Workshop

I stopped at the Met a few days ago, admiring the Renaissance bronzes and the interiors of the workshops of the era they reassembled within the galleries.
 
Along with my professed love of the libraries both real and imagined that borders on the mystical, I also hold a softspot for Renaissance era workshops somewhere in my heart. There's something mystifying about those spaces that places them on the same level of the library of the universe penned by the eponymous Louis Jorges. Something that just boggles my imagination when I think about them. The master's workshop of the era were not simple art studios. They handled everything from metallurgy and architecture to alchemy and mathematics, and the polymath of Leonardo Da Vinci's style was a common sight during those times, though interests did not necessarily translate into true calibre. Basically they were the science laboratories of the time before science was born, akin to a magician's library in many ways.
 
Just think about it. The blue gleam of twilight flows through the closed windowsill. Bits of orange light from the furnace of molten bronze laid on top of the thick wooden worktables. And you can catch glimpses of sketchs of real and geometric experiments buried somewhere among illegible scrawls of mathematical formulae. The maestro work with his tools pouring molten metal into a crack on the wax shape that will soon turn into a statuette of life like quality. We are witnessing transformation of a chunk of rock into a life like shape that still retains all the emotions and memories of the artist's intent.
 
To me those workshops are the places where sciences and arts intermingled with each other under the will of the human creator to form wonderful things, crafted from a lifetime of pursuit and mastery. And that is why I stubbornly refuse to compare those workshops to most modern artists' galleries and workspaces. I may be a bit one sided on this issue but many of the products of modern art makes me question the degree of mastery and understanding the artist has on his or her chosen medium. Do they pay attention to their colors? The surface tension of the pigments? The light and surfaces at an interplay of the quantum nature? The construction and porosity of their wood? The thermodynamic characteristics of their molten metals? People who lived centuries ago paid attention to those things so why can't the modern men/women do it? It feels as if vast majority of the artists out there pay attention to the fad and fashion of the times instead of true perfection of their arts.
 
Of course, I am not an artist, and most of the knowledge and impression I have on arts are superficial at best. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that what I just put to words above is more relevent to the art scene then I would like.
 
I love those old workshops, but most of all I love what those workshops represent. Ceaseless pursuit of perfection not limited by superficial boundaries of genre and scene. Modern forms that most closely resembles the workshops of old are probably science laboratories and hackerspaces (not art galleries, I'm sorry to say). There is something incredibly satisfying about being able to pursue something to a degree of perfection, spending sleepless nights and skipping meals left and right. It's intellectually stimulating and it makes me feel alive, something I can't quite say with most of the lifestyles out there.
 
 
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