Chapter 1: Global Prehistory (30,000 BC to 8,000 BC):

Key Term:

• Anthropomorphic

• Archaeology

• Burin

• Ceramic

• Cong

• Henge

• Incised

• Megalith

• Post-Lintel

• Relief Sculpture

• Sculpture 

Prehistoric Art excited before writing:

• Prehistoric art has been affected by climate change

• Prehistoric art can be seen in practical and ritual objects

• The oldest  objects are African or Asian

  • Prehistoric art is concerned with cosmic phenomena as well as down-to-earth concerns

  • Human behavior is charted in the earliest art works

  • Ceramic are first produced in Asia

  • The people of the pacific are migrants from Asia, who bring ceramic making techniques with them

  • European cave paintings indicate a strong tradition of rituals

  • Early American objects use natural materials, like bone or clay, create ritual objects

Paleolithic:

• Paleo: “old”

• Lithos: “stone”

• 30,000-8,000m BCE (Near East)

• Paleolithic societies were largely dependent on foraging and hunting

• Small bands of hunter-gatherers lived, worked, and migrates together before the advent of agriculture

• Archeological evidence shows that that the Neanderthals in Europe and Southwest Asia has a system of religious beliefs and performed rituals such as funerals

• Around 30,000 BCE humans intentionally manufactured sculptures and painting

Neolithic:

• 8,000-3,000 BCE (Near East)

• Changed from hunters to herders/farmers/townspeople

• Agriculture and stock raising became humankind’s major food sources

• The translations to the Neolithic occurred first in the Ancient Near East

Prehistoric Painting

• Most exist in caves → Mostly deeply recessed from their caves

• Images of animals dominate

• Figures placed above cave surface with no relationship to one another

• Cave painting may have been executed over the centuries by various groups

• Humans are depicted as stick figures with little anatomical detail

• Animals are represented Conceptually rather than perceptually

Apollo 11 Cave (ca 23,000 BCE)

• Namibia → Charcoal on stone

• Named after the Apollo moon landing; cave was discovered at the time of the moon landing

• German archaeologist WE Wendt excavated the rock shelter and found the first fragment

• It was more than three years later however, after a subsequent excavation, when Wendit discovered the matching fragment (above, right), that archaeologists and art historians began to understand the significance of the find

Lascaux Cave Paintings (15,000 - 13,000 BCE)

• Lascaux, Dordogne, France → Pigment on stone

• Hall of the Bulls 

• Twisted Perspective: When one part of the figure is shown in profile while another part of the same figure is shown frontally; also known as composite view (Egyptian)

• Materials used: 

  • The earth’s pigments were one of the first ‘paints’ used by man

  • Iron oxide produces colorful deposits → ochre yellows, reds, browns

  • Ochre colors together with carbon black were used in prehistoric cave paints

  • Other materials such as animal hair for brushes and scaffolds to reach high areas 

  • Burin: a pointed tool used for engraving or inscribing (scratching)

Running Horned Woman (6,000-4,000 BC):

• Tassili n’Algeria → rock painting

• Large female figure or goddess with horns (importance)

• Thought to have a wheat field in the background (possibly an agricultural goddess)

Altamira Cave Paintings (12,000-11,000):

• Santander, Spain → pigment on stone

• Primitive spray painting method (hollowed bone)

Prehistoric sculpture:

• Most are portable and small

• Images of humans, particular female, have enlarged sexual organs

• Carvings on cave walls make use of natural madulations in the wall surface to enhance image

• Materials: found objects (bones) or natural (sandstone)

• Early forms of human-made materials, such as ceramics (made of clay and hardened by heat), are also common

Beaker with Ibex motifs (4,200 - 3,500 BC)

• Susa, Southwestern Iran → Terra-cotta

• Stylized ibex (mountain goat with exaggerated horns)

• Elongated dogs on the neck of beaker

• Tall birds with elongated necks around the rim of the beaker

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine (14,000 - 7,000)

• Tequixquiac, Mexico → Bone

• Variant of a camel family; extinct (Camelid) → pelvis bone

• One natural form used to take the shape of another

• Mesoamerican idea that a sacrum is a “second skull”

• Sacredness of this bone is also related to a belief found in various parts of the globe that the sacrum is the “resurrection bone”

Anthropomorphic Stele (4th millennium BCE):

• Arabian Peninsula → sandstone

• Anthropomorphic → resembling human form, but not in itself human → having human characteristics

• Stele → an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site

Jade Cong (3300 - 3200 BCE)

• Liangzhu, China → Carved jade

• Thought to have carved faces of Chinese deities 

• Jade represents durability, strength, and beauty 

The Ambum Stone (c 1500 BCE):

• Ambun Valley, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea

• Greywacke, approximately 7 9/10 inches (height)  x 3 inches (length) x 5 inches (width)

• Purpose is unknown

Tlatilco Female Figurines (1200 - 900 BCE):

• Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco → Ceramic with traces of pigment

• Double head symbolizes duality (life and death)

• Very elaborate hairstyles → thought to have been an elaborate part of their culture

• Ceramic are generally made by taking mixtures of clay, earthen elements, powders, and water and shaping them into desired forms → Once ceramic have been shaped, it is fired in a high temperature oven known as a kiln

Sculpture in the Round: freestanding object (360° view)

Stonehenge (2,550-1,600):

• Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England → Sarsen and bluestone

• Megaloths: A stone of great size used in the construction of a prehistoric structure

• Henge: Huge stones arranged in a circle used for rituals and marking astronomical events

• Earliest form of architecture → Post (pillars) and Lintel (caps)

Chapter 2: Ancient Far East (3,500 BC - 941 BC):

Not Prehistory → Antiquity 

• Artist left written accounts → invention of written language

Mesopotamia → Land between two rivers

Art Terms:

• Apadana

• Bas-relief

• Capital

• Cella

• Cuneiform

• Facade

• Ground plan

• Hierarchy of scale

• Lamassu

• Negative space

• Register

• Votive

• ziggurat

Key Ideas:

• Ancient Near Eastern art concentrates on royal figures and gods

• Ancient Near Eastern art is inspired by religion: kings often assume divine attributes

• Figures are constructed within stylistic conventions of the time, including hierarchy of scale registers, and stylized human forms

• Ancient near Eastern architecture is characterized by ziggurats and palaces

• Kings sensed form the beginning that artists 

SABHAPS

• Sumerian

• Akkadian

• Babylonian

• Hittite

• Assyrian

• Persian

• Susanian

Sumerian Art

• First inventors of art

• Pictograph tablets → precursor to cuneiform

Ziggurats:

• Composed of solid mud-brick

• Unlike the pyramids, ziggurats were NOT tombs, but temples for the worship of the patron gods

• All Mesopotamian kings built them, making them the centerpieces of their cities

• They served as artificial mountain, reaching to the gods, and their upper platforms held shrines to their city’s deity

• To further ensure that the whole structure did not slump down 

White Temple and Ziggurat (3,200 - 3,000):

• Uruk (modern Warka), Iraq → mud brick

• The temple gets its mane for the fac that it was entirely white washed inside and out, which would have given it a dazzling brightness in strong sunlight

• Cella: (central hall) chamber at center of a temple set aside for divinity

• Temples were “waiting rooms” → belief that deities would descend from heavens and appear to priests in the cella

Statuettes of Worshippers (2,700 BCE):

• SOME MISSING

• From Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar) Iraq

• Gypsum, shell, black stone, tallest is 30 in high

• Purpose/Function: These votive offerings of men and women images dedicated to the Gods → People believed that by praying to these statues, the Gods would hear their prayers (like the saint statues in the Catholic Church)

• Stylized faces and bodies dressed in clothing that emphasizes pure cylindrical shapes

• They stand solemnly, hands clasped and are dressed as a sign of respect and purity to the Gods

• Inscribed on back : “it offers prayers”

• Figures represent mortals, placed in a temple and praying

• Figures sometimes hold either cups or branches in their hands

Lamassu:

Asyrian archers pursuing enemies:

Ashurbanipal hunting lions (645-640 BCE):

• North Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik) Iraq → gypsum

Nro-babylonian Art

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Ishtar Gate:

Persian Art:

• Perisa was the largest empire the world had seen up to this time

• The Persians erected monumental architecture, huge audience halls, and massive subsidiary buildings for grand ceremonies that glorifies their country and their rule

• Persian architecture is characterized by columns topped by two bull shaped capitals holding up a wooden roof

Palace of Darius I and Xerxes I (521-465 BCE):

• Persepolis, Iran → Limestone

• Event hall for festivals → brought in people from all over the world

  • Representations of 23 nations

• Relief sculptures show traveler carrying gifts for the king meant for the treasury 

• Location picked for security of treasury

Chapter 3: Ancient Egypt ()

Great Pyramids of Giza

Old Kingdom

Menkaure and Khamerernebty

• From Gizeh, Egypt; ca. 2490-2472 BCE; graywacke

• These were used for the afterlife in order to guide the Ka to the afterlife

• If something happened to the mummy then there would still be a vessel for the Ka (the soul)

• The man’s foot is outward, his fists are clenched, and the fact that he looks like he’s in shape are all symbols of power and divinity

• Majority of these works were never intended to be seen

Seated Scribe

• Saqqara, Egypt; ca. 2450-2350 BCE; painted limestone

• He’s seated, doesn’t have any headdresses to indicate power and authority

• Staring out forward like Menkaure’s which symbolizes eternity

• As a human’s importance decreases, formality is relaxed and realism is increased (looks older and not as fit as a pharaoh statue would)

• Scribe was a much lower figure in Egyptian hierarchy but they were still very important and intelligent

• Signs of age would’ve been extremely disrespectful if an art piece of an Egyptian God/King

• This statue would’ve been buried with the scribe

New Kingdom

• Temples continued to be build in the sides of rock formation (such as Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple)

  • This period also produced free-standing monuments at Amen-Re

• Massive pylons protected the sanctuary

  • Pylons are monumental gateways to the Egyptian temples marked by two flat, sloping walls between which is a smaller entrance

• The God was housed in a sacred area called a Hypostyle hall

  • In order to be a Hypostyle hall, the middle columns must be taller than the other columns

  • Going to see this pattern a lot in cathedrals during the middle ages

• The upper area that has light is a called a clerestory → Allows light to come through the openings

Senmut - Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

• Deir el-Bahri, Egypt; ca. 1473-1458 BCE

• Has Colonnades: a row of columns supporting a roof

Hatshepsut with Offering Jars

• Deir el-Bahri, Egypt; red granite; ca. 1473-1458 BCE

• Has Colonnades: a row of columns supporting a roof

• Hatshepsut’s stepson Thutmose III destroyed her statues after she had died

• At the time, it was very lush and painted

• Was created by Hatshepsut’s lover/friend

• In order to commemorate her reign, Hatshepsut built numerous monuments

Temple of Ramses II (ca 1290-1224 BCE)

• From Abu Simbel, Egypt

• Colossi approx 65 ft high

• Atlandid: Male figure statue

• Caryatid: Female figure statue

Temple of Amun-Re (ca 15th cent BCE)

• Karnak, Egypt, Dynasty XIX

• Model of Hypostyle hall Temple of Amun-Re

• Hypostyle hall: a hall in an Egyptian temple that has a roof supported by

• Pylon: a monumental gateway to an Egyptian temple marked by two plat sloping walls between which is a smaller entrance

• Clerestory: roods central section is raised-openings permitted sunlight

• Sunken reliefs: artists cuts the design into the surface so that the highest projecting parts of the image are no higher than the surface

Amarna Period:

• Akhetenatan moved capital from Thebes to Amarna

• Pagan monotheism of sun worship

• Polytheistic→ monotheistic (sun god)