Art (visual, literary, theater, song, music, sculpture, pottery, etc.) is each culture’s story teller of signed treaties, battles, as well as our beliefs and myths.
And, yet, I never had any interest in history. Because like children everywhere, I knew history started on my birthday. My experience with “history” in both high school and college, were names, dates, locations, and “this is important, because… .” I viewed history as only dates to be learned. Who cares about treaties of the past, battles of the past? Or, who cares about antiques? Or, who cares about [fill in the blank] history. Ho Hum… When I chose to become a painter, like driving into unknown territory, I existed from that day forward, not in yesterdays.
I held this conviction through to my Master’s degree. I suffered those art survey courses. Who cares which ones. Art students are familiar with the those quizzes, papers, mid-terms, and finals as we review 2,000 years of intellectual thought in three or four months. We memorize dates, names, and locations. Don’t misunderstand, I am always inspired viewing the original work of art; but dates, names, and locations, who cares? But, art students have to fulfill art history requirements.
One summer I had a choice. The kind of choice we look back on years later and think “OMG!”
Northern Illinois University (NIU) offered a number of diverse courses in various studies through the local two-year College of DuPage (COD). COD was 20-driving minutes away and NIU was an hour or more. I, thinking only of convenience, enrolled to learn about ancient Mediterranean art. My goal, after all, was to complete one more history requirement, and who really cares which history.
I had a passionate knowledgeable instructor. Our class was small and intimate. He brought heaps and volumes of copied paper for our required reading (books that were out of print and way before Amazon). How intimidating are those first days of any university class as we cover the course outline: quiz, quiz, quiz, paper, paper, paper, test, test, test; all by this time, and by that time. Hmmm… There goes my summer.
And so we got to work, and I learned this and I learned that. Our small group would read our papers in class. I was awed by the clever insightful mind of art history majors. I remember one paper to be an argumentative dialogue between space and volume as figures from mythology.
As the course drew on, we covered the Etruscans and Etruria, and I was sure they were a town somewhere in Egypt. I was seduced by and came to love those Etruscans. Especially when I discovered the Greeks were horrified to learn Etruscan women were permitted to participate in all areas of life that men participated. Women appeared at the games. Women got drunk at revelries. Women kicked up their heels; unlike demure, well-bred, Greek women.
[A digression: Etruscans were a shocking race well beyond Hedonism. Today, if you were to Google “Etruscan women” you will find many sites describing a hedonist culture that comes with sensitive and age-appropriate warnings. Though, one does not find such warnings under “Etruscan men.” It wasn’t what they did, but that the Etruscans did it all in public; not behind a column, not in a doorway, not in private, not surreptitiously, but in public. But I claim innocence during that summer.]
If you were to see an Etruscan sarcophagus, you will forever carry the memory. The wife, embraced by her husband, both sit upright, and have that “Etruscan” smile. To this day, I can recognize an Etruscan portrait. It’s that smile, you see. It is relaxed, contented, and satisfied.
My final paper was on Libya. Why? I was motivated by photographs of an archeological dig (suspended because of Libya’s changing attitudes toward everyone non-Libyan). My research uncovered before-and-after photographs of the dig. First, you see a lot of sand with one or two protruding pillars, then, you see the excavation. (I picture myself standing on that Libyan sand before, and kicking the pillar asking, “what’s THIS doing here?”) How could I not appreciate archeologists’ labor, working with a spoon or brush, to reveal that enormous slumbering city.
Unaware of my ancient Mediterranean immersion, a contemporary friend asked “what’s the date?” I didn’t know what year it was. Months after that summer, balancing my check book, I discovered all that summer’s written checks were dated 800 BC.
The Etruscans are gone now, wiped out by conquering Romans. Libyans still talk to no one. But, that Mediterranean art history course challenged and changed my attitude about the past; and the many ways to drill down to the daily lives of people. They had all become real. The “art” they left found a corner in my heart, and a drawer full of canceled checks misdated 800 BC. What a gift.
If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.
©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter, MA
www.portraits-oils.com
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