William Gass

William Gass stated that altering the image about oneself or another is art, more specifically what art is about. He talked about how people take what they see and try to "sugar-coat" what is there in actuality. This is very true if you look at society through Hitler's eyes the Jews were holding him back so he tried to create his own society that consisted of people with the same culture and who were of the same race with the same values he considered to be his own the Aryan society.

For example, look at the two works from the DMA, the Roman piece The Head of a Roman Youth and the Greek piece The Age of Bronze. When you look at The Head of a Roman Youth you realize that they took the face of an ordinary boy and tried to create a "perfect" face with now flaws that you would see in everyday society, it has no display of acne, scars, or birthmarks. The Age of Bronze is a sculpture of a man's body where the Greeks took a mediocre body and altered the effects in the areas like muscle tone, size and shape. Both societies focused on perfection the Roman sculpture was created in ancient Rome, while the Greek sculpture was created in the twentieth century yet both consisted of altering of the human body to try to create something perfect.

The Head of a Roman Youth displays perfection to a particular extent, but not fully because time among other things has damaged this piece to a certain extent. While on the other hand The Age of Bronze is a much more modern piece and time has not really had its chance to do any wear and tear. The piece is still trying to capture what the ancient Greeks and Romans focused on so much back then and what they considered to be art, even though perfection is impossible to achieve as a human being.

In conclusion, William Gass was correct in saying that people enjoy when others take an image of them and create something better only by altering and enhancing it and turning themselves'

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