APAH notes on all images (kill me)

Apollo 11 stones

Namibia. c.25,500-25,300 BCE. Charcoal on stone. Global Prehistory

Form:

• Charcoal

• handsized

• brown/grey quartzite

• two stones

• moveable art

Content:

• Animal/human (unidentified)

• maybe a therianthrope (half human half animal)

• feline in apparence-human legs added later

• Shamanism- a religious and cultural tradition that involves practitioners called shamans, using altered states of consciousness to connect with the spirit world

• other paintings and carvings were found, ritual site?

Context:

• Found by W.E. Wendt in 1969

• Named after the Apollo 11 mission

• 3 years later the right side was found

• located in a dry gourge

• red colour in ostrich egg shells

• hunter gatherer society

Function:

• Unknown

• before writing

Great Hall of the Bulls

Lascaux, France. Paleolithic Europe. 15,000-13,000 BCE. Rock Painting. Global Prehistory

Form:

• Cave

• White calcite

• Non-pourous rock

• charcoal, ochre mixed with liquids to create paint

Content:

• loose lines, abstract

• carvings

• twisted perspective

• horses,deer,bison,elk,lions

• contour of animals

• engraved overlapping forms

Context:

• 350 similar sites

• life was short, resources scarce

• cold climate

• unknown # of ppl who painted it

• discovered in 1940 by two young boys

• fossilized pollen was found

Function:

• animal fats to illuminate

• pure process of drawing and repetitive drawing-ritual?

• hunting magic or power over prey

• images communicate stories

• shamanism

• closed cave to keep preserved

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine

Tequixquiac, central Mexico, 14,000-7,000 BCE. Bone. Global Prehistory

Form:

• carved bone

• sacrum camelid, sacred bone of camel/alpaca

• fossilized

• 8-10”

Content:

• Dong face carved into bone

• holes for eyes and nostrils

• symmetrical

Context:

• discovered by accident in 1870 by an engineer when working on a drainage project

• dont know date, removed from original site, soil couldn’t be analyzed

• handmade with a sharp tool

• in the valley that is modern day Mexico city

Function:

• can not know, taken from original site

Running Horned Woman

Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria. 6,000-4,000 BCE. Pigment on rock. Global Prehistory

Form:

• pigments on rock

• caves hollowed out into many small shelters

• not dwellings

Content:

• female running, twisted perspective

• silhouette

• grain falling from her hands

• two horns, dots on body (scarification)

• wearing amulets and garters

Context:

• ‘found’ by LT. Brenans and later studied by Lhote

• Tuareg people knew the location long before and even guided early Europeans to the site

• thought to be inspired by the Egyptian (not)

• depiction suggests this was special

• not something hunter-gatherers would wear

Function:

• ritual/ceremony

• place of worship

• washing the rock to see it, ruined it

Beaker with Ibex motifs

Susa, Iranm 4,200-3,500 BCE, Painted terra cotta, Global Prehistory

Form:

• pottery/clay

• hand built, maybe a slow wheel

• hand painted

Content:

• mountain goat, stylized

• geometric elements

• dog bodies elongated around the top, birds at top

Context:

• before writing

• no record of why they were buried with the dead

• fertile river valley

• they build raised mounds with temples

Function:

• unkown, most likely burial ritual

• held decomposed remains of the dead

• animals could be associated with water or fertility

Anthropomorphic stele

Arabian Peninsula, Fourth millennium BCE, Sandstone, Global Prehistory

Form:

• sandstone, carved

• stele:vertical monument that is inscribed

• 3ft tall

Content:

• both sides sculpted

• eyes close, flat nose

• necklace with 2 cords diagonally with an awl

• belt with a double bladed dagger

• anthropomorphic

Context:

• one of 3 in the region

• vast territory over time, those found shared similarities

• fertile/lush area

• neolithic age, hunter gatherers settling down, caravan trails (spread these steles)

• these show us pre-islamic arabia had human figures (uncommon now)

• different places had different uses for these

Function:

• maybe religious or burial practices

• grave markers

• used for dedication or commemoration

• stele have been found everywhere

Jade Cong “tsong”

Liangzhu, China, 3,300-2,200 BCE, Carved Jade, Global Prehistory

Form:

• carved jade

• rectangular, hole in the center

Content:

• faces (monster, animal, or human)

• some are short some tall

• lines and circles

Context:

• before writing

• settled culture, start to control nature

• Liangzhu culture, people who settled in modern Shanghai, they could irrigate crops

• not worried about food, could focus on art

• found in graves

• no tools strong enough to carved jade, they used sand that was rubbed into the jade

Function:

• power related

• connection to spiritual world

• rectilinear quality is symbol for earth and round interior for the heavens/sky/sun

• these ideas continue to develop later in China

Stonehenge

Wiltshire, UK, Neolithic Europe, c.2,500-1,600 BCE, Sandstone, Global Prehistory

Form:

• bluestone

• trilithons (2 vertical stones, 1 horizontal)

• post and lintel!!!

• each individual stone is called a megalith

• aubrey holes (pits in the ground, 3ft in diameter for posts)

• sarsen stones in center

• henge, circle of stones or posts, often surrounded by a ditch with built up embankments

Phases:

-Phase 1:

• 3100 BCE

• great circular ditch 360ft in diameter

• aubrey holes (56 pits, blue stones or wooden beams (2-4 tons, maybe from Preseli Hills 250 mi away))

-Phase 2:

• 100-200 years later

• upright wooden posts

• roof?

• at least 25 aubrey holes emptied then used as burial sites

-Phase 3:

• 400-500 yrs later

• remaining blue stones/wooden beams in aubrey holes removed

• circle 108ft diameter with 30 sarsen stones inside

• topped with 30 lintel stones

• each stone was 13ft high,7ft wide,25 tons

Content:

• aligns with the sun during mid summer solstice and midwinter sunset

• concentric circles, lintel stones carved in curve

Context:

• built same time as ancient egypt

• bluestone quarried far away

• not sure of culture b/c it is buried under other cities from the bronze age, roman, medieval, and modern

Function:

• solar and lunar calendar

• lines up at solstices

• proof of a sophisticated society and organized leadership

Ambum Stone

Ambum Valley, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea, c.1,500 BCE, Greywacke, Global Prehistory

Form:

• carved with stone tools

• greywacke stone (v dense, sedimentary stone, slightly shiny patina)

• 8” tall

Content:

• smoother neck, curved

• shiney patina (well handled)

• mortar and pestle?

• detailed, long nose, limbs, huge torso, stylized

• could be an echidna or bird or bat or star wars character

Context:

• religious use by papua New Guinea people

• personal and political debate, brings up issues of colonization

• when 1st known as ambum stone, was used by enga people “bones of the ancestors”

• big man who controlled the resources

• stone was held to gain power through rituals to ward off danger and to promote fertility

• then those people were converted to christianity and the meaning changed

• papua new guinea museum tried to buy it. they couldnt

• broke on display in France in 2000 CE

Function:

• mortar and pestle?

• burial object?

Tlatilco female figurine

Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco, 1,200-900 BCE, ceramic, Global Prehistory

Form:

• small ceramic figure

• hand molded and carved

• 4” tall

Content:

• female figure with 2 connected heads

• large hips, body tea, small waist

• no hands or feet

• body decoration, stylized hair

Context:

• 2,000-3,000 yrs before Aztecs

• makers lived in large farming villages

• can’t dig since its under a city

• some figures have motifs of animals

• rarely depicted males

Function:

• burial practices/grave markers

• potentially made by full time artists

• definitely skilled artists involved

• skills passed down in generations

Terra cotta fragment

Lapita, Reef islands, Solomon Islands, 1,000 BCE, Terra cotta, Global Prehistory

Form:

• terra cotta, lime washed from coral

• carved with small dentale

• elaborate

• handbuilt using paddle and anvil, fired in open pit fired

Content:

• stamped and incised motifs that have a regular pattern

• followed rules of a design system

• sydney mom mead, developed a system to understand the designs

Context:

• 4,000-3,000 yrs ago Taiwanese people canoed to Bismarck Archipelago (lapita people)

• lapita people, sea fairing

• clay is from other placed

• motifs remain via tattoos nowadays

Function:

• not for cooking

• used for serving or storage

White Temple and it’s ziggurat

Uruk Iraq c. 3500-3000 BCE, Ancient Near East

Form:

• temple was 40ft tall

• Built on a Ziggurat (raised platform)

• made of mud bricks (stone was rare, not a lot of timber either)

• built by lot of workers or curvee (slaves)

• white-washed inside and out, dazzling white in the sun

Content:

• White temple- high temple type with a tripartite plan, rectangular, oriented at the cardinal points, 19 tablets inside (bones of a leopard and lion), huge pits with traces of fires and conduits to hold flowing liquids surround the temple

• Ziggurat- raised platform with 4 sloping sides, pattern around the base, steep stair way to ramp, flat top

Context:

• Uruk-modern day Iraq

• 1st writing emerged here

• Temple was dedicated to the sky God

• focal point of the city

• place of political system (theocracy, cuneiform tablets document this, officials operate on God’s behalf)

• sumerians believed that the Gods came from the mountains in the distance

• believed that Ziggurats of Uruk were created to imitate mountains, for the Gods

Function:

• religious and government building

• not the only one

• Bridge between earth and the heavens

• not for everydays people (only priest or highest officials could enter)

• worship

Palette of King Narmer

Predynastic Egypt 3000-2920 BCE,Egyptian, Old Kingdom

Form:

• 2ft tall

• carved stone in Bas-relief or low relief

• Greyish-green siltstone (silt rock)

Content:

• shows King Narmer in a series of scenes

• Iconographic characters (figures represent in the canon, registers, Hierarchical scale)

• serpopards- leopards with long skinny necks

• many figures all meaning/represent someone and tell a story

• wearing both crowns for upper and lower Egypt

Context:

• it has never been permitted to leave Egypt

• Discovered by James Quibell and Frederick Green at the temple of Hierakonpolis in 1898

• Ritually buried objects were donated to the temple to show piety

• once there were too many they would be buried to make room for more

• many interpretations- most common is the unification of lower and upper Egypt (balance order and chaos (ma’at and isfet), or daily journey of the Sun God)

• these scenes could be purely ceremonial or a rep of the unification or possibly a historical rep

Function:

• used for grinding and mixing minerals for cosmetic

• ritual object dedicated to the Gods

Statues of votive figures

Sumerian c.2700 BCE, Ancient Near East

Form:

• Alabaster-body

• Shells-eyes

• black limestone-pupils

• carved

• 1-3ft tall

Content:

• figures-not totally realistic

• sculpture of elite Sumerian

• cylindrical base

• flattened torso

• hands clasped in prayer, wide eyes

• line at back where a belt might have been

• symmetrical, more geometric

Context:

• found with 11 other figures

• buried in Eshnunna (North Mesopotamia)

• great expansion of early dynastic Sumerian art

• deities literally inhabited their cult statues after rituals

• in the temple of God Abu- maybe god of vegetation and snakes

• some were holding goblets or cups, some inscribed

Function:

• to be stand in for worship

• to embody a God

Seated Scribe

Egypt c. 2620-2500 BCE,Egyptian, Old Kingdom

Form:

• carved and painted limestone

• Nipples-wooden dowels

• Eyes-crystals with organic material (lifelike)

Content:

• realistic man

• unique that has seated, why hes a scribe not a pharaoh

• unique in its individualistic features

• not idealized

• carved with real delicacy

• would have a reed pen originally

Context:

• Old Kingdom (Pyramid Age 2649-2150 BCE)

• amount of pigment that remains its unusual

• found in necropolis, S.W. of Cairo called Saqqara

• uncertain about his exact spot

• a funerary sculpture meant for a tomb

• would have a stone with his name and title

• could be a portrait of a specific person

• scribes were highly regarded

• hands accurately carved

Function:

• tomb sculpture

• commemorate

• serves a funerary purpose to help the scribe transcend into the afterlife

Standard of Ur

Ur c. 2600-2400 BCE,Ancient Near East

Form:

• mosaic tiles from shells (persia)

• red limestone (india)

• blue lapis lazuli (afghanistan)

• small, could be carried

• found broken- rebuilt to the best of their ability

Content:

• two sides, war and peace

• war- sumerian army, chariots, weapons, people trampled under horses, horses depicted in slow progression of movement, ready for battle, kings head breaks decorative border, prisoners naked

• Peace- most important figures at top, frontal shoulders (twisted perspective), animals being taken for sacrifice, some celebration

• storytelling over time

Context:

• found at Ur (capital of an empire in S. Mesopotamia, abandond after Euphrates flow changed, found in one of the largest graves in royal cemetery by Leonard Wooley)

• allows us to see other aspects of their highly organized society

• elaborate ceremonies for burial, sites filled with human burials and offerings

• trade

Function:

• standard, carried on a pole (war insignia, military flag)

• not certain of the use

• could have been a sound box

Great Pyramids

Egypt c. 2550-2490 BCE, Old Kingdom

Form:

• carved and quarried stone (inner-corestones, outer-casting blocks, tura limestone)

• Gypsum plaster, bright white

• aligned to cardinal points

• pyramidion- capstone gilt

• sphinx- derock from Giza plateau

• large construction group + 2,000 peasants

• 20 men haul the 2.5 ton blocks in 20mins, 340 daily, paths lubricated with wet silt

Content:

• 3 primary pyramids over 3 generations

• each with royal mortuary complex (smaller pyramids for queens, mastabas-smaller tombs for prominent member of courts, smaller passageways that lead to king’s chambers

Context:

• egyptians buried dead on west side of Nile River, where sun set, and life in a symbolic way, ended each day

• believed in an afterlife in which the soul-ka-went to live again

• mummified bodies and sealed them in tombs

• vital organs sealed in jars

• provided Ka by buried food, drink, clothing and other stuff

• unify body and soul and live again

• first started with mastabas, then stepped pyramids, then pyramids at Giza

• Kings= son of Ra

• Ra’s symbol was a pyramidal stone, only fitting to bury kinds using this form

• stepping stone to afterlife

• near Nile River, originally lush and green

Khufu:

• great pyramid

• 481ft tall, 750ft wide

• red granite in Kings chamber

• 7 large boat pits, funeral purpose

Khafre:

• built by Khufu’s 2nd son Khafre

• slightly smaller, 450ft high, 695ft wide

• funerary temple

Sphinx:

• lion with head on King, royalty and sun

• 65ft tall, 240ft long, 60ft wide

• guard

Menkaure:

• smallest, 213ft high, 356ft wide

• most well preserved objects from the tomb

• most decorative elements

• granite sarcophagus lost at sea

Function:

• burial site for kings

• now tourist site

• royal mortuary complex

• social structure

• reflects solar cycle

• most tombs raided

King Menkaura and queen

Egypt 2490-2472 BCE,Egyptian, Old Kingdom

Form:

• carved greywacke

• nearly life-sized

• never finished, lower legs not polished

• would have been brightly painted

• covered with precious metals, hair and headdress with protective cobra

• technically a relief sculpture

Content:

• two figures side by side (originally in a niche)

• pleated kilt on king, nemes headdress (insignia of pharaoh, made by Tut)

• royal beard, living God

• clenched fists-holding scroll?

• no sign of age

• female counterpart

• both have left foot forward, unusual for woman

Context:

• found and excavated by George Reisher in 1910

• located in the mostly untouched Valley Temple (close to Menkaure’s pyramid, used for cult worship of Menkaure after his death)

• royal female (equal height, queen?, mother?, no word for queen life there is for Pharaoh, maybe Queen Kameremebty II)

Function:

• ensure rebirth in the afterlife

• divine importance of the ruler

The Code of Hammurabi

Babylon c. 1792-1750 BCE,Ancient Near East

Form:

• basalt stone

• stele

• relief sculpture

• cuneiform

• 7.4ft tall

Content:

• two figures at top (one standing, one sitting, twisted perspective)

• scepter and ring, signs of power (divine laws)

• cuneiform at the bottom (300 laws in total, also an epilogue-prosperity for the king)

Context:

• Hammurabi of Babylon, most far reaching leader in Mesopotamia

• Shamash, sun God/justice, horned or halo, flames on shoulder

• Shows Hammurabi receiving laws from Shamash

• language is Akkadian

• first laws, legal precidents

• “eye for an eye” before biblical text

• shows their advanced society

Function:

• shows laws and punishments that will be enforced

• tells us about Babylonian culture and whats important to them

Temple of Amun-Re and Hypostyle Hall

Egypt c. 1550 BCE and 1250 BCE, Egyptian, New Kingdom

Form:

• large temple complex (made over time)

• sandstone and mud brick

• Hypostyle Hall (roof supported by 134 columns)

• brightly painted

• decorated and built to represented mound creation

Content:

• temple compound (20 temples and chapels, estate to the community of priests)

• contained tallest obelisk in Egypt (Hatshepsut, one piece of red granite)

• Temple (pylons, roof, columns)

Context:

• 1st built in Middle Kingdom, initially small

• “most select of places”

• precinct of Gods Amun-Re and Mit and Montu (Amun-Re- amun + re, Mut- primordial goddess associated with motherhood/mother of earth, Montu- God of war)

• temples in Egypt connected to idea of “Zep Tepi” or creation of the world (each element has a role, lotus on columns for march, temple would flood, enhancing symbolism)

• Hypostyle Hall (not many Egyptians had access, more restrictions further in you went, clerestory lighting)

Function:

• place of worship to the Gods

• viewed as a place for Amun to dwell of earth

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

Luxor Egypt c. 1473-1458, Egyptian, New Kingdom

Form:

• temple cut from cliffside (three terraces)

• kneeling statue-carved granite, 8.6ft tall

Content:

• statue (kneeling, holding 2 jars, dressed like king, made for temple, 6-10 total)

• temple (partially carved from cliffside, colonnaded terrace, long ramp to enter, aligned with winter solstice sun, contains many statues including sphinx, reliefs, and paintings)

Context:

• Hatshepsut( female pharaoh-rare, created mythology about kingship, daughter of Thutmose I, wife to Thutmose II, regent and co-pharaoh with Thutmose III, believed art could convey royal authority)

• cliffside built gives a sense of permanence and stability

• hieroglyphics as female but visually male

• two jars (offerings to the Gods)

• kneeling=human but eternal

• Thutmose III usurped after death and later destroyed a lot of structures dedicated to her, would literally mean she isn’t allowed in the afterlife)

• not buried here, but in the valley of the Kings

Function:

• mortuary shrine

• shows piety and power

Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and three daughters

Egypt c. 1353-1335 BCE, Egyptian, Amarna Period

Form:

• small limestone plaque

• carved, sunken relief

• 13”x15”

Content:

• Akhenaten

• wife Nefertiti

• 3 weird looking daughters

• representation of Aten

• seated of thrones

• sun rays

• Ankhs, symbol 4 life

• style (something is physically wrong, softer lines compared to original canon)

Context:

• Akhenaten changes Egypt’s religion (1350 BCE) otherwise unchanged for 3,000 years

• from Amun to Aten (changes his name to Akhenaten, capital Thebes→ Akhenaten, after he dies religion goes back)

• Informal in appearance (love and domesticity, represent their relationship to God)

• Akhenaten was a monotheist

• cobra=royalty on the Headdresses

• Ankhs, coming from Aten to Akhenaten and Nefertiti (both ruled Upper and Lower Egypt)

Function:

• would have been on someone’s home altar

• a way to encourage new religion

Tutankhamun’s tomb

Egypt c. 1323 BCE, Egyptian, Amarna Period

Form:

• 3 total coffins and outer sarcophagus

• sarcophagus, bok like outermost shell

• 2 coffins made of wood, covered in gold, stones, gems

• innermost coffin, solid gold with gems

• when it was discovered was covered with black anointing oil

• death mask in innermost coffin (two sheets of gold)

Content:

• image of pharaoh as god life (Gods=gold skin, silver bones, lapis hair)

• crook and flail, kings right to rule

• vulture(Nekhbet) cobra (wadjet) (goddesses that protect)

• beard=god

• death mask, includes an inscription from the book of the dead that tells of a roadmap to the afterlife and has spells to protect limbs

Context:

• found in Valley of the Kings (in Thebes)

• found in 1922 by Howard Carter, nearly intact

• son of Akhenaten

• King Tut, ruling at 9 died at 18

• changed religion back

• no heir, Ankhesenamun took over

• site was executed for years

• Carter spent a decade recording findings

Function:

• funerary

• protection

• ensure transition to afterlife

Last judgment of Hunefer

Last judgment of Hunefer, Egypt c. 1275 BCE, Egyptian, New Kingdom

Form:

• Papyrus scroll

• part of the scribes Book of the Dead(helped the dead into the afterlife, prayer,spells, incantations)

• painted

• 35”x16”

Content:

• Hierarchical scale and composite view, continuous narrative

• use of symbols and stylization

• upper left Hu-Nefer talking to Gods about his good life

• Hunefer in white robe throughout

• lead by Anubis, Jackal headed God associated with the dead

• Thoth, ibis head, writing,wisdom,say Hunefer succeeded

• Horus to lead to Osivis to make judgement

• 4 children with Horus, four cardinal points, organs

• white platform, natural salt, preservation

Context:

• Old Kingdom-pyramid text, Middle Kingdom-coffin text, New Kingdom-scrolls

• papyrus, most important surface in middle ages

• Hunefer was a royal scribe

• would have been close to the king

• may have been buried at Memphis

• created for prominent people

• he passes, scales says he does

• “opening of the mouth” so he could eat, breath, etc

Function:

• to prove Hunefer lived a good life, deserved the afterlife

• help lead Ka into afterlife

Lamassu from the citadel of Sargon II

Iraq c. 720-705 BCE, Ancient Near East

Form:

• carved stone, alabaster

• high relief

• monolithic, one piece of stone

• 13.9ft tall

Content:

• Lamassu, guardian figure

• winged bulls with man head

• some were part structural support

• crown,decorated with rosettes, horn, ring of feathers

• wavy hair, connected eyebrows, elaborate earrings

• wings highly decorated

• ringlets on body, fur

• inscriptions in cuneiform (says damnation to those who threaten King, shows power of king)

Context:

• placed at gates

• hight of Assyrian civilization

• from palace of Sargon II, Khorsabad in Iraq

• protected gates, small in comparison to the architecture

• shows movement

• Mesopotamia, also place of war (lamassu important to marking territory)

• more than 100 Lamassu found in Neo-Assyrian sites

• Lamassu (hybrid monster, head of a man, crown of a god, body of bull/lion)

• naturalistic vs imaginative

• master sculpture

• would have been colored

Function:

• spirited guardian

• symbol of Kings power

• protected the gates of the citadel

Athenian agora

Archaic through Hellenistic Greek, c.600 BCE- 150 CE

Form:

• marble structures

Content:

• started as a marketplace then turned into a place of government

• temple to Hephaestus

• Agora, means marketplace

• Stoa, covered walkway or portico for public use (civic life)

Context:

• once a year a great processional occurred (made their way through the agora to Parthenon)

• heart of Athenian experiments in democracy

• the agora provides one of the richest sources for our understanding of Greek world in antiquity

• there was also a library and concert hall

• small shrines and temples received regular worship

Function:

• location of most important buildings in Athens

• economic center

• democratic center

• meeting place

Anavysos Kouros

Archaic Greek, c. 530 BCE

Form:

• life sized, 6ft 4in

• carved marble

• sculpture

• painted

Content:

• young male

• traces of original paint

• more natural compared to first Kouros

• more natural curves

• Archaic smile ( a figure that transcends this world)

• represents the ideal form

• rigid, frontal, square shoulders, hands attached, braided hair, one foot forward

Context:

• not a portrait

• archaic period-artistic development in Greece in 650-480 BCE

• Kouros, youth

• inspired by ancient Egypt

• Kroisos (name of man) died in battle, noble way to die, on the inscription

• found in 1936 (in Anavysos cemetery)

• thousands produced

• major event in Archaic period, Persian Wars-Battle of Marathon

• This Kouros shows the increasing interest of artists in a more lifelike rendering of the human figure

• this elaborate hairstyle conveys the wealth of him

• found by robbers who cut it up into pieces

Function:

• grave marker

• same represented Gods, apollo

• offerings in sanctuaries

• symbolize nobility and strength

Peplos Kore from the Acropolis

Archaic Greek, c. 530 BCE

Form:

• carved marble

• painted, pigment mixed with wax

Content:

• mislabeled

• Kore-young woman (female figure, found throughout Greece, counter part to Kouros, thought to wear a peplos, probably more like a goddess, only one found dressed this way)

• Korai figures were created in great numbers

• arm lost, maybe held a bow/arrow

• maybe had a crown with metal rays

• lots of paint

• sense of movement

• Archaic smile

Context:

• Archaic Greek c.530BCE

• would have been in a temple

• named for wearing a peplos, is not

• multiple interpretations

• one of the most exceptional figures from the Archaic period

• still has some visible paint

• dress has animals on it, lion, goat, sphinx, etc

• Artemis had a small sanctuary on the hill, maybe had dedications

Function:

• offering to Goddess

• honor and depict Goddess

Sarcophagus of the Spouses

Etruscan, c.520 BCE

Form:

• Terra cotta

• fired in multiple sections

• painted originally

• 3.7ftx6.2ft

Content:

• male and female figures

• stylized

• elements of Greek and Etruscan elements(angular joints, extended fingers and toes, pointed shoes on female, abstract shoes on female, abstract hair, elongated proportions)

• sarcophagus

• female would have held a small object, maybe a pomegranate

• pictured in a way they would be at a banquet

• on a Kline (dining couch)

Context:

• Etruscan c.520 BCE

• found in the 19th century in modern day cerveteri, Italy

• others were found like it(influenced by trends in the world)

• inspired by social life of Etruscans and funerary rituals

• used to reflect the perpetual liveliness in the afterlife

• in Greek culture mixed gender banquets were not acceptable

• women had more privileged status in Etruscan society

• made with terra cotta because did not have known access to marble

Function:

• funerary statue

• would have held cremated remains

• memorialized the deceased

Audience Hall of Daris and Xerxes

Persepolis Iran c. 520-465 BCE, Ancient Near East

Form:

• limestone

• 72 columns, each 24 meters tall, highly detailed, capitals are animals

• Hypostyle- held up by columns(Apadna in persian terminology)

• sculptural programs-low relief

Content:

• mainly made up of columns

• two sets of relief sculptures depicting processional (believed to be a representation of an actual ceremony, 23 nations depicted)

• column capitals depict: bulls, eagles, and lions (symbols of royal or authority)

Context:

• visual microcosm of Achaemenid empire(persian empire-ruled estimated 44% of the human population of earth by the 5th century)

• persepolis-main city center (means “city of persians”)

• marked special by Darius the Great (started building it)

• Xerxes and Artaxerxes(continued the building process)

• sacked by Alexander the Great in 330BCE

• excavated by German archaeologists between 1931 and 1939

• made into a World Heritage site in 1979

Function:

• show power and dominion

• sacred connection to Mithra and Persian New Years Festival

• Important administrative and economic center

• may have influenced Athenian sculptures( specifically the relief sculptures-friezes on parthenon)

Temple of Minerva and sculpture of Apollo

Veii Italy, c.510-500 BCE, Etruscan

Form:

• terra cotta

• Tufa-volcanic porous rock (foundation, only thing that remains)

• foric like columns

• wood, mud rick

• pront porch

• back portion is a triple cella

• high podium-different from Greek

Content:

• temple made of materials that did not last

• columns in front with 3 rooms in the back

• sculptures inside along with masks and other decorations

• Apollo of Veii (originally on ridgeline on roof, sculpted by vulca, scene from Greek mythology, movement, animated smile, highly stylized)

Context:

• would not have created temples early on (worship in nature, influenced by Greeks)

• created for Minerva

• three rooms in back for Minerva, Trinia, Uni (Athena, Zeus, Hera)

• counterpart to Apollo is Hercules (third labor, large deer with golden horns)

• terra cotta sculptures would have had the sky as backdrop

• built through an additive process

• very difficult to do with terra cotta (skilled artisans, made by Vulca)

• literature of the Etruscans has been lost but these sculptures tell us about narratives

• Vitruvius, an ancient Roman Historian/Architect wrote about the Etruscan Temples in De architectura

• he write about them so archeologists were able to recreate models

Function:

• dedicated to the divine triad

• shelter for Gods

• narrative roof sculptures

Tomb of the Triclinium

Tarquinia Italy, Etruscan, 480-470 BCE

Form:

• chambers in subterranean rock

• in monterozzi necropolis in Tarquinia, Italy

• Fresco paintings (painted while plaster was still wet, adhere to wall)

• couches

Content:

• originally three couches (triclinium) for reclining dinners (for sharing a last meal)

• many paintings on walls (show funerary rituals and festivities/games, dancers, musicians, robes worn-fance or elite, ceiling is checkered to represent fabric from tents during festival)

Context:

• funerary contexts-tells us the most about society/culture

• did not bury their dead inside city limits (necropolis-city of the dead, cemetary)

• Iron age culture (made wealth by natural resources in Italy)

• also other goods and offerings were found

• discovered in1830

• skin shown differently (men darker, women lighter)

Function:

• reinforce the status of person during games/festivities

• send the deceased into the afterlife

Niobides Krater

Greece, c.460-450 BCE, Ancient Greece, Classical Greek

Form:

• terra cotta

• thrown vessel

• Calyx-Krater

• red figure paintings (allowed for more natural forms)

• slip painted, black

• 21in tall, 22in diam

Content:

• vessel with lots of decoration, all around the surface

• First side shows: Niobe bragging about her children being more beautiful than the Goddess Leto, Leto sends her children Apollo and Artemis to hunt and kill her children for revenge, illustrates a legend that is rarely represented and gave the painter his name-niobid

• second side: shows Herakles/a statue of him and soldiers gathering to honor and ask him for protection, Herakles in center, maybe on a podium, holding a club and wearing a lion skin, surrounded by warriors, standing and reclining, Athena is on his right

• severe style-when archaic greek turns to classical, still some stiffness to figures

Context:

• could be a copy of wall painting, did not survive, painted by polygnotus, 1st painting that showed depth

• created by Niobid painter

• people crossing over into different levels (show space, foreground/background)

• maybe showing Athenian soldiers asking for help before the battle at Marathon, Greeks took on Persians

Function:

• punch bowl for mixing water with wine

• relationship between stories is unknown

• Greeks love to how contrast between active/passive (in technique and imagery)

Doryphoros

450-440 BCE, Ancient Greece, Classical Greek

Form:

• roman marble copy

• original bronze

• free standing in bronze form

• life size, 6-7ft

Content:

• male figure

• Doryphoros-spear bearer

• would have had a spear (a canon-set of rules based on math for perfect proportions of a man, Egypt had one so did Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man)

• contrapposto- “s” shape to the body, relaxed, counter balancing

• life like, 1st time like this

Context:

• created by Polykleitos (much more detailed than Archaic Kouros figures, mathematical relationships between body parts=perfect human form)

• Greeks invented contrapposto

• perfection of human form (not idealized, ideal self)

• original was bronze, “lost wax” method

• one of the most sought after, and copied, Greek sculptures

• used for display in Roman elite houses

• Bronze was melted down and reused for weapons

• found in Pompeii where athletes would workout

• thousands of copies

• created between Archaic and Parthenon sculptures

• for the first time in western art history figures seem fully alive

• greeks were interested in how the body moved from a mechanical sense but also culturally

• make us feel like its in our world

Function:

• to show understanding of human form

• establish canon

• contrapposto (standing, relaxed, weight on 1 leg, movement, asymmetrical, studying motion of the body)

Acropolis

Athens Greece, c. 447-410 BCE, Ancient Greece, Classical Greek

Parthenon:

• Treasury (not a place of worship)

• replaced former parthenon that was destroyed by the Persians, over time it was a church and a mosque, destroyed by gunpowder explosion when it held ammunition during war, now its being restored

• the building celebrated the successful conclusion to Persian war, many narrative relief friezes, metopes and pediment sculptures, would have been brightly colored

• has doric and ionic columns

• building was started by Perikles

• based on geometry, understood human perspective and adjusted for that, foundation was slightly sloped so water would run off

• housed Athena Statue, huge, made of gold and ivory

Athena Pediment:

• story of birth of Athena(opposite side the battle of Poseidon and Athena)

• much has been destroyed

• Athena born at dawn, heads of horse and helio represent sun rising over horizon, figures reclined show low level of activity in the morning, Dionysos is well preserved

• overseen by sculpture Phidias and in his style, Phidian-drapery, up very high, brightly painted with metal attachments in other sculptures

Plaque of Ergastines:

• fragment from the east pediment frieze, wrapped around the entire parthenon, 3ft tall, blue background, colored, high up

• represents the Panathenaic Procession, bringing woolen peplos to Athena, not a mythical event, Athenians imagine themselves as Gods

• figures in contrapposto

• relief

• Ergastines-young noble women, they bring the garments

• British museum owns, Greece is trying to get them into their museum

Temple of Athena Nike:

• Tetrastyle-4 columns

• Amphiprostyle, front and rear facads

• dedicated to Athena Nike, victory and battle, sculpture of Athena inside-helmet in one hand(war), branch of pomegranate tree in the other(peace)

• 27ft long, 18 ½ ft wide, 27ft tall

• earliest temple with ionic columns, relief sculptures depicting Athena Nike

Nike Adjusting her Sandal:

• 3’6” tall, high relief

• depiction of goddess

• off balance, human-ness

• drapery thin and heavy-Phidian

• part of frieze on railways-parapet, the carved slabs are not part of a continuous narrative, each one depicts on independant scene

Grave stele of Hegeso

Ancient Greece, Classical Greek, c.410 BCE

Form:

• stele

• 5ft 2in

• carved marble

• painted

Content:

• Hegeso, woman who is seated opening a box of jewelry, presented by her servent

• shown in domestic setting because of culture, women were not citizens

• lots of detail in drapery

• plasters either side would have said “Hegeso, daughter of Proxenos”

• very shallow space, yet there is the full width of the body

Context:

• Dipylon cemetery in Athens

• created at the end of high classical era, prior to and not in many funerary carvings or private carvings due to most time spent on the Acropolis

• takes the place of Kouros and Kore statues as many families were not as wealthy during the period of democracy

• quiet image

Function:

• grave marker

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Hellenistic Greek, c.190 BCE

Form:

• carved marble

• 9ft tall

• many stones stacked

• originally painted

Content:

• Nike

• on a prow of stone ship, would have been within a temple

• heavy drapery, lots of detail, windswept

• full of motion, wet drapery technique

Context:

• Hellenistic

• found on island, Samothrace

• victory Goddess

• reconstructions show her holding a horn

• intended to be viewed from multiple angles

Function:

• Naval victory

• protects sailors and armies against storms and enemies

• celebrating the body

• worship came from throughout the ancient Mediterranean to worship, it was open to all

• cult of the Great Gods, secret cult, open to all

Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon

Hellenistic Greek, c.175 BCE

Form:

• 35×33 meters

• high relief

• carved marble

• painted

Content:

• Hellenistic-expressive and dynamic, last period of Greek art

• Great mythic battle battle Gods for supremacy of the earth and the universe

• Athena frieze and Zeus frieze

• dynamic body positions, complex

Context:

• Pergamon established by generals of Alexander the Great, built the altar

• very important story to the Greeks, optimism and fear

• victory of Greek culture over the unknown or of culture that they didnt understand

• In Berlin because Prussia wanted to be equal to Britain and France, reconstructed the altar and much of the frieze, get a sense of what Pergamon looked like

Function:

• top of the Acropolis in Pergamon

• over looks lands, show power

• Honor Zeus and Athena

• A sacred precinct

House of Vettii

Pompeii, around 2nd century BCE, Republican Rome

Form:

• 11,840 sq feet

• demonstrates Pompeii’s late artistic and architectural style

• cut stone, frescos

• Domus (roman townhouse)

Content:

• walls are painted in a progressive or transitional style (3rd-4th)

• turned rooms into picture galleries, central atria hall, more private areas to more open areas

• Peristyle (a colonnade surrounding a courtyard)

• water basin

• house built on remains of earlier house

Context:

• Home of Aulus Vettius Conviva and brother Aulus Vettius Restitutes (they were former slaves, top civic office)

• built to show wealth

• Vitruvius wrote about the design of the house

• Patron client system (patrons=protection client=favors)

• Atrium was where clients were greeted

• Buried by Mt. Vesuvius, excavated between 1894-1896

• Fourth style ( combination of past styles, faux marble, naturalistic scenes, large flat planes of color, central pictures, wide range of themes)

Function:

• domestic space

• to show wealth and status

Alexander Mosaic from the House of Faun

Pompeii, 100 BCE, Republican Rome

Form:

• floor mosaic

• 9ft x 17ft

• 1.5 million tesserae, laid down in a “worm life” style (opus vermiculatum)

• originally a greek painting by Philoxenos

Content:

• One of the most important battle in ancient history (battle of Issus, when Darius/ Persians flee under the onslaught of Alexander the Great (greeks)

• Horses and soldiers in retreat, tension all around

• foreshortening

• many tiles missing

Context:

• discovered 1831 and moved to Naples 2 years later (replica made in 2005 for the house)

• between two Peristyle court yards

• elaborately decorated mansion (largest and most decorated residence in Pompeii)

• realistic dynamic movements

• foreshortening and tonal gradation

Function:

• depicts battle and victory

• human emotion

• entertain guests

• show wealth ( romans wanted to be like greeks in art forms)

Seated Boxer

Hellenistic Greek, c.100 BCE

Form:

• Lost wax casting, Bronze, copper inlay

• seated

• ivory/glass paste eyes

• naked figure except boxing gloves

Content:

• older boxer

• athlete (perfect looking but exhausted), more human

• blood (made by copper)

• broken nose, informal (slouched), turns to look up (at someone?)

Context:

• one of the few original greek bronze statues (not melted for weapons)

• beginning of exploration into a much wider variety of art/subjects

• Pathos (loss, sadness, pain)

• Hellenistic ends when Rome conquers Greece

• moving beyond heroic

• originally maybe part as a group

• boxing in ancient greece had focus on hitting the head, rarely see figures in classical Greek art

Function:

• represents shift in art

• votive statue dedicated to the boxer

• represents boxing culture

• originally would be in a greek sanctuary or the boxers home town

Head of Roman Patrician

Republican Roman, c.75-50 BCE

Form:

• carved marble

• 1ft 2in

• painted

• veristic style (hyper realistic, natural exaggerated features)

Content:

• wrinkled face (marks of old work)

• male aristocrat

• hooked nose, strong cheekbones

• frontal, no emotion

Context:

• from Otricoli Italy

• Verism influenced by tradition of ancestral images (death masks)

• deep respect for family and tradition, these masks were helpful in creating a lineage of ancestors for political and business gain

• virtue was valued, public image is important

• unlike the Greek the romans believed that a head was enough to suffice as a portrait

Function:

• symbol of virtues

• admire elderly

Augustus of Prima Porta

Imperial Roman, early 1st century CE

Form:

• free standing

• relief (carving on breastplate)

• contrapposto stance

• marble, 6’8”

• depicted in the pose “the orator”

Content:

• Augustus of Primaporta (1st emperor of the Roman empire)

• military regalia

• right arm outstretched addressing troops, similar in appearance to the Doryphores

• dolphin for the great naval victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra

• Cupid for his connection to the Gods

• Breastplate is full of symbolism

Context:

• reestablishing senate but really stabilizing Rome

• canon of proportions

• political significance, symbolizes the gods are on his side

• military victor and bringer of Pax Romana

• found at the villa of his wife Livia

• many copies, roman art was closely intertwined with politics and propaganda

Function:

• visual propaganda

• communicates power and ideology

• expresses Augustus’ connection to the past

• role as a military victor, connection to the gods, role as bringer of the roman peace

Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)

Rome, 70-80 CE, Imperial Rome

Form:

• stone, travertine outside, tufa inside, concrete foundation

• arches hold more weight than post and lintel

• 6 arches

• 187ft high, 615ft long, 510ft wide

• oval amphitheater

• sand floor for easy blood clean up

Content:

• donut shape

• numbering system for seats

• seated according to status

• three stories of arches (4th floor with windows), arches frames by columns (1st level tuscan, 2nd ionic, 3rd corinthians)

• stage at center (hypogeum- underground part)

• velarium (retractible awning)

Context:

• original name was flavian amphitheater (paid for by the flavian dynasty, colosseum came from being close to the colossal Nero statue)

• Arena means sand in Latin

• built in only 10 years

• concrete was less expense and did not require specialized workers

• aggressive with landscape

• wooden mold for concrete

Function:

• Entertainment for all

• mornings there were animal hunts, midday execution of prisoners, afternoon gladiatorial fights

• Hypogeum (connected halls, for gladiators and animals before the performance)

• Order of seating: senators, knights, plebeians, poor/women/slaves

Basilica Ulpia/Forum of Trajan

Rome, 106-112 CE, column 113 CE, high empire, Imperial Rome

Form:

• brick libraries

• stone, imported marble, concrete, gilded bronze roof tiles

• forum (public meetings, courts, combats, linked to shops and markets)

Content:

• multiple sections

• Basilica Ulpia (uniquely roman)

• One library latin one greek

• main square courtyard with porticos on either side and exedra (statue spaces) in the side of those

• market

• temple in back finished by succeeding emperor Hadrian

• lots of sculptures, relief carvings, statues of Trajan

Context:

• built for Trajan (the emperor)

• he was the emperor who was not born into the role

• designed and built by architect Apollodorus of Damascus

• Basilica ulpia (Trajans family name)

• trajan was an incredible military leader and lead Rome to its greatest extent

Function:

• public space, civic, judicial, and social

• commemorate Trajan

Forum of Trajan:

Form:

• 125 ft tall

• fine grained luna marble, gilded statue at top of column

• multi colored marble floors, painted

• continuous narrative on column

• markets use groin vaults

Content:

• tells the story of Traigans victory of Dacians

• 22 layers, 155 scenes

• victory crown base

• personification of Danube river

• clear ethnic typing to show difference between the romans and the Dacian soldiers

Context:

• placed between the two libraries to be seen at all angles

• forum is deteriorating due to pollution

• originally thought it was like a Roman mall but probably more administrative role

• base held ashes of Traigan

Function:

• Mausoleum

• celebration of the army, empire, and people

• inspired the washington monument

Pantheon

Imperial Rome, 118-125 CE

Form:

• corinthian monolithic columns

• portico (rectangle opens to sphere)

• arches and dome for support,

• lighter materials at top

• concrete, stone

• focus on geometry 

Content:

• coffered ceiling in dome (28 sections paired with 28 columns, perfect number)

• oculus (open, rain comes in, heavens)

• pediment, originally filled with bronze statues, inscription in bronze “Marcus Agrippa”

• Hadrian built it originally

Context:

• thought to be a temple

• maybe more a dynastic sanctuary

• sacred site of Romulus, potentially designed by Apollodorus

• evolved into a christian place of worship in 613 CE

• ground is built up around the Pantheon due to debris

• best preserved ancient Roman monument

Function:

• Temple to all the Gods

• emperor would hold court

• expression of Hadrian’s wealth and power

• oculus=sundial

• it influenced other important architecture like the library Thomas Jefferson designed

Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus

Late Imperial Roman, c.250 CE

Form:

• very high relief

• detailed carving (4 layers deep, figures on figures)

• use contrast of light and dark to guide viewer

• chaotic scene, could be compared to chaos of time in empire

• no illusion of space behind figures, rejection of classical representation

Content:

• battle scene (romans vs goth)

• leader in center

• lots of movement

Context:

• emperors still cremated in 1st century

• in 2nd century we see more and more sarcophagi

• purchased by cardinal Ludovisi in 1621 CE

• Intention in the interaction between figures

• Instability in the Roman Empire during this time

Function:

• burial

• unknown person

• display wealth and status

Catacomb of Priscilla

Rome, Late Antique Europe, 200-400 CE, Early Christian

Form:

• Tufa stone, Plaster frescoes

• Greek chapel (not greek or a chapel)

• cubiculum and loculi

• painted and carved symbols

• Roman 1st style (plaster walls, painted to look like marble)

Content:

• Orant Fresco (pose of prayer, woman in afterlife, 3 times (marriage, motherhood, and prayer))

• Greek Chapel (Adjacent to basement of original house, eucharist)

• Good Shepherd (symmetrical, christ will take care of his followers, doves, peacock-eternal life, quail-earth, christ between heavenly and earthly)

Context:

• Place where earliest christians were buried and where they worshipped when christianity was not allowed

• 40,000 tombs, 3 stories deep

• located where the villa of Priscilla was (she was rich and gave the land)

• empty now (grave robbing)

• martyrs

• small holes for oil lamps

• scenes among the earliest christian iconography

Function:

• catacombs- underground passageway

• cubicula (small mortuary chapels, extravagant sarcophagi)

• Loculi (opening in wall, shelves for the poor)

Santa Sabina

Rome, Late Antique Europe, c.422-432 CE, Early Christian

Form:

• Axial Plan (building structured longitudinally, focus on altar)

• Basilica (large oblong hall, double colonnades and semicircle)

• Nave (main isle of a church)

• Decoration change over time (once had mosaics)

• Spolia (repurposed building stone)

• Clerestory (window story of a church, divine light)

• Flat wooden roof (practical, coffers)

Content:

• Emphasis on architecture is on the spiritual effect

• repurposed basilica

• focus on the altar

• like Saint Peter’s- commissioned by constantine

• wooden doors 5th century (1st imagery of crucifiction images)

Context:

• Earliest christian building, dates to 400s (only 100 years after constantine legalizes christianity)

• built by the priest Peter of Illyria

• Saint Sabina- convert to christianity due to her female slave Saint Serapia (beheaded and buried near sabina)

• gives us an idea of what early churches looked like (only one that remains)

• on top of a hill much larger interior space

Function:

• place of worship

• built to accommodate the devoted

• inspire people to follow christianity

Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well and Jacob Wrestling the Angel, from the Vienna Gospel

Early Byzantine Europe, sixth century, Byzantine

Form:

• illuminated manuscript

• silver paint, dyed purple animal skin

• illustration at bottom, text on top

• handwritten

• Eliezer (a servant of Abraham), jacob

Content:

• two episodes with a single frame

• had to make illustration fit within a small context

• 24 surviving pages, 96 total

• cartoon-like figures

Context:

• early manuscript-early christianization/byzantine era

• 1st book of the bible

• rare because books do not usually survive

• dyed purple

• royal commision but it was seen as un-christian because it meant you lacked humility

• continuous narrative

• ancient techniques with christian images, scribes

Function:

• to tell the stories from the bible

• Rebecca and Eliezer at the well (abraham wanted to find a wife for his son isaac and sent eliezer to find one from his extended family), Jacob Wrestling the Angel ( jacob, his two wives, two maids, eleven children)

San Vitale

Ravenna Italy, Early Byzantine Europe, c. 526-547

Form:

• centrally planned

• lots of windows

• ambulatory (aisle that surrounds central space

• octagon with smaller one that rises up)

• brick, tesserae (some with gold leaf)

Content:

• Arches, stacked columns

• martyriums (shrine built over a place/grave of a martyred saint)

• details show the richness of the imperial court in Constantinople to Ravenna

• Justinian (centered and frontal, halo, purple robes, flanked by clergy and soldiers, establishes central position, power of the church and military, marks the beginning of Byzantine liturgy of Eucharist, tension between church and emperor)

• Theodora ( Justinians wife, mirrors panel, rules as co-equal, wearing elaborate clothing, halo, eucharist, surrounded by attendants)

Context:

• San Vitale- martyred christian

• Justinian lived in constantinople and never traveled to this church

• fibulae-brooch or pin to fasten garments

• Chi Rho or XP- the first two letters of Christ in Greek (christogram, earliest form of this)

Function:

• christian church

• extreme importance in Byzantine Art

• only major church from the period of Justinian I to survive virtually intact

• Power and glory of Byzantine empire (also Justinian and Theodora)

Hagia Sophia

Constantinople, c. 532-537 CE, Byzantine

Form:

• combination of central and axial plan

• minimal exterior decoration

• pendentive (flat walls to domed ceiling)

• lots of windows

• 270’L x 240’W x 180’H

• dematerialization (divine power to create, illusion of floating)

• Pendentive (a construction shaped like a triangle that transitions the space between flat walls and the base of a round dome)

• Squinch (the polygonal base of a dome that makes a transition from the round dome to a flat wall)

Content:

• decorative in construction (use of marbles)

• filigree capitals

• Gold mosaics (made light bounce around)

• no figures early on (stems from the belief that the creation of living forms is unique to god)

• enhanced over time as different functions

Context:

• created by justinian as a way of putting people to work who might not and express power

• Emperor palace was close by

• engineering marvel, 1st time seeing pendentives on this scale

• light (idea of perfection and the divine)

• burned and was rebuilt (redesigned each time to be better)

• The Emperor justinian and his wife Theodora began an extensive rebuilding campaign to restore the city but also to tighten control and consolidate their power in the capital city

• young boy heard from angels how to build it

• symbol of Byzantium

Function:

• Eastern Orthodox cathedral (53-1453 CE)

• Mosque-ottoman empire added the calligraphy and minarets (1453-1934 CE)

• Museum (1934)

• Mosque again 2020 (this saved it)

Merovingian looped fibulae

early medieval europe, mid-sixth century CE

Form:

• Fibula

• gold

• garnet

• cloisonne (the technique of inlaying with semi-precious stones)

Content:

• ends shape of eagle head

• garnet for eyes of eagle

• little fish on inside

• other gems and stones

Context:

• made popular by Roman military campaign

• merovingian (powerful dynasty of Frankish rulers)

• used by roman soldiers to hold garments in place

• this was the time when europe was becoming christianized and the Roman Empire split (Byzantine empire in east, nothing in west, Byzantine capital is constantinople), also knows as the migration period (not much info about these people these provide the most info)

• found in Kranj (slovenia)

• eagles represent power and status (popular barbarian motif (non-roman))

• demonstrate the skill of barbarian metal workers, others made by various groups of people

Function:

• power and status

• holds clothes together

Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George,

Early Byzantine Europe, sixth or early seventh century CE

Form:

• Encaustic (wax mixed with pigment)

• Icon (greek for image or painting)

• wood

• gold leaf

• very flat

• 26” x 19”

Content:

• spatial ambiguity (makes it feel other worldly, unsure of what is behind them)

• virgin (center, seated, no eye contact, on a decorative throne)

• Child (in lap, no eye contact)

• Saints ( St. Theodore and St. George, in front, closest to our world, stare at the viewer, feel slightly lifted)

• Angels (above, looking up to the hand of god, lighter/otherworldly)

Context:

• Mt. Sinai- where Moses received the 10 commandments

• many works were preserved here at St. Catherine’s Monastery

• “Theotokos” icon refers to the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child

• most icons were destroyed during Byzantine Iconoclasm during the 8th and 9th centuries

• transitional piece (roman aesthetics with Byzantine aesthetics)

• connection between mary through this painting

• likely commissioned by Justinian and Theodora

Function:

• devotional object

• viewers make the connection complete (earth to the heavens)

Lindisfarne Gospels

Hiberno Saxon Europe, c.700 CE, Early Medieval

Form:

• ink pigment

• gold illumination

• vellium-calfskin (100s of animals make the entire book)

• 9.5”x13.5” 

Content:

• codex (bound books)

• Luke portrait (writing the gospel, ox-symbol for him, halo)

• Incipit page (1st page of the book, repetitive knots)

• Matthew (angel/man)

• Mark (lion)

• Luke (ox)

• John (eagle)

Context:

• Written by Eadfrith Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 (created it to honour god and St. Cuthbert, relics thought to have miracle power)

• Lindisfarne(island off coast of England, great center of learning, many people traveled here)

• produced in the British Isles 500-900 CE (social upheaval during this time, vikings pillaged the monastery in 793 but the book survived)

• cross-carpet pages- highly detailed and knotted

• Hiberno-saxon style (irish curvilinear motifs, Saxon zoomorphic interlacings, cultural exchange between irish and anglo-saxon)

• Horror vacui (fear of empty spaces)

• zoomorphic animal style (animals depicted in sa stylized patterns, usually seen fighting each other)

Function:

• record writing of the four gospels (matthew, mark, luke, and john)

• monks read during rituals

• visual representation of people of the bible  

Great Mosque

Cordoba Spain, Umayyad dynasty, c.785-786 CE, Islamic

Form:

• Mosque

• Hypostyle (filled with columns)

• minaret (call the faithful to prayer)

• mihrab (wall that faces Mecca)

• stone that was reused from ancient roman columns

• red brick, gold tesserae

Content:

• Hall: interior space magnified by geometry, sense of awe, prayer hall

• Mihrab: focus point, famously decorated with intricate calligraphy bands and vegetal motifs

• Ribbed dome: crisscrossing dome, pointed arches, anticipates gothic rib vaulting

Context:

• no icons, example of muslim worlds ability to develop architecture based in tradition

• combination of familiar and innovative

• recognizable as islamic even today

• the horseshore-style arch was common in the architecture of the visigoths

• prince abd ak-rahman I escaped to southern spain and sponsored elaborate building programs (courtyard orange trees that are still there)

• Umayyads-first islamic dynasty who had originally ruled damascus

• the double arches allowed for higher ceilings

Function:

• Roman temple (church by the visigoths, Umayyad conquer- mosque)

• represents the presence of Umayyad in cordoba,

• place of worship

• establish presence of Islam

• embrace cultures

Pyxis of al-Mughira

Umayyad, c.968 CE, Islamic

Form:

• Ivory from elephant tusk

• carved with jade inlay

• highly portable

• Pyxis (cylindrical box used for cosmetics)

• 6"x3" 

Content:

• Four eight lobed medallions (includes figures and animals, speak to the Umayyad legitimacy, inspired by Umayyad poetry)

• inscription “God’s blessing,favors,joy,beatitude to al-Mughira son of the commander of the faithful, may God have mercy upon him in year 357”

• animals to be hunted, two bulls, men on horseback, peacocks and other birds

• most likely from a workshop (Madinat al-Zahra)

Context:

• given as a gift to royal family members on special occasions

• later as caliphal gifts to important allies

• many survived

• islam not strictly anionic

• coming of age gift for al-Mughira (son of caliph)

• ivory is easily carvable

Function:

• cylindrical box for cosmetics

• inside are smaller silver containers of perfume

• could be left open to perfume a room

• gifts

Church of Saint-Foy

Conques France, Romanesque, c. 1050-1130 CE

Form:

• Church: cruciform, stone.

• Tympanum: stone and paint, relief carving.

• Reliquary: enamel over wood, gold, silver, gemstones, spolia

Content:

• Church: romanesque-barrel vaulted nave lined with arches, pilgrimage church, designed to help regulate flow of traffic in front to apse out transept.

• Last judgment: semi-circle over door, christ as judge with Mary and Peter, House of Paradise below, Abraham at center, otherside has a row of angels, Hell with Devil as judge, hanged man next to devil (judas).

• Reliquary: what pilgrims came to see, held remains of St Foy (martyr, 12 year old convert, sacrificed), too beautiful, head from roman child statue (spolia)

Context:

• the church was part of a monastery

• church was on the way to Santiago de Compostela, many other churches along the way looked similar, would travel here to be closer to god

• ex of Romanesque art/architecture

• the monastery didn’t survive

• even today people pay respect to St Foy, every october a procession is held for St Foy

Function:

• to honor and house relic of St foy

• place for those pilgrimaging

• Last Judgment( a reminder of judgement and how to live)

• reliquary (stolen from another monastery in Agen by a monk to bring more people and money to Conques)

Bayeux Tapestry

Romanesque, Norman/English, c. 1066-1080 CE

Form:

• embroidery on linen

• not a tapestry (not woven)

• wool yarn on linen cloth

• 20” H x 250' L

• 75 scenes in a continous narrative

Content:

• Calvary attack: group of soldiers who fight on horses, calvary could easily advance and retreat which would scatter an opponent’s defense, flexible and intimidating, normans were calvary dominant, conical steel helmets with nose plate, chainmail shirts, shield and spears, horses were armored

• First meal: meal blessed by Bishop Ode (half brother of William and patron of tapestry), william feasts with men

Context:

• end is missing

• commemorates a struggle for the throne of England (william, duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of Wessex), also known as William the Conqueror, culminates in the Battle of Hastings in 1066

• many scenes adapted from images in manuscripts

• three horizontal zones (main events in larger middle, lower and upper are scenes from Aesop’s fables, husbandry, and hunting)

• this was created only a few years after the event

• at the time Anglo-Saxon needlework was prized throughout Europe

• do not know the artists

• william was crowned the king after the war (after edward died)

Function:

• a record

• example of Anglo-Norman art

• shows victory

• chronicle

• political propaganda

• visual evidence

• 11th century mundane objects

Chartres Cathedral

Chartres France, Gothic Europe, c.1145-1220 CE

Form:

• Limestone

• stained glass

• originally inside covered in plaster and painted

• basilica church floor plan

• blend of gothic and romanesque architecture

West Facade-Front:

• left tower, rose window, and 2nd stories are gothic, this was built 2nd

• right tower and 1st story are romanesque

• they were worried about the weight

Great Portal:

• jambs between doors are carvings of biblical kings and queens, elongated bodies, made up of tympanums, intels, and jambs

• 3 total tympanums ( left-before christ takes a form, center-second coming of christ, right- all about the virgin mary and christ taking on physical form)

Interior:

• basilica plan

• auxiliary hallway so that pilgrims could move through without disturbing mass

• houses the relic of the Virgin Mary that she wore while giving birth

• there was a fire (early gothic before, high gothic after)

• elevation in three parts (nave arcade, triforium, clerestory windows, draw eyes up)

• rib groin vault (more weight going down rather than out)

• wanted as much glass and light as possible (flying buttresses!!!)

Virgin Window:

• blue contrast with red-like gems

• mary is frontal and on the throne of wisdom

• window is showing scenes from marriage feast in Cana

• created around 1150CE

Context:

• stained glass was so impressive because paintings were not common

• was a pilgrimage site and house the head of St. Anne

• part of a complex (a school, a place of worship, and a hospital)

• gothic style developed in France

• the cathedral is a mix of gothic styles

• continuity and change

• heaven here on earth

• is almost fully restored

• first to use flying buttresses

Function:

• place of worship

• pilgrimage site

Dedication page with Blanche of Castile and King Louis IX of France

Gothic Europe, c.1225-1245 CE

Form:

• illuminated manuscript

• gold leaf, paint

• moralized bible

• dedication page

• scenes with roundels include verse, picture, text, and commentary

Content:

• Blanche of Castile (commissioned bible for son after father died, images of both of them, appear to be in the position of Mary and Christ, cleric also shown as well as artist)

• scene from the apocalypse (john’s vision of the end times)

Context:

• these bibles were made for the French Royal House

• 8-10 years to complete

• Louis IX’s job was to take lessons to heart, spelled out advice to readers and Louis IX

• viewing the page people were reassured the king was well trained

• parisians illuminated menopolized manuscript production

• 5,000 medallions in entire set

• red and blue (alternating, key gothic characteristics, Linking-persion and planning)

• extremely expensive, most luxurious bible ever created

Function:

• meant to teach morality

• told in commentary

• shows right to rule through divine right

• helped Louis IX achieve sainthood status

Röttgen Pietà

Late medieval Europe, c.1300-1325 CE, Gothic

Form:

• painted wood

• 34 1/2’’ tall

• unrealistic proportions

Content:

• Mary is angry and confused

• christ has shown ribs, bloody, and a crown of thorns,and 3d blood

• “Pieta” mary holding a lifeless Jesus

• scene from lamentation (christ removed from the cross and was mourned)

Context:

• many originally located in german nunneries, filled with frescos behind

• early medieval Christ was divine (christ triumphans)

• late medieval Christ was shown as human

• mysticism

• the Röttgen Pietà is the most is the most gruesome of surviving pietas, emphasize mary’s humanity

• stripping away narrative images

• worm holes in mary’s head

• paint brings the sculpture alive

Function:

• intended as a focal point of contemplation and prayer, on an altar, maybe surrounded by an altarpiece and frescos

• experience is everything

Arena (scrovegni) Chapel

Padua Italy, c.1303/c.1305 CE, Gothic

Form:

• brick

• frescos

• faux painted marble

• proto renaissance (also called the late gothic)

Content:

• chapel: many frescos that tell the lives of Mary and Christ

• Lamentation: christ has just been crucified and taken down while followers mourn him, emphasis on figures, rocky hill points to jesus, dead/winter trees, backs turned (uncommon in medieval art), angels (foreshortened to show depth, also mourning), many magdalene is washing feet

Context:

• commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni (a wealthy banker, he created it so he would be forgiven for the sin of charging interest on a loan)

• on the site of an ancient roman arena

• works of art are the only way for people to the bible (cant read and bibles are expensive)

• painted by Giotto

• emphasis on Christ as physical

• Giotto is interested in naturalism that he shows two figures from the back, many scenes show this illusion of space, purposeful placements of objects and people

Function:

• teach the bible

• to ensure Enrico Scrovegni went to heaven

Golden Haggadah

Late medieval Spain, c.1320 CE, Gothic

Form:

• illuminated manuscript

• gold leaf on vellum, golden background

• a haggadah is a book that includes prayers that would be said at the seder table at passover

Content:

• 56 miniature paintings

• long flowing bodies

• recounts the story of passover when moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt

• figures don’t look egyptian but more french

• small architecture details

Context:

• hebrew is read right to left

• 2nd commandment in judaism forbids graven images (this is education so its ok)

• stylistically jewish and gothic art

• stands as a testament to the impact of jewish culture in medieval spain (cross-cultural borrowing)

• god inflicted 10 plagues on the ancient egyptians, red mark on doors

• the story of passover is recounted annually by many Jews at a seder

Function:

• a fine work of art used to show the wealth of its owners

• tells the story of passover at seder meal

• one of the most luxurious examples of a medieval illuminated manuscript

Alhambra

Granada Spain, Nasrid Dynasty, 1354-1391 CE, Islamic

Form:

• medieval palace

• one mile of walls

• 30 towers

• 26 arches

• paths and gardens

• 4 main gates

• white-washed adobe, stucco, wood, tile, paint, guilding

Content:

• comares palace, partal palace,

• palace of the lions: seperate building but later connected, arched covered patios around the fountain, built by Muhammad V, 12 carved lions (12 tribes of israel), two decorative pavilions

• Hall of two sisters: 16 windows at the top of the hall, 5,000 muqarnas (honeycomb things), used for receptions and music

Context:

• Jannat alafia (means paradise and by association garden or palace of cultivation)

• Alhambra- abbreviation for Qal’at Alhambra (red fort)

• built by Nasrid Dynasty (last muslims to rule spain) Muhammad I founded

• the hall of the two sisters and the hall of the ambassadors were apartments

• garden and water fountains,canals,and pools were common in muslim domain

• a testament to the Alhambra that the catholic monarchs who besieged and took the city they left it intact

Function:

• served 3 functions (residence for ruler and family, citadel-barracks for elite guards, medina- where court officials lived and worked)

• completed for the ruler and court

Annunciation Triptych

workshop of Robert Campin, c.1427-1432 CE, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• Triptych

• altar piece

• personal

• 2ft tall, could be carried

• oil paint on prepared wood panels

Donors (left panel):

• kneeling to show they are donors (the donor was painted first and then his wife), walled garden (Mary’s purity), highly detailed (door, bolts,wood)

Archangel Gabriel and Mary:

• telling her she will bear christ, drapery (sharp folds, thick fabric, not realistic), very detailed with lots of items with lots of symbolism, so detailed to maintain focus, shiny pot (mary’s purity), small figure holding cross=holy spirit, space is not mathematically correct (linear perspective is new)

Joseph:

• mary’s husband-carpenter in the act of making, mouse traps- speaks to mercantile culture but also christ’s death, artist crafted panels-make connection to carpenters

Context:

• from the workshop of Robert Campin (successful painter in tornai in northern europe, wealthy place)

• lead to increasing interest on compassion

• looks like it’s taking place in Flemish household(feels closer to us)

• annunciation was painted first as a spec in hopes someone would but it then customize it)

• northern renaissance (details!, birds, bolts, rust, city, artists pay attention to everything, interest in light, oil paint!)

• the naturalism of the renaissance serving that mercantile culture an their interest in things and to aid devotion

Function:

• devotions and prayers

• use at home

Pazzi Chapel

Florence Italy, c.1429-1461 CE, Italian Renaissance

Form:

• mostly centrally planned

• connected to Basilica Santa Croce

• pieta serena (grayish green stone)

• terracotta with glazes

Content:

• images of 4 evangelists,

• interior decorating orderly and rational

• geometric shaped rather than organic

• fluted pilasters, long walls, hemispherical dome with oculus, windows on side, dome is on triangular pendentives, roundrels

Context:

• early renaissance example

• commissioned by Pazzi family (its also a burial site)

• brunelleschi started it (1st modern engineer, developed linear perspective)

• based on roman temples

• political power was in the hands of the middle class merchants, florence citizens interpreted the military victories of early 1400s as a sign of god, considered them the heir of ancient rome

• civic pride through the arts

• central plan and geometric shapes

• the Robbia workshop made the roundels

• world veiw focused on human beings

• florence= new athens

Function:

• chapter house ( meeting room for monks)

• power and devotion of the Pazzi family

The Arnolfini Portrait

Jan van Eyck, c.1434 CE, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• oil painting on wood panel

• done with many thin layers to create depth

• perspective is not accurate

Content:

• married couple, fancy clothes, shoes off, gathered dress

• mirror with people in it

• “Johannes Jan Eyck was here”

• scenes from passion of Christ

• dog, fruit-oranges

• in bedroom/living room

• laces

Context:

• Northern renaissance-love of texture, oil paint, attention to detail but not prescriptively correct

• Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini-merchant from Bruges

• could be memorial portrait of the wife (costanza) who possibly died in childbirth

• clothes show wealth, not pregnant but soon to be

• green-fertility/spring

• wooden statue of saint margaret (childbirth)

• did not paint women pregnant

• shoes off-sacred event, dog-fidelity, oranges-wealth, furs-weasel=pregnancy

• bedroom-at the time a place to receive guests

• love of light

• Jan van Eyck-master of the northern renaissance

Function:

• commissioned painting,

• rise of merchant class allows more people access to art

• a period when there’s tremendous importance put on symbolism

David

Donatello,c.1440-1460 CE, Italian Renaissance

Form:

• all’antica form (in the manner of the antique)

• Bronze (lost bronze casting, expensive)

• 5 feet tall

Content:

• David (hero of the hebrew bible, slayed goliath as a boy, freed the israelites from the tyranny of the Philistines)

• youth contrasts with that of the age of goliath

• shephard’s hat with victory laurels and sandal

• contrapposto, nude (vulnerable and bared before god, unprecedented for bible figures, body was seen as a path to destruction)

Context:

• at the home of business of cosimo de’medici (most powerful man in florence)

• earliest known freestanding nude sculpture since antiquity

• depicts david as a successor through god

• earlier marble version was made with clothes

• humanism (fascination with the classical world)

• originally on a column

• men=good/superior

• Florentine obsession with youthful male body

Function:

• david represents triumph of christianity over pagan antiquity

• Medici emblem as well as a florentine one (anti-tyrannical, they are defenders of liberty)

• embodies desirability (he is beloved by god)

Palazzo Rucellai

Florence Italy, Alberti, c.1450 CE, Italian Renaissance

Form:

• stone

• used ashlar masonry-cut stone with very little mortar

Content:

• structural elements of ancient rome are replicated in the arches, pilasters, and entablatures (flat pilasters (decorative columns), entablatures define each story)

• large cornice on top to frame the building

• surface is uniform and subtle

• lines creates rhythm and unity, a palazzo (palace)

• long stone benches run the length of the facade

Context:

• Leon Battista Alberti wrote “on painting” and “on architecture”

• he also designed the facade

• one of the first to fully express the spirit of the 15th century humanism in residential architecture

• the horizontal stuff is called “trabeated” architecture which he thought was fitting for residential buildings

• decorative architectural designs

• different columns for each layer (like the colosseum)

• loggia-open space for the public

Function:

• first floor uses tuscan columns

• second and third use smaller stones to give the feeling of lightness

• 2nd story is the main living area

• third story was private quarters

• 4th hidden story was the servants quarters

Madonna and Child with Two Angels

Fra Filippo Lippi, c.1465 CE, Italian Renaissance

Form:

• tempera on wood

• about 3’x2’

• atmospheric perspective

Content:

• earthly/natural

• landscape through a window frame

• mary’s expression could show her foreknowledge of the fate of her child

• figures look more life like

• children are more playful than past depiction of this theme

• halo is faint

• mary’s hands are clasped in prayer, translucent vail, earthly space, she inhabits our world

Context:

• art is beginning to be thought of not just as something made by skilled workers

• represents mary and child in a more human way, not focused on their spirituality like before

• seems to take place in a wealthy florentine home

• they do not look solemn, one angel is ,mischievous

• used live models

• Lippi was not a very good monk, model for mary was a young nun that left the nunnery for him, christ is their child, the Medici’s helped him escape scrutiny

• Fra means Monk, influenced by masaccio, according to vasari he was very lustful, he led a colorful life

• the patron was the medici family, botticelli is his student

Function:

• to show piety and wealth

• decorative

• to be reminded of christs story

• wanted a humanist image for people to be able to relate to mary and christ

Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli, c.1484-1486, Italian Renaissance

Form:

• 6ft x 9ft

• tempera (long lasting, made of egg yolk, permanent, fast drying)

• painted on canvas (new for the time)

Content:

• linear style to define form

• stylized waves

• gold used to highlight (wealth)

• ignored perspective and human proportions (more interested in beauty, weightless, idealized)

• tempera is difficult for blending

Context:

• is not religious or christian in theme

• Patron is the Medici family

• based off a poem by a humanist poet

• neoplatonic interpretation (using beauty as a way to connect with the divine, classical learning and christian ideology, venus looks like mary)

• starts a new era in art-allegorical painting, at the time christian subjects were depicted in the nude but its a sign of shame, here venus is modest but not shamed

• model for venus (Simonetta Cattaneo de Vespucci), medici is the patron

Function:

• exploration of human form

• celebration of classical art form

• not religious, based on a roman goddess

The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci, c.1494-1498 CE, High Renaissance

Form:

• oil and tempera

• plaster walls

• sfumato, painting technique for softening the transition between colors

Content:

• light source is like real like (only judas is in shadow)

• no halos

• utilizes both atmospheric and linear perspectives

• the tapestries on the wall in perspective add depth

• each figure is individualized reflecting their pwn personality

Context:

• Patron is the Duke of Milan

• located in a refractory, in poor condition

• experimental technique (not an original fresco, double layer of dried plaster, did not adhere to the wall)

• undercoat of lead white to enhance the brightness

• the painting is on a thin exterior wall, humidity

• 7 documented attempts to repair it, only surviving work of his in the original place

• it got bombed and flooded

• leo believed painters should paint man and the intention of his soul, observed people to vividly express emotions in his art, wanted to depict precise anatomical details and real human emotions

Function:

• monks ate in this room and would look at it

• illustrates unity between the mortal and eternal

Adam and Eve

Albrecht Dürer, 1504CE, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• Engraving

• focus on mathematical proportions not natural

• about 8×10”

• more life like drawing, what you carve is what you see

• metal plate, use a sharp tool, light and shadow, ink, go through the printing press, much harder on metal plate

Content:

• Adam and Eve in the garden of eden forest

• cliffs in the background

• contrapposto

• eve reaches for the apple

• snake around the tree

• adam holds a branch

• variety of animals

• adam and eve are in a balance, before the fall of man

• artist put his name in it

Context:

• Dürer not only experienced the transformation from gothic to renaissance he was an agent of the change

• after traveling to venice he incorporated the italian renaissance principles like linear perspective into his work

• portable

• worked on this print for 4 years

• dürer was scientific minded, the poses show off dürer’s knowledge of proportions

• the elk,ox,rabbit, and cat exemplify the four humours

• shows a moment of perfection in the garden

Function:

• story telling of the story of adam and eve from the bible

• dürer used his prints for profit and recognition

Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall frescoes

Venice Italy, Michelangelo, c.1508-1512, High Renaissance

Form:

• stone, frescoes

• the ceiling was originally blue and covered in golden stars

• in 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned it

Michelangelo:

• The Italian Renaissance Painter, sculptor, architect, and poet

• he was called the divine one

• his art was in high demand

• he was emulated by artists, celebrated by humanists, and patronized by 9 Popes

Sistine Chapel Ceiling:

• The narrative begins at the altar( divided into three sections telling the story of genesis, the creation of the heavens and the earth, the creation of adam and eve and the expulsion from the garden, the story of noah and the great flood)

• sibyls-ancient seers who foretold the coming of christ

• addition stories from the bible

• four years to paint the ceiling

The Delphic Sibyl:

• has a circular composition of the body, knee and elbow come into view

• sculptural elements to the figures

• used male models for women figures, completed sketches first

• transition in style from Delphic to Libyan

• holding a scroll with a prophecy

• use of visual illusion to make it seem 3D

The Flood:

• Complex narratives with lots of emotion

• not easily seen from the floor

• used physical space of the water and the sky to separate 4 parts of the painting(left-people climb to a mountain to escape the rising water, Middle-small boat is capsizing, Right-people huddle under a makeshift covering, Back-men are working to build an ark)

Context:

• in 1510 Michelangelo took a year off and the paintings look different after it

• color is a jewel-like palette, use of light and dark

• architecturally hard to paint, he wasn’t that experienced in fresco painting

• nudity-humanism

• frescoes on the wall by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Perugino

Function:

• since 1492 it has been the chapel where the new pope is elected

• the use of bright colors and larger than life images gives it the religious sentiment

School of Athens

Raphael, c.1509-1511, High Renaissance

Form:

• one point linear perspective

• vanishing point is between the two men

• fresco

Content:

• no names on the figures (can identify them by symbols)

• the fresco that represents philosophy (two great philosophers from antiquity in the center, Plato and Aristotle, surrounded by other Great thinkers)

• left is ideal, right is real

Plato(Ideal):

• older, Aristotle’s teacher

• hold his book the Timaeus

• interested in the ethereal, theoretical, that which could not be seen

• points upward=world of appearances is not the final truth

• there is a realm based on true mathematics that is more true than the everyday world we see

• purple=air, red=fire

• neither have weight

Pythagoras (ideal):

• ancient mathematician

• discovered laws of harmony in music (math)

• there is a reality that transcends the reality we see

Aristotle (Real):

• holds his book the Ethics

• focused on the observable, the actual, the physical

• pointing to the world

• blue=water, brown=earth

• both have gravity and weight

Euclid (Real):

• geometry

• drawing a diagram for students

• reference to Bramante

Context:

• in the Stanza della Segnatura

• Raphael is in the painting in the black hat

• commissioned by Pope Julius II

• synthesis of worldly (Greek) and spiritual (christian)

• room had paintings with symbols of 4 areas of human knowledge

• painted at the same time as sistine chapel, he absorbed elements of michelangelo’s art

Function:

• originally the room was used by Julius II as a library/office

• part of the papal apartments (where the pope lived)

• symbolises the wisdom of classical antiquity

• image of sharing knowledge and history of the accumulation of knowledge

Isenheim Altarpiece

Matthias Grunewald, c.1512-1516ce, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• altarpiece

• oil and tempera on limewood panels

• sculpted figures

• sculpted wood altarpieces were popular at the time in germany

Panel 1:

• christ on the cross in crucifixion

• not correct proportion

• mary, mary magdalene, john the baptist in the center w/ jesus, st.sebastion on the left and st. antony on the right

• mystical power

• lamentation on the base

• gruesome and agony

Panel 2:

• Left- Mary will bear christ, with the holy spirit dove in a church, this moment just happened, flowing fabric, head tilted back

• Central-choir angel, and nativity, large variety of figures in open air structure, universe activated by the birth of jesus, everyone faces jesus, lucifer is green, god in sky

• Right-ressurection, body obscured by the light that he is shining

Panel 3:

• center-scultpture, the oldest, st.anthony at the center with st.agustine and st.jerome

• left-st. anthony with st.paul, both focused on spiritual

• right-temptation of st.anthony, creatures and diseased men, bottom-christ and 12 apostles

Context:

• originally located in a church in a monastery dedicated to st.anthony which was essentially a hospital

• st.anthony associated with healing

• would be mostly closed

• currently in france

Function:

• moveable altar piece

• object of devotion

• inspire those who were sick to feel hopeful

Entombment of Christ

Jacopo da Pontormo, 1525-1528 CE, Mannerism

• Mannerism-elongated figures and distortion

Form:

• Tempera on wood

• 10’3” by 6’6”

Content:

• Entombment (or deposition from the cross)

• only seeing the people no other details (but the singular cloud)

• ambiguous sense of space

• distorted figures

• acidic colors

• figures look in different directions and are bent to fit in the space

Context:

• in the capponi chapel (santa felicita, florence)

• rejects the traditions of the renaissance but also builds on them

• burial chapel

• maybe the deposition, lamentation, or entombment

• pontormo looked at pieta by botticelli

• many people see the mannerist style as a style that expresses a new spirituality (one of the first counter-reformation works, pope paul III began reforms to reverse the trend of parishioners leaving the catholic church for protestantism)

Function:

• meant for devotional reasons

• an altarpiece inside a church

Allegory of Law and Grace

Lucas Cranach the Elder, c.1530, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• woodcut/block print

• first and most popular

• carve the image out of flat wood, roll ink on block, place on paper

• limitations:difficult for fine lines

Right “Gospel” side:

• john the baptist directs a naked man to christ on and off the cross

• the risen christ stands triumphant above the empty tomb

• the nude figure stands passively

• submitting to god’s mercy

Left “Law” side:

• na skeleton and a demon force a frightened naked man into hell

• a group of prophets (including moses) point to the tablets of the law

• following the law without the gospel will not get you into heaven

• adam and eve eat fruit

• christ in judgement 

Context:

• the law and the gospel is the single most influential image of the lutheran reformation

• lucas cranach an elder produced the art with martin luther

• woodcut makes it easy to disseminate ideas of the reformation (more copies and portable)  

Function:

• God judges and condemns sin vs god also shows mercy and forgiveness

• the painting interprets the roles of law, good works, faith, and grace in a human relationship to god

Venus of Urbino

Titian, c.1538, High Renaissance

Form:

• oil paint on canvas

• impasto- glazing technique (layers of oil paint, when it dries its shiny)

• Titian added ground up glass to his pigments to better reflect light

Content:

• women in the background attending to a chest of cloths (gift from husband)

• dog-fidelity, flowers-love

• direct gaze that is pulling the viewer in/sexual environment

• canvas ‘divided’ in two (the figures in the back balance the mass of her body)

• torso is too long and feet are too tiny (idealized)

• softness

• on the window is a pot of myrtl (venus)

Context:

• do not know who she is

• venus was more acceptable to look compared to a nude woman

• patron for the work was Duke Urbino Guidobaldo II Della Rovere

• venetian art (mid 15th century-late 16th century, deep rich colors, patterns, light, depth was projected by shifting colors, plagues and wars, stable republican government)

• this genre of the female nude begins in the renaissance

• many nudes will follow in a similar style/position

• Titian based his work off of Giorgione’s sleeping venus

Titian:

• considered one of the founders of the venetian school of Italian Ren. painting

• successful from the start

• worked for wealthy patrons, italian princes, and habsburgs

Function:

• gift to his young wife

• the allegory of marriage

• remind the woman of her responsibilities she has as a wife to her husband

• hung in their private chambers

Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza

Viceroyalty of New Spain, 1541-1542, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• ink and color on paper

• the illustration facing the title page of a book

• a codex (manuscript text in book form)

• Antonio de Mendoza ( first viceroy, commissioned the codedx)

• on european paper, made by indigenous artists

• images annotated in spanish by a priest that spoke nahuatl

• year glyphs/figures/symbols

• flat, twisted perspective, schematic diagram, hierarchical scale

Content:

• Temple (templo mayor, began with a simple structure, built in 1325 when tenochtitlan was founded)

• war shield= mexica did not settle peacefully

• skull rack, plants to represent the fertility of the city, 10 men

• represent the men who led the aztecs to this island location

• name glyphs behind/above the men

• shows the four divisions of the city and the canals

• military conquest, burning temples

• year glyphs 1325ce- 13-Reed

Tenoch:

• 1st ruler elected by elders

• man with gray skin and different hair, bleeding ear, ash colored skin

• sits on a woven mat( high status)

• speech scroll comes out his mouth

Context:

• viceroy intended to send it to spanish king charles V

• french pirates stole it and Andre Thevet wrote his name all over it

• combines aztec pictorial and glyphic images with written text in nahuatl and spanish

• major source of studies of the aztecs

• influenced the flag of mexico

• codex’s frontispiece tells info about the founding of tenochtitlan

Function:

• records info about aztec empire

• emphasizes the military power of the aztecs

II Gesū, including Triumph of the Name of Jesus ceiling fresco

Rome, Italy, Giacomo de Vignola (plan architect), Giacomo della Porta (facade architect). Giovanni Battista Gaulli (fresco), Church:16th, facade: 1568-1584 CE. fresco and figures: 1676-1679 CE, Italian Baroque

Form:

• Brick

• marble

• stucco

• transept plan

• dome over cross section

• moves ypur focus to the altar

• aisles replaced by individual chapels

• windows illuminate

• incorporates spolia

• church is a rectangle

Facade:

• created by Giacomo della Porta

• sets the style for the Jesuit style

• side scrolls in reference tp scripture and learning

• pediment and corinthian engaged columns and pilisters reference antiquity

• niche statues of St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius of Loyla (founder of Jesuits)

• extremely segmented

• monotone

• IHS= Jesus

Ceiling:

• painted by Giovanni Battista Gaulli

• “Triumph of the Name of Jesus” fresco

• ambiguios borders

• joins heaven and earth

• all centered on Jesus

• wooden boards to extend fresco and shadows

• figures acending to the light=saved

• figures falling into darkness=damned (foreshortening)

Context:

• Jesuits main allies of the Pope (committed to serving the faith and Justice)

• council of Trent (Martin Luther)

• needed a new type of church

• Gesu= Jesus in Italian

• ceiling painted 100 years later

• many interior elements are inspired by Rome (pilasters, corinthian capitals, dome, barrel vault)

• compared to the work of Leon Battista Alberti

• sense of heaven

• break the boundry of heaven and earth

Function:

• Reassert the supremecy of the Catholic Church

• Bring the focus to the altar where the Eucharist was presented

• make the miraculous accessible

Hunters in the Snow

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 CE, Northern European Renaissance

Form:

• oil on wood

• 46×64”

• part of a series of 6

• 1 painting for 2 months of the year

Content:

• represents 2 sides of winter

• left-hardships of winter(hunters returning, trudging through the snow, not much from the hunt, shows the scarcity of game during winter compared to warm months)

• right side-joys of winter (people enjoying winter activities, ice skating, sledding)

• strong diagonals

• perspective

• lots of detail

• everyday life

• repetition of a limited color palette

• movement

• not what the Netherlands actually looks like

Context:

• commissioned by a wealthy banker, Niclaes Jongelinck, in Antwerp

• April/May is missing in the series

• meaning is to show the activity of the people

• goes back to manuscript illumination from medieval times but larger scale

• melancholy on left

• ideal → everyday

• not real view

• hunting dogs=aristocracy

• Bruegel is best known for his intimate scenes of peasant life

Function:

• genre scene (everyday life)

• might have been displayed together in Jongelinck’s house

Mosque of Selim II

Edirne, Turkey, Sinan (architect), 1568-1575 CE, Islamic

Form:

• plan-centrally planned, madrasa(school), one for the study of the Quran, study the life of Muhammad, dome, large courtyard

• exterior- 4 minarets, more than 2 football fields long, buttresses, stone with brick

Interior:

• square prayer hall

• enter through a portico

• muqarnas(honeycomb looking things)

• squinches

• minbar-where the imam delivers service

• mihrab-faces Mecca

• Müezzin Mahfili- special raised platform opposite minar where the Muezzin carries out his duties to call prayer and chants

• Iznik tiles-epitome of Ottoman decor, motifs of iconography(saz leaves, clouds, etc), untouched since the 16th cent

Context:

• characteristic of Ottoman mosque architecture

• built by the greatest Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan

• built by the Sultan Selim II, Edrine was one of his fav cities, didnt have a mosque

• mosques epigraphic program, developed after defeat from the Christian Holy League at Lepanto in 1571, focus on a central difference between Islam and Christianity, Allah is indivisible, Muhammad is Gods messenger

• Sinan wanted to disprove claims that no architect could match Hagia Sophia, made a larger dome

Function:

• used architecture to impress the Ottomans greatness on visitors

• Two symmetrical square madrasas

• row of shops and school for Quran

• Sinan sought to build a monument for the Sultan that expressed Islams triumph

Calling of Saint Matthew

Caravaggio, c.1597-1601 CE, Italian Baroque

Form:

• oil on canvas

• caravaggio uses light to direct the eye

• uses light and dark to make figures appear 3D

Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio:

• super volatile and angry

• worked in Milan then Rome

• got into a fight over a tennis match and murdered the other person, was sentenced to death, fled to Naples then Malta

• not well-liked

• style in high demand

• influential (Rubens, Rembrandt, Gentileschi, Bernini)

• died of a fever in 1610 at age 39

Content:

• Chiaroscuro: string tonal contrasts between light and dark to create 3D forms

• Tenebrism: style in which most figures are in shadow but some are in dramtic light

• looks like a shady backroom of a bar

• can hardly see St. Matthew

• contemporary setting of biblical scene

• drama and reality

• hairline halo over christ

• christ stands behind St. Peter (he founded the church, he stands between christ and man)

• coins=Matthew was a tax collector

• Matthew points to himself

• moment in time

• space at the table for the viewer

Context:

• located in the Contarelli Chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi church, Rome

• capturing the moment of spiritual awakening

• Caravaggio most known for naturalism

• one of 3 in the church

• Matthew=tax collector for Romans(the killers of christ)(tax collecting is a sin)

• art was used by the catholic church to inspire piety among its faithful

Artemisia Gentileschi:

• considered a Caravaggisti for her use of tenebrism

• female!!

Function:

• reinforces the theme that conservation and the catholic church are open to all

Henry IV Receives the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici, from the Marie de’ Medici Cycle

Peter Paul Rubens, 1621-1625 CE, Aristocratic Baroque

Form:

• oil on canvas

• 10’x13’

• one of 24 in the “cycle”

• produced in just a few years, at one point had over 100 assistants working

Peter Paul Rubens:

• born in the Netherlands raised Catholic after his father died

• influenced by Titian, Tintoretto, Vevonese, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and Caravaggio

• was an artists/diplomat between Britain and Spain

• worked in Antwerp

• friends with Velazquez

Content:

• bright pigments, soft loose brushwork, luminous effect

• gaze driven diagonals

• marie at the center, she appears concrete and geometric due to the frame vs the surrounding

• focus on soft bodies/skin is reserved for mythical figures

• we know Rubens designed composition, king and queens faces, hands, tiny stuff, the rest was his studio

• Greek/Roman Gods to portray love/approval of Gods

• she is the center of heaven and eathers love

• Hera and Zeus look approvingly

• Lady with helmet= France

Context:

• Maria de Medici came from the wealthy Medici family of Florence

• she married King Henry IV by proxy, already married when they first met

• Henry was assasinated before son was of age

• she was regent for 7 years

• young Louis XII exiled his mother

• the cycle was commissioned as a truce between Marie and Louis, outlined her life from birth to death

• king henry IV was in huge debt to the Medici’s, he was protestant, married a catholic to ease tensions

• he was 50 with no heirs, she was 25

• unhappy marriage, kid in the first year

• she ended Frances anti-Habsburg (spanish monarchy) policy, married her son to Hapsburg Anne of Austria

Function:

• they cycle was a means for Marie to control her legacy

• self-determination

• Rubens choice for Greek Gods was academic

• Marriage=important political alliance

Self-Portrait with Saskia

Rembrandt van Rijn, 1636 CE, Dutch Baroque

Form:

• etching

• rembrandt revolutionized etching (print making, wax and acid, previously commercial rather than art, he created over 300 etchings)

Rembrandt van Rijn:

• prominent artist in Amsterdam with a large studio of apprentices

• worked in paint,etching, and drawing

• also an art collector and dealer

• lived in the Jewish section of town and used his neighbors as models for biblical scenes

• though successful, he frequently overspent and was often broke

• created lots of self portraits

• Rembrandt and Saskia were wed in 1634, married for 13 years, she was known for her independence, had 4 children (only the last survived), died at 29, he had an affair with her nurse

Content:

• marriage portrait

• intimate/ personal scene

• Rembrandt- super detailed, leaving on the farm, staring at viewer, dramatic shadow, artist

• Saskia-lacking detail, quite far from viewer, meek in positioning and gaze, little shadow

Context:

• preferred to show himself in a variety of different imagined roles

• this is the only etching that he ever made of Saskia and himself

• he is regarded as the greatest practitioner of etching in the history of art and the first to popularize this technique as a major form of art

• this etching exists in three states of finishing, by reworking his plates he was able to experiment with ways to improve and extend the expressive power of his images

Function:

• private portrait

• depicts an interrupted moment from their daily life

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

Rome, Italy, Francesco Borromini, 1638-1646 CE, Italian Baroque

Form:

• less expensive building materials- stucco and stone

• not right angles

• all triangles, ovals, and circles

• floating interior dome

Francesco Borromini:

• born in switzerland and move to Rome

• key architect of Roman Baroque

• quick tempered and melancholic personality lost him many jobs

• this was his first major commission

Exterior:

• medallion once contained a fresco of the Holy Trinity

• Epitome of Italian baroque

• undulating

• segmented by corinthian columns and cornices

• referenced to greek architecture

• San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane= st. charles at the four fountains (hes a saint of the spanish trinitarian order)

• located on the corner of the four buildings with fountains

Interior:

• paradox of imagination and fantasy vs intellect

• mystical and mysterious effect of the church

• light fills the space

• movement

• windows at base give ethereal effect

• oval dome

• coffering (circles with octagonal modeling, greek crosses, hexagons)

• complex vs simple (simple in color, complex in structure)

• dove in a triangle=holy trinity

Context:

• commissioned by cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1634 for the Holy order of the Trinity

• the whole church is a metaphor, the complexity in the lower to the perfection of the heavens (divine geometry)

• work was being done at that time to understand how the universe is structured by the laws of geometry

Function:

• church

• connect this church to their monastery in Rome

• dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo and the Holy Trinity

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Rome, Italy, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c.1647-1652 CE, Italian Baroque

Form:

• marble

• stucco

• Gilt Bronze

Gian Lorenzo Bernini:

• originally from Naples → Rome

• sculptor, architect, painted, city planner

• known for his ability to synthesize the arts into a spectacle, involved in theater

• created incredibly dramatic stuff

• worked closely with members of the church and various popes

• religious

Cornaro Chapel:

• private family chapel

• the family is shown in a theater box to the side

• its set up like a stage with patrons and visitors viewing

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa:

• St. Teresa of Avila’s moment of revelation (carmelite nun living from 1515-1584 who had a vision of an angel stabbing her heart and filing her in with god)

• painful but soul filing

• she appears in rough nun’s clothing

• the angel wears a soft, flowing robe and holds a golden arrow to stab her

• both are floating in a cloud

• golden heavenly rays

• multiple colored marble, some polia, wealth

Content:

• theatrical

• Baroque lighting and undulation

• diagonals

• over exaggerated references to classical architecture

• elevated, viewer below the spectacle

• positioned against rays, natural light

Context:

• Bernini’s penchant for drama

• light highlights the intensity of the story, divine, hidden window for light

• baroque art involves the viewer

Function:

• Baroque art appeals to our senses

• inspire spiritual awakening (power, emotion)

• union of spiritual world and ours

Angel with Arquebus, Asiel Timor Dei

Master of Calamarca(La Paz School), c.17th century CE, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• oil on canvas

• 63×44”

Content:

• Arquebus-gun with long barrel (created by spanish in 15th cent, first gun to rest on shoulder)

• Asiel-the angels name

• Timor Dei- “fears god”

• excess of textile indicates the high social status

• gun is meant to protect christians

• angel is deliberately androgynous

• graceful and finley dressed

• body in the mannerist style

Context:

• made during the catholic reformation (militaristic ideology, church=army, angels=soldiers)

• made in Viceroyalty of Peru

• council of trent condemned all angelic depictions except a few (peru ignored)

• found by itself but likely part of a series

• created after the first missionizing period

Function:

• personify the military, aristocracy and sacred being all at once

• connections were made to indigenous religious figures

• belief that the first conquistadores as messengers from god

Las Meninas

Diego Velázquez, c.1656 CE, Aristocratic Baroque

Form:

• oil on canvas

• 125 ¼ “ x 108 5/8 “

Diego Velázquez:

• court painter for King Philip IV of Spain

• visited Italy to learn from the work of the old masters

• family was poor, had to lie about his lineage to gain Knighthood

• inducted into the order of santiago after he died

• red cross is their symbol

Content:

• full of layers

• canvas, room, stairs, mirror, paintings, the viewers

• set in the artists studio

• surrounded by paintings by Rubens

• mirror shows queen and king (could be sitting for a painting, maybe watching he paints the princess)

• the princess is the immediate center of attention

• she looks directly at the viewer (her parents), looks posed, her maids attend to her

• dog, entertainment then

• loose/sketchy brushwork

• focus on layers and sightlines

• detailed fabric and fancy clothing

• attention to motion

• light through the window to create intense light/dark contrast

Context:

• symbols of spanish empire and colonialism( red dye-mexican, silver tray-peru, red clay pot called a bucaro, king and queen of spain)

• leading artist of the spanish golden age

• painted the royal family in elaborate, fancy cloths to show wealth and distract from inbreeding

• Velazquez was the court artist

• genre scene and royal portrait

Function:

• informal/intimate

• private view of the queen and king

• shows velazquez’s high status

• shows off spanish colonialism

Woman Holding a Balance

Johannes Vermeer, c.1664 CE, Dutch Baroque

Form:

• oil on canvas

• 17” x 15”

Johannes Vermeer:

• lived and worked in the city of Delft

• was moderately successful, but left no money when he died

• was largely forgotten after his death and then gradually rediscovered

• only has 34 surviving paintings

Content:

• rich oil paints= intense color

• his works are all situated in similar interior scenes with light filtering through a window

• soft light=dutch

• his paintings are very small

• genre painting (everyday life)

• she is unknown

• merchants were the primary art buyers in the 17th century Dutch Republic

• color (rich, gold)

• mirror=vanity/ self aware

• window

• empty balance

• rich jewelry

• symbolism (last judgement behind her, her head divides the painting, good/bad)

• real and natural

Context:

• wealth and piety and wealth and spirituality

• a peaceful monument

• reminder of the kinds of changes in the 17th century (artists painting merchants, intimate)

Function:

• depiction of everyday life with a deeper meaning

• in a home of a merchant

The Palace at Versailles

Versailles, France, Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, c.1669 CE, Aristocratic Baroque

Form:

• physical symbol of Louis XIV power

• 2153 windows

• 67,000sq meters of floor space(12 football fields)

• 2,000 acres of gardens

• 700 rooms

Facade:

• classical structure

• repetitive

• inspired by repetition of Greek temples

• simple compared to the interior

• notably many windows to illuminate the palace

• the sun would rise and set in alignment with his home

Interior:

• beyond decadent and wildly expensive

• the Hall of Mirrors was nothing ever seen before (Baroque lighting!!, Treaty of Versailles that officially ended WWI was signed here in 1919)

• their bedchambers were ornate

• there’s a church

• Charles le Brun (fashionable interior decorator and painter)

Gardens:

• Louis XIV commissioned Andre Le Notre to design them in 1661

• leveled the ground for parties

• dug canals to supply fountains, gardens, the canal, and the orangerie

• created walkways and grottoes lined with classical sculptures

• Versailles’ fountains combine art, spectacle and engineering

• expression of absolute control over man and nature

Context:

• prime example of the over the top shit France was doing

• Louis XIV was the definition of an absolute monarch, god complex

• crushed a rebellion and ended feudalism in France

• he was catholic and took rights away from French Huguenot Protestants

• very war oriented

• drama, art=power, heavy symbolism

• set the stage for Rococo

Function:

• originally a hunting lodge owned by the monarchy

• Louis XIV aka the sun god moved the French gov there and made Versailles into the palace it is now

• A strategic move to contain and isolate all political players at court and keep them away from Paris

• royal fam and court lived there

• center of political and social power

• show Louis XIV’s power

Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and hunting scene

Circle of the González Family, c.1697-1701 CE, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• Biombo-folding screen

• thin oil paint

• inlaid mother of pearl shell- enconchado

Content:

• floral motifs at the top

• based on tapestries that were then made into prints

• sent to new spain

• black lacquer of Japan inspired the legs of the screen

• Battle of Belgrade (thin painting, quick lines, chaotic screen)

• hunting scene (landscape, very european, classical elements)

Context:

• inspired by japanese folding screens

• New Spain is a center point for trade between Philippines and Spain

• Battle of Belgrade (Habsburg vs Turks)

• style is ambiguous

• only half of it, other is in Mexico

• screen owned by the Viceroy

• Shell inlay creates an illuminating quality

• made in new spain

Function:

• most basic function is to separate a room

• Battle scene= men

• Hunting scene=women

The Virgin of Guadalupe

Miguel González, c.1698 CE, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• oil paint

• mother of pearl

• influenced by Japanese boxes

Content:

• ¾ view

• hands clasped

• downward eyes

• encased in light

• stands on a crescent moon supported by an angel

• ashen skin, in a cloak

• The Frame (shell into wood, floral stuff, common symbols of virgin mary)

• eagle on cactus (founding of tenochtitlan)

• 4 framed scenes carried by angels, diff moments in Juan Diego’s story of the miracle

• dove in a golden cloud-holy spirit

Context:

• devotion to virgin of guadalupe increased dramatically in Mexico 17th cent

• support from the creole population

• uniquely Mexican miracle

• demand for more miracle

• enconchado artworks were popular in 17th cent Mexico

Function:

• used for devotion

• reminder of her power and presence

Fruit and Insects

Rachel Ruysch, 1711 CE, Dutch Baroque

Form:

• oil on wood

• still life

Rachel Ruysch:

• born to a wealthy family and worked in Amsterdam

• most popular female painter at the time

• her work sold for twice the amount of Rembrandt’s

• best flower painted

• father was a scientist

• studied anatomy

• produced 250 paintings

Content:

• extreme detail

• luminous colors from oil paint

• Luxurious items for the Dutch Republic

Context:

• flowers=wealthy

• grapes and wheat= eucharist

• animals= naturalism

• created for merchant class

• composite of studies

• age of microscope

• father collected bugs and stuff

• one of the highest paid artists in 17th/18th century

• painted as a pair

• granted admission to the painters guild in The Hague, first woman there!

Function:

• private painting

• Johanan Wilhem commissioned them as a gift for father in law Grand Duke of Tuscany

Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo

Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez, c.1715 CE, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• oil on canvas

• genre painting

• 31.5” x 40.3”

Content:

• Mestizo= person born of a spanish man and elite indigenous woman

• Indigenous woman-traditional garment, lace sleeves, jewelry

• Spanish Man- french style european clothing, hands on child, family seems calm and loving

Context:

• casta painting

• as series progresses, family harmony decreases

• more “mixed” people seen as darker and less ideal

• based on holy family

• sets of 16 paintings, begin with spanish man and elite indigenous woman→ mestizo child

• pure blooded spaniards= in their eyes, better

• speaks to the growing anxieties of racial mixing

• maybe made for the viceroys

Function:

• racism

• racial taxonomy

• concerns over “mixing”

The Tête à Tête, from Marriage à la Mode

William Hogarth, c.1743 CE, Rococo

Form:

• oil on canvas

• part of a series

• reproduced into prints

• interior scene

• Late Baroque= drama

William Hogarth:

• english

• satirical work

• born into poor middle class family

Content:

• heart to heart

• one on one

• young couple right after forced marriage

• fancy room

Viscount Squnderfield:

• husband looks out of it/drunk

• dog sniffs a bonnet from an other woman

• syphilis

Viscountess Squanderfield:

• smirking

• not lady like

• disheveled, been with another man?

• mirror

• dirty dress

Accountant:

• diva

• leaving, fed up with them

• holding their receipts with bills

• depicted as a pious Methodist

Symbols:

• lots of them

• sex, immoral stuff

Context:

• 2/6 of “Marriage a la mode”

• makes fun of the rich in the 18th century

Function:

• satire

• appeal to middle class

• criticize this way of life

Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Miguel Cabrera, c.1750 CE, Spanish Colonial

Form:

• oil on canvas

• Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (sister Joan Agnes of the cross)

• 11/12/1651- 4/17/1695

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz:

• lived in Mexico during the colonial period

• fluent in Latin, wrote in Nahuatl

• educated herself in her own library, mostly inherited by her grand father

• learned to read by age 3

• at 12 she is sent to live in Mexico City

• at 17, the viceroy’s wife tests her knowledge and she impresses everyone

• leads to her having professional discussions with Isaac Newton

Miguel Cabrera:

• living and working in viceroyalty of mexico

• during lifetime was recognized as greatest painter of New Spain

• made religious and secular art

• made casta paintings

Content:

• nuns badge (escudo de monja, often painted, usually display virgin mary)

• right hand turning page of a book by St.Jerome

• left hand holds a rosary

• direct gaze

• Juxtaposition of religious items and intellectual items

Context:

• “First Feminist of the Americas”, at 16 joins carmelite order, left because strict rules, 2yrs later joined Jeronymite order, wrote, studied, collected books

• painted after her death, artist never met her

• church forced her to relinquish literary pursuits and her library

• forced her to write a document renouncing her learning which ended with “I, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the worst in the world” signed in her own blood

• after, she worked in an infirmary

• shortly after, fell sick and died

Function:

• portrait

• depicts intellectual contributions of Sor Juana

• shows her at work, surrounded by knowledge

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery

Joseph Wright of Derby, c.1763-1765 CE, Enlightenment

Form:

• 4’10'“ x 6’8”

• oil on canvas

Content:

• moral of this painting is the pursuit of scientific knowledge

• people are not idealized

• informal arrangement

• small space

• dramatic lighting (this time its used to represent knowledge and truth, light acts like the sun, enlightenment)

Joseph Wright of Derby:

• born/worked in Derby England

• outside London

• interest in science, lunar society of Birmingham

• tenebrism, true portraits

• pushed boundaries of traditional painting

Context:

• orrery-model of a solar system, relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, moves when cranked

• went against the ideals of the British Royal Academy of Art

• set-up a one-man show of his work 1785, one of the first artists to ever do so

• based the painting on Isaac Newtons new ideas on the universe

• he was the unofficial artist of the enlightenment

• mimics Baroque artists, strong light

Function:

• the painting is documentation of the enlightenment

• wanted to popularize science by showing “entertaing” scenes of scientific and the advancement of knowledge