| 8 Images That Altered The Course of History |
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| Written by eddiego65 | |
| Thursday, 26 August 2010 01:13 | |
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Visual records can reveal as much information about the past as written accounts—and sometimes even more. These ten images, in addition to being striking in themselves, have inspired or manifested new approaches to life and art.
Lascaux Cave Paintings
Image via wikipedia The 17,000-year-old Paleolithic paintings on the limestone walls of the Lascaux Caves in southwestern France, which were accidentally discovered as recently as 1940, are among the earliest known works of art. A group of human beings thought it worthwhile to find ways to create visual representations of their experiences and thoughts. Whatever their intentions may be, image making starts here. Book of Kells
Image via Wikipedia This brightly decorated manuscript of the four Gospel stories, which dates from the late 8th century, was produced by an unidentified group of monks in remote parts of Scotland and Ireland. It consists of 340 leaves of thick vellum, most of them adorned with miniature, jewel-like images–a rich collection of early medieval symbolism. The page that opens the Gospel according to Matthew depicts four winged figures: Matthew the man, Mark the Lion, Luke the Calf and John the Eagle. The Alhambra
Image via wikipedia The Alhambra Palace, overlooking Granada, was constructed during the 14th century under the command of two rulers of the last Spanish Moorish kingdom: Yusuf I and Mohammed V. It is a magnificent testament to Moorish culture, a meeting point of Eastern and Western visual languages and a reminder that both the medieval and Renaissance eras in Europe hinged on the knowledge and creativeness of the Islamic world. The Creation of Adam
Image via Wikipedia Between 1508 and 1512, Michelangelo Buonarroti, who was in his mid-thirties, beautified the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican, Rome, with a gigantic fresco that recounted Old Testament stories of the Bible. He practically worked alone, on scaffolding, never able to stand back from what he was painting. The central image of the Creation shows God extending his arm to breathe life into Adam through his outstretched finger. This is still considered the greatest image of the act of creation. The Death of Marat
Image via Wikipedia Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat, painted in Paris between July and October 1793 during the French Revolution’s ‘Reign of Terror’, shows the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat lying in a medicinal bathtub lined with patched sheets (he had a serious skin disease) with a fatal stab wound. The composition and the lighting are those associated with the late Renaissance Christ taken down from the Cross. These effects created a picture of an ordinary modern-day hero and martyr. Muybridge’s Horses
Image via wikipedia In 1878, the Englishman Eadweard Muybridge took the very first successive still photographs of ‘limb displacement in motion’ in the USA, which were published in Paris, and provided a rich source for late 19th-century image-makers. One observer remarked, upon viewing the photographs for the first time, “From today, painting is dead.” In reality, the pictures became just one more distinctive way of seeing. The Scream
Image via wikipedia The Scream, painted by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893, depicted a tormented figure in the foreground below a red and yellow sunset comprising of wavy stripes. Munch explained the experience which inspired it: ‘I was tired and ill…I felt as though a scream went through nature’. His work has been described as the ‘the most painful expression of the anxieties of modern life’. The skeletal face, the desperation of the colors and the curved lines of the sky appear to be external signs of internal turmoil. Man on the Moon
Image via wikipedia Images of American astronauts making a ‘giant leap for mankind’ on the surface of the Moon were relayed back to Earth on July 21, 1969. Together with pictures of earth itself—seemingly small and insignificant–they had such a massive impact on the way we view ourselves, and became key icons of scientific and technological triumph for that time. The images, created by ‘remote control’, showed that the effect of a mass-produced picture could be as potent as the work of an artist. More Articles:
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 06 November 2010 00:11 |
