Really Excellent Pointing In Western Art History

by Mallory Ortberg · February 2, 2016

“You, there. And you two. All of you. Put that chest of jewels down at once, you…you dampish gambollers. Stop enjoying yourselves.”

 

point2

what is that
what is what
the little curl-skinned man what’s doubled over of feet
what
with the twice feet
and the skin in curl shapes
the sheep?
is that what you call him
it’s not what I call him
it’s what he’s called
ask your folded-over skinfriend if he can answer a question for me
he’s not my anything
he’s just a sheep
I tire of this argument
ask the folded man

 

point7

BOOK

 

point8

BIRD

 

point6

lift it up in case there are hidden shoes underneath there, I don’t know what it is but maybe there’s some shoes if you look

 

point4

i dont like this one 
you can have him 

 

point3

its an animal but backwards 
highly drollful
i mean i’m no comedian but
come on with the drollery

 

point5

A CHICKEN, SUN-HEAD-FRIEND
A CHICKEN INDEED
A CHICKEN AGREEMENT
YESWARD CHICKEN TIMES
AHAHAHAHA
NORMAL CONVERSATION, EXEUNT

 

point9

i just came down from Heaven to tell you those guys over there are fighting
look but dont make it look like you’re looking okay
just if you don’t look you’re going to miss seeing some guys fight so
dont miss it!!

 

point10

[simultaneously] WHADDAYA GONNA DO
THIS GUYYYYYY
WHY I OUGHTAAAA

[Images via]

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


115 Comments

    2. suzynjackson +68

      Oh, those are cherubim. They don’t have bodies – just heads with wings.

      Continuing from the “weirdly specific knowledge” thing from yesterday, I would really love to have my area of knowledge be all the different types of angels – cherubim, seraphim, putti, archangels, dominions, etc etc etc. Must to read up.

        2. atlasblue85 +17

          YEP when I was a kid I really hated Many Waters and now I still have some issues with it but they are very different than when I was 11 BUT I appreciate it and like it a lot more now than I did then.

          A Swiftly Tilting Planet is still one of the best books ever written though.

      2. perianwen +10

        Wait, I thought cherubim were the ones with bodies? Is that not so? What do we call those ones then?

          1. threatqualitypress +29

            Sacred Texts is a really good website though!

            The confusion here is the difference between the Cherubhim as a heraldic or medieval symbol (a head with wings), and the Cherubhim as an Old-Testament angel. In ancient Semitic mythologies, it’s often represented as a fusion of bull, lion, human, and eagle (connected to the Four Living Beings that support God’s throne, and later on connected to the four evangelists). Sometimes it is a winged bull or lion with a human face, sometimes it has all four animal faces simultaneously. (This is the description from the Book of Ezekiel.)

            Probably it’s related to the Assyrian shedim or Lammasu, a winged bull with a human face, which was a pretty common motif indicating divinity.

          2. threatqualitypress +11

            or wait I don’t know, maybe actually I misread this whole situation and you were just talking about renaissance art motifs, sorry

          3. suzynjackson +15

            I want to know about art, I want to know about scripture, I want to know about mythology – ALL THE ANGELS, lay it on me.

          4. threatqualitypress +18

            well, interestingly, in the Old Testament the Cherubim aren’t called angels at all — that came later on from scholars who wanted to order the divine supernatural beings.  “Angel” is the Greek word for messenger (a translation of the Hebrew “malakim”, I think?), and is only used to refer to beings specifically on errands from God, whereas the Cherubim did all kinds of other stuff, like hold up the throne of Heaven and guard the garden of Eden &c.

          5. suzynjackson +19

            Cool beans.

            I want to be an angelologist.

            Seriously, though, I’m astonished at the specificity of how angels get described, given the lack of, um, presumably reproducible empirical evidence. Not that, y’know, Ancient Church Fathers were really big on reproducible empirical evidence in general, but… yeah. Angels are everywhere, in all sorts of cultures – why?

          6. threatqualitypress +39

            well, in my own opinion, a lot of this has to do with a kind of retroactive inclusion of supernatural beings into the category of angel — like, you can see it first in Christianity, once “angel” becomes the word for the servants of god, and then everything gets rolled up into it, like the Cherubim, who seem pretty clearly to be a survival of a weird Assyrian monster.  Then, because the Church is doing a lot of the scholarship in Europe, anything that looks like an angel in another culture gets similarly rolled into that definition.

            It’s particularly interesting because if you consider how we look at angels in the west now, like, what are the things we’ll call an angel?  Obviously, a messenger from god or something, but also the spirits of our dead relatives.  And if you’re going to broaden the category of angel so much that it’s going to include ancestor spirits and divine servants and personifications of natural phenomena, then it’s already so broad that of course everyone is going to have something like that.

            So you know, ancient Chinese cultures have got divine messengers, obviously, and we might call them angels, but they don’t look anything like Cherubim or Seraphim.

            This is just my feeling on it, anyway, I did a lot of reading on it in college when I was trying to convince my school to create a major in medieval demonology and folklore.

          7. suzynjackson +16

            Thank you. That sounds like a very cool major. For my thesis, I took variations on Cinderella from all over (earliest from China, which explains the tiny foot fetish) and then rolled them all up into a play, which still only managed to be one act, even though I gave the Prince his own arc.

            Any book reccs?

          8. threatqualitypress +9

            unfortunately not really, I don’t remember basically anything I did in college except as a kind of fog of trivia

            however, I will say that tooling around on Sacred-Texts through original source material is a pretty good time

          11. Caelyd +6

            OR they’re an ancient way to mentally parse alien visitations, which is way kookier and yet not disprovable

  3. Lizzie_Sidds +255

    NORMAL CONVERSATION EXEUNT sums up all my professional and social interactions with new people.

  5. Es_Petal +181

    Will I get fired if I reply to all work queries with ‘I tire of this argument, ask the folded man’ and do I care?

      1. feelingofgaze +15

        Mr Gaze and I not infrequently end conversations with “Your story has become tiresome” a la Dieter Sprockets. So…

  6. spring chickens +39

    You didn’t include my favorite one, the Goya painting of the woman pointing proudly at Goya’s name written in the sand at her feet! Aaaaah, that is an amazing case of pointing! Though I guess this is a round-up of historicist silly paintings involving pointing, not great artworks that will outlast time.

    The final painting is amazing. Even the lion is embarrassed for (all of) them! And Zeus borrowed his hovercraft-on-the-half-shell from Aphrodite?

    1. SkellingtonRose +27

      I love the combo of the embarrassed lion, disapproving lamb, and horse that’s even more PO’d than God.

      2. foxinthe_snow +13

        I like the rather mature looking cherub who is tickling God behind the knee and giving the viewer a death stare. Question though, why the bowling ball? Did they interrupt God while he was taking the cherubs for a game?

    2. GinnyQ9 +48

      These comments showcase the brilliance of one of my friend’s favorite games to play in art museums: God or Zeus? Without looking at the title of the painting, see if you can guess which.

      It’s harder than you’d think.

  8. janekathy1 +36

    I have nothing to say, commenting anyway. I’m speechless with laughter, and demonstrating absolutely no regard for my fellow automobile passenger–which in this case is misandry! So, very successful Western Art History installment. A plus plus, would read again if I thought I would be able to breathe.

  9. Unreadaethel +24

    In #2, is John the Baptist (? I don’t have Chrome) supposed to be gently cupping his junk, or is that just unfortunate placement of his cross-holding hand/a desperate attempt to keep his camel skin in place?

        1. aurorabirdialis +6

          Perhaps he is checking to make sure he won’t become a folded man himself. I could see him being concerned that the folding would naturally start with his junk. He looks junk-anxious.

  10. falcofield +22

    WHAT CREATURE IS TO THE LEFT OF THE MAN NOT LOOKING AT THE DUDES FIGHTING?

    A horse? A horse-snake thing? A dinosaur-headed snail? Someone help me.

    1. flying_ghoti +58

      It’s a dragon! On Athena’s instruction, Cadmus just killed it and sowed its teeth in the field, then threw a rock in among them to set all the warriors who grew out of the teeth to fighting, and now Athena’s come back to say, “see, I told you, this is definitely the best way to spend a boring Sunday afternoon.”

  11. sarawr +54

    The BOOK guy is Ye Olde James Franco, is it not? I am not having a very specific art-related Franco Hallucination?

      1. applefritter +9

        I saw Driver then Franco then Driver again and now I’m wondering if those two look alike and I just never noticed til now.

        1. owlbrick +11

          They both have that goofy, lanky, adam’s-appley kind of thing going, so I can see that. They oughtta play brothers sometime.

          edit: in a period piece where they dress like book guy, maybe?

  13. itscalledadairy +83

    I would pay all of the money for this series to be a coffee table book that I can hold in my hands.

    2. feelingofgaze +7

      I shudder to imagine the licensing fees involved, though…

      I think Mallory should hold Toast meetups in museums, for sure.

      1. malsperanza +21

        Most of these images are out of copyright, so the only cost would be to get hands on a reproduction quality scan. Might not be so expensive, And fair use might be an option. This is totally doable … I speak as someone in the art book publishing biz.

        2. feelingofgaze +7

          Question: (barring the recent trend towards digitizing collections for public access/fair use/private use) it’s my understanding that most museums keep their major collection pieces under some sort of image copyright. Like, if you were wanting to reprint something that hangs in the Louvre, you need to go through their photo agency to acquire permission and print quality files (and pay fees commensurate with use). (http://www.louvre.fr/en/conditions-use-images)
          And that museums not holding copyright on works that appear on their walls, say, on loan or in a traveling exhibition, are generally subject to stricter “no photographs” policies.

          That’s also why they said our art history books were always so damned expensive!

          1. malsperanza +9

            That is, in fact, exactly why your art history books were always so damned expensive. But a couple of things are changing:

            1) museums are rethinking their policies, and many museums now do not charge any license fee – or a much smaller one. British Museum, Rijksmuseum, NGA Washington, many others. Sadly, the Louvre is not one of them yet. So a savvy author can pick artworks from the most open-access-oriented museums.

            2. The museums have zero – really, zero – copyright ownership of the works on their walls. They are licensing *access* to the image scans, nothing more. (The parallel is a library, which has zero copyright in the books on its shelves.) A few claim to have a copyright in the *photo* of the painting (that photo of the Mona Lisa is supposedly a different thing than the Mona Lisa), but US courts have said, resoundingly, “Sorry, we call bullshit on that,” at least wWith respect to 2D art such as paintings — not true of 3D works, where the photographer might really have a copyrightable angle, lighting, shadow, etc. So The Toast should publish with a US or UK publisher, as this legal position (called in intellectual Property circles “Bridgeman,” after the key court case) is recognized mostly in the US and UK.

            3. So, don’t go to the museum that has the painting. If the painting itself is an Old, and its copyright has expired (as in every one of the pictures above), go find an image elsewhere, such as putting a nice art book on a good scanner and pressing the button. (Or go to a stock house where the image fee is cheap.) This is what publishers are doing, and it is now understood by most museums to be legal. They may not like it, but they’re gradually accepting it. The kicker is this: if you scan the picture from a book, you have to do certain things technically to make it good enough to print in another book. Whereas the images on a website (such as the ones above–which I dare say were used without museum permission, quite legally) can be much lower resolution and quality. So your publisher would need to work with you. And some publishers are still not up to speed on these latest developments in copyright practice, but the art publishers all definitely are.

            4. When you see a “no photography” notice in a museum it is almost never the museum’s own preference. It is one of 2 things: a) the art on the walls is still in copyright and the artist or artist’s estate has prohibited photos. (Applies to 20th c. and contemporary works only.) b) A lender who is presumably a huge jerk has stipulated that the work will only be loaned if photography is prohibited. Museums hate this – museums want the public to post their stuff all over Facebook and Instagram and the Twitt. So museums are trying to avoid the prohibition by placing a “no photo” sign only next to individual works, wherever they can. It’s still spotty, but it’s improving. And it has no bearing on publishing a book.

            5. Fair use, grrlfriend: http://www.collegeart.org/fair-use/best-practices
            Publish with a US press, because fair use is US law (and in a watered-down way in the UK too). A commercial book like Pointing at Things might not be able to rely on fair use, but it depends on how the work is used. This requires a savvy publisher because it gets a bit complicated, but you’re right that the recent trend to recognize lots of uses as fair is increasing – and not only with respect to digitizing collections (Google Books, library uses) but also with respect to commercial uses.

            Sorry, long.

  14. SkellingtonRose +47

    Everything inch of that last one is amazing! Adam/Eve/snake blame game, winged heads, God’s bowling ball…. my favorites have to be confused head scratching putti and the one next to him looking at the camera like it’s The Office.

  16. fcjaugusta +14

    Is #6 Achilles getting his new armor? “Listen, I brought this for you, but NO letting your subordinates make off with it this time. Hephaestus doesn’t mass produce this stuff, you know.”

  17. walrathem +11

    I feel like the flying person in #9 is saying “look at them fight! Doesn’t it look like fun? Don’t you want to join in?!” and dude (who I guess is a sea serpent farmer?) is clearky thinking “That looks a little bit dangerous don’t you think?”

    OOoooh lookit the pretty bows on the sea serpent farmer’s feet. Those are some odd dog-faced shoes he has on.

    1. OoTheHumanities +12

      Plus she is the only one with an even remotely normal face, even if she looks like she is having her blood pressure checked. The whole tableau is full of crazy faces. Crazy damn faces!

        2. OiSunshine +9

          I assume this is the Gin Lane-style message of the painting. “Alcohol makes an arse of us all – like this one, see.”

  20. Sforza +7

    I have to agree with the pointing lady in #6. The [i]putto[/i] in question is clearly up to no good. After all, they’re facing away from the viewer and also they’re carrying a quiver full of arrows! I guess it might just be Cupid, but I refuse to take chances.

    Also, the pointy dude in #1 has himself an awesome piece of headgear! Although I think it’s a little weird that all the dudes are fully clothed and all the women (or possibly mermaids) are completely nude… 🙁

  22. builtahouse +34

    honestly impressed with #5’s pillar-pointing drapery goes beyond the simple Not-A-Bra to Wearing A Cloth Halter To Emphasize How Not Covered The Girls Are.

    1. VioletandIrises +20

      It’s like she’s wearing a sports bra backwards, because pointing is the opposite of a sport. It’s serious business.

      1. builtahouse +13

        I feel like several Instagram models will be miffed to discover that they did not invent body-chains. 😛

  24. VioletandIrises +7

    The guy in #7 clearly does not know how to food. He’s holding that spoon in the least comfortable position possible and his cheeks are stuffed to the point where it looks like he can’t chew.

  25. clarecat +18

    with the twice feet
    and the skin in curl shapes
    the sheep?
    is that what you call him

    Am I the only one who heard this in Bob Fossil’s voice?

  26. Period_eye +29

    Last one plus Ortberg caption is totally appearing in my class at some point. Whadda ya gunna do? indeed.
    TOTALLY VALID CAPTION.
    signed,
    An art historian

  27. alula_auburn +16

    If you want to really excel at pointing, it seems very sensible to wear a hat with a bird whose beak points with you. Well-played, painting 1!

  28. RunGracieRun +10

    I don’t understand why she’s pointing at the goat butt? Is it symbolism? Somebody who speaks Art please tell me.

    1. malsperanza +16

      Supposedly she is pointing at the vegetables on the ground, not the goat, but the perspective is all frelled up so it’s hard to tell. The vegetables are obviously an Erotic Pun. (That is just how the 17th century rolled: cabbages bwahahha! Turnips nudgenudge winkwink! ) The whole painting is a thigh-slappin’ comedy: vulgar peasants wolfing down food, baby peeing, etc. More or less an eat-drink-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die sort of thing.

  31. alula_auburn +26

    When my mom and her brothers were kids, my grandfather thought pointing was essential to a decent vacation photo. Point at Mount Rushmore! Point at the lake! Point at the tent!

  34. msbias +9

    The little girl pointing at the bird isn’t very good at pointing at all. Her finger is nowhere near the bird!