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Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

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^ Agree with this.

Where does the "artistic genius" part come from? Why is the artifact considered "artistic genius"? We don't even know what the original looked like. Or is the claim of genius due to technique?
 
I don't think that's fair at all, and completely misinterprets both the meaning of artistic skill and probably the intention of the artist. Nobody measures the anatomical accuracy of the figures of the Cistine Chapel in order to assess Michaelangelo's status as an artist, and to my mind the overall effect of the image on the Shroud compares very well with any of the artist's contemporaries, such as Giotto, and also with later masters such as Durer and, indeed, da Vinci. I would agree that a single artwork is insufficient to classify any artist as greater than one with a much greater portfolio, as it were, but I certainly challenge Slowvehicle to find a more striking image of nobility in death at a Trader Joe's and to post it here.

i'm afraid Slowvehicle is confusing the argument against authenticity, which certainly does depend on anatomical accuracy, realistic fall of hair, bloodflows, and so on, with the argument for artistic impression, which certainly doesn't. It may be that the artist could indeed replicate the image of a real corpse, but decided not to because it looked grotesque rather than God-like, which was, of course, his intention.

Just as a sideline, I had been feeling I knew some sort of similar image to which the Shroud figure could be compared, and felt sure I had seen a painting of a Gothic warrior or possibly a Viking in a similar pose, and had been searching the internet to see if I could find something, when suddenly the Oscars were announced. And there it was.
 
I was thinking of how to reply to someone who asked me to give two reasons why the Shroud is medieval. ( I have to give a presentation on the Shroud to a group of Italians (in English, thank goodness) next week.) I came up with the following:
1) (Suggested to me by a specialist in the analysis of ancient and medieval weaving who tries to recreate the different weaving patterns.)If the Shroud was first century anyone who had any interest in ancient weaving would be amazed by it as the only surviving first century cloth of this size outside Egypt in existence. It would have been the subject of intense research by weaving experts as being totally unique. So why has no weaving expert spotted it as first century? The reason, my specialist went on, is that it is so typical in width and length of the product of a medieval treadle loom (first known in Europe after AD 1000) that no specialist in ancient weaving would ever imagine it to be any earlier.
2) There are 372 individual scourge marks on the Shroud, neatly criss-crossed front and back from the had to the feet. How would you manage a scourging like this in real life and how would anyone receiving it be then able to bear a cross? There is not a shred of evidence anywhere of scourging taking place like this- in fact it could only be conceived of a particularly nasty form of prolonged torture carried out until death had taken place, as it probably would after about two hundred marks- if only from shock effect (and how long would such a scourging take?).
Yet, although I have never read that he has seen the Shroud, Professor James Marrow of Princeton, who is an expert on the iconography of Passion narratives, specifically discusses all over scourge marks as being a purely artistic representation of Isaiah 1.6, a verse that talks of a body covered from top to toe in wounds and sores. It was assumed from about 1290-1300 onwards that this verse was premonition of what Christ would suffer. So even if a real scourging such as this could not be imagined, the power of the biblical verse was strong enough to influence an iconographical representation. (See the Holkham Bible and Roettgen Pieta for examples.)
I find the images haunting but I still have the problem of why the artist made such a poor job of representing what might have been left if a cloth had been lying on a real body and then lifted. I recently saw the extraordinary terracotta Lamentation of Niccolo dell'Arca in Bologna (poss. 1465) and here he has recreated a life size Christ lying down after being taken down from the across. He had everything right- the exact proportions of an actual body and the hair falling back towards the ground. Why could the artist of the Shroud not manage something similar if he was a great artist? The head of Christ on the Shroud is entirely conventional but of Christ as if he were standing upright!
There are lots of other reasons for placing the a shroud in the medieval period but these are the two that stand out and the second fits it into the fourteenth century- in fact bang in the middle of the radio- carbon dating ( and so possibly gives an even more precise dating than the wide-ranging carbon-14 dates).
 
hugh farey said:
I don't think that's fair at all, and completely misinterprets both the meaning of artistic skill and probably the intention of the artist. Nobody measures the anatomical accuracy of the figures of the Cistine Chapel in order to assess Michaelangelo's status as an artist, and to my mind the overall effect of the image on the Shroud compares very well with any of the artist's contemporaries, such as Giotto, and also with later masters such as Durer and, indeed, da Vinci. I would agree that a single artwork is insufficient to classify any artist as greater than one with a much greater portfolio, as it were, but I certainly challenge Slowvehicle to find a more striking image of nobility in death at a Trader Joe's and to post it here.
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First, Buonarotti, did, in fact, not only produce life-like, and eyecatching, human figures, he did so on concave surfaces, painting to allow for the distortion. The anatomical silliness of the image on the COQ is the first thing one notices, regarding the image.

Second, I am glad that, to you, the anatomically inaccurate, posturally impossible,mechanically preposterous, bit of torture porn (so very authentic in its new testament and historical details, to boot) on the CIQ moves you so as an image of "nobility in death". I do not find it so; nor did I offer the flashboards at TJ's as a representative of such.

What survives of the figure on the CIQ demonstrates a painfully inept hand of boringly banal technique.

hugh farey said:
i'm afraid Slowvehicle is confusing the argument against authenticity, which certainly does depend on anatomical accuracy, realistic fall of hair, bloodflows, and so on, with the argument for artistic impression, which certainly doesn't. It may be that the artist could indeed replicate the image of a real corpse, but decided not to because it looked grotesque rather than God-like, which was, of course, his intention.
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I'm "afraid" you misread my post. There is no "argument for authenticity", the CIQ is 800 years old. My post was in response to the supposed "artistic excellence" of the markmaking. Tastes vary, certainly; but the CIQ is technically outdone by the Lascaux doodles; graphically surpassed by the Two Buck Chuck ad.

hugh farey said:
Just as a sideline, I had been feeling I knew some sort of similar image to which the Shroud figure could be compared, and felt sure I had seen a painting of a Gothic warrior or possibly a Viking in a similar pose, and had been searching the internet to see if I could find something, when suddenly the Oscars were announced. And there it was.
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Did you, perhaps, omit a sentence, or a link?

Where what was?
 
The image on the Shroud reminds me of the Oscar statuette, which is itself an Art Deco form of a Byzantine style of imagery. Wikipedia tells us it's a crusader - it's certainly holding a sword. I wonder if the Shroud artist was similarly influenced.
 
hugh farey said:
The image on the Shroud reminds me of the Oscar statuette, which is itself an Art Deco form of a Byzantine style of imagery. Wikipedia tells us it's a crusader - it's certainly holding a sword. I wonder if the Shroud artist was similarly influenced.
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Well, the "artist" of the image on the CIQ being influenced by the artistic taste of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science would, in fact, explain many things...
 
Charles Freeman said:
The reason, my specialist went on, is that it is so typical in width and length of the product of a medieval treadle loom (first known in Europe after AD 1000) that no specialist in ancient weaving would ever imagine it to be any earlier.
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Oh, dearie me, Charles, you're a difficult man to support in the face of opposition, although here, among the less critical, of course it's less of a problem. But really, I have never known a student of the Shroud who has consulted so many experts and specialists, not one of whom cares to be named or even questioned as to the evidence by which they came to their conclusions. Of course your specialist may be correct, and medieval France was knee-deep in herringbone linen of that 'typical length and width' but has he/she any evidence at all, just one example, just one loom in just one museum, or just one illustration in just one manuscript, to begin to support such a statement? We surely know that of the hundreds of bits of woven linen across Europe there are two or three minute fragments of 3/1 herringbone and no more. Is there any evidence that such a weave was typical? Please get back to just one of your experts, art historian, pathologist, textile specialist, any of them at all and ask for one teeny weeny shred of evidence to justify their expertise. Copy this comment to them if you like! It might at least invoke a wry smile.

(ps. It's just occurred to me that of course you might have all this evidence and be on the point of publishing the definitive proof of the medieval provenance of the Shroud such that none could sensibly deny it. In which case I withdraw my request and look forward to its publication. I just hope I live long enough to see it.)
 
Strange question. The White House is only 200 years old, but lots of people are interested in how it was designed, its architecture and environment. How does the age of an artefact lessen its interest?
 
hugh farey said:
Strange question. The White House is only 200 years old, but lots of people are interested in how it was designed, its architecture and environment. How does the age of an artefact lessen its interest?
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You're being - I think the polite term is "disingenuous". You have said of the dating of the Shroud
hugh farey said:
(ps. It's just occurred to me that of course you might have all this evidence and be on the point of publishing the definitive proof of the medieval provenance of the Shroud such that none could sensibly deny it. In which case I withdraw my request and look forward to its publication. I just hope I live long enough to see it.)
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So do I hope that.
 
Yes, Hugh. There is lots of good evidence for the treadle loom scenario. The width of the Shroud is particularly interesting as to this day 45 ins is one if the standard widths if you buy a treadle loom. The six pieces of the linen Zittau Veil come to a total width of 6.80 m- compare the average with the Shroud width of 113 cm and this is, of course, one of the standard medieval cloth widths. The length is particularly important -we have a nice medieval illustration from Triniity Cambridge of a treadle loom with a pattern being woven and the length being rolled up. Ancient looms did not do length.

You are,of course, quite right. The only way to make academic progress on the Shroud at the moment is to have hypotheses supported by specialists and published by respectable journals or documentary makers. My History Today article has sparked off quite a lot of interest. (Incidentally it now seems accessible online again though without most of the illustrations ) My weaving experts ( and other experts they themselves have suggested) have already been interviewed for a proposal which, among other things, would involve weaving the Shroud pattern on a treadle loom to show how it was done. So, of course, I cannot publish any names but hope that the funding will come through and eventually everything will be in the open. This proposal has involved an extensive interview with me for which I provided a105 slide presentation on all aspects of the Shroud but it is a production which is totally independent of me- it is simply that the same experts I have consulted are also being consulted for this proposal so I assume they will say or weave much the same thing as they have told me. Patience,Hugh.
 
Carbon Dating Doubts/Memorandum Fraud?

hugh farey said:
You can find Scavone's paper at ww.shroud.com/bar.htm.
As for doubts about the d'Arcis memorandum, there is no doubt that is exists, and there is no doubt that it says what it says. There is doubt about whether it was actually sent and received, and anyone may speculate that it was a pack of lies from start to finish, but evidence for that is non-existent.
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Hugh,
- Shouldn't that be "proof" rather than "evidence"?
 
Carbon Dating Doubts/Memorandum Fraud?

hugh farey said:
Not really a good analogy. For a start, lots of people, it appears, do trust Hillary Clinton...
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Hugh,
- I'm not sure where that leads -- unless, you trust her.
- These days, at least, lots of people, apparently, trust D'Arci.
 
Jabba said:
hugh farey said:
You can find Scavone's paper at ww.shroud.com/bar.htm.
As for doubts about the d'Arcis memorandum, there is no doubt that is exists, and there is no doubt that it says what it says. There is doubt about whether it was actually sent and received, and anyone may speculate that it was a pack of lies from start to finish, but evidence for that is non-existent.
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Hugh,
- Shouldn't that be "proof" rather than "evidence"?
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Are you seriously proposing that doubts and speculations without any supporting evidence are the equivalent of proof?

Jabbanese is a very strange language.
 
Jabba said:
hugh farey said:
Not really a good analogy. For a start, lots of people, it appears, do trust Hillary Clinton...
Click to expand...


Hugh,
- I'm not sure where that leads -- unless, you trust her.
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I have some bad news for you Jabba.

The objective truth is independent of your personal faith in the thoughts of your current Least Critical Poster.



Jabba said:
- These days, at least, lots of people, apparently, trust D'Arci.
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Lots of people trust Oprah.


Horror.jpg
 
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