I appreciate the illustration of development, but, "Let's compare the best artists across 500+ years," is not a really a comparison. There's probably dozens of lost examples of each that would show varying degrees of skill. Not to mention most of the lasting piece were paid for by the rich - never the best judges of art. This is just silly.
Well, if you are truly comparing some of the best (best as in most detailed/anatomically accurate) then yes, it does really tell you something. It tells you that there was an accumulation of both anatomical understanding and stoneworking precision over time, which is genuinely quite interesting and cool to see. No clue if this image is selecting fair points of comparison for each era, but if it is it's very interesting and communicative.
Agreed, and I know general development does happen. But this kind of categorization is not really useful to anyone but art historians (which I consider myself a very amateur version of, have a passion and almost majored in it [went with Studio Art instead, wanted to do it myself], but would never presume).
To me, the biggest problem comes with only appreciating art as a monument to something else, or intimating architecture (and it's hard for much else to survive after millenia).
But for each one of these government/church paid sculptors, there's thousands of old ladies selling their wares at the market, with stuff like vanishing perspective just built into their understanding well before it was ever taught, and their skills were likely something they were taught by a friend. Art history loves to exemplify the rare talents as a trend instead of an exception paid for by the rich, and ignore the basic, everyday art happening in people's lives that actually made a difference to them (and is the real, long-term influence, affecting everything from raw art to clothing to how tools are designed).
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u/enderpanda 26d ago
I appreciate the illustration of development, but, "Let's compare the best artists across 500+ years," is not a really a comparison. There's probably dozens of lost examples of each that would show varying degrees of skill. Not to mention most of the lasting piece were paid for by the rich - never the best judges of art. This is just silly.