I just finished watching Modern Marvels:Camouflage on the History Channel. Armies didn't even start using it until WWI, when a painter of angels named Abbott Thayer came to the attention of the American military. When he wasn't painting gorgeous, decorative females, he was studying how animals used markings to camouflage themselves from predators. The French took off with the idea and their military employed many artists to paint or decorate buildings, vehicles and compounds in appropriate camouflage. Not the most exciting job for an artist, but a very useful one, I'm sure.
So a lot of countries are asking for their antiquities back. While I can see their arguement, I think it is wholly unfair to the museums if they acquired them legally - or a very long time ago. Yes, the Getty museum is notorious for buying anything and everything they can get their hands on, regardless of provenance, but they are a minority, and should certainly know better. My point is, these items are well cared for in these museums, and the people living in those countries have the chance to see works that otherwise they would never even know existed. If Lord Elgin hadn't looted the marbles from Athens, they would probably be lost to the world by now (they were under fire from the Turks around that time IIRC).
One article I saw today just shows how extreme these demands are getting. A Nigerian professor is calling for the return of a bronze that was given to Queen Elizabeth in 1973 by the head of their government. I mean, if you can't keep items that have been given to you by a head of state, what can you keep? It's a lovely piece, too. There was a period during our middle ages and renaissance when African nations were producing the most astonishing bronze busts and figurines. The art seems to have been lost about the time that the trade routes vanished and some very fine civilizations collapsed. And I can't for the life of me remember the name of the city state that was the center of it. Can't look it up if I don't know the name. If you do, please tell me.
If you are ever in Chicago's Hyde Park - home of the University of Chicago - you must visit the small but extremely choice museum, The Oriental Instititute. This is the home to some of the most spectacular finds in archaeology and Egyptology. Back in the 20's, their archaeologists were out there in the deserts doing the Indiana Jones thing, and bringing back terrific pieces. My favorite piece was a colossal bull's head from Persia. The picture they have of it doesn't do it justice AT ALL. It's a magnificent piece, trust me, you just have to go see it.
They also have some very nice Egyptian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian pieces. They have a replica of the Palette of Narmer (this link takes you to the actual piece). I had the opportunity to see the original in the Cairo Museum. Not a beautiful or stunning piece of artwork, but probably the most important find in Egyptology. Yes, way more important than King Tut, who was a minor Pharoah, after all. For those of you more into popular movies than Egyptology, Narmer was also the "Scorpion King". Probably not as good looking as The Rock, but I'm sure there's not much in the way of accuracy in any other part of the movie, either.
All this talk about Postmodern art being anti-art has got me thinking. If an artist wants to do something new and different without being a total nihilist, what does he do? Not much, I'm afraid. Not that he can't create wonderful art that speaks to your heart and mind. That is hard to do, and should be something to strive for. So you won't be in the newspapers because you pissed someone off. Instead, you made people happy. Doesn't that count for something?
Just read a very fine article, again by Michael Newberry. In it he explains how Postmodern art is anti-art, and therefore nihilistic and destructive. Quite right. While I learned to understand some of the principles behind modern art in art school, I never learned to really respect it. Picasso was a visionary, a real artist who saw things a bit differently. However, by the time he was rich and famous, he was just cranking them out (imho). And everyone else were just sheep. The Dadaists were revolutionaries, but they weren't artists. Yes, it's important to see things in a different way. It's good to shock someone out of their rut, sometimes, but it is pointless to just gross them out or merely offend them. Postmodernists have missed the point, thinking that shocking, disgusting or offending someone is all there is to it.
I did like his mention of Rauschenberg's Erased De Kooning. Personally, I think anyone who erases a De Kooning is doing society a favor. He also talks about Cristo's Umbrellas, you know, the one in California where tons of money was spent on setting up hundreds of giant umbrellas along the coastal highway. One of them blew away in a storm and caused a fatal accident, so they dismantled it early. Anyway, he mentions this as being art as the absence of art. I don't quite see it that way. It was just taken down, a temporary visual experiment that was never meant to be anything more than "unique". I thought about Tibetan sand paintings, which are glorious works of art which take hours and hours to complete, but in the end, they are swept away as a symbol of the impermanence of things. I think the idea has value as a philosophical ideal.
One thing I miss in Mr. Newberry's article is the language used by modern art critics and historians today. I remember trying to read some of this drivel in school and being completely repelled by it. These people would take pages and pages to say absolutely nothing. To this day I don't remember what was written about in Theories if Modern Art by Chipp. It may be a symptom of academic rigor mortis, though. I started to read an article sent to me by an economist friend about the art market, and I couldn't get past the first sentence. I would put it here to show you, but I threw it out! Anyway, you'll find Mr.Newberry's article refreshingly free of the academic language that plagues so many critics of modern art.