Did their Catullus walk this way?

[sovay]

More or less reproducing an e-mail I sent derspatchel this morning, after we'd both seen "Classical sculptures dressed as hipsters look contemporary and totally badass."

I agree it's an interesting project. It's more of a Rorschach of the viewer's perceptions than any kind of statement about the objective relatability of classical art. It wins points with me for not being an exercise in irony—hey, look, it's the Mona Lisa in skinny jeans, isn't that just too postmodern for words—but I object to the implicit claim that the sculpture is remote and boring and inacessible otherwise, the same point you identify: that we should only be expected to relate to people like us.

(For the sake of the argument, let's ignore that most of these examples are not portrait sculpture, but idealized representations of gods, heroes, nymphs, etc.—that's Aristaios with the mirrorshades in the first picture, a Maenad with the kid and the tambourine farther down—that we are looking mostly at Renaissance versions rather than marbles from classical Greece or Rome, and that if they were the latter, in their original contexts they'd have been brightly painted and a contemporary viewer wouldn't suffer from the stylizing effect of blank white stone that the modern clothes are partly intended to combat; the author of this post would probably find them distractingly gaudy instead.)

I personally find the hipster drag a lot weirder to relate to than nude or ivy-dressed marble, but it's not my subculture anyway. It is possible that if this project had been undertaken with punk fashion, I'd be like HELL YES THAT IS TOTALLY DIONYSOS WITH THE EYESHADOW AND THE RIPPED BLACK LEATHER WHERE CAN I COMMISSION THIS OBJECT I WANT ONE IN MY LIVING ROOM STAT, OH ORPHEUS ARE YOU EVER TOO EMO FOR WORDS. But I also wonder whether the blogger is getting the same questions out of this series the photographers put into it, or whether I am, or whether I would feel less prickly about this concept if it had been executed with Olympian victors or funeral stelae rather than mythological figures. I am all for seeing the past as though it were alive and confusing as the next person, not safely tidied into interchangeable Roman and Greek names and something about hetairas. But there is also the danger of thinking just like us. I love Sappho, but we wouldn't even use the same words for it.

(Even a copy of the Barberini Faun isn't supposed to have pants on.)

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I am all for seeing the past as though it were alive and confusing as the next person, not safely tidied into interchangeable Roman and Greek names and something about hetairas. But there is also the danger of thinking just like us.

That's it in a nutshell, right? On the one hand, there's the danger of exoticizing (or performing other sorts of othering rituals/thought patterns). On the other hand, there's the danger of wrongly making the different familiar and losing what makes it unique.

Really, though, the whole project seems strange to me because if there's any non-current, representational art that's easily accessible, it's Greco-Roman sculpture and its imitations. The human form gets stylized in ways people have been brought up to think of as ideals, whereas, for instance, that's not the case with figures from Japanese ukiyoe prints or Mayan bas reliefs.

[sovay]

The human form gets stylized in ways people have been brought up to think of as ideals, whereas, for instance, that's not the case with figures from Japanese ukiyoe prints or Mayan bas reliefs.

You should write more about this.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm just spouting off in a non-expert way. And I even misspoke, because other cultures' art forms do express ideals, and sometimes even physical ideals, but not focusing on the body, necessarily. Like, say, Heian-period paintings of people--the way the sweep of women's hair was portrayed--that was a physical ideal. But the body? Not important. And even the faces: not so important. What would it take for a modern American teenager to see what represented vitality and personality in the Heian figures? They're much more removed than Greco-Roman statuary!

Here's an illustration from the Takafusa-kyo handscroll. It's done all in pale ink with only the barest hints of color--and then there's the beautiful, dark sweep of the hair.

[sovay]

And I even misspoke, because other cultures' art forms do express ideals, and sometimes even physical ideals, but not focusing on the body, necessarily.

I thought your comment made perfect sense: I didn't take it to mean that the art of non-Western cultures doesn't express aesthetic ideals, only that it doesn't express aesthetic ideals which are so thoroughly and ancestrally assimilated with our own that a classical nude is still the default against which any other presentation of the human form still has to work.

It's done all in pale ink with only the barest hints of color--and then there's the beautiful, dark sweep of the hair.

That's really cool. Thank you for showing me!

What else is an ideal of physical beauty in Heian art?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Honestly, for the women it's almost entirely about their calligraphy or the way they arrange their robes, or sometimes about the quality of their voices--if you think that they were always hidden away behind screens, so the men only ever saw them face to face if they were having a tryst--and that was likely to be at night, in the almost complete darkness. Smooth, pale skin was valued--same for the men--and for the men, not too much body or facial hair. I remember in Genji a big deal was made about this one guy who was hairy and uncouth. Kaoru (son of Genji's nephew, but known to the world as Genji's son) and Niou (son of Genji's daughter) both have names with implications of fragrance, and sweet-smelling-ness was also very important.

[sovay]

for the women it's almost entirely about their calligraphy or the way they arrange their robes, or sometimes about the quality of their voices--if you think that they were always hidden away behind screens, so the men only ever saw them face to face if they were having a tryst--and that was likely to be at night, in the almost complete darkness.

And that interests me, because vocal quality is partly innate and partly adaptable, but the other two are strictly learned skills. Fine, yes, any person starting from scratch may be better or worse at drapery or calligaphy than the next, but I still don't consider it quite the same kind of ideal as muscular symmetry or hip-to-waist ratio or a particular curve of cheekbone or color of hair or eyes.

Smooth, pale skin was valued--same for the men--and for the men, not too much body or facial hair.

Whereas that's more genetic.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Nan Fairbrother made a similar point (I think in An English Year, though I can't find it at the moment -- bother).