8.1K
Downloads
63
Episodes
The ArtiFact Podcast is a long-form show on books, culture, painting, and music hosted by Alex Sheremet, Joel Parrish, and a revolving door of co-hosts and guests. Each subject is covered in depth and at length, with past shows featuring the Epic of Gilgamesh, Charles Johnson's "Oxherding Tale", Leonard Shlain’s "Art & Physics", John Williams's "Stoner", and more. Opinionated, controversial, and prone to making enemies and friends of friends and enemies, ArtiFact delivers new perspectives on the arts by artists of talent.
Episodes
Saturday Jun 26, 2021
Saturday Jun 26, 2021
Leonard Shlain (1937 - 2009) was a surgeon, inventor, and author whose 1991 book "Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light" shaped much of our artistic thinking. Shlain’s core argument is: the great (visual) artists are visionaries who are able to presage discoveries in other fields by cultivating their own, more individualistic work. But how can we actually use Leonard Shlain’s theories for understanding individual works of art? And is this form of analysis enough?
You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nbQp9mGnHs
Read the latest writing from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com
Joel's website: https://poeticimport.com
Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com
Music sample: Lowkemia - "Lorem Ipsum" (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Timestamps:
0:00 – Defining Leonard Shlain’s core argument
5:20 – Does art ‘merely’ organize one’s perceptions?
9:28 – Joel: people don’t want to parse out ambiguous terms
11:05 – Alex: nonvisual artists prefigure reality, as well
19:38 – Why society laughs at innovators
25:12 – Joel opines on the mutual benefits of art/science
29:30 – Euclidean geometry in ancient art
34:40 – Alex: art over-compensates for new knowledge
39:30 – Mosaic in the Middle Ages: Shlain’s “just-so” story?
44:00 – Giotto’s proto-perspective
48:57 – Joel on the need to contextualize Giotto & period art
55:05 – Alex: every artistic “problem” forces its own solution
57:50 – A few words on Leonardo da Vinci
01:05:56 – Joel shows off his woolen lamb
01:09:47 – Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro
01:13:54 – Edouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass”
01:36:21 – Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series
01:50:04 – Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Crows”
02:01:32 – Henri Matisse’s “The Dance”
02:12:21 – Leonard Shlain’s argument for Cubism
02:17:38 – Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”
02:29:50 – Alex: Marcel Duchamp was a lot more mature than big-name Modernists
02:32:52 – Marc Chagall's "I And The Village"
02:36:43 – Leonard Shlain on Asian art
03:01:49 – Hokusai's "36 Views of Mount Fuji"
03:43:17 – What does today’s art tell us about society?
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.