www.montereycountynow.com July 11-17, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 23 morphing it into classical mythology or Celtic mythology. There’s no ugliness in your work. For me it’s the matter of turning away from realism. I’m still doing representative art, but I’m not a realist. I practice idealism. And we are back to Plato, whose fear was that we would practice being ordinary and that would pull us away from aréte, from doing extraordinary things. Areté is also the moral virtue. Is your art moral? Innate excellence, what a beautiful soul is. Trying to use our abilities for a higher purpose. This is what caused the Renaissance—their interest in antiquity and applying its concepts to our time and in the process, creating the future. I used aréte in one of my works, the black figure on white horse. I’ve been saying forever we are in the need of a renewed, diverse culture. I started to do public service to abandon aesthetics, that’s my moral side. A huge part of my life was working at [Dorothy’s Place], the soup kitchen with Franciscan workers in Salinas. Both you and the Greeks are interested in the perfect human body, typically the male body. Polykleitos is at the center of it. His main figure is the Doryphoros. The idea that the figure represents symetria, the harmonious integration of diversity, of part of the human body, ideal proportions of the society and nature itself. That’s an important idea— harmonious integration of diversity, we need as people. It likely came from Pythagoras and that there’s this whole thing about numbers coming into this. Very humanistic. The idealization of the figure…those sculptures don’t look like real people, and that’s on purpose. It’s meant to be everyone. And that corresponds with the beginning of democracy. Roman historian Polybius first spoke of the system that we use, the republic. It is also the American birth, the beginning, George Washington, Jefferson. It’s a natural thing that democracies and republics go into decline and there’s nothing you can do. How do you feel about contemporary art? Most of our culture is focused on the contemporary period, an idea that art should be about now, a reflection about our own time. I don’t think it’s necessary. It can be about ancient times that reveals an aspect of our own period. I like contemporary artists and art that is not like mine at all. I’m inspired by Mark Rothko who I think was the greatest painter of the 20th century. Dark, but deeply profound. If the world was ending and you could grab only one of your paintings, which one would that be? [Looking up toward the painting] I would take Penelope. Did you always know she was Penelope? It is based on a real model, a person—classicized. The title came later. When it was done, I realized that is who she represented. I wanted to make a painting of a woman who had integrity such as Penelope had—the woman who outwitted all her suitors. David Ligare: Spheres of Influence is on display until Sept. 1 at the Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific St., Monterey. $15/general admission. 372-5477, montereyart.org. Mic’d Up at The Press Club features a live conversation with David Ligare at 12:30pm Thursday, July 11. The Press Club at The Creperie Cafe, 1123 Fremont Blvd., Seaside. Free. 901-3100. Archimedes was the most famous mathematician and inventor in ancient Greece. He is especially important for his discovery of the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. “FOR OUR TIME, ART THAT EXPRESSES HUMANISTIC VALUES AND IDEALS IS GREATLY NEEDED.” “TOMB OF ARCHIMEDES,” 2023, DAVID LIGARE ARTS4MC.ORG/OPEN-STUDIOS new fall arrivals all made in italy located in the carmel plaza carmel-by-the-sea (831)625-8106 baldassari isaia ravazzolo castangia and more!
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