Medici: Relationship between the patron and artist

The title says it all. Following the documentary on the Medici, I'm am going to talk about the relationship between the patron and the artist.

The Medici seems to be one very influential family during the Renaissance. Indeed, many artists we know of today have worked for them. Everybody knows about Michelangelo or Donatello (ok, some mainly because of the Ninja Turtles, but still, they know them) for example.

While I watched the documentary, one comment struck me. It said that the Patron let the artist ''free''. He didn't care about their temper, and he didn't care about what he was doing with their time. When they knew an artist could deliver the work well, he was understanding and accepting these traits.

I was surprised to hear that actually. I would have thought that this king of patronage wouldn't have allowed this. Now I think they were nice in some ways. Yet the artist was not considered an artist on its own, but still, to me, the patron considered them as such and also as important. If they were talented, it was important for them to keep them and treat them well. Its seems like the family understood that sometimes people can't work well if they are forced to do so. It was also a good thing for them to accept their temper for the same reasons. It was a wise choice.

As it was also said,  not all the patrons would have accepted such things. It seemed like the Medici were one of his own kind for this. This is surprising from the idea we have from the powerful families.

This kind of relationship still happens today, but doesn't work for everybody. If a patron would act like that with me, maybe not so many things would be done at the end. When you run a lot of projects, its easy to forget about what has to be done. It can be also hard to know where the priorities are.
In the artistic field, it is sometimes hard to work when other people asks you to, but sometimes you really have to give yourself a kick to get things done. Keeping your own reputation good is a motivation there, but sometimes it is not enough.
Also, If people are working alone, its even harder to manage this. We must learn to say no, even if the job is appealing. If you take too much, you are just going to get lost. I have experienced it!
This is not something that, I guess, was too common during the Renaissance as artists had workshops.
Today, the society is a little bit more egocentric for that. Our society wouldn't understand such way of working.

Bokeh!

Just a little break for 

BOKEH!

It kind of looks like Cyrillic writing to me right now. Guess I'm getting tired.

Because Bokeh is cool!

Critique on the Bernini Video

I finally watched the entire documentary on Bernini's life.

I didn't knew that artist before, it was nice to discover his work and know more about who collaborated into building parts of the Vatican.

I think it was a funny documentary. As well as documenting Bernini's life, it was overdramatized. The personification of the characters were pushed to its limits for this kind of documentary. For example is Bernini's mother. She was useless in the story and the way they portrayed her was more coming out from imagination than from realism. They made her be rude and sufficient, speaking very small but rough comments and quotes throughout the film. The way they presented the characters was also awkward. They did as if the actors playing in the film really were the people they played. It is a documentary, not a movie. When they presented Borromini, they presented the actor as: "Here is Boromini. He is like this, and that and also like this". They refereed to the actor too much for me, in the words they chose.

I felt, at some points, that I was given too much useless information. Some little parts could have been cut off or just explained differently. Again, I would have cut off Bernini's mother comments. Some aspects of his personal life were also useless. It was good to talk about some, but too much is like not enough.

Another funny aspect were the bad jokes, or quotes, the narrator was trying to fit through. Some comments he made were completely useless, moving us away from the main information, the main purpose of this film. It also seemed to me that he was putting a lot of himself into the documentary.

I'm still happy that I got to watch that documentary, I learned new things and I also know a new artist whom, I think, was important in Art History. He is not as well known to the public, but going to Rome and being able to know who made several sculpture and a part of the Vatican is always nice. Knowing about his story is knowing more about what we see today. It makes everything more interesting and now I have great, overdramatized stories to tell my friends or family if they go there someday!

If I compare, I think the Medici documentary we have watched before was more professionally done than this one. It surely was less entertaining and funny though.

A Mistake in the Titanic Movie!

Here is just a small blog post about something I noticed while watching Titanic.
I tried to make a screen capture of the scene but the program didn't allow it, so no picture will be shown to prove my point. You will have to watch Titanic again (yes again, who has never watched Titanic?)


Ok , description of the scene:


Right after she boarded the ship, Rose unpacked her belongings. We see her unpacking several paintings.


What the paintings are:

Les Demoiselles D'Avigon by Picasso or I should say, according to wikipedia Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. 
This name might be quite complicated to fit on a driver's licence.

Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler   by Picasso (I'm not sue about this one, I brought the movie back to the video club, so I cant verify, but it looked like a portrait)

And one that seems like on of the Water Lilies by Monet. ( I just saw picture of him and even though I didn't have a preconceived idea about what this man did look like, I didn't expected him to look like this) 

The biggest mistake is: 


The ship sank, these paintings are then gone forever! No one would have had those in their collection now and we wouldn't be there to ''worship'' them. Also, the Picasso's painting would never have been known has they were created not so long before 1912. 


I know the movie wanted to bring back historical facts about this time but still, I thought it was funny to see this. 


Another thing that bothers me: Was Les Demoiselles d'Avignon not known in Europe in 1912? I'm not sure about this fact, but I know it got out in France in the 1920's, so sure, the painting couldn't have sunk with the ship. 


Years ago, this is not something I would have notice, at all. I had modern art history classes this semester that allowed me to think about it more when I saw the paintings in the movie. 


Now the real question is:


Why did I spent 3 hours of my time to watch Titanic after so many years? 
Well, BECAUSE! 






Journal entry written on Saturday, Decembrr 3rd 
Its colder in Decembrr then in December. I bet I'm not the only one who noticed that.