7. The memory of
the classical ideal
The history of art guarded down the ages a valuable
treasure, an ideal outside time. During centuries the
Greek model reigned in the West. Museums, collections,
antiquarians, competed to possess an antique copy of a
Greek original. If we think about it, Hellenic influence
on the imagination of the artist in the West has been
truly impressive. A typical case was the Italian
Renaissance which left its mark on the development of
European art. Beauty was, by definition, outside
time.
During the XVI and XIX centuries the masterpiece
"existed of itself." The accepted esthetic established a
mythical but relatively exact beauty based on what was
thought to be the Greek heritage. The work of art aimed
at the representation of an ideal. A masterpiece of
painting at the time of Raphael was a picture that the
imagination could not improve. It could hardly be
compared to other works by its author. It was of its time
but in a rivalry - before which all other rivalries were
subordinated - which compared it with the ideal work it
suggested. (15)
Nature itself was jealous of Raphael, as written in
the Platonic epitaph on the painter's tomb in the Roman
Pantheon: Ille hic est Raphael timuit quo sospiti vince
rerum magna parens et moriente mori. Raphael had achieved
perfection. Faced with this genius all forerunners were
apprentices. This conviction defined contemporary
criticism in all the arts. For example, the disdain of
"barbarian art" as represented by the gothic.
The assumption was that the gothic sculptor had
tried to sculpt a classical statue and could not achieve
it because he was incapable of such art. (18)
It took centuries to break down this value judgment,
to reformulate the question of esthetics. Malraux tells
of the passage from the "golden past" of mythical
perfection to a realistic present where multiple
hierarchies coexist.
Of princely galleries Italy was queen. Neither
Watteau, nor Fragonard, nor Chardin wanted to paint like
Raphael, but did not think themselves his equal. There
was a "golden past" in art. One entered the Academy of
eternity speaking Italian, even if spoken with Rubens's
accent. To critics at the time a masterpiece was a
painting that "held its own" in the Assembly of
masterworks...Thus, the comparison between art works had
been replaced by comparison with mythical perfection.
(16)
The artist did not compete with the works of his
fellows but with Beauty itself, which had been revealed
by the great Greek masters. With time, however, the
rivals changed.
But in this Dialogue with the Great Dead -
something which, it was thought, every masterpiece had to
establish with that part of the museum carried in the
memory - even during the waning of the Italian influence,
that part consisted of what masterpieces had in
common.... Reproduction will contribute to modify this
dialogue, to suggest and later on impose another
hierarchy. (16)
In a way museums began to expand when the arts ceased
to compete against an ideal of beauty. This ideal placed
the masterpiece at the center of the museum and in a
crucial place in our memory. The mass reproduction of
works of art, however, has helped to remove this central
space, a centrifugal force affects images and eliminates
a hierarchical order. If this is true of the imaginary
museum how much truer must it be of the virtual museum.
The digital network circling the planet makes every node
a center. There are hundreds of millions of centers and
each museum page on the internet is a local attraction in
a dynamic system. Many possible roads converge on it,
many paths, many routes in the sea of the internet. The
solo dialogue with the masterpiece thus becomes a
polyphony. The choir master no longer exists. Each
visitor to the virtual museum is an independent
agent.