Axis Mundi X discussion
Show and Tell
>
I am Anything
date
newest »


http://www.rattle.com/blog/2009/03/th...
What looks brownish in the photo is really metallic gold. The central image is from Masacci's Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence 1424-25

It's interesting that the angel has clothes on while adam and eve are naked. also, the angel is almost faceless. is that intentional?

You'd have to ask Masacci, Charissa. I don't know. Altho I assume that everything an artist does is intentional. However, artists from other times have no control over how future viewers will interpret their images.
My guess is that the angel is robed because that was the conventional way of portraying angels. And Adam and Eve are naked because, well the story says they were naked.


You'd have to ask Masacci, Charissa. I do..."
I believe the authoritative male figures of those books were robed because the church mandated many painters to do so at least around the renaissance. They insisted upon illustrating Adam and Eve naked to portray child like innocence. A condescending assumption which was applied to my ancestors as the conquistadors ravaged the Americas.
Yes, Europeans were excellent at parading around the globe with condescension and impunity. It's a toss up who wreaked more havoc, the Spanish in the Americas or the Belgians in the Congo. It's still boggling to look back at how much of the world a tiny island conquered. And now we are still living with the aftershocks of colonialism and imperialism. Inevitable I would say though.
http://www.rattle.com/blog/2009/01/i-...