Art History Survey Exam #1

Scale

How big/small something is

Medium

What something is made out of

What are the benefits of stone?

Hard

Longlasting

People in ancient Greece experimented with?

Metal

Dye comes from?

Animals

Plants

Lapis lazuli

Certain stones had powers which created a healing/protective barrier

What is the context of a piece you should consider?

Social

Geographical

Cultural

Philosophical

Art History

Study of artistic works made throughout human history

Archaeology

Study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains

Identity

How personal characteristics, cultural heritage, beliefs, and social roles are expressed and explored through artistic creation and expression

Cultural

How the social, political, economic, and historical environment shapes and are reflected in art

Material Culture

Tangible objects and artifacts, from architecture and furniture to tools and clothing, that are created and used, with meaning by people in a specific cultural context

Paleolithic Period

2.5 mil yrs - 10,000 BCE

Stone tools

Hunter-gatherer societies

What does Paleolithic mean?

Paleo = old

Lithos = stone

La Pasiega Cave

c. 65,000 BCE

Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain

Pech-Merle

France

c. 22,000 BCE

Details to note: pigment, torch, handprints, holes in walls = scaffolding

Megaloceros Gallery Cave Paintings

• Chauvet Cave, France

• 30,000 BCE

• Bison, mammoth, horse, antelope (most depicted animals at this time)

• Sideways —> only way to see the whole animal

• Bison, mammoth, horse, antelope → most depicted animals

• Females are beginning to be more prominent in pieces

Hall of Bulls

• Lascaux Cave, France

• Twisted perspective

• Ground line

Twisted perspective

Multiple viewpoints of a single subject within one image

Ground line

Ground upon figures are standing

Animal from Apollo 11 Cave

• Nambia

• Charcoal pigment

• Composite image

Composite image

Combines multiple images/elements into one piece

Lin-Human Figure

• Germany

• Sculpture in the ground was carved all the way around

• Estimated to take 400 hrs

• 1 ft high

Sculpture in the round

Carved all the way around

Woman of Wildendorf

24,000 BCE - 22,000 BCE

Fertility imagery

Woman holding a bison horn

• Laussel, France

• 25,000 BCE - 22,000 BCE

• No facial feature

• On a test, you could mention: exaggerated features and hunter gatherer societies

Neolithic Period

• “New Stone Age”

• 10,000 BCE - c. 2000 BCE

• Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia)

Neolithic Revolution/”Neolithic Package”

• This brings about: houses, agriculture, textile production, domestication of animals

• Social complexity: people are becoming more organized → permanent settlements

Çatalhöyük settlement

• Turkey

• No urban planning and grew overtime → doubles as a defense

• Very stable with openings in roof which were used as chimneys

• Made of mudbrick and timber

• Organized around an oven

• The floors were made with lime plaster

Bulls heads were a sign of?

Male fertility

**sign of support of this idea in general

Austria v. Çatalhöyük

• Facial features

• Ideas travelled

Pottery fragments, c. 19,000 BCE 

• China

• Pottery is coarse and functional and undecorated

• Baskets

• Skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism

A design that was once functional but is now decorative/symbolic

Mesopotamia (3000-3500 BCE)

Brought about the development of;

• The first cities

• Long distance trade and exchange

• Writing

• Urban life

Sedentary life and domestication of plants and animals leads to…

• Surplus

• Free time → ability to devote time to things outside of

• Subsistence = development of knowledge including specialized labor and crafts

Surplus

Extra of something

City states are…?

Small and theocracies

Monumental architecture

Power/identity of these cities

Temple of Anu (White Temple) of Uruk c. 3300 BCE

• Sky god (Anu)

• Mudbrick and stone bracing

• Ziggurat

• Insane amount of labor/coarse labor → weren’t reimburse

• Changes in architecture = change in society as a whole

• Cella

• Gypsum was a token to keep track of stuff

• Cuneiform

Ziggurat

Made from mud bricks with a shrine at its summit

Cella

Approached from main entrance (best access) → encouraged humility and time to contemplate before we meet with the divine

Cuneiform

Used for legal texts; clay tablets written on with a reed stylus

Uruk vase c. 3200 BCE

• Alabaster

• First great work of narrative relief sculpture

• Relief sculpture = sculptured elements poke out from a solid, flat background, remaining attached to it

• Registers → groundlines

• Composite view

• Reflects lived experiences of these people

• Upper band - goddess Inanna and there’s surplus being delivered to her

Composite view

Seeing something from the fronts and side

Registers

A distinct horizontal band within a composition that serves to organize and separate narrative or thematic elements

Relief sculpture

Sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material, projecting outward from a flat surface

Priestking (master of animals)

• Iconography

• Cylinder seal —> rolled to create an impression in clay, signature would be above doorways

• Votive offerings

• Wide eyes were a symbol of devotion

Iconography

Culturally interested

Votive offerings

A material object/action dedicated to a deity/saint as a promise as thanks for a pray being answered/blessing received

Corvée labor

Unpaid labor

Bent access

A building’s layout

Hierarchy of scale

Usage of difference in size (if something is big, it’s typically more important!)

Abstract

Non-realistic art that doesn’t try to create an accurate image

Naturalistic

Goal is to represent something as it looks in the real world

Stele

Upright pillar that functions as a monument 

Ancient Nile Valley

• Small farming communities but eventually grew, development of kingship

• Funerary evidence comes from burials

• Burials aren’t disturbed and they put stuff into their tombs

Death and Immortality

• Egyptians believed that every person had a Ka or life-force that continued to exist after death

• After death the Ka could reinhabit the corpse and live on as long as the body remained intact

• The deceased’s body was mummified, and then food, drink, clothing, and furniture were provided in the tomb for their use

• Statuettes called ushabties were also placed in the tomb to perform labor for the deceased in the afterlife

• Statues of the deceased provided an alternate dwelling place for the Ka in case the mummified body was destroyed

• Egyptian tombs, particularly royal tombs, were elaborate, had a lot of stuff in them, and were meant to last for a long, long time… into eternity

Ka

Spiritual life force or double of a person, thought to reside in the physical body during life and needed a permanent substitute

What do archaeologists and art historians care about?

Archaeologists care what people are doing

Art historians care about cultural

Mastaba

• “Bench”

• Made from mudbrick

• Architectural section building is cut from center but we can see from the side

• Main parts:

  • Funerary chapel

  • False door (dead could pass through it)

  • Serdab

Serdab

Small room which held statues of the deceased, often completely closed off, no one was really intended to see it

The Old Kingdom (c. 2686 - 2160 BCE)

• Naramsimha considered himself part divine

• Labor → created spectacular funerary monuments

• Djoser’s Funerary Complex

• Pyramid was a series of mastabas

Djoser’s Funerary Complex

• Protected his Ka in afterlife

• First time there’s a mortuary structure in stone+ first time there’s a mortuary building being combined with ritual buildings

• Included very first pyramid

• Had processional spaces (festivals took place here)

• Real functional buildings and false buildings (meant for King’s Ka to use in afterlife) + completely solid on inside, architect is none

• Dual function: advertise (symbol of godlike power of the king) + provide the king a home in the afterlife

Serdab of Djoser

• Tilted back rectangular box

• Only opening was for Ka statue to look out

Ka Statue of Djoser, 2592-2566 BCE

• Oldest known life size statue in Egypt (good to know on an exam!)

• Eyes: raw crystal and obsidian

• Nemes headdress (symbol of kingship) 

• Could’ve held in his hands: Flail and crook, or mace

• Blockiness is a hallmark of Egyptian statues

• Idealized face/Idealism: perfect 

Nemes headress

Worn by pharaohs/gods in Egypt

Flail and Crook

• Symbol of authority/divine power

• King is a shepherd and controller of land’s fertility

Idealism

Representation of perfection

Pyramids on the Giza Plateau

Great Sphinx 

• Partially carved from bedrock and stonework (colossal statue because of immense size)

• Associated with sun god

• Uraeus serpent

Uraeus serpent

Represents royalty/protection

Cobra worn on the brow of pharaohs and gods

Thutmose IV’s dream

• Stele put there

• Dream Stele, describes a dream he had fell asleep between arms of the sphinx → came to him in a dream and promised if he cleared the sand he will make him king (wasn’t first in line at this time)

Kahfre Enthroned

• Made from gneiss

• Imported from 400 miles away

• Wearing a shendylit kilt

• Horus (protector of the king)

Shendylit kilt

Symbol of unification

Horus

• Falcon god

• Protector of the king

The Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BCE)

• Will be reunited by Mentuhotep

• 11-14th dynasties are known as middle kingdom

• Rock-cut tombs

Rock-cut tombs

Not royal tombs (ex: tomb of amenemhat); mountainside provides structural support, carved out of rock

Funerary complex of Mentuhotep

• Causeway that leads from Nile → upper terrace of stacked porticoes (columned space)

• Ritual offerings were made

• Behind courtyard were a hypostyle hall (purpose: visual) and behind it was a statue of the king

Hypostyle hall

Large interior space whose roof is supported by many rows of columns

Crowns of ancient Egypt; Statue of Mentuhotep II

• Composite crown

• Wearing a jubilee robe

• Would’ve held crook and flail

• Skin was painted black, pharaohs are being associated with Osiris (typically represented with black/green skin)

Head of Senusret II

• Example of realism

• Sign of age (felt to be important for the king’s face to show the weight of rule)

Realism

Goal: depict everyday life

The New Kingdom; Valley of the Kings

Structured to keep remains of King safe

Tomb of Hatshepsut

• Next door to Mentuhotep’s temple

• Hatshepsut → She was a woman

Large kneeling statue of Hatshepsut

• Shows tradition

• Depicted as a male

• Holds offerings in her hands

• Idealistic → connects to past

Hatshepsut

• Osiris

• Composite crown

Osiris

Egyptian god associated with afterlife

Cycladic figurines

• Late Neolithic

• Spatial and temporal location has a striking similarity: posture

• Folded arm-figurines

• Differences: Curvy → abstract figures, oddly shaped head, pronounced nose, painted facial features, jewelry, hair, tattoos, displayed standing up

• Found in grave and ritual settings and settlements

• Found purposefully broken, destruction could have been important to ritual context

Folded arm-figurines

• Arms crossed over the abdomen

• Abstract form

• Blank face with only a sculpted nose

Difference between female and male marble figures

Female = Late Neolithic, 5300-3200 BCE, Cyclades

Male = Early Neolithic, 6500-5800 BCE, Knossos Crete

Minoan civilization

Centers of political and religious power

Kept track of livestock, agriculture, raw materials (wood), collected through taxes/ownership

• Either redistributed or value added goods (taking raw material, using labor often slave, to produce something new out of that material)

• Used for export or elite

Cretan hieroglyphics

2000 BCE

Difference between Linear A and Linear B?

Linear A - we can’t read

Linear B - used a Minoan script to write Greek

Dolphin Fresco, c. 1700, Knossos

• Secco fresco

• True fresco

• Naturalistic, no registers, composition fills entire space, all Minoan frescos have been fixed (because they’d fall off the walls)

Secco fresco

Pigment painted onto dry plaster

True fresco

Painted onto wet plaster

(Minoans used true fresco)

Problems with true fresco

Much more difficult, has to work quickly, incredibly durable, bright vibrant colors

Minoans were known for…

Animal pictures and natural worlds (depicted in naturalistic styles)

Egypt and Middle East → lots of warfare and emphasis on kingship

Minoans were stereotyped as?

Peaceful and nature lovers

Key things to know about Minoans

• Color

• How space is used

• Naturalistic use of images

• Nature is important for them!!

Vasiliki Ware (found in Vasiliki)

Beal Spouted Jug

• C. 260–2200 BCE

• Minoan

• Characterized by distinctive color

• Produced by coating vessel in uneven distribution so when it is fired different colors pop out

Kamares Ware

• Minoan pottery from Crete

• Poly chrome