The Greeks Invented Everything

Some careful drawings from the sister natural history and art museums in Wien. The bird is a paradisevogel, which if you remember your Dr. Suess is the kind of bird with a ridiculously elaborately long tail feather. The bird, or course is from the Naturhistorische Museum. From the Kunsthistorische Museum is a torso of a winged Eros, Aphrodite's son. It's a Roman copy of a Greek original (most of the statues in the Kunsthistorische collection are Roman copies of Greek originals - I don't know where the Greek originals are or if they are still existant). Those Greeks sure knew physical beauty and had a refined sensitive sense of the body. You should see the bodies of the Aphrodite statues with their transparent clinging dress - all done in the, of course, completely contradictory medium of stone. I didn't choose the Aphrodites to draw because I didn't want to spend too much time on all the folds of the drapery. I picked her son Eros to draw because it was a little more simple to draw.

It's interesting to compare say, Michelangelo's work where everyone is all pumped up with muscles - even the women are drawn with every bicep and shoulder muscle pumped up. I wouldn't mess with Eve in the picture above, that's a seriously impressive arm! Compare that with how the Greeks sculpted the figure of Eros (presumably a late teenager or so) with a soft and sensitive hand. Remarkable.

Sculpture

Broke out the clay, navajo red to be exact. Maybe making something from the Navajo soil will ward off the evil spirits of winter. Actually I wanted to do a sculpture of Anika before I start working and lose all my spare time. I made one of Pascal a long time ago, so it was Anika's turn finally. When Tessa gets here it'll be her turn.

Anika really liked her 'head', and she asked to make a sculpture herself. We decided to make a head of Cinnamon our Alameda cat. It came out pretty good. Gotta find a place in Wien to fire these babies up!!

In the Kunst Historische Museum they have a sculpture room full of, I think, mostly Roman heads. Some of them are so realistic, and specific, or individualistic it's remarkable. Walking around the room, between all the different heads is quite an experience - the verisimilitude of the many heads all in one room and mounted at eye level, make you feel like you're walking through an ancient cocktail party where all the guests, besides yourself, are mysteriously frozen still. Will they suddenly break their frozen state and begin chattering away?

I prefer the heads that are less idealized, i.e. not the perfect women's head which unfortunately start to all appear the same. The children, and adolescent heads are remarkable for their liveliness, and individuality. One of the woman's head's haircut reminds me of a famous Matisse sculpture, all curvy and massive. There were also a couple of men's heads which looked like the models were former boxers, one in particular with its nose accidently broken off, was even more expressive of the beaten worn boxers visage because of the accidental nose damage.