A brief history of representing the body in Western painting

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A brief history of representing the body in Western painting발음듣기

(jazz piano) [Voiceover] Artists love to portray the human body, but there's a lot of decisions to make, 발음듣기

and when you portray the human body on a two-dimensional surface, those decisions come to the fore.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Bodies exist in space, and so there are various ways of representing three-dimensional forms on a two-dimensional surface, 발음듣기

and when you're representing the body, there's lots of other complicated things like how do you represent movement, the weight of the body, and do you?발음듣기

Or do you choose to represent the body in a more abstract and transcendent way?발음듣기

[Voiceover] One of the first great naturalistic renderings of the human body came about in the classical tradition, 발음듣기

that is, the art work of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans.발음듣기

Now most ancient Greek painting is lost, but we do have some ancient Roman painting.발음듣기

A great example of that can be seen in a fresco, that is a wall painting, of a woman and her daughter who's standing behind a chair.발음듣기

[Voiceover] We think is her daughter, and this is a very old image, so it's hard to know exactly what's being shown.발음듣기

[Voiceover] That's true. This is more than 2,000 years old.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So, just like we see in sculpture in ancient Greece and Rome in two-dimensional art and fresco paintings like this one, 발음듣기

we see an interest in representing the correct proportions of the human body, and interest in representing, 발음듣기

although a clothed figure, a sense of a nude figure that makes sense underneath that drapery.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Well, we get a sense for the mass, of the volumes, of the body, 발음듣기

and remember, all of this is represented on a two-dimensional surface, so the ability to create a sense of a form turning in space is quite an achievement.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And when you say turning in space, you mean light playing over the surface of a form to make it appear three-dimensional.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Well, look at the edge of the pillow that she sits on.발음듣기

The bottom of it has shadow, the top of it has a highlight, and so we get a sense of that object in space.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So the artist has created a convincing illusion on this two-dimensional surface of a three-dimensional form.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Look at the instrument that that woman holds.발음듣기

We're seeing it at an angle so that it looks foreshortened.발음듣기

[Voiceover] It appears to be coming out in space toward us, and by creating a foreshortened form, the artist further helps to convince us of an illusion of space.발음듣기

There's a lot going on here, in fact, where the artist is trying to give us a sense of naturalism, of an illusion of reality.발음듣기

We have the foreshortened musical instrument, the foreshortened arm of the chair, the naturalism of her body, the sense of her weight as she sits on that chair.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And, of course, the child that is behind the chair so that we know that there is space.발음듣기

It's a relatively shallow space.발음듣기

We have a wall behind the child.발음듣기

Nevertheless, we do see the woman in front, the chair in the middle, the girl behind that, and the wall behind her.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Exactly. We have an illusion of space and we have an illusion of three-dimensional발음듣기

figures that exist within that space.발음듣기

[Voiceover] But throughout history, that wasn't always the primary consideration of an artist.발음듣기

[Voiceover] If we look at a Medieval mosaic when Europe was dominated by Christianity, by Christian thought, we see a very different approach to the human figure.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Here we're looking at an apse mosaic.발음듣기

That is, this is made of tiny pieces of stone and glass that's in a church called Hagia Sophia. This is huge.발음듣기

It's about 16 feet tall, but it's so much more stylized than the Roman painting.발음듣기

The image itself is quite symmetrical.발음듣기

[Voiceover] By symmetry we mean that if you cut it down the center it would be pretty much the same on both sides, and the figures are very frontal.발음듣기

This is a kind of view that's not very realistic.발음듣기

If you walked in a room, for example, how many people would you actually see exactly frontal?발음듣기

[Voiceover] And you would generally not see figures that have halos around their heads or gold backgrounds behind them.발음듣기

This is a spiritual representation.발음듣기

This is an image of the Virgin Mary and her son, Christ.발음듣기

So what we're looking at here is a heavenly representation.발음듣기

This is a symbolic representation.발음듣기

Although there is some reference to light and shadow, especially in the drapery and especially in the cushions, 발음듣기

this is an image that is coming out of the late Roman tradition.발음듣기

Nevertheless, this is primarily concerned with abstracting the human body.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And abstracting space, and so we can say that the artists of the ancient Roman fresco was doing everything he could to convince us of the reality of his illusion.발음듣기

Here, in the Middle Ages, the artist is doing everything he can to convince us of the unreality of his image.발음듣기

He has removed it from any earthly setting.발음듣기

We have that gold background. The figure is elongated.발음듣기

The drapery describes the body a bit, but is very abstracted.발음듣기

By abstracted, we mean removed from reality.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So the lengthening of that body is a way of signaling to the viewer that the figure that we're seeing is not somebody that we would meet in our daily lives, 발음듣기

that this is somebody who exists in the spiritual realm.발음듣기

Christians at this point in history are much less concerned with the importance of the physical, of the realm in which we live, and are much more focused on the hereafter, on the spiritual realm.발음듣기

Now, that changes. If we move to the Renaissance, we see Christian art that is concerned with the here and now.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And see that in so much work of the Renaissance.발음듣기

In this beautiful painting by Giovanni Bellini, we have a spiritual image, this is the Madonna and the Christ child, 발음듣기

but in a beautiful earthly setting with a landscape behind them.발음듣기

The figures no longer wear those big halos indicating their divine status.발음듣기

Their bodies are in much more natural proportions, and move much more naturally.발음듣기

So we have that interest in both the natural world and the naturalism, the realism, of the body.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So here's an artist that is finding kind of spirituality in the beauty of nature, in the beauty of the human body.발음듣기

In this way, we have an artist who has an interest in returning to that older Greek and Roman tradition.발음듣기

I'm not saying that Bellini was looking specifically at Roman wall painting, that would have been hard to see, 발음듣기

but there was a general interest in the classical interest in the natural world.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And that's one of the ways that we define the Renaissance, 발음듣기

the Renaissance as a rebirth of the culture of ancient Greece and Rome and artists looking back to that naturalistic tradition.발음듣기

[Voiceover] But I think it's important to be cautious not to look at the Bellini and say that it is more successful than the Medieval mosaic.발음듣기

These are works of art that were responding to the needs of its culture, to the interests of its culture.발음듣기

Both of them are spectacular representations, but very different kinds of issues are important to them.발음듣기

[Voiceover] The artists who created the mosaic in Hagia Sophia had no interest in creating an illusion of reality.발음듣기

In fact, their goal was to not create the illusion of reality!발음듣기

We see that happen again in the 20th Century with some artists.발음듣기

We're looking at a Madonna and Child by a 20th Century artist named Eric Gill.발음듣기

[Voiceover] This is a print, and it is so simplified. It is so abstracted.발음듣기

We can clearly see the intimacy between the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, very similar to the intimacy that exists in all of these images, 발음듣기

but it is stark black and white.발음듣기

It is simple line and contour.발음듣기

The artist has reduced it.발음듣기

This is a kind of economy of line that is interesting and important to artists in the 20th Century, and to artists who have, 발음듣기

in a sense, the entire sweep of history at their disposal, that can pick and choose the styles that they want to work in, 발음듣기

and who try to create a new kind of meaning through those choices.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So gone is the use of modeling, or chiaroscuro, that movement of light to dark to create an illusion of three-dimensional form.발음듣기

We have no sense of atmospheric perspective like we have in the Bellini, where we have a sense of deep space in that landscape.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And even more abstracted than the mosaic, but this is an artist who is familiar with every image we've looked at.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And you could say that in the era of photography, why create reality?발음듣기

[Voiceover] So like every artist before him, Eric Gill is making choices and producing art that answers questions that are relevant to his culture.발음듣기

[Voiceover] That answers the needs of the 20th Century. (jazz piano)발음듣기

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