Cycles in Art

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. 

                                                                         - George Santayana

If history is doomed to repeat itself, and if art is a reflection of history then it stands to reason that art repeats itself. Some people don't like history because they say they aren't good at remembering dates. Or, they say they don't like to read hundreds of pages of complicated language about people that lived centuries ago. I suggest taking a short cut and experiencing the "picture book" approach to history. For me ancient art can be summarized into three time periods, Archaic, Classical and  Hellenistic. Then later in history those periods closely mirror the Medieval, Renaissance and Romantic period.

Archaic- Recognized by it highly stylized figures and religious purposes. Archaic sculptors and painters seemed to be more concerned with representing the symbol of a person rather than an exact depiction. This is a votive statue that was used to hold incense or candles and would stand as intermediaries to convey the prayers of humans to Greek Gods.

Classical- Greek civilization started to be impressed with the abilities of man. What would lead to the humanist movement in the future, greeks began to reason with each other rather than rely on the gods for their fate. Tremendous advances were made in mathematics, philosophy and architecture. Artist was now a profession rather than just something people did on the side. Artists wanted to convey the Greek ideals of Control over all things, including themselves, their emotions and their environment. Look at this, the title is the Discus Thrower or Discobolus. There aren't any discus throwers in real life that have so much control that they look like they are about to take a nap right at mid-throw.

Hellenistic- The Greeks have become so good at depicting perfection that it has now become boring. Now, instead of depicting real life we're going to show exaggerated features. All the men are going to look like action figures. And instead of scenes from everyday life we are going to show epic mythological battles and conflicts. Pain, strife and struggles are the emotions we are going to try and capture.

Medieval- Fast forward a couple hundred years and Europe has fallen into disrepair culturally and has become a 'fixer-upper.' Culturally we have gone a full circle. Most of our Art has a religious purpose and there are few professional artists. The few 'artists' of the time were probably no different then the people that built the cathedrals were housed in and were more often than not the same person. Perspective and foreshortening hadn't been 'discovered' yet so people look like they are floating in the air.

Renaissance/Neo Classical- Suddenly Europe has a 'rebirth' and discovers all this cool stuff from antiquity. Leonardo Da Vinci develops 'special effects' to make paintings look more real by making the background bluer, higher, and fuzzier to the viewer.

Gothic/Romanticism - This art style coincides very well with Hellenistic Greece. We start moving away from a perfect and controlled renaissance world into a world that has pain and where the good guys don't always win. Colors are muted symbolizing all life has seeped out of the world or in other instances the colors are exaggerated signifying the world in chaos. One of the great pieces of the Romantic Period is The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault. This painting became synonymous with French Romanticism. Even without knowing the background the piece draws emotion out of the viewer. The scene depicted are the survivors of the shipwrecked French frigate, The Medusa. 147 people quickly made a makeshift raft. For 13 days the survivors of the ship battled dehydration, exposure, starvation, and cannibalism. By the time they were rescued there were only 15 people alive. On the raft we see all the emotions of human kind. On the top right we see unbridled optimism of the first person that has seen the rescue ship. On the bottom right we see the utter despair of a father that has lost his son and is protecting his body from the ravages of the other crew members. This is a powerful symbolism that shows the optimism people had during the Romantic period along wtih the dark underside of the political unrest of the time.

Raft of the Medusa - Theodore Gericault