Art History Texts

Funeral Oration of Pericles

after 431 BCE, Pericles (from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War), Athens.

What was a Sanctuary?

Ch. 2 of Greek Sanctuaries and Temple Architecture, 2018, Mary Emerson, Greece, Olympia, Delphi, Athenian Acropolis, Bassae, the Temples of Paestum, the Temple of Zeus, Bronze Palm Tree (for Birth of Apollo, Artemis), statues of gods.

Shield of Aenea

From the epic poem Aeneid, by Virgil, 19BCE, for Caesar Augustus, Rome, Shield of Aenea created by God Vulcan.

What Wright Hath Wrought

Lewis Mumford, 1959, New Yorker Magazine.

The Grand Scribe’s Records (selections)

Ssu-Ma Ch’ien, 91BC, China, from the perspective of the Western Han Dynasty.

Cubism and Abstract Art

1936, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Book excerpt, examples of abstract works including Gabo’s Space Construction, Malevich’s Black Square (both pure abstraction), and Arp’s Head, Rosenburg’s Cow (near).

The Exhibition of the Impressionists

1874, Louis Leroy, from satirical magazine Charivari, Paris, mentions impressionist pieces including Boulevard de Capucines, Impression, Sunrise by Monet, Dancer by Renoir, Ploughed Field by Picasso, andMaison de Pendu by Cezanne.

An Account of Damascus (selections)

1184, Ibn Jubayr, Damascus, Syria, the Great Mosque.

The Life of St. Louis (excerpts)

Jean de Joinville, France, 1309.

Power and Authority in Roman Portraiture

Nancy Thompson, 2007, Rome, ringstone with intaglio bust of Julius Casear, Portrait of a Man, Colossal Portrait of Augustus, and Cameo Portrait of Emperor Augustus.