Page 82 - Genesis
P. 82
Why art
history is By Kenoya Musa
relevant
Have you ever really appreciated pre-camera inven-
tion artwork? I mean the detailed features and the
photo-realism that is achieved through hours of work is
pretty awe worthy. Many of these portraits were com-
missions by rich people, for example the Mona Lisa. I
had no idea it was a commission until recently but let
me stay on track, before the invention of the camera
most art pieces had a root in realism, using figures that
back then could only truly be captured by one’s vision,
it was the closest thing to a camera they had. Many
anti-abstract critics say that art has taken a nosedive
in recent years, I mean detailed realistic portraits and
pieces have given way to blobs of color splattered
across canvases that only take mere minutes to cre-
ate, how disgusting am I right? But you see the inven-
tion of the camera rendered portraits useless (at least
one could argue so), I mean why would you commis-
sion an artist for thousands of dollars and hundreds of
hours to capture one frame when you could get one
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