Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
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Most comprehensive guidebook in
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Art History Through Innovators:
Sculpture, Section 1
by Dianne Durante
Copyright (c) 2010 by Dianne Durante, all rights
reserved.
DuranteDianne@gmail.com
www.ForgottenDelights.com
You may distribute this lecture or quote from it as long as you do not
charge for it,
and include this copyright notice and the author's contact information
in their entirety.
"Art History Through Innovators" focuses on major innovations - innovations that gave the artists who created them, and all the artists who followed, greater power to make viewers stop, look, and think about their works.
If the sight of first-rate thinkers at work inspires and refreshes you, you’ll love these jargon-free lectures. You’ll also gain a framework for appreciating art from any period. And perhaps you’ll find more art to love - more art that shows the world the way you think it can and ought to be.
"Art History Through Innovators" was conceived as a walking tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York--because seeing a photo of a sculpture or painting is never, ever as good as seeing the work itself. In the text that follows, I have made only minimal changes to the transcript of the lecture as presented in the Metropolitan Museum.
The audio version and the complete transcript can be ordered here here, or email DuranteDianne@gmail.com.
#1 Frishmuth, The Vine, 1921
#1 on the list of sculptures is in the American Wing courtyard. If you're not there already, head there now. You’re looking for Harriet Frishmuth’s The Vine, a bronze statue of a woman dancing. It’s about 7 feet high, and it’s near the center of the courtyard. Feel free to have a seat on one of the benches near The Vine.
One warning before we start. You do not have to move from one item on the list to another like a horse wearing blinders. I strongly recommend you do this tour with your finger on the pause button. The great advantage of a recording is that you can shut me off if you want a moment to think - or if you’re irresistibly drawn to the second sculpture to the right of the one I’m talking about.
If you hit pause, my virtual self will not to get offended or lose her train of thought. If you need caffeine after the first half hour, she’s not going to care. Follow your inclinations: it will make the tour more enjoyable and more memorable.
#
Now let's talk about what we'll be covering in these tours.
A standard art history course covers the
characteristics of the art of every major civilization and every time
period, from ancient through modern. I'm focusing instead on one
question: In 5,000 years, how did we get from a sculpture such as
Mykerinus and His Queen to Frishmuth's The
Vine? What I want to show you are major innovations in art. That’s
why the title of this tour is "Art History Through Innovators."
If you have an inquiring mind, you should immediately be asking two questions. Number 1: What is art? Number 2: What counts as a major innovation?
So: What is art? You might be surprised to hear that there’s no widely accepted definition. If you ask 5 staff members at the Metropolitan Museum, they’ll give you 5 different definitions. Same thing if you ask 5 professors who teach art history.
The most difficult part of writing these tours was making sure that when we start, we’re on the same page about the meaning of “art.” So let’s try this.
Look at the Nike logo at the right.
Do you know who that is?
Do you know what he's doing?
Is he good, bad, or mediocre at what he does?
How did he get that way: skill, practice, luck, transcendental meditation?
If you recognize this figure as Michael Jordan, then the image isn't just a blob of ink on paper. It carries with it a set of ideas about excellence, and about how you achieve excellence.
Sculptures
carry ideas with them, too. For example, look at Michelangelo's David
at left. Most people see in it a combination of
courage, strength, and alertness.
But a sculptor doesn’t just show any random idea that pops into his head. Art works often endure for centuries, but artists never do. So an artist can’t sculpt an image of every single thing he sees. Nor can he include every microscopic detail of what he does choose to sculpt. He has to choose his subjects and his style based on what matters enough to him to spend days, months, or years working on.
So by showing courage, strength, and alertness in a work of art, Michelangelo says: “Such things are important to me.” A sculptor who represents Uncle Dave drinking beer in a La-Z-Boy reveals a different set of values. In either case, when the artist creates his work of art, he tells you: "This is important, this matters, pay attention to this - this value, this idea, this action." Sometimes it's this kind of place, this sort of person, this kind of feeling. But it’s always something the artist considers profoundly important.
We’ll talk about why that matters to you, as a viewer, after we’ve looked at a couple millennia of sculpture.
#
Now, let's talk about what counts as a major innovation in art. To convey his idea of what’s important, an artist must be able to communicate with you. He has to capture your attention - he can’t communicate with you if your brain is channel-surfing. He has to show you something you can understand - he can't communicate without a common language. He has to show you something so unusual or so vivid that it makes you stand still and contemplate what he has created. In short, he has to make you stop, and look, and think about his work of art.
The innovations we’re looking at on this tour are not novelty for the sake of novelty. Every one of them gave its creator more power to make you stop, look, and think. And these innovations were not gimmicks or minor tweaks. They were so effective that they allowed many other sculptors to convey their values and ideas more effectively.
On the list of sculptures and the timeline [which you'll get later], the works that illustrate innovations of that caliber - major innovations - are in bold. There are only 7 of them. We'll be looking at the other works on the list for the sake of context and contrast. Resist the temptation to make a rude noise and fast-forward through those parts of the tour. You may hate medieval art, for example, but you'll appreciate Donatello and Michelangelo more if you've seen it.
We’re ready to move now to #2 on the map, in the Egyptian galleries. Go to the gallery that’s marked on the map. At the beginning of the next segment I’ll tell you where to find the sculpture that I’m talking about.
This lecture continues here.
UPWARD GLANCE
SCREENSAVERS: New
York or Chicago
