Chapter 14: Ancient Mediterranean Worlds

Paleolithic period

• hunter gatherer lifestyle

• animals as subject matter focus

• cave paintings and small sculptures

Neolithic period

• settled communities and agriculture

• permanent architecture

• domesticated animals

Sumerian empire

rulers: -

• cuneiform and ziggurats using sun-dried blocks

• ziggurats stored stylized votive small figures

Akkadian empire

rulers: Sargon I & Naram-Sin

• idealized anatomy

• cuneiform text to recount victory on stele

Babylonian (Amorites) empire

ruler: King Hammurabi

• emphasized law versus art

• divine law recorded in cuneiform text on stele

Assyrian empire

ruler: Assurnasirpal II

• citadels

• human-headed winged figures

• designed to impress and/or intimidate visitors

Neo-Babylonian empire

ruler: Nebuchadnezzar

• great architecture

• developed arch before Romans

• masters of decorative design

• full of brilliant color

Menkaure & Hatshepsut

• Egyptian

• continuity

• conservatism and rigid organization

• focused on the dead and afterlife

Akhenaten (Amenhotep) & Nefertiti

• Egyptian

• brief change of Egyptian conventions

• relaxed, intimate, naturalistic

• depictions of monotheistic culture

Tutankhamun (Tut)

• Egyptian

• reimposed traditional Egyptian style

• gold as eternal (flesh of the golds)

Cycladic

• Aegean

• geometric figurines (possibly for ritual use)

• know almost nothing about the people who made them

Minoan

• Aegean

• fresco stories that celebrate life, sports, nature

• common imagery of bulls

Mycenaean

• Aegean

• fortified palaces

• elaborate burial customs and tombs

• influenced by Egyptians

Greece - Late geometric

• geometric motifs

• human figure proportions

Greece - archaic

• korous, rigid form

• systems of proportions

Greece - classical

• “finest of fine”

• idealized naturalism

• contrapposto

• architectural classical order

Greece - hellenistic

• non-idealized figures

• dynamic poses

• extreme emotion

Rome

• idealized public portraits and monuments of rulers

• equestrian status

• busts of citizens remembered as individuals

• Pompeii frescos

• artistic fusion with Greeks and conquered cultures