I'm referring to early medieval period and before!. The pics seem to show creatures in 2-D!. Wasn't shading to create 3-D effects known!? Or was there another reason/Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Position:Home>Visual Arts> Why are ancient pictures and drawings often, if not always, in flat 2-D rather tQuestion: Why are ancient pictures and drawings often, if not always, in flat 2-D rather than 3-D!? I'm referring to early medieval period and before!. The pics seem to show creatures in 2-D!. Wasn't shading to create 3-D effects known!? Or was there another reason/Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Wow! a few of these people need to take art history courses!. Its not that they couldn't or didn't know how to use perspective!. It was a styleistic choice of the period!. Example, Egyptian paintings: we are mostly familiar with flat 2-d images you see acompanying hyroglypics!. This was a stylistic choice made because they wanted to encompass both eyes, both legs and, both arms in the drawings!. I forgot the exact reason for this, but I think it had to do with something religiouse!. Even though this wasn't very common, there are instances of paintings being fully rendered with depth and detail in egypt!. People who couldn't afford to be embalmed and mummified where often barried in woven caskets and on these caskets a likness of the person would be painted!. The first time I saw one of these, I could have sworn it was rennisance, but it actually came from aincent egypt!. This is very common through out history!. you will see art revert to a more abstract form in order to enphassize specific point about society or the current conddition of the artist enviroment!. I hope this answered the question I'll try to include some links to examples of what im talking about!.Www@QuestionHome@Com I think it's a question of perspective (in the technical sense) rather than shading as such!. I know paintings weren't very good with depth, but many book illustrations had great depth and shading, so that medieval manuscripts had 'pick-upable' flowers and leaves lying on the pages (almost trompe l'oeil)!. I think it was Masaccio and his contemporaries who finally put people and objects into a proper perspective!.Www@QuestionHome@Com It wasn't until the Renaissance when architects Brunelleschi and Alberti figured out a way to use geometry and math to depict vanishing points and foreshortening!. So before discovery, art were depicted only through the artist's observation and not by accuracy!. They simply didn't have the knowledge back then!.Www@QuestionHome@Com I think probably because they never really thought of doing it yet!. Art is just like technology!. It takes years and years to develope and improve!. In a few years, someone might be asking "Why are 21st century pictures and drawings often, in boring 3-D instead of whatever we have now!?"Www@QuestionHome@Com |