When Art Was Surfaces
Leonardo da Vinci never worried about whether viewing eyes should face the front or back of the Mona Lisa’s poplar panel. Our mushy understanding of 2D includes not just width and height but anything imaged facing the viewer, even if it’s painted on a wall. It’s 2D.
In the same way one of Michelangelo’s Slaves never asks what’s skin, what’s raw material. Neither sculptor nor viewer questions it. A sculpture is understood as a surface in the same way that a painting is.What’s inside — Carrara marble, bronze, mahogany — has no artistic value..