Art History 104 Midterm Review

Physiognamy

pseudoscience from eighteenth century based on idea that moral, inner truth of character was visible through the face and head, and that brow angles and facial features were measurable signs of the inherent quality of a human being. Based on Caucasian ideal as superior.

Iconography

of animal and human imagery combined to invoke powerful aspects of natural World

Effigy

Mound-earth construction in shape of person or animal (sometimes symbol), typical of Late Woodland Period (350-1300 CE).

History Painting

painting of narrative scenes from the past of actual or mythical events; Biblical or Classical and Mythological subjects

Hybridity

coming together of two things to create a third distinct thing, new mixed identities and practices

Middle Ground

Blending of Elements -new systems of meaning and exchange resulting from contact

Wampum

shell beads used as currency and medium for decorative belts recording important historic events, agreement, treaties

Naturalism

done to be faithful to what is seen, rending 3D in 2D medium

Abstraction

stylization and simplification, indication of general lines and colors

Modeling

Illusion of volume on a 2D surface

Pueblo

Term for both a distinct cultural group in SW US and for the communities housed in apartment structures built of stone, adobe, and other local material, Spanish "town" or "people"

Casta Painting

genre of art from 18th-century Mexico that visually documented the racial mixing between Indigenous, African, and European peoples under Spanish colonial rule

Mission

Catholic compound for the purpose of converting native People and claiming land for Spain

Repatriation

return of objects to original makers and users

Engraving/Etching

print that allowed mass reproduction of images and information, made by incising lines on metal plate or wood and inking

Deposition

an image portraying a scene of deposing or taking down Christ's body from cross

Lamentation

an image portraying the mourning Of dead Christ (a Pietà- Mary alone)

Neo-Classicism

reliance on elements from classical past— provides sense of timelessness and significance for the new artwork or architecture; for colonies/United States helped convey authority by linking them to grandeur of antiquity

Enlightenment

period in eighteenth century in which scientific inquiry expanded and emphasis placed on reason

Genre Painting

painting of everyday life

Hudson River School

Hudson River School painting-school of New York based nineteenth-century artists focused on landscape as distinctive to United States' Identity

Picturesque

aesthetic category prizing asymmetry, irregularity, variety Portrays pastoral world neither wild nor overcultivated

Sublime

aesthetic category emphasizing awe and terror, infinite, puniness of humankind in face of power

Ecocriticism

considers environmental concerns

Anthropocene

the age in which humans have had most impact on environment

Manifest Destiny

emerging expectation that US political and social future lay in west Entitlement, conviction that American democratic institutions were destined by providence to triumph over all other groups

Ledger Drawing

Adaptive art of Plains Cultures Use of paper and pencils from account books of white traders and settlers in combination with elements of rock and hide drawing style

Polygenesis

false notion that different groups of humans descend from different ancestors rather than

Monogenesis

all humans have common ancestry

Reconstruction

Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, in which Southern States had to allow Black People to vote and receive education (but did not give them land)

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had granted blacks the same legal protections as whites.

The Freedmen's Bureau was authorized to administer the new laws and help Black people attain their economic, civil, educational, and political rights

Jim Crow Laws

rigid anti-Black segregation laws in force between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement

Washington Crossing the Delaware

Emmanuel Leutze

1. Washington planned and led surprise attack on British (Hessian camp) Dec 25-26, 1776, leading to decisive victory

2. Image was painted in Germany by a German artist

Uncle Tom and Little Eva

Robert Scott Duncanson

1. Based on the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin

2. Eva teaching Tom, her father's slave about the Bible/heaven, shows physiognomy

Eagle Man

Mississippian Culture

1. Compares warrior to skillful bird of prey

2. Represents humans as only a part of a world and in collaboration with nature's gifts

America

Stradanus

1. shows the idea of awakening: Europeans giving the land and native people their purpose

2. Cross and astrolabe show ability to navigate in contrast with her primativeness

Lenape Wampum Belt

Woman artist

1. record history, important moments, treaties

2. Hand holding can be seen as a gesture of friendship

War Club

Mohawk or Seneca

1. backside has headless figures that represent killed enemies

2. Shows symbolic tattoos unique to the individual

The Four Kings

Jane Verelst

1. Shows hybridity between natives and europeans

2. Holding wampum belt-recording historical event

William Penn's Treaty with the Lenape

Benjamin West

1. Trading cloth- bringing lenape into trade/circulation of goods

2. Male-dominated leadership vs. women in positions of authority

Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary

Freake-Gibbs Limner

1. Colorful jewels and lace show wealth and modesty

2. Style used outlines and linear details rather than portraying depth

Koshare Clown Dancer Bowl

Mimbres People

1. Satirizes life by exaggerating improper behavior

2. Shows Hopi clown dancer

Rancho de Taos

San Francisco de Asís Mission Church

1. Spanish missionaries started church

2. Acoma people built with adobe

The Mission of San Gabriel

Ferdinand Deppe

1. passionate belief in missioning-saving people by converting them, so if they died they would be saved from hell

2. native peoples who were forced to build and live in the churches and built water systems

From Spanish and Indigenous

Francisco Clapera

1. Casta painting

2. codifying the forms of racial mixing that took place in New Spain, the "pure-blooded" elites may have sought a form of control over the "dilution" of pure Spanish blood.

Paul Revere

John Singleton Copley

1. Holding tea pot in relation to recent boston tea party

2. Hand gesture is a symbol of intellectualism and thought

Watson and the Shark

John Singleton Copley

1. shows contrast between pure good (figure in water) and evil (shark)

2. Triangular forms show instability/chaos and loss of control for helping the figure

Death of General Wolf

Benjamin West

1. Shows lamentation of general wolf

2. Native american = melancholy because seeing inevitability of advancement of white history on his lands while he is unrelated to the action and merely watching the fate of the indigenous people play out

Phillis Wheatley

Scipio Moorhead

1. First portrait of a black woman in us art

2. Came from gambia for slave trade, but became very educated and wrote poems

The Artist in His Museum

Charles Wilson Peale

1. Related to the enlightenment-first natural history museum

2. Turkey because there was debate over turkey vs. eagle to be the first national bird

War News From Mexico

Richard Caton Woodville

1. This is a genre painting neutrally depicting news of westward expansion

2. The black people in the image are left out- portrayed by figurative inside and outside

Eel Spearing at Setauket

William Sidney Mount

1. This is a genre painting commissioned by George Washington Strong depicting memories from his childhood

2. Controversial because it showed a black woman more capable and strong than a white boy

Face Jug

1. Made by enslaved black people

2. Demonstrates powers of ancestors and spirits

The Oxbow

Thomas Cole

1. Picturesque image

2. Taught in hudson river school- sense of divinity and nationalism

Landscape with Rainbow

Robert Scott Duncanson

1. Reinforce the idea that man lives in harmony with nature

2. Picturesque image

Niagara

Frederick Church

1. Sublime image

2. Rainbow evoked nationalism and divine approval of america

The Course of Empire: The Savage State

Thomas Cole

1. Sublime image

2. Shows uncorrupted land and harmony of natural world

The Course of Empire: Desolation

Thomas Cole

1. Shows ecocriticism

2. Shows the anthropocene and how human construction affects nature

Mah-To-Toh-Pa "Four Bears"

George Caitlin

1. Eagle feathers and headdress show that he is a high-ranked individual with status

2. Artist admired Mah-To-Toh-Pa's brave charge into battle (shown by his proud stance)

Mah-To-Toh-Pa's Pictographic Buffalo Hide Robe

1. Shows counting coup-act of bravery where he touched his opponent

2. Used as an aid to recover triumphant events (talley marks show enemies killed)

Lakota Dream or Vision of Himself Changed to a Destroyer Riding a Buffalo Eagle

Black Hawk

1. This is a ledger drawing

2. "buffalo eagle" is a thunder being which has knowledge from the spirit world

Manifest Destiny

John Gast

1. Colonizers had a God-given right to expand and move west

2. Shows the movement of technology and "civilization" with little regard for Natives that lived there

Rocky Mountains

Albert Bierstadt

1. Sublime painting

2. Exaggerated beauty, promoted in Europe

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Thomas Moran

1. Sublime painting, not exact replication

2. Used to convince government to create the Yellowstone national park

The Veteran in a New Field

Winslow Homer

1. Created right after the civil war

2. Shows the idea of being at home, not in the battlefield

Greek Slave

Hiram Powers

1. Shows the doctrine of distance: slavery did not seem to be in the viewer's space/lifetimes

2. Created in neoclassicm style to show purity and beauty

Forever Free

Edmonia Lewis

1. Depicts the man as the protector of the family

2. Shows that women still have to pray and hope for equality

The Freedman

John Quincy Adams Ward

1. Depicted with individualized features (more weight to black people being recognized)

2. Displayed with a key which points to the hope for the rest of the chains being unlocked and removed

The Emancipation

Thomas Ball

1. Depicts freedom of slaves as a favor done by white people (erases black effort)

2. Highlights Lincoln as a father/God-like figure

Abolition Medallion

Josiah Wedgwood

1. Token of support for end of slave trade in england

2. Depicts black man as praying and needing permission for freedom

Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner

1. Counters the idea of carefree slaves playing music/banjo

2. Emphasizes the importance of education and tradition through generations for musicality