Renaissance Art

It is so interesting to analyze art and see how it has changed over time.  One thing that I have picked up all week is that the word imitate should be used instead of copy because it is more positive in showing a sign of flattery.  Art is indeed a powerful thing because it can capture the "ideal."  Again we saw the topic of beauty emerge.  I definitely agree that taste depends upon the person...both with like actual people or paintings of anything.  A couple of other things from Monday's lecture that stuck out were the humanistic views.  Using man as a measure of everything is a very interesting and telling of the beliefs at the time.  In the end, to think that paintings allow us to have a God's eye view of situations makes me think twice when looking at anything anymore.

It is definitely weird when pointed out how various more modern things ended up in paintings, even those with a biblical theme.  It is also interesting to see the common occurrence of the triangular shape in paintings.  Personally, when talking about the classical form of people, I do find the face structure for the ladies beautiful, however, I'm finding I don't like seeing the muscle structure, especially with nude things.  But, I guess in some cases I guess this is considered art?  I'm almost having troubles seeing the fine line between what is art and what would be a pornographic painting...  It is also interesting to see that many of the paintings of God or Jesus look similar to those of the Greek god Zeus.  I'm not sure if that should be offensive or not...

Although not totally on topic, I was very intrigued to hear the reasoning as to why priests are not allowed to get married anymore.  I have always thought it didn't make sense because they would be less able to relate to people of the church who were married and possibly have children.  (Personally, it also seems a shame that these good looking guys who are also kind and virtuous should be removed from the category of marriage possibilities...)  But, it makes a bit of sense that the church wouldn't want to lose all their land.

I am looking forward to the upcoming reading of "The Prince."  Hopefully it will prove to be as intriguing as I imagine...