The video A Word Inscribed: The Illuminated Manuscript discussed the tradition and importance of monks, artists, and booksellers in medieval times. Many people could not read or write in the middle ages, except for monks. The only ones that could read and write were monks because the monasteries were the intellectual centers within the time. Each book was copied by hand in bad conditions. The main objectives of the monks were to preserve and pass on the information within the books saying, “Writers write so the future may learn”. Reprinting a book would take years and the monks had to withstand sitting for hours. Books did not only contain writings of past and present knowledge, but were decorated by artists of the time. The pictures in the luxury books would depict riddles and situations the artist found fitting. The scribes, artists and booksellers had a playful and symbiotic relationship. Each book was carefully written, decorated by scenes, and sold by popular booksellers. This movie was insightful when it can to the passing of knowledge from one age to the next. I chose this movie to watch because I was aware that these fancy books that were created but I was unaware of the history behind them. I now see how the monks dedicated their lives in order to complete books in perfect form. Artists were able to create humors scenes and poke fun at the scribe in some books. This view inside a monk’s world and reading chapter 14 and 15 in the book allows me to have a better appreciation for what they went through in order to make these works of art.
More Human Than Human is a video about the relationship between art and humans. Art is an expression of feelings, reality, and the spiritual world. The perception if the human eye and the vision the human brain allows us to see is what makes art so fascinating. The Venus of Willendorf is a prime example of how early humans made unrealistic representations of other humans. This figure is very non proportional, having the woman’s mid-section and breasts are emphasized and the arms and face are nonexistent. One theory for this exaggeration in the human form would be to emphasis the desirable body parts. Since the hunters and gatherers were living in an ice age, larger, fattier bodies were more desirable. Egyptians were the next civilization that used the human body in most of their art pieces. However, the Egyptian depictions of humans were very proportional to the natural human body. This being said the drawings of Egyptians are still very unrealistic when it comes to the human body. Egyptian painters and carvers would carve each limb, head, and body in its clearest form. The head is profile while the fount of the body is shown. This is because each human figure was designed and produce by a grid system. When many different carvings were compared using the same grid, they all matched. This is consistent with the order and consistency the Egyptian people lived their life with. This is different from the Paleolithic interpretation of the human figure because this way of designing was based from the Egyptian culture. The Ancient Greek civilization developed a whole new vision of the human body. They believed that gods and goddesses took human form and when they did they have perfect bodies. Therefore people of that age were not shy about showing they figures, which can be seen in many realistic sculptures. It was not until the Greeks and the Egyptians started trading and exchanging ideas such as masonry when the ancient Greek sculptures began to become life size and more realistic then ever. But when realism became too boring it was only natural for the Greeks to exaggerate the human form. This led to sculptures that were well defined, muscular, and detailed, but in no way could ever be a real human form. I thought this movie explained the evolution of the human form in an artistically way in a very different approach. Picking up on key details and thinking like the people who made the art pieces reveal what kind of culture they live in and how they view the natural world. I think this evolution of art was complimentary with chapters 14 and 15 in the book. Reading the history behind the art works and seeing the theories and developments within the human race make understanding the value of art much clearer.
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