Paragone Reflection

The Warhol group had a really decent discussion about Leonardo’s Paragone.

After spending a week as sculptors and painters, each member of this group found further understanding about what it’s like to do that for a project, or once in a while; most couldn’t even fathom chiseling away at precious, expensive marble and revealing the beautiful, smooth, David or creating a work of art as detailed as The Last Supper. Overall, we found that it was useful to have that experience and take a few steps in the shoes of famous artists of the past.

Based on several of the group members’ responses, no one found one type of art superior over another. It was unanimous among the group that arguing that painters are superior over sculptors was incongruent to Leonardo’s later, stronger, statement about both being equal and found that to be the weakest part of his discussion. We found that the strongest part of the sculptors reply was just that he was concise. He said what he meant without putting judgment or digression against painters, but he could’ve said a little more.

Standing in the Shoes - Justin Coleman

For my Standing in the Shoes project I was supposed to be mimicking Michelangelo. He was a great artist who worked by carving and shaping marble into majestic pieces of art. When you view some of his work it is impressive, but you give no thought to how hard it was to accomplish his feats. This project helped put things into perspective. I was merely supposed to carve something out of soap. How hard could that be? Being a typography fanatic, I chose to carve a word into my bar(s) of soap. This was an extremely difficult and tedious task. I used numerous tools including a large pocket knife, a smaller butter knife, a toothpick and staples to clear out the wholes of my letters. I ruined numerous pieces of soap because I was carving them too thin and breaking them in my hands. Once I did get something that resembled the word ‘hope’ I was extremely proud. And I have now gained a much greater respect for Michelangelo because carving soap and marble have no comparison. He truly was a master.

Standing in the Shoes - Logan de Freitas

In my submission, "Route 66," the vanishing point is at the horizon. The difference between the foreground and the background is evidenced by the proximity of the cactus to the proximity of the "Route 66" sign. Aerial perspective is demonstrated by the elevation from the ground in the sketch.

Standing in the Shoes - Mona Davila

I began thinking this project would be easy, but after destroying a few bars of soap I thought I could replicate some candles that I have that are in the shape of Martini glasses. I liked the shape and thought I could get the curves to carve out easily. I used a knife, spoon and chop sticks. It was a lot harder than I thought. The bar of soap became slippery if I held it too long. On the first bar of soap a piece fell off and could not be stuck back on so I had to start again with a new bar of soap. As you can see I still didn’t get close to it.

These are large candles in the shape of martini glasses. This is what I was trying to accomplish.

Standing in the Shoes - Caitlin Dack

Everyone, meet Sweet Pea. I carved her out of a green tea scented, 1 ½ X 1 ½ in bar of soap. Technically, this would be Sweet Pea version 3.0. I had to try a few times, using different kinds of soap. I carved her with a small pocket knife. I chose to make an elephant simply because I like them. Being so large in stature, they fascinate me with their grace and elegance; also, one of my first memories involved elephants. I was at a circus once when I was about 7 and an elephant named sugar picked me up with her trunk and put me on her back. For some reason, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t even scream. I suppose it was peaceful or something.

Standing in the Shoes - William DuBose

For my sculpture I decided to carve a boat out of a bar of soap. Through the whole process I would take off a small amount of soap with a sharp knife. The key to carving is to be precise in what needs to be taken off. This is due to the fact that once it is taken off it cannot be added again. Making the lines smooth around the whole hull was difficult because of both an unsteady hand and the medium wanting to peel more off than needed. Another difficult task was to make the object as symetrical as possible. Michelangelo had amazing talents in all of these difficult abilities. The legs of "David" are smooth and all the small features of the human body are matched to almost a lifelike appearance. Getting into the small places was diffucult due to only having a single carving piece. I had to maintain the image in my mind of what the final piece should look like. This can be difficult with a starting piece that is an oval or even a block. I now have a new respect for Michelangelo for being able to do this task with a medium as unforgiving as marble.

Standing in the Shoes - Kara Crouch

Above is a two-point perspective drawing. The first vanishing point is immediately to the left of the biggest (closest) tree along the horizon line. The second vanishing point is on the right side of the drawing at the end of the road, below the smallest set of clouds, also along the horizon line. Atmospheric perspective is illustrated through the blue hue of the objects furthest away. For example, the three trees get darker and bluer as they approach the vanishing point on the right. The sky and the clouds on the right side of the page are also a much darker blue near the vanishing point than they are on the left side of the page, which appear closest to the viewer. The hills also show the atmospheric perspective in that the left hills are a lighter green than the darker, bluer hills near the vanishing point on the right. The sky above the hills is also a darker blue. The houses and the trees are instrumental in showing how objects in the foreground (closer) are bigger than those in the background (further away). The tree furthest to the left is much bigger than the one furthest to the right (closer to the vanishing point). The house on the left is bigger than the house on the right; the features of the right house (windows, doors, bricks, etc.) also appear smaller because they are closer to the right vanishing point. The hills in the background are particularly useful. They not only show that as an object approaches the vanishing point, it gets smaller, but the hills also illustrate the background behind the houses. In real life, the hills are much larger than the houses, but they appear smaller in the drawing because they are far away. Most lines go toward the right vanishing point. The left vanishing point was used to create the sides and roofs of the houses; it was also used to create the horizontal lines of the sidewalks leading up to the houses.