ARTH 380 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Renaissance Art, Topos, Episteme
Document Summary
The moment it"s shown to be man-made, it is proved to be finite. What alberti"s window had been in renaissance painting. You cannot access the object, not delivered to you, not grown on trees. Reflection in the mirror is not clear, while the body is so translucent, hardly any. Representation is not a divine order, single-handedly negating alberti, the whole painter"s mark. Venus"s body is an object of desire, just as the painting; horizontality of the body. Nothing but a complex networks of uncertainties, exchanges, and feints. An offering echos the horizontality of the painting. Orient doesn"t have any denotative function, purely connotative, purely fictional, purely imaginary, the colonial gaze of the moment that has no reference in the real, but rather based on fiction. Colonization, labour, imperial power: rendered in glass, metal. The appearance is a flex; echoing the gothic cathedrals, but not talking about christ anymore, but colonialism.
