Antonio Canova, Paolina Borghese Bonaparte, Roman, marble
This sculpture of Paolina Borghese is an example of an artists recording their time and place. Paolina's husband requested Canova create a sculpture of her. She showed up in the nude for the sculpture, which surprised many people that knew her. This brought about some controversy because nude portraits were unusual at the time. However, that is how Paolina wanted it to be. She also wanted to be depicted as the goddess, Venus. This shows the rebellious side of Paulina at that time in history.
Halil Altindere, Pala the Bard, 2008, wax sculpture
This work of art fulfills the role of the artist recording the world around them. This sculpture is a life-size wax figure of a man that was named Pala. He lived in Istanbul and would be seen wearing weird costumes and thought that he was a symbol of the country. Altindere decided to make the life-size wax figure of Pala because of his pride in making the figures of national heroes and celebrities. This records a normal outfit for Pala that he would wear around the streets of Istanbul.
The role of recording the world involved the artist seeing something for her or himself and making a work of art depicting that occurrence. In the first image, the artist did not live at the time of Punic wars. He did not see Hannibal for himself.
ReplyDeleteThe second image is abstracted--it's not meant to represent a particular historical event or observed scene. If there was a video of the women being interviewed, that would be recording the world. The second image would be a better fit than the first, but you might have something else that would be perfect.