On Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists), which was the most famous venue for these spectacles, there are marble feet markings which were the starting positions for fighters.
Great art is rooted in the hardest of human emotion. Is why we look back to ancient culture with reverance and sometimes nostalgia. We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. But our human spirit and memory recognizes the suffering and sacrifices of the ancestors. It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense, as those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. We will probably get there again, but like an LLM, sometimes humans need to reconstitute the entire corpus to make a rather small change
> those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions.
Actually, re-reading your original post, this comes across as so asinine I do have to wonder if I'm replying to an LLM. Because it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to checks notes rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other.
Well "great" is rather subjective.
But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it.
I don't think we can conclusively say anything like that. Sure, a bunch of modern art is... odd, but that's more to do with the world generally being more ok with experimentation, and there's plenty of more classical work happening around the globe, even if it doesn't get the same recognition as various "clickbait", if you will. For instance, the bronze work of Luo Li Rong channels the art of the past pretty well, I'd say. https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/
That's what I find so tedious about that particular type of modern art (e.g. Piss Christ). It's incredibly repetitive and not experimental at all.
It's always about transgression (body, gender, etc.), it pivots on a sophomoric "what is art anyway?" question, it drives audience discomfort in order to have a visceral reaction rather than any other kind of emotional response. In the end it elevates the artist's intention (in their mission statement) far over the reality of their art.
It's incredibly overdone and yet keeps coming back around...to an installation space near you.
Luo Li Rong managed to grab the other end of the spectrum: classically/romantically-presented T&A.
I do not think this pseudo-intellectual desire to ape art styles of the past is really very compatible with the soul of an artist. Artists make two things: what moves them, and what they are paid to make. Ideally, these are the same thing.
No one is stopping you from commissioning paintings such as the ones you revere as the peak of art, by the way. Open your wallet if that's what you want. That's how great art was made back then. But if the depth of your insight on the human condition is whatever you're posting here, I do not know if your commissions would capture the meaning you seem to want.
Your absolutely correct. The Venice exhibition was made with 600 thousand euros of public money. The great art of the last age was also commissioned by rich nobility, basically the same as there was no public funds at that stage of developmemt.
So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant, namely that of the public consideration of the "great art" of that age. I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however.
We can make better than the past for sure, there is no point to rehash the glory of old, but we so far have not. In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall.
It's amazing that we cannot recognize the same precursors in our own. But perhaps this is interdisciplinary blindness?
Actually this is a very interesting comment so I do want to continue to engage. Thanks for not rising to my tone, I suppose.
> I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however.
You've quite missed my point if you're looking for grandeur in it. I see an artist pushing the boundaries of art. Your questioning of its value is the value (or, part of it).
> we so far have not.
That can't be stated definitively even if we limit ourselves to large-scale painting. But of course, we have far more media available to us today than 2D paintings and other traditional art forms. Breathable tanks of piss, films, video games - none of these existed in the 17th century. And each of them is capable of evoking great emotions, greater even than looking at a painting of a hundred Venetians beating the shit out of each other. You've never watchec a movie that left you feeling awe? Ah, even the piss? Sure. What if it was a thousand women in a tank of piss? Use your imagination - that's what art is about.
> In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall
I have never in my life heard of this claimed in an academic setting - only from retro-fetishist cranks, if you'll pardon me saying, making some "hard times create strong men" argument (which can't be entertained, being ahistorical). Nor can I think of any such phenomenon in ancient Greco-Roman history from Mycenae to the Visigoths. Are you able to expand on that?
Gotta love how some of the spectators on the larger Joseph Heintz the Younger painting enjoy the entertainment. Too bad that these images predate the invention of popcorn!
If anyone's played Assassin's Creed II (or any of the Ezio games) (these older games were produced with help from historians) Ezio's scar comes from a street fight on Ponte Vecchio in Venice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTXd7L01pI2
Interested in whether these bridge brawls were isolated to just Venice, maybe tanners and butchers had it out on all checks notes 3 of Florence’s main bridges
Actually, re-reading your original post, this comes across as so asinine I do have to wonder if I'm replying to an LLM. Because it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to checks notes rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other.
This is a tautology, no? There's plenty of great art being made today by people feeling the same emotions as those in the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-bienna...
Modern art and artists indeed do mirror the feeling of their age.
That's what I find so tedious about that particular type of modern art (e.g. Piss Christ). It's incredibly repetitive and not experimental at all.
It's always about transgression (body, gender, etc.), it pivots on a sophomoric "what is art anyway?" question, it drives audience discomfort in order to have a visceral reaction rather than any other kind of emotional response. In the end it elevates the artist's intention (in their mission statement) far over the reality of their art.
It's incredibly overdone and yet keeps coming back around...to an installation space near you.
Luo Li Rong managed to grab the other end of the spectrum: classically/romantically-presented T&A.
No one is stopping you from commissioning paintings such as the ones you revere as the peak of art, by the way. Open your wallet if that's what you want. That's how great art was made back then. But if the depth of your insight on the human condition is whatever you're posting here, I do not know if your commissions would capture the meaning you seem to want.
We can make better than the past for sure, there is no point to rehash the glory of old, but we so far have not. In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall.
It's amazing that we cannot recognize the same precursors in our own. But perhaps this is interdisciplinary blindness?
> I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however.
You've quite missed my point if you're looking for grandeur in it. I see an artist pushing the boundaries of art. Your questioning of its value is the value (or, part of it).
> we so far have not.
That can't be stated definitively even if we limit ourselves to large-scale painting. But of course, we have far more media available to us today than 2D paintings and other traditional art forms. Breathable tanks of piss, films, video games - none of these existed in the 17th century. And each of them is capable of evoking great emotions, greater even than looking at a painting of a hundred Venetians beating the shit out of each other. You've never watchec a movie that left you feeling awe? Ah, even the piss? Sure. What if it was a thousand women in a tank of piss? Use your imagination - that's what art is about.
> In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall
I have never in my life heard of this claimed in an academic setting - only from retro-fetishist cranks, if you'll pardon me saying, making some "hard times create strong men" argument (which can't be entertained, being ahistorical). Nor can I think of any such phenomenon in ancient Greco-Roman history from Mycenae to the Visigoths. Are you able to expand on that?
Popcorn's been around for thousands of years.