The renaissance era is very popular for being... there. I mean, who hasn't heard of it? After the Moors invaded Spain, with their Roman and Greek books, all kinds of technology and practices were reinvented. Perspective, what an arch was, how to manipulate technology for the sake of entertainment, how to make better art, and all sorts of information. However, most people can point out "Oh, that's a renaissance artwork" simply by the style of a painting, or a dress, or a building. What they don't realize, however, is that more things are influenced by the great revival than one might think.
Fireworks? Yeah, those came from the renaissance era.
Garden mazes? Those, too.
Flower arranging, and pretty much every movie, in general, all birthed from operas and plays. However, they didn't have "renaissance festivals", they just had... festivals.
 |
Play as Ezio Auditore, the Italian assassin in Assassin's Creed 2,
and play a role in the renaissance, itself! |
But that's all just information, so how about some actual examples? Well, there was that one Reebok ad, featuring a girl running, and the Zephyrs from Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" blowing poofs of air to give a runner a boost, and to pretty much signify that "If you wear Reebok shoes, you will feel like the goddess of beauty."
Speaking of the Birth of Venus, one of my favorite video games, and one of the most influential video games of all time, Portal, uses that painting as a reference for creating the model of the main antagonist. <Spoilers ahead, by the way>
 |
| This is GLaDOS, she hangs from the ceiling. |
In portal, a large female robot is given synthetic intelligence and decision making to test out the theory of artificial immortality by being given "personality discs" of the deceased. She at first is beautiful, a brilliant marvel of science, but in thanks and awareness of her superiority, she quickly kills off the humans working in the institution that created her. The developers of the game wanted to make the reference to Venus, as a beautiful creation and symbol of power, by flipping everything upside down. Literally and figuratively. The origin for the model for this robot, GLaDOS (Genetic Life and Disc Operating System), was revealed by the developers, to be the painting of The Birth of Venus. All they did was flip her upside down, and then go from there.
 |
To the left is Venus, goddess of beauty.
To the right is an inverted GLaDOS, not a goddess. |
GLaDOS is a symbol of power, and with deceptively friendly and beautiful curves and rounded edges, she is anything but beautiful on the inside, as she attempts - hundreds of times - to discreetly murder the player, by placing said player through dozens of dozens of little courses and life-threatening scenarios, leading you in the wrong direction at every chance, and insulting you.
The renaissance is everywhere, I assure you, but I know only so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment