Why Ancient Art Was Better Than Renaissance Art

Carla Hurt's Blog: foundinantiquity.com/2013/08/...

[@gloopgloopglorp]

I've got such a soft spot in my heart for medieval perspective. It's completely unrealistic, but it accidentally creates whimsical optical illusions. So many medieval paintings feel like a mix between M C Escher and Dr Suess.

[@sirkermitthefirstoffrogeth9622]

Plus, it's so cute and hilarious to see how they saw lions and whales as.😅

[@ntonisa6636]

It's unrealistic on purpose. Symbolism takes precedent over realism in medieval art, it's why for example Jesus (or other "protagonists" on an icon) is often painted much larger than the figures surrounding him.

[@gloopgloopglorp]

@@ntonisa6636 I didn't say it was unrealistic on accident. I said it makes whimsical optical illusions on accident. Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension before you go around "well actually"ing.

[@ntonisa6636]

@@gloopgloopglorp my reading comprehension is fine but I didn't expect you'd become upset by such an innocuous comment. Maybe you should work on your irritability issues before you have another episode.

[@gloopgloopglorp]

@@ntonisa6636 lol your reading comprehension is not fine.

[@jimmydesouza4375]

4:20 Forgive me but I can't figure out what flaw you are trying to illustrate here. It seems like you're suggesting that the top of the table not being a flat horizontal in your vertical field is a perspective flaw, but if you were looking at an actual real physical table from that same angle it would not be either.

[@ShowMeMoviesInc.]

Thanks I literally was coming to see if anyone else noticed this

[@kgoblin5084]

It took me a while, but I think they are trying to say that if you view the painting from the side, looking down the length of the table, then you will not get the perceptual illusion of depth for looking down the length of the table, because the lines of the table don't converge, as they run tangential to the intended line of perspective in the painting. The solution would be for the top & bottom edges of the table to become UN-parallel when viewed from the side, tapering together on the edge of the painting away from the viewer. Presumably the left & right table edges would also straighten out & become parallel... as they would then be tangential to the plane of perspective. This would of courses A) require magic & B) is still a rather stupid take, as nobody expects that from a flat painting.

[@Raphael3032]

Ok but why this specific way of rendering linear perspective makes a whole period of art "better" than other? Perspective is just a tool thar responds to the expectations of art in a particular age, a more dynamic perspective don't fit in peak renaissance world view. That's literally the most uninformed thing I've ever seen.

[@labeilleautiste6318]

Because its a progress, a technical advancemant

[@Raphael3032]

@@labeilleautiste6318 Art isn't a craft. There's no advancement, people just do what correspond to their historical-economical needs

[@labeilleautiste6318]

@@Raphael3032 there is an évolution of technic throught the accumulation of knowledges so yes a progression...

[@Raphael3032]

@@labeilleautiste6318 art is not about technique lol we are not talking about design or engineering. If there is a progression how you explain the romans knowing about modern perspective hundreds of years before the renaissance lol also roman perspective is just an optical illusion, it does not reference how the eye sees because it's impossible to replicate it precisely in a 2D medium.

[@noahaha_]

​@@Raphael3032 You're talking out your ass

[@gabrielmonteiro8884]

Very cool! Another thing is about architecture perspective during Ancient Greece. The layout of temple’s positions was based on a view point, so looking from a specific direction you could see the lateral of a temple matching with a hill on the horizon and then the front of another temple.

[@dragonmartijn]

That theory has never been proven definitely.

[@At_Amsterdam]

Cool stuff! I wouldn’t say the illusion of perspective breaks when you focus on certain areas of a point perspective art piece. I can always get lost in a nice photo of a city. But the idea that you can support different perspectives to support more than one focal point is very cool. Realism doesn’t mean it’s better (as we see with animated movie trends recently)

[@CuongN24]

This videos is so rеtаrdеd my goodness, Shallow in detail and information with an amateur understanding of art history

[@gilzineto]

hmm I have the same feeling about this comment.

[@douglasphillips5870]

One point perspective is fine, but you're treating paintings as three dimensional representations which they aren't, so your perspective is what is off. Learn draftsmanship before you critique it.

[@brianphillips1864]

A superb offering. Highly informative, much appreciated.

[@SepulvedaBoulevard]

Excellent presentation. Pretty amazing how the Renaissance fascination for perspective flooded western art, but it never took hold the far east, where it was virtually ignored and considered a gimmick.

[@nullifye7816]

Perspective boomed massively in Japan when there was a growing craze for anything western, in the 19th Century, both during and after the Shogunate. That famous Hokusai stuff is heavily influenced by western art. Even the pigment is mainly Prussian blue. It's just that most of the time Asian cultures just have a "way things are done" and expression encouraged but narrowly circumscribed, usually hiding limitation behind abstraction.

[@haywardgaude8589]

Great condensation of what is often an extremely dense topic - thanks!

[@loookas]

Ancient and medieval attempts at perspective were based on artists' intuition rather than any geometrical analysis. That's why, in some cases, the 'converging' lines are parallel to each other, and everything always converges to the center. Brunelleschi, being an architect, was very familiar with geometry, and he successfully applied his knowledge in developing linear perspective. Liking one style or another is a matter of tastes but real perspective, as far as we know, is definitely a reinassance invention.

[@kgoblin5084]

"Ancient and medieval attempts at perspective were based on artists' intuition rather than any geometrical analysis.... nd everything always converges to the center." That's baloney so far as the ANCIENT art goes; 1st off as the video pretty clearly demonstrated, not all ancient art DOES converge to a single center, there are multiple examples where it converges to multiple centers, akin to LATER renaissances art, in order to accommodate the movement of a viewers eyes up & down a piece, & to further create an illusion of depth. Second - you have zero idea of how ancient art was composed, because nobody knows that... most records of what they did have been simply lost to time along with the rest of ancient history. At best, you an manage guesses from the art itself... except of course as above if we're specifically talking about perspective than the art suggests they did understand the principles, because we HAVE advanced examples of the technique. So far as the underlying mathematics go... well that WAS the ancients, NOT the renaissance thinkers. THAT bit of ancient history was comparatively well preserved, probably due to the general utility of mathematics & geometry.

[@loookas]

​@@kgoblin5084 You are confusing two different things. The subject of geometry was indeed very advanced in ancient times and we still study it today, but the application of this knowledge to create realistic perspective is unique to the Renaissance. When I said everything converges to the center, I meant there are no examples of two or three-point perspective. And most importantly, no painting before Brunelleschi displays accurate foreshortening. We don't have proof that the ancients developed geometrically accurate perspective-no paintings, no mosaics, no reliefs, no murals, no written sources, etc. According to your reasoning, the ancients could have invented the Ford Fiesta because we don't have proof that they didn't. Is not a matter of opinions, duscussing further is useless

[@robinredbeard]

Yes! I've always wondered about this too! Thank you!

[@dashinvaine]

The triumphal arches on the sides of the painting of Christ handing the keys to St Peter also look wrong because the tops are straight in line, across the picture. That line should curve down towards the edges in order to be convincing. If you look, square on, at a straight, level wall that is higher than you, and follow the top of it will seem to dip down more the further you look to left or right. Parallel lines, horizontally and vertically across an image should seem to form around a bit of a bulge, rather than forming a straight up and down grid. This is also a problem you get with 3d art, as it doen't do curving/fish-eye perspective either. (Cameras, by contrast, can sometimes exaggerate the effect, making it difficult, say, to take a photo of an oblong picture without the frame distorting and curving in too much at the corners.) I don't particularly agree that the ancient artists were using a 'sophisticated' form of perspective. I think it's more likely those frescos were painted intuitively. If it's a symmetrical composition then all the vanishing points will form a central line anyway, even if no particular plan is in place.

[@kornelszecsi6512]

You said in the video that in the later Rennesiance they actually adopted the multiple point perspectuve style. So the whole video is just bullshit.

[@esther4245]

Do you recommend any books on medieval art or ancient art I could read? (preferably that I can find for free on the internet 😅)

[@claudiamanta1943]

All I can say to you is that when you ended your video I groaned in frustration. I don’t recall me having had this reaction to any other material I had seen on KZbin. 😃👏👏👏👏 I can’t draw, paint, or do maths, but if I could, I would paint something from different perspectives, whilst the whole retained unity recognisable from each perspective. I would imagine it from as many angles as possible- as if I was looking at it from right, left, behind the canvas, at different angles floating around it etc. Maybe I am wrong because I am literally ignorant in such matters, but even when I look at the cubist painting that you have shown, it makes sense (kind of) only from my viewpoint. The Mediaeval sets of perspectives still follow an axis, and I feel that it should be used to convey a sense of verticality as purpose, movement and direction and meaning (that, for me, is spiritual- the human world and the upper, Divine ones). The Renaissance perspective purposefully collapsed all others into one; if feels like monopolising attention as it monopolised The Divine (‘I am The Way’, ‘nobody comes to the Father, but through me’). Like reality, I think that a painting should reflect and harmonise (ideally) all points of view, all perspectives, revealing Beauty (not Escher’s quirky whimsicality, masterful as it is) that can be experienced by everybody, each person with their own perspective. Art should not entice and monopolise the viewer’s mind, imposing the artist’s views in the chosen viewpoint. The artist has a duty of revealing Beauty to all the viewers. And I believe that Beauty fosters empathy and mental flexibility in that the viewers are invited (nay, urged) to see things differently and from other(‘s) perspectives. Thank you very much for sharing.

[@billgauthier9765]

Fantastic ! Being an artist this is mind altering , no one told us about this , and the result looks more natural as you pointed out

[@themysteriousdomainmoviepalace]

Ummm....Art 101?

[@user-vt6td9hp3g]

talk about being a contrarian

[@dickrichard626]

He said perspective, and the way a person perceives space is an optical illusion... 😅 Something already tells me that he doesn't know what he is talking about. Things look smaller when they are further away because they are further away, and that's not an illusion... an illusion would be if the object was made to look far away when in reality it is actually really close or something along those lines... he doesn't understand that a trick is different from truth and things don't increase or decrease in size due to distance. Small things up close have more detail then large things far away. He is acting like a person can't tell the difference when that is not true.

[@smugram5937]

Both are still unlimited times better than “Modern Art”

[@1206anton]

I learned a lot.

[@Yeetomato]

really nice video

[@patoliterato]

Nice video!!

[@dziosdzynes7663]

Medieval mosaic enjoyers: 🗿

[@teslaoliveira2195]

Super!

[@redquoter]

JONATHAN PAGEAU, GET IN HERE

[@aidanjohnwalsh2129]

Wow!

[@Magicpoppy]

This was interesting😊

[@flambr]

I should’ve studied art history 😢

[@claudiamanta1943]

🤗 Same here. But you can read and watch KZbin videos of good quality (like this one).

[@neetfreek9921]

Just watch KZbin. My art history class in college was just a bunch of 20 year old movies lol.

[@raptorhacker599]

Cool

[@luisangulo5332]

based alert, you are right btw

[@Siegfried5846]

I never understood why renaissance art is said to be so great when rococo, romanticism, even baroque is so much more fun. I understand that you have to walk before you can run, but if someone knew nothing about films, would you recommend them silent films or the lord of the rings?

[@codboss7092]

The renaissance was an artistic revolution. Not just a simple walk before a run. All the future art styles may have been more sophisticated but they didn't innovate as much as the renaissance. When you look at the achivements of a specific age you dont compare them to the upcoming age to know their greatness but to the former age. The movie allegory isn't the best example because silent films were more like a gimmick at the time not an actual art style yet, and that wasnt the golden age of filmography in terms of innovation

[@Siegfried5846]

@@codboss7092 Compared to what came before, I agree that it's more fun, but I don't know why everyone goes on and on about it when you're sure to have more fun with art from the 1800s.

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

Because artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, van Eyck, and Hans Holbein were brilliant actually.

[@Siegfried5846]

@@RuthvenMurgatroyd Yeah but not as good as Anders Zorn, John Singer Sargent, William Adolphe Bougerau, John William Waterhouse, Caspar David Friedrich, and many more that came after.

[@rickymartin4457]

​@@Siegfried5846 I disagree. They are up there with them.

[@RM-xr8lq]

total obsession over the characters in the abrahamic pyramid schemes, think it increases their social credit faith-for-afterlife score 😂

[@bahshas]

yet everyone of those people where better than you. you're like a monkey laughing at a man

[@ludvigInLegendaryLands]

Nice video! Not sure if I'd call it 'better' but I wouldn't say Renaissance paintings are better than than the medieval paintings either. As you say, two parallel lines never meet. Or a circle becomes an oval when seen from the side. In this way, medieval symbolic painting conveys ideas in a better way. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that my latest video is on a similar subject: About how AI generated art is more akin to the medieval paintings rather than perspective. Would be interested to hear your thoughts!

[@claudiamanta1943]

AI ‘art’ is not art.

[@ludvigInLegendaryLands]

@@claudiamanta1943 depends on your definition of art. It has certainly very little to do with our modern understanding of art which is about human expression, authenticity etc. But did you know that in the Middle Ages artists were nameless and painted identical icons of the Virgin Mary? That also has very little to do with our understanding of art. Personally I like to say that Art is this thing that started around the renaissance with humanism and in fact later capitalism. Therefor I prefer using the word ‘representation’ when referring to art throughout history and AI images. That wider definition is about how a society chooses to represent itself. And AI certainly represents our current world.

[@claudiamanta1943]

@@ludvigInLegendaryLands I think and I believe that art is a way of revealing and unfolding Beauty whilst, also, investing it with meaning as an added layer in the process of translating it within the human realm- the condiment that brings out and combines the flavours of all the ingredients in a meal. It’s stirring honey into the wine of life. It stirs and moves the soul in a direction (positive for people) via contemplation. Fundamentally, there is no difference between experiencing art and experiencing The Divine. It’s a reminder of roots and promise of fruits, whilst intimating a direction. Whether the viewers decide to answer the call or not should remain at their discretion… though no soul cannot not answer the call of the luminous Numinous if revealed properly and with reverence for the Divine, the human, and the creative act itself. Art is inviting and engaging, it is immediate initiation and revelation. The Middle Ages’ painters depicted the religious figures following a strict set of rules probably hoping to not be quite 100% guilty of worshipping idols (iconoclasm has been a pain in the neck for many, unless one is CG Jung, obviously, with his desperate Ego showing the archetypal finger to a god he refused to himself). Or, perhaps, they had to engrave in the minds the religious set of archetypes through repetition and dogmatic artistic rules. The seeming ‘stiffness’ of the Ancient Egyptian art is another example of engraving the human souls. Hatshepsut’s depiction with royal attire was not a sign that she identified herself as a ‘he/him’, but was a depiction of the head of state. Their queens and kings did not matter as individuals, they merely served the Divine through revealing, enhancing, and maintaining Maat. But I somewhat digress, sorry. It was a representation which has only a fixing order and its function(s), thus not pure art. Ideology is not art, it’s the semantic level that distorts it. You may argue that any creative endeavour has an underlying ideological hue, and I would agree. However, there is ideology, and there is ideology, the difference being the intent. The ideology of humanism does not put the human being at the centre of everything, but the human reason, which is as ridiculous and hubristic wishful thinking as it is cynical because it has led to dehumanisation. Unfortunately, no society chooses how to represent itself or, indeed, what to believe. This has always been- and will forever be- the responsibility of the ideologues. Especially the modern ones, and especially those in the West, have failed miserably. To use your example, AI as the pinnacle of the technology ideology. It is not representing the current world. It is how the techo ideologues would have masses think and see. I see absolutely no reason why I should worship the stained towels of these ideologues who masturbate their dysfunctional brains they need to enlarge via anti- human, atomising insanity. Their products are not seminal; they’re just sterile seeds of evil.

[@ludvigInLegendaryLands]

@@claudiamanta1943 wow very well put. I agree with everything here, however I wouldn’t put ‘art’ on any pedestal. Whether it is Jackson pollock funded by CIA or Rembrandt representing a new capitalistic class, or michellango representing a Christian feudalism. I’m simplifying here, but the point is that any form of representation is tied up with an ideology and a power structure. And indeed AI images represent an anti-human technocratic future. But so does much of human creations that have simply become content. And yes you are more than free to hate AI images and choose a representation that suits your ideology. Anyway, I would love to have you critique my videos!

[@claudiamanta1943]

@@ludvigInLegendaryLands Thank you. Art has, indeed, an ideological substrate. But absolutely everything does. It’s not en end in itself, but a means. I would still put it on a pedestal in the same vein as the Ancients did as they had a much richer and flexible mind than our contemporaries. I would rather have a statue of The Divine than worship the human mind that hubristically fools itself it doesn’t whilst worshipping itself and its products. Me and AI and its minions who hide their lack of ability to create behind this idol of theirs are not friends. Actually, this has made me into its enemy. An impressive achievement on their part as I naturally hate confrontation. But, given the penury of men, a woman must do what needs to be done and grow some balls. Thank you for the invitation, I shall have a look at your channel.

[@BeatleJuice108]

Well, i think there is NOT such a thing as good or bad art, therefore there isn't an art better than the other. Also, cubism is not "prospective free" because every one sees the world differently or because the eyes moves in different directions...

[@deborahberger5816]

You said it!

[@PinoSancris_]

Imagine making a ranking of artistic periods, you are worth nothing as an art historian.

[@PinoSancris_]

These are not things that are done for "fun". Go to university and study (sorry for bad english)

[@SpazioportoStudio]

Great content, straight to the point and reach of valuable informations, support from Italy 🫶🏻