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There are a
lot of things that are very interesting to me about that
25,000 year old sculpture.
For one
thing: 25,000 years! That's over 12 times older
than biblical times. That's older than cave paintings.
Heck, that's older than "civilization" -- human
beings were hunter-gatherers 25,000 ago (hence an artifact
that can be carried around).
Another
thing is that the human figure is not realistic -- it is
interpreted. By today's standards, the figure is fat,
with pendulous breasts, high butt, exaggerated genitalia,
and so forth. Further the "unimportant"
stuff, like arms & face, are deemphasized. The
theory -- in a hunter-gather society, a fat woman would
represent riches and perhaps a sexual ideal.
But the
point is that throughout history, the figure has been warped
to accommodate some societal ideal. For example, the
noble Greek sculptures of men -- their legs were too long,
their elder heads were on teenagers' bodies, the muscles
were exaggerated with too deep clefts.
Photography
changed all that. With a normal image, you can't change
the model's proportions. Or is that true? I
can make a model's legs seem longer with the careful placement
of a wide angle lens; conversely, I can make a model's legs
seem short & stubby the same way.
But I
tend to pursue the real, because for me, the "realer"
the more "ideal".
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