Friday, September 5, 2014

Art History For D&D People, Course Overview

(First in a series)
I don't really do that many sweeping survey posts about art even though art's my job because whenever I say something like "Oh yeah, Franz Hals fuck him" someone in the comments always leaves some long thoughtful comment about their relationship to Franz Hals and it makes me forget that like that leaves 2,999 other regular blog readers having no idea what we're talking about.

But then Jez Gordon was like "Who's Egon Schiele?" and was like ok that's weird because clearly the artistic lineage there is:

Jez Gordon ---(influenced by)----> Late Frank Miller ----(influenced by) ----> Mid-era Bill Sienkiewicz ---(influenced by)----> Egon Schiele

...and so if one of the best emerging illustrators in the DIY D&D scene doesn't know his roots, then what about everybody else?

Plus it'll be fun. I like looking at pictures and I like thinking about pictures.

So I'm guessing/hoping this'll be a series of posts. I'm gonna just lay out here how I am thinking I'll organize the entries. I may not do them in order.

(EDIT: I did most of the ones I planned on doing, links below)
Ancient Art:Blasphemous Things You Find In A Cave
Subheadings:
3000 years of China Being Way Ahead of Everyone
Finnish Sculpture Paints That Culture As A Frozen Sinkhole Of Goggle-Eyed Madmen
Egypt: Not Always Boring
Meso-America: Let's Stack Things!
Greece And Rome: zzzzzzzzz

Medieval European Art:Beyond Things With Weird Necks

Indian & (separate entry) Middle-Eastern Art of the Middle Ages:
Imposing a Sense of Bejewelled And Labyrinthine
Order On Every Fucking Thing

The Northern Renaissance & The International Style:Way Better Than That Other Renaissance They TaughtYou About In School
Painting & Printmaking in China and Japan:Mountains, Mist, Nightmarish Tentacle-PornPrecursor Things
Post-Renaissance But Pre-Modern Europe:Guys Holding Swords They Probably Won't Use
Wood, Water, and Wire:The Art That Freaked Colonialists Out
Decadent Art of the Call of Cthulhu Era:
Please Nobody Tell Wundergeek Europe Exists
Symbolism, Surrealism and Other
Products of Drug Abuse


Every Good Early Illustrator I Can Think Of:
A.K.A. The Post That Other DIY D&D People
Have Probably Already Done Better Than
Me But I Should Probably Do Anyway
EDIT: I put these three all together here in the Modernism post.

Fine Art After WW2:
Actually, You Do Like Modern Art, It's Just
They Don't Want You To Know Tha
t


22 comments:

pjamesstuart said...

I hope this is going to be an actual course.

Scott Anderson said...

I got way more out of my one art history class than I thought I would. Way fun class.

Unknown said...

Thanks Zak. Have an apple.

Ben L. said...

This looks amazing. Please do this.

sapient said...

You sir, are mistaken!
It is not: "2,999 other regular blog readers having no idea what we're talking about".

It is: "2,999 other regular blog readers having experienced something new that enriched their lives"...

Unknown said...

Mmmm. Lee Bontecou. Yessss.

Arnold K said...

Yes, this is relevant to my interests. People who know a lot about an interesting subject should teach me it.

MartynEm said...

One more vote for Operation Please Actually Do This

Unknown said...

Please please please do this!

Gort's Friend said...

Don't let it inhibit you. Looking up references you don't understand is what the internet is second best at doing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who looked up your four artist string and went "oh yeah that guy" and understood your point.

Anonymous said...

Do not "zzzzz" the Greeks and Romans:
http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-really-looked

and

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M14.2.html
(Browse the gallery, I especially like the archaic vases)

Zak Sabbath said...

Double zzzzz.

Legion said...

Love Jesus' MILF and her one-two punch entourage of Oompa-Loompas and Blue Meanies.

Anonymous said...

;_;
But you can't agree on everything.
Like Klimt a lot, too. ;)

Yann ABAZIOU said...

More non-european art (sorry, it is in French but he pics are beautiful !) :

Asian : http://www.guimet.fr/fr/

African, Asian and more : http://www.quaibranly.fr/

Anonymous said...

Hooray for the Book of Kells

OSRbaron said...

Thanks for dungeon map (kells) which I will use next weekend!

Ken Baumann said...

Fuck yes: please do this.

And damn, thanks for pointing out the Schiele -> Sienkiewicz connection.

Matt Halton said...

post-renaissance but pre-modern europe is just early modern i think

or enlightenment maybe?

it basically shades over from the renaissance into the enlightenment

i guess there's kind of a weird gap between the end of the sixteenth century and the enlightenment proper where everyone was too busy with the thirty years war to get anything done

the ficcaci etching (i looked it up) seems like it's eighteenth century, so deffo enlightment

yeah

i hope you're glad i fixed your terminology for you

anyway have an arcimboldo http://www.thehiddenhorsehead.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Arcimboldo_FishFace.jpg

Zak Sabbath said...

Yeah don't be a pedant.
Words are meant to make things explicable, and once they are, youre done.

Luka said...

They also liked goats ... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Pan_goat_MAN_Napoli_Inv27709_n01.jpg/1138px-Pan_goat_MAN_Napoli_Inv27709_n01.jpg

Unknown said...

I was really pleased with the scene in "The Grand Bhuaddapesht Hotel" when the nazi looks at the painting and goes wtf is THIS? then destroys it. at the time I took it for a fantasy artifact, a fictional Egon Schiele created for the movie. later I went and read about it, several ... recognizable journalists referred to it not as a fiction, but as a Egon Schiele reproduction. then I thought that I could be mistaken. however, who has a better relationship with the work of Wes Anderson? some type-type journalists or me? so, I asked a super model/researcher/former art history student to look into it. first she established that what was shown in the film, while in the style of Egon Schiele, corresponded to no known Egon Schiele. Then she turned up an obscure and hidden interview with wes anderson where he explains the commissioning of an Egon Schiele artifact... he hired his stalker to do it.
did I just tell you a boring anecdote? perhaps.