"The ideal way to have attended the Raphael show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which closes tomorrow, is as I’ve done—while pregnant." ! That's a wonderful thought, wonderful being just right for a Madonna and Child. I saw the exhibition, though not in an ideal condition.☺️
Woe to all who did not attend. And that word attend seems just right, too.
Without your empirical knowledge of motherhood, I nevertheless underwent the shock of recognition when I saw those three Raphael studies of mother and baby. The enfolding of the maternal arms around the chilld, the implied restlessness of the baby--they all looked familiar and real in a way I've almost never seen in Madonna and child paintings of that period. Was there a mandatory distancing between the Madonna and her exalted offspring expected by the Church? Or were the other painters simply not observant enough, or talented enough to capture genuine mother-child interaction?
Yes, I wondered the same. For all R’s reputation for idealism, his babies are more naturalistic than anyone’s until Titian… But the drawings are not the paintings.
Wonderfully rich writing. I was especially interested in the idea you wove throughout the essay about embodied knowledge. It reminds me of another essay I read recently, and commented on https://substack.com/@koolreads/note/p-199467161?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1mmwub. Knowledge can't just live in theory but must be taken beyond the page. With the dawn of AI, we must start sharpening our skills for discerning the quality of knowledge. Some knowledge is not worth embodying at all. Can't wait to spend some time meditating on the deeper thoughts in this essay, thank you!
Also I'm not sure if you would bave arrived there without the personal way in. So the personal leads into more universal insights. Hence why I don't mind personal art writing as much as you seem to. What do you think?
"The ideal way to have attended the Raphael show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which closes tomorrow, is as I’ve done—while pregnant." ! That's a wonderful thought, wonderful being just right for a Madonna and Child. I saw the exhibition, though not in an ideal condition.☺️
Woe to all who did not attend. And that word attend seems just right, too.
Without your empirical knowledge of motherhood, I nevertheless underwent the shock of recognition when I saw those three Raphael studies of mother and baby. The enfolding of the maternal arms around the chilld, the implied restlessness of the baby--they all looked familiar and real in a way I've almost never seen in Madonna and child paintings of that period. Was there a mandatory distancing between the Madonna and her exalted offspring expected by the Church? Or were the other painters simply not observant enough, or talented enough to capture genuine mother-child interaction?
Yes, I wondered the same. For all R’s reputation for idealism, his babies are more naturalistic than anyone’s until Titian… But the drawings are not the paintings.
Wonderfully rich writing. I was especially interested in the idea you wove throughout the essay about embodied knowledge. It reminds me of another essay I read recently, and commented on https://substack.com/@koolreads/note/p-199467161?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1mmwub. Knowledge can't just live in theory but must be taken beyond the page. With the dawn of AI, we must start sharpening our skills for discerning the quality of knowledge. Some knowledge is not worth embodying at all. Can't wait to spend some time meditating on the deeper thoughts in this essay, thank you!
I thought this was an excellent thoight, thank you: Cultivating this kind of unmediated knowledge means loving art.
Also I'm not sure if you would bave arrived there without the personal way in. So the personal leads into more universal insights. Hence why I don't mind personal art writing as much as you seem to. What do you think?