Welcome to this AMA which today features nine panelists willing and eager to answer your questions on Pre-20th Century Western Visual Arts.
Our panelists are:
/u/darwinfinch Greek Art and Literature: My expertise lies in Greek art in general, and I'd be happy to answer questions about Minoan and Classical Greek art, though I'm also able to answer questions about the more popular aspects of archaic Greek and Mycenaean art. I can also talk about archaeology in Athens and have done a good deal of research on some "mystery" items such as the antikythera mechanism and the Phaistos disk. /u/darwinfinch has been unexpectedly detained and will be joining us a lot later.
/u/Claym0re Early Roman Art and Architecture | Mathematics in Antiquity:
/u/kittycathat Classical Art: My specialty is ancient Roman art, but I can also answer questions on ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian, and Medieval art. The topics on which I am particularly knowledgeable are the layout and decoration of the ancient Roman house, early Christian art in Rome and Ravenna, and medieval manuscript illumination.
/u/farquier Medieval and Renaissance Painting and Manuscripts: I am currently finishing a BA in Art History focusing on Armenian manuscript painting. I tend to be more familiar with the Italian Renaissance and English manuscripts. I am also comfortable discussing a wider range of topics in Medieval and Renaissance art in Western Europe, as well as Byzantine art.
/u/GeeJo Depictions of Women: The object of my studies has been on how artists have chosen to depict women, and how such images reflect upon their societies' own preconceptions about the role and nature of femininity. My MA in Art History focused primarily on the Victorians and the work of the Pre-Raphaelites in particular, though I'm happy to accept questions from wider afield.
/u/butforevernow Renaissance and Baroque Art: I have a BA (Hons) in Art History and am working on my Masters, specialising in 17th and 18th century Spanish art. I currently work as an assistant curator at a small art gallery with a collection of mainly Australian art, and I am hoping to move overseas in the next few years to work with a more internationally focused collection. My areas of interest are Spanish, Italian, and French painting ~1500-1800.
/u/Axon350 Photography | Firearms: I study the history of photography. My specialties include war photography in the 19th century, 'instantaneous' photography, and the development of color technology. The oldest camera I own is from 1905.
/u/zuzahin 19th c. Photography: My expertise lies in 19th century photography, and in particular the evolution and invention of color photography throughout the 20th century.
/u/Respectfullyyours Canadian History l Portraiture & Photography in Canada 1880-1940: I specialize in Canadian portraiture, particularly within Montreal from 1800s-1930s.
Let's have your questions!
Please note: our panelists are located in three different continents and won't all be online at the same time. But they will get to your questions eventually!
What are some good sources for Byzantine art manuals, specifically with regards to the stylized depiction of specific holy figures?
The resources I've seen online tend to focus more on the continuity of and transmission of the art techniques from late antiquity and not much on the composition of specific saints and portrayals of Christ, which I understand to be extremely stylized and averse to change. If I'm interested specifically in the compositional aspects of these depictions, what would be a good resource or resources?
Many thanks!
I've got a question for /u/GeeJo and the depictions of women in art-
Have you come across any unexpected representations of women in the Victorian era? Ones that might go against societal norms of femininity, or in general stand out for some reason?
Where does the Renaissance obsession with the realistic, geometrically constructed vanishing-point perspective stem from, originally? And how come it became so dominant in the Western mode of thinking and creating images, to the point that seemingly every radical art movement from 1850-1950 is trying to counteract it?
For anyone!
What museums do you think have the best art collections? And who has the best digitized art collection?
Was there a connection between Romantic visual art and the literary or musical romantic movements that are more concrete in paintings or sculpture, or is it more of a spiritual connection that connects them in terms of spirit/motive?
First of all, thank you all for participating! It's a huge source of information, and I for one am extremely grateful. On to the question:
Are there any paintings of The Library of Alexandria? I know of a couple of paintings that exist that show a small portion of the Library, or in which the Library is being destroyed. Are there any of it in its prime? Thanks in advance!
Why has there been such a fascination and wide representation of the pastoral or Arcadia in art? Romanticism doesn't kick in until the early 19th century and ends around the mid 19th century, so a complete fetishization of the pastoral doesn't particularly work for pastoral works made during the 17th century.
Hi I understand this might be at the tail end of the AMA's purview. I'm interested in the primitivism movement of the 19th century the work of people such as Paul Gauguin. What inspired people about primitivism? Is it just as simple as European orientalism? Furthermore, who was interested in work of primitivists at the time?
This question is for maybe /u/claym0re or /u/kittycathat since you guys deal with architecture, layout and decorations of Roman buildings.
So I know that non-Christian basilicas like say the Basilica Julia or the Basilica of Maxentius/Constantine were law courts as well as government offices.
What I've always wondered, is do we have any ideas how Roman basilicas were furnished?
Because all the modern reconstructions I've seen of basilicas show their space and layout, but considering their governmental and judicial usages, did they have cabinets to store documents? Did they have something equivalent to cubicles for work spaces? I know that judges sat in the apses (which is why the Christians borrowed that architectural theme for the idea of God as judge), but was there seating areas elsewhere? Or did everybody work standing?
How basically, were Roman basilicas furnished in order to facilitate their public roles?
What a great AMA! Thanks guys! This is for all of the participants:
Why didn't Gothic architecture catch on in Germany?
Hey, I'd love to hear about the life of a portrait photographer in the very late 19th c. Currently with work I've been scanning the archive of C. M. Bell for the Library of Congress and so I've scanned some 15,000 of these things without really knowing what I'm looking at.
What I do know: The collection is maybe 25,000 5x7 glass plate negatives of formal portraits taken in Washington DC. The plates are all labelled with the subject's name and many of them include the title "hon." Some of the subjects are people I've heard of, (Helen Keller, Grover Cleveland, etc.) but most are strangers to me. The negatives are frequently in terrible shape, with emulsion flaking off or with cracks in the plates, etc.
What I'm interested in learning: what was the photography business like around the turn of the century. How much would he have charged, how did he advertise, etc. Also, what sort of processes would he have used? Are these collodion plates? Were they hand coated by the artist (or assistant)? How would they have been printed? How were they lit? Was it skylights, or electric lights or what? I'm guessing, this being DC that most of the "honorables" are senators or reps, but who else would have their picture made? I've also noticed a lot of clergymen and judges.
Anyways, thanks for any answers. I've been working on this project for awhile now and these questions pop through my head, it's cool to have a forum to ask them all.
A question for /u/farquier: where can I learn more about Armenian manuscript painting?
So I'd like to turn around and ask my fellow panelists /u/kittycathat and /u/butforevernow questions: For /u/kittycathat: I've been aware of links between Carolingian and Early Christian art; could you elaborate on those links a little and especially what relationship exists between late antique art and Carolingian manuscript painting? Also, more broadly, how do your studies in very disparate areas inform each other? For /u/butforevernow: Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of training a 17th century Spanish painter would have received? What kind of formal schooling would he or she have gone through, if any, and how would different artists have learned their craft?
I've read that the Québecois painter Paul-Émile Borduas encountered a great deal of resistance and even censorship from the establishment when he first showed his abstract paintings. From this I could infer that artistic practice in Canada, and perhaps even particularly Québec, was regressive (many of my painting teachers have iterated some version of that tale). Is this an accurate reflection of painting in Canada? Did many Canadian artists encounter this kind of reluctance? How strong was the art establishment in Canada, and Montréal?
For /u/Axon350
As you know, a large percentage of American Civil War photos were taken in 3D, even though they are most often presented these days in 2D.
Do you work with and view these images in their intended format, or do you deal with them in 2D?
(I restore old stereo images as a very serious and time-consuming hobby)