exam 1 midterm intro to art history

PREHISTORY - title

Venus of Willendorf (limestone figurine)

Venus of Willendorf - date

c. 24,000-22,000 BCE

Venus of Willendorf - place

Austria

Venus of Willendorf - important notes

• willindorf is the town of where this was found

• venus to represent love and beauty

• emphasis on her reproductive anatomy - related to fertility or child bearing

• blurred between artifact and art bc of it’s size and assumed to be used as something that travels around from person to person

title

Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Caves

Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Caves - date

c. 16,000-14,000 BCE,

Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Caves - location

France

Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Caves - important notes

• only land animals like horses, deers, bisons and no humans or fish or land

• move throughout the cave to create these

• people of this period relied on hunting

• deer may have been the main source of meat but htey do not show up in the cave

• holes in the walls to support scaffolding, twigs with chewed ends, natural materials as pigment and mixed with water to paint,

PREHISTORY - title

shaft scene

shaft scene - important notes

• 3 figures- human, bison, and rhino

• “spikey parts” of the bison are meant to convey texture of fur

• human has arms torso and head

• rhino has a tail and legs and little dots, suppsoed to be the rhino shitting

• the bird staff shows that the human was a shaman or spiritual follower

• bison actively losing his life wiht the staff in his body

PREHISTORY - title

Warka (Uruk) Vase

Warka (Uruk) Vase - date

c. 3,500-3000 BCE

Warka (Uruk) Vase - location

Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Warka (Uruk) Vase - important notes

• 2 rivers important (euphrates and tigris)

• uruk aka the first city

• inanna, the goddess of love and fertility

• anu the sky god

• used for ritual practice for inann

• storytelling narrative around the vase

• bottom reg: sheep and grain stalks

• middle reg: 9 men walking and holding vessels used for agriculture, they are n*de which means they are lower class

• top reg: higher up like goddesses maybe inanna,

• clear heirarchial

key term: composition

how the artist arranges the visual elements of a work

key term: registers

dividing work in registers, different layers seperating the complexicity of the composition

key term: low relief vs high relief

low relief is a little more flat and pops out just a little bit from the body but high relief is more 3 dimensional, you can wrap ur hands around it but it’s still attached to a body

PREHISTORY - title

Narmer Palette (both sides)

Narmer Palette (both sides) - date

c. 3000 BCE

Narmer Palette (both sides) - location

egypt

Narmer Palette (both sides) - important notes

• bc the nile flows north, upper egypt is south and lower egypt is north

• flat stone and engraved

• too large to be functional so prob an offering for a god, ritualistic purposes

• hieroglyphs show: narmer’s name on top, horus the falcon god, narmer the larger person, narmer weears the crown of upper egypt

• on the other side: two leopards with long snake necks called serpopard, narmer in human form but wears the crown of lower egypt,

• war and politics

key term: hieroglyphs

ancient writing

key term: hierarchy of scale

people who are more important are bigger and less important people are smaller

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

The Great Pyramids of Giza

The Great Pyramids of Giza - date

c. 2600-2500 BCE

The Great Pyramids of Giza - location

Old Kingdom, Fourth Dynasty, Egypt

The Great Pyramids of Giza - important notes

• 3 pyramids

  • khufu - the great “main” pyramid

  • khafre - appears taller bc it sits on a higher bedrock

  • menkaure - smallest

  • each part of a royal morturary complex

• built on flat bedrock and used limestone, free people built this not enslaved people, they had hospitals cemeteries kitchens etc, gold capstone

• the king is human but also god,

key term: polytheism

a religion with many gods

ka

spiritual life force, vital double (of ba: unique personality) that departed at death but continued to provide sustenance to exist

ex, khafre ka statue (stone) and the ka statue of ka’aper (wood)

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

Book of the Dead for the Chantress of Amun, Nauny

Book of the Dead for the Chantress of Amun, Nauny - date

1050 BCE

Book of the Dead for the Chantress of Amun, Nauny - location

third intermediate period, egypt

Book of the Dead for the Chantress of Amun, Nauny - important notes

• talks about what it was like in the underworld with Osiris

• found in private tombs for non royals

• made differently depending on the person

• meant to give deceased people safety

• this specific one is 17ft long and has an important scene called the weighing of the heart

  • confess your sins and see if your heart is lighter if youre telling the truth, in this scene, nauny is truthful and can join the dead

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

Yazılıkaya

Yazılıkaya - date

13th century BCE

Yazılıkaya - location

Hittite Empire, near Hattusa, Turkey

Yazılıkaya - important notes

• commissioned by a king

• the Hittite were in conflict with the egyptians over syria

• designed for being viewed

• hasn’t survived super well because of erosion and it’s low relief

• has gods of death marching towards the god of the underworld

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

Terracotta hydria (water jar)

Terracotta hydria (water jar) - date

c. 340-330 BCE

Terracotta hydria (water jar) - location

Apulia, Italy

Terracotta hydria (water jar) - important notes

• hades abducts persephone, and her mother, demeter, is angry

• autumn/winter is when persephone is with hades, spring and summer is when she is in theo verworld

• when persephone disappears, fertility and agriculture disappears and vice versa

• she is burial and renewal

• the hydrias were grave markers - it has a hole at the bottom so whater is poured from the top, it comes out from the bottom

• death and marriage were parallel bc it showed women being removed from her former place

key term: red figure

the figures are red

key term: slip

clay and water

ex, black slip used for painting in the terracotta hydria

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - (has more to do with life) title

The Great Stupa (Mahastupa), Sanchi

The Great Stupa (Mahastupa), Sanchi - date

250 BCE

The Great Stupa (Mahastupa), Sanchi - location

Maurya Empire, India

The Great Stupa (Mahastupa), Sanchi - important notes

• commisioned by ashoka following his conversion to buddhism

• making the deceased continue to be alive through devotion

• designed to be a representation of the universe with it’s roundness

• the practinioner doesnt enter the stuppa, the circumambulate

• the buddha guides the living to nirvana

key term: buddhism

ashoka was the first to adopt the faith

about rejecting the desires of the body (not eating, not sleeping,)

key term: stupa

reliquary monument, mound of stone, has to do with burial but not the deceased

key term: aniconism

avoidance of using visual images to depict religious figures

ex, no buddha depicted in artifacts but rather seeing him symbolized as a mango tree

key term: circumambulation

walking around as a meditational practice

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s Mausoleum

Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s Mausoleum - date

c. 210 BCE

Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s Mausoleum - location

Qin Empire, China

Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s Mausoleum - important notes

• qin empire super succcesful - standardized weight and measures, writign and currency,

• thousands of terracotta figures and laid hidden for years, discovered in 1974 by farmers

• varied in height according to their rank

• a necropolis

• egyptian blue and han purple are similar so scholars theorize that there must have been exhcnage between egypt and china

  • the color is expensive and also represents wealth

• they were being reproduced for the meperor past his death, life beyond death

key term: necropolis

a city devoted to the dead

Ancient Death, Ancient Deities - title

False Face for Funerary Bundle

False Face for Funerary Bundle - date

3rd century BCE-1 st century CE

False Face for Funerary Bundle - location

Paracas culture, Peru

False Face for Funerary Bundle - important notes

• paracas culture are a bunch of communities that lived in the same area and shared trade and knowledge

• a mummy bundle was a construction of a new body

  • the body was placed in a seated or curled position and wrapped in the mummy bundle

  • ceramics, food, knives, etc would be in between layers

• textile work on fabrics took a long time, lots of effort towards giving this to the dead

• death as a transformation illustrated on the mummy bundle

• death and the afterlife would become inseparable

key term: zoomorphic

having the form or shape of an animal

ex, paracas culture had zoomorphic fabrics and bundles

AGE OF EMPIRES: title

Augustus of Primaporta

Augustus of Primaporta - date

1st century CE

Augustus of Primaporta - location

Roman Empire, Italy

Augustus of Primaporta - important notes

• the first ruler of the roman empire

•