Stonehenge reloaded?
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Impressive stuff...
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Funny that this is a mystery somehow.
Just try to build what ancient egyptians did, what ancient greeks and romans did.
To steal all these and have them in the british museum wasn't enough to trigger your logic?
Why Stonehenge will make this miracle possible? Because it exists there?To carve a piece of marble like Pheidias did, to have this drapery in marble... well, even Michelangelo's masterpieces look rather as caricatures side by side with such incredible moments of art. Michelangelo knew it very well. I hope you know it as well.
Do you know a way to carve a clean curve on a piece of marble? From another side of view this becomes a clean straight line. Can you do this "simple" LOL thing? Does anyone knows today how to do it? -
Michalis, can you please show us some samples of what you are referring to?
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@ Mike Lucey
I really don't understand this question Mike. The samples are already in the british museum. They are also around the mediterranean territory.
Do we have the slightest idea how they made them? Do we know how to curve a doric column as in athens acropolis?
In the 19th century, great architectures like Ernst Ziller created some very beautiful buildings in athens. This man had in work the "descendants " of the ancient greeks technicians in marble carving. The sculptors from the island of Tinos. They created some wonderful neoclassic architecture. Much superior than neoclassicism in Europe. But just stand and have a look on a doric column they constructed. Then compare it to the acropolis columns. They used the exactly same marble (penteli mountain marble). Even a CnC machine won't save you from a complete disaster. We have to admit it. We simply don't know how ancient athenians did it. It's not magic. we just don't know how to do it.
My post is in some cryptic format. I admit it.
BTW I can't even explain why the new beta carving-sculpting tool of blender is far superior to the more-than-ever powerful zbrush app. It's created for me. Can't talk further.
(please visit my "blender sculpting" post) -
We must never forget that those that came before were just as 'clever' as we are.
They were just 'different-clever'.
They had a world to fit into, just as we do.
They couldn't readily grasp how to use Sketchup if they appeared now: we couldn't readily carve a piece of granite into a perfectly symmetrical head if we traveled back in time...
For many many generations human-beings have had the ingenuity to do many wonderful things.
There are some particular examples of Egyptian large head carving in solid granite where they have perfect symmetry and the arcs/curves of the outlines are all wonderfully contrived... BUT it doesn't mean that 'aliens did it'... it's just that there were many brilliant guys around back then 'doing their thing' - in another generation they might have been an Einstein or a Descartes...
But never forget that long ago someone had to invent/discover fire/cookery/string/sewing/weaving/pottery/numbers/writing/tools/agriculture/flint-knapping/smelting/sleds/wheels/etc etc... let alone the more dramatic manifestations of our intellects like 'machines' and 'monumental-masonry'...
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@TIG
Well said.
But...@unknownuser said:
They couldn't readily grasp how to use Sketchup if they appeared now: we couldn't readily carve a piece of granite into a perfectly symmetrical head if we traveled back in time...
Can we do it now? To make it look like symmetrical not just be symmetrical because of a mathematical use of some tools like SU.
Do you have some logical prove of it, maybe you have to visit athens, see how they're trying to reconstruct some missing parts of acropolis. They can't and they know it.
Don't be blind.
The essence of sculpting-curving is to do it under the sun, trying to capture light.
Yes! It's the light. And the shadows. There isn't any outline around a sculpted mesh. This exists only in our logic and our damaged imagination.
Only shapes that capture lights and shadows. This is the only truth after all. Logic just helps. But there's a deeper way. Our poor senses. -
'We' perceive things as a synthesis of our experience and culture.
So did 'they'.
'Different horses for different courses...'However, I believe there's nothing 'we' [mankind] can't do... IF we put our mind to it... we just need the push/need/desire/etc to do it...
We don't need to [can't] make giant sculpted heads - they didn't need to [couldn't] invent computers !
Each generation has its own skills and priorities... but we are all human.
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@unknownuser said:
BTW I can't even explain why the new beta carving-sculpting tool of blender is far superior to the more-than-ever powerful zbrush app
and you have a new pretendant
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See this too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6gaj6huCp0
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[flash=560,315:3toyfrb3]http://www.youtube.com/v/IBMDcxMOk7g[/flash:3toyfrb3] -
Göbekli Tepe is a well known very ancient site of exceptional stone carving.
There's nothing 'magic' about it - except it shows us that 'we' [mankind] were capable of doing wonderful things, much earlier than we had [wrongly] supposed.
There is much about mankind's early history that we don't know - and might never know - but if we simply accept that 'we' are amazing at solving problems, but sometimes forget what 'we' have done before [e.g. two steps forward, one step back...] - then 'we' should just revel in 'our' brillianceWe've lost most of our ancient history between the last major ice-age up to the Egyptians/Mesopotamians/etc [or just recently the much earlier Göbekli Tepe-ians]... we might get some insights but we may never get a full picture...
No aliens required.
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@Pilou
and you have a new pretendant...
I don't, neither you. You have to try to sculpt under cycles previews in a sculptris like environment and see what I mean. It's called dynamic topology. C4d is far behind.
Out of topic but not completely. You see, to sculpt under a physically correct renderer is the equivalent of sculpting under the real light. Somehow. -
I am not an art history scholar, but very interested, so I ask did Pheidias do most of his work in marble or bronze?
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Pheidia's famous masterpieces, a Zeus in Olympia and Athena in acropolis, made using ivory and gold pieces on a wooden structure.
We know just a little on these, mostly from some funny small statues - copies. Unfortunately.
No, the best we have is the small fragments of the two gigantic compositions on the two pediments of parthenon. And all the gigantic series of the famous reliefs.
It's possible that even the whole parthenon is made under his personal art directing. Basically is a gigantic construction to hold his beautiful sculpture.
He was also a very close friend to Pericles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phidias
(Pheidias not Phidias, oh my)
Pheidias may did some bronze works, he may not... we don't know if a gigantic Athena in acropolis was his work for sure.
Parthenon, a gigantic modular construction. Precision is enormous.
Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Democracy was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although decoration of the Parthenon continued until 432 BC.
Compare these to the new acropolis museum of Bernard Tschumi ~1999-2007 . Mr Tschumi managed to achieve the opposite of parthenon, a monument of the "out of any scale", a real hubris. IMO. But gods are watching, this is the meaning of hubris.
See what happens in greece now...
Acropolis-Pathenon is basically a monument of Scale.
There isn't any outline around this building. Lines and shapes start from the seashore of Piraeus, through the hills of Attica and into the smaller detail of this building.
Under the cruel greek noon sun it captures the light and shadows. This enormous heavy building just flies.
Just imagine.
Make the drawings first (using what precise medium-tools?)
Go to the near mountain of Penteli, cut the curve the gigantic modules.
Bring them on the hill of acropolis.
Joint them together, final carving there and you have a monument of unsurpassed precision. 12 years of work.
Can we do it today?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon_(NashvilleA visit in the british museum is always a pleasure. I was sitting and looking these "elgin so called" marbles every day for two months.
Mouth opened. It's impossible for us to combine Euclid's geometry with something more fractal-chaotic.
A great abstract composition, but everyone believes that it's a wonderful naturalist work.
No other artist can curve the marble like Pheidias. You can recognize the great artist from miles away.
An endless combination of shapes, lights, shadows."the impression of mystery is felt before the "Three Fates" ... They are only three women seated, but they seem to be taking part in something of enormous import that we do not see."
(Rodin's quotes on Pheidias marbles) -
That was not understandting is how they worked in the past!
I gone there 2 years ago: Impossible to make anything during the day! 45 ° !!!
Maybe they are worked during the night or only during winter ?
or with that ?
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Have you been in egypt during the summer?
Bigger stones there.
What about the great ancient theater. Tragedies-dramas performed during the day from dawn till afternoon. Trilogies.
Under the sun. The night isn't the appropriate hour for such meanings.
Wearing their huts (chinese like) and eating onions and garlics.
Indeed, the great dramas of Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides under the smell of ailoli ::
And something sad.
On a tomb of a dog.
"Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most
faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet
alive; but now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of night."
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