Ernst Gombrich: The Limits of Likeness
According to Gombrich there is no one correct representation
of what art is. He believes that art is
seen through the eyes of the painter not through the beholder. Its depicted on
the artists mood, personality, the artists culture, the situation, the style,
the tools and materials being used. He gives an example from an autobiography
from the German illustrator Ludwig Richter relating to how he and his fellow
young art students’ friends in the 1820’s in Rome visited the famous Tivoli and
sat to draw. There they saw another group of French artists who approached this
place with a different technique. The comparisons given where meant to show how
two different types of people are staring at the same exact thing and it is
being drawn differently. The French came with big baggage, carrying large
quantities of paint and using big brushes on a huge canvas while the German
used a little brush focusing more on the artiness and details on a small piece
of paper. This example explains the influence by what they see and how they
represent their work of art is the limit of likeness. A painter will paint what
he likes and he likes what he can paint.
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