The canon and ways of viewing art
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Abstract
[In the art world, there are a series of canons that shape what we see as “good” or “bad”, “innovative" or “stagnant”, “traditional” or “new”. It creates a way of seeing art across viewpoints that are oppositional to each other, you can not see what is 'good' when you do not know what is 'bad.' The canon can be described in a multitude of different ways. One view, brought forth by the National Gallery in London, describes, "...the conventional timeline of artists who are sometimes considered as 'Old Masters' or 'Great Artists'..." (The National Gallery). Though canons can also exists as a set of ideals in art. For example, since the 18th century, large historical paintings were seen as the pinnacle of art, whereas other styles like landscapes, still-lifes, and genre paintings fell to the wayside. The canon put fort by the sculptor Polykleitos of Argos is the earliest relevant example. It is summarized by Galen (a physician during the 2nd century CE), as,
“[Beauty arises from] the commensurability [symmetria] of the parts, such as that of finger to finger, and all of the fingers to the palm to the wrist, and of these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and , in fact, of everything else, just as it is written in the Canon of Polykleitos supported his treatise [by making] a statue according to the tenets of his treatises, and called the statue, like the work, the Canon" (Kleiner, 132).]