Midterm 2 ARTHC 201 Flashcards (Winter 2024)

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Title: Solomon’s Temple

City: 10th century BCE

Date: Jerusalem

Discuss “Solomon’s Temple”

• Oriented to the east - the rising sun

• Courtyard contained themes related to the Garden of Eden and Creation - decor of trees and flowers

• Destroyed by Babylonians

• Location was believed to have been where Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac

• Included auxilary courts and storehouses

• Two large cherubium stood to guard to the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies

• Temple was meant to be a dwelling place for (the name of) God

• Likely once elevated → represented getting closer to heaven and God

• Located on top of the hill → closer to heaven and God

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Title: Moses’s tablernacle

City: Sinai wilderness and the Levant

Date: 1200 BCE

Discuss “Moses’s Tabernacle”

• A moveable tent shrine intended to be used by migrating Israelites

• Courtyard was separated by a fence and gate of white linen

• Three zones of sanctity:

  • Holy of Holies

    • Perfect cube shape

    • Only the high priest could enter

    • Finely woven blue, scarlet, and purple linen separated this space → symbolic of

    • Housed the Ark of the Covenant

      • Represented the presence of God (not a graven image)

  • Holy Place

    • Insense altar

    • Table of the bread

    • Lampstand (Menorah)

  • Outer Court

    • Open to the sky

    • Laver → purification

    • Great Altar → sacrifice

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Title: Herod’s Temple

City: 50 CE

Date: Jerusalem

Discuss “Herod’s Temple”

• Built with gleaming/blinding white marble

• Believed to have been the center of beauty, both economic and spiritual

  • A statement of the political power of Herod

• Placed in the middle of where lots of exchange would happen

  • Lectures, teaching, etc. would happen here → exchange of ideas and intellect

  • Marketplace → exchange of goods

  • Temple → exchange of religious ideas

• Contained multiple different courts, but also still had the three main sections

  • Zones of holiness get increasing more narrow → cuts or sacrifices to become more righteous/holy

• Didn’t have the Ark of the Covenant → lost and destroyed after pilaging

  • Instead had the main rock, where the Dome of the Rock now resides

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Title: Interior of the Duro Europos Synagogue

City: Dura Europos, Syria

Date: 250 CE

Discuss “Interior of the Duro Europos Synagogue”

• Heiratic scale → prophets are depicted larger and the hand of God is much larger

• Imagery is very Roman inspired → Roman togas, Roman facial features, etc.

• Ethereal and flat → floating in the air

  • We want to depict the point of the story, not give an illusion or trick of the eye

• Lots of Biblical scenes depicted all over the wall

• Earliest preserved Christian/Jewish imagery

• Included the orant gesture → raising of hands up to God in prayer

• Torah was stored under the niche/arch in the main synagogue room

  • Contained a shell → Greek motif that represented Aphrodite, goddess of love

    • Symbolized this is a building of love and worship to God → no animal sacrifices here

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Title: Second style wall paintings from cubiculum M of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor

City: Boscoreale, Italy

Date: 50-40 BCE

Discuss “Second style wall paintings from cubiculum M of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor”

• Second style → focus/emphasis was on disolving the walls to create an illusion of a 3D world

• Created towns, temples, colonaded courtyards, etc.

• Used linear perspective → it went deep into the wall (depth)

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Title: Christ blessing

City: Mount Sinai

Date: 6th century CE

Discuss “Christ blessing”

• Blessing gesture

• Represents the idea of the polymorphic Jesus → people see Jesus differently than someone else might

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Title: Mummy portrait of a priest of Serapis

City: Faiyum, Egypt

Date: 150 CE

Discuss “Mummy portrait of a priest of Serapis”

• Perhaps painted while the inidivudal was alive, then cut down to fit in mummy cases

• Colors mixed with hot wax → encaustic

• Curls of the hair → artist’s expertise in creating texture with the materials they have

• Very Roman, but the corkscrew curls identify him as a follower of Serapis

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Title: The Lycurgus Cup

City: The British Museum, London (findspot unknown)

Date: 4th century CE

Discuss “The Lycurgus Cup”

• Made with glass → Roman glassworkers put stuff in the glass so that it would turn to the red color

• Story is that King Lycurgus was cursed by Bacchus and hallucinates, attacking a nymph, who turns into a vine and shackles the king, who sees serpents and in an attempt to fight them off, he cuts off his own foot → he becomes a shade in the underword

  • Shade in the underworld = some definitions, shade is the inside of a cup

• The work of the cup makes us “hallucinate” or imagine the rest of the story

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Title: Rosanno Gospels

City: Diocesan Museum, Rosanno Cathedral

Date: 6th century CE

Discuss “Rosanno Gospels”

• Dyed parchment or dyed lamb skin

  • Represents the blood of the Lamb of God → it made the book physically holy

• Pages were gilded with gold and silver

• Contained the earliest representation of Jesus in Gesthemane, but it took a long time to get this representation

  • There was this stigma against depicting a god or holy being as suffering because it was thought to be “weak”, so many descriptions of Jesus suffering in Gesthemane were erased and lost

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Title: Sarcophagus with reclining couple

City: Cerveteri, Italy

Date: 520 BCE

Discuss “Sarcophagus with reclining couple”

• Husband and wife recline on a banqueting couch

• Once brightly painted

• The man embraces his wife while she speaks, listening to her

  • Uniquely Etruscan → Etruscan women had more rights than other cultures at that time

• More of a focus on the upper half of the body → more detail, more realistic

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Title: Apulu, from the roof of the Portonaccio temple

City: Veii, Italy

Date: 500 BCE

Discuss “Apulu, from the roof of the Portonaccio”

• Painted in gold and yellow → sun would cause the statue to glitter

• Abstract → we understand what is depicted, but it also beyond comprehension and not from the mortal realm

• Not nude! → Etruscan

• There is a slight movement of one leg forward, more weight on the frontal leg

• Would have been displayed fighting Hercules

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Title: Interior of the Tomb of the Leopards

City: Tarquina, Italy

Date: 480 BCE

Discuss “Interior of the Tomb of the Leopards”

• Once very brightly colored → meant to be eye catching

• Painted in fresco → last for a long, long time

• The multicolored patterned ceiling reflects the Etruscan belief that heaven was made up multicolored gems

• Depicts banqueting couples, musicians, etc.

  • A celebration of life, not a somber grief in the loss of someone

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Title: Still life with peaches, detail of a Fourth Style wall painting, from the House of the Stags

City: Herculaneum, Italy

Date: 70 CE

Discuss “Still life with peaches, detail of a Fourth Style wall painting, from the House of the Stags”

• Fourth style

  • Brings together all the styles from beforehand → figures in illusionistic architecture

• Painter showed off mastery of realism with shadows and light on the fruit

• Emphasis on realism → wanted it to look like you could pluck it right off the wall

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Title: Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius

City: Rome, Italy

Date: 175 CE

Discuss “Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius”

• Proportionally larger than his horse (not realistic)

  • God-like dignity

  • Heiratic scale

• Right arm is stretched out → symbol of greeting and clemency

• Originally would have had an enemy beneath the horse, begging for mercy

• Survived the period when bronze statues were melted down because it was thought to have been a statue of Constantine

• Was one of the first emperors to depict himself like his enemies → curly, long hair, bearded, etc.

  • Seeing himself through the eyes of his enemies and had compassion on his enemies

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Title: Christ as a Good Shepherd, mosaic from the entrance wall of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

City: Ravenna, Italy

Date: 425 CE

Discuss “Christ as a Good Shepherd, mosaic from the entrance wall of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia”

• Jesus sits among the flock with a golden halo and purple and gold robes

  • Represents his power, leadership, and holiness

• Lots and lots of detail in the mosaic → characteristic of Late Antique

• In a background, not the golden backdrop of heaven

• Very dark interior with candlelight would have created a great effect where the gold in the tesserae interact and glitter → idea of transformation

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Title: Transfiguration, mosaic in the apse of the Church of the Virgin, monastery of St. Catherine

City: Mount Sinai, Egypt

Date: 550 CE

Discuss “Transfiguration, mosaic in the apse of the Church of the Virgin, monastery of St. Catherine”

• Christ in the center, hovering in the air

• Gold background → represents heaven

• No shadows → this is not the natural world

• Almost appears like an eye with the band surrounding the mosaic

• Above and below are icons that represent Christ → believed that as Christ descended from heaven, He took mutliple different forms

• Located by the altar

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Title: The baker Terentius Neo and his wife, mural painting from house VII

City: Pompeii, Italy

Date: 70 CE

Discuss “The baker Terentius Neo and his wife, mural painting from house VII”

• A metapicture - a painting about a painting

  • The painter purposefully shows the makeup on the woman’s face → ideals for women at the time

• Woman touches stylus to her face → shows that she is elegant and beautiful in physical appearance and writing

• Wax/stylus is the hasty rough draft and the scroll the man holds is the final product

  • Two individuals shown as creative, very well-educated individuals

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Title: First style mural painting Samnite House

City: Herculaneum, Italy

Date: late second century BCE

Discuss “First style mural painting Samnite House”

• First style

  • Goal was to imitate costly marble panels through painted stucco

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Title: Third Style mural painting, from the Black room, Villa of Agrippa Postumos

City: Boscaetrucase, Italy

Date: 10 BCE

Discuss “Third Style mural painting, from the Black room, Villa of Agrippa Postumos”

• Third Style

  • Monochromatic backgrounds with delicate, architectural fantasies (would be impossible to actually make)

• Tiny, impossibly thin columns hold pediment-like roofs → architecturally impossible

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Title: Fourth style mural paintings, Myth of Pentheus, Hercules, and Dirce, House of the Vettii

City: Pompeii, Italy

Date: 70 CE

Discuss “Fourth style mural paintings, Myth of Pentheus, Hercules, and Dirce, House of the Vettii”

• Fourth Style

  • Combination of all previous styles → very colorful, crowded, and illusionistic

• Fragmented architecture → mythological scenes interupt the architecture of the room

• Art depicted hints at the myth, not depicting all of it → imagination/hallucination

• On either side of the myth of Pentheus, Hercules is attached by snakes and Dirce is attacked by a bull

  • Creates a connection and illusion that Pentheus, is being torn apart by the female followers of Bacchus, is attacked by wild animals

What is a still life?

• A picture depicting an arrangement of innanimate objects

What is a visual analogy?

• A painting that symbolizes the artist’s intended subject

What is idealism?

• A refined, “perfect” realism

What is verism?

• A kind of rugged realism that shows who you are, sometimes exagerated

How is the soul represented in various forms of art? How do you use the body to represent the soul? What about animals?

• Soul is shown by displaying the character of the individual, giving clues and details to that person

What is physiognomy?

• Discerning the soul from the individuals’ physical appearance

What are the characteristic features of the 1st style in Roman art?

• Immitating marbles and masonry

What are the characteristic features of the 2nd style in Roman art?

• Illusionism → emphasis on depth and perspective to disolve the walls

What are the characteristic features of the 3rd style in Roman art?

• Fantastical architecture with exotic motifs on monochromatic backgrounds

What are the characteristic features of the 4th style in Roman art?

• A combination of all the previous styles, including living individuals in the illusionistic worlds

What does the imagery of Marcus Aurelius teach us about clemency? What is clemency?

• A kind of mercy

• Marcus Aurelius was someone who saw himself in the eyes of his enemies → didn’t see him as higher or better than them

What are the various ways that Roman artworks could animate beliefs? What role did materials play in these animations? What role does sensory experience play?

• Art would transform or change

Discuss the similarities and differences between Etruscan, Greek, and Jewish temples

Why was the Arch of Titus constructed?

• Commemorated the parade that celebrated Roman victory over the Jews

What rights did women have or not have in Etruscan culture?

• Women could read and write, hold property, and couples were depicted together as a unit

What features and elements were characteristic of Etruscan art and sculpture?

• Etruscans worked with terracotta and clothed their statues

• Architecture had flatter, longer roofs and sculptures were on top of the roofs

What are the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan beliefs about marriage and life after death?

• Etruscan

  • Believed that if you depicted objects in tombs, they would carry over into the afterlife

  • Held funerary games in celebration of life

What kind of portraits were popular during the Roman empire?

When does the commandment to “not make graven images” apply in ancient Judaism, particularly in the context of the temple?

What were the different approaches to art in the Jewish temples?

• “Cult Images”

• Figural Art

• Abstract Images

• Performative Images

• Phenomenology

Discuss the evolution of the Jewish temple (features, symbolism, etc.)

How is the synagogue similar or different from temples?

What cultures use naturalism?

What cultures use abstraction?

What cultures use embodiment?

What cultures use animation?

What is the relationship between Byzantine art and naturalism and optical perspective?

In Greco-Roman and Byzantine culture, how do static images represent transformations? What are the artistic techniques?