August 22, 2022
"A life-size head of a horse, made from Greek Pentelic marble, that looks remarkably like the one on display in the museum, tiny chips and chisel marks and all..."
"... carved by a robot.
At a workshop in Carrara, Italy, a robot sculptor has been putting the finishing touches on a copy of the Horse of Selene, scheduled to go on display in London during the first week of September. The horse is one of the best known of the 2,500-year-old sculptures — also known as the Parthenon Marbles — taken from the Acropolis in Athens in the early 1800s by Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin, when he was ambassador to the occupying Ottoman Empire.... The British government says Elgin had permission to remove them. Others say the permission was limited to pieces found in the rubble.... In any case, Elgin had the 5th-century B.C. marbles torn down from the Parthenon and shipped to Britain, where he intended to display them privately in his home. He instead sold them to the British government for $42,000 to help pay for a costly divorce."
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41 comments:
Top-rated comment over there: "They're not the "Elgin Marbles." They're the Parthenon Marbles. Please stop legitimizing their theft."
One wonders how the Parthenon Marbles would have fared had they not been moved to Britain.
Of course, an unknown, and unknowable thought.
If the robot makes great copies, then everybody can have them.
Why aren't the Pyramids in London?
Because the British couldn't figure out how to get them on a ship.
From Google:
"A plaster cast of Jimi Hendrix's penis is to be unveiled at the Icelandic Phallological Museum in downtown Reykjavik. The artefact was donated by the late Cynthia Albritton, otherwise known as Cynthia Plaster Caster, and is one of a few cast replicas of the legendary guitarist's genitalia."
Might as well move up to marble.
I am Laslo
From Wikipedia
“by far, the most extensive damage. In particular, an explosion ignited by Venetian gun and cannon-fire bombardment in 1687, whilst the Parthenon was used as a munitions store during the Ottoman rule, destroyed or damaged many pieces of Parthenon art, including some of that later taken by Lord Elgin.[58] It was this explosion that sent the marble roof, most of the cella walls, 14 columns from the north and south peristyles, and carved metopes and frieze blocks flying and crashing to the ground, destroying much of the artwork. Further damage to the Parthenon's artwork occurred when the Venetian general Francesco Morosini looted the site of its larger sculptures. The tackle he was using to remove the sculptures proved to be faulty and snapped, dropping an over-life-sized sculpture of Poseidon and the horses of Athena's chariot from the west pediment on to the rock of the Acropolis 40 feet (12 m) below.
War of Independence[edit]
The Erechtheion was used as a munitions store by the Ottomans during the Greek War of Independence[60] (1821–1833) which ended the 355-year Ottoman rule of Athens. The Acropolis was besieged twice during the war, first by the Greeks in 1821–22 and then by the Ottoman forces in 1826–27. During the first siege the besieged Ottoman forces attempted to melt the lead in the columns to cast bullets, even prompting the Greeks to offer their own bullets to the Ottomans in order to minimize damage.”
I think if Elgin had not spent US$ 5MM. Of his own money to remove them there would be little left of them now, especially considering that air pollution in Athens was allowed to erode all the marbles left, even to this day. Having them located in a prestigious location in Britain encouraged the Greeks to value them, and want them back.
The marbles’ removal may have been dodgy but the world benefitted by Elgin’s work.
Wonderful that such an exact replica can be made.
As for the originals, where can they be better displayed?
And they in turn will return the works and lands to their owners in a progressive comedy of willful intent.
Can we get a robot to paint them as well?
Wasn't the Parthenon in shambles after multiple Greek-Turkish Wars?........and The Duke of Elgin did the Greeks a favor?
They were the Parthenon marbles. Elgin got them from the Ottoman empire. Want to keep your art? Don't loose any wars. I'm sure someone smart has made a list of all the art Greece GAINED by conquest.
Actually, one of the best justifications for the return of the marbles is that the British museum did such a shitty job of restoration in that last round.
The British SAVED more history and antiquities than any other country in the world. While other countries were cannibalizing their own culture (or at least the culture of the peoples who lived there thousands of years ago, not necessarily those who occupy the ground today) the British were conserving them for history and humanity. Why send them back to an unstable country that is just as likely to sell them off in a few years as they were 150 years ago?
I've always suspected that the Marbles fared much better in British hands , than they would have at the hands of the Turks. Agree with Pious.
Oh dear, however shall we divide the marbles?
I'll know this robot is sentient if he sends the horse head to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Until then, it's just programming.
I'll know this robot is sentient if he sends the horse head to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Until then, it's just programming.
pious agnostic said...
One wonders how the Parthenon Marbles would have fared had they not been moved to Britain
They were rubble that the Greeks didn't give a S**t about for a couple thousand years. Much had been looted/destroyed in wars spanning hundreds of years, so yeah - the ARE the Elgin marbles.
I am grateful that I was able to visit the British Museum for a few hours and see so many wonderful items that I had read about (including the Rosetta Stone - should that be returned somewhere to someone also??). A few hours was scratching the surface.
The art world will soon be at the point where it becomes impossible to distinguish between an original and a copy. A copy of this horse head could be made from marble having the same age and provenance, for example, and the robot seems able to reproduce the sculpting stroke for stroke. That makes an aesthetic theory focused on the object a bit difficult to sustain. Yes, the original has pedigree and reflects the artist’s creativity. But those are matters independent of the qualities of the object itself, particularly when it becomes impossible to point to any physical difference between the original vs the copy. Quite apart from niceties about aesthetic theory, the point at which copies cannot be distinguished from originals makes a hash of the art market. I think that’s already a problem with NFT artworks (such as they are).
The parthenon was nearly destroyed in 1687
Cultural cancellation subject to Taliban rules per chance social progress in our neck of the woods.
The inverse of 3-D printing
The replicas will be demanded destroyed soon after the originals are returned, if they ever are.
Robot copies may be o.k. for the giftshop, but I'd beware of letting them infiltrate the sacred space of the real thing. If art has its mana, fakes might have their own occult power too -- a different power, and who knows if it's benign? This is reckless behavior.
Or am I being too fanciful? The British Museum muckmucks supposedly would be satisfied if the copies merely duplicate the surface characteristics of the original pieces.
The robot is programmed with an elaborately compiled scan of the horsehead's surface; then the robotic tools trace the program onto the marble. It's the equivalent, if the original were a drawing, of a tracing-paper copy. The robot doesn't draw a line; it follows what's already there. This is backward to the way this art is made; and if the Museum chaps are content to consider nothing but the looks of the end-product, doesn't that suggest they have an exclusively materialist view of art? And is the British public, or the art world generally, pleased to accept such a view?
I'm uncertain -- undecided, still.
By the way, the story of how the scans of the horsehead were acquired, in defiance of the Museum's restrictions, is rich with intrigue, a miniature techno-thriller. If you can't read the WashPost article -- because of the paywall, or your own ten-foot-pole rule, or any other reason -- you can read this here unhindered.
Here's a movie about the ineffable something that inheres in the process of art-making. In this case it's the lost-wax method for bronze sculpture: two trailers, Italian and English-language (and then the Italian repeated but with German intertitles, so it's almost liking a third one free. Save Big!).
What a waste of good marble.
There is a limited supply of good marble in the world and these idiots gave some of it to a robot.
To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology
This is a great read on how, against all then current destruction, history was saved.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052FYPP4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o08?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Kinda like the classic car market, the more original, the greater the value, intrinsic or otherwise.
BTW, I know there's a method to post an active link, I'm not gonna bother here.
I know "in the flesh" isn't really apt here, but the original is a wonderful work of art.
"This is perhaps the most famous and best loved of all the sculptures of the Parthenon. It captures the very essence of the stress felt by a beast that has spent the night drawing the chariot of the Moon across the sky. As the unseen vehicle was shown sinking below the horizon, the horse pins back its ears, the jaw gapes, the nostrils flare, the eyes bulge, veins stand out and the flesh seems spare and taut over the flat plate of the cheek bone."
If the AI recreation can preserve that, it would be a great thing for millions more to see and marvel at the mastery of the original sculptors.
@ Kathryn51 said..."They were rubble that the Greeks didn't give a S**t about for a couple thousand years."
You have been schooled with a strap across your back by people here who told you when and how the Parthenon was destroyed, in the late 1600's. If you have any intellectual honesty
you will acknowledge you were wrong.
Most of the entire world didn't revere their antiquities, unless they had religious significance, until the 19th century came along and Westerners started recognizing them as historical artifacts and works of art.
I've posted a link to Althouse's post, in the subreddit for machinists. R/machinists is where I go when I need a dose of reality.
Richard Dolan, the machine technique may be able to approximate a sculptor's chisel strokes, but the machine in the video is an ordinary CNC milling machine, using a high-rpm mill bit, like a dental drill writ large.
μολὼν λαβÎ
Too obvious?
When the bad guys are the British Museum, the Turks were merely an occupying government.
But if we talk about freedom of movement in Europe, then Turkey is the rightful owner of Thrace and just as European as everyone else in Europe.
It's a tricky dance but WaPo has learned it well. Even in the darkness!
We need more art in the world. The British Museum should commission high quality scans of these sculptures, and allow free access to the data files. If these sculptures are so great, let them be machined, cast or blow-molded.
While discussing Athens' (ruinous) Parthenon along with its “Marbles,” it's worth recalling that a full-scale replica of the (intact) Parthenon exists in Nashville, Tennessee (long known as the “Athens of the South”) where it has reposed since 1897. Owned by the City of Nashville, the great monument is incredibly impressive just in its exterior — but interior, in the central bay, there's a terrific 42' high statue of Athena in gold and ivory (remade from ancient replicas of the Parthenon Athena), together with a superb exhibition of (replicas of) the “Elgin” Marbles in a side bay.
Howard said...
"The inverse of 3-D printing"
In other words, "machining"
Scan the original. Turn it into a CAM file. Feed it to your multiaxis milling machine. The money is in fixturing.
The Parthenon of Tennessee is in the great (maybe greatest) Altman film, Nashville.
Napoleon looted many artworks. After his defeat, some but not all were returned to their rightful owners. The Louvre contains a great many looted artworks.....Ditto with the Hermitage. The Bolsheviks confiscated every valuable piece of art they could lay their hands on. Not all were owned by the nobiity. Many of them were sold at a substantial discount to collectors. The Orthodox faithful tried to ransom some of their religious icons, but the Bolsheviks melted them down for their gold content. It was done more from spite than from greed. The Bolsheviks were just as intolerant of religious art as the Taliban and Cromwell....If the Elgin Marbles are returned to Greece, they will not be displayed on the Parthenon but in some nearby place with a controlled environment, so the placement will not be authentic. In any event, religious art believes to the believers. This art belongs to the sincere and pious believers of Athena.
I once had a conversation with a well-educated Westernized Iranian woman, raised in France and working in NYC, who told me that The Cloisters in Manhattan was little more than looted art--by Americans, from France.
But that I should enjoy my tour anyway, of course.
Phrenology revisited.
What is the worth of an "exact" replica in relation to the original? Why does the worth of a painting collapse when its attribution to a great artist is subsequently attributed only to the artist's school? Why do natural gem stones continue to be worth so much more than flawless but otherwise identical counterparts? Surely, the identity and touch of the creator (man or nature) must itself convey an intangible unique value that adheres only to the original creation but, perhaps only as an artifact of man's emotional nature, is largely shared by posterity. (If not, markets are indeed irrational, my NFTs are worthless (or at least worth less) and my wife's insistence on natural gems is foolish.) What a piece of work is man!
The Brits subjected the marble pieces they obtained to a draconian "cleaning" regime, in order to make them conform to the pure white ideal they had of Hellenic sculpture. The surface of these delicate sculptures was scoured off, removing a lot of detail in the process. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/12/helenasmith
Those lauding them for "preserving" them might not know the whole story. It may be that the best hope of seeing what they originally looked like might lie with a process of 3D scanning, virtual restoration, and machine carving.
The Brits subjected the marble pieces they obtained to a draconian "cleaning" regime, in order to make them conform to the pure white ideal they had of Hellenic sculpture. The surface of these delicate sculptures was scoured off, removing a lot of detail in the process. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/12/helenasmith
Those lauding them for "preserving" them might not know the whole story. It may be that the best hope of seeing what they originally looked like might lie with a process of 3D scanning, virtual restoration, and machine carving.
Andrew Werby
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