Chapter 14. Last text chapter blog of Living with Art: 7th edition

I hated having to end my text blogs with this chapter, as it was one of my least favorites…The Egyptian stuff pretty much bores me to sleep…the flat paintings.…but knowing a little bit of history to go along with the art always adds some caffeine to the sleeping pill. I chose to compare and contrast these two first:

14.14 Fragment of tomb of Nabamun, Thebes c. 1450 B.C.E.

and

14.19 Toreador Fresco from Palace at Knossos c. 1500 B.C.E.

I like more, not less usually in my favorite artworks, and 14.14. has a lot to offer. I like the details and the color, as well as the variety. 14.19 has much less variety and not much in the way of details or color.
I still dig its simplicity and graceful curves of the bull and acrobat, the abstract quality of the simple drawings and the way the color is used. Just the way the bull dominates and choice of shape and size compared to its meaning and importance to the culture is kind of cool.
The painting from the tomb of Nabamun is extra cool in meaning and adds a lot of extra to get this guy to eternity off right. The artist took care and time to do the details of the fish, the birds and placement of hierarchy of items painted in to this. The color of the reeds and plants / flowers to the left is repetitiously artistic and the fragment like quality makes this even more awesome. Not my favorite, just my favorite painting in this chapter.

Here again is another type of wow! and huh?:
Huh? first:



14.28 Aphrodite of Melos (AKA Venus de Milo) c. 150 B.C.E.

14.29 Laocoon Group 1st Century C.E.

I get that Aphrodite / Venus is missing arms and mirror and just staring at self beauty, so I shouldn’t judge its blasé pose doing nothing but staring. I just get bored looking at it, even though I can appreciate all those details in the robe and hair and such…The hair should be long in my opinion, and the face sculpted more perfect like it has makeup on, not so plain. Nice Body, okay, and the clothing slipping down is sexy. But not to much to hold interest.
On the other hand, I like the action and tension in the Laocoon group. Maybe its cause I’m a guy. But the rippling muscles of dad and the scared look on the sons holds interest. Not to mention mad crushing snakes.
I don’t like violence and tragedy, but this is a more interesting statue and story, so it’s worth spending time and effort on for an artist and it’s viewer.