Weren’t there artists at that time who could draw humans for what they actually looked like. For instance, look at the paintings of kings from the 17th Century or before.
In: Other
Depending on the era, it’s intentional. In the medieval period, the influence of Christian religion affected the way artists painted. The physical body was sinful, so artists did not 1) study anatomy nor 2) make any effort to paint realistic human figures. That’s why you see highly realistic depictions before and after, but then you have a block of time when skilled artists painted like kindergartners.
It all matters what the intent of the image is. Romans painted highly actuate images of people, but few of them survive. There are some Egyptian funeral portraits that do survive and are very accurate. During the middle ages, images of people were used in many cases for story telling, such as the Bayeux tapestry, accuracy wasn’t the point. During the Renaissance, accurate depictions of humans and nature were highly prized, and so were created. Today in art there’s a big shift away from realism again. So it’s not that people couldn’t paint realistic art, it’s just that there wasn’t much societal need or want for such realistic art.
Is it not possible that the really good ones just didn’t survive as they were done on perishable materials? Thinking about rare survivors like the Portrait of the Boy Eutyches [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547951](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547951) which look like 17th century paintings as well as other ‘Fayum’ portraits [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-oldest-modernist-paintings-20169750/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-oldest-modernist-paintings-20169750/)
What they are trying represent is different. Frequently, The largesst person in a picture was the most important, not because they were tall.
Its all about how we pass the technic on. Painting is mostly technic, from proportion, light, perspective, everything a modern painter or illustrator does he learned. If the painter had to “discover” these technics he would die before painting something realistic.
Ancient people had to develop these technics sometimes from scratch. Sometimes the technics developed over centuries just get lost, and people had to develop all over, sometimes with very strict rules (witch could impose less realistic texhnics in favor of a more abstract way of representing)
Let’s take the classic greek statues as a exemple: the Greek had a stable society where artists could explore and develop technics, coming to a high level of realism. When the Greek empire fell, the realist technics gone for good. Until two thousand years latter, when the renascentists artists had resources to dig for greek statues and reverse engineering, and thats why we can withness a lap in realist technic in renascence.
Important: Your question is misleading, because there are realistic paintings from ancient civilizations, from Egypt to Greece. Also, painting is related to a more eurocentric tradition, sculpture was the most desired form of picturalization in most cultures. “Why paint your wall with a ugly 2d face (lets remember, a canva is a very specific medium) if you could have a 3d model?” I guess: from cave man the carving was more present than the painting, as a way to represent the world around. And we have A LOT of really technical and realistic sculptures in ancient cultures from all around the world.
My history teacher taught me that ancient Egyptians realized how perspective worked, but that the way in which they depicted people, where both eyes, arms, legs, etc. were visible at all times, was because it was necessary to depict all of those parts as a sort of blueprint. Presumably the perceived risks could be that incomplete bodies would be given to those depicted in the afterlife. As such, it could have been a practical choice rather than an artistic one or one of limitation.
One factor that may have played a part is that artists imitated each other or imitated the art that they saw. If all you ever saw were artworks in which human figures were depicted in a stylized or iconic manner, you might well reproduce that style — particularly if the art was made for religious purposes — rather than experimenting to try to achieve more ‘realistic’ results. This isn’t the whole story by any means, but I bet it played a part.
The purpose of art isn’t always meant to be accurate and realistic. The Renaissance really saw the growth of art method and the adoption of styles that closer replicate real life, including professional studios and guilds, the use of models, perspective drawing, paints and oils, etc. There’s a huge difference between the work from someone who is a full-time painter who learned his art from a master over many years, and a monk who spent years copying out the Bible and adding caricatures in the margins.
Basically because of the lack of medium (paper, canvas, etc) and tools (brushes, pens, etc). Ancient civilizations did not have medium and tools readily avalaible for an artist to spend hour and hours practicing till they were able to perfect themselves enough to capture a realistic depiction of a person. This basically changes siginificantly during the Renaissance, where these tools became more common.
Because it depends on what the painter is trying to do. Realism may not be the aim – it may be more about projecting an ideal type (typically of monarchy or nobility) or conveying a set of ideas about society and the place of the subject in it – for example the king as a blend of Solomon and Joshua. So what we see as distortions carry meanings according to widely-held archetypes. Often these are lost, but sometimes we can reconstruct the underlying patterns.
Even where realism can be done, it may not be – Romans were realistic in their ancestral portrait-busts, but imperial imagery is more stereotyped.
Latest Answers