Page 19 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

and delightfully idealized plans for Italian cities. inordinately proud of the progressive powers of enjoy the fertile chaos of the arts. Just as the
And we see that Diirer himself took the trouble discovery. Knowledge is still the most precious Europeans of the Age of Exploration were igno-
to show us how a draftsman could use the new international currency. The triumphs of tech- rant of the creations of most of the world in
perspective device. The technique which Giotto nology, too, still bring the world together in the their time, so our confident lines of discovery
had applied by rule-of-thumb became a science marketplace and on the battlefield. Both science can give us no hint of the spectrums of creation.
in the hands of Leonardo or Diirer. and technology, but especially technology, This exhibit of the world-wide creations
"Anatomy," originally a name simply for dis- assimilate the ways of life of people every- unknown to Europeans in one of the great ages
section or cutting up, "Circa 1492" was begin- where. Photography, television, the airplane, of European exploration can remind us of the
ning to mean the science of bodily structure. and the computer erase time and space. And in still vast continents of our own ignorance.
Leonardo and Diirer, both pioneers of anatomy the long run technology becomes the enemy While knowledge is a moving target and old
(as illustrated in our exhibit) made it the ally of cultural distinctions, extinguishing cultural maps are discarded for new, works of art hold
and handmaid of their painting and sculpture. species. their place in expanding constellations with
Leonardo da Vinci used what he had learned at So today we are more than ever in need of richly iridescent afterlives. As every generation
the dissecting table (seen in his drawings of sec- the impulse of the arts for the variety of crea- and every great scientist displaces predecessors,
tions of a human head and of the urinogenital tion. Salesmen assure us of the progressive the stature of a scientific work is measured by
system of a woman), while the mathematically- improvements in every new model, every latest how many earlier works it makes obsolete. But
minded Diirer constructed his Adam and Eve "generation" of their devices. Research and the artists only add. They are the re-creators of
with a compass and ruler. Artists felt new need Development laboratories confidently and delib- the world. Later artists help us discover the ear-
for the science of anatomy when they made erately chart the course of the future. Refugees lier, just as they will acquire new interest from
nudes a focus of their Renaissance vision. In the from the extrapolations of statistics and the the works of artists still unborn. Circa 1492 can
history of science and of art, rarely have the certitudes of advertising, we must welcome inspire our awe and caution us against the con-
talents for both kinds of human fulfillment the wonderfully random unpredictable arts. ceit, bred by all Ages of Discovery including our
been so brilliantly embodied in the same artist, For us living in "Circa 1992" this exhibit of own, that by mastering more of the world we
as we see in Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Circa 1492 should be an especially illuminating can ever encompass the mysterious vagaries of
Diirer. and chastening experience. Here we can take the human spirit, of Man the Creator.
In our age of triumphant science, we are ourselves off the speedy tracks of Progress and
(Copyright 1991 by Daniel J. Boorstin)

18 CIRCA 1492