The idea that when you make sculpture you're pulling out a form that is already in the rock is BS. It sounds good but doesn't convey what is actually going on. In a sense you're frequently (but not always) both imposing your will on the stone and finding forms that are already there because you see the grain structure of the stone and work with that. Lots of classic sculptures ignore this and it's obvious when you look at them that the artist made the shape he wanted in spite of the structure of the stone not being well suited to the form sculpted. I don't believe for one second Michelangelo's Pietà was already in a piece of marble
John Thornton
Chris Doss wrote:
> True, but really this makes it even less of an attempt to impose human will on the universe. It's an attempt to impose the divine will.
>
> I think the whole idea of humans imposing their will on the world is pretty recent. I mean, it's alien to the Greek idea of tekhne. When you carve a statue out of a rock, you're not imposing an idea on it, you're pulling out a form that's already there. And in both paganism and Judeo-Christianity, if you try to impose yourself on the world what usually happens to you is a sound ass-kicking from the god(s).
>
> --- On Tue, 10/14/08, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> Most of the complex wasn't used as a tomb and
>> advertising with huge
>> monuments the location of interred wealth is not much a
>> defense.
>> We obviously do not know the exact function of this complex
>> but as some
>> form of a reproduction of celestial importance there can be
>> no real doubt.
>>
>> John Thornton