LESSON 1 The Beginnings of Art, Western and Asian Art

Art history

is a timeline of vast accumulation of movements, periods and styles that reflect the time during which each piece of art was made.

44,000 years ago

– the first known cave paintings in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Art

is a significant aspect of history since it is one of the few things to survive.

Prehistoric and ancient art

were around 44,000 B.C.E. to 400 BCE. It can be considered as the art period that includes cave paintings, fertility statues and bone flutes to approximately the end of the Roman empire.

Mesopotamia, Egypt and the nomadic tribes.

A variety of art styles were produces over this lasting period. This Art period includes those of prehistory to the ancient civilizations of

Pre-historic Art

Prehistoric cave art in Sulawesi, Indonesia was discovered in the 1950’s.

✓ This art is of indigenous mammals; a small water buffalo, a warty pig, and a pig-deer, and hand stencils.

✓ Archeologists discovered their age to be around forty thousand years, at least same age as the oldest known art in Europe.

Lascaux, France

Cave Paintings of Bisons

Sulawesi, Indonesia

Cave Paintings of hand stencils

Pre-historic Art

CHARACTERISTICS: Cave paintings, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures

LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: Civilizations from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and the Romans

INFLUENTIAL WORKS: Sulawesi Cave Paintings, Lascaux Cave Paintings, Venus of Willendorf, Stonehenge

SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS: Ice Age ends 910,000 BCE-8,000BCE; new Stone Age and first permanent settlements (8000 BCE-2500BCE)

Ancient Art Period

includes the works found in classical civilizations like the Greeks and Celts as well as that of the early Chinese dynasties.

CHARACTERISTICS: Religious and symbolic imagery, decorations for utilitarian objects, mythological stories.

LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: Civilizations from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and the Romans

Mesopotamian

– warrior art and narration in stone

IW: Code of Hammurabi; Standard of Ur; Gate of Ishtar

SHE: Sumerians invent writing (3400 BC); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 BCE); Abraham found monotheism

Code of Hammurabi, Gate of Ishtar

Mesopotamian INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Egyptian

– Afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb paintings; massive, monumental structures

IW: Imhotep’s pyramid; Great pyramids; Temple of Rameses; The Great Sphinx

Great pyramids, The Great Sphinx

Egyptian INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Greek and Hellenistic

– Greek idealism; perfect proportions; architectural orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthians)

IW: Parthenon; Myron; Phidas; Polykeitos; Praxiteles

SHE: Athens defeats Persia at marathon (490 BCE); Peloponnesian

Parthenon, Myron; Phidas

Greek and Hellenistic INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Romans

– Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch.

IW: Augustus of Primaporta; Colosseum, Trajan’s Column; Pantheon

SHE: Julius Caesar was assassinated (44BCE); Augustus proclaimed emperor (27BCE); Diocletian splits Empire (CE 292); Rome falls (CE 476)

Colosseum, Pantheon

Romans INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Hindu Art

is portrayed by holy symbols like the Om, an invocation of divine consciousness of God; the swastika, a symbol of auspiciousness; and the lotus flower, a symbol of purity, beauty, fertility, and transcendence.

Om

, an invocation of divine consciousness of God

swastika

, a symbol of auspiciousness

lotus flower

, a symbol of purity, beauty, fertility, and transcendence

“Amin”

It is believed that the Christian “Amen” and the Islamic _________- are both derived from Om.

CHINESE ART

are classified according to the dynasty under which they were produced.

The important qualities include a love of nature, a credence in the moral and educative capacity of art, an appreciation of simplicity, an gratitude of accomplished brushwork, an interest in viewing the subject from various perspectives and a loyalty to much-used motifs and designs from lotus leaves to dragons.

Wintry Forest

Li Cheng

JAPANESE ART

covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, calligraphy on silk and paper, ink painting, kirigami, origami, ang dorodango sculpture and ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints, and more recently manga, modern method of Japanese cartooning and comics.

Cherry Blossoms at Arashiyama

Hiroshige

BYZANTINE AND ISLAMIC ART

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design.

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Rublev, Andre

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Hagia Sofia, Mosque of Cordoba; The Alhambra

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Justinian partly restores Roman Empire (533 CE-562CE); Iconoclasm Controversy (726CE-843CE); Birth of Islam (610 CE); and Muslim conquests (632 CE- 732CE)

Hagia Sofia, The Alhambra

BYZANTINE AND ISLAMIC ART

Byzantine forms of architecture and painting

was based on religious concerns which made art uniform, anonymous, and perfected within this austere tradition

The result was sophistication of style and a spirituality of expression that rarely compares with the art of Western tradition.

MEDIEVAL ART

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Dark Imagery, biblical subjects, Classical mythology, Gothic architecture, Romanesque, Celtic Art, Carolingian Renaissance

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Abbot, Sugar, Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Crucifix, Lamentation of Christ St. Sernin, Durnham Cathedral, Chartres Cathedral

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Viking Raids (793-1066); Battle of Hastings (1066); Crusades I-IV (1094-1204) Black Death (1347-1351) Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

Crucifix,Chartres Cathedral

MEDIEVAL ART INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Dark Ages

where the art in this period were depicted as grotesque or brutal scenes while others were focused on formalized religion. Most of the art created were melancholy.

Early to High Renaissance

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Rebirth of classical culture

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Ghiberti, Brunelleschi; Donatello; Boticelli; Leanardo; Michaelangelo; Rapahael

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Ghiberti’s Door; Cathedral of Sta. Monica del Fiore; David; Primavera, Mona Lisa

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORIAL EVENTS Guttenberg’s invents movable parts (1447); Turks conquers

Mona Lisa

Early to High Renaissance, INFLUENTIAL WORKS

Renaissance

literally means rebirth and describes the resurgence of curiosity in the artistic achievements of Greece and Rome. The famous 15th century artists like Brunelleschi and Donatello paved the way to the work of Botticelli and Alberti.

Da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Raphael

High Renaissance took over in the next century, the work of _________-emerged.

Venetian and Northern Renaissance

CHARACTERISTICS The Renaissance extends northward to France, Low Countries, Poland, Germany and England

LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Durer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan Van Eyck, Rogier Van Der Weyden

INFLUENTIAL WORKS Through the Looking Glass, Portrait in a Young Man in Red

SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Council or Trent and Counter-Reformation (1545-1563); Copernicus proves the Earth revolves around the sun (1543)

Northern Renaissance

was famous due to advance technique in oil painting, realistic, vivid altarpiece art, wooden panel paintings, woodcuts and printmaking. Stone sculpture was not extremely popular, but the Germans boost up their wood carving techniques

Dutch art

was governed by empirical perspective.

aimed to get to the basics, capturing every single detail. The painters learned from direct observation and their knowledge of the consistency of things.

Mannerism (1527-1580)

introduced a highly imaginative period in art after the climax excellence that naturalistic painting had attained in Renaissance Italy. Artists started to deviate from classical influences and turn toward a further intellectual and expressive approach.

balance, naturalism, and dramatic colors

The compositions are marked by clashing colors which lacks the _____________________ of High Renaissance.

MANNERISM

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Art that breaks the rules, artifice over nature

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS St. Luke, Summer

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Magellan circumnavigates the globe (1520-15220

Venus, Cupid Folly and Time, Bronzino

MANNERISM

Baroque style (1600-1750)

is characterized by exaggerated motion and clear detail used to produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance and music.

Chiaroscuro technique

is a trait of Baroque Art in which the treatment of light and dark in an artwork assisted to create dramatic tension, was a key component in Baroque artwork.

tenebrism

which used the intensification of contrast within dark atmospheric scenes to highlight particular elements.

BAROQUE

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Splendour and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious war.

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Reubens, Rebrandt, Caravaggio

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Palaca of Versailles

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants )1618- 1648)

The Calling of St. Mathew, Caravaggio

BAROQUE

Neoclassical Period

is considered a period of enlightenment. The movement started in Europe in the 1700’s and spread into the colonies.

Neoclassical painting and sculpture

involved emphasis on austere linear design in the depiction of classical event, characters and themes, using historically correct settings and costumes.

NEOCLASSICAL

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Art that recaptures Greco -Roman grace and grandeur

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Philoctetes on Lemnos, Napoleon crossing the Alps

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Enlightenment (18th Century, Industrial Revolution (1760 -1850)

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon crossing the Alps

NEOCLASSICAL

Romanticism (1750-1850)

– The period extolled abstract, complex ideas like despair, hope, heroism, liberty, peace, survival and other impressions that nature evokes in human beings.

Romantic art

concentrated on emotions, feelings, and moods to challenge the rational ideal held so tightly during the Enlightenment.

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix

ROMANTICISM

ROMANTICISM

✘ CHARACTERISTICS The triumph of imagination and individuality

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin West

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Caernarvon Castle; Liberty Leading the People

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS American Revolution (1775 -1783); French Revolution (1789 -1790) Napoleon crowned Emperor by French (1803)

Realism (1848-1900)

is also called naturalism. The accurate, detailed, straightforward depiction of nature or of contemporary life.

may be viewed as a major trend in French novels and paintings between 1850 and 1880.

REALISM

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Celebrating working class and peasants; air rustic painting

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS The Gleaners

✘ SIGNNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS European democratic revolutions (1848)

The Gleaners, Millet

REALISM

MODERN ART

Works produced during this time showcase artists’ interest in re-imagining, reinterpreting, and even rejecting traditional aesthetic values of preceding styles

begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art.

IMPRESSIONISM

This is the style of painting that emerged in the mid and late 1800s. The movement emphasizes on an artist’s immediate impression of a moment or scene, communicated through the effect of light and its reflection, short brush strokes and separation of colors

POST-IMPRESSIONISM

is an art movement characterized by a subjective approach to painting, as artists opted to evoke emotion rather that realism in their work.

✘ Paintings share some similar qualities like symbolic motifs, unnatural color, and painterly brushstrokes.

✘ CHARACTERISTICS A soft revolt against impressionism

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne, Seurat

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS The Starry Night, Pyramid of Skulls, The Dream

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Belle Epoch (late 19th Century Golden Age, Japan defeats Russia (1905)

The Starrry Night, Van Gogh

POST-IMPRESSIONISM

FAUVISM

The artists used pure, brilliant color applied straight from the paint tubes to create bright effects from the canvas.

Expressionism

is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to portray not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events awaken in him.

FAUVISM AND EXPRESSIONISM

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Harsh colors and flat surfaces (fauvism) Emotion distorting form

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Matisse, Kadinsky and Munch

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Dancer Tilting, San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Boxer Rebellion in China (1900); world War (1914-1918)

Harmony in Red, Matisse

FAUVISM AND EXPRESSIONISM

Cubism

is an artistic movement, created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Brauw. It employs geometric shapes in depictions of human ang other forms.

Futurism

is an Italian art movement that took speed, technology and modernity as its inspiration. It portrayed the dynamic character of 20th century life, elevator war, and machine age, and favored the growth of fascism

CUBISM, FUTURISM, SUPREMATIVISM, CONSTRUCTIVISM, DE STILL

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Pre-post World War I art experiment; new forms to express modern life.

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS The Old Guitarist Malevich’s Self Portrait

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Russian Revolution (1917); American woman franchised {1920)

Three Musicians, Picasso

CUBISM, FUTURISM, SUPREMATIVISM, CONSTRUCTIVISM, DE STILL

Dadaism

is the first conceptual art movement where the focus of the artists was not to craft aesthetically pleasing objects but create works that upended bourgeois sensibilities.

Surrealism

intends to channel the unconscious means to unlock the power of imagination. Strongly influenced by psychoanalysis, the Surrealist’s considers the rational mind repressed the power of imagination, weighing it down with taboos

DADAISM AND SURREALISM

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Ridiculous art; painting dreams and exploring the unconscious.

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Duchamp, Dali, Ernst, Magritte, de Chirico, Kahio

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS The Fountain, The Persistence of Memory

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Disillusionment after WWI; The Great Depression (1929 -1938); World War II (1939 -1945) and Nazi horrors, atomic bombs dropped on Japan (1945)

The Fountain, Duchamp

DADAISM AND SURREALISM

Abstract Expressionism (1940-1950)

is an art movement of mostly non-representative painting. It was neither wholly abstract nor expressionist and compromised several fairly various style

Pop Art (1960’s)

is a movement marked by a fascination with popular culture reflecting the a uence in post-war society. It was not prominent in American art but soon spread to Britain

ABTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND POP ART

✘ CHARACTERISTICS Post WWII; pure abstraction and expression without form; popular art absorbs consumerism.

✘ LEADING CONTRIBUTORS Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein

✘ INFLUENTIAL WORKS Autumn Rhythm, Marilyn Monroe, Campbell Soup Cans

✘ SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL EVENTS Cold War and Vietnam War (US enters 1965); UUSR suppresses Hungarian revolt (1956): Czechoslovakian Revolt (1968)

Campbell Soup Cans, Warhol

ABTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND POP ART

CONTEMPORARY ART

It is the art of today, created by artists who are living in the twenty-first century. Contemporary art provides a chance to reflect on contemporary civilization and the matters relevant to us, and the world around us.
This art is a dynamic mixture of materials, techniques, concepts, and subjects that question traditional boundaries and challenge easy definition.

is diverse characterized by the extreme lack of a consistent, unifying principle or ideology.

Postmodern art

refers to a group of movements that began in the late 1950s and early 1960s, during which artist rejected established practices and questioned the importance of their roles in the artistic process.

Deconstructivism

is a movement of postmodern architecture which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building. It is characterized by an absence of harmony, continuity or symmetry.

The Order of the Night, Anselm Kiefer

POST MODERNISM AND DECONSTRUCTIVISM