Civilisation

[santaman2000]

I don't have a degree in art history but I do know enough to know that I know nowhere near enough to disagree with an Oxford/Cambridge/Harvard educated art historian about art. If the man says the tree's Jesus on a cross, then the tree's Jesus on a cross, simple.

I've found comparing highly educated art historians to normal people is similar to comparing chefs to cooks: A cook is poorly paid to prepare what you want, the way you want it vs a chef who's paid very well to decide what you want sand tell the cook how to prepare it. The best artists I've ever seen are inmates doing clandestine tattoos.

 

[snappingturtle]

I think some art is a language its not just a still of life, its a communication the hard part with the classics is knowing the symbols and meaning they convey if a message is hidden beyond the obvious, but then you would have to know something of say pagan or Jewish/ Christian mystic even alchemic thinking

 

[Janne]

But not all art is religious!

One of my favourite museums is the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna.
Lots of religious paintings I just jog by, then the rest....
Fantastic!

The Austrian monarchy were great collectors.

I plan to go to St Petersburg soon.

 

[Robson Valley]

My Art History text books suggest that art was religious in the the beginning. All of it.
Painters were journeymen artisans, hired to produce illustrations for the churches.
Otherwise, Royalty could afford them but nobody else. Big oils belong to the wealthy.
Paleo cave paintings were likely of symbolic or mystical importance, as well.

Now, along comes Marco Polo to spill the beans about the location origins of spices which had only
traveled the gauntlet of pirates along the Silk Road (apples, too, by the way.)
Cinnamon, Nutmeg, cloves, peppercorns, tea.
Read some economic botany. Even Kurlansky's "World History of Salt."

The marine spice trade made a lot of Dutch then English families pretty solvent.
Spain trawled the Americas for chocolate, vanilla, even maize and potatoes, tobacco.
They stole enough coffee beans and sugar canes to get a tidy business going in the New World.

One thing that became trendy were oil portraits. The fat cats were the patrons of the arts.
Big times we call the Renaissance..

 

[Janne]

They ordered religious paintings for their chapels, lanscapes and portraits for the livingrooms and erotic paintings for the bedrooms.