Art History Survey Midterm

Prehistory

The period before written records.

Paleolithic

The Old Stone Age.

Mobiliary art

Portable art or sculpture.

Parietal art

Art made on walls, especially cave walls.

Naturalism

Representing forms in a realistic way.

Abstraction

Simplifying or altering natural forms.

Convention

A repeated cultural way of representing something.

Symbolic thinking

Representing ideas or things that do not physically exist.

Lion-Human

 A c. 40,000 BCE hybrid lion-human sculpture; shows early

Woman from Willendorf

A c. 24,000 BCE sculpture with exaggerated breasts, belly, hips, buttocks, and thighs.

Chauvet Cave

C. 34,000 BCE cave art known for naturalism, perspective, modeling, and volume.

Lascaux Caves

C. 15,000 BCE cave paintings famous for large animals, especially bulls.

Twisted perspective

Showing different parts from different viewpoints to show the whole.

Conceptual representation

Showing what the artist knows about an object.

Perceptual representation

Showing what the eye sees from a viewpoint.

Modeling

Shading used to make a form appear three

Mesopotamia

Land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Sumer

A civilization of early Mesopotamian city

Ziggurat

A stepped monumental religious structure.

White Temple at Uruk

A c. 3200–3000 BCE Mesopotamian temple built on a ziggurat.

Votive figures

Offerings to gods, often shown in perpetual worship.

Register

A horizontal band organizing a scene.

Hierarchical scale

More important figures are shown larger.

Standard of Ur

A c. 2600–2400 BCE work using registers and hierarchical scale.

Stela of Naram-Sin

c. 2600–2400 BCE work using registers and hierarchical scale.

Stela of Hammurabi

Monument containing Hammurabi's laws and showing divine authority.

Lamassu

Assyrian protective human-animal hybrid with wings.

Apotropaic

Intended to ward off evil.

Kemet

The 'black' land associated with fertile Nile soil.

Djeseret

The 'red land' associated with the desert.

Composite pose

Different body parts shown from their most recognizable viewpoints.

Frontality

A figure facing directly forward.

Narmer Palette

A c. 2950 BCE Dynasty 1 object associated with Egyptian unification.

Mastaba

An early Egyptian tomb with a bench

Mastaba of Ti

A Saqqara tomb with scenes of everyday activities.

Djoser's Step Pyramid

A c. 2600 BCE monumental funerary complex at Saqqara.

Egyptian afterlife art

Art connected to religion, death, kingship, ritual, and continued existence after death.

Akhenaten

Pharaoh associated with Atenism, Amarna, and unusual elongated forms.

Amarna Period

Period associated with Akhenaten, Atenism, Amarna, and intimate royal family scenes.

Tutankhamun's funerary mask

A Dynasty 18 royal burial mask dating to about 1327 BCE.

Cycladic culture

Bronze Age Aegean culture known for simplified geometric marble figurines.

Minoan culture

Bronze Age Aegean culture centered on Crete.

Mycenaean culture

Bronze Age Aegean culture centered on mainland Greece.

Cycladic figurine

Simplified, geometric marble human figure from the Cyclades.

Palace of Minos at Knossos

Minoan palace complex centered on a large courtyard.

Fresco

Pigment applied to fresh plaster.

Bull-Leaping Fresco

C. 1550 BCE Minoan fresco emphasizing movement and the bull.

Lion Gate at Mycenae

Monumental Mycenaean entrance associated with Cyclopean walls.

Cyclopean walls

Massive Mycenaean walls built from huge stones.

Treasury of Atreus

Mycenaean tholos tomb with a long entrance and corbelled vault.

Dromos

The entry passage leading to a Mycenaean tomb.

Warrior Vase

C. 1200 BCE Mycenaean vase showing armed warriors.

Black-figure pottery

Black figures with details incised into the dark forms.

Red-figure pottery

Red/clay-colored figures with details painted on them.

Exekias's Achilles and Ajax Amphora

Black-figure amphora depicting Achilles and Ajax.

Death of Sarpedon

Red-figure krater by Euphronios.

Kroisos Kouros

Archaic Greek statue of a male youth with frontality and an idealized body. C. 530 BCE grave marker for Kroisos.

Peplos Kore

Archaic Greek statue of a female youth. C. 530 BCE female youth statue wearing a peplos.

Peplos Kore

C. 530 BCE female youth statue wearing a peplos.

Doryphoros

C. 450 BCE idealized male figure by Polykleitos.

Canon of Proportions

Polykleitos's system of ideal human proportions.

Temple of Aphaia

C. 500–480 BCE Greek temple using the Doric order.

Archaic Period

Greek art period approximately 800–500 BCE.

Classical Period

Greek art period approximately 500–323 BCE.

Monumentality

The use of impressive or large scale to convey importance.