[HN Gopher] The grotesque side of Leonardo da Vinci
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The grotesque side of Leonardo da Vinci
Author : prismatic
Score : 89 points
Date : 2023-03-22 15:00 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| gverrilla wrote:
| Very bad quality click baiting writing.
| pibechorro wrote:
| Cancel wokeculture applied to antiquity, just brilliant /s
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| joshuaheard wrote:
| Da Vinci made a living drawing and painting the rich people of
| his day. I'm sure they all didn't look like the young and
| beautiful Mona Lisa.
| josefresco wrote:
| > Da Vinci made a living drawing and painting the rich people
| of his day.
|
| From what I read, he hated every minute of it. Chose instead to
| draw/paint things/people he liked, often holding onto his
| paintings for years to make refinements, only to never deliver
| them.
| actinium226 wrote:
| Yes he kept putting off Isabella d'Este, who really wanted
| him to make a portrait of her, but it sounds like it was more
| for status then because she had any taste in art.
|
| He painted some of Ludovico Sforza's mistresses. I think
| 'Lady with an Ermine' is very nice.
|
| There's speculation that he took the Mona Lisa commission
| specifically because it was just a silk merchant who wanted a
| portrait of his wife. I.e. not a power player.
|
| He never delivered the commission, it was with him when he
| died in France.
| [deleted]
| havefunbesafe wrote:
| The only thing more grotesque is how boring the rest of this
| writer's articles are
| https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonathanjones
| archagon wrote:
| FYI, the original was likely created by Quentin Matsys, with da
| Vinci's version being a copy/study:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Duchess#Quentin_Matsy...
| janzer wrote:
| Since the article starts right off by stating almost the direct
| opposite, I'd guess the matter is at least less certain/more
| debated than the wikipedia article makes it out to be.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| It really makes you wonder how far "ahead of their time" artists
| throughout history might have been if only we could see their
| sketchbooks.
| ronnykylin wrote:
| It's Yoda in Mona Lisa's outfit with the hairstyle of Red
| queen...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Oh, yeah. He liked his ugly.
|
| His ugly old men made his ugly old women look like models, but I
| usually hear about his women.
| klyrs wrote:
| The author seems to be projecting modern mores onto da Vinci,
| imagining him sneering at his subjects, including a bizarre swipe
| at Mona Lisa's "mannish" face. What I see is a scientifically-
| minded artist who was interested in the vast range that the human
| form could take, bucking the contemporary trend to focus on
| idealized beauty.
|
| Reworked title, perhaps: The Fashion Industry is Still Not Ready
| for Leonardo DaVinci's Models.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Indeed. The author's takeaway from Leonardo's lovingly detailed
| renderings of the variety of the human form being "he must have
| been mocking them" perhaps reflects more negatively on the
| author's point of view than of DaVinci's.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Agreed. It seems as though the author has perhaps not seen that
| many people, as both the works shown and referenced depict
| entirely plausible humans. The "duchess" could be a middle aged
| woman with untreated acromegaly. Hell, maybe she was, as a male
| acromegalic ancestor could have done well on the battlefield.
| Today's dysgenic traits are yesterday's eugenic. The woman
| depicted looking left in the sketch is either missing her upper
| teeth due to decay, or has a cleft pallet.
|
| An awful lot of the variety of the human form that once was is
| no more in the developed and even developing world, as disease
| and treatable deformity are generally avoided where possible -
| and back then, if you were covered in pox scars, syphilitic,
| toothless and half blind from cataracts - well, you were 35,
| and lucky to be alive with a thriving family.
|
| I'm struggling to think of anywhere on earth where the kind of
| conditions Renaissance cities still persist, and I am drawing a
| blank. We just don't have that point of reference as a tangible
| reality any more.
| akomtu wrote:
| "What are these drawings? Are they just cruel jokes?"
|
| Some of the great artists have the skill of capturing "adjacent
| worlds" for the lack of a better word. The works "David" and
| "Venus" are super-human portraits of those winged guys, while
| these Leonardo's works are infernal portraits. That's what gives
| them the eerie vibe.
|
| "They are not really funny, for one thing. They have a
| despairing, even scary, power."
|
| He adds:
|
| "Of monstrous faces I shall say nothing because they naturally
| stay in the mind."
|
| He's tacitly saying that those are visions, not drawings of
| something he made up.
|
| There are other artists with this skill. A famous modern example
| is Giger's "alien" portrait that he saw in a dream.
|
| Edit: as for Mona Lisa, it's a mix of the two worlds, it's like
| drawing a face of a real pharaoh on the body of a real lion.
| throw-8462682 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Exactly the vibe I'm getting. I think it's important being
| aware of this current craze.
| bangkoksbest wrote:
| Ah yes, the current craze of Da Vinci art exhibitions that
| show him humanising unconventional subjects. It's very
| important to be aware of this craze!
| sophacles wrote:
| Oh hell, this might turn into a renaissance. What's next? A
| growing interest to understand the natural world?
| striking wrote:
| > The man with a mad whirlpool in his hair, looking at the
| world from a bulging eye, is a figure of loneliness and
| isolation: Leonardo feels for him. Even identifies with him.
| Far from cruel mockery, this is a sympathetic study of an
| outsider.
|
| What part of this article reads as discrediting or decoupling?
| flangola7 wrote:
| Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about
| lancesells wrote:
| What? If anything, this article is playing up what is most
| likely DaVinci having fun sitting around sketching. It's very
| much a relief to start distorting and adding in lots of over
| the top details since nothing needs to be "right".
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| I don't think that's the purpose of the article. If someone
| would like to discredit Leonardo they could bring up the fact
| that, when judged under today's optics, he could be considered
| a pedophile.
| bangkoksbest wrote:
| What are you talking about? This is completely unrelated
| whining to what the article actually talks about, which is Da
| Vinci's artistic interest in humanising the traditionally
| "grotesque". _Very_ far from discrediting.
|
| You're not only ignoring the link, but you're going out of your
| way to write up an irrelevant sanctimonious comment.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Deliberately misinterpreted? The article is titled in a
| pejorative way. The article represents him as laughing at the
| disabled, the disfigured, and speculates on how we should not
| think kindly of him today for his cruelty.
|
| Then it dips its toe into the pool of accuracy and mentions
| he never actually said anything cruel (or wrote).
| bangkoksbest wrote:
| First off... The authors of articles doesn't come up with
| the title. If you want to gripe about the headline writer,
| fine, but it's not relevant to the substance of the article
| that was actually written. I don't see the title as
| pejorative, but then again I'm also not seeking to feel
| performatively offended.
|
| Never once in the article is it suggested we should think
| unkindly of Da Vinci. From the very first paragraph onward,
| the article is sympathetic to him. You wanted to be
| offended and wanted to read into the article that this was
| something akin to Da Vinci being cancelled or criticized
| according to modern norms, but that's literally the
| opposite of what is written.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That's just ... all wrong. The author writes the title.
| The article is laced with insinuations that Da Vinci was
| mean e.g. "Leonardo's chateau in Amboise during his last
| years, laughing over drawings of ugly people."
| kingkawn wrote:
| Talking about the straw man you wish it was
| [deleted]
| FredPret wrote:
| What a nothingburger. A man who lived centuries ago made comments
| about people who look different that we now interpret as unkind.
| He also drew some of these people.
| namdnay wrote:
| Sometimes "nothing burgers" make for an interesting read. TAL
| is basically a podcast of nothing burgers, doesn't stop it from
| being great
|
| And the fact that there's an exhibition on with these works is
| always good to know from a "news" perspective
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Sometimes "nothing burgers" make for an interesting read._
|
| That's the problem. It's how a Big Mac makes for an
| interesting eat. Interesting but not nutricious...
| [deleted]
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| Not so much a nothingburger as simply poorly written. The focus
| of the article seems to be on the possibly "problematic" side
| of da Vinci going so far as to hint at his supposed pretty
| privilege and wonder if he chuckled at his own caricatures
| which is an absurdly retrospective judgement. There are far
| more interesting facets to da Vinci's work and life than
| whether or not his attitudes towards ugly people would be
| acceptable in the morality du jour. The article even admits
| that da Vinci's notes make no mention of ugliness in a
| pejorative sense, highlighting that he referred to one of them
| as a viso fantastico. They make a U turn and attempt to climb
| up out of the hole they've dug for themselves talking about his
| interest in anatomy and ageing and tries to make a worn out
| point about the Mona Lisa's possible androgyny but it's about
| as striking as a wet noodle. Anyone who thinks the Mona Lisa is
| overly masculine is probably just a man who hasn't seen many
| women without makeup on.
|
| It's all rather transparent click bait that's aimed at riling
| people up. Incredibly dull when compared to even the most
| factual and plainly written biography of da Vinci.
| JohnClark1337 wrote:
| [dead]
| bangkoksbest wrote:
| That is not the focus of the article at all. The very first
| paragraph starts with a sympathetic quote of Da Vinci's. The
| third paragraph approvingly suggests his drawings were
| foreshadowing Munch and Bacon's art. Almost every other
| paragraph is also a sympathetic reading of Da Vinci's
| drawings that are being featured an upcoming art exhibition.
|
| You've invented a strawman and then sneered at the author for
| not following through with it, and then, it seems, you became
| overly sensitive about the comment on androgyny with Mona
| Lisa, as if that comment is offensive and denigrating (it's
| not, and the author didn't intend it as such, but it does
| reveal that _you_ think it is offensive).
| [deleted]
| asimpletune wrote:
| Sometimes it blows my mind how good Leonardo is at drawing. It's
| really striking when you go to a museum that has artists from the
| same time period. Leo's stuff is just head and shoulders above
| the rest. In a way, it's like he knows exactly what detail to
| capture that makes something look realistic. It's a form of
| compression I guess, but done by a human. In a way, it's better
| than a photograph because it captures how we judge a subject. To
| see what I mean, try tracing a photograph.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| By comparison, when I saw a few of Donatello's sculptures I was
| surprised by how poorly he was able to convey faces compares to
| other artists. I am no art historian, I am just a big fan of
| TMNT :)
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I guess there's a reason Donatello has much more notoriety as
| a ninja turtle than as a renaissance artist[1]
|
| [1]https://xkcd.com/197/
| ginko wrote:
| I'd say Albrecht Durer is up there as well.
| promptdaddy wrote:
| With photography, judgement, otherwise referred to as
| perspective, is achieved by composition. All things relayed
| through a human are bottlenecked through perspective.
| briandear wrote:
| > it's like he knows exactly what detail to capture that makes
| something look realistic
|
| Picasso's bull drawings were a great example of this as well.
| It's like you said, an exercise in compression:
| https://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/animals_in_art/...
| satvikpendem wrote:
| When Picasso went to the cave of Lascaux, he said, "We have
| invented nothing." I wonder if this was due to seeing just
| how similar his bull drawings were to the ~20kya drawings.
| LegitShady wrote:
| but none of that looks realistic. It's becoming more and more
| symbolic. The thing that he was lauding about leonardo was
| not symbolism, but his ability to portray a realistic visual
| perspective as if your eye was seeing it. Picasso's bull has
| nothing to do with that, and really picasso was uninterested
| in it and it wasn't what he was trying to do. None of those
| bull images try to portray a realistic looking bull the way
| your eyes would see it.
| shusaku wrote:
| The point was that just as Leonardo knew the key aspects of
| a figure to highlight for realism, Picasso used them for
| deconstruction. Picasso here, is not about symbolism, but
| about the interaction of the shape of objects with our
| experience of looking at it.
| LegitShady wrote:
| They're not even related concepts. For sure Leonardo knew
| the basic form of a bull. But 100% Picasso's entire
| exercise was to remove the bull and leave only a symbol
| you interpret as bull. You can dress it up as
| "experiential bull" but even his detailed bulls don't
| really have 3d surfaces.
|
| Leonardo wa dealing with three dimensional forms,
| lighting, the interaction of light and materials, etc.
| It's what makes even the picture in the article look
| "real". It's got nothing at all to do with what Picasso
| was doing.
| crabkin wrote:
| From plate 6:
|
| "At this stage, another new head and tail are created to
| conform to the style and direction of the developing
| image. Picasso introduces more curves to soften the
| network of lines that crisscross the creature. Once again
| he adjusts the line of the back which now begins as wave
| on the shoulders and flows like a pulse of energy along
| the length of its body. The two counterbalancing lines
| discussed in the previous plate are extended down the
| front and back legs to act like structural supports for
| the weight of the bull. All three of these lines
| intersect at a point that suggests the bull's centre of
| balance. Through the development of these drawings,
| Picasso is beginning to understand the displacement of
| weight and balance between the front and rear of the
| animal."
|
| I agree that Picasso's intention with the bull drawings
| was mainly to draw a mythological or symbolic looking
| bull, and then deconstruct it into a more abstract,
| simple looking bull. He was almost flicking through the
| range of aperture changes in our symbolic internal
| representations of things, from finer and crisper to
| simpler and more abstract.
|
| But I also think part of what informs him and his cubism,
| his method for dissecting and understanding these ideas,
| takes greatly into account "three dimensional forms,
| lighting, the interaction of light and materials, etc" as
| you like to put it. Unlike Leonardo, he was uninterested
| in merely making them faithful to reality, instead he was
| trying to put many instances of reality into one
| instance, like a prism. I think you are underselling the
| overlap in their interest about reality and the value in
| faithfully depicting it. Both are clearly obsessed with
| it. Even if they both go radically different directions,
| since of course they lived in different worlds basically.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| I do like how Picasso's more symbolic bulls mimic the
| Aurochs on the walls at Lascaux.
|
| Definitely not realistic though, as you said. Pretty cool
| that I can easily recognize what someone from 17,000 years
| ago was trying to depict, though.
| eternalban wrote:
| Degas knew how to draw:
|
| https://harvardartmuseums.org/index.php/article/homecoming-
| f...
|
| https://www.pubhist.com/person/286/edgar-
| degas/works/drawing...
|
| Sargent knew how to draw:
|
| https://www.pubhist.com/w24267
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Picasso could have done a beautifully rendered bull, as his
| very early work demonstrates - he chose instead to capture
| energies, emotions, motions, rather than form.
|
| Perhaps there is something more real in a representation in
| depth than in a "realistic" image.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Or maybe his dad did all the early work.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's the best "draw a circle, now draw the rest of the owl"
| i've seen in practice yet
| asdff wrote:
| I'm always surprised at how long it took to be able to draw
| perspective as we see it with our own eyes. Its not like
| ancient artists struggled with realism or anatomy, since the
| ancient Greeks were chiselling perfect human forms dozens of
| feet tall sometimes. Maybe it was just extremely challenging to
| think about converting a 3d field of view into something 2d
| until more drawing techniques were established?
| SilasX wrote:
| Wasn't there that theory about Vermeer (Dutch 17th century),
| that he was able to "crack the code" by using special lenses
| that allowed him to see how an image should look on paper?
|
| HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7872661
| dylan604 wrote:
| everything is obvious after the first time something is done.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Congratulations on moving the goalposts. Further away. So
| they looked smaller.
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