EDITORIAL
Ides of the Month of Janus MMXI

 
The Humanist Art Review was launched more than a decade ago, and while we must acknowledge our impact on art and architectural thinking hasn’t materialized into the renaissance we might have hoped for, we would like to think there would be even less of humanist thought out there had we not been around. So with that cautiously sanguine appraisal, we’re pleased to offer a new edition, and some thoughts on the value of a humanist approach to the classical tradition.

If the humanist approach to the visual arts can be characterized as poetic and rhetorical, one might wonder how necessary that seemingly secondary aspect is to what is ostensibly an issue of acquiring practical knowledge, such as the understanding of human anatomy, the projection of shades and shadows, or the elements and proportions of the classical orders, etc.?

Where the lack of a humanist understanding betrays itself is, for the artist, in subject matter (invention and decorum, in classical parlance), and for the architect, in a certain arbitrariness of form with its consequence of shallowness of meaning. In the artist’s case one can turn one’s newly acquired representation skills to any subject (the Florence Academy of Art recently featured a finely rendered old bathroom sink on its website), while the architect can rather facilely mimic a variety of styles without any deeper investigation of the design problem (and win prestigious prizes for the effort). So, again, humanist thinking can push an artist to do more, but is it really necessary? In other words, is the best in this case the enemy of the good? It all depends, I suppose, on your definition of the good: if it is merely better than the awful, or competent by accessible standards, then perhaps not. But if the good is defined by the best of our traditions, then one would have to say certainly not. No Old Master would have been satisfied to be competent, to be merely attractive or pleasant. It is a fact of history that humanist aspirations before the nineteenth century existed across the artistic spectrum: they were the sine qua non of even journeyman aspirants, setting their sights higher than mere competency in rendering or attractiveness of form. Moreover, they were not mere “extra baggage”: poetics and rhetoric shaped painterly technique (Velazquez’ brush in Las Meninas) and the materiality of buildings (Bernini’s interior of S. Andrea al Quirinale). Not to mention that it is a lot more interesting—and fun, if one enjoys being challenged—to think about why you are doing what you do, and to realize how many people before you have wrestled with the same question.

We’re either standing on the shoulders of giants, or milling around at their feet. So, jump in, paint or design like a humanist, and be rewarded by having a better view.

Please keep visiting HAR.

David Mayernik, Co-editor
 

 
 
"Humanism is a stream into which flow all the waters of the past, mingling the most diverse forms and ideas, fusing Christian allegory with the ancient symbols of the barbarian religions."
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 121