Quite a pointed collection of imagery, since there's plenty to knuckle down and review.
One thing, regarding Michelangelo and your general worry over interpretation of the truth: where would you place the sensation of submersion into a painting, the feeling of the way it overpowers a viewer? As a novice in the medium myself, the experience is what I anticipate and recall best, compared to analyses.
It's hard to really put my finger on exactly how I feel about that sensation you describe. On one hand I really do enjoy getting lost in a painting. On the other hand it seems as if this attitude towards art is the exact sort of thing that gets all sentimentalized way too often—not to point the finger or anything, but, um, Kinkade. There was some sort of immersive Van Gogh experience that came through town a year or so ago, and I really wanted to go see it but the tickets were too much money; I doubt, though, that being in a room with walls and floors covered by imagery from any particular painting would give anyone a tighter grasp on its meaning.
But I haven't had much firsthand experience with this sort of thing. I would love to go to the Rothko Chapel someday to do some firsthand reporting on whether it is indeed as moving as everyone says it is. The Sistine Chapel itself, from the pictures I've seen in the books I've thumbed through, appears to be a very immersive and overpowering environment; every surface has been touched by the fingers of some artist or another.
Elkins is right, though, when he talks about "ambiloquys" and "monstrous ambiguity"—it is simply too difficult to assign a definite meaning to some paintings. Most images would, I assume, allow for the submersion that you mention—but when one specific detail sticks out like a sore thumb and begins to dominate the picture's meaning, the submersive effect can be lost.
All this I can work with, including the rejection of Kinkade as schlockish cotton candy (which we've discussed elsewhere). Maybe "getting lost" or "submersion" or "experience" are inadequate terms for the sensation I'm thinking of. It's closer to being mentally overpowered, where the "I" passes out of the mind in the presence of the artwork (the painting, prose, poem, music, etc). This seems to be an extra-mental meaning, either above or below more conscious description and analysis.
And certainly, images and their makers have features specifically meant to trip up this sensation. That's an awareness of the form and the viewer, itself a meaning also.
Would it be, perhaps, the same as getting "sucked into the action" in a movie—where it feels as if you are "right there," as if the movie is really real even though you're watching it on a tiny screen?
I agree that the Parmigianino painting is full of errors. If you look at it from just a perspective standard it is incredibly off. That figure in the lower right corner would be much bigger. Plus, while it's not surprising to find exaggerated body proportions in 16th century painting, Parmigianino's overall rendering is, to quote Larry David, "Pretty, Pretty, Pretty...all over the place."
Quite a pointed collection of imagery, since there's plenty to knuckle down and review.
One thing, regarding Michelangelo and your general worry over interpretation of the truth: where would you place the sensation of submersion into a painting, the feeling of the way it overpowers a viewer? As a novice in the medium myself, the experience is what I anticipate and recall best, compared to analyses.
It's hard to really put my finger on exactly how I feel about that sensation you describe. On one hand I really do enjoy getting lost in a painting. On the other hand it seems as if this attitude towards art is the exact sort of thing that gets all sentimentalized way too often—not to point the finger or anything, but, um, Kinkade. There was some sort of immersive Van Gogh experience that came through town a year or so ago, and I really wanted to go see it but the tickets were too much money; I doubt, though, that being in a room with walls and floors covered by imagery from any particular painting would give anyone a tighter grasp on its meaning.
But I haven't had much firsthand experience with this sort of thing. I would love to go to the Rothko Chapel someday to do some firsthand reporting on whether it is indeed as moving as everyone says it is. The Sistine Chapel itself, from the pictures I've seen in the books I've thumbed through, appears to be a very immersive and overpowering environment; every surface has been touched by the fingers of some artist or another.
Elkins is right, though, when he talks about "ambiloquys" and "monstrous ambiguity"—it is simply too difficult to assign a definite meaning to some paintings. Most images would, I assume, allow for the submersion that you mention—but when one specific detail sticks out like a sore thumb and begins to dominate the picture's meaning, the submersive effect can be lost.
All this I can work with, including the rejection of Kinkade as schlockish cotton candy (which we've discussed elsewhere). Maybe "getting lost" or "submersion" or "experience" are inadequate terms for the sensation I'm thinking of. It's closer to being mentally overpowered, where the "I" passes out of the mind in the presence of the artwork (the painting, prose, poem, music, etc). This seems to be an extra-mental meaning, either above or below more conscious description and analysis.
And certainly, images and their makers have features specifically meant to trip up this sensation. That's an awareness of the form and the viewer, itself a meaning also.
Would it be, perhaps, the same as getting "sucked into the action" in a movie—where it feels as if you are "right there," as if the movie is really real even though you're watching it on a tiny screen?
It's definitely comparable. Like paintings or photographs, film has that quality of immersion that makes it easy to be taken inside it.
When I was a kid we had a jigsaw puzzle of this painting by Peter Brueghel the Elder . . . it's a good one for getting lost in. https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/children%E2%80%99s-games-pieter-bruegel-the-elder/CQEeZWQPOI2Yjg
This is immersive even at a passive two-dimensional look, much less the intricate three-dimensional detective work of putting together a puzzle. Nice!
I agree that the Parmigianino painting is full of errors. If you look at it from just a perspective standard it is incredibly off. That figure in the lower right corner would be much bigger. Plus, while it's not surprising to find exaggerated body proportions in 16th century painting, Parmigianino's overall rendering is, to quote Larry David, "Pretty, Pretty, Pretty...all over the place."
Yes indeed!
Early Modigliani? The exaggerated body proportions, at least.
Modigliani seems to have made that sort of thing into his personal brand, almost.