CLASS TIME

In class we talked a lot about the human body. I found it very interesting that during different time periods people viewed the body in completely different ways. During the Meidieval Period, or the Dark Ages, they thought of life as a negative thing. They believed that it was just a pasing period. I cannot imagine going through life like this, thinking that it was just a completely negative time of suffering that all ended eventually. The people of this time humbled themselves because of this belief and did not feel that the human body was of any importance. However, the periods surrounding it did. I guess that I really thought about why figures were nude, I just realized that they were. I now know that figures were nude because the attitude of the people of that specific time period admired and almost worshiped the human body, for example the statue David. They felt that it was the most perfect thing on earth, so they depicted it over and over. In the Medieval Period however, very rarely are figures nude because they did not celebrate the human body at all. It is so interesting to me the drastic changes fromone time to another and their enormouse affect on art. This is why we must look at art to know and better understand societies of the past as well as our own.