British art restorer uncovers a lost Giotto masterpiece

Dr Johnson sent this article around a few weeks back. Here's a link to it. Maybe we'll get a chance to see this Giotto crucifix in Florence!

http://gu.com/p/2kttc

Contemporary art vs. Renaissance art

I think that it is somewhat difficult to compare the art of today, to the art of the renaissance. In my opinion, art of the renaissance set the standard and basics for what art should mean and even how it is made. I think that European art and artists during the renaissance are like the "founding fathers" of art and architecture. The artists of the renaissance brought to life different paintings by creating/discovering things like illusionism, shadowing, and linear perspective. These artists pushed the boundaries sometimes of what was acceptable and what was not. Art and architecture during the renaissance often represented a person's status and rank in society. For one to have a pictured painted or drawn of him or her meant that he or she were of a higher status in society. This is still somewhat equivalent of how it is today, only because it can sometimes be pricey. Although, in the United States it is not as difficult as it would have been to receive this treatment during renaissance times.

Architecture during the renaissance also represented a lot of different things for the culture and individually. For an individual to create or have created a large piece of work, often meant that that person had power. Today, buildings and architecture in the United States seem to more often be created for a particular city, rather than for that individual. Or at least the creator is not as well recognized as some of the emperors of the renaissance.

I do not feel that I am all that knowledgeable of art of this time in the United States as some people, but I also do not think that I am much different from the general public. I think that in the United States, art and architecture is not as widely know to the general population as it was during the renaissance. The art during the renaissance would very often have symbolic meanings behind them, whereas, today the art of the United States seems to fall short of how much art meant to those during the renaissance. I believe that art and architecture of the United States still has meaning and value behind it, but just not as much as art during the renaissance. Sometimes I feel that art during the renaissance is more real that contemporary art because artists long ago had less to work with, but yet they set such a high standard for those to follow after them. Artists like Leonard da Vinci will forever be known to most people, whereas, it would be very difficult for me to name a contemporary artist in the United States at this time. I do not have anything against contemporary artists, or think that they do not create good quality work, I just think that they are not as widely publicized as some artists like musicians.

Art Then & Now

One thing that really struck me yesterday in class was the amount of time allotted for Domenico Ghirlandaio to paint the Adoration of the Magi...30 months! As a student of art, I can't imagine ever spending that much time on one painting. An artist today could create an entire body of art for an exhibition in that amount of time. We are living in an era where everything is convenient and fast and artists today don't have the patience to create works of art that they once did. I even question how often Ghirlandaio was working on this piece for it to take him that long, but when you look at the detail in the image and think of how in depth the processes of painting were it starts to make sense. Now that paints come readily available in tubes, who would purchase minerals and grind them into powders to create paints? I believe that artists now have so much more freedom of creativity than the Renaissance artists did because times have changed and there are things that are more acceptable in today's society; but also because Renaissance artists were mostly limited in what they could paint by who would commission them. At the same time, I think that Renaissance artists may have been much more knowledgeable of a variety of subjects like math, science, literature and religion.

Art Then & Art Now

I unfortunately agree with Courtney on how artists are viewed in today’s society. I don’t think we value their hard work and effort towards artwork the way we did back in the Renaissance timeframe. Photography is a form of art, and I think we all take that for granted. Mostly everyone I know has a camera and an editing program on their computer where we can become the “best photographer” that we want to be with it. We don’t value the amazing talent some people have in taking beautiful pictures or painting a picture. We just want to buy a particular picture because it will match the interior décor of our house. It’s actually kind of sad.

The Renaissance art seemed to be valued more than the artwork today. In class, we talked about all the effort it took to build the Duomo of the Cathedral. They had to form fires for their lunches and ways to go to the bathroom. In today’s world, this wouldn’t be such a production. We would have lifts or build some sort of temporary elevator, or even put a porta potty up there, so everything would be convenient for them. They had to put so much time and effort forth, which I feel like workers today would slack on. Many buildings today seem to be built more for convenience or cost than for the beauty of the work itself. Workers are hired to do what the architect designed. They go to work, do what they are told, and don’t care as much about the quality of their work. In the Renaissance time, they wanted their work to be the best they could, and the artists wanted to prove themselves as worthy artists.

Art Then & Art Now

One of the major differences between Renaissance art and art today is that when artist where creating pieces of art they didn't have all of the tools and technology that our artist today have. For example having to paint only when the sun was up to provide light, we now can paint in the middle of the night. At the same time though i feel that this got the renaissance art more attention and even today it still gives us an admiration for the art that was done during that period because we think about how these artist were able to create such beautiful pieces of work with such limited resources. I think that renaissance art will always be appreciated and admired because it was done so perfectly even though there was millions of what we would consider today to be barriers. Now in the U.S and all over the world we have electricity, computers, cameras, etc. One positive of all these things is that it creates for more variety in our art today, but a negative is that is a since the process of creating certain types of art has been simplified compared to the time of the Renaissance.
Also i think that today artist are not as appreciated as they were back then. I believe that our world is so stereotypical and superficial that we can't just enjoy a beautiful painting done in water color. I think that today we look at art, classical forms of art and we aren't impressed. The type of artist that we treasure are musical artist or graphic design for example. We aren't in awe of the simple art, we need something created with technology to get our blood flowing and that's disappointing. Artist of classic work I don't believe are as high in society today as they were in the renaissance because what they did then was a true gift, a very unique thing that was of great value. Today i feel like anyone can become an artist, in some sense so the trade isn't as valuable anymore.