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September 12, 2008
A Brief History of Art part I
Time was an artist had a shop on the high street next to the butcher's and just up from the candlestick maker. Folk would come into town for a bag of offal, some new nightlights and pop in for a portrait of their firstborn or, as was more often the case, a picture of their crockery.
still life with an upturned roemer, oil on wood. Willem Claeszoon Heda 1638
Your high street artist would set about this with gusto, which is a bit like gesso but not quite so sticky, with the help of a few apprentices. He [for he it usually was] would use skills learnt and passed down over hundreds of years and create a passing likeness to the objects in question, and everyone would go away happy.
Then some bastard invented the camera, and it went tits up from there. Next thing you know artists are shitting in tins and pissing in the snow. Oh, M. Nicéphore Niépce you knew not what you wrought.
Posted by john at September 12, 2008 10:24 PM