[HN Gopher] Breaking the image: a 12th-century Ai Weiwei?
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       Breaking the image: a 12th-century Ai Weiwei?
        
       Author : CrouchEndTiger
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2024-11-02 06:29 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (keithamcgowan.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (keithamcgowan.blogspot.com)
        
       | aardvark179 wrote:
       | I was very confused by the HN headline because it subtly changed
       | the capitalisation of the original. Ai Weiwei is quite different
       | to AI Weiwei.
        
         | CrouchEndTiger wrote:
         | Woops - an auto-correct error, I'm afraid
        
         | jprete wrote:
         | I had the same question! For other readers, Ai Weiwei is an
         | artist: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei
        
         | feverzsj wrote:
         | Or it's written by AI whose name is Weiwei.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Fixed now, and I've added Ai Weiwei to the title caser so he
         | should not be replaced by AI in the future. Thanks!
        
       | dash2 wrote:
       | The article seems to be arguing that this 12th century artist
       | thought about their art in just the same way as contemporary
       | artists. That seems unlikely somehow.
        
         | PittleyDunkin wrote:
         | If anything can cross such large barriers of time and culture,
         | it's artists' drive to create.
        
       | vessenes wrote:
       | I'm trying to parse the 'shocking' part of the Adam and Eve
       | image. I think I understand pretty well why Ai Weiwei's Han vase
       | piece got the reaction it did, and what he was trying to do with
       | it. But, I can't help but feel our essayist here is holding back.
       | 
       | I'd be interested in some art historian's perspectives on this --
       | is there some controversy on the idea that this is a painting of
       | a tapestry? If so, what's the implication? What's the _shock_
       | part? I guess he's perhaps trying to help us see it as a similar
       | image of 'breakage' in which case, what, is this tapestry itself
       | supposed to be hung in God's or the devil's house in the
       | hamptons? Maybe the essay is just a bit of insider baseball, but
       | I feel like I missed the hook.
        
         | wruza wrote:
         | Getting art is in a large part being overly impressible and
         | seeing things. One guy may create a joke under some influence
         | and thousands will interpret it through time as something
         | daring mind-blowing meta-deepness. Humans just tend to do that.
         | You swap water with wine, tell a couple of very cool stories
         | and millenia later like wat??
        
         | ArtHeresy wrote:
         | Hi, thanks for your interest in my blogpost! It's great how
         | much this forum seems to have warmed to the theme of my
         | project. It's like giving a paper, and then the questions seem
         | to anticipate where the research will go next This is my first
         | piece looking at the actual paintings. The Courtauld Institute
         | puts a conservative estimate of thirty-nine on the number of
         | individual scenes at Hardham: if you include the images which
         | have been lost to architectural alterations it's in fact well
         | over fifty. Plus there are two more ensembles at Coombes and
         | Clayton from the same artist. So there's a wealth of material
         | waiting to be reassessed. I'm not intentionally holding back,
         | just going with the sequential blogpost format. Eventually it
         | will, I hope, come together as a guide book to the three
         | churches. atm it will build as an open access resource to help
         | folk enjoy the frescos. In the end it's religion, so not always
         | easy to put your finger on why a someone might find something
         | so repulsive, although poor Germanos II's meltdown is typical.
         | That's why I'm going to use a few posts to unpick what's going
         | on with the trompe l'oeil 'Deception' scene, starting with
         | Greco-Roman antecedents, before looking at how these same
         | ancient ideas were taken up by the Wachowski Sisters in their
         | screenplay for The Matrix (1999). Do come back to find out
         | where what the Hardham artist was up to!
        
       | KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
       | CMV: Johnny Somali is the Ai Weiwei of our times.
        
         | morbicer wrote:
         | OK, I'll bite. Did Weiwei assault anyone? I am not aware of
         | such instance. Somali is just a hooligan, not controversial
         | artist.
        
         | ginko wrote:
         | Isn't Ai Weiwei the Ai Weiwei of our times?
        
       | countrymile wrote:
       | I've not seen this particular mural, but if you ever find
       | yourself near an English country church in the middle of no where
       | you will most probably find it unlocked, and inside, an ark of
       | art built up over generations (now, often, sitting uncared for).
       | Originally the the catholic churches would have been brightly
       | coloured with statues and stained glass. The reformation led to
       | the smashing of the glass and statues. You will find baptismal
       | fonts with the faces of the saints chiselled off. And the
       | whitewashing of walls. Occasionally you'll stumble on wall
       | paintings discovered whilst stripping the plain white paint off.
       | Duffy's "the stripping of the altars" provides a rich overview of
       | the church before and during the Tudor reformation.
        
         | andrepd wrote:
         | Religions like to do that :( Early Christians (catholics) did
         | the same to Greco-Roman temples all across the ancient world.
        
         | ArtHeresy wrote:
         | Thanks for your interest in the post! Hardham is definitely
         | worth a visit if you're out and about near Arundel, Chichester,
         | the wonderful Roman villas of Fishbourne and Bignor, etc. The
         | Hardham frescos c. 1100 are some of the oldest in Britain.
         | Their whitewashing happened within decades of their creation,
         | so about 400 years before the Tudor reformation. The blog looks
         | at the circumstances that may have caused this obliteration. Do
         | come back for find out more about the murals and their artist.
        
           | countrymile wrote:
           | It's really quite fascinating, thanks for the link.
        
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