art history midterm

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” handaxe

• Date: 1.2 MYA

• Location: Tanzania

Details:

• Tool or art?

• Indicates development of language

• Functional but aesthetic like a signature

• Similar to those later used by homo sapiens

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Marble statue of a kouros

• Date: 590-580 BCE (Archaic)

• Location: Greece

Details:

• Nude sculpture of young man

• Probably a funerary monument for a boy in a rich community

• Idealized physique

• Archaic smile signifies status, not joy

• Artist: Trachones workshop

• “Title:” Terracotta krater

• Date: 725 BCE (Geometric)

• Location: Greece

Details:

• Geometric period/dark age, revival of politics, art, and writing

• Living after superior, hero ancestors

• Funeral of a basileos (king/emperor)

• Surrounded by mourners, geometric border

• Artist: Exekias

• “Title:” Terracotta neck-amphora with lid and knob

• Date: 540 BCE (Archaic)

• Location: Greece

Details:

• Exekias one of the earliest Athenian potters to sign his name

• Idealized figure without psychological depth or naturalistic interest

• Reference to Persephone myth?

• Vase in shape of storage jar but found in Italian tomb

• Artist: Douris

• “Title:” Terracotta kylix

• Date: 480-470 BCE (Classical)

• Location: Greece

Details:

• Used to drink water/wine mixture

• Often have a joke revealed on inside after wine is drunk

• Symposium: elite men eat, drink, intellectualize, and fuck

• Courtship gift (suitor → adolescent boy)

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Marble statue of a wounded warrior

• Date: 150

• Location: Rome?

Details:

• Copy of classical (5th century) Greek statue

• Ideal yet naturalistic physique

• Story of Protisilaus (first to die at Troy) → warrior’s death

• Heroic nudity → wound so small as to be nearly invisible

• Artist: Praxitoles (og)

• “Title:” Statue of the Capitoline Aphrodite

• Date: 00s-100s

• Location: Rome?

Details:

• Ancient scandal (viewer walking in on Aphrodite)

• Ideal of modesty, concealment (covers self), calls attention to genitals in doing so

• First depiction of a Greek goddess naked

• Literal male gaze prioritized

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Marble portrait of the emperor Augustus

• Date: 14-37

• Location: Rome?

Details:

• Augustus = first emperor of Rome

• Couldn’t use Verism or Hellenistic → settled on Classical Greek

  • Honors ancestral customs while evoking something new, too

• Comma-shaped locks became the norm for Roman portraiture

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Marble bust of a man

• Date: mid-00s

• Location: Rome?

Details:

• Veristic

• Political point: experienced and trustworthy politician

• Made in the imperial period

  • Family history

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Marble funerary altar

• Date: first ½ of 00s

• Location: Rome?

Details:

• Example of increasing Roman interest in childhood

• Father mourning a boy

• Dog icon signifies loyalty and love

• Augustan-style portrait to represent the boy’s promise and potential

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Monumental Head of Buddha

• Date: 350

• Location: Pakistan

Details:

• Early in tradition of representing the Buddha

• Calm expression, half-closed eyes, open nostrils

• Distended earlobes, ushnisha (bun), tuft between brows

• Artist prioritized blank, tranquil expression

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” The Death of the Buddha

• Date: 200s

• Location: Pakistan

Details:

• Probably made to decorate a ritual court

• Final disciple of Buddha (during his life) achieves nirvana

  • Facing away from audience → inexpressible so no shown facial expression

  • Triangular symmetrical pose

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Buddha Shakyamuni

• Date: 1100s

• Location: Tibet

Details:

• Still calm, idealized torso, distended earlobes, tuft, ushnisha

• One hand on floor: connection to Earth, meditation under tree

• Elongated fingers & toes → naturalistic, evokes Buddha in life

• Artist: Sopheap Pich

• “Title:” Buddha 2

• Date: 2009

• Location: Cambodia

Details:

• Response to Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia

  • Destroyed Buddha statues, bloodstains

• Ends dipped in red ink to evoke blood

• Ushnisha & long earlobes

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Celestial Beauty

• Date: 1000s

• Location: India

Details:

• Confidence over embarrassment in sexuality (not for the male gaze)

• Tradition of Yakshi figures

• Dance, beauty, vitality → natural power & fertility

• Nature spirits welcome pilgrims into worship site

• Artist: Fa Ruozhen

• “Title:” Cloudy Mountains

• Date: 1684

• Location: China

Details:

• Later scroll reminiscent of Northern Song

• Landscape plays with scale (bottom → top)

• Capturing moment when invisible becomes visible

• Mountain metaphor for emperor’s power

• Artist: Luo Zhichuan

• “Title:” Crows in Old Trees

• Date: early 1300s

• Location: China

Details:

• Southern Song

• Contrast to Palace banquet

• Mourns loss of Northern Song

• Two pines may represent scholars

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Palace banquet

• Date: 1000

• Location: China

Details:

• Northern Song scroll → anxiety (Jin invasion?)

• God’s/emperor’s eye view of palace (axonometric view)

• Emperor spent too long with his consort which led to an insurrection

• Scene of imperial court women preparing for constellation viewing

• Artist: Attr. Yang Bangji

• “Title:” A Diplomatic Mission to the Jin

• Date: late 1150s

• Location: China

Details:

• Maybe record of Southern Song paying tribute to Jin tribes who ended Northern Song

• Left → right, progressively un-scrolled

• MORE??

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Apse from San Martín at Fuentidueña

• Date: 1180

• Location: Spain

Details:

• Romanesque painting style: details prioritize message > naturalism

• Romanesque architecture: big stone, thick walls, small windows

• Created in part by increase of pilgrimage routes

• Liminal points mark threshold between sanctuary and nave

• Artist: Master of Pedret?

• “Title:” The Virgin and Child in Majesty and the Adoration of the Magi

• Date: 1100

• Location: Spain

Details:

• Romanesque art often puts the beginning and end of a story in one piece

• Almond shape represents cosmos

• Angels Michael & Gabriel

• Accentuated eyes, hands, feet

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Cuxa cloister

• Date: 1130

• Location: Spain

Details:

• Typically Romanesque: squat columns, semicircular arches, heavy feel

• Capital columns show demons, sinners in hell, monkeys

  • Marginalia

  • Humor

  • Warning to sinners

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Virgin

• Date: 1250

• Location: Strasbourg

Details:

• Start of gothic sculpture interest in naturalism, emotion

• Maintains columnar feel of earlier gothic sculpture

• Liminal figure, would have stood on a rod screen separating sanctuary from nave

• Pose/demeanor welcomes faithful but reminds them of the need for an intercessor

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Altar Angels

• Date: 1280

• Location: France

Details:

• Smile: inviting, but not psychological depth

• Features under drapery still hard to make out

• Pose starts to remind of classical sculpture, unsure whether deliberate

• Dancing feel breaks columnar form of gothic sculpture

• Artist: Bartolo di Fridi

• “Title:” The Adoration of the Shepherds

• Date: 1374

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Emotions visible on shepherds’ faces

• Intuitive perspective: objects in front cover objects behind

  • Only perspective used

• Post-Giotto (late ME/early Ren)

• Starts likeness rather than presence

• Artist: Robert Campin workshop

• “Title:” Merode altarpiece

• Date: 1430

• Location: Netherlands

Details:

• Everyday objects are allegories

• Designed for home use

• Key in door references St. Peter

• Oil paint

• Artist: Berlinghiero

• “Title:” Madonna and Child

• Date: 1230s

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Designed to be on an altar/focus of prayer

• Presence > likeness

• Elongates eyes & fingers to exist in viewers’ space

• Gold & blue (lapis): precious materials → accentuate holiness

• Artist: Giotto di Bondone

• “Title:” Adoration of the Magi

• Date: 1320

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Key emotional detail: king picks up child in emotional pose (contrast to static figures of Gothic painting)

• Parallel between 3 goats and 3 kings

• Holy family has haloes but kings do not, which makes them seem more human

• Natural landscape → shape of mountain frames the scene

• Artist: Fra Carnevale

• “Title:” The Birth of the Virgin

• Date: 1467

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Creating a threshold

• Surrounding people dressed in then-contemporary french fashion

  • Contemporary transposition

• Linear perspective: vanishing point

• Atmospheric perspective: color creates depth, juxtaposition

• Classicizing imagery (Greco-Roman architecture to represent the glory of the Duke)

• Artist: Petrus Christus

• “Title:” The Annunciation

• Date: 1445

• Location: Netherlands

Details:

• Typical of Northern Renaissance style (contemporary transposition, oil paint)

• Gleaming holy figure

• Elevated perspective

• Indoor/outdoor threshold created

• Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi

• “Title:” Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement

• Date: 1440

• Location: Italy

Details:

• First double portrait in the Southern Renaissance

• Close to one point perspective

• Woman physically above man → on pedestal

• Background represents wider network of responsibility due to marriage

• Artist: Hieronymus Bosch

• “Title:” The Adoration of the Magi

• Date: 1475

• Location: Netherlands

Details:

• Plays with compositions

• Northern features

  • Oil paint

  • No obvious classical influence

• Inspired by “cabinets of curiosities” collections, early museums

• Black magi present

• Demons getting lit in background

• Artist: Hans Memling

• “Title:” Tommaso di Folco Portinari and Maria Portinari

• Date: 1470

• Location: Netherlands?

Details:

• Commission for rich banking family

• Oil paints → dark, built up colors

• Woman casts shadow into painted frame → illusion of coming out of the frame

• Naturalistic ¾ portraits

• Artist: Hans Memling

• “Title:” The Annunciation

• Date: 1480-1489

• Location: Netherlands?

Details:

• Classic Northern Annunciation

• Bourgeois interior, oil paint

• Everyday object allegories (ie. clear empty glasses = VM)

• Rich bed symbolizes pregnancy, middle class status

• Artist: Botticelli

• “Title:” The Annunciation

• Date: 1490

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Classic Southern Renaissance

• 1 point perspective creates liminal space

• Naturalism and beauty > emotion

• Garden evokes Eden, VM

• Artist: Petrus Christus

• “Title:” A Goldsmith in his Shop

• Date: 1449

• Location: Netherlands?

Details:

• Convex mirror inserts viewer into painting

• Northern: oil paint, everyday bourgeois life, light shining off surfaces

• Probably a portrait of a goldsmith

• Artist can see and show more than regular people

• Artist: Quinten Massys

• “Title:” The Adoration of the Magi

• Date: 1526

• Location: Netherlands?

Details:

• Contrasts between

  • Female/male

  • Rich/poor

  • Black/white → depictions of africans

  • Human/divine → lighting, smoothed skin, blue & white color (like sky)

• Late Northern Ren: oil, no one point, everyday details > classical learning

• Black king present → worked in Antwerp (trading ties to Portuguese slave trade)

• 3 kings are individuals but influenced by caricatures developed by da Vinci

• Artist: Albrecht Dürer

• “Title:” Self Portrait

• Date: 1500

• Location: Germany

Details:

• Triangular composition typical of renaissance, faces viewer

  • Christlike

  • Nice clothes, courtly gesture

• Signs & dates to authenticate prints → curates brand

• Basis of Koerner’s Ren works

• Artist: Albrecht Dürer

• “Title:” Self Portrait

• Date: 1484

• Location: Germany

Details:

• Silverpoint drawing done as a child

• Kept as a sign of precious talent

• Sign of rise in status of artist

• Dürer was good at curating his own legend

• Artist: Raphael

• “Title:” Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

• Date: 1504

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Halfway between Raphael’s independence as an artist and commission by Julius II

• True first perspective

• Inclusion of John the Baptist → 3-person composition (triangle)

• Shadow of St. Paul on steps demonstrates elevated understanding of lighting and perspective

• Artist: Annibale Carracci

• “Title:” The Coronation of the Virgin

• Date: after 1595

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Mannerist: stretch the rules of traditional high renaissance art

  • Different proportions

  • Wider range of color (not just brights)

  • Sensory emphasis (sound, sight, touch)

  • Stretch triangle composition

• Theatrical & dramatic

• Counter reformation: reassert Catholicism’s reliance on religious art

• Artist: Caravaggio

• “Title:” The Denial of St. Peter

• Date: 1610

• Location: Italy

Details:

• Very dark color palette

• Extreme psychological depth

• Little focus on background

• Less theatrical/more realistic

• 3 points of denial (3 fingers)

• Light on back of breastplate represents cross

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses, and Aurochs

• Date: 32,000-30,000 BCE

• Location: France

Details:

• At least 1,000 years between oldest and newest markings (carbon dating)

• Only visible via torchlight

• Uses contours of rock to add depth, movement

• Made by homo sapiens

• Artist: Marcel Duchamp

• “Title:” Fountain

• Date: 1917

• Location: USA

Details:

• Shocked art world

• Readymade (idea > art itself is the art)

• Breaking even modern definitions of art

• Required art historians to change to a more institutional > aesthetic definition

• Artist: unknown

• “Title:” Buddha

• Date: 200s

• Location: Pakistan

Details:

• Ushniva

• Distended earlobes

• Tuft of hair

• Knew hellenistic styles (drapery) but chose to keep a more serene facial expression