Believing Art

Realism, according to Collin Renfrew, is dead yet the human draw to so called figurative portrayals of life seem a constant draw.

This will be a second short post sadly but this idea appeared walking through the asmolians new Egyptian rooms. To many; to consider just the aesthetic of a Egyptian wall tablet may exert a very dry and lifeless impression due to the un-natralistic distortion of the body. The egyptian viewer believed that images,however had the power to preserve the soul and that by displaying the human form in its utter most entirety by distorting the pose was adequate to illustrate what was known to be there instead of a need to depict a truly foreshortened representative form. In short realism was un-nessisary for the function they played, and maintaining the belief within them through assumption and greater social constructs. Constructs which are far different today, my extreme comparison being a occasional general attitude that photography has made painting today somewhat redundant. As an artist this I know not to be the case but nonetheless I have been approached by these questions and ideas. There's nothing wrong with this, it is merely an observation that I will continue to turn over until a lot more refined!