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IN A NUTSHELL

We explore this beautiful city well beyond its surface - with us, you will find out all you need to know about Parisian history, art and architecture but also great food (especially chocolate), edgy clubs, jazz joints, charming flea markets and much more.

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The connection between the technique, and importan

The connection between the technique, and importance of the technique, and the values of the employer ordering a significant amount of artwork, is best illustrated in the example of the famous Medici family.

Eponymous of the era, the Medici are also the perfect example of the quality that became prominent during the renaissance, and is one of the most important bourgeois values – that of a self-made person. The notion of being self-made, of ascending on a social ladder, is naturally repulsive to an aristocrat, whose whole identity and value is inherited. To those born into privilege, who draw all of the sense of superiority or even self-worth from this set of circumstance, the idea of affirming oneself appears as quite bizarre. To a bourgeois, however, a trained professional who needs to acquire their skill to earn the respect of their peers, this is a given. The Medici family is the great example of ambition being fructified in the most successful manner possible. Originally a family of bankers, the Medici bought the noble titles as soon as they were wealthy enough to do so, but, they were also smart enough to know that the true source of their influence and power was, and remained to be, the wealth they created through financial machinations.

The best possible image of a family that rose through the ranks of society thanks to their skill, cunning, intelligence as well as thanks to their ruthlessness, ambition and the propensity to ‘walk over corpses’ to succeed, the Medici truly represented the best and the worst of the period. They showed by example that the power of money was ultimately the only power that mattered. With enough wealth, one could buy the land, the aristocratic title, even the papal position – as they have, more than once. Money could buy everything, and the Medici indeed have.

#medici #renaissance #placedesvosges #art #paris #body #bodypolitics

The idea of work sculpting the body is quite impor

The idea of work sculpting the body is quite important. The bourgeois projected themselves in the past, and used the classical antiquity (their own idea of the classical antiquity) as a vehicle for that particular worldview.

As is often the case with propaganda vehicles, the past is used as a substantiation, and a legitimate argument for the position that is taken in the present. Likewise, if an official authority is to be criticized, it can be too dangerous to just plainly and openly do it in a direct manner. It is always far better to situate the criticized situation in the past, using the well-known mythical figures instead of the actual, real people that are being criticized instead. In this manner, the said pope, king or aristocrat that is being provoked and depicted as corrupt, cruel or incompetent, cannot fight against the criticism, lest they admit the wrong-doing they have been accused of, or at least, show that they recognize themselves in it.

This technique of criticism has been used with great skill in the renaissance, as well as in all of the sequent eras, including our own. Seen from the bourgeois point of view, all of the world not engaging in work, actual, wealth creating work, are idle sloths of no real use to the society. In this regard, the virtue that is celebrated is work, in all its glory. This tendency is very easy to spot in the Dutch painting of the 17th century, that is openly Protestant, and equally openly mostly interested in all sorts of work, be it done out of hobby or out of necessity. Vermeer is a great example of a painter interested in work and generally all things bourgeois. Still, the same tendency is visible centuries before, in Italy and generally the North of Europe, though less obviously so. In these paintings, the bourgeois and the then nascent protestant worldview is present in the figuration, geometric composition, general simplicity and a sense of rigor, the penchant for structure and order, and, perhaps above all, the great emphasis on the skill of the artist.

The latter is the greatest pride of the guild member, and the confirmation of their hard earned title of master. Technique is everything.

The human body as the image of effort is the stapl

The human body as the image of effort is the staple of renaissance aesthetics. The muscular form is not necessarily that of the warrior. One could imagine that a warrior, an aristocrat, would cultivate a robust physique, and indeed, some of them did.

However, there are a few things to consider. First of all, the warrior does not need to have sculpted, bulging muscles. In terms of warfare, being agile and fast was more important than being bulky and strong. Also, being capable of riding or walking for a prolonged period of time was more important than being able to produce short bursts of great strength. Robust, muscular physique comes from these; whereas a prolonged, sustained effort produces lankier, smaller bodies. If we observe the renaissance portraits of aristocracy, we can mostly see a lot of lanky, elegant bodies, not a lot of prodigious behemoths, nor mountains of muscle – the accent seems to be on their elegance and poise. While a considerable number of them pose in armor, one can rather observe the arrogance and artificiality of their pose, and the meticulous ornamentation of the said armor, than the actual warrior charisma, or simply appearance.

On the other end are the actual strongmen of the renaissance, naked bodies projected towards the classical antiquity. The bourgeois knew all too well that their city dwelling bodies, honed and sculpted by bookkeeping, would never impress anyone, so instead of portraying themselves as demi-gods, they projected the desired aesthetic in the mythical past. The bourgeois praised work, and wanted to depict a body sculpted by work. It did not matter that the type of work they did produced bodies of bookkeepers – they imagined themselves as titans.

#body #bodypolitics #bodybuilding #muscularbody #fountain #renaissance #placedesvosges #city #citylife #paris #marais

Our position is therefore simple. The renaissance

Our position is therefore simple. The renaissance artist did not, all of a sudden, become aware of the classical antiquity. They did not ‘discover’ the antiquity, as it is sometimes stated in different history of art books.

The medieval period, much like the renaissance, was thoroughly drenched in classical antiquity, submerged in it. The usage of Latin was more prevalent during the medieval period, one of the chief reasons for it being that the scholars sought to perpetuate and continue the heritage of Rome. Our take is that it was not the rediscovery of antiquity that created the renaissance, as Europe was well aware of the said period throughout the Middle Ages, but the aesthetic formulation of the bourgeois world view. We read and analyse the said era via this particular prism, both its visuals and its ideas. In this regard, we see some aspects of the renaissance aesthetics as self-evident. For example, one can easily notice the difference in figuration between the medieval and the renaissance body. The medieval one is in most cases quite lean, even emaciated. On the other hand, the renaissance body becomes more and more muscular as the style develops, until the pinnacle of mass is achieved in Michelangelo’s titanic form.

Increased interest in musculature of the human body is not due to the discovery of the statues and paintings of the classical antiquity, in particular those of the Hellenistic period. It has to do with the affirmation of work and effort, what will be conceptualized later as the protestant work ethic. The muscular body speaks of effort, of toil, of hard work – all of the things an aristocrat stayed away from. The focus on the hands and to a certain extent on the feet is of special importance in this regard; the same can be said of the importance of hands in portraits. Whereas the face speaks of the character, the hands speak of profession – to a bourgeois, the two are really one and the same.

#renaissance #placedesvosges #paris #body #bodypolitics #renaissanceart #city #citylife #bourgeois

This process has been described many times over bo

This process has been described many times over both by proponents of the capitalistic order, as well as by its critics. The conversion of material to spiritual, from factual to abstract, is what happens in this particular take on the economy – and the bourgeois, be they medieval, renaissance, or modern are at the very heart of it.

It does not matter if they are keenly aware of the process, or they simply run the script without actual comprehension of its internal mechanism. Our position is that this action deeply influences the renaissance art, and in particular, the renaissance take on the body. The renaissance aesthetic is impossible to understand completely without the previous comprehension of this process, of turning the material into abstract. The process of consuming actual matter and turning it to value – from resources to capital, is what creates the renaissance era, aesthetics, and school of thought. Much like the bourgeois merchant imports the goods from the Far East, and turns them into wealth, so too does the artist observes the actual human bodies and turns them into an enhanced, mathematical vision of the human form. Much down the same line, the renaissance era relies on the classical aesthetics, and uses them as a substantiation for a very contemporary effort.

In their creation of the new human, the renaissance artists and scholars did like many an artist and scholar before and after them – they suggested that the effort was rooted in the previously existing form. Simply suggesting a completely new take on the world can be too challenging, bold, and maverick, at least if one aims to actually be accepted by the mainstream culture. In veiling the new in the old, the new is more easily accepted. Every era since the renaissance, or, broadly speaking, since the medieval era, pulled the same trick – they vested their innovative, often revolutionary ideas in the veils of the classical antiquity.

#renaissance #hoteldesully #hotelparticulier #body #bodypolitics #art #architecture #city #citylife #marais

The position that the renaissance body is infused

The position that the renaissance body is infused with abstract though has already been connected to the bourgeois class and their economic situation, their business ethics and perspective, and their take on the world. It is now time to take that position one step further.

What the bourgeois merchants were creating, perhaps intentionally, perhaps spontaneously, was the economic system of mercantile capitalism. In its essence, as we touched upon in our mobile application Fiat Lux, capitalism is based on belief (the notion of the invisible hand of the market, and the belief in the free market as the superior, impossible-to-comprehend entity), one where the market acts as a substitute for god. In that particular system, money plays the key role – in itself, a notion based on belief, on its own religion, existing very much according to religious laws, binding people together by debt and obligation, same way the congregation is bound by common practice of rituals and duties. The idea of money is very simple, yet incredibly powerful and, with no exaggeration, world changing – one exchanges actual, material good, say a loaf of bread, for an abstract notion of value. If one sells some bread and receives a bill, one has parted with a tangible, material good, and have taken an idea of value in its place, that one will later exchange for some other actual, material good, or will, perhaps, invest it in more abstraction.

The money as such – capitalism, be it mercantile or industrial – does the same thing. It converts the actual, material fact, to an abstract notion of value. The main process behind any creation of value, which is lauded as one of highest achievement of capitalistic economic order, is exactly the creation of value. This abstract, and in all fairness, arbitrary notion, is always created out of material, tangible, actually existing facts (tools, building blocks, etc.) and labour. The actual becomes abstract – the matter becomes spirit.

#renaissance #bourgeois #capital #capitalism #mercantile #body #bodypolitics #abstractbody #paris #city #citylife #hoteldesully

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