1 Pre-Historic to Bronze Age

Art

an aesthetically pleasing & meaningful arrangement of elements, as words, sounds, colors, shapes, etc. Form of human activity whose chief character is determind by such arrangement

architecture

the science or profession of designing and constructing buildings or other structures

decorative arts

Any of the arts pertaining to or referring to the following: painting, sculpture, glass, and glassware, ceramic and pottery, metallurgy and plants.

practical

an approach to historical style analysis that seeks to establish what was built, when, by whom, and for whom

historical

an approach to historical style analysis that seeks the whys and its relationship to the social, economic, political, cultural, and religious environment

aesthetics

an approach to historical style analysis that accounts visual and stylistic differences and to explain how styles change and why they do so

factors of historical development

1) Rational, Technological and Constructional

2) Social and Religious

3) Economic, Cultural and Political

4) Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist)

post and lintel construction

Wall construction utilizing a framework of vertical posts and horizontal beams to carry floor and roof loads.

arcaded construction

Invented this type of construction to allow bigger and more monumental structures

Paleolithic Age

Old Stone Age or Glacial Age, before written history

Lower Paleolithic

The oldest part of the period during which the first stone tools were created and used.

Oldowan

Lower Paleolithic Culture where the key feature was the method of chipping stones to create a chopping or sharp edged flake

Acheulean

Lower Paleolithic culture that was the most important and dominant tool-making tradition with oval and pear-shaped hand-axes

Shaman of Trois Freres

Paleolithic art shows a Shaman donning an animal suit to absorb the powers of the animal

Bison of Tuc D'Audoubert

A paleolithic cave art, constructed in a combination of sculpture in the round and high relief

Gallery of The Running Bulls

Cave painting found in Altamira, Spain that tried to achieve realism by creating shadows and overlapping of animals to show perspective. 25 meters long.

cupules

These are round and concave indentions carved into a rock surface by Paleolithic humans. No one is sure of their function.

Clactonian

A term used for assemblages from the Lower Paleolithic, lacking handaxes and characterized by large flakes with heavy retouching and notches.

Middle Paleolithic

The middle part of the Old Stone Age, associated with Mousterian tools, which Neandertals produced using the Levallois technique.

Mousterian

middle paleolithic culture where tools were in specialized shapes, including barbed and serrated edges

Upper Paleolithic

Refers to the most recent part of the Old Stone Age, spawned the first widespread appearance of human painting and sculpture

Perigordian

employed flake-tool technology, producing toothed and serrated stone tools

chatelperron points

Aurignacian

Pertaining to an Upper Paleolithic stone tool industry that witnessed the first significant manifestations of fine art painting and sculpture, cave paintings

el castillo cave

Gravettian

toolmaking tradition of the upper paleolithic, characterized by potable sculpture, the production of small pointed blades with blunt but straight back and denticulate knives

Soultrean

stone-toolmaking tradition of the European Upper Paleolithic. Bifaces are exquisitely made, symmetrical, leaf-shaped projectile points. Finest Paleolithic flint craftsmanship

Magdalenian

Pertaining to the final phase of the Upper Paleolithic defined by smaller and more sophisticated tools (from barbed points to needles). Growing importance to aesthetics

Venuses

Created during prehistoric time to ensure successful childbirth

petroglyph

rock carving

lean-tos

often erected against the wall of a cave

huts

built using stakes with stones as supports, with stouter posts along the axis

pit houses

houses dug into the ground and covered with wood and skins

tents

made of wooden posts and covered with skins that were weighed down with pebbles

pictograms

A pictorial symbol or sign representing an object or concept. Used by many non-alphabetic written scripts.

Venus of Brassempouy

oldest known prehistoric portrait, carved from mammoth ivory

Venus of Willendorf

Austrian painted venus made of limestone; stumpy female figure features pendulous breasts, an obese middle and belly, and pronounced buttocks

Venus of Dolni Vestonice

earliest ceramic artifact found in the Czech Republic

parietal art

paintings and engravings found along cave walls and ceilings

Stationary Art

cave paintings from lascaux, france; great hall of the bulls (belief in the power in animals)

Totemism

the belief that people are related to particular animals, plants, or natural objects by virtue of descent from common ancestral spirits

Shamamism

communication with good and evil spirits

relief sculpture

Sculpture that projects from a flat background

pottery/ceramic art

creation of objects, mainly cooking or storage vessels made out of clay and then hardened by heat

Chauvet-Pont-D'Arc Cave

paintings were more sophisticated, showing shading, perspective, composition, even depictions of movement

Sgraffito

a ceramic or mural decoration made by scratching off a surface layer to reveal the ground

megalith

a large stone that forms a prehistoric monument

Mesolithic Era

Middle Stone Age

Mesolithic Era

Era that focused from hunting and gathering to farming/agriculture

rock paintings

mesolithic art found outside caves, on vertical cliffs or sheer faces, people became subjects

pottery

art that emerged in the mesolithic era for utilitarian purposes

Gobekli Tepe

A ceremonial site of megaliths found in Turkey made by hunting and gathering people.

Neolithic Age

stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, and farming, led to growth in crafts like pottery and weaving. beginning to civilization. mud bricks were first used

timber-framed houses

longhouses

tripartite, bipartite, single plans

Beehive hut

trullo

dry walled rough stone shelter with corbelled roof

Menhir

a large uncut stone erected as a monument in the prehistoric era; a standing stone

orthostat

An upright slab forming part of a larger structure

Dolmen

a stone tomb formed by two posts capped by a lintel

stone circle

Standing stones arranged in a circle

Taulas

consist of a vertical pillar with a horizontal stone lying on it forming a letter T

Trilithon

a pair of monoliths topped with a lintel

Kneeling Bull Holding Spouted Vessel

one of the earliest treasures of silver metalwork, crafted by Mesopotamian silversmiths

Ram in a Thicket

elaborate gold figurine found at Ur (Mesopotamia), early example of ceramics and art. Statuette of a goat perched against a bush looking for food

Jericho skulls

-took skulls, used plaster to mold their features & shells for eyes

-to preserve the memory of those who have passed on

Catalhuyuk

one of the world's first villages, established in modern-day Turkey. Houses were made of brick, no doors and entered through hatches in roofs. The best examples of an early Neolithic town where the transition to a fully settled existence has been satisfactory achieved.

cromlech

cluster of dolmens arranged in a circle; mark sacred spaces

bluestones

A ring of standing stones at the center of Stonehenge. The source of the stones is over 240 kilometers from Stonehenge.

Sarsen Stones

Larger stones of Stonehenge, and similar stone circles; make up the outer ring, and inner U of Stonehenge

heel stone

The monolith set outside the stone circle of Stonehenge along an axis which marked the rising of the sun on June 21st the mid-summer solstice.

red, black, yellow

prehistoric primary colors

ochre

mineral-based pigment used in parietal art. has yellow from goethite and red from hematite

ochre, umber, sienna, manganese, kaolin

prehistoric mineral-based pigments used in parietal art

sienna

lighter than umber, another earth pigment that contains both iron oxide and manganese oxide (has raw & burnt kind)

manganese

stone age artists obtained their black colors from a range of _______ oxides

kaolin

a fine, pure-white pigment in sotne age art

umber

Bronze Age

the period in ancient human culture when people began to make and use copper and tin

Mesopotamian Civilization

where art history started, cuneiform, first written code, organization into city-states, and astronomy

Anu

Mesopotamian supreme male god that was represented with a bull

Sumerians

Founders of Mesopotamian civilization

Innana

patron goddess of summeria (uruk)

Cuneiform

Earliest form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge shaped stylus and wet clay tablets.

Stylus

Egyptian reed pen

Epic of Gilgamesh

World's first literature by Sumerians, The most famous extant literary work from ancient Mesopotamia, it tells the story of one man's quest for immortality.

the stele of the vultures

a stone tablet sculpted in low relief, had been commissioned as a war memorial by King Eannatum

Standard of Ur

a hollow wooden box with scenes of war and peace represented on each side through elaborately inlaid mosaics of shell, red limestone, and lapis lazuli

Drystone house

stones pilled up on one another, walls were almost a meter thick

bas-relief

low-relief sculpture

Domestic Architecture

mud brick construction with an open courtyard surrounded by the rooms of the house with windows within for ventilation. Roofs were made of reeds

Ziggurat of Ur

a temple to the moon goddess Nanna

Nanna

Sumerian moon god

cylinder seal

a round piece of carved stone that when rolled onto clay produces an image; used for business transactions

Glyph

usage of picture symbols for writing

Tell Asmar Figures

30 statuettes made of marble from the mesopotamian period with overwhelmingly large eyes. made from limestone, gypsum, alabaster

cire perdue

the lost wax process. A bronze casting method in which a figure is modeled in clay and covered with wax and then recovered with clay. When fired in a kiln, the wax melts away, leaving a channel between the two layers of clay which can be used as a mold for liquid metal

convention

a stylistic method to make everything standard to be approved as beautiful

lapis lazuli

a semiprecious blue stone

Ziggurat

A pyramid shaped temple tower, seen by leaders as a link to heaven; artificial mountains made of tiered rectangular layers which rose in 1-7; multipurpose

The Ram and Tree

An offering stand from Ur in the 2600 B.C. made of wood, gold, and lapis lazuli