6 Comments

  1. Tom
    10/26/2011
    Reply

    “They imply a narrative of which you are a part”

    I wonder if this hints at the real agenda: create pop culture buzz (what better way than to tell everyone they are a part of it) hoping to parlay it into a financial payoff, and matters of scholarship be damned?

  2. 11/12/2011
    Reply

    I’d be interested to hear the scientific evidence mentioned, but can’t believe that the painting is by da Vinci. Would the master of composition create a flat, cramped design, with a disconnected body, and questionable fore-shortening?

    I don’t know the evidence against the “Bacchus”, but at least it’s a good painting.

    What do you think by the way?

  3. 11/20/2011
    Reply

    Roman, I agree with your larger point. I don’t believe in this painting as a Leonardo, though. The very unbeautiful right hand kills it for me. The almost Modigliani-like squint in the eyes, as well, which are placed fractionally too high in the skull. I actually don’t care what any authority says. If Leonardo did paint this, he should have mirror-written an apology on the back.

    • It’s good to hear from you. I have not seen this Leonardo in person. But, I have seen several others. It is difficult to know how much of what we see is original to Leonardo and how much of it has been adjusted or lost by time. Artists from that period could be astonishingly experimental and varied in their productions. The difference between two Raphael’s a decade apart is dramatic and, were it not for rock-solid attributions–lead to the conclusion that they were done by entirely different artists. So, while I agree with you that some parts seem out of sync, it’s hard for me to feel comfortable without a full evidentiary body of proof. And, even then, there are questions.

  4. 11/26/2011
    Reply

    It’s nice to be back! What would be fully convincing to you, Roman? I know what you mean about Raphael — in a short life that hardly skirted middle age, then years make a big gap. Unless this work is so over-painted that we can just never know who did what, when you see some quirks that were not Leonardo’s quirks, what can one say? I know the faces of some very famous Titian nudes were over-painted, but that area is only 2 % of the total composition, and there’s so much else to look at. Here, what — apart from a Leonardesque vibe — is there to say it was painted by Leonardo? I am no expert, just an art lover, so I am sure I am short on methodology. Let’s pretend you had a Salvator Mundi that bid fair to be by Giotto. Someone could have effaced the planful, intent look of deep understanding one often sees on Giotto’s faces, but the slight arch of the wrist might still be there. How does anyone ever decide, in the absence of unusually complete histories for these works?

  5. soul
    12/21/2012
    Reply

    well abstract impressionism and alot of isms are nice actually the mmain
    main reason why alot of people don’t understand Renascence and alot of the old art is because they dont know ,the ,stories ,the people,stories
    while resulting to no appreciation except for the how it looks good factor but we cant easily say that 20th century artist have had bad education in art because we live in the modern days everything every information is almost shared and we know more than what we knew before while i would like to lie and say something plastic about the topic i really think your messed up really your down grading a lot of artist because you don’t like their art
    and yes its our lives hello
    we don’t care about being good in making realistic stuff all we want is to express create art yeah ive been ,studying solomon j solomon ,bridgeman ,monet ,and alot of those classical stuff and things and ,and all those famouse shit but the more i make something for accuracy and educational sake the more i want to give up on being an artist cuz god its boring all about education this and that
    and the reason why i was soo afraid to not know or to be bad is because i was taken by the fear i was afraid something horrible would happen to me if i didn’t know all the anatomy the colors the perspective composition lines shadow
    and avoided creating art because i didn’t want to fail i didnt want to be a loser
    and the more i did that the more i lost the meaning of being an artist

    i was taken over by the fear i created
    i like thousand of small paintings in 5 months
    because i wanted to be like James gurney who made thousand of paintings in 1 year for the fire and ice movie back round
    and the reason why i created 1000 paintings becase i didnt want to be a loser i didnt want to fail i dont want to feel that i failed
    soo education became my excuse o give up being an a real artist

    soo i realized with the help from ted talks
    i can just create express without
    fear and those thoughts were nothing but thoughts
    that my insecure self is always whispering to me because i learned to be brave free to not be afraid
    and
    i finally found the real reason
    or why we became artist in the first place
    to be free

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