why do we study art

CHAPTER ONE

Why Do WeStudy Art?

We study art because by doing so we learn about our owncreative expressions and those of the past. The arts bridgethe gap between past and present, and may even be theprimary means of exploring a culture that never developedwritten documents. For example, the prehistoric cavepaintings dating as far back as 30,000 B.C. reveal theimportance for early societies of hunting. Their wish toreproduce and ensure the survival of the species isexpressed in faceless prehistoric female figurines whosebreasts and pelvis are disproportionately large. Prehis-toric structures, whether oriented toward earth or sky,provide insights into the kinds of gods people worshiped.Without such objects, which have fortunately been pre-served, we would know far less about ancient culturesthan we now do.

We would also know less about ourselves, for art is awindow on human thought and emotion. Certain themes,such as the wish to survive and to define oneself and one'sworld (fig. 1.1), persist in very different times and places.It is through the arts that the unique creative spirit of dif-ferent peoples-as well as the similarities that bind themtogether-begins to emerge.

In the West, the major visual arts fall into three broadcategories: pictures, sculpture, and architecture.

Pictures (from the Latin pingo, meaning " I paint") aretwo-dimensional images (from the Latin ¡mago, meaning"likeness") with height and width, and are usually on a flatsurface. But the discussion of pictures covers more thanpainting; it includes mosaics, stained glass , tapestry,some drawing and printing techniques, and photography.

A sculpture, unlike a picture, is a three-dimensionalimage-besides height and width, it has depth.

Architecture, literally meaning high (archi) building(tecture), is the most utilitarian of the three categories.Buildings are designed to endose space for a specificpurpose-worship, recreation, living, working-althoughthey often contain pictures and sculptures as well, andother forms of visual art. The pyramids of ancient Egypt,for example, were filled with statues of the pharaoh (king)who built them, and their walls were painted with scenesfrom his life. Many churches are decorated with sculp-tures, paintings, mosaics, and stained glass windows

1.1 Saul Steinberg, The Spiral, from Steinberg's New World Series.1964. Drawing. Saul Steinberg (b. 1914) is a philosopher in fine. Herehe has drawn the world-shown as a landscape-and enclosedhimself in a spiral. The artist thus creates, and ¡¡ves in, his own world.His Iine is also his own outline, which renders him inseparable from hiscreation-as well as from his creativity. But, because he is an artist,Steinberg communicates his vision to the rest of us.

illustrating stories of Christ and the saints. Likewise, thesumptuous palaces of western Europe would look barewithout the decoration provided by paintings, sculptures,and tapestries.

The Artistic ImpulseArt is a vital and persistent aspect of everyday life. But

where, one might ask, does the artistic impulse originate?

We can see that it is inborn by observing children, who

make pictures, sculptures, and buildings before learning to

read or write. Children trace images in dirt or sand, and

decorate just about anything from their own faces to the

walls of their houses. They spontaneously make mud pies

and snowmen. If given a pile of building blocks, they

usually attempt to stack one on top of another to make a

tower. All are efforts to create order from disorder and

form from formlessness. While it may be difficult to relate

a Greek temple or an Egyptian pyramid to a child's sand-

castle, all three express the same natural impulse to build.

In the adult world, creating art is a continuation and de-velopment of the child's inborn impulse. But now it takeson different meanings. One powerful motive for makingart is the wish to leave behind after death a product ofvalue by which to be remembered. The work of art sym-bolically prolongs the artist's existence. This parallels thepervasive feeling that, by having children, one is ensuringgenealogical continuity into the future. Several artists havemade such a connection. For example, according toMichelangelo's biographers, he said that he had no humanchildren because his works were his children. Giotto, thegreat Italian painter of the early Renaissance (see p.229),expressed a similar idea in a fourteenth-century anecdotewhich begins as the poet Dante asks the artist how itis that his children are so ugly and his paintings so beauti-ful. Giotto replies that he paints by the light of day andreproduces in the darkness of night. The twentieth-century artist Josef Albers (see p.495) also referred to thistraditional connection between creation and procreation:he described a mixed color as the offspring of the twooriginal colors and compared it to a child who combinesthe genes of two parents.

Related to the role of art as a memorial is the wish topreserve one's image after death. Artists have been com-missioned to paint portraits , or likenesses of specificpeople; they have also made self-portraits. "Paintingmakes absent men present and the dead seem alive,"wrote Leon Battista Alberti, the fifteenth-century Italianhumanist (see p.258). "I paint to preserve the likenessof people after their death," wrote Albrecht Dürer, thesixteenth-century German artist (see p.323). Even as earlyas the Neolithic era (c. 7000-4500/4000 B.C.; see p.47) skullswere modeled into faces with plaster, and shells wereinserted into the eye sockets. In ancient Egypt (seeChapter 5), the pharaoh's features were painted on theoutside of his mummy case so that his ka, or soul, couldrecognize him. And gold death masks of kings have been

THE VALUE OF ART 15

ChronologyThe Christian chronological system, generally used in theWest, is followed throughout this book. Other religions(for example, Islam and Judaism) have different calendars.

Dates before the birth of Christ are followed by the

letters B.C., an abbreviation for "Before Christ." Dates after

his birth are denoted by the letters A.D.-an abbreviationfor anno Domini, Latin for "In the year of our Lord." Thereis no year 0, SO A.D. 1 immediately follows 1 B.c. If neitherB.C. nor A.D. accompanies a date, A.D. is understood.

Approximate dates are preceded by "c.", an abbreviation

for the Latin circa, meaning "around."

discovered from the Mycenaean civilization of ancientGreece (c. 1500 B.C.; see fig. 6.18).

It is not only the features of an individual that are valuedas an extension of self after death. Patrons , or people whocommission works, may prefer to order more monumentaltributes. For example, the Egyptian rulers (3000-1000 B.c.)spent years planning and overseeing the construction ofpyramids, not only in the belief that such monumentaltombs would guarantee their existence in the afterlife, butalso as a statement of their power while on earth. TheAthenians built the Parthenon (see p.110) 448-432 B.C. tohouse the colossal sculpture of their patron goddessAthena and, at the same time, to embody the intellectualand creative achievements of their civilization and topreserve them for future generations. King Louis XIV (seep.337) built his magnificent palace at Versaifies in theseventeenth century as a monument to his political power,his reign, and the glory of France.

The Value of ArtWorks of art are valued not only by the artist or patron,but also by entire cultures. In fact, those periods of historythat we tend to identify as the high points of humanachievement are those in which the arts were most highlyvalued. In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs initiated buildingactivity on a Brand scale. They presided over the construc-tion of palaces and temples in addition to pyramids, andcommissioned vast numbers of sculptures and paintings.In fifth-century-B.c. Athens, the cradle of modern democ-racy, artists created many important sculptures, paintings,and buildings; their crowning achievement was theParthenon. During the Gothic era (c. A.D. 1200-1400;see Chapter 13), a major part of the economic activity ofevery cathedral tocan revolved around the construction ofits cathedral, the production of cathedral sculpture, andthe manufacture of stained glass windows. In fifteenth-century Renaissance Florence, Italian banking familiessuch as the Medici spent enormous amounts of money onart to adorn public spaces, private palaces, churches, andchapels. Today, corporations as well as individuals have

16 1 WHY DO WE STUDY ART?

become patrons of the arts and there is a flourishing artMaterial Value

market throughout the world. More people buy art thanever before-often as an investment-and the auctioning Works of art may be valuable simply because they are

of art has become an international business. made of a precious material. Gold, for example, was used

The contribution of the arts to human civilization has in Egyptian art to represent divinity and the sun. These as-

many facets, a few of which we shall now explore. sociations recur in Christian art, which reserved gold for

Brancusi 's Bird: Manufactured Metal or a Work of Art?A trial held in New York City in 1927 illustrates just how hard

it can be to agree on what constitutes "art." Edward Steichen,

the prominent American photographer, had purchased a

bronze sculpture entitied Bird in Space (fig. 1.2) from the

Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi, who was living in France.

Steichen imported the sculpture to the United States, whose

laws do not require payment of customs duty on original

works of art as long as they are declared on entering the coun-

try. When the customs official saw the Bird, however, he

balked. It was not art, he said; it was "manufactured metal."

Steichen's protests fe¡¡ on deaf ears. The sculpture was admit-

ted finto the United States under the category of "Kitchen

Utensils and Hospital Supplies," which meant that Steichen had

to pay $600 in import duty.

Later, with the financia) backing of Gertxude Vanderbilt

Whitney, the American sculptor and benefactor of the arts,

Steichen appealed the ruling of the customs official. The ensu-

ing trial received a great deal of publicity. Witnesses discussed

whether the Bird was a bird at all, whether the artist could

make it a bird by calling it one, whether it could be said to

have certain characteristics of "birdness," and so on. The

conservative witnesses refused to accept the work as a bird

because it lacked certain biological attributes, such as wings

and tail feathers. The more progressive witnesses pointed out

that it had birdlike qualities-upward movement and a sense

of spatial freedom. The final decision of the court was in favor

of the plaintiff, and Steichen got his money back. The Bird was

declared a work of art. In today's market a Brancusi Bird would

sell for millions of dollars.

1.2 Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Spoce. 1928. Bronze, unique cast,54 X 81/2 X 61h in (137.2 X 21.6 X 16.5 cm). The Museum ofModern Art, New York (Given anonymously). Brancusi objectedto the view of his work as abstract. In a statement publishedshortly after his death in 1957, he declared: "They are imbecileswho cal¡ my work abstract; that which they ca11 abstract is the mostrealist, because what is real is not the exterior form but the idea,the essence of things."

THE VALUE OF ART 17

the background of religious icons and for halos on divinefigures. Valuable materials have unfortunately inspired thetheft and plunder of art objects down the centuries bythieves who disregard their cultural, religious, or artisticvalue and melt them down. Even the monumental cultstatue of Athena in the Parthenon disappeared withouta trace, presumably because of the value of the gold andivory from which it was made.

Intrinsic ValueA work of art may contain valuable material but that is notthe primary criterion by which its quality is judged. Its in-trinsic value depends largely on people's assessment of theartist who created it and on its own esthetic character(that is, the degree to which the viewer experiences it asbeautiful). The Mona Lisa (fig. 16.14) is made of relativelymodest materials-paint and wood-but it is a pricelessobject nonetheless, and arguably the western world's mostfamous image. Leonardo da Vinci, who painted it aroundA.D. 1500 in Italy, was an acknowledged genius in his ownday and his work has stood the test of time. The paintingsof the late nineteenth-century Dutch painter Vincent vanGogh (see p.440) have also endured, although he wasignored in his lifetime. It was not until after his death thathis esthetic quality and originality were recognized. To-day, the intrinsic value of an oil painting by van Goghis reflected by its market price, which has risen to as highas $80 million. Intrinsic value is not always immediatelyapparent, as we can see from the changing assessmentof van Gogh's works. 1s it art?" is a familiar question,which expresses the difficulty of finding a universal defi-nition of "art" and of recognizing the esthetic value ofan object.

Religious ValueOne of the traditional ways in which art has been valued isin terms of its religious significance. From prehistory tothe sixteenth-century Reformation, art was one of themost effective ways to express religious beliefs. Paintingsand sculptures depicted gods and goddesses and therebymade their images accessible. Temples, churches, andmosques were symbolic dwelling places of gods andserved to relate worshipers to their deity. Tombs ex-pressed beliefs in the afterlife.

During the Middle Ages in western Europe, art oftenserved an educational function. One important way ofcommunicating Bible stories and legends of the saints to alargely illiterate population was through the sculptures,paintings, and stained glass windows in churches andcathedrals.

Beyond its teaching function, the religious significanceof a work of art may be so great that entire groups ofpeople identify with the object. The value of such a work ishighlighted when it is taken away. In 1973, the Afo-a-Kom-a sacred figure embodying the soul of a village inthe Cameroon-disappeared. The villagers reportedly fell

into a depression when they discovered that their statuewas missing. The subsequent reappearance of the Afo-a-Kom in the window of a New York art dealer caused aninternational scandal that died down only after the statuewas returned to its African home.

Patriotic ValueWorks of art have patriotic value inasmuch as they expressthe pride and accomplishments of a particular culture.Patriotic sentiment was a primary aspect of the richlycarved triumphal arches of ancient Rome (see p.150) be-cause they were gateways for the return of victorious em-perors and generals. Statues of national heroes stand inparks and public squares in most cities of the westernworld.

But a work need not represent a national figure or evena national theme to be an object of patriotic value. In 1945,at the end of World War II, the Dutch authorities arrestedan art dealer, Han van Meegeren, for treason. Theyaccused him of having sold a painting by the greatseventeenth-century Dutch artist Vermeer to HermannGoering, the Nazi Reichsmarschall and Hitler's most loyalsupporter. When van Meegeren's case went to trial, helashed out at the court. "Fools!" he cried, " I painted itmyself." What he had sold to the Nazis was actually hisown forgery, and he proved it by painting another "Ver-meer" under supervision while in prison. Van Meegerenthus saved himself from being convicted of treason byproving that he had been guilty of a lesser crime, namelyforgery. It would have been treason to sell Vermeer'spaintings, which were (and still are) considered nationaltreasures, to Holland's enemies.

Another expression of the patriotic value of art can beseen in recent exhibitions made possible by shifts in worldpolitics. Since détente between the Communist bloc andthe West, Russia has been lending works of art from itsmuseums for temporary exhibitions in the United States.In such circumstances, the traveling works of art becomea kind of diplomatic currency and contribute to improvedrelations between nations.

The patriotic feeling that some cultures have about theirworks of art has contributed to their value as trophies, orspoils of war. When ancient Babylon was defeated by theElamites in 1170 B.C., the victors stole the statue ofMarduk, the chief Babylonian god, together with the lawcode of Hammurabi (see p.57). In the early nineteenth cen-tury, when Napoleon's armies marched through Europe,they plundered thousands of works of art. Napoleon'sbooty is now part of the French national art collection atthe Louvre in Paris.

The patriotic value of art can be so great that nationswhose works of art have been taken go to considerablelengths to recover them. Thus, at the end of World War II,the Allied army assigned a special division to recover thevast numbers of art works stolen by the Nazis. A UnitedStates army task force discovered Hermann Goering's twopersonal caches of stolen art in Bavaria, one in a medieval


castle, and the other in a bombproof tunnel in nearbymountains. The task force arrived just in time, for Goeringhad equipped an "art train" with thermostatic temperaturecontrol to take "his" collection to safety. At the Nurem-berg trials, Goering claimed that his intentions werenothing if not honorable-he was protecting the art fromair raids.

A contemporary example of the patriotic value of artcan be seen in the case of the Elgin Marbles. In the earlynineteenth century when Athens was under Turkish rule,Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin, obtained permis-sion from Turkey to remove sculptures from the Parthenonand other buildings on the Acropolis. At great personalexpense (amounting to £75,000), Lord Elgin sent the sculp-tures to England by boat. The first shipment sank, but theremainder of the works reached their destination in 1816.The British Museum in London purchased the sculpturesfor just £35,000. Now referred to as the Elgin Marbles,they are still in the British Museum, where they are atourist attraction and a source of study for scholars. Foryears, the Greeks have been pressuring England to returnthe sculptures, and the British have refused to do so. Thiskind of situation is a product of historical circumstance.Although Lord Elgin broke no laws and probably savedthe sculptures from considerable damage, he is seen bymany Greeks as having looted their cultural heritage.

Since art continues to have patriotic value, modernlegislation in many countries is designed to avoid similarproblems by making it difficult, if not ¡Ilegal, to exportnational treasures. International protocols, such as theHague Convention of 1959, the UNESCO General Confer-ences of 1964 and 1970, and the European Convention of1967, protect cultural property and archeological heritage.

Other Symbolic ValuesThere are other aspects of the symbolic value of art be-sides religious and patriotic significance. Art is valued forits ability to convey illusions with which we identify. Thisidentification leads us to endow art with symbolic powerand to create legends about the origins of art.

Reactions to the arts cover virtually the entire range ofhuman emotion. They include pleasure, fright, amuse-ment, outrage, even avoidance. People can become at-tached to a work of art and not want to part with it, asLeonardo did alter he painted the Mona Lisa. Instead ofdelivering it to the person who had commissioned it,Leonardo kept the painting until he died. Conversely, onemay wish to destroy certain works because they arouseanger. In London in the early twentieth century, a suf-fragette slashed Velázquez's Rokeby Venus (fig. 19.32) be-cause she was offended by what she considered to be itssexist representation of a woman. Such examples illustratethe intense responses to art's symbolic power. The re-mainder of this chapter considers psychological responsesto the symbolic nature of art.

Art and IllusionBefore considering illusion and the visual arts, it is neces-sary to point out that when we think of illusion in connec-tion with an image, we usually assume that the image islifelike, or naturalistic . This is often, but not always, thecase. With certain exceptions, such as Judaic and Islamicart, western art was mainly representational until thetwentieth century. Figurative, or representational, artdepicts recognizable natural forms or created objects.When the subjects of painting and sculpture are so con-vincingly portrayed that they may be mistaken for the realthing, they are said to be illusionistic . Where the artist'spurpose is to fool the eye, the effect is described by theFrench term trompe 1'oeil.

The deceptive nature of pictorial illusion was simply buteloquently stated by the Belgian Surrealist painter, RenéMagritte, in his painting The Betrayal of Images (fig. 1.3).This work is a convincing (although not a trompe I'oeil)rendition of a pipe. Directly below the image, Magritte re-minds the viewer that in fact it is not a pipe at all-"Cecin'est pas une pipe" ("This is Not a Pipe") is Magritte's ex-plicit message. To the extent that observers are convincedby the image, they have been betrayed. Even thoughMagritte was right, and illusion does fall short of reality,the observer is nevertheless pleased by its effect. Thepleasure that one receives from illusion is contained in theterm itself, which comes from the Latin ludere, meaning"to play," "to mimic," and "to deceive."

The pleasure produced by trompe l'oeil images is re-flected in many anecdotes, or stories which may not be lit-erally true but illustrate an underlying truth. For example,the ancient Greek artist Zeuxis was said to have paintedgrapes so realistically that birds pecked at them. In the

1.3 René Magritte, The Betrayal o f Images (' This is Not a Pipe"). 1928.Oil on canvas, 231/2 X 281/2 in (55 X 72 cm). Los Angeles CountyMuseum of Art, California.

ART AND IDENTIFICATION 19

Renaissance, a favorite story recounted that a fellow artistwas so fooled by Giotto's realism that he tried to brush offa fly that Giotto had painted on a figure's pose. The con-temporary American sculptor Duane Hanson (see p.519) isa master of trompe I'oeil. He uses synthetic materials tocreate statues which look so alive that it is not unusual forpeople to approach and ask them questions. When the un-suspecting observers realize that they have been fooled,they are embarrassed by their own mistake, but aredelighted by the artist's skill.

In these examples of illusion and trompe 1'oeil, artistsproduce only a temporary deception. Such may not alwaysbe the case. For instance, the Latin poet Ovid relates thetale of the sculptor Pygmalion, who was not sure whetherhis own statue was real or not. Disappointed with the infi-delities of real women, he turned to art and fashioned abeautiful girl, Galatea, out of ivory. He dressed her andbrought her jewels and flowers. He undressed her andtook her to bed. Finally, during a feast of Venus (theRoman goddess of love and beauty), Pygmalion prayed fora wife as lovely as his Galatea. Venus granted his wishby bringing the statue to life-something that only godsand goddesses can do. Human artists have to be satisfiedwith illusion.

Traditions Equating Artists with GodsThe fine line between illusion and reality, and the fact thatgods are raid to create reality while artists create illusion,has given rise to traditions equating artists with gods.Both are seen as creators, the former making replicas ofnature and the latter making nature itself. Alberti referredto the artist as an alter deus, Latin for "other god," andDürer said that artists create as God did. Leonardo wrotein his Notebooks that artists are God's grandsons and thatpainting, the grandchild of nature, is related to God.Giorgio Vasar¡, the Renaissance biographer of artists,called Michelangelo "divine," a reflection of the notion ofdivine inspiration. Even as recently as the nineteenth cen-tury, the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistlerasserted that artists are "chosen by the gods."

Artists have been compared with gods, and gods havebeen represented as artists. In ancient Babylonian texts,God is described as the architect of the world. In theMiddle Ages, God is sometimes represented as an archi-tect drawing the universe with a compass (fig. 1.4).Legends in the Apocrypha, the unofficial books of theBible, describe Christ as a sculptor who made clay birdsand then breathed life into them.

The comparison of artists with gods, especially whenartists make lifelike work, has inspired legends of rivairybetween these two creators. Even when the work itself isnot lifelike, the artist may risk incurring divine anger. Forexample, the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babeldescribes the dangers of building too high and rivalingGod by invading the heavens. God's reaction to the toweris illustrated in a sixteenth-century painting by the Dutchartist Pieter Brueghel the Elder (fig. 1.5).

1.4 God as Architect, from the Bible Moralisée, Reims, France, fol. I v.Mid- 1 3th century. Illumination, 81/3 in (21.2 cm) wide. ósterreichischeNationalbibliothek, Vienna.

Some legends endow sculptors and painters with thepower to create living figures. In Greek mythology thesculptor Daedalus was reputed to have made lifelike stat-ues that could walk and talk. Prometheus, on the otherhand, was not satisfied with merely lifelike works. Sincethe ancient Greeks believed that human beings were madeof earth (the body) and fire (the soul), Prometheus knew heneeded more than clay to create living figures. He stole firefrom the gods, and they punished him with eternal torture.This story illustrates the fact that there is an ultimate dif-ference between artists and gods: no matter how skilledartists are, they can only create illusions.

Art and IdentificationReflections and Shadows:Legends of How Art BeganBelief in the power of images extends beyond the work ofhuman hands. In many societies, not only certain works ofart, but also reflections and shadows are thought to em-body the spirit of an animal or the soul of a person. Theseideas appear in numerous superstitions throughout the


1.5 Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Tower of Babel. 1563. Tempera onpanel, 3 ft 9 in X 5 ft 1 in (1.14 X 1.55 m). Kunsthistorisches Museum,Vienna.

world. For example, in some European countries, seeingoneself in a mirror that is in the same room as a deadperson is read as a warning of death. In certain SouthAustralian tribes, a man's shadow falling on his mother-in-law is cause for divorce on the grounds of incest. Theshadow is taken for the man himself and embodies hissexual potency. In other cultures, the absence of a shadowcan indicate sexual impotence or even impending death.The danger of losing one's shadow is evident in PeterPan's anxiety at the loss of his, and the lengths to which hewent to recover it.

Even though reflections and shadows are not art,ancient traditions trace the origin of painting and sculp-ture to drawing a line around a reflected image or ashadow. Alberti recalled the myth of Narcissus-the Greekyouth who fell in love with his own image in a pool of

water-and compared the art of painting to the reflectedimage. He also quoted the Roman writer Quintilian, whoidentified the first painting as a line traced around a sha-dow. An oriental tradition recounts that Buddha was un-able to find an artist who could paint his portrait. As a lastresort, he had an outline drawn around his shadow andfilled it in with color himself. A Greek legend attributes thefirst sculpture to a woman who traced the shadow of theman she loved. Her father, a potter, used clay to fill the out-line on the wall where the shadow had fallen, fired it, andthe sculpture emerged. These legends indicate that worksof art are inspired not only by the impulse to create form,but also by the discovery or recognition of forms that al-ready exist and the wish to capture and preserve them.

Image MagicThe belief that a likeness substitutes for a real person (oranimal), who will experience what is done to the image, isfound in many different cultures. In sixteenth-centuryEngland, Queen Elizabeth I's advisors became alarmedwhen they discovered her wax effigy stuck through with

pins. They immediately summoned the renowned astro-loger, John Dee, to counteract the effects of witchcraft.During the French Revolution of 1789, mobs protestingthe injustices of the royal family destroyed statues andpaintings of earlier kings and queens because of theirassociation with the ancien régime. Many nineteenth-century Native Americans objected to having their por-traits painted by the artist George Catlin, whose memoirsrecorded their suspicious and sometimes violent reactions.In 1989 and 1990, when eastern Europe began to rebelagainst communism, the protestors tore down statues ofthe communist leaders.

Portraits are images which can create a particularlystrong impression. The most famous portrait in the west-ern world, the Mona Lisa, depicts a woman who is virtuallyunknown, and her personality is one of the most persistentriddles in the history of western art. Later artists have sati-rized her (fig. 28.1) and incorporated her image into theirown work. Thousands of articles, books, poems, andsongs have been written about her. As a result of herimage, she has become a household word.

In 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre.Two years later, the police recovered her from under thebed of a house painter in Italy. She toured Europe by trainand was accorded a heroine's welcome upon her return toFrance. In the 1960s the painting was loaned to New York'sMetropolitan Museum. On this occasion, the Mona Lisatraveled from France by boat in a first-class stateroom ac-companied at all times by an armed security guard. Thepainting has achieved the status of a world ¡con, demon-strating that an image can have as much meaning andappeal as a living celebrity.

On an individual level, some people have actually fallenin love with images. In the sixteenth century, King HenryVIII of England agreed for political reasons to take theGerman princess, Anne of Cleves, as his fourth wifewithout having met her. He commissioned the artistHans Holbein (see p.328) to paint her portrait and wasenchanted with the result. When Anne landed in England,Henry could not contain himself and traveled incognito tomeet his bride. But, alas, in this case illusion proved betterthan reality. Henry was sorely disappointed by the realAnne; he went through with the marriage but reportedlynever consummated it.

The nineteenth-century English art critic John Ruskinfell in love with an image on two separate occasions. Hebecame so enamored with the marble tomb effigy of theyoung Ilaria del Caretto in Lucca, Italy, that he wroteletters home to his parents describing the statue as if itwere a living girl. Later, when in a more delusional state,Ruskin persuaded the Accademia, a museum in Venice, tolend him the painting of the sleeping St. Ursula by thesixteenth-century Italian artist Carpaccio. He kept it inhis room for six months and became convinced that hehad been reunited with his former fiancée, a young Irishgirl named Rose la Touche, who had merged in Ruskin'smind with the image of the young saint.

The ability to identify with images, and the sense that a

ART AND IDENTIFICATION 21

replica may actually contain the soul of what it represents,has sometimes led to an avoidance of images. Certain reli-gions prohibit their followers from making pictures andstatues of their god(s) or of human figures. In Judaism, themaking of graven images is expressly forbidden in thesecond commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto theeany graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is inheaven aboye, or that is in the earth beneath, or that isin the water under the earth" (Exodus 20:4). When theIsraelites blatantly ignored this, Moses berated them forworshiping the golden calf they had made. Years later, theprophet Jeremiah declared both the pointlessness and thedangers of worshiping objects instead of God.

In Islam, as in Judaism, works of art are meant to avoidthe human figure. Muhammad condemned those whowould dare to imitate God's work by making figurative art.As a result, Islamic art is, for the most part, nonfigurative;its designs are typically geometric or floral (see p.178).

During the Iconoclastic Controversy in the eighth andninth centuries, Christians argued vehemently over thepotential dangers of creating any images of holy figures(see p.176). Those wishing to destroy existing images andto prohibit new ones believed that they would lead to idol-atry, or worship of the image itself rather than what itstood for.

In the modern era, as societies have become increas-ingly technological, traditional imagery seems to have lostsome of its magic power. But, no matter how sophisti-cated we become, we are still personally involved withimages. For example, when complimented on the famousportrait of his mother, Whistler merged the real personwith her picture: "Yes," he replied, "one does like to makeone's mummy just as nice as possible" (fig. 1.6). Otherkinds of images evoke different responses. A peacefullandscape painting can provide respite from everyday ten-sions as we contemplate its rolling hifis or distant horizon.A still life can remind us of the beauty inherent in objectswe take for granted. Even works that contain no recogniz-able objects or figures-nonfigurative or nonrepresenta-tional art-may engage our attention as we identify withthe movement of their lines or the mood of their colors.Contemporary images, many in electronic media, exertpower over us in subtle ways. Movies and television affectour tastes and esthetic judgments. Advertising images in-fluence our decisions-what we buy and which candidateswe vote for. These modern media use certain traditionaltechniques of image-making to convey their messageseffectively.

Architecture

As is true of images, architecture evokes a response byidentification. A building may seem inviting or forbidding,gracious or imposing, depending on its exterior forro andstructure. One might think of a country cottage as wel-coming and picturesque, or a haunted house as endowedwith the spirits of former inhabitants who could inflictmischief on trespassers.

1

why do we study art

Education