Портрет: реальность, магия и искусство. Илья Доронченков. Лекция
Лекции. Искусство. История. Идеи
6,266 views
© Arzamas. Portrait: Reality, Magic, and Art. A lecture from the "Art of Seeing" series. Live broadcast on May 20, 2018.
Start: 2:40 AM / Doronchenkov: 7:20 AM
A lecture by art historian Ilya Doronchenkov as part of the joint project "The Art of Seeing" by Arzamas, the European University at St. Petersburg, the State Hermitage Museum, and Arzamas.
The "Art of Seeing" series explores how to understand art: how to view paintings, prints, photographs, and monuments, what architecture tells us, and why we need to visit museums. The Art of Seeing: 8 Lectures on Paintings, Photographs, Museums, and Houses March 11, 2018 - June 17, 2018 https://arzamas.academy/offline/art
Arzamas — an educational project about the history of culture https://arzamas.academy
***
Russian State Library:
The portrait is probably the oldest genre of art. Originating in the ancient world, it exists to this day, serving virtually the same functions: it replaces the person depicted, making "the absent seem present" (Leon Battista Alberti).
Many stereotypes are associated with the perception of portraits. Looking at them, we often forget that we are looking at an image, not a person; we are trying to decipher a person's character from their image on canvas. This is natural: the portrait is closest to the central problem of European art—creating a lifelike effect. At its inception, the portrait was closely linked to the problem of prolonging human existence, and this almost magical function remains inherent to it—which is why, while belonging to art, it constantly transcends it. At every stage of its existence, the portrait is, first and foremost, a social construct that conveys the era's perceptions of man and his nature.
In the lecture, we explored how to view portraits from different eras to accurately interpret their messages, how the rhetoric of portraiture is constructed, why portraiture has been a social privilege for centuries, and whether "portrait likeness" can be trusted.
For the lecture, the RSL staff prepared a thematic mini-exhibition featuring publications from the collection of the Rare Book Research Department (Book Museum) of the Russian State Library. Visitors were also presented with a book on human physiognomy. The study of the relationship between a person's external features, expressions, and facial expressions and their character and health (physiognomy) has been very popular among philosophers and physicians since the time of Hippocrates, Ibn Sina, and Aritotelle. Leonardo da Vinci, not only a distinguished painter but also a scientist—anatomist and naturalist—also contributed to the development of physiognomy. In the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous books were published on the art of recognizing a person by their facial features. One of these is the work of the Italian physician and philosopher Giovanni Battista Porta (1535–1615). The first edition of this book was published in 1586 in Latin. The exhibition featured the third edition (Padua, 1623).
Also on display were two publications from the same period (late 16th to early 17th centuries), introducing the art of portraiture. This collection of copperplate engraving portraits of French kings by the engraver Jacques de Bie (1581-1650) is on display. Jacques de Bie was not only a renowned draughtsman and engraver, but also a typographer and specialist in classical history, numismatics, and iconology. Specifically, he printed Cesare Ripa's famous book, "Iconology or the Universal Description of Images..." in 1636 and edited another edition in 1637. A second lifetime edition of the book by the Italian writer C. Ripa (1630) was shown at an earlier lecture.
The exhibition also featured an edition of portraits collected by the Italian historian, physician, biographer, and geographer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera (1483-1552). For a long time, and until the end of his life, Paolo Giovio collected portraits of prominent figures of the past and his own time. They created a famous series of 484 portraits. The images of his famous contemporaries were generally painted from life. The Russian State Library copy is a convoluted collection of two books: portraits of famous writers and military figures renowned for their military successes. The portraits are accompanied by brief biographies and epitaphs.
https://www.rsl.ru/ru/events/afisha/lectio...
Playlist by Ilya Doronchenkov, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, European University at St. Petersburg: Илья Доронченков, ГМИИ, ЕУСПб
Copyright holder: © Arzamas https://arzamas.academy/
Source and original video: https://www.youtube.com/live/RH94TChS...
Arzamas channel: arzamaschannel
10 Comments
Портрет: реальность, магия и искусство. Илья Доронченков. Лекция
Лекции. Искусство. История. Идеи
6,266 views
© Arzamas. Portrait: Reality, Magic, and Art. A lecture from the "Art of Seeing" series. Live broadcast on May 20, 2018.
Start: 2:40 AM / Doronchenkov: 7:20 AM
A lecture by art historian Ilya Doronchenkov as part of the joint project "The Art of Seeing" by Arzamas, the European University at St. Petersburg, the State Hermitage Museum, and Arzamas.
The "Art of Seeing" series explores how to understand art: how to view paintings, prints, photographs, and monuments, what architecture tells us, and why we need to visit museums. The Art of Seeing: 8 Lectures on Paintings, Photographs, Museums, and Houses March 11, 2018 - June 17, 2018 https://arzamas.academy/offline/art
Arzamas — an educational project about the history of culture https://arzamas.academy
***
Russian State Library:
The portrait is probably the oldest genre of art. Originating in the ancient world, it exists to this day, serving virtually the same functions: it replaces the person depicted, making "the absent seem present" (Leon Battista Alberti).
Many stereotypes are associated with the perception of portraits. Looking at them, we often forget that we are looking at an image, not a person; we are trying to decipher a person's character from their image on canvas. This is natural: the portrait is closest to the central problem of European art—creating a lifelike effect. At its inception, the portrait was closely linked to the problem of prolonging human existence, and this almost magical function remains inherent to it—which is why, while belonging to art, it constantly transcends it. At every stage of its existence, the portrait is, first and foremost, a social construct that conveys the era's perceptions of man and his nature.
In the lecture, we explored how to view portraits from different eras to accurately interpret their messages, how the rhetoric of portraiture is constructed, why portraiture has been a social privilege for centuries, and whether "portrait likeness" can be trusted.
For the lecture, the RSL staff prepared a thematic mini-exhibition featuring publications from the collection of the Rare Book Research Department (Book Museum) of the Russian State Library. Visitors were also presented with a book on human physiognomy. The study of the relationship between a person's external features, expressions, and facial expressions and their character and health (physiognomy) has been very popular among philosophers and physicians since the time of Hippocrates, Ibn Sina, and Aritotelle. Leonardo da Vinci, not only a distinguished painter but also a scientist—anatomist and naturalist—also contributed to the development of physiognomy. In the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous books were published on the art of recognizing a person by their facial features. One of these is the work of the Italian physician and philosopher Giovanni Battista Porta (1535–1615). The first edition of this book was published in 1586 in Latin. The exhibition featured the third edition (Padua, 1623).
Also on display were two publications from the same period (late 16th to early 17th centuries), introducing the art of portraiture. This collection of copperplate engraving portraits of French kings by the engraver Jacques de Bie (1581-1650) is on display. Jacques de Bie was not only a renowned draughtsman and engraver, but also a typographer and specialist in classical history, numismatics, and iconology. Specifically, he printed Cesare Ripa's famous book, "Iconology or the Universal Description of Images..." in 1636 and edited another edition in 1637. A second lifetime edition of the book by the Italian writer C. Ripa (1630) was shown at an earlier lecture.
The exhibition also featured an edition of portraits collected by the Italian historian, physician, biographer, and geographer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera (1483-1552). For a long time, and until the end of his life, Paolo Giovio collected portraits of prominent figures of the past and his own time. They created a famous series of 484 portraits. The images of his famous contemporaries were generally painted from life. The Russian State Library copy is a convoluted collection of two books: portraits of famous writers and military figures renowned for their military successes. The portraits are accompanied by brief biographies and epitaphs.
https://www.rsl.ru/ru/events/afisha/lectio...
Playlist by Ilya Doronchenkov, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, European University at St. Petersburg: Илья Доронченков, ГМИИ, ЕУСПб
Copyright holder: © Arzamas https://arzamas.academy/
Source and original video: https://www.youtube.com/live/RH94TChS...
Arzamas channel: arzamaschannel