Who was the first person in Egypt to draw someone at side profile with their hair in a black, swooping arc? With all four fingers tucked together and opposing the thumb?
Who was the first Mayan painter to establish those broad, soft, oblong angles and ninety-degree corners?
Which illustrator in China first drew a portrait of someone in thin, delicate outlines and voluminous, weightless, cloudlike fabric? With solid black geometric hair?
Someone in India was the first to depict fingers with that stylistic S-shaped curve before others followed suit
There was a Celt once who was the first to sketch a looping knot of vines that repeated over and over in a curving, paradoxical, organic knots and tangles
Once upon a time, soneone in Australia dappled a mosaic made of vibrant dots of colour, and everyone who saw it wanted to do it like that too
On the northwest coast, somebody first painted a face with stark black U and T and O shapes, and maybe someone else has the idea to set it off with vivid reds and greens, blue and yellow and white
Look at African statues and masks with exaggerated features and proportions, intricate textured jewelry and fabrics and rigid poses smoothed by rounded skin
These styles obviously vary between nations and regions and artists and ages but my point is, like.
When you hear “Egyptian art” or “medieval art” you see sort of picture in your mind, yeah? Colours and poses and styles?
Well something doesn’t become popular without first just happening once, yeah? The ones who made it popular were inspired by someone else who came first. Something that made people say, “oh, I like that, I’m going to make it my own, too!”
When I write in cursive, my T’s lik just like my dad’s, cause I liked how he wrote them.
Is that how everyone did it?