari- the figure on the left is twisted more than 90*, yet is still managing to use his body strength to heave at the flag) I think it is this distinction that many people miss and thus disregard Renaissance style art as mere copying.

[TASmith]

Okay... that's quite a big statement. How about we agree this is true in some cases, at times intentional, at times unintentional, but let's not generalize for every artist in a 300-400 year period.