10 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
    1. In The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone’s biographical novel ofMichelangelo, Stone described vividly how Michelangelo released thestatues from the stone, “breaking the marble spell,” carving from theimages in his mind.

      A second remove perhaps, but nominative determinism at play here?

  2. Jun 2023
  3. Jul 2022
    1. Vinzenz Brinkmann, Head of the Department of Antiquity at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection in Frankfurt am Main, said when he first started researching polychromy 40 years ago, "no one had interest in this for years, no one collected the clearly visible evidence. Except for me. I collected the evidence like a stamp collection."

      Ancient statuary wasn't white as we often see now in museums, but was brightly colored. Statuary that was outside would have been sun bleached over time as well as subject to other weathering to mute or entirely remove color.

      https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1109995973/we-know-greek-statues-werent-white-now-you-can-see-them-in-color

  4. Jun 2022
    1. As powerful and necessary as divergence is, if all we ever do isdiverge, then we never arrive anywhere.

      Tiago Forte frames the creative process in the framing of divergence (brainstorming) and convergence (connecting ideas, editing, refining) which emerged out of the Stanford Design School and popularized by IDEO in the 1980s and 1990s.

      But this is just what the more refined practices of maintaining a zettelkasten entail. It's the creation of profligate divergence forced by promiscuously following one's interests and collecting ideas along the way interspersed with active and pointed connection of ideas slowly creating convergence of these ideas over time. The ultimate act of creation finally becomes simple as pulling one's favorite idea of many out of the box (along with all the things connected to it) and editing out any unnecessary pieces and then smoothing the whole into something cohesive.

      This is far less taxing than sculpting marble where one needs to start with an idea of where one is going and then needs the actual skill to get there. Doing this well requires thousands of hours of practice at the skill, working with smaller models, and eventually (hopefully) arriving at art. It's much easier if one has the broad shapes of the entirety of Rodin, Michelangelo, and Donatello's works in their repository and they can simply pull out one that feels interesting and polish it up a bit. Some of the time necessary for work and practice are still there, but the ultimate results are closer to guaranteed art in one domain than the other.


      Commonplacing or slipboxing allows us to take the ability to imitate, which humans are exceptionally good at (Annie Murphy Paul, link tk), and combine those imitations in a way to actively explore and then create new innovative ideas.

      Commonplacing can be thought of as lifelong and consistent practice of brainstorming where one captures all the ideas for later use.


      Link to - practice makes perfect

  5. Jul 2021
  6. Feb 2021
  7. Jan 2019
    1. One sculpture that perfectly illustrates both of these instances is The Veiled Virgin, a 19th-century work by Italian sculptor Giovanni Strazza.

      Incredibly beautiful! Veiled Lady here. But my favorite is the Veiled Nun.

  8. Sep 2018
  9. Dec 2016
    1. hat to do NowDec. 12-18

      Isn't this sculpture interesting? Please give me your impressions by this friday for a full letter grade higher.