history of art [Theme]

Visual art has always existed in a protected space. Originally this immunity was magical or sacred nature. But, in addition, it was just physical: it was a place - a cave, a building in which (or for which) it was written picture. The experience of art (originally the former experience of the ritual) was separated from the rest of his life just to over the life of the rule. In the future, this isolation has taken on a social character. Art has entered the culture of the ruling class and physically it has been isolated, enclosed in their palaces and homes. Throughout this history the authority of art was inseparable from the authority of the reserved space.
What did the modern means of reproduction of images, so it destroyed the authority of art and removed it (or, rather, seized the images, which are now reproduced) from any part of the reserve. For the first time ever, images of art have become fleeting, omnipresent, intangible, available, worthless, free. They surround us as well as surrounds the language. They came into the stream of life, on which more in themselves have no power.

Camera isolated momentary images and thus destroyed the idea of their timeless nature. Or, in other words, the camera showed that the idea of time passing was inseparable from the visual experience (this applies to everything except painting). What you see depends on where you were and when. What you saw was derived from your position in time and space. It became impossible to continue to assume that everything converges on the eye as the vanishing point of infinity.
I don't want to say that before the invention of the camera men believed that everyone sees everything. But the prospect of organized visual space as if it actually was the ideal. Every drawing or painting using perspective, tells his audience that he is the center of the world. However, the camera - especially the camera - shows that center there.
The invention of the camera changed the way of seeing the world. Visible has come to mean for us something different. This instantly had an effect on painting.
For the Impressionists the visible world is another, he does not wait, when people will consider it. On the contrary, the visible becomes fluid and fleeting. For the Cubists the visible - it is not something that may catch one's eye, but a whole host of possible views on the subject or the represented person.

Looking at the "virgin of the rocks", the visitor of the National gallery (thanks to all that he heard and read about this picture) would feel about the following: "I stand in front of her. I can see it. This painting by Leonardo is not like any other painting in the world. The National gallery stored its original. If I'm diligent enough to look at her, you can sense its authenticity. "Madonna of the rocks" Leonardo da Vinci: it is authentic and therefore beautiful!"
To reject such feelings as naive would be wrong. They correspond to a complex view of specialists in the art, to which is written the catalogue of the National gallery. An article about "the virgin of the rocks" one of the longest in it. It is fourteen pages in small print. And not a word about the meaning of this picture. It tells about who ordered this picture, on the legal disputes about who she belonged to, about the probable date of its creation, the families of its owners. For this information there are years of researches, aimed to dispel the slightest doubt that this picture really painted by Leonardo. The second goal is to prove that is almost identical to the picture stored in the Louvre is a copy that hangs in the National gallery.
French art historians try to prove the opposite.