Art History Survey 1 Midterm

Title: Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)
Artist: Unknown
Period: Paleolithic/Prehistoric
Medium: Limestone
Significance :
1. The overexaggerated female qualities of the sculpture are representational of a womans child bearing qualities.
2. Representational of the female form, not a specific form. She is a fertility image.

Title: Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)
Artist: Unknown
Period: Paleolithic/Prehistoric
Medium: Limestone
Significance :
1. The overexaggerated female qualities of the sculpture are representational of a womans child bearing qualities.
2. Representational of the female form, not a specific form. She is a fertility image.

Title: Bison Licking its Flank
Artist: Unknown
Period: Paleolithic/Prehistoric
Medium: Reindeer antler
Significance:
1. The bison’s head is turned 180 degrees to maintain the profile view.
2. Sculptors favored the tusks of mammoths of the antlers of reindeers for their sculptures

Title: Presentation of offerings to Inanna (Warka Vase)
Artist: Uknown
Period: Sumerian/Near East
Medium: Alabaster
Significance:
1. Sumerians were most likely the first to create understandable narrative in their art
2. The narrative represents a religious ceremony in honor of Inanna

Title: Head of an Akkadian Ruler
Artist: Unknown
Period: Sumerian/ Near East
Medium: Copper
Significance:
1. The head was vandalized because the ruler was disliked, so they wanted him to struggle in the afterlife by destroying the eyes.
2. This is one of the oldest life size hollow casting sculptures

Title: Gudea Seated
Artist: Uknown
Period: Sumerian/Near East
Medium: Diorite
Significance:
1. Gudea rebuilt many temples and placed these sculptures in them to show his devotion to them.
2. These sculptures had inscriptions on them to tell the gods about his good deeds forever.

Title: Stele with the Laws of Hammurabi
Artist: Unknown
Period: Neo-Sumerian/ Near East
Medium: Basalt
Significance:
1. At the top it is shown Hammurabi handing the law code to Shamash, like Moses with the ten commandments
2. Hammurabi created this cuneiform code, one of the rules being “an eye for an eye”

Title: Palette of King Narmer
Artist: Unknown
Period: Predynastic Egypt
Medium: Slate
Significance:
1. The circle in the front of the palette is where they would put the eye makeup, which was used to protect the eyes from the sun.
2. The palette shows the battle that King Narmer won and the people he slayed.

Title: Fourth Dynasty Pyramids
Artist: Unknown
Period: Old Kingdom
Medium: Architecture
Significance:
1. The pyramids are in the shape of the sun god Re’s emblem.
2. The largest is the oldest ancestor’s tomb and they decrease in size by the next generation.

Title: Seated Scribe
Artist: Uknown
Period: Old Kingdom/ Egypt
Medium: Painted Limestone
Significance:
1. This seated scribe is a portrait of an actual scribe.
2. These pieces were done to pu tin the tombs with the person. Whatever the sculpture was doing was what they wanted to do in the afterlife, so this person wanted to work in the afterlife.

Title: Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
Artist: Unknown
Period: New Kingdom/ Egypt
Medium: Architecture
Significance:
1. First female monarch whose name is recorded.
2. Her temple incorporated shrines to Amen-Re, who she claimed was her father.

Title: Bust of Nefertiti
Artist: Thutmose
Period: New Kingdom/ Egypt
Medium: Painted limestone
Significance:
1. An actual portrait of Nefertit, which people call her the most beautiful woman in the world.
2. This piece was found in the Amarna workshop

Title: Male Harp Player
Artist: Uknown
Period: Cycladic/Aegean
Medium: Marble
Significance:
1. The musician may be playing for people in the afterlife.
2. Few Cycladic sculptures depict men, this is one of them.

Title: Bull Leaping
Artist: Uknown
Period: Cycladic/Aegean
Medium: Fresco
Significance:
1. The lighter colored figures represent women while the darker ones represent men.
2. This scene is a ceremonial practice, where the men leap over the bulls and the woman catch them

Title: Funerary Mask
Artist: Unknown
Period: Mycenaean/Aegean
Medium: Beaten gold
Significance:
1. This is one of the first attempts at life size sculpture in Greece.
2. The mask was found from a royal shaft grave and is thought to depict someone of royalty, but not Agamemnon.

Title: Parthenon
Artist: Iktinos
Period: Geometric Greek
Medium: Architecture
Significance:
1. The Parthenon housed a gold and ivory statue of Athena inside, which we only have a copy of now
2. The Parthenon is considered the perfect temple, as the greeks were trying to design a building with ideal proportions.

Title: Geometric Krater
Artist: Unknown
Period: Geometric Greek
Medium: Painted vase
Significance:
1. Large mouth vases represented men and small mouth vases represented the women.
2. The bottom was open, allowing the sharing of libations

Title: Kouros
Artist: Unknown
Period: Archaic greek
Medium: Marble
Significance:
1. Egyptian posing, especially shown in the weight distribution between left foot forward and right foot back, stiff legged.
2. The Kouros stood over graves as grave markers and protectors.

Title: Warrior from the sea off Riace, Italy
Artist: Unknown
Period: Classical Greek
Medium: Bronze
Significance:
1. The eyes and teeth are in ivory and the eyelashes and nipples are in copper
2. This is one of the few original Greek pieces left.

Title: Three Goddesses
Artist: Unknown
Period: Classical Greek
Medium: Marble
Significance:
1. Originally the three were on top of the Parthenons pediment
2.

Title: Erechtheion
Artist: Unknown
Period: Classical Greek
Medium: Architecture
Significance:
1. There is a porch where the columns are statues of women.
2. The Erchtheion has been restored multiple times because it was restored with concrete instead of marble.

Title: Laocoon and His Sons
Artist: Athanadoros, Hagesandros and Polydoros of Rhodes
Period: Hellenistic Greek
Medium: Marble
Significance:
1. Laocoon and his sons are being attacked by a snake sent from the gods who favored the greeks after Laocoon warned tried to warn the others of the dangers coming.
2.

Title: Lion Capital
Artist: Unknown
Period: South Asian
Medium: Polished sandstone
Significance:
1.
2.

Title: Yakshi
Artist: Unknown
Period: South Asia
Medium: Architecture
Significance:
1. Nude women who personify fertility and vegetation.
2. The statue holds a branch of a mango tree and presses her foot into the trunk to make the tree flower

Title: Guang
Artist: Unknown
Period: Chinese
Medium: Bronze
Significance:
1. The animals on the guang probbaly connected with the world of the spirits. There are dragons, birds and other mythical creatures on it.
2. This was used for pouring wine libations

Title: Funerary Banner
Artist: Unknown
Period: Chinese
Medium: Painted silk
Significance:
1. The top of the banner represents heaven, and the vertical representing the human realm. The bottom is the underworld.
2. The woman in the center is probably Marquise of Dai, whose tomb it was found in, making it one of the first portraits in Chinese art

Title: Flame-style Vessel
Artist: Unknown
Period: Japanese
Medium: Earthernware
Significance:
1. These vessels were used for cooking, storage, bone burial or communal rituals
2. Sometimes the vessels were so overly decorated that they lost their purpose as a vessel and were more for decoration

Title: Colossal Head
Artist: Unknown
Period: African
Medium: Basalt
Significance:
1. The heads most likely portray rulers rather than deities
2. These heads had to be transported through swamplands up to 60 miles.

Title: Vessel in the shape of a portrait head
Artist: Unknown
Period: African
Medium: Painted Clay
Significance:
1. The head may depict a face of a warrior or ruler
2. The head may have been burried with other pots to accompany the master of the head in the afterlife.

Title: Nok Head
Artist: Unknown
Period: Paleolithic/Prehistoric
Medium: Terracotta
Significance:
1. Some of the earliest in the round sculptures come from the Nok culture
2. Necklaces and bracelets are shown on the sculpture which means it was probably an elite person.

Title: Head from Lyndenburg
Artist: Unknown
Period: Paleolithic/Prehistoric
Medium: Terracotta
Significance:
1. Scarification marks are probably symbols of beauty
2. This head resembles an inverted terracotta pot.

What did prehistoric painters use for paint?

Natural earth pigments, charcoal, plants of animal products

Where did Gudea place statues of himself and WHY?

In temples where they could give service to the Gods forever and be there in place of his physical self.

Why does a lamassu have five legs?

To represent the lamassu from the front and side at the same time.

What inspired Ashoka to convert to Buddhism?

After a conquest that took over 100,000 lives, he converted to Buddhism

Who among the community would have owned a bronze or copper fly-whisk hilt?

The leader or elites would own these

What two types of pottery were produced before the Son Dynasty?

Earthernwares and Stonewares

How did city planning change during the Yayoi period?

The village grew size and they developed means of defense like moats. They also had to make more room for the wet-rice.

Which Mesoamerican culture is known as the “mother culture”?

The Olmec

What were Paracas textiles used for?

They were used to wrap dead bodies

Why was the sphinx an appropriate image for a king?

It showed the combination of human intelligence, strength and authority of a lion.

Who destroyed most of the images of Queen Hatshepsut?

We believe it was Thutmose III, her successor.

Why has the popularity of Cycladic sculpture caused negative results?

Treasure hunters destroyed prehistoric sites in search of these sculptures to sell.

How is the gender of an individual represented in Minoan painting?

Woman have lighter skin and men have darker skin.

What is a meander pattern?

A meander pattern is a geometric pattern made up of sharp angles

On what type of object would you find the white ground painting technique?

On any form of Greek pottery

Which past culture’s style is Greek Archaic sculpture modeled after?

The Egyptians and the Mesoamericans.

Essay Question: 3. Discuss the differences in the depiction of the human body between Egyptian and Greek
Classical sculpture. Include two specific characteristics of each culture in your discussion (4
total). Use one example from each culture to aid in your analysis

Discuss the muscle definition, the weight distribution, stiffness of the body, idealism, the shifting of the body properly. Talk about the Khafre seated versus the warrior off of riace, italy