-[Discussion] Art in Alleria-

[Kour'el Kha'Serith]

Because this is something close to my heart, and there are art institutes in Alleria in several places, I've always wondered exactly what people thought about art in Alleria. Also I've toyed with the idea of making an art history of sorts of the empire, however this would be a massive project that would encompass the entire time line, as well as touch most if not all of the races in some ways, it would take quite some time and research.

Since I want others to contribute, it would be awesome to have the vets and GM's and any other people with an art background suggest and discuss this with me. I have this long spiel/rant with links and junk, but I'll wait to see if there is any other interested parties before I vomit my ideas and thoughts all over this thread.

So, discuss away!

-Kubri

[Eraisuithon Gil'dae]

Since Aelyria is a spin off of a Roman Empire which never declined, art in all forms is flourishing and many artists/artisans should have a fair amount of fame in their regions and perhaps even empire wide. Think Michaelangelo and Da Vinci wide fame for paintings and sculptures in cathedrals and government buildings.

Sculptures, paintings, architecture, artisan crafts, and different variations of them all can be found empire wide and are greatly appreciated. The preforming arts too, dance, drama, music, storytelling, would be very popular given they would be very important and frequent forms of entertainment.. From stage performers and street musicians to old men dazzling young children and ballets in the theater.

Because Aelyria is so diverse with races and such, there should be very distinct racial art forms, and masters of preforming or visual arts should be able to effortlessly combine different elements from different races to create very stimulating outcomes (much like Architecture in Gossamer's new writeup).

I think that an art history of the Empire would be a very good addition to our lore. Aelyria needs posh noble art critics

[Dimnersti]

Art as an adition would be excelent, I know I tend to harass mods about it fairly often when discussing their cities.

a sugestion for a start would be just trying to identify the primary artistic influences are styles in alleria then listing them out and offering a breif summary so you'v a starting point to work off. Say like vysstichi tends to be hayan with smooth grace and sensuality counterbalanced by violence and and sharp intimidating angels or points. Or katta being distincitly seperated between the wilder and domestikatta with the wilder focusing on a sense of freedom and wildness, while the domesti favor more freedom and chaos given order sort of theme.

just random sugestions though

[Gossamer]

Silk painting and a great deal of shadow art and elaborate ceramics in Zinn'Sunn... *nodnod* I absolutely love the idea of this thread.

[Aqua]

There's a massive art museum in Diana, sort of the Metropolitan and the Sistine Chapel all rolled into one. It's had some threads run in it, dating all the way back to when I AGM'd there and beyond. The location writeup had descriptions of artworks and names of the artists, and I know there was a thread where HyRune Raven visited the place in which more artworks and artists were detailed.

There's also an art museum in Medonia, which is devoted to the life and work of the (now-deceased) painter Faraaa Jenapple, who had spent part of her life studying in Diana.

I like this thread too ^_^

[Kour'el Kha'Serith]

I'm surprised this got any response at all. But I'm quite pleased that it did. If this seems weird and disjointed, I'm looking through my school notes, text books and wikipedia while writing down my thoughts on wordpad.

Now if we compare it to real life art history, most of Alleria is a mix between Roman Empire meets the Renaissance period of enlightenment and cultural advancement, and it usually has more in common with the Italian, southern renaissance than the northern one, though without all the religious turmoil and aspects involved. As well there are periods of 18th century England, France, Saudi Arabia and the whole Japanese thing with the Kemites.

Following this train of thought, if it is the same, most art in Alleria commissioned to the top artists would be of religious themes, nobles and portraits. Now for subject matter that isn't commission for a particular person in mind, likely these would be landscapes, with the native flora and fauna present. Dragons unicorns and other mythical beasts like that would be fairly prominent, more so than in ancient times in real life and more like today with he fantasy heavy artists today.

On top of that there is the artistic influence of the buildings themselves being works of art like Baroque, Gothic styles, ancient Greek and roman. The Renaissance style when it was developed by people like Filippo Brunshelleshi which emulated but most importantly improved on classical forms. Brunelleschi's major feat of engineering was the building of the dome of Florence Cathedral. The roman types of columns, Tuscan, Doric, ionic, Corinthian and composite. where used, as well as the arches, semi circles used on supporting piers or columns.

One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective which was created by architects, as well as playing with shadow, light and human anatomy (Vitruvian man). This also lead to realism, which is where da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo Botticelli and others achieved their fame.

However all of this would change from area to area based on materials available, wealth and most importantly, it would really depend on the most prominent race in the area. The following example list is my thoughts on what the races of alleria would have based on comparisons to real life art, culture and aspects of the race that would lend themselves to producing art.

Again I stress the fact that these are my own opinions based on my own background with art, art history and what I see each race as. Little or nothing of this may be correct in any way.

Saurids: Prehistoric art, cave paintings, small idols carved from stone, ivory and bone. Materials usually used would be natural woods, stone, bone, feathers and other animal parts. Their paint would be basic, rendered animal fat mixed with natural pigments like ochres. Would be used to tell of great hunts, events etc. Example link

Ancient Allerians: These would be the Michelangelo's, Botticelli's, Titans and da Vinci's of the empire, given they are one of the oldest and most advanced race on Telath. I imagine highly realistic, if not cold and sterile art from them, given they are keepers of law peace and justice, and are not given to delving into their emotions. Statue of David, Venus de Milo are examples. Most of the civilized empire (read: humans/elves/dwarves) would try to emulate their style.


Thoughts before I vomit the rest of the races for comparison?

[Malvoitre]

A lot of past art was centered around important figures. It was basically the only way to recognize your king or liege if you lived away from the capital. I'd imagine there would be a lot of civic art in Aelyria that focused on current prominent figures.

Legendary figures, deities, and basically anything people could point to and start telling a story foots the bill also.

I agree that Renaissance art makes for a good style comparison, but those guys had to learn everything anew as Italy came out of the Dark Ages. Before that, the Roman Empire had sculptures of the same quality craft and representation. Imagine what 14th century art would have been like without the Dark Ages. Would they have moved on to other mediums like pastoral paintings, landscapes, or even performance and abstraction?

Something to think about anyway.

EDIT: The above was all supposed to lead somewhere. Sorry: Amazing art on a grand scale would no longer fascinate the Aelyrians as it did the Renaissance artists because that level of technicality would have been achievable for some time. The question, then, would be each culture's/area's reason for creating art. That usually dictates form to some degree. Kour, I think your Saurid example is spot on in this regard.

[Wynd]

A few thoughts.

I don't think all the civilized races in the Empire would attempt to emulate the achievements of the Ancient Allerians -- it would definitely be the Imperial style, but, let's say the Elves, have their own great civilization and tradition that they would draw from. Trelorean art would have much a bigger influence on Medonian or Sylrosian art than the Ancient Allerians. The Katta would probably look to the original Kattaria (in Lauryl), and a newer race like the Dracons, without their own civilization and ostracized by the society that would emulate Ancient Allerian art, might be some of the most religious art focusing around Diana. Or something like that.

But on a more widespread scale, there's a lot of differences between Alleria and rennaissance Europe. First, I don't think Alleria is nearly as religious, so themes might focus more on the Empire's history and icons of its personalities.

Also, the Empire's not exactly at its peak right now. It's been on the decline for centuries and especially in the past decade there's been devastating plagues, civil war, secessions, a completely new understanding of Arcana (and so also how the universe functions) the Rakrya, and one of the suns disappeared. It's a time of deep and sudden (rather than gradual) crisis, which has more in common with the twentieth century than anything. Art (and literature, etc.) could be taking a turn toward something like modern art in the first half of the twentieth century. Bleak, apocalyptic, more symbolic and abstract. The Empire seems a long way from the Renaissance.

I think it's a lot more interesting to figure out how art in Alleria differs from any real world period, as it's a radically different world. There's a ton of different influences. Arcana, for one, all that sort of stuff.

[Minerva]

I don’t think that real life terms should be applied to art in Aelyria. Terms like ‘rennaisance’ don’t really mean anything at all since they are based on how art evolved in our world, not Aelyria. All art movements are based on changes, whether that be within culture, within society, etc, and are made to reflect those changes. Since Aelyria’s history is not the same as ours, different things would have happened, their art would have evolved differently, and so forth.

Whilst I agree that each race should have its own traditional art form, I don’t think this should apply so much within the Empire itself, which has become a collection of loads of different races put together. (I doubt that a modern day katta living in the Empire would paint in a certain style just because they are katta. They would follow the norms of the group/movement they are involved in.)

I think that art forms would be a lot wider spread since it’s easy for people to travel the Empire and spread influence from place to place. This isn’t really like Europe versus Asia where the two didn’t connect for a long time…In fact, I’m not sure that our Zinn’Sunn would have modern day works quite as stylised as Japanese or Chinese art, given that it isn’t that insular a place. I actually think that in Aelyria, the more ‘unique’ art styles would come from places like Eth’gantor and the vysstichi cites, instead, where they have for the most part been developing on their own.

I really love the fact that someone put this in for discussion, so kudos to you. Hopefully my rambling makes sense.

[Wynd]

Whilst I agree that each race should have its own traditional art form, I don’t think this should apply so much within the Empire itself, which has become a collection of loads of different races put together. (I doubt that a modern day katta living in the Empire would paint in a certain style just because they are katta. They would follow the norms of the group/movement they are involved in.)

I think that would depend on the race, their position in the Empire and their self-identity. Katta from Kyathis might have a very distinct Katta-style of art because it's more in tune with the traditions of Kattaria and not assimilated into the Empire, whereas a Katta artist in Medonia might not. With Elves you might have a sort of Elven-culture revivalist art coming out of Sylrosia, sort of like the Harlem Renaissance and African-American writers, whereas dwarves or cethers might produce art no different from humans, since their ambitions and cultures aren't positioned counter to the Empire.

[Minerva]

Okay...I think you put some of what I wanted to say a lot better than I did. The point I wanted to make was that, just because a person is X race, does not mean they should paint in X way. Aelyrian art should span races in areas which aren’t insular or separate from the Empire altogether.

[Lyr Tlansson]

Interesting thread. I'll try to put in my two cents, given this is something close to Arconis' heart as well.

Despite the way in which art has sometimes been roleplayed, by me in Arconis as much as by anyone else, I see art in Aelyria being much more "functional" than what we might think of art currently. Up until recently - up until the renaissance, really - art served some sort of purpose, whether as religious iconography or as a statement of a person's heritage, wealth, and nobility. There really was very little of "art for art's sake".

If we want to imagine the way in which art is viewed in Aelyria, I would think that that's the place to start with - I imagine that there is little "art for art's sake" here, but rather an emphasis on functional art.

Artists need to get money to eat somewhere, right! Considering the structure of Aelyrian society, artists would either have to be teachers (in which case they could practice art for arts sake, but I'd see this as the minority) or they would be patronized by the nobility, or by the Crown itself, or by the CoF.

Also, I'd put in that crafts are also art, and these have generally been more developed in Aelyria than the fine arts. In looking at how different cultures/races in aelyria approach the fine arts, I'd suggest taking a look at what they do for their crafts and trades, and take it from there.

[Amarillo]

I honestly believe that each "race" has several common influences, if not outright copies of similar styles and subjects. It's kind of interesting, because I've been toying with the idea of putting up art backgrounds on a race-by-race basis, starting with my esoteric favorite, the Vysstichi and/or Shadow Elves (using this post's subtitle, I think).

For example, ALL *very* early elven imagery would bear some resemblance, regardless of current racial divisions. However, as each sub-race bagen to differentiate itself from the rest, certain secondary influences would begin to appear ... eventually resulting in the imagery and coloration used in "modern" Aelyrian society.

I've even gone as far as broaching the subject to those I deem to be our most knowledgeable Vysstichi players/moderators, in the hopes of pulling in some background imagery that I may have missed in perusing several hundred threads. So far, the response to such an admittedly biased poll has been overwhelming ... now that I've put my foot in it, so to speak, I guess I better buckle down and deliver.

Most of the human races would have similarities as well - if we look far enough back. As more modern subdivisions have occurred, so to has the artistic expression begun to drift from the central normative forms.

Some particular races (I'm thinking those of Orcish, Dwarven, Katta, Dorin, Saurid, or Fae specifically) probably tend to stand more-or-less on their own, due to physical and mental outlooks that bear little resemblance to the rest of the racial mix. However, it probably means that bipedal forms will have certain tendencies in terms of symmetry and imagery, while those who perceive certain wavelengths will have a completely different color palette.

Kour - let me just say that I'm REALLY into this, this time around. By the way, my personal definition of "art" is not limited to visual media! It includes tactile, aural, olfactory, and (perhaps) taste ... if the artist is good enough to gather the innumerable possibilities into a finished realization.

[Dimnersti]

well as I agree with the general concepts and ideas placed. the development of art on a racial standpoint should follow historical lines to create a sense of continuity and depth.

To use my personal prefrences as an example. The elves, those decended from trelore would have a fluid like natural expression primarily, this would cary over to silrosians whom would simply hold to that ideal, and the medonians who would instead focus on an smooth natural form tamed, less chaos and more order to represent their acepting of a more rigid societey. Now the esh of k'terak while still holding to organic fluid theme would focus on difrent materials since k'terak is more mountanous. With the split between esh and vysttichi, the esh ended up moving into a forested area, so it seems likely to me art would have focused on the manipulation of things like amber or other harder natural materials readily avaiable. With the vystichi adjusting to the hayan influence by moving the fluid natura them in a more sensous and dark theme, more chaotic and sensual basicly.

heh, but thats mostly rambling in an attempt to demonstrate how you can try to take the base and grow it along the historical lines.