Most artwork between 1AD until say 1900 is heavily influenced with religious themes. Why do you think?
2
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
10 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.None of the above. People do what they are paid to do. People create what they learn will sell.
JenBeberstein
Level 8
Oct 26, 2018
0
@powder you said most of the art was influenced by religious themes. I neither researched the truth of that nor tried to dispute it. I presumed it was true and answered as if it were. You didn't say "most of the artwork that survived", you just said "most of the artwork". I assure you that I was not trying to be argumentative.
@powder I wasn't disagreeing with you, I read it as you disagreeing with me. True artists create what they find within themselves. The art that survives is what was bought and/or what wasn't destroyed by those in power.
@powder anything witchy, anything "deviant", anything nonconformist, anything anti-government, anything against the grain. It would be incredibly amazing to see all of the art that was taken away from us because of somebody else's hangups and insecurities.
Religious people are more likely to destroy religious art than non-religious art. Muslims are best known for this because of Islam's prohibition of depictions of God, Mohammad, humans and any other sentient creatures; in former times when countries came under Islamic rule, as was the case with Spain under the Moors, art falling foul of this ban would therefore be destroyed. It's most definitely not only Muslims, however - here in England the Puritans felt that churches should be austere, plain places and destroyed the medieval decorations once found in many churches; destroying paintings, smashing statues and white-washing the richly-coloured murals on the walls; the Calvinists did the same in the Netherlands and other Protestant sects did similar in other countries.
Jnei
Level 8
Oct 25, 2018
1
I've taken college art history classes & the correct answer is neither of those. In the early days pigments & such were expensive & the artists had to make their own paints. Artists generally could not afford supplies along with feeding their families, so they had patrons if they were good enough to attract them. They also were commissioned for projects. And the churches had money. Even paintings that don't appear religious to our eyes often carried religious messages in symbols recognized by the people of the time, since few could read. Patrons liked to show off their wealth by having the artist use large areas of very expensive to make colors--something people of the time would alaso recognize. I'm not sure any more, but I think one of them was a certain blue.
Carin
Level 8
Oct 24, 2018
2
You are correct though, that some works of art were destroyed if they were deemed indecent or pagan according to whatever standards existed at the time.
Jnei:
You're correct about blue. All blue pigments were very expensive to make with the exception of woad which is low-quality and useless for painting, which is why blue appears so rarely in medieval art. When cobalt blue began to be manufactured, it was originally used for stained glass windows in churches and depictions of the Virgin Mary (there were actually laws stating that her robe had to be blue) and became fashionable; however, blue pigments remained hard to make and, as a result, expensive, as such it became associated with serenity, dignity and nobility. It wasn't until the 18th Century that cheap, synthetic blue pigments were developed in the West (the Chinese already had them, but their process wasn't known in the West; so too had the Ancient Egyptians as long ago as 3000BCE, but that process had been forgotten).
rich people paid for the art and they needed to keep good with the church...
fyi: they also did A LOT of war stuff too...glory and all.
MissaDixon
Level 7
Oct 24, 2018
1
Not voting because there isn't an answer that fits my theory. Life was pretty terrible for a lot of people in those times. I think that only the promise of something better afterwards kept them going a lot of the time. (False hope is better than none, I guess.) I think the idea that all would be well eventually was important -- and remember a lot of the art from those times was not being done by the average Joan or Joe. They didn't have time for art -- they needed to work to keep body and soul together. That's what I think.
ladyprof70
Level 7
Oct 24, 2018
2
Artists were subsidized by the Church, and/or wealthy patrons who sought favor with the Church. As always, follow the money!
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Oct 24, 2018
1
...tend to agree/like mentioned
above;. it's super difficult to actually
measure the social pressure level
artists would have had to deal with!
None of these, artists need to be commisioned, the churches had lots of money and benefactors.
This is why in art history tricks, jokes and blasphemies are sneaked in to so many religious works of art, Da Vinci and Michelangelo were particularly notorious for doing this.
LenHazell53
Level 9
Oct 24, 2018
1
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
Share this post
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.