Althouse: The view from Blue Mounds.

August 14, 2013

The view from Blue Mounds.

(Today.)

9 comments:

chickelit said...: Isn't that shot already available for sale on postcards? :); 8/14/13, 8:56 PM
Original Mike said...: Which direction is that looking; east or west?; 8/14/13, 9:04 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Notice how the distant landscape is blueish? It's an effect of the physics of the atmosphere.
Around 1400, Jan Van Eyck created a diptych, 'The Crucifixion', and 'The last Judgement'. The MOMA website has a nice version for the web, here: http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/436282#fullscreen

The left half of the diptych, The Crucifixion, is somewhat famous for containing the first naturalistic representation of the moon in Western art. What is equally remarkable is that the mountains in the background have the correct 'blueishness' caused by being distant from the observer.
Yet the middle ground and foreground have the same crazy perspective we expect to see in Medieval paintings. It's difficult to tell just where the painter's eye is, and where Christ is in relation to the crucified thieves.
The optical apparatus of our eyes and nerves is the same as the medieval painters, but I wonder what they saw when they closed their eyes and tried to imagine the world that they lived in.; 8/14/13, 9:05 PM
RunningFromCancer said...: I had wanted to photo the sky this morning on my bike to work - the blue was beautiful, which you captured albeit with clouds, but just as blue, just as beautiful, there for our enjoyment!; 8/14/13, 9:15 PM
cubanbob said...: Ahh that lovely blue! Sunlight refracted by dust particles that are in part composed of shit. Just seeing the connection to the earlier posts.; 8/14/13, 10:12 PM
David Davenport said...: Is that the highest elevation in Wisconsin?; 8/14/13, 11:05 PM
Carl said...: Terry, I believe for the most part medieval painters weren't painting mere representation. What for? Painting is hard work and expensive. Why bother just to reproduce what anyone can go outside and see for himself?

It was art. Its goal was to portray the truth that lay beneath the grimy surface of everyday life, the image of Christ in every sinner, the Platonic essence beneath the sadly dinged up accidents of things. They would have been puzzled by why anyone would criticize their work for a lack of perspective or realism, the same way we might roll our eyes at someone who criticizes Star Trek for the bogusity of warp drive or the transporter, or the fact that all the aliens happen to speak English.

Even portraiture is affected, as the painter would usually be commissioned to show the soul of the subject, not his grubby and flawed visage.

Anyway, it's not that the Renaissance learned how to do perspective and realism for the first time, it's that attitudes changed after the Reformation, and a celebration of the beauty of here 'n' now, and not just the hereafter, became all the rage. So painters now wanted to do things realistically, and so they did.; 8/14/13, 11:25 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @DD Thanks for the question. That made me look it up. Here. It's quite far down on the list, but it is the highest point within a large area, making it an important landmark. It's the highest elevation in the southern part of the state.

Here's a PDF of some military history about the place:

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/pdf/summer03_birmingham.pdf

Here's a Wikipedia article about the Black Hawk War:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_at_Fort_Blue_Mounds; 8/15/13, 7:32 AM
Dan said...: Timms Hill in Price County is thew highest point in Wisco.; 8/15/13, 3:47 PM