Video Review - Week 8

The three videos I chose were:

Cataclysm: The Black Death Visits Tuscany, A World Inscribed: The Illuminated Manuscript, and The Measure of All Things: Greek Art and the Human Figure.

 

I chose the Cataclysm video because I am very interested in the black death and how disease could have wiped out such a huge portion of a country.  I chose the Illuminated Manuscript because I remembered reading about it in the chapter and I wanted to know more about it.  I chose the Greek Art video because I think their portrayal of the human body is beautiful and I admire their respect for it.

In More Human than Human, I liked how they acknowledged that the most popular/celebrated works of art depicting the human body are actually quite impossible to achieve.  I also enjoyed learning more about the venus figurines.  Whenever I heard the word "venus," I would think of a beautiful, godly figure... The Venus of Willendorf figure from the chapter proved that wrong!

 

For some reason, I am really interested in the black death, so I picked Cataclysm: The Black Death Visits Tuscany.  The black death was a horrible time for the Renaissance so it was interesting to see that artists were focusing on the divine and the otherworldly rather than the horrors that were occurring on Earth.  I also learned more about the plague itself and how it was transferred and ultimately how it took control so quickly.

I remembered reading about The Illuminated Manuscript in Chapter 15, so enjoyed learning more about it in the video.  It was amazing to hear how many people were illiterate - only church-related individuals like monks could read!  I also learned how books were made and what an arduous process it must have been - back then, books were just as much works of art as anything else!

 

Finally, I watched The Greek Art Video.  I actually thought this video related a lot to the More Human than Human Video.  It was interesting to learn that the Greeks focused as much on the unobtainable/perfect human form as much as we do today.  Comparing something "ideal" like the Venus of Willendorf to a beautiful Greek figure is somewhat comical, but the differing views on what is ideal is very interesting to me.

As per usual, the videos take the readings a step further and offer a more in-depth look at certain things that the book did not elaborate on.  I definitely noticed similar topics like ideal forms, gothic styles of architecture, and so on.

I enjoy the films.  It is nice to sit back and watch a video on topics you just sat down and read about in the books.  It is a different way to gain knowledge about these topics and I enjoy learning about things that I find interesting (like the black plague) rather than just what is assigned to me.