KUALA PDP01803 HISTORY OF ART AND DESIGN Chapter 2 Notes

Overview

  • Chapter covers:

    • Prehistoric Art

    • Art of the Ancient Near East

    • Art of Ancient Egypt

    • Renaissance Art in Italy

    • History of Modern Art (1800 to present)

2.1 Prehistory Through the Middle Ages

  • Design shapes culture & history.

  • Defined: planning & outcome of man-made things.

  • Design enables progress in various fields.

  • Early designs were handcrafted in small workshops.

Prehistoric Art - The Stone Age

  • Homo sapiens: ~400,000 years ago.

  • Homo sapiens sapiens: ~120,000 years ago.

  • Stone Age divisions:

    • Paleolithic (old stone)

    • Neolithic (new stone)

  • Paleolithic phases:

    • Lower (oldest)

    • Middle

    • Upper (most recent)

  • Mesolithic: transitional period.

  • Time markers:

    • BCE: Before Common Era

    • CE: Common Era

Rainbow Serpent Rock – 600 BCE

  • Australian images used in rituals about creation, rain, and nature's power.

Prehistoric Art – Tools or Art?

  • Early humans made tools by knapping flint.

  • Earliest tools: 2.5 million years ago, used for cutting and smashing.

Paleolithic Hand-Axe – 60,000 years ago

  • From Tanzania, documents tool-making ability.

Decorated Ocher – 77,000 years ago

  • Earliest art: engraved red ocher blocks from South Africa.

Reconstruction Drawing of Mammoth-Bone Houses – 16,000 to 10,000 BCE

  • Early shelters used mammoth bones for support in treeless areas.

The Lion Human – 40,000 – 35,000 BCE

  • Ivory sculpture of human with feline head, found in Germany.

Woman from Willendorf – 24,000 BCE

  • Austrian limestone figure with exaggerated female attributes, symbolizing health and fertility.

Prehistoric Art – Cave Painting

  • Techniques:

    • Spraying chewed charcoal

    • Finger drawing

    • Ocher daubing

    • Flint engraving

    • Color wash

  • Meaning: rituals, supernatural favor, musical role.

Wall Painting with Horses, Rhinoceroses, and Aurochs – 32,000 to 30,000 BCE

  • Chauvet Cave, France: early cave paintings of animals.

Hall of Bulls – 15,000 BCE

  • Lascaux Cave, France: paint on limestone.

Human-Fish Sculpture – 6300-5500 BCE

  • Neolithic site for rituals about death and nature.

A HOUSE IN ÇATALHÖYÜK

  • Roof entrance only, thick walls, replastered annually.

  • Residents buried under floors.

  • Walls displayed objects like cattle skulls.

  • Roof used for cooking in summer.

Men Taunting a Deer – 6000 BCE

  • Catalhoyuk, Turkey: wall painting of humans taunting a deer, symbolizing dominance.

Stonehenge - 3000-1500 BCE

  • Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England

Early Pottery from the Franchthi Cave – 6500 BCE

  • Greek pottery used in ceremonies.

Early Pottery from Japan’s Jomon Culture – 7,000 BCE

  • Excavated at Choshichiyama Shell Midden.

Figures of a Woman and a Man - 4500 BCE

  • Ceramic figures from Cernavoda, Romania.

Art of the Ancient Near East

  • Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian art.

  • Developed symbolic visual language for political order.

  • Hierarchic scale: size indicates importance.

Stele of Naram-Sin

  • From Sippar, found at Susa.

  • Limestone, tells story of military victory.

Early Mesopotamia

  • Fertile Crescent between Tigris & Euphrates.

  • Need for water control led to first cities.

Sumer

  • Cities/states in Mesopotamia, known for advances.

  • Invented wagon wheel, plow, writing.

Sumer - Writing

  • Writing for business accounting.

  • Pictographs evolved into cuneiform.

The Ziggurat

  • Stepped structures with temple on top.

  • Symbolized wealth, stability, bridge between earth and heavens.

Twelve Votive Figures – 2900-2600 BCE

  • From Square Temple, Eshnunna.

  • Stylized figures with clasped hands and wide eyes.

Scenes of War – 2600 -2500 BCE

  • Front of Standard of Ur, inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and limestone.

Scenes of the Celebration of Victory – 2600- 2500 BCE

  • Back of Standard of Ur.

Art of Ancient Egypt
Funerary Mask of Tutankhamun – 1332-1322 BCE

  • Gold mask over mummified body in nested coffins.

  • Tutankhamun: Egyptian pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty.

Egyptian Symbols

  • Horus: falcon-headed man, king of earth.

  • Ankh: looped cross, everlasting life.

  • Scarab beetle: creation, resurrection, rising sun.

Mastaba to Pyramid

  • Mastaba: flat-topped tomb for upper class.

7 Steps of Mummification – Preserving the Dead

  • Steps include announcement, embalming, removing brain & organs, drying, wrapping, procession.

Nefertiti – 1353-1336 BCE

  • Idealized proportions consistent with beauty standards.

Judgement of Hunefer before Osiris - 1285 BCE
Renaissance Art in Italy
Niccolo da Tolentino Leading the Charge by Paolo Uccello – 1438-1440

  • From Battle of San Romano, uses linear perspective.

Dome of Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) by Filippo Brunelleschi – 1420-1436

  • Double-shell masonry dome, revolutionary engineering.

Trinity with the Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, and Donors by Masaccio – 1425-1427/1428

  • Fresco using linear perspective to create illusion of a niche.

The Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno - 1447

  • Painted in monastic dining halls to remind monks of Christ's Last Supper.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

  • Painter, sculptor, engineer.

The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci - 1490

  • Ideal body proportions based on Vitruvius.

History of Modern Art (1800 to present)
Overview of History of Modern Art

  • Periods:

    • Demand, Supply & Design (1700 – 1800)

    • Expansion & Taste (1801 – 1865)

    • Arts, Crafts & Machines (1866 – 1914)

    • After World War I (1918 – 1944)

    • Humanism & Luxury (1945– 1960)

    • Progress, Protest & Pluralism (1961 – 2010)

Demand, Supply & Design (1700 – 1800)

  • Monarchs invested in luxury goods to show power.

  • Design created distinctive products.

Louis XIV Inspecting the Gobelins Manufactory by Charles Le Brun – 1662 -1678

  • State-owned manufactory producing tapestries and furnishings.

The Chinese Fair by Francois Boucher - 1742

  • Interest in Asian art & goods like lacquer and porcelain.

Porcelain

  • Sevres porcelain included dinner services and display pieces.

Expansion and Taste (1801 – 1865)

  • Reduced hostility in Europe boosted trade.

  • Cotton gin increased cotton cultivation.

New Materials and Processes

  • Silver electroplating, cast iron, and bentwood furniture.

  • Michael Thonet used steam to bend wood.

Michael Thonet, side chair, beechwood with wicker seat.

  • Bentwood chair, commissioned by Prince Klemens Metternich.

Beyond the Printed Page

  • Expanded printing to meet needs of literate public.

Beyond the Printed Page

  • New type sizes, fonts, lithography.

  • "Egyptian" fonts with slab serifs.

Centripetal Spring Armchair by Thomas E. Warren - 1849

  • Rotating chair with steel springing mechanism.

Arts, Crafts & Machines – Industrialization: Hopes & Fears (1866 – 1914)

  • William Morris: poet, designer, socialist.

  • Influential in Britain, Germany, France, US.

William Morris and his Expression

  • Advocated original designs inspired by medieval patterns.

Pimpernel design for wallpaper by William Morris - 1876

  • Dialogue between nature and pattern.

The Influence of William Morris in Britain

  • Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo: concerned with historic buildings.

Wren’s City Churches by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo - 1883

  • Flamelike shapes suggesting movement and growth.

Chair, Mahogany with Leather Upholstery by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo - 1883

  • Abstract treatment of natural forms.

Design Reform and the Aesthetic Movement

  • Christopher Dresser: transformed natural motifs into patterns.

The Aesthetic Movement in the US

  • Louis Comfort Tiffany: inspired by non-Western traditions.

Design Movements

  • Movements:

    • Arts and Crafts (1853-1907)

    • Art Nouveau (1890-1905)

    • Art Deco (1920-1939)

    • Bauhaus (1919-1933)

    • De Stijl (1917-1931)

    • Memphis (1981-1988)

    • Modernism (1924-1945)

    • Post Modernism (1945-present)

Arts and Crafts (1853-1907)

  • Artists: William Morris.

  • Features: floral, handmade, wood, copper, ceramics, printing blocks.

  • Colors: dark brown, deep greens/blues.

  • Lines: flowing natural, straight material lines.

Art Nouveau (1890-1905)

  • Artist: Emile Galle.

  • Features: flowers, female form, flowing hair, pewter/bronze.

  • Colors: subtle greens, violets, browns.

  • Lines: free flowing curves, floral influences.

Art Deco (1920-1939)

  • Artist: Eileen Gray.

  • Features: geometry, transport/skyscraper shapes, chrome, satin, animal products, gloss woods.

  • Colors: silver, black, chrome, gold, bronze.

  • Lines: geometric, streamlined shapes.

Bauhaus (1919-1933)

  • Artists: Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe.

  • Features: tubular steel, simple designs, high-quality finishes.

  • Colors: monochrome.

  • Lines: geometric, angular or curves.

De Stijl (1917-1931)

  • Artists: Gerrit Reitveld, Piet Mondrian.

  • Features: black lines, primary colors.

  • Colors: black, white, yellow, red, blue.

  • Lines: vertical/horizontal thick/thin.

Memphis (1981-1988)

  • Artist: Ettore Sottsass.

  • Features: crazy patterns, geometric/animal prints.

  • Colors: bright primary/secondary.

  • Lines: geometric, rectangles, triangles, squares.

Modernism (1924-1945)

  • Artist: Alvar Alto.

  • Features: new materials.

  • Colors: neutral, pale, light woods, golds.

  • Lines: