Art, People, Machines, and Time Travel
Giotto, Head of Christ (detail) from the Last Judgement, Arena chapel Padua
If one looks at this portrayal of Christ, painted by Giotto around 1305 one can clearly see the
care with which it was painted. The artist has gone to great trouble to paint every hair on the head,
the beard has been painted more finely and even more time has been spent making smooth graduated tones
on the face, so much so, that the brush marks are hardly visible. The halo has been intricately drawn,
then carved, before being gilded. The collar has been carefully drawn, gilded, painted over, and then
the pattern scraped away. Perhaps, most of all, great effort has been spent in making the expression
of Christ somehow compassionate, gentle, and cross, all at once.
Even though this image was made 700 years ago the humanity of it shines through and speaks to us in
every one of the thousands of actions that have left their mark on its surface.
When humans do things by hand we are unable to do things perfectly. When we take an action,
we have to somehow coordinate our senses, our limbs, and the tools we use all at the same time,
and then there is always a point where we say ‘about there - Now’ and we make our mark. How
carefully we do this, how tired we are, and our mood at the time, as well as our ability and
experience, and our own individuality, will all affect where and how the final mark will fall.
Even if we try and copy an action it will never be exactly the same - even if the same person does
it immediately after the first one. This lends a distinctly human element to repeated actions.
Before the age of mechanization this organic visual signature was evident in everything humans made.
But this was not considered an asset, maybe rather the opposite. The onus was on doing things as
perfectly as possible because inaccuracy, caused structural instability, and badly made things
would break and so have to be remade. Accuracy and precision became the yardstick by which work
was measured. This aspiration towards perfection became deeply embedded in our psychology.
Now, when machines bring a sort of perfection to much of what we use, we don’t notice that
objects have lost their organic human quality, because by the standards which things have
always been judged, their products appear better.
But these subtle and minor imperfections and inconsistencies that show the effort of a human
trying to do something well are beautiful. Because it is not easy for us to do something well
with our hands.
The following picture of the virgin Mary from the fresco by Tadeo Gaddi, was painted twenty
five years after Giotto’s. The artist, actually, a pupil of Giotto’s, has not taken as much
care with it. The expression is beautiful but the execution clumsy, with the lines coarsely
drawn. I think most people would say on the basis of these two images ‘Giotto’s picture is
better!’ (But it could be that Gaddi was rushed to complete the work.)
Making beautiful things like paintings, by hand, takes time. The gap between fine and beautiful
handicraft and clumsy and careless work is met by patience, attention to detail, and often years
of practice. There are no short cuts.
Taddeo Gaddi. Head of virgin Mary (detail) Baroncelli Chapel. Santa Croce
Hand made objects leave traces which can give a real feeling about the personality of their
maker, there for anybody who can read the signs. Just as we might construe that Tadeo Gaddi might
have been a bit less careful than Giotto;
A cabinet maker will glean something about its creator after a little examination of an old
piece of furniture. Artists and craftspeople exist in the objects they create, sometimes long
after they have died.
Some people think that a good paining is defined as an accurate image of reality. In fact more
realistic images only really became commonplace in painting during the Renaissance, when we
started to take a more objective view of the world around us.
Most people think of seeing as a mechanical process but actually we see things very subjectively,
because seeing is a very complicated process of selective filtering of information. If we aren’t
looking for something we might not see it!
Primitive art, early art or so called Naïve art has a distinctly human feel, precisely because
things are depicted in an un-analytical way with extra emphasis given to objects of importance.
We can all Identify with this because we all saw the world like this as children, before we
started measuring and analyzing.
Niccolo di Ser Sozzo Tegliacci, Head of the Madonna (detail) Siena Pinacoteca
The Picture above was painted in 1362. It is not a photographic representation of the Madonna but
one nevertheless gets the feeling that it is a painting of a real person recreated through the mind
of the artist….. And she looks very alive. One can almost imagine her shy smile if she had been told
that her image would be looked at by us 700 years letter, and one can imagine hearing the excited
peals of laughter when she surely would have told her friends about it later. Whoever she was,
through the artists’ imagination, she has survived longer than any members of the great families
of her generation, who would have struck awe in her heart at the time.
Nowadays so little that we own is made by hand. Mechanization, with its promise of perfection at
a knock down price has replaced many human activities. The only mark showing that a human has
ever been near a product might be the quality checkers initials.
Are machine made things much better? They certainly have the potential to be, and of course many
of the objects we require in our modern lives could never be made by hand. But more often than not,
in our commercial world things are not built to last - lest we stop buying.
Perhaps they are sometimes more expensive in the long run too. Even A high quality factory made
chair is not built to last more than twenty years. A craftsman built equivalent may cost three
times the price but it will last a lifetime.
Certainly a mass produced sweater will not give as much pleasure as a hand knitted one made
especially for the user. It is nice to be able to shake the hand of somebody who has built
something for you, to know where it came from.
Most of what people do in the manufacturing process is to assemble things. People are reduced
to a day at work of mindless repetitive tasks. Manufacturing is not kind to these anonymous
souls. We seem to be trying to make the poorest people who do these jobs into machines themselves.
At the same time we are trying to make machines more like people.
But machines will never talk to us on the same human level as the artists above have done through their work.
Giotto lived in a very different world to us, but we can learn a few things from him and the painters of his day.
The individual actions that go into making handmade objects are a universal language by which the makers
communicate with us. There is value in human effort. Allowing people to do their best gives their life
value too, in addition to improving the artifacts they make. Like time travelers we live through the
objects we create, long after we ourselves are gone. In valuing craft we value humanity, and make
the world a richer place.