Ultimate Guide: Barron's AP Art History (2020)

Chapter 1: Prehistoric Art

Chapter 1 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Anthropomorphic: having characteristics of the human form, although the form itself is not human

• Archaeology: the scientific study of ancient people and cultures principally revealed through excavation

• Cong**:** a tubular object with a circular hole cut into a square-like cross section

• Henge: a Neolithic monument, characterized by a circular ground plan. Used for

  rituals and marking astronomical events

• Lintel: a horizontal beam over an opening

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

• Menhir: a large uncut stone erected as a monument in the prehistoric era; a standing stone

• Mortise and tenon: a groove cut into stone or wood, called a mortise, that is shaped to receive a tenon, or projection, of the same dimensions

• Post-and-lintel: a method of construction in which two posts support a horizontal beam, called a lintel

• Shamanism: a religion in which good and evil are brought about by spirits which can be influenced by shamans, who have access to these spirits

• Stele (plural: stelae): an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site

• Stylized: a schematic, nonrealistic manner of representing the visible world and its contents, abstracted from the way that they appear in nature

➼ Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine

• Details
  • 14,000–7000 B.C.E.
  • From Tequixquiac, Central Mexico
  • Located at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, Mexico
  • Preserved in 1870 in the Valley of Mexico.
• Materials
  • Bone sculpture from a camel-like animal.
  • The bone has been worked to create the image of a dog or wolf.
• Content
  • Carved to represent a mammal’s skull.
  • One natural form is used to take the shape of another.
  • The sacrum is the triangular bone at the base of a spine.
• Context
  • Second skull: A Mesoamerican idea
  • The sacrum bone symbolizes the soul in some cultures, and for that reason it may have been chosen for this work.

➼ Anthropomorphic stele

• Details
  • 4th-millennium B.C.E.
  • From Arabian Peninsula
  • Mainly made of sandstone
  • Preserved in National Museum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Stele: an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site
• Form and Content
  • Anthropomorphic: having characteristics of the human form, although the form itself is not human.
  • Belted robe from which hangs a double-bladed knife or sword.
  • Double cords stretch diagonally across body with an awl unifying them.
• Function: Religious or burial purpose, perhaps as a grave marker.
• Context
  • One of the earliest known works of art from Arabia.
  • Found in an area that had extensive ancient trade routes.

➼ Jade cong

• Details
  • c. 3300–2200 B.C.E.
  • From Liangzhu, China
  • Made from a carved jade
  • Preserved in Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China
  • Cong: a tubular object with a circular hole cut into a square-like cross-section
• Form
  • The circular hole is placed within a square.
  • Abstract designs; the main decoration is a face pattern, perhaps of spirits or deities.
  • Some have a haunting mask design in each of the four corners—with a bar-shaped mouth, raised oval eyes, sunken round pupils, and two bands that might indicate a headdress—which resembles the motif seen on Liangzhu jewelry.
• Materials and Techniques
  • Jade is a very hard stone, sometimes carved using drills or saws.
  • The designs on congs may have been produced by rubbing sand.
  • The jades may have been heated to soften the stone, or ritually burned as part of the burial process.
• Context
  • Jades appear in burials of people of high rank.
  • Jades are placed in burials around bodies; some are broken, and some show signs of intentional burning.
  • Jade religious objects are of various sizes and found in tombs, interred with the dead in elaborate rituals.
  • The Chinese linked jade with the virtues of durability, subtlety, and beauty.
  • Made in the Neolithic era in China.

➼ The Ambum Stone

• Details
  • c. 1500 B.C.E.
  • From Ambum Valley, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea
  • Made from graywacke
  • Preserved in National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• Form
  • Composite human/animal figure; perhaps an anteater head and a human body.
  • Ridgeline runs from nostrils, over the head, between the eyes, and between the shoulders.
• Theories
  • Masked human.
  • Anteater embryo in a fetal position; anteaters thought of as significant because of their fat deposits.
  • May have been a pestle or related to tool making.
  • Perhaps had a ritual purpose; considered sacred; maybe a ­fertility symbol.
  • Maybe an embodiment of a spirit from the past, an ancestral spirit, or the Rainbow Serpent.
• History
  • Stone Age work; artists used stone to carve stone.
  • Found in the Ambum Valley in Papua New Guinea.
  • When it was “found,” it was being used as a ritual object by the Enga people.
  • Sold to the Australian National Gallery.
  • Damaged in 2000 when it was on loan in France; it was dropped and smashed into three pieces and many shards; it has since been restored.

➼ Tlatilco female figurine

• Details
  • c. 1200–900 B.C.E.
  • From Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco
  • Made out of ceramic
  • Preserved in Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey
• Form
  • Flipper-like arms, huge thighs, pronounced hips, narrow waists.
  • Unclothed except for jewelry; arms extending from body.
  • Diminished role of hands and feet.
  • Female figures show elaborate details of hairstyles, clothing, and body ornaments.
• Technique: Made by hand; artists did not use molds.
• Function: May have had a shamanistic function
• Context and Interpretation
  • Some show deformities, including a female figure with two noses, two mouths, and three eyes, perhaps signifying a cluster of conjoined or Siamese twins and/or stillborn children.
  • Bifacial images and congenital defects may express duality.
  • Found in graves, and may have had a funerary context.

➼ Terra cotta fragment

• Details
  • 1000 B.C.E.
  • From Lapita, Reef Islands, Solomon Islands
  • Made from incised terra cotta
  • Preserved in University of Auckland, New ­Zealand
• Form
  • Pacific art is characterized by the use of curved stamped patterns: dots, circles, hatching; may have been inspired by patterns on ­tattoos.
  • One of the oldest human faces in Oceanic art.
• Materials
  • Lapita culture of the Solomon Islands is known for pottery.
  • Outlined forms: they used a comb-like tool to stamp designs onto the clay, known as dentate stamping.
• Technique
  • Did not use potter’s wheel.
  • After pot was incised, a white coral lime was often applied to the surface to make the patterns more pronounced.
• Tradition
  • Continuous tradition: some designs found on the pottery are used in modern Polynesian tattoos and tapas.

➼ Apollo 11 stones

• Details
  • c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E.
  • Painted using charcoal on stone,
  • Preserved in State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
• Form
  • Animal seen in profile, typical of prehistoric painting.
  • Perhaps a composite animal rather than a particular specimen.
• Materials
  • Done with charcoal.
• Context
  • Some of the world’s oldest works of art, found in Wonderwerk Cave in Namibia.
  • Several stone fragments found.
  • Originally brought to the site from elsewhere.
  • Cave is the site of 100,000 years of human activity.
• History
  • Named after the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, the year the cave was discovered.

➼ Great Hall of the Bulls

• Details
  • 15,000–13,000 B.C.E.
  • From Paleolithic Europe
  • A rock painting,
  • Found in Lascaux, France
• Content
  • 650 paintings: most common animals are cows, bulls, horses, and deer.
• Form
  • Bodies seen in profile; frontal or diagonal view of horns, eyes, and hooves; some animals appear pregnant.
  • Twisted perspective: many horns appear more frontal than the bodies.
  • Many overlapping figures.
• Materials
  • Natural products were used to make paint: charcoal, iron ore, plants.
  • Walls were scraped to an even surface; paint colors were bound with animal fat; lamps lighted the interior of the caves.
  • No brushes have been found.
  • May have used mats of moss or hair as brushes.
  • Color could have been blown onto the surface by mouth or through a tube, like a hollow bone.
• Context
  • Animals placed deep inside cave—some hundreds of feet from the entrance.
  • Evidence still visible of scaffolding erected to get to higher areas of the caves.
  • Negative handprints: are they signatures?
  • Caves were not dwellings, as prehistoric people led migratory lives following herds of ­animals; some evidence exists that people did seek shelter at the mouths of caves.
• Theories
  • A traditional view is that they were painted to ensure a successful hunt.
  • Ancestral animal worship.
  • Represents narrative elements in stories or legends.
  • Shamanism: a religion based on the idea that the forces of nature can be contacted by intermediaries, called shamans, who go into a trance-like state to reach another state of consciousness.
• History
  • Discovered in 1940; opened to the public after World War II.
  • Closed to the public in 1963 because of damage from human contact.
  • Replica of the caves opened adjacent to the original.

➼ Running horned woman

• Details
  • 6000–4000 B.C.E.
  • A pigment on rock,
  • Found in Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria
• Form
  • Composite view of the body.
  • Many drawings exist—some are naturalistic, some are abstract, some have Negroid features, and some have Caucasian features.
  • The female horned figure suggests attendance at a ritual ceremony.
• Content
  • Depicts livestock, wildlife, and humans
  • Dots may reflect body paint applied for ritual or scarification; white patterns in symmetrical lines may reflect raffia garments.
• Context
  • More than 15,000 drawings and engravings were found at this site.
  • At one time the area was grasslands; climate changes have turned it into a desert.
  • The entire site was probably painted by many different groups over large expanses of time.

➼ Beaker with ibex motifs

• Details
  • 4200–3500 B.C.E.
  • From Susa, Iran
  • Painted terra cotta
  • Found in ­Louvre, Paris
• Form and Content
  • Frieze of stylized aquatic birds on top, suggesting a flock of birds wading in a Mesopotamian river valley.
  • Below are stylized running dogs with long narrow bodies, perhaps hunting dogs.
  • The main scene shows an ibex with oversized abstract and stylized horns.
  • Stylized: a schematic, nonrealistic manner of representing the visible world and its contents, abstracted from the way that they appear in nature
• Materials and Techniques
  • Probably made on a potter’s wheel, a technological advance; some suggest instead that it was handmade.
  • Thin pottery walls.
• Context and Interpretation
  • In the middle of the horns is a clan symbol of family ownership; perhaps the image identifies the deceased as belonging to a particular group or family.
  • Found near a burial site, but not with human remains.
  • Found with hundreds of baskets, bowls, and metallic items.
  • Made in Susa, in southwestern Iran.

➼ Stonehenge

• Details
  • c. 2500–1600 B.C.E.
  • Made out of sandstone, Neolithic Europe,
  • Found in Wiltshire, United Kingdom
• Technique
  • Post-and-lintel building; lintels grooved in place by the mortise and tenon system of construction.
  • Mortise and tenon: a groove cut into stone or wood, called a mortise, that is shaped to receive a tenon, or projection, of the same dimensions
  • Large megaliths in the center are over 20 feet tall and form a horseshoe surrounding a central flat stone.
  • A central horseshoe is surrounded by lintel-connected megaliths.
  • Hundreds of unidentified stones surrounded the monument.
  • Builders lacked wheels and pulleys. Stones may have been transported on logs or a greased sleigh.
• Context
  • Each stone weighs over 50 tons, reflecting the structure's intended permanence.
  • Some stones were imported from over 150 miles away, suggesting they were sacred.
• History
  • Perhaps took 1,000 years to build; gradually redeveloped by succeeding generations.
• Probably built in three phases:
  • First Phase: circular ditch 36 feet deep and 360 feet in diameter containing 56 pits called Aubrey Holes, named after John Aubrey who found them in the 18th century.
  • Today the holes are filled with chalk.
  • Second Phase: wooden structure, perhaps roofed.
  • The Aubrey Holes may have been used as cremation burials at this time.
  • Adult males were buried at these sites, generally, men who did not show a lifetime of hard labor, signifying it was a site for a select group of people.
  • Third Phase: stone construction.
• Tradition
  • British Isles forests may have inspired wood circles.
  • Stone circles are still common in Britain, indicating Neolithic popularity.
• Theories
  • As an observatory, it may predict eclipses and be oriented towards the summer and winter solstices.
  • According to a new theory, elite males were buried at Stonehenge.
  • An alternative theory suggests it was a healing site.

Chapter 2: Ancient Near Eastern Art

Chapter 2 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Apadana**:** an audience hall in a Persian palace
• Apotropaic: having the power to ward off evil or bad luck
• Bent-axis: an architectural plan in which an approach to a building requires an angular change of direction, as opposed to a direct and straight entry
• Capital: the top element of a column
• Cella: the main room of a temple where the god is housed
• Cuneiform: a system of writing in which the strokes are formed in a wedge or arrowhead shape
• Façade: the front of a building. Sometimes, more poetically, a speaker can refer to a “side façade” or a “rear façade”
• Ground line: a baseline upon which figures stand
• Ground plan: the map of a floor of a building
• Hierarchy of scale: a system of representation that expresses a person’s importance by the size of his or her representation in a work of art
• Lamassu: a colossal winged human-headed bull in Assyrian art
• Lapis lazuli: a deep-blue stone prized for its color
• Negative space: empty space around an object or a person, such as the cut-out areas between a figure’s legs or arms of a sculpture
• Register: a horizontal band, often on top of another, that tells a narrative story
• Relief sculpture: sculpture that projects from a flat background. A very shallow relief sculpture is called a bas-relief
• **Stele (**plural: stelae): a stone slab used to mark a grave or a site
• Votive: offered in fulfillment of a vow or a pledge
• Ziggurat: a pyramid-like building made of several stories that indent as the building gets taller; thus, ziggurats have terraces at each level

➼ White Temple and its ziggurat

• Details
  • c. 3500–3000 B.C.E
  • Made up of mud brick
  • Found in Uruk (modern Warka), Iraq
• Form
  • Buttresses spaced across the surface to create a contrasting light-and-shadow pattern.
  • The ziggurat tapers downward so that rainwater washes off.
  • Entire form resembles a mountain, creating a contrast between the vast flat terrain and the man-made mountain.
• Function
  • On top of the ziggurat is a terrace for outdoor rituals and a temple for indoor rituals.
  • The temple on the top was small, set back, and removed from the populace; access was reserved for royalty and clergy; only the base of the temple remains.
  • The temple interior contained a cella and smaller rooms meant for the deities to assemble before a select group of priests.
• Materials
  • Mud-brick building built on a colossal scale and covered with glazed tiles or cones.
• Context
  • Large settlement at Uruk of 40,000, based on agriculture and specialized labor.
  • Ziggurat sited within the city.
  • Anu: The god of the sky, the most important Sumerian deity.
  • Gods descend from the heavens to a high place on Earth; hence the Sumerians built ­ziggurats as high places.
  • Four corners oriented to the compass; cosmic orientation.

➼ Statues of votive figures

• Details
  • From the Square Temple at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq)
  • c. 2700 B.C.E.
  • Gypsum inlaid with shell and black limestone
  • Preserved in Iraq Museum ,Baghdad, and the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Form
  • Figures are of different heights, denoting hierarchy of scale.
  • Hands are folded in a gesture of prayer.
  • Huge eyes in awe, spellbound, perhaps staring at the deity.
  • Men are bare-chested; wearing belt and skirt; beard flows in a ripple pattern.
  • Women are dressed draped over one shoulder.
  • Arms and feet cut away.
  • Pinkie in a spiral; chin a wedge shape; ear a double volute.
• Function
  • Some have inscriptions on the back — “It offers prayers.”
  • Other inscriptions tell the names of the donors or gods.
  • Figures represent mortals; placed in a temple to pray before a sculpture of a god.
• Context
  • Gods and humans physically present in their statues.
  • None have been found in situ, but buried in groups under the temple floor.

➼ Standard of Ur

• Details
  • From the Royal Tombs at Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq)
  • c. 2600–2400 B.C.E.
  • A wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red ­limestone
  • Preserved in British Museum, London
• Form
  • Figures have broad frontal shoulders; bodies in profile; twisted perspective.
  • Emphasis on eyes, eyebrows, ears.
  • Organized in registers; figures stand on ground lines.
  • Read from bottom to top.
• Content
  • Two sides: war side and peace side; may have been two halves of a narrative; early example of a historical narrative.
  • War side: Sumerian king, half a head taller than the others, has descended from his chariot to inspect captives brought before him, some of whom are debased by their nakedness; in the lowest register, chariots advance over the dead.
  • Peace side: food brought in a procession to the banquet; musician plays the lyre; the ruler is the largest figure—he wears a kilt made of tufts of wool; may have been a victory celebration after a battle.
• Context
  • Found in a tomb at the royal cemetery at Ur in modern Iraq.
  • Reflects extensive trading network: lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, shells from the Persian Gulf, and red limestone from India.
• Theories
  • It may have been part of a musical instrument's soundbox; the term "standard" comes from the idea that it was carried on a pole.
  • The two scenes may show an ideal Sumerian ruler as a victorious general and a father who promotes general welfare.

➼ Code of Hammurabi

• Details
  • From Babylon (modern Iran), Susian
  • c. 1792–1750 B.C.E.
  • Made up of basalt
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form: A stele meant to be placed in an important location.
• Function
  • One of the earliest law codes is below the main scene, symbolizing a ruler's need to establish civic harmony in a civilized world.
  • 300 law entries below the images symbolize Shamash giving Hammurabi the laws.
• Content
  • Shamash: Sun god, enthroned on a ziggurat, hands Hammurabi a rope, a ring, and a rod of kingship.
  • Shamash is in a frontal view and a profile at the same time; their headdress is in profile; rays (wings?) appear from behind his shoulders.
  • Shamash’s beard is fuller than Hammurabi’s, illustrating Shamash’s greater ­wisdom.
  • Shamash, judge of the sky and the earth, with a tiara of four rows of horns, ­presents signs of royal power, the scepter and the ring, to Hammurabi.
  • They stare at one another directly even though their shoulders are frontal; composite views.
  • Hammurabi is depicted with a speaking/greeting gesture.
• Context
  • Written in cuneiform.
  • Text in Akkadian language, read right to left and top to bottom in 51 columns.
  • Law articles are written in a formula: “If a person has done this, then that will happen to him.”
• History
  • Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.E.) united Mesopotamia in his lifetime.
  • Took Babylon from a small power to a dominant kingdom; after his death, the empire dwindled.

➼ Code of Hammurabi

• Details
  • From Babylon (modern Iran), Susian
  • c. 1792–1750 B.C.E.
  • Made up of basalt
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form: A stele meant to be placed in an important location.
• Function
  • One of the earliest law codes is below the main scene, symbolizing a ruler's need to establish civic harmony in a civilized world.
  • 300 law entries below the images symbolize Shamash giving Hammurabi the laws.
• Content
  • Shamash: Sun god, enthroned on a ziggurat, hands Hammurabi a rope, a ring, and a rod of kingship.
  • Shamash is in a frontal view and a profile at the same time; their headdress is in profile; rays (wings?) appear from behind his shoulders.
  • Shamash’s beard is fuller than Hammurabi’s, illustrating Shamash’s greater ­wisdom.
  • Shamash, judge of the sky and the earth, with a tiara of four rows of horns, ­presents signs of royal power, the scepter and the ring, to Hammurabi.
  • They stare at one another directly even though their shoulders are frontal; composite views.
  • Hammurabi is depicted with a speaking/greeting gesture.
• Context
  • Written in cuneiform.
  • Text in Akkadian language, read right to left and top to bottom in 51 columns.
  • Law articles are written in a formula: “If a person has done this, then that will happen to him.”
• History
  • Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.E.) united Mesopotamia in his lifetime.
  • Took Babylon from a small power to a dominant kingdom; after his death, the empire dwindled.

➼ Apadana of Darius and Xerxes

• Details
  • c. 520–465 B.C.E.
  • Mainly made up of limestone
  • Found in Persepolis, Iran
• Form
  • Built on artificial terraces, as is most Mesopotamian architecture.
  • Columns have a bell-shaped base that is an inverted lotus blossom; the capitals are bulls or lions.
  • Everything seems to have been built to dwarf the viewer.
• Function
  • Built for lavish receptions and festivals, not palaces.
  • Lamassu gates welcome visitors.
  • The Gates of All Nations proudly proclaim this complex as the seat of a great empire.
  • Audience hall (apadana): It had 36 columns covered by a wooden roof; held thousands of people; was used for the king’s receptions; had stairways adorned with reliefs of the New Year’s festival and a procession of representatives of 23 subject nations.
• Material: Mud brick with stone facing; stone symbolizing durability and strength.
• Context and Interpretation
  • Darius chose this central location in Persia to protect the treasury, and relief sculptures show delegations from across the empire bringing gifts for storage.
  • The immortals, the king's guard, originally painted and adorned with metal accessories, were carved into the stairs.
  • The stairs have a central relief of the king enthroned with attendants, the crown prince behind him, and dignitaries bowing.
  • Static processions represent a peaceful world.
• History
  • Built by Darius I and Xerxes I; destroyed by Alexander the Great, perhaps as an act of revenge for the destruction of the Acropolis in Athens.
  • Many cultural influences (Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians) contributed to the building of the site, as a sign of Persian cosmopolitan imperial culture.

Chapter 3: Egyptian Art

Chapter 3 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Amarna style: art created during the reign of Akhenaton, which features a more

  relaxed figure style than in Old and Middle Kingdom art

• Ankh: an Egyptian symbol of life

• Axial plan: a building with an elongated ground plan

• Clerestory: a roof that rises above lower roofs and thus has window space beneath

• Engaged column: a column that is not freestanding but attached to a wall

• Ground line: a baseline upon which figures stand

• Hierarchy of scale: a system of representation that expresses a person’s importance by the size of his or her representation in a work of art

• Hieroglyphics: Egyptian writing using symbols or pictures as characters

• Hypostyle: a hall that has a roof supported by a dense thicket of columns

• In situ: a Latin expression that means that something is in its original location

• Ka: the soul, or spiritual essence, of a human being that either ascends to heaven or can live in an Egyptian statue of itself

• Mastaba: Arabic for “bench,” a low, flat-roofed Egyptian tomb with sides sloping down to the ground

• Necropolis: literally, a “city of the dead,” a large burial area

• Papyrus: a tall aquatic plant whose fiber is used as a writing surface in ancient Egypt

• Peristyle: a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a courtyard

• Pharaoh: a king of ancient Egypt

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

• Register: a horizontal band, often on top of another, that tells a narrative story

• Reserve column: a column that is cut away from rock but has no support function

• Sunken relief: a carving in which the outlines of figures are deeply carved into a surface so that the figures seem to project forward

• **Sarcophagus (**plural, sarcophagi): a stone coffin

➼ Palette of King Narmer

• Details
  • From Predynastic Egypt
  • 3000–2920 B.C.E.
  • A graywacke
  • Found in Egyptian Museum, Cairo
• Form
  • Hierarchy of Scale
  • Figures stand on a ground line.
  • Narrative.
  • Schematic lines delineate Narmer’s muscle structure: forearm veins and thigh muscles are represented by straight lines, the kneecaps by half circles.
  • Composite view of the human body: mostly seen in profile, but chest, eye, and ear are ­frontal.
  • Hieroglyphics explain and add to the meaning, and they identify Narmer in the cartouche.
• Function
  • Palette used to prepare eye makeup for the blinding sun, although this palette was probably commemorative.
  • Palettes carved on two sides were for ceremonial purposes.
• Content
  • Relief sculpture depicting King Narmer uniting Upper and Lower Egypt.
  • Depicted four times at the top register is Hathor, a god as a cow with a woman’s face, or Bat, a sky goddess who has the power to see the past and the future, or a bull which ­symbolizes the power and strength of the king.
  • On the front:
  • Narmer, the largest figure, wears the Lower Egyptian cobra crown and inspects the enemy's beheaded corpses from above.
  • Narmer's sandal bearer follows four standard bearers and a priest.
  • In the center, mythical animals with long necks are harnessed, possibly symbolizing unification. At the bottom, a bull destroys a city fortress. — Narmer knocking over his enemies.
  • On the back:
  • The falcon is Horus, god of Egypt, who triumphs over Narmer’s foes; Horus holds a rope around a man’s head and a papyrus plant, symbols of Lower Egypt.
  • Narmer has a symbol of strength, the bull’s tail, at his waist; wears a bowling-pin-shaped crown as king of united Egypt, beating down an enemy.
  • A servant behind Narmer holds his sandals as he stands barefoot on the sacred ground as a divine king.
  • Defeated Egyptians lie beneath his feet.
• Theories
  • Represents the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under one ruler.
  • Unification is expressed as a concept or goal to be achieved.
  • May represent a balance of order and chaos.
  • May reference the journey of the sun god.
• \
  

➼ Seated Scribe

• Details
  • From Saqqara, Egypt, Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty
  • c. 2620–2500 B.C.E.
  • A painted ­limestone
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Not a pharaoh: sagging chest and realistic body rather than the idealistic features reserved for a pharaoh; the scribe contrasts with the ideally portrayed pharaoh.
  • Figure has high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and a distinctive jawline.
  • Meant to be seen from the front.
  • Color still remains on the sculpture.
• Function: Created for a tomb at Saqqara as a provision for the ka.
• Content
  • Amazingly lifelike but not a portrait—rather, it’s a conventional image of a scribe.
  • Inlaid crystal eyes.
  • Holds papyrus in his lap; his writing instrument (now gone) was in his hand ready to write.
• Context
  • Attentive expression; thin angular face; in readiness for the words the pharaoh might dictate.
  • Seated on the ground to indicate his comparative low station.

➼ Great Pyramids (Menkaura, Khafre, and Khufu)

• Details
  • c. 2550–2490 B.C.E.
  • From Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty
  • A cut limestone,
  • Found in Giza, Egypt
• Form
  • Each pyramid is a huge pile of limestone with a minimal interior that housed the deceased pharaoh.
  • Each pyramid had an enjoining mortuary temple used for worship.
• Function
  • Giant monuments to dead pharaohs: Menkaura, Khufu, and Khafre.
  • Preservation of the body and tomb contents for eternity.
  • Some scholars also suggest that the complex served as the king’s palace in the afterlife.
• Context
  • Each pyramid has a funerary complex adjacent connected by a formal pathway used for carrying the dead pharaoh’s body to the pyramid to be interred.
  • Shape may have been influenced by a sacred stone relic called a benben, which is shaped like a sacred stone found at Heliopolis.
  • Heliopolis was the center of the sun god cult.
  • Each side of the pyramid is oriented toward a point on the compass, a fact pointing to an association with the stars and the sun.
  • Giza temples face east, the rising sun, and have been associated with the god Re.
• \
  

➼ Great Sphinx

• Details
  • C. 2500 B.C.E.
  • A limestone
  • Found in Giza, Egypt
• Form
  • Carved in situ from a huge rock; colossal scale.
  • Body of a lion, head of a pharaoh and/or god.
  • Originally brightly painted to stand out in the desert behind the figure, which once rose near ramps rising from the Nile.
• Function: The Sphinx seems to be protecting the pyramids behind it, although this theory has been debated.
• Context and Interpretation
  • Very generalized features, although some say it may be a portrait of Khafre.
  • Cats are royal animals in ancient Egypt, probably because they saved the grain supply from mice.
• History
  • Head of the Sphinx badly mauled in the Middle Ages.
  • Fragment of the Sphinx’s beard is in the British Museum.

➼ King Menkaura and queen

• Details
  • From the Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty
  • 2490– 2472 B.C.E.
  • A graywacke
  • Found in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Form
  • Two figures attached to a block of stone; arms and legs not cut free.
  • Traces of red paint exist on Menkaura’s face and black paint on the queen’s wig.
  • Figures seem to stride forward, but simultaneously are anchored to the stone behind; it is unusual for the female figure to be striding with the male.
  • Figures stare out into space (the afterlife?).
• Function
  • Receptacle for the ka of the pharaoh and his queen.
  • Ka: the soul, or spiritual essence, of a human being that either ascends to heaven or can live in an Egyptian statue of itself
  • Wife’s simple and affectionate gesture, and/or presenting him to the gods.
• Materials: Extremely hard stone used; symbolizes the permanence of the pharaoh’s presence and his strength on earth.
• Context
  • Menkaura’s powerful physique and stride symbolize his kingship, as does his garb: nemes on the head, an artificial beard, and a kilt with a tab.
  • Original location was the temple of Menkaura’s pyramid complex at Giza.
  • Society’s view of women is expressed in the ankle-length tightly draped gown covering the queen’s body; men and women of the same height indicated equality.
  • Society’s view of the king is expressed in his broad shoulders, muscular arms and legs, and firm stomach.

➼ Temple of Amun-Re and Hypostyle Hall

• Details
  • Temple: 1550 B.C.E.
  • Hall: 1250 B.C.E.
  • From New Kingdom, 18th and 19th Dynasties
  • A cut sandstone and mud brick
  • Found in Karnak, near Luxor, Egypt
• Form
  • Axial plan
  • Pylon temple.
  • Hypostyle halls.
  • Massive lintels link the columns together.
  • Huge columns, tightly packed together, admit little light into the sanctuary.
  • Tallest columns have papyrus capitals; a clerestory allows some light and air into the darkest parts of the temple.
  • Columns elaborately painted.
  • Columns carved in sunken relief.
  • Bottom of columns have bud capitals.
  • Massive walls enclose complex.
  • Enter complex through massive sloped pylon gateway into a peristyle courtyard, then through a hypostyle hall, and then into the sanctuary, where few were allowed.
• Function
  • Egyptian temple for the worship of Amun-Re.
  • God housed in the darkest and most secret part of the complex, only accessed by priests and pharaohs.
• Context
  • Adjacent is an artificial sacred lake—a symbol of the sacred waters of the world that existed before time.
  • Located on the east side of the Nile, linked by a road with the Karnak temple for the Opet festival.
  • The complex was built near this lake over time; symbolically, it arose from the waters the way civilization did.
  • Theory that the temple represents the beginnings of the world:
  • Pylons are the horizon.
  • Floor rises to the sanctuary of the god.
  • Temple roof is the sky.
  • Columns represent plants of the Nile: lotus, papyrus, palm, etc.
• History
  • Built by succeeding generations of pharaohs over a great expanse of time.

➼ Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut

• Details
  • c. 1473–1458 B.C.E.
  • New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty,
  • A sandstone partly carved into a rock cliff
  • Found near Luxor, Egypt
• Form
  • Three colonnaded terraces and two ramps.
  • Visually coordinated with the natural setting; long horizontals and verticals of the terraces and colonnades repeat the patterns of the cliffs behind; patterns of dark and light in the colonnade are reflected in the cliffs.
• Function
  • Hatshepsut declared that she built the temple as “a garden for my father, Amun”
  • Only used for special religious events; lacks subsidiary buildings for offering storage, priest housing, temple administration, workshops, and other functions.
  • Cultic purity prevented the royal burial in the temple.
  • Valley of the Kings led to the royal tomb in the mountain behind the temple.
• Context
  • First time the achievements of a woman are celebrated in art history; Hatshepsut’s body is interred elsewhere.
  • Temple aligned with the winter solstice, when light enters the farthest section of the interior.
  • Located on the west side of the Nile across from Thebes.
  • Perhaps designed by Senenmut, a high-ranking official in Hatshepsut’s court.

➼ Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut

• Details
  • 1473–1458 B.C.E.
  • Made of red granite
  • Found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Form
  • Male pharaonic attributes: nemes or headcloth, false beard, kilt.
  • Wears the white crown of Upper Egypt.
  • Queen is depicted in male costume of a pharaoh, yet slender proportions and slight breasts indicate femininity.
• Function
  • Statue of the god brought before sculpture in a procession.
  • Processions up the mortuary temple passed in front of this statue of Hatshepsut.
  • One of 200 statues placed around the complex.
• Context
  • One of 10 statues of Hatshepsut with offering jars, part of a ritual in honor of the sun god; pharaoh would kneel only before a god.
  • Inscription on base says she is offering plants to Amun, the sun god.

➼ Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and three daughters

• Details
  • 1353–1335 B.C.E.
  • New Kingdom (Amarna) 18th Dynasty
  • Made up of limestone
  • Found in Egyptian Museum, Berlin
• Content
  • Akhenaton holds his eldest daughter (left), ready to be kissed.
  • Nefertiti holds her daughter (right) with another daughter on her shoulder.
  • Intimate family relationships are extremely rare in Egyptian art.
• Form
  • State religion shift indicated by an evolving style in Egyptian art:
  • Smoother, curved surfaces
  • Low-hanging bellies.
  • Slack jaws.
  • Thin arms.
  • Epicene bodies.
  • Heavy-lidded eyes.
  • At the end of the sun’s rays, ankhs point to the king and queen.
• Function: The domestic environment was new in Egyptian art; the panel is for an altar in a home
• Technique
  • Sunken relief, which is less likely to be damaged than raised relief.
  • Sunken relief creates deeper shadows and can be appreciated in the sunlight.
• Context
  • Akhenaton abandoned Thebes and created a new capital, originally named Akhenaton and later changed to Amarna; the style of art from this period is called the Amarna Style.
  • The state religion was changed by Akhenaton to the worship of Aton, symbolized by the sun-disk with a cobra; he changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaton to reflect his devotion to the one god Aton.
  • Akhenaton and Nefertiti are having a private relationship with their new god, Aton.
  • After Akhenaton’s reign, the Amarna style was slowly replaced by more traditional Egyptian representations.

➼ Innermost coffin of King Tutankhamun’s tomb

• Details
  • From New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty
  • c. 1323 B.C.E.
  • A gold with an inlay of enamel and semi-precious stones
  • Found in Egyptian Museum, Cairo
• Form
  • Gold coffin (6 feet, 7 inches long) containing the body of the pharaoh.
  • Smooth, idealized features on the mask of the boy king.
  • Holds a crook and a flail, symbols of Osiris.
• Function: Mummified body of King Tutankhamun was buried with 143 objects, on his head, neck, abdomen, and limbs; a gold mask was placed over his head.
• Context
  • When Akhenaton died, two pharaohs ruled briefly, and then his son Tutankhamun reigned for ten years, from age 9 to 19.
  • Tutankhamun’s father and mother were brother and sister; his wife was his half-sister; perhaps he was physically handicapped because of genetic inbreeding.
• History: Famous tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

➼ Last judgment of Hunefer

• Details
  • Page from the Book of the Dead
  • From New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty
  • c. 1275 B.C.E.
  • A painted papyrus scroll
  • Found in British Museum, London
• Form: Narrative on a uniform register (read right to left).
• Function: Illustration from the Book of the Dead, an Egyptian book of spells and charms that acted as a guide for the deceased to make his or her way to eternal life.
• Content
  • Top register — Hunefer in white at left before a row of judges.
  • Main register — the jackal-headed god of embalming, Anubis, leads the deceased into a hall, where his soul is weighed against a feather. If his sins weigh more than a feather, he will be condemned.
  • Ammit: The hippopotamus/lion figure; between the scales, will eat the heart of an evil soul.
  • Thoth: A god who has the head of a bird; the stenographer writing down these events in the hieroglyphics that he invented.
  • Osiris: god of the underworld, enthroned on the right; will subject the deceased to a day of judgment.
• Context
  • Hunefer: A scribe who had priestly functions.

Chapter 4: Greek Art

Chapter 4 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Acropolis: literally, a “high city,” a Greek temple complex built on a hill over a city

• Agora: a public plaza in a Greek city where commercial, religious, and societal activities are conducted

• Amphiprostyle: having four columns in the front and rear of a temple

• Amphora: a two-handled ancient Greek storage jar

• Architrave: a plain, unornamented lintel on the entablature

• Athena: Greek goddess of war and wisdom; patron of Athens

• Canon: a body of rules or laws; in Greek art, the ideal mathematical proportion of

  a figure

• **Caryatid (**male: atlantid): a building column that is shaped like a female figure

• Cella: the main room of a temple where the god is housed

• Contrapposto: a graceful arrangement of the body based on tilted shoulders and hips and bent knees

• Corinthian: an order of ancient Greek architecture similar to the Ionic, except that the capitals are carved in tiers of leaves

• Cornice: a projecting ledge over a wall

• Doric: an order of ancient Greek architecture that features grooved columns with no grooved bases and an upper story with square sculpture called metopes

• Encaustic: a type of painting in which colors are added to hot wax to affix to a surface

• Entablature: the upper story of a Greek temple

• Frieze: a horizontal band of sculpture

• Gigantomachy: a mythical ancient Greek war between the giants and the Olympian gods

• In situ: a Latin expression that means that something is in its original location

• Ionic: an order of Greek architecture that features columns with scrolled capitals and an upper story with sculptures that are in friezes

• Isocephalism: the tradition of depicting heads of figures on the same level

• Kiln: an oven used for making pottery

• **Kouros (**female: kore): an archaic Greek sculpture of a standing youth

• Krater: a large ancient Greek bowl used for mixing water and wine

• Metope: a small relief sculpture on the façade of a Greek temple

• Mosaic: a decoration using pieces of stone, marble, or colored glass, called tesserae, that are cemented to a wall or a floor

• Nike: ancient Greek goddess of victory

• Niobe: the model of a grieving mother; after boasting of her fourteen children, jealous gods killed them

• Panathenaic Way: a ceremonial road for a procession built to honor Athena during a festival

• Pediment: the triangular top of a temple that contains sculpture

• Peplos: a garment worn by women in ancient Greece, usually full length and tied at the waist

• Peristyle: a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a courtyard

• Portico: an entranceway to a building having columns supporting a roof

• **Propylaeum (**plural: propylaea): a gateway leading to a Greek temple

• Relief sculpture: sculpture that projects from a flat background

• Shaft: the body of a column

• **Stele (**plural: stelae): an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site

• Stoa: an ancient Greek covered walkway having columns on one side and a wall on the other

• Tholos: an ancient Greek circular building

• Trigylph: a projecting grooved element alternating with a metope on a Greek temple

• Zeus: king of the ancient Greek gods; known as Jupiter to the Romans; god of the sky and weather

➼ Anavysos Kouros

• Details
  • From Archaic Greek
  • c. 530 B.C.E.
  • A marble with remnants of paint
  • Found in National Archaeological Museum, Athens
• Form
  • Emulates the stance of Egyptian sculpture but is nude; arms and legs are largely cut free from the stone.
  • Rigidly frontal.
  • Freestanding and able to move; in contrast, many Egyptian works are reliefs or are attached to the stone.
  • Hair is knotted and falls in neatly braided rows down the back.
  • Some paint survives, some of it encaustic, which would have given the sculpture greater life.
  • “Archaic smile” meant to enliven the sculpture.
• Function
  • Grave marker, replacing huge vases of the Geometric period.
  • Sponsored by an aristocratic family.
• Content
  • Not a real portrait but a general representation of the dead.
  • Named after a young military hero, Kroisos; the inscription at the base identifies him: “Stand and grieve at the tomb of Kroisos, the dead, in the front line slain by the wild Ares.”

➼ Peplos Kore

• Details
  • From the Acropolis, Archaic Greek
  • c. 530 B.C.E.
  • A marble and painted details
  • Found in Acropolis Museum, Athens
  • Peplos: a garment worn by women in ancient Greece, usually full length and tied at the waist
• Form
  • Hand emerges into the viewer’s space, breaks out of the mold of static Archaic ­statues.
  • Indented waist.
  • Breasts revealed beneath drapery.
  • Rounded and naturalistic face.
  • Much of the encaustic paint still remains, animating the face and hair.
  • Broken hand was fitted into the socket and probably held an attribute; she may have been a goddess.
• Context: She is named for the peplos, thought to be one of the four traditional garments she is wearing.
• Theory
  • Recent theory proposes that she is the goddess, either Athena or Artemis; the figure is now missing arrows and a bow in her hand, and she may have worn a metal ­diadem on her head.

➼ Doryphoros (Spear Bearer)

• Details
  • A sculpture of Polykleitos
  • original: c. 450–440 B.C.E.
  • A Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze original,
  • Found in National Archaeological Museum, Naples
• Form
  • Blocky solidity.
  • Closed stance.
  • Broad shoulders, thick torso, muscular body.
  • Idealized body; contrapposto.
  • Body is both tense and relaxed: left arm and right leg are relaxed, right arm and left leg are tense.
• Content
  • Warrior and athlete.
  • Hand once held a spear.
  • Movement is restrained; ideal Spartan body.
  • Averted gaze; he does not recognize the viewer’s admiration.
  • Contemplative gaze.
• Context: Represents Polykleitos’s ideal masculine figure.
• History
  • Marble Roman copy of a bronze Greek original.
  • Found in Pompeii in a place for athletic training, perhaps for inspiration for athletes.

➼ Helios, Horses, and Dionysus (Heracles?)

• Details
  • c. 438–432 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in British Museum, ­London
• Form
  • Greek Classical art; contrapposto.
  • Figures seated in the left-hand corner of the east pediment of the Parthenon
  • Sculptures comfortably sit in the triangular space of the pediment.
• Function
  • Part of the east pediment of the Parthenon.
  • This grouping contains figures who are present at the birth of Athena, which is the main topic at the center of pediment—now lost.
• Content
  • On the left, the sun god, Helios, bringing up the dawn with his horses; the male nude is Dionysus, god of wine, and he is lounging.
  • Two seated figures may be the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, reacting to the birth of Athena.
• Context
  • Part of the Parthenon sculptures, also called the Elgin Marbles.
  • Phidias acted as the chief sculptor of the workshop.

➼ Plaque of the Ergastines

• Details
  • c. 447–438 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Isocephalism: the tradition of depicting heads of figures on the same level.
  • Figures stand in contrapposto.
  • Carved in high relief, which reflects placement; the more three-dimensional the relief, the better it could be seen from below.
• Content: Six ergastines, young women in charge of weaving Athena’s peplos, are greeted by two priests.
• Context
  • Part of a frieze from the Parthenon that depicts some 360 figures.
  • Scene from the Panathenaic Frieze depicting the Panathenaic Procession, held every four years to honor Athena.
  • This is the first time in Greek art that human events are depicted on a temple.
  • The scene contains a religious procession of women dressed in contemporary drapery and acting nobly.
  • The procession began at the Dipylon Gate, passed through the agora, and ended at the Parthenon.
  • Athenians placed new peplos on an ancient statue of Athena.
• Theory: Not the Panathenaic procession but the story of the legendary Athenian king Erechtheus, who sacrificed one of his daughters to save the city of Athens; told to do so by the Oracle of Delphi.

➼ Victory adjusting her sandal

• Details
  • From the Temple of Athena Nike
  • c. 410 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in Acropolis Museum, Athens
  • Nike: ancient Greek goddess of victory
• Form
  • Graceful winged figure modeled in high relief.
  • Deeply incised drapery lines reveal body; wet drapery.
• Context
  • Part of the balustrade on the Temple of Athena Nike, a war ­monument.
  • One of many figures on the balustrade; not a continuous narrative but a sequence of independent scenes.
  • The importance of military victories was stressed in the images on the Acropolis.

➼ Grave stele of Hegeso

• Details
  • Attributed to Kallimachos
  • c. 410 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble and paint
  • Found in National Archaeological Museum, Athens
  • Stele: an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site
• Form
  • Classical period of Greek art.
  • Use of contrapposto in the standing figure.
  • Jewelry painted in, not visible.
  • Architectural framework.
  • Text includes name of the deceased.
• Function
  • Grave marker.
  • In Geometric and Archaic periods, Greeks used kraters and kouroi to mark graves; in the Classical period, stelae were used.
• Content
  • Commemorates the death of Hegeso; an inscription identifies her and her father.
  • Genre scene is that Hegeso examines a piece of jewelry from a jewelry box handed to her by a standing servant; may represent her dowry.
  • Standing figure has a lower social station, placed before a seated figure.
• Context
  • Erected in the Dipylon cemetery in Athens.
  • Attributed to the sculptor Kallimachos.

➼ Winged Victory of Samothrace

• Details
  • Hellenistic Greek
  • c. 190 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Monumental figure.
  • Dramatic twist and contrapposto of the torso.
  • Wet drapery look imitates water playing on the wet body.
  • Illusion of wind on the body.
• Function: Meant to sit on a fountain representing a figurehead on a boat; the fountain would splash water around the figure.
• Content
  • Large heroic figure of Nike placed above the marble prow of a naval vessel.
  • Nike is wearing several garments, some of which are folded inside out to show the force of the wind.
  • Nike may have held a trumpet, wreath, or fillet in her right hand. However, the hand found in Samothrace in 1950 has an open palm and two outstretched fingers, indicating that she was simply greeting.
• Context
  • Probably made to commemorate a naval victory in 191 B.C.E.; Nike is the goddess of victory.
  • The boat at the base is an ancient battleship with oar boxes and traces of a ram.
• History
  • Found in 1863 in situ on Samothrace.
  • Reassembled in the Louvre Museum in Paris and placed at the top of a grand staircase.
  • Only one wing was found; the other is a mirror image.
  • Only one breast was found; the other is a reconstruction.
  • The right hand has been found, but it cannot be attached because no arms have been found.

➼ Athena, from the Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon

• Details
  • Hellenistic Greek
  • c. 175 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in Pergamon Museum, Berlin
  • Athena: Greek goddess of war and wisdom; patron of Athens
  • Zeus: King of the ancient Greek gods; known as Jupiter to the Romans; god of the sky and weather
• Form
  • Deeply carved figures overlap one another; masterful handling of spatial illusion; figures break into the viewer’s space from the frieze.
  • Dramatic intensity of figures and movement; heroic musculature.
• Function
  • Gigantomachy on the base of the Pergamon Altar illustrates the victories of the goddess Athena, who is worshipped at the altar.
  • Gigantomachy: a mythical ancient Greek war between the giants and the Olympian gods
• Content
  • Describes the battle between the gods and the giants; the giants, depicted as helpless, are dragged up the stairs to worship the gods.
  • Athena grabs Alkyoneos by the hair and drags him up the stair to worship Zeus.
  • Nike, on the right, crowns Athena in victory.
  • Gaia, the earth goddess, looks on in horror and pleads for the fate of her sons, the giants.
• Context
  • The gods’ victory over the giants offers a parallel to Alexander the Great’s defeat of the Persians.
  • Also acts as an allegory of a Greek military victory by Eumenes II.

➼ Seated Boxer

• Details
  • Hellenistic Greek
  • c. 100 B.C.E.
  • Made up of bronze
  • Found in National Roman Museum, Rome
• Form
  • Older man, past his prime, looks defeated.
  • Smashed nose; lips sunken in suggesting broken teeth.
  • Cauliflower ears.
  • Nude fighter; hands wrapped in leather bands.
  • Figure evinces sadness, stoicism and determination.
• Function: May have been a good luck charm for athletes; evidence of toes worn away from being touched.
• Materials
  • Rare surviving Hellenistic bronze.
  • Blood, denoted in copper, drips from his face and onto his right arm and thigh.
  • Copper used to highlight his lips and nipples, the straps on his leather gloves, and the wounds on his head.
• Context
  • May have been part of a group or perhaps a single sculpture, the head turned to face an unseen opponent.
  • Found in a Roman bath in Rome.

➼ Athenian Agora

• Details
  • Archaic through Hellenistic Greek
  • 600–150 B.C.E.
  • Found in Athens, Greece
  • Agora: a public plaza in a Greek city where commercial, religious, and societal activities are conducted
• Function
  • A plaza at the base of the Acropolis in Athens with commercial, civic, religious, and social buildings where ceremonies took place.
  • Setting for the Panathenaic Festival, ceremonies, and parades to honor Athena.
  • The Panathenaic Way cuts through along a hilly terrain from the northwestern to the southeastern corners.
• Content
  • Bouleuterion: a chamber used by a council of 500 citizens, called a boule, who was chosen by lot to serve for one year.
  • Tholos: a round structure manned by a group of senators 24 hours a day for emergency meetings; served as a dining hall where the prytaneis (executives) of the boule often met.
  • Stoas: Covered walkway with columns on one side and a wall on the other.

➼ Parthenon

• Details
  • By Iktinos
  • From The Parthenon
  • 447–410 B.C.E.
  • Found in Athens, Greece
• Form
  • Greek predilection for algebra and geometry is omnipresent in the design of this building: parts can be expressed as x = 2y + 1; thus, there are 17 columns on the side (x) and 8 columns in the front (y), and the ratio of the length to the width is 9:4. Proportions are the same for the cella.
  • Unusually light interior had two windows in the cella.
  • The façade floor curves upward in the center to drain rainwater and prevent sagging at the ends.
  • Since the end columns are surrounded by light, they are thicker to match the others.
  • Ionic elements in a Doric temple: the rear room contains Ionic capitals, and the frieze on interior is Ionic.
• Function
  • Interior built to house a massive statue of Athena, to whom the building was dedicated; also included the treasure of the Delian League.
  • The statue, made of gold and ivory over a wooden core, no longer exists.
• Context
  • Constructed under the leadership of Pericles after the Persian sack of Athens in 480 B.C.E. destroyed the original acropolis.
  • Pericles used the extra funds in the Persian war treasury to build the Acropolis; Greek allies were furious that the funds were not returned to them.
• History
  • Built as a Greek temple dedicated to Athena, the patroness of Athens.
  • According to the story, Athena and Poseidon vied for control over Athens and offered gifts to the populace to entice them.
  • Poseidon made saltwater spring from the ground on the Acropolis. –Athena made an olive tree grow on the site.
  • The Erechtheum, a temple near the Parthenon, houses Poseidon's trident marks, the salt water well, and the sacred olive tree.
  • After the Greek period, the Parthenon became a Greek Orthodox church and then a Roman Catholic Mary church.
  • In the Islamic period, it was converted to a mosque.
  • Destroyed by the Venetians in an attack against the Turks.
  • Lord Elgin took half the sculptures to England in the nineteenth century.

➼ Temple of Athena Nike

• Details
  • By Kallikrates
  • From Temple of Athena Nike
  • 427–424 B.C.E.
  • Made up of marble
  • Found in Athens, Greece
• Form
  • Amphiprostyle: having four columns in the front and four in the back.
  • Ionic temple.
• Function
  • Built to commemorate the Greek victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon; Nike is the goddess of victory.
  • Once contained a figure of Nike inside.
• Context
  • Many images of victory on the temple.
  • Cf. Victory adjusting her sandal sculpted on a balustrade or railing that once framed the ­building.

➼ Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon

• Details
  • From Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) Hellenistic Greece
  • c. 175 B.C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Pergamon Museum, Berlin
  • \
• Form
  • Altar is on an elevated platform at the top of a dramatic flight of stairs.
  • A frieze 7.5 feet high and more than 400 feet long wraps around the monument.
  • Ionic columns frame the monument.
• Function
  • Altar dedicated to Zeus and Athena.
  • Cf. Athena on the gigantomachy around the base of the altar.
• Context
  • Conscious effort to be in dialogue with the Panathenatic frieze on the Parthenon.
  • Parallels made between the Pergamon victories over the barbarians in a recent war, Alexander the Great’s defeat of the Persians, and the gods’ defeat of the giants in ­mythology.

➼ Niobides Krater

• Details
  • Niobid Painter
  • Classical Greek
  • 460–450 B.C.E.
  • Made of clay, red-figure technique with white highlights
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • First time in vase painting that isocephalism (the tradition of depicting heads of figures on the same level) has been jettisoned.
  • May have been the influence of wall paintings, although almost no Greek wall paintings survive.
  • Written sources detail how numerous figures were placed at various levels in ­complex compositions.
• Technique: Red figure ware
• Function: Ceremonial krater; practical kraters were used for mixing water and wine or storing ­liquids.
• Context
  • Called the Niobides Krater because the killing of Niobe’s ­children is depicted on one side.
  • Niobe, who had seven sons and seven daughters, bragged about her fertility to the god Leto, who had only two children.
  • Leto’s two children, Apollo and Artemis, sought revenge by killing Niobid’s fourteen.
  • Niobid is punished for her hubris.
  • Niobe’s children are slaughtered.
  • On the other side of the vase, the story is the subject of scholarly debate.
  • It may depict Herakles in the center with heroes in arms and Athena on the left.
  • Marathon's warriors may be praying to Herakles for protection in an upcoming battle.
• History: Found in Orvieto, Italy; many Greek vases found in Etruscan tombs.

➼ Alexander Mosaic

• Details
  • From the House of Faun, Republican Roman copy of c. 100 B.C.E.
  • A mosaic
  • Found in National Archaeological Museum, Naples
  • Mosaic: a decoration using pieces of stone, marble, or colored glass, called tesserae, that are cemented to a wall or a floor
• Form
  • Crowded with nervous excitement.
  • Extremely complex interweaving of figures; spatial illusionism through foreshortening, chiaroscuro, reflection in shield.
• Technique
  • Use of tesserae instead of previously used pebbles.
  • Tesserae allow for greater flexibility and more complex compositions and shadings.
• Function: Roman floor mosaic, found in a house in Pompeii, based on an original Greek mural (?) painting.
• Content
  • Alexander, at left: does not wear a helmet, showing his bravery.
  • Alexander pierces the body of an enemy with his spear without so much as a glance at his victim.
  • Alexander’s widened eye is trained on Darius.
  • Darius, in center right on chariot: horrified, weakly cedes the victory; his charioteer commands the horses to make their escape.
  • Darius looks stunned as his brother, Oxyanthres, is stabbed, the brother portrayed here as sacrificing himself to save the king.
  • The dying man’s right hand is still gripping his weapon, as though he wished to pull it out of his body, but his body is already collapsing onto the bloody corpse of his black horse.
• Theories
  • Perhaps a copy of a mural made by Piloxenos of Eretria for King Cassander.
  • Perhaps made by Helen of Egypt, one of the few female Greek artists whose name has come down to us.

Chapter 5: Etruscan Art

Chapter 5 Flashcards

Key Terms

• **Necropolis (**plural: necropoli): a large burial area; literally, a “city of the dead”
• Stucco: a fine plaster used for wall decorations or moldings
• Terra cotta: a hard ceramic clay used for building or for making pottery
• Triclinium: a dining table in ancient Rome that has a couch on three sides for reclining at meals
• Tufa: a porous rock similar to limestone
• Tumulus (plural: tumuli): an artificial mound of earth and stones placed over a grave
• Tuscan order: an order of ancient architecture featuring slender, smooth columns that sit on simple bases; no carvings on the frieze or in the capitals

➼ Temple of Minerva

• Details
  • 510–500 B.C.E.
  • Made of mud brick or tufa (volcanic rock) and wood,
  • Found in Veii (near Rome), Italy
• Form
  • Little architecture survives; this model is drawn from descriptions by Vitruvius, a Roman architect of the first century B.C.E.
  • Temple raised on a podium; defined visible entrance.
  • Deep porch places doorways away from the steps.
• Function: Temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva, the Etruscan equivalent to the Greek Athena.
• Materials: Temple made of mud brick and wood, perishable materials.
• Context
  • Steps in front direct attention to the deep porch; entrances emphasized.
  • Three doors represent three gods; the interior divided into three spaces.
  • Etruscan variation of Greek capitals, called the Tuscan order.
  • Tuscan order: an order of ancient architecture featuring slender, smooth columns that sit on simple bases; no carvings on the frieze or in the capitals
  • Inspired by Greek architecture, but different:
  • Columns are unfluted and made of wood, not marble as in Greece.
  • Pediments are made of wood and contain no sculpture, as in Greece.
  • Etruscan columns were spaced further apart than Greek columns because they were made of lighter material.
  • Etruscans used sculptures made of terra cotta rather than stone on their roofs; columns are unfluted, made of wood, not marble as in Greece.

➼ Tomb of the Triclinium

• Details
  • c. 480–470 B.C.E.
  • Made of tufa and fresco
  • Found in Tarquinia, Italy
  • Triclinium: a dining table in ancient Rome that has a couch on three sides for reclining at meals
• Form
  • Ancient convention of men painted in darker colors than women.
  • Polychrome checkerboard pattern on ceiling; circles may symbolize time; pattern may reflect motifs on fabric tents erected for funeral banquets.
• Function: Painted tomb in an Etruscan necropolis.
• Content
  • Funerals seen as moments in which to celebrate the life of the deceased.
  • Dancing figures play musical instruments in a festive celebration of the dead.
  • Trees spring up between the main figures, and shrubbery grows beneath the reclining couches—perhaps suggesting a rural setting.
• Context
  • Banqueting couples recline while eating in the ancient manner.
  • Named after a triclinium, an ancient Roman dining table, which appears in the fresco.

➼ Sarcophagus of the Spouses

• Details
  • c. 520 B.C.E.
  • Made of terra cotta,
  • Found in Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome
• Form
  • Full-length portraits.
  • Great concentration on the upper bodies, less on the legs.
  • Bodies make an unnatural L-shape at the waist.
  • Broad shoulders, knotted hair, and simple anatomical details.
• Function: Sarcophagus of a married couple, whose ashes were placed inside, or perhaps a large urn used for the ashes of the dead.
• Technique: Large terra cotta construction made in four separate pieces and joined together.
  • Terra cotta: a hard ceramic clay used for building or for making pottery
• Content
  • Both once held objects in their hands—perhaps the man held an egg to symbolize life after death; other theories suggest the woman is holding a bottle of perfume or a pomegranate.
  • The couple reclines against wineskins that act as cushions; the wineskins allude to the ceremony of sharing wine at funerary rituals.
• Context
  • Depicts the ancient tradition of reclining while eating; men and women ate together, unlike in ancient Greece.
  • Symbiotic relationship, the man has a protective arm around the woman and the woman feeds the man, reflecting the high standing women had in Etruscan society.

➼ Apollo from Veii

• Details
  • Vulca — the master sculptor.
  • c. 510 B.C.E.
  • Made of terra cotta
  • Found in Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome
• Form
  • Figure has spirit, strides quickly forward.
  • Archaic Greek smile.
  • Meant to be seen from below.
  • Tightly fitting garment.
  • Hair in knots, dangles down around shoulders.
  • Originally brightly painted.
• Materials: Masterpiece of terra cotta casting.
• Context
  • Unlike Greek sculpture, which appears in pediments and is made of stone, Etruscans prefer terra cotta figures that are mounted on roof lines.
  • One of four large figures that once stood on the roof of the temple at Veii.
  • Part of a scene from Greek mythology involving the third labor of Hercules; Apollo looks directly at Hercules, an important figure in Etruscan religion.
  • May have been carved by Vulcan of Veii, the most famous Etruscan sculptor of the age.

Chapter 6: Roman Art

Chapter 6 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Ashlar masonry: carefully cut and grooved stones that support a building without the use of concrete or other kinds of masonry
• **Atrium (**plural: atria): a courtyard in a Roman house or before a Christian church
• Basilica: in Roman architecture, a large axially planned building with a nave, side aisles, and apses
• Barrel Vault: When an arch is extended in space, forming a tunnel
• Bust: a sculpture depicting the head, neck, and upper chest of a figure
• Coffer: in architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling
• Composite column: one that contains a combination of volutes from the Ionic order and acanthus leaves from the Corinthian order
• Continuous narrative: a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in continuous succession
• Contrapposto: a graceful arrangement of the body based on tilted shoulders and hips and bent knees
• **Cubiculum (**plural: cubicula): a Roman bedroom flanking an atrium; in Early Christian art, a mortuary chapel in a catacomb
• Cupola: a small dome rising over the roof of a building; in architecture, a cupola is achieved by rotating an arch on its axis
• Encaustic: an ancient method of painting that uses colored waxes burned into a wooden surface
• Foreshortening: a visual effect in which an object is shortened and turned deeper into the picture plane to give the effect of receding in space
• **Forum (**plural: fora): a public square in a Roman city
• Fresco: a painting technique that involves applying water-based paint onto a freshly plastered wall. The paint forms a bond with the plaster that is durable and long-lasting
• Groin Vault: When two barrel vaults intersect at right angles.
• Horror vacui: (Latin for a “fear of empty spaces”) a type of artwork in which the entire surface is filled with objects, people, designs, and ornaments in a crowded, sometimes congested way
• Impluvium: a rectangular basin in a Roman house that is placed in the open-air atrium in order to collect rainwater
• Keystone: the center stone of an arch that holds the others in place
• Oculus: a circular window in a church, or a round opening at the top of a dome
• Peristyle: an atrium surrounded by columns in a Roman house
• Perspective: depth and recession in a painting or a relief sculpture.
• Pier: a vertical support that holds up an arch or a vault
• Spandrel: a triangular space enclosed by the curves of arches
• riclinium: a dining table in ancient Rome that has a couch on three sides for reclining at meals; or a room containing a triclinium
• Tuscan order: an order of ancient architecture featuring slender, smooth columns that sit on simple bases.; no carvings on the frieze or in the capitals
• Vault: a roof constructed with arches.
• Veristic: sculptures from the Roman Republic characterized by extreme realism of facial features

➼ House of Vettii

• Details
  • From Imperial Roman,
  • 2nd century B.C.E.–1st ­century C.E.
  • Rebuilt c. 67–79 C.E.
  • Made of cut stone and fresco
  • Found in Pompeii, Italy
• Form
  • Narrow entrance to the home sandwiched between several shops.
  • Large reception area called the atrium, which is open to the sky and has a catch basin called an impluvium in the center; rooms called cubicula radiate around the atrium.
  • Peristyle garden in rear with fountain, statuary, and more cubicula; this is the private area of the house.
  • Axial symmetry of house; someone entering the house can see through to the peristyle garden in the rear.
  • Exterior of house lacks windows; interior lighting comes from the atrium and the peristyle.
• Function
  • Private citizen’s home in Pompeii
  • Originally built during the Republic with early imperial additions.
• Context
  • Two brothers owned the house; both were freedmen who made their money as merchants.
  • Extravagant home symbolized the owners’ wealth.
  • After the earthquake of 62 A.D., many wealthy Romans left Pompeii, leading to the rise of the “nouveau riche.”

➼ The Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)

• Details
  • Imperial Roman
  • 72–80 C.E.
  • Made of stone and concrete
  • Found in Rome
• Function
  • Stadium meant for wild and dangerous spectacles—gladiator combat, animal hunts, naval battles—but not, as tradition suggests, religious persecution.
• Form
  • Accommodated 50,000 spectators.
  • Concrete core, brick casing, travertine facing.
  • 76 entrances and exits circle the façade.
  • Interplay of barrel vaults, groin vaults, arches.
  • Façade has engaged columns
  • first story is Tuscan,
  • second story is Ionic,
  • third story is Corinthian, and
  • the top story is flattened Corinthian; each thought of as lighter than the order below.
  • Flagstaffs: These staffs are the anchors for a retractable canvas roof, called a velarium.
  • Velarium: A retractable canvas roof used to protect the crowd on hot days.
  • Sand was placed on the floor to absorb the blood; occasionally the sand was dyed red.
  • Hypogeum: The subterranean part of an ancient building.
• Context
  • Real name is the Flavian Amphitheater; the name Colosseum comes from a colossal statue of Nero that used to be adjacent.
  • The building illustrates what popular entertainment was like for ancient Romans.
  • Entrances and staircases were separated by marble and iron railings to keep the social classes separate; women and the lower classes sat at the top level.
  • Much of the marble was pulled off in the Middle Ages and repurposed.

➼ Treasury and Great Temple of Petra, Jordan

• Details
  • Nabataean Ptolemaic and Roman
  • c. 400 B.C.E.–100 C.E.
  • Made of cut rock
  • Found in Jordan
• Context
  • Petra was a central city of the Nabataeans, a nomadic people, until Roman occupation in 106 C.E.
  • The city was built along a caravan route.
  • They buried their dead in the tombs cut out of the sandstone cliffs.
  • Five hundred royal tombs in the rock, but no human remains found; burial practices are unknown; tombs are small.
  • The city is half built, half carved out of rock. –The city is protected by a narrow canyon entrance.
  • The Roman emperor Hadrian visited the site and named it after himself: Hadriane Petra.
• Content
  • Approached through a monumental gateway, called a propylaeum, and a grand staircase that leads to a colonnade terrace in the lower precincts.
  • A second staircase leads to the upper precincts.
  • A third staircase leads to the main temple.
• Form
  • Nabataean concept and Roman features such as Corinthian ­columns.
  • Monuments carved in traditional Nabataean rock-cut cliff walls.
  • Lower story influenced by Greek and Roman temples but with unusual features:
  • Columns not proportionally spaced.
  • Pediment does not cover all columns, only the central four.
  • Upper floor: broken pediment with a central tholos.
  • Combination of Roman and indigenous traditions.
  • Greek, Egyptian, and Assyrian gods on the façade.
  • Interior: one central chamber with two flanking smaller rooms.
• Function: In reality, it was a tomb, not a “treasury,” as the name implies.

➼ Forum of Trajan

• Details
  • By Apollodorus of Damascus
  • 106–112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy
• Form
  • Large central plaza flanked by stoa-like buildings on each side.
  • Originally held an equestrian monument dedicated to Trajan in the center.
• Function: Part of a complex that included the Basilica of Ulpia, Trajan’s markets, and the Column of Trajan.
• Context: Built with booty collected from Trajan’s victory over the Dacians.

➼ Basilica of Ulpia

• Details
  • c. 112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy
  • Basilica: in Roman architecture, a large axially planned building with a nave, side aisles, and apses
• Form
  • Grand interior space (385 feet by 182 feet) with two apses.
  • Nave is spacious and wide.
  • Double colonnaded side aisles.
  • Second floor had galleries or perhaps clerestory windows.
  • Timber roof 80 feet across.
  • Basilican structure can be traced back to Greek stoas.
• Functional: Law courts held here; apses were a setting for judges.
• Context
  • Said to have been paid for by Trajan’s spoils taken from the defeat of the Dacians.
  • Ulpius was Trajan’s family name.

➼ Trajan Markets

• Details
  • 106–112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy
• Form
  • Semicircular building held several levels of shops.
  • Main space is groin vaulted; barrel vaulted area with the shops.
• Function
  • Multilevel mall.
  • Original market had 150 shops.
• Materials: Use of exposed brick indicates a more accepted view of this material, which formerly was thought of as being unsuited to grand public buildings.

➼ Pantheon

• Details
  • Imperial Roman
  • 118–125 C.E.
  • Made of concrete with stone facing
  • Found Rome, Italy
• Form Exterior
  • Corinthian-capital porch in front of this building.
  • Façade has two pediments, one deeply recessed behind the other; it is difficult to see the second pediment from the street.
• Form Interior
  • Interior contains a slightly convex floor for water drainage.
  • Square panels on floor and in coffers contrast with roundness of walls; circles and squares are a unifying theme.
  • Coffers may have been filled with rosette designs to simulate stars.
  • Cupola walls are enormously thick: 20 feet at base.
  • Thickness of walls is thinned at the top; coffers take some weight pressure off the walls.
  • Oculus, 27 feet across, allows for air and sunlight; sun moves across the interior much like a spotlight
  • Height of the building equals its width; the building is based on the circle; a hemisphere.
  • Walls have seven niches for statues of the gods.
  • Triumph of concrete construction.
  • Was originally brilliantly decorated.
• Function
  • Traditional interpretation: it was built as a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods.
  • Recent interpretation: it may have been dedicated to a select group of gods and the divine Julius Caesar and/or used for court rituals.
  • It is now a Catholic church called Santa Maria Rotonda.
• Context
  • Inscription on the façade: “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times, built it.”
  • The name Pantheon is from the Greek meaning “all the gods” or “common to all the gods.”
  • Originally had a large atrium before it; originally built on a high podium; modern Rome has risen up to that level.
  • Interior symbolized the vault of the heavens.

➼ Pentheus Room

• Details
  • Imperial Roman
  • 62–79 C.E.
  • fresco
  • Foun in Pompeii, Italy
• Function
  • Triclinium: a dining room in a Roman house.
• Context
  • Main scene is the death of the Greek hero Pentheus.
  • Pentheus opposed the cult of Bacchus and was torn to pieces by women, including his mother, in a Bacchic frenzy; two women are pulling at his hair in this image.
  • Punishment of Pentheus is eroticized; central figure with arms outstretched; exposed nakedness of his body.
  • Architecture is seen through painted windows; imaginary landscape.
  • This painting opens the room with the illusion of windows and a sunny cityscape beyond.

➼ Head of a Roman patrician

• Details
  • Republican Roman
  • c. 75–50 B.C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Museo Torlonia, Rome
• Function
  • Funerary context; funerary altars adorned with portraits, busts, or reliefs and cinerary urns.
  • Tradition of wax portrait masks in funeral processions of the upper class to commemorate their history.
  • Portraits housed in family shrines honoring deceased relatives.
• Context
  • Realism of the portrayal shows the influence of Greek Hellenistic art and late Etruscan art.
  • Bulldog-like tenacity of features; overhanging flesh; deep crevices in face.
  • Full of experience and wisdom—traits Roman patricians would have desired.
  • Features may have been exaggerated by the artist to enhance adherence to Roman Republican virtues such as stoicism, determination, and foresight.
  • Busts are mostly of men, often depicted as elderly.

➼ Augustus of Prima Porta

• Details
  • Imperial Roman
  • Early 1st century C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Vatican Museums, Rome
• Form
  • Contrapposto.
  • References Polykleitos’s Doryphoros.
  • Characteristic of works depicting Augustus is the part in the hair over the left eye and two locks over the right.
  • Heroic, grand, authoritative ruler; over life-size scale.
  • Back not carved; figure meant to be placed against a wall.
  • Oratorical pose.
• Function and Original Context
  • Found in the villa of Livia, Augustus’s wife; may have been sculpted to honor him in his lifetime or after his death (Augustus is barefoot like a god, not wearing military boots).
  • May have been commissioned by Emperor Tiberius, Livia’s son, whose diplomacy helped secure the return of the eagles; thus it would serve as a commemoration of Augustus and the reign of Tiberius.
• Content
  • Idealized view of the Roman emperor, not an individualized portrait.
  • Confusion between God and man is intentional; in contrast with Roman Republican portraits.
  • Standing barefoot indicates he is on sacred ground.
  • On his breastplate are a number of gods participating in the return of Roman standards from the Parthians; Pax Romana.
  • Breastplate indicates he is a warrior; judges’ robes show him as a civic ruler.
  • He may have carried a sword, pointing down, in his left hand.
  • His right hand is in a Roman orator pose; perhaps it held laurel branches.
  • At base: Cupid on the back of a dolphin—a reference to Augustus’s divine descent from Venus; perhaps also a symbol of Augustus’s naval victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
  • Maybe a copy of a bronze original, which probably did not have the image of Cupid.

➼ Column of Trajan

• Details
  • 113 C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Rome
• Form
  • A 625-foot narrative cycle (128 feet high) wrapped around the column tells the story of Trajan’s defeat of the Dacians; this is the earliest example of this kind of structure.
  • Crowded composition.
  • Base of the column has an oak wreath, the symbol of victory.
  • Low relief; few shadows to cloud what must have been a very difficult object to view in its entirety.
• Function
  • Visitors who entered the column were meant to wander up the interior spiral staircase to the viewing platform at the top where a heroic nude statue of the emperor was placed.
  • Base contains the burial chamber of Trajan and his wife, Plotina, whose ashes were placed in golden urns in the pedestal.
• Technique: Roman invention of a tall hollowed out column with an interior spiral staircase.
• Content
  • 150 episodes, 2,662 figures, 23 registers—continuous narrative.
  • Continuous narrative: a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in continuous succession
  • Scenes on the column depict the preparation for battle, key moments in the Dacian campaign, and many scenes of everyday life
  • Trajan appears 58 times in various roles: commander, statesman, ruler, etc.
• Context
  • Stood in Trajan’s Forum at the far end surrounded by buildings.
  • Scholarly debate over the way it was meant to be viewed.
  • A viewer would be impressed with Trajan’s accomplishments, including his forum and his markets.
  • Two Roman libraries containing Greek and Roman manuscripts flanked the column.

➼ Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus

• Details
  • Late Imperial Roman
  • c. 250 C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in National Roman Museum, Rome
• Form
  • Extremely crowded surface with figures piled atop one another; horror vacui.
  • Abandonment of classical tradition in favor of a more animated and crowded space.
  • Horror vacui: (Latin for a “fear of empty spaces”) a type of artwork in which the entire surface is filled with objects, people, designs, and ornaments in a crowded, sometimes congested way
  • Figures lack individuality.
• Function: Interment of the dead; rich carving suggests a wealthy patron with a military background.
• Technique
  • Very deep relief with layers of figures.
  • Complexity of composition with deeply carved undercutting.
• Content
  • Roman army trounces bearded and defeated barbarians.
  • Romans appear noble and heroic while the Goths are ugly.
  • Romans battling “barbaric” Goths in the Late Imperial period.
  • Youthful Roman general appears center top with no weapons, the only Roman with no helmet, indicating that he is invincible and needs no protection; he controls a wild horse with a simple gesture.
• Context
  • Confusion of battle is suggested by congested composition.
  • Rome at war throughout the third century.
  • So called because in the seventeenth century it was in Cardinal Ludovisi’s collection in Rome.

Chapter 7: Late Antique Art

Chapter 7 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Ambulatory: a passageway around the apse or altar of a church
• Apse: the endpoint of a church where the altar is located
• **Atrium (**plural: atria): a courtyard in a Roman house or before a Christian church
• Axial plan (Basilican plan, Longitudinal plan): a church with a long nave whose focus is the apse; so-called because it is designed along an axis
• Basilica: In Christian architecture, an axially planned church with a long nave, side aisles, and an apse for the altar
• Catacomb: an underground passageway used for burial
• Central plan: a church having a circular plan with the altar in the middle
• Clerestory: the third, or window, story of a church
• Coffer: in architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling
• Cubicula: small underground rooms in catacombs serving as mortuary chapels
• Gospels: the first four books of the New Testament that chronicle the life of Jesus
• Loculi: openings in the walls of catacombs to receive the dead
• Lunette: a crescent-shaped space, sometimes over a doorway, that contains sculpture or painting
• Narthex: the closest part of the atrium to the basilica, it serves as vestibule, or lobby, of a church
• Nave: the main aisle of a church
• Orant figure: a figure with its hands raised in prayer
• Spolia: in art history, the reuse of architectural or sculptural pieces in buildings generally different from their original contexts
• Transept: an aisle in a church perpendicular to the nave, where the clergy originally stood

➼ Catacomb of Priscilla

• Details
  • Late Antique Europe
  • 200–400
  • Excavated tufa and fresco
  • Found in Rome, Italy
• Form and Function
  • Catacombs are passageways beneath Rome that extend for about 100 miles and contain the tombs of 4 million dead.
  • They contain the tombs of seven popes and many early Christian martyrs.
  • The Priscilla catacomb has some 40,000 burials.
• Context
  • Called Priscilla because she was the donor of the land for her family’s burial. It was then opened up to Christians.
  • Greek Chapel
  • Named for two Greek inscriptions painted on the right niche.
  • Three niches for sarcophagi.
  • Lower portions done in the first Pompeian style of painting with imitation marble paneling enriching the surface.
  • Upper portions decorated with paintings in later Pompeian styles: sketchy painterly brushstrokes.
  • Contains scenes of Old and New Testament stories.
    • Old Testament scenes show martyrs sacrificing for their faith.
    • New Testament scenes show miracles of Jesus.
  • Orant fresco
  • Fresco over a tomb niche set over an arched wall; cemetery of a family vault.
  • Central figure stands with arms outstretched in prayer; perhaps the same woman seen three times.
    • Figure is compact, dark, and set off from a light background with terse angular contours and emphatic gestures.
    • Figure prays for salvation in heaven.
    • Deeply set eyes—windows to the soul—staring upward implore God’s deliverance.
  • Left: painting of a teacher with children, or the image of a couple being married with a bishop.
    • At the right, mother and child, perhaps Mary with Christ or the Church.
  • Good Shepherd fresco
  • Early Christian art often shows parallels between Old and New Testament stories, which Christians see as a fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures and shows their interest in adapting them to their own context.
  • Restrained portrait of Christ as a Good Shepherd, a pastoral motif in ancient art going back to the Greeks.
    • Symbolism of the Good Shepherd: rescues individual sinners in his flock who stray.
  • Stories of the life of the Old Testament Prophet Jonah often appear in the lunettes; Jonah’s regurgitation from the mouth of a big fish is seen as prefiguring Christ’s ­resurrection.
  • Peacocks in lunettes symbolize eternal life; quails symbolize earthly life; Christ is seen as a bridge between these worlds.

➼ Santa Sabina

• Detail
  • Late Antique Europe
  • 422–432
  • Made of brick, stone, and wooden roof
  • Found in Rome, Italy
• Form
  • Three-aisled basilica culminating in an apse; no transept.
  • Long, tall, broad nave; axial plan.
  • Axial Plan: a church with a long nave whose focus is the apse; so-called because it is designed along an axis
  • Windows not made of glass, but selenite, a type of transparent and colorless gypsum.
  • Flat wooden roof; coffered ceiling; thin walls support a light roof.
• Function
  • Early Christian parish church.
  • As in the Jewish tradition, men and women stood separately; the men stood in the main aisle, the women in the side aisles with a partial view.
• Context
  • Spolia: tall slender columns taken from the Temple of Juno in Rome, erected on this site; a statement about the triumph of Christianity over paganism.
  • Bare exterior, sensitively decorated interior—represents the Christian whose exterior may be gross, but whose interior soul is beautiful.
  • Built by Peter of Illyria.
• Patronage: According to an inscription in the narthex, the basilica was founded by Pope Celestine I (422–432).

Chapter 8: Byzantine Art

Chapter 8 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Axial plan (Basilican plan, Longitudinal plan): a church with a long nave whose focus is the apse, so-called because it is designed along an axis
• Cathedral: the principal church of a diocese, where a bishop sits
• Central plan: a church having a circular plan with the altar in the middle
• Chalice: a cup containing wine, used during a Christian service
• **Codex (**plural: codices): a manuscript book
• Continuous narrative: a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in continuous succession
• Cornice: a projecting ledge over a wall
• Encaustic: a type of painting in which colors are added to hot wax to affix to a surface.
• Eucharist: the bread sanctified by the priest at the Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper
• Genesis: first book of the Bible that details Creation, the Flood, Rebecca at the Well, and Jacob Wrestling the Angel, among other episodes
• Icon: a devotional panel depicting a sacred image
• Iconoclastic controversy: the destruction of religious images in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries.
• Iconostasis: a screen decorated with icons, which separates the apse from the transept of a church
• Illuminated manuscript: a manuscript that is hand decorated with painted initials, marginal illustrations, and larger images that add a pictorial element to the written text
• Martyrium (plural: martyria): a shrine built over a place of martyrdom or a grave of a martyred Christian saint
• Mosaic: a decoration using pieces of stone, marble or colored glass, called tesserae, that are cemented to a wall or a floor
• Paten: a plate, dish, or bowl used to hold the Eucharist at a Christian ceremony
• 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
• Theotokos: the Virgin Mary in her role as the Mother of God
• XP: the Christian monogram made up of the Greek letters khi and rho, the first two letters of Khristos, the Greek form of Christ’s name

➼ Hagia Sophia

• Details
  • By Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus,
  • 532–537
  • Made of brick and ceramic elements, with stone and mosaic veneer,
  • Found in Constantinople (Istanbul)
• Form Exterior: plain and massive with little decoration.
• Form Interior:
  • Combination of centrally and axially planned church.
  • Arcade decoration: walls and capitals are flat and thin and richly ornamented.
  • Capitals diminish classical allusions; surfaces contain deeply cut acanthus leaves.
  • Cornice unifies space.
  • Large fields for mosaic decoration; at one time there were four acres of gold mosaics on the walls. –Many windows punctuate wall spaces.
  • Dome: the first building to have a dome supported by pendentives.
  • Altar at end of nave, but the emphasis placed over the area covered by the dome.
  • Large central dome, with 40 windows at base symbolically acting as a halo over the congregation when filled with light.
• Function
  • Originally a Christian church; Hagia Sophia means “holy wisdom.”
  • Built on the site of another church that was destroyed during the Nike Revolt in 532.
  • Converted to a mosque in the fifteenth century; minarets added in the Islamic period.
  • Converted into a museum in 1935; reconverted into a mosque in 2020.
• Context
  • Marble columns appropriated from Rome, Ephesus, and other Greek sites.
  • Patrons were Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, who commissioned the work after the burning of the original building in the Nike Revolt.

➼ San Vitale

• Details
  • Early Byzantine Europe
  • 526–547
  • Made of brick, marble, and stone veneer
  • Found in Ravenna, Italy
• Form
  • Eight-sided church.
  • Plain exterior; porch added later, in the Renaissance.
  • Large windows for illuminating interior designs.
  • Interior has thin columns and open arched spaces.
  • Dematerialization of the mass of the structure.
  • Combination of axial and central plans.
  • Spolia: bricks taken from ruined Roman buildings reused here.
  • Martyrium design: circular plan in an octagonal format.
• Function: Christian church.
• Context
  • Mysterious space symbolically connects with the mystic elements of religion.
  • Banker Julianus Argentarius financed the building of San Vitale.

➼ Justinian Panel

• Details
  • c. 547
  • A mosaic
  • From San Vitale, Ravenna
• Content
  • Emperor Justinian, as the central image, dominates all; emperor’s rank indicated by his centrality, halo, fibula, and crown.
  • To his left the clergy, to his right the military.
  • Dressed in royal purple and gold.
  • Divine authority symbolized by the halo; Justinian is establishing religious and political control over Ravenna.
• Form
  • Symmetry, frontality.
  • Slight impression of procession forward.
  • Figures have no volume; they seem to float and yet step on each other’s feet.
  • Minimal background: green base at feet; golden background indicates timelessness.
• Function
  • Justinian holds a paten, or plate, for the Eucharist; participating in the service of the Mass almost as if he were a celebrant—his position over the altar enhances this reference.
  • Justinian appears as head of church and state; regent of Christ on earth.
• Context
  • Archbishop Maximianus is identified; he is the patron of San Vitale.
  • XP or Chi Rho, the monogram of Christ, on soldier’s shield shows them as defenders of the faith, or Christ’s soldiers on earth.

➼ Theodora Panel

• Details
  • c. 547
  • A mosaic
  • From San Vitale, Ravenna
• Content
  • Empress Theodora stands in an architectural framework holding a chalice for the Mass and is about to go behind the curtain.
• Form
  • Slight displacement of absolute symmetry with Empress Theodora; she plays a secondary role to her husband.
  • She is simultaneously frontal and moving to our left.
  • Figures are flattened and weightless; barely a hint of a body can be detected beneath the drapery.
• Function
  • She holds a chalice for the wine; participating in the service of the Mass almost as if she were a celebrant.
  • She is juxtaposed with Emperor Justinian on the flanking wall; both figures hold the sacred items for the Mass.
• Context
  • Richly robed empress and ladies at court.
  • The three Magi, who bring gifts to the baby Jesus, are depicted on the hem of her dress.
  • This ­reference draws parallels between Theodora and the Magi.

➼ Vienna Genesis

• Details
  • Early Byzantine Europe
  • Early 6th century
  • An illuminated manuscript, tempera, gold, and silver on purple vellum, Austrian National Library, Vienna
• Form
  • Lively, softly modeled figures.
  • Classical training of the artists: contrapposto, foreshortening, shadowing, perspective, classical allusions.
  • Shallow settings.
  • Fluid movement of decorative figures.
  • Richly colored and shaded.
  • Two rows linked by a bridge or a pathway.
  • Text placed above illustrations, which are on the lower half of the page.
  • Continuous narrative.
• Context
  • First surviving illustrations of the stories from Genesis.
  • Genesis stories are done in continuous narrative with genre details.
  • Written in Greek.
  • Partial manuscript: 48 of 192 (?) illustrations survive.
• Materials and Origin
  • Manuscript painted on vellum.
  • Written in silver script, now oxidized and turned black.
  • Origin uncertain: a scriptorium in Constantinople? Antioch?
  • Perhaps done in a royal workshop; purple parchment is a hallmark of a royal institution.
• Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well
  • Genesis 24: 15–61.
  • Rebecca, shown twice, emerges from the city of Nahor with a jar on her shoulder to go down to the spring.
  • She quenches the thirst of a camel driver, Eliezer, and his camels.
  • Colonnaded road leads to the spring.
  • Roman water goddess personifies the spring.
• Jacob Wrestling the Angel
  • Genesis 32: 22–31.
  • Jacob takes his two wives, two maids, and eleven children and crosses a river; the number of children is abbreviated.
  • At night Jacob wrestles an angel.
  • The angel strikes Jacob on the hip socket.
  • Classical influence in the Roman-designed bridge, but medieval influence in the bridge’s perspective: i.e., the shorter columns are placed in the nearer side of the bridge and the taller columns behind the figures.

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

• Details
  • Early Byzantine Europe
  • 6th or early 7th centuries
  • Encaustic on wood
  • Found in Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt
• Function
  • Icon placed in a medieval monastery for devotional purposes.
• Content and Form
  • Virgin and Child centrally placed; firmly modeled.
  • Mary as Theotokos, mother of God.
  • Mary looks beyond the viewer as if seeing into the future.
  • Christ child looks away, perhaps anticipating his crucifixion.
  • Saints Theodore and George flank Virgin and Child.
  • Warrior saints.
  • Stiff and hieratic.
  • Directly stare at the viewer; engage the viewer directly.
  • Angels in background look toward heaven.
  • Painted in a classical style with brisk brushwork in encaustic, a Roman tradition.
  • Turned toward the descending hand of God, which comes down to bless the scene.
  • Because the three groups are in very different styles, it has been assumed that they were painted by three different artists.
• Context
  • Pre–Iconoclastic Controversy icon, located in the Sinai and encaustic places it near Roman-Egyptian encaustic painted portraits.

Chapter 9: Islamic Art

Chapter 9 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Arabesque: a flowing, intricate, and symmetrical pattern deriving from floral motifs

• Calligraphy: decorative or beautiful handwriting

• Charbagh: a rectangular garden in the Persian tradition that is based on the four gardens of Paradise mentioned in the Qur’an

• Hajj: an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that is required of devout Muslims as one of the five pillars of Islam

• Hypostyle: a hall that has a roof supported by a dense thicket of columns

• Illuminated manuscript: a manuscript that is hand-decorated with painted initials, marginal illustrations, and larger images that add a pictorial element to the written text

• Iwan: a rectangular vaulted space in a Muslim building that is walled on three sides and open on the fourth

• Jali: perforated ornamental stone screens in Islamic art

• Kufic: a highly ornamental Islamic script

• Madrasa: a Muslim school or university often attached to a mosque

• Mausoleum: a building, usually large, that contains tombs

• Mecca, Medina: Islamic holy cities;

  • Mecca is the birthplace of Muhammad and the city all Muslims turn to in prayer;
  • Medina is where Muhammad was first accepted as the Prophet, and where his tomb is located

• Mihrab: a central niche in a mosque, which indicates the direction to Mecca

• Minaret: a tall, slender column used to call people to prayer

• Minbar: a pulpit from which sermons are given

  Mosque: a Muslim house of worship

• Muezzin: an Islamic official who calls people to prayer traditionally from a minaret

• Muhammad (570?–632): The Prophet whose revelations and teachings form the foundation of Islam

• Muqarna: a honeycomb-like decoration often applied in Islamic buildings to domes, niches, capitals, or vaults. The surface resembles intricate stalactites

• Pyxis (pronounced “pick-sis”): a small cylinder-shaped container with a detachable lid used to contain cosmetics or jewelry

• Qibla: the direction toward Mecca which Muslims face in prayer

• Qur’an: the Islamic sacred text, dictated to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel

• Sahn: a courtyard in Islamic architecture

• Shahnama, or The Book of Kings**:** a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Firdawsi between c. 977 and 1010 c.e.; the national epic of Iran

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

• Tessellation: decoration using polygonal shapes with no gaps

• Voussoirs (pronounced “vōō-swar”): a wedge-shaped stone that forms the curved part of an arch; the central voussoir is called a keystone

➼ Pyxis of al-Mughir

• Details
  • From Umayyad
  • 968, ivory
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
  • Pyxis: a small cylinder-shaped container with a detachable lid used to contain cosmetics or jewelry
• Form
  • Horror vacui.
  • Vegetal and geometric motifs. Material
  • Intricately carved container made from elephant ivory.
• Function
  • Container for expensive aromatics, sometimes also used to hold jewels, gems, or seals.
  • Gift for the caliph’s younger son.
• Content: Four polylobed medallion scenes showing pleasure activities of the royal court: hunting, falconry, sports, music.
• Context
  • Calligraphic inscription in Arabic names the owner, asks for Allah’s blessings, and includes the date of the pyxis.
  • From Muslim Spain.

➼ Folio from a Qur’an, Arab

• Details
  • North Africa or Near East, Abbasid
  • 8th–9th century
  • Made of ink, color, and gold on parchment
  • Found in Pierpont Morgan Library, New York
• Form
  • The title of each chapter is scripted in gold.
  • Script is rigidly aligned in strong horizontal letters well-spaced apart in brown ink.
  • Kufic script; strong uprights and long horizontals.
  • Great clarity of text is important because several readers read a book at once, some at a distance.
  • Arabic reads right to left.
  • Consonants are scripted, vowels are indicated by dots or markings around the other ­letters.
  • The diacritical markings of short diagonal lines and red dots indicate vocalizations.
  • Pyramids of six gold discs mark the ends of ayat (verses).
• Function: The Qur’an is the Muslim holy book.
• Context
  • Qur’ans were compiled and codified in the mid-seventh century; however, the earliest surviving Qur’an is from the ninth century.
  • Calligraphy is greatly prized in Qur’anic texts; elaborate divine words needed the best ­artists.
  • Illustrated is the heading of sura 29 (al-’Ankabūt, or “The Spider”) in gold.
  • The text indicates that those who believe in protectors other than Allah are like spiders who build flimsy homes.

➼ Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis)

• Details
  • Designed by Muhammad ibn al-Zain
  • 1320–1340
  • Maid of brass inlaid with gold and silver
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Function
  • Original use is for ceremonial hand washing; perhaps a banqueting piece.
  • Later use is for baptisms for the French royal family; coats-of-arms originally on the work were reworked with French fleur-de-lys.
• Content
  • Signed by the artist six times.
  • Hunting scenes alternate with battle scenes along the side of the bowl.
  • Mamluk hunters and Mongol enemies.
  • Bottom of bowl decorated with fish, eels, crabs, frogs, and crocodiles.
• Patronage
  • There is no patron or date identifying the work, although some scholars feel that the basin is connected to the amir Salar (d. 1310), whose image may be prominently depicted on one of the roundels.
  • In that regard, it may have been a gift from Salar to a sultan.

➼ The Ardabil Carpet

• Details
  • Designed by Maqsud of Kashan
  • 1539–1540
  • Made of silk and wool
  • Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Function
  • Prayer carpet used at a pilgrimage site of a Sufi saint.
  • Huge carpet, one of a matching pair, from the funerary mosque of Shayik Safial-Din; probably made when the shrine was enlarged.
  • The companion carpet is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• Materials
  • Wool carpet, woven by ten people, probably men; although women also did weaving in this period.
  • The importance of the location and the size of the project indicate that men were entrusted with its execution.
• Technique: Wool pile of 5,300 knots per 10 cm. sq.; allows for great detail.
• Content
  • Medallion in center of carpet may represent the inside of a dome with 16 pendants.
  • Mosque lamps hang from two of the pendants; because one lamp is smaller than the other, the larger lamp is placed farther away so that it appears the same size as the smaller; some suggest that this is a deliberate flaw to reflect that God alone is perfect.
  • Corner squinches also have pendants completing the feeling of looking into a dome.
  • Inscription says, “Except for thy threshold, there is no refuge for me in all the world.
  • Except for this door there is no resting-place for my head.
  • The work of the slave of the portal, Masqud Kashani,” and the date, 946, in the Muslim calendar.
  • The word “slave” in the inscription has been variously interpreted, but generally it is agreed that he was not a slave in the literal sense, but someone who was charged with executing the carpet.
• Context: World’s oldest dated carpet.

➼ Bahram Gur Fights the Karg

• Details
  • Folio from the Great Il-Khanid Shahnama, Islamic; Persian
  • c. 1330–1340
  • Made of ink and opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper
  • Found in Harvard University Art Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Shahnama, or The Book of Kings: a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Firdawsi between c. 977 and 1010 c.e.; the national epic of Iran
• Form
  • Large painted surface area; calligraphy on the top and bottom frame the image.
  • Areas of flat color.
  • Spatial recession indicated by the overlapping planes.
  • Atmospheric perspective seen in the light-bluish background.
• Content
  • Bahram Gur was an ancient Iranian king from the Sassanian dynasty.
  • He represents the ideal king; wears a crown and a golden halo.
  • Mongol artists of Persia sought to link themselves to great ancient Persian heroes shown as Mongol horsemen.
  • A karg is a kind of unicorn or horned wolf he fought during his trip to India.
  • Cross-cultural influences are Bahram Gur wears a garment of European fabric; Chinese landscape conventions can be seen in the background; these aspects connect the painting with trade along the Silk Road.
• Context
  • Its lavish production suggests it was commissioned by a high-ranking Ilkhanid court official and produced at the court scriptorium as a chronicle of great Persian kings.
  • A high point of Persian manuscripts; very lavish.
  • The original story by Firdawsi was written around 1010.
  • Folio from the text called the Great Ilkhanid Shahnama, or the Book of Kings, a Persian epic.
  • Originally one of 280 folios by several different artists; 57 pages survive.

➼ The Court of Gayumars

• Details
  • Created by Sultan Muhammad
  • From the Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnama
  • 1522–1525
  • Made of ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
  • Found in Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada
• Form
  • Large painted surface area; calligraphy diminished.
  • Harmony between man and landscape.
  • Minute details do not overwhelm the harmony of the scene.
  • Very richly and decoratively painted with vibrant colors.
  • Minute scale suggest the use of fine brushes, perhaps of squirrel hairs.
• Content
  • This excerpt shows the first king of Iran, Gayumars, enthroned before his community, ruling from a mountaintop.
  • During his reign, men learned how to prepare food and prepare leopard skins as clothing; wild animals are shown as meek and submissive.
  • On left, his son Siyamak; on right, his grandson Hushang.
  • His court appears in a semicircle below him; court attire includes the wearing of leopard skins.
  • The angel Surush tells Gayumars that his son will be murdered by the Black Div, son of the demon Ahriman; his death will be avenged by Hushang, who will rescue the Iranian throne.
• Context
  • Persian manuscript.
  • The original story by Firdawsi was written around 1010.
  • Folio from the text called the Great Ilkhanid Shahnama or the Book of Kings, a Persian epic.
  • Produced for the Safavid ruler of Iran, Shah Tahmasp I, who saw himself as part of a proud tradition of Persian kings.
  • Whole book contains 258 illustrated pages.

➼ The Kaaba

• Details
  • Islamic and Pre-Islamic monument
  • Rededicated by Muhammad in 631–632
  • Multiple renovations; granite masonry, covered with silk curtain, and calligraphy in gold and silver-wrapped thread
  • Found in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
• Function
  • Mecca is the spiritual center of Islam; this is the most sacred site in Islam.
  • A large mosque surrounds the Kaaba.
  • Destination for those making the hajj, or spiritual ­pilgrimage, to Mecca.
  • Hajj: an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that is required of devout Muslims as one of the five pillars of Islam
  • Pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba counterclockwise seven times.
• Materials
  • The Kaaba is made of granite; the floor is made of marble and limestone.
  • The Kaaba is covered by textiles; the cloth is called the Kiswa and is changed annually.
• Context
  • Kaaba means cube in Arabic; the Kaaba is cube-like in shape.
  • Kaaba said to have been built by Ibrahim (Abraham, in the Western tradition) and Ishamel for God
  • Existing structure encases the black stone in the eastern corner, the only part of the original structure by Ibrahim that survives.
  • Has been repaired and reconstructed many times since Muhammad’s time.

➼ Dome of the Rock

• Details
  • Islamic, Umayyad
  • 691–692,
  • With multiple renovations, stone masonry and wood roof decorated with glazed ceramic tile, mosaics, and gilt aluminum and bronze dome
  • Found in Jerusalem
• Form
  • Domed wooden octagon.
  • Influenced by centrally planned buildings
  • Columns are spolia taken from Roman monuments.
• Function
  • Pilgrimage site for the faithful.
  • Not a mosque; its original function has been debated.
• Context
  • This building houses several sacred sites:
  • The place where Adam was born.
  • The site in which Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac.
  • The place where Muhammad ascended to heaven (as described in the Qu’ran).
  • The place where the Temple of Jerusalem was located.
  • Meant to rival the Christian church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, although it was inspired by its domed rotunda.
  • Arabic calligraphy on the mosaic decoration urges Muslims to embrace Allah as the one God and indicates that the Christian notion of the Trinity is an aspect of polytheism.
  • Oldest surviving Qur’an verses; first use of Qur’an verses in architecture; one of the oldest Muslim buildings.
  • Erected by Abd al-Malik, caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty.

➼ Great Mosque (Masjid-e Jameh)

• Details
  • Islamic; Persian; Seljuk, Il-Khanid, Timurid, and Safavid Dynasties
  • c. 700 additions and restorations in the 14th, 18th, and 20th centuries
  • Made of tone, brick, wood, plaster, ceramic tile
  • Found in Isfahan, Iran
• Form
  • Large central rectangular courtyard surrounded by a two-story arcade.
  • Typical of Muslim architecture is to have one large arch flanked by two stories of smaller arches
  • The qibla iwan is the largest and most decorative; its size indicates the direction to Mecca.
  • Southern iwan is an entry for a private space used by the sultan and his retinue; its dome is adorned by decorative tiles; this contains the main mihrab of the mosque.
  • Muqarnes: an ornamental and intricate vaulting placed on the underside of arches.
  • Elaborately decorated mihrab on the interior points the direction to Mecca; the elaborateness reflects the fact that this is the holiest section of the shrine.
• Function
  • Muslim mosque.
  • Each side of the courtyard, or sahn, has a centrally placed iwan; may be the first mosque to have this feature.
  • Sahn: a courtyard in Islamic architecture
  • Iwans have different roles, reflecting their size and ornamentation.
• Context
  • Iwan originally seen in palace architecture; used here for the first time to emphasize the sanctuary.
  • This mosque is nestled in an urban center; many gates give access.
  • The mosque’s outside walls share support with other buildings.

➼ Great Mosque (Umayyad Dynasty)

• Details
  • Umayyad Dynasty
  • 785-786, 8th–10th centuries
  • Made of stone masonry
  • Foudn in Córdoba, Spain
• Form
  • Double-arched columns, brilliantly articulated in alternating bands of color.
  • Light and airy interior.
  • Horseshoe-shaped arches derived from the Visigoths of Spain.
  • Hypostyle mosque: no central focus, no congregational worship.
  • Elaborately carved doorways signal principle entrances into the mosque and contrast with unadorned walls that otherwise flank the mosque.
• Function: Muslim mosque.
• History
  • The site was originally a Roman temple dedicated to Janus, then a Visigothic church, and then the mosque was built.
  • Columns are spolia from ancient Roman structures.
  • After a Christian reconquest, the center of the mosque was used for a church.
  • Original wooden ceiling replaced by vaulting after Spanish reconquest.
• Context
  • Complex dome with elaborate squinches was built over the mihrab; it was inspired by Byzantine architecture.
  • Horseshoe-shaped arches were inspired by Visigothic buildings in Spain.
  • Relatively short columns made ceilings low; doubling of arches enhances interior space, perhaps influenced by the Roman aqueduct in Mérida, Spain.
  • Kufic calligraphy on walls and vaults.
  • Original patron: Abl al Rahman.

➼ Alhambra

• Details
  • Nasrid Dynasty
  • 1354–1391
  • Made of whitewashed adobe stucco, wood, tile, paint, and gilding
  • Found in Granada, Spain
• Form
  • Light, airy interiors; fortress-like exterior.
  • Contains palaces, gardens, water pools, fountains, courtyards.
  • Small, low-bubbling fountains in each room contribute to cool temperatures in the summer.
  • Inspired by the Charbagh gardens from Persia.
  • Charbagh: a rectangular garden in the Persian tradition that is based on the four gardens of Paradise mentioned in the Qur’an
• Function
  • Palace of the Nasrid sultans of southern Spain.
  • The Alcazaba (Arab for fortress) is the oldest section and is visible from the exterior.
  • The Alcazaba is a double-walled fortress of solid and vaulted towers ­containing barracks, cisterns, baths, houses, storerooms, and a dungeon.
• Context: Built on a hill overlooking the city of Granada.

➼ Court of the Lions

• Form
  • Thin columns support heavy roofs; a feeling of weightlessness.
  • Intricately patterned and sculpted ceilings and walls.
  • Central fountain supported by 12 protective lions; animal imagery permitted in secular monuments.
  • Parts of the walls are chiseled through to create vibrant light patterns within.
• Context
  • Built by Muhammad V between 1370 and 1391.
  • Palaces follow the tradition of western Islamic palace design: rooms arranged symmetrically around rectangular courtyards.
  • The courtyard is divided into four parts, each symbolizing one of the four parts of the world.
  • Each part of the world is therefore irrigated by a water channel that symbolizes the four rivers of Paradise.
  • The courtyard is an architectural symbol of Paradise combining its gardens, water, and columns in a unified expression.

➼ Hall of the Sisters

• Form
  • Sixteen small windows are placed at the top of hall; light dissolves into a honeycomb of stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
  • Five thousand muqarnas, carved in stucco onto the ceiling, refract light.
  • Abstract patterns, abstraction of forms.
  • Highly sophisticated and refined interior.
• Context
  • Perhaps used as a music room or for receptions.
  • The hall is so named because of two big twin marble flagstones placed on the floor.
  • In between these flagstones is a small fountain and a short canal from which water flows to the Court of the Lions.
  • The hall was built by order of Mohammed V.

➼ Mosque of Selim II

• Details
  • By Mimar Sinan
  • 1568–1575
  • Made of brick and stone,
  • Found in Edirne, Turkey
• Form
  • Extremely thin soaring minarets.
  • Abundant window space makes for a brilliantly lit interior.
  • Octagonal interior, with eight pillars resting on a square set of piers.
  • Squinches decorated with muqarnas transition the round dome to the huge piers below.
  • Smaller half-domes in the corners support the main dome and transition the space to a square ground plan.
  • Decorative display of Iznik mosaic and tile work.
• Function: Mosque part of a complex, including a hospital, school, and library.
• Context
  • Inspired by Hagia Sophia, but a centrally planned building.
  • Open airy interior contrasts with conventional mosques that have partitioned interiors.
  • Sinan was chief court architect for the Ottoman emperor Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566).

➼ Taj Mahal

• Details
  • c. 1632–1653
  • Made of stone masonry and marble with inlay of precious and semi-precious stones, garden
  • Found in Uttar Pradesh, Agra, India
• Form
  • Symmetrical harmony of design.
  • Typical Islamic feature of one large central arch flanked by two smaller arches
  • Square plan with chamfered corners.
  • Onion-shaped dome rises gracefully from the façade.
  • Small kiosks around dome lessen severity.
  • Intricate floral and geometric inlays of colored stone.
  • Minarets act like a picture frame, directing the eye of the viewer and sheltering the ­monument.
  • Texts from the Qu’ran cover surface.
  • Motifs of flowering plants, carved into the walls of the structure, may have been inspired by engravings in European herbals.
• Function: Built as the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan’s wife; the shah was interred next to her after his death.
• Context
  • Translated to mean “crown palace.”
  • Named for Mumtaz Mahal, deceased wife of Shah Jahan, who died while giving birth to her 14th child.
  • Part of a larger ensemble of buildings.
  • Grounds represent a vast funerary garden, the gardens found in heaven in the Islamic tradition.
  • Taj Mahal reflected in the Charbagh garden
  • Different from other Mongol buildings in its extensive use of white marble, which was generally reserved for interior spaces; white marble contrasts with the red sandstone of the flanking buildings.
  • Influence of Hindi texts in which white is seen as a symbol of purity for priests and red for warriors; the Taj Mahal is white marble but the surrounding buildings are red sandstone.
• Theory
  • May have been built to salute the grandeur of the Shah Jahan and his royal kingdom, as much as to honor his wife’s memory.
  • Alternate theory suggests that this is a symbolic representation of a Divine Throne on the Day of Judgment.

Chapter 10: Early Medieval Art

Chapter 10 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Animal style: a medieval art form in which animals are depicted in a stylized and often complicated pattern, usually seen fighting with one another
• Chasing: to ornament metal by indenting into a surface with a hammer
• Cloissonné: enamelwork in which colored areas are separated by thin bands of metal, usually gold or bronze
• **Codex (**plural: codices): a manuscript book
• Colophon: 1) a commentary on the end panel of a Chinese scroll, 2) an inscription at the end of a manuscript containing relevant information on its publication
• Fibula (plural: fibulae): a clasp used to fasten garments
• Gospels: the first four books of the New Testament that chronicle the life of Jesus Christ
• Horror vacui: (Latin, meaning “fear of empty spaces”) a type of artwork in which the entire surface is filled with objects, people, designs, and ornaments in a crowded, sometimes congested way
• Illuminated manuscript: a manuscript that is hand decorated with painted initials, marginal illustrations, and larger images that add a pictorial element to the written text
• Parchment: a writing surface made from animal skins; particularly fine parchment made of calf skin is called vellum
• **Scriptorium (**plural: scriptoria): a place in a monastery where monks wrote manuscripts
• Zoomorphic: having elements of animal shapes

➼ Merovingian looped fibulae

• Details
  • Early medieval Europe
  • Mid-6th century
  • Made of silver gilt worked in filigree with semiprecious stones, inlays of garnets and other stones
  • Found in Musee d’Archeologie Nationale, ­Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
• Form
  • Zoomorphic elements—fish and bird, possibly Christian or pagan symbols.
  • Highly abstracted forms derived from the classical tradition.
• Function
  • Fibula: a pin or brooch used to fasten garments; showed the prestige of the wearer.
  • Small portable objects.
• Context
  • Found in a grave.
  • Probably made for a woman.

➼ Lindisfarne Gospels

• Details
  • Early medieval Europe
  • c. 700
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, pigments, and gold on vellum
  • Found in British Library, London
  • Gospels: the first four books of the New Testament that chronicle the life of Jesus Christ
• Function
  • The first four books of the New Testament
  • Used for services and private devotion.
• Materials: Manuscript made from 130 calfskins.
• Content
  • Evangelist portraits come first, followed by a carpet page.
  • These pages are followed by the opening of the gospel with a large series of capital letters.
• Context
  • Written by Eadrith, bishop of Lindisfarne.
  • Unusual in that it is the work of an individual artist and not a team of scribes.
  • Written in Latin with annotations in English between the lines; some Greek letters
  • Latin script is called half-uncial.
  • English added around 970; it is the oldest surviving manuscript of the Bible in English.
  • English script called Anglo-Saxon minuscule.
  • Uses Saint Jerome’s translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate.
  • Colophon at end of the book discusses the making of the manuscript.
  • Colophon: a commentary on the end panel of a Chinese scroll; an inscription at the end of a manuscript containing relevant information on its publication
  • Made and used at the Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island, a major religious center that housed the remains of Saint Cuthbert.

➼  Cross-carpet page

• Details
  • From the Book of Matthew from The Book of Lindisfarne
  • c. 700
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, pigments, and gold on vellum
  • Found in British Library, London
• Form
  • Cross depicted on a page with horror vacui decoration.
  • Dog-headed snakes intermix with birds with long beaks.
  • Cloisonné style reflected in the bodies of the birds.
  • Elongated figures lost in a maze of S shapes.
  • Symmetrical arrangement.
  • Black background makes patterning stand out.
• Context: Mixture of traditional Celtic imagery and Christian theology.

➼  Saint Luke portrait page

• Details
  • From The Book of Lindisfarne
  • c. 700
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, pigments, and gold on vellum
  • Found in British Library, London
• Context
  • The traditional symbol associated with Saint Luke is the calf (a sacrificial animal).
  • Identity of the calf is acknowledged in the Latin phrase “imago vituli.”
  • Saint Luke is identified by Greek words using Latin characters: “Hagios Lucas.” There is also Greek text.
  • Saint Luke is heavily bearded, which gives weight to his authority as an author, but he appears as a younger man.
  • Saint Luke sits with legs crossed holding a scroll and a writing instrument.
  • Influenced by classical author portraits.

➼  Saint Luke incipit page

• Details
  • From The Book of Lindisfarne
  • c. 700
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, pigments, and gold on vellum
  • Found in British Library, London
• Content
  • This page is called “Incipit,” meaning it depicts the opening words of Saint Luke’s gospel: “Quoniam Quidem…”
  • Numerous Celtic spiral ornaments are painted in the large Q; step patterns appear in the enlarged O.
  • Naturalistic detail of a cat in the lower right corner; it has eaten eight birds.
  • Incomplete manuscript page; some lettering not filled in.

Chapter 11: Romanesque

Chapter 11 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Abbey: a monastery for monks, or a convent for nuns, and the church that is connected to it
• Ambulatory: a passageway around the apse of a church
• Apse: the end point of a church where the altar is
• Arcade: a series of arches supported by columns.
  • Blind Arcade: When the arches face a wall and are not self-supporting
• Archivolt: a series of concentric moldings around an arch
• Axial plan (Basilican plan, Longitundinal plan): a church with a long nave whose focus is the apse, so-called because it is designed along an axis
• \
• Baptistery: in medieval architecture, a separate chapel or building generally in front of a church used for baptisms Bay: a vertical section of a church that is embraced by a set of columns and is usually composed of arches and aligned windows
• Campanile: a bell tower of an Italian building
• Cathedral: the principal church of a diocese, where a bishop sits
• Clerestory: the window story of a church
• Compound pier: a gathering of engaged shafts around a pier
• Continuous Narrative: a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in continuous succession
• Embroidery: a woven product in which the design is stitched into a premade fabric
• Gallery: a passageway inside or outside a church that generally is characterized by having a colonnade or arcade
• Jamb: the side posts of a medieval portal
• Last Judgment: in Christianity, the judgment before God at the end of the world
• Mandorla: (Italian for “almond”) an almond-shaped circle of light around the figure of Christ or Buddha
• Narthex: the vestibule, or lobby, of a church
• Portal: a doorway. In medieval art they can be significantly decorated
• Radiating chapel: a chapel that extends out in a radial pattern from an apse or an ambulatory
• Reliquary: a vessel for holding a sacred relic. Often reliquaries took the shape of the objects they held. Precious metals and stones were the common material
• Rib vault: a vault in which diagonal arches form riblike patterns. These arches partially support a roof, in some cases forming a web-like design
• Tapestry: a woven product in which the design and the backing are produced at the same time on a device called a loom
• Transept: an aisle in a church perpendicular to the nave
• Transverse arch: an arch that spans an interior space connecting opposite walls by crossing from side to side
• Triforium: A narrow passageway with arches opening onto a nave, usually directly below a clerestory
• **Trumeau (**plural: trumeaux): the central pillar of a portal that stabilizes the structure. It is often elaborately decorated
• **Tympanum (**plural: tympana): a rounded sculpture placed over the portal of a medieval church
• Voussoir (pronounced “vōō-swar”): a wedge-shaped stone that forms the curved part of an arch.
  • Keystone: central voussoir

➼ Church of Sainte-Foy

• Details
  • Romanesque Europe
  • c. 1050–1130, stone
  • Conques, France
• Form
  • Church built to handle the large number of pilgrims: wide transepts, large ambulatory with radiating chapels.
  • Radiating chapel: a chapel that extends out in a radial pattern from an apse or an ambulatory
  • Transept: an aisle in a church perpendicular to the nave
  • Massive heavy interior walls, unadorned.
  • No clerestory; light provided by windows over the side aisles and galleries.
  • Barrel vaults in nave, reinforced by transverse arches.
  • Transverse arch: an arch that spans an interior space connecting opposite walls by crossing from side to side
  • Cross-like ground plan, called a Latin cross.
• Function
  • Christian church built along the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela, a popular pilgrimage center for the worship of the relics of Saint James.
  • Radiating chapels housed relics of the saints.

➼ Last Judgment

• Details
  • 1050–1130
  • Made of stone and paint \n Found in Sainte-Foy, Conques
• Form
  • Largest Romanesque tympanum.
  • 124 figures densely packed together; originally richly painted.
• Function
  • Last Judgment cautions pilgrims that life is transitory and one should prepare for the next life.
  • Subject of the tympanum reminds pilgrims of the point of their pilgrimage.
• Content
  • Christ, as a strict judge, divides the world into those going to heaven and those going to hell.
  • Christ is depicted with a welcoming right hand, a cast down left hand.
  • Christ sits in a mandorla.
  • A dividing line runs vertically through the cross in the middle of the composition.
  • The Archangel Michael and the devil are at Christ’s feet, weighing souls.
  • Hell, with the damned, is on the right.
  • People enter the church on the right as sinners and exit on the left as saved; the right door has sculptures of the damned and the left door has images of the saved.
  • The figures of the saved move toward Christ, Mary, and Saint Peter; local abbots and monks follow Charlemagne, the legendary benefactor of the monastery, who is led by the hand.
  • Paradise, at the lower level, is portrayed as the heavenly Jerusalem.
  • Sainte Foy interceded for those enslaved by the Muslims in Spain—she herself appears kneeling before a giant hand of God.
  • On the right lower level, the devil presides over a chaotic tangle of tortured condemned sinners.
  • Inscription on lintel: “O Sinners, change your morals before you might face a cruel judgment.”
  • Hieratic scale may parallel one’s status in a feudal society.

➼ Reliquary of Sainte-Foy

• Details
  • Made of gold, silver, gemstones, and enamel over wood.
  • 9th ­century, with later additions
  • Found in Sainte-Foy, Conques
• Form
  • Child saint’s skull is housed in the rather mannish-looking enlarged head.
  • Jewels, gems, and crown added over the years by the faithful, as acts of devotion.
  • Facial expression is haughty and severe.
• Function: Reliquary of a young girl martyred in the early fourth century.
• Context
  • Sainte Foy (or Faith) probably died as a martyr to the Christian faith during the persecutions in 303 under Emperor Diocletian; she was tortured over a brazier; she refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods in a pagan ritual.
  • Saint Foy, triumphant over death, looking up and over the viewer’s head.
  • Relics of her body were stolen from a nearby town and enthroned in Conques in 866.
  • One of the earliest large-scale sculptures in the Middle Ages.

➼ The Bayeux Tapestry

• Details
  • Romanesque Europe (English or Norman)
  • 1066–1080
  • Made of embroidery on linen
  • Found in Bayeux Tapestry Museum, Bayeux, France
• Form
  • Color used in a decorative, although unnatural, manner—different parts of a horse are colored variously.
  • Neutral background of unpainted fabric.
  • Flat figures; no shadows.
• Content
  • Tells the story (in Latin) of William the Conqueror’s conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
  • The story, told from the Norman point-of-view, emphasizes the treachery of Harold of England, who breaks his vow of loyalty and betrays William by having himself crowned.
  • More than 600 people, 75 scenes.
  • Fanciful beasts in upper and lower registers.
  • Borders sometimes comment on the main scenes or show scenes of everyday life.
• Function
  • Uncertainty over how this work was meant to be displayed, perhaps in a cathedral hung from the pillars in the nave or hung in a hall along a wall.
• Technique
  • Tapestry is a misnomer; actually, it’s an embroidery.
  • Probably designed by a man and executed by women.
• Patronage: Commissioned by Bishop Odo, half-brother to William the Conqueror.
• Context
  • Continues the narrative tradition of medieval art; 230 feet long.
  • Narrative tradition goes back to the Column of Trajan

Chapter 12: Gothic Art

Chapter 12 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Andachtsbild: an image used for private contemplation and devotion
• Apocalypse: the last book of the Christian Bible, sometimes called Revelations, which details God’s destruction of evil and consequent raising to heaven of the righteous
• Bay: a vertical section of a church that is embraced by a set of columns and is usually composed of arches and aligned windows
• Chevet: the east end of a Gothic church
• Choir: a space in a church between the transept and the apse for a choir or clergymen
• Close: an enclosed garden-like area around a cathedral
• Compound pier: a pier that appears to be a group or gathering of smaller piers put together
• Flying buttress: a stone arch and its pier that support a roof from a pillar outside the building.
• **Haggadah (**plural: Haggadot): literally, “narration”; specifically, a book containing the Jewish story of Passover and the ritual of the Seder
• Hammerbeam: a type of roof in English Gothic architecture, in which timber braces curve out from walls and meet high over the middle of the floor
• Lancet: a tall narrow window with a pointed arch usually filled with stained glass
• Moralized Bible: a Bible in which the Old and New Testament stories are paralleled with one another in illustrations, text, and commentary
• Ogee arch: an arch formed by two S-shaped curves that meet at the top
• Passover: an eight day Jewish festival that commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses.
• Pietà: a painting or sculpture of a crucified Christ lying on the lap of his grieving mother, Mary
• Pinnacle: a pointed sculpture on piers or flying buttresses
• Portal: a doorway. In medieval art they can be significantly decorated
• Rib vault: a vault in which diagonal arches form riblike patterns; these arches partially support a roof, in some cases forming a weblike design
• Rose window: a circular window, filled with stained glass, placed at the end of a transept or on the façade of a church
• Seder: a ceremonial meal celebrated on the first two nights of Passover that commemorates the Jewish flight from Egypt as told in the Bible; marked by a reading of the ­Haggadah
• Spire or Steeple: a tall pointed tower on a church
• Triforium: a narrow passageway with arches opening onto a nave, usually directly below a clerestory

➼ Chartres Cathedral

• Details
  • Gothic Europe
  • c. 1145–1155, reconstructed 1194–1220
  • Made of limestone and stained glass
  • Found in Chartres, France
• Form
  • The first church to have flying buttresses as part of the original design; earlier churches retrofitted flying buttresses after the building was constructed.
  • The tall vertical nature of the interior pulls the viewer’s eyes up to the ceiling and symbolically to heaven; rib vaulting increases the ceiling’s vertical thrust.
  • Lancets and spires add to the verticality of the building.
  • Spire or Steeple: a tall pointed tower on a church
  • The dark, mysterious interior increases a spiritual feeling.
  • Stained glass enlivens the interior surfaces of the church.
  • The façade contains a gallery of Old Testament figures above a rose window.
  • Enlarged chevet accommodates elaborate church ceremonies.
• Function: Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary; a Marian shrine.
• Context
  • Started in 1145; fire in 1194 forced reconstruction of everything except the façade.
  • Mary’s tunic, worn at Jesus’s birth, is its most sacred relic; its escape from a fire in 1194 was seen as a signal to rebuild the cathedral.
  • Right spire is from 1160; left spire is Late Gothic (1507–1513), a style more elaborate and decorative called Flamboyant Gothic.
  • Importance of the church reflected in the speed of construction: 27 years.
  • Each wing of the cathedral faces a cardinal direction of the compass:
  • The west wing is the entrance, facing sunset and symbolizing the end of the world.
  • The north wing has stained-glass windows that symbolize the past.
  • The south wing has stained-glass windows that symbolize the presentworld depicted in the New Testament.
  • The east wing has the apse and altar, located where the sun rises.
  • Part of a complex that included a school, a bishop’s palace, and a hospital.

➼ Westminster Hall

• Details
  • Gothic Europe
  • 1097–1099; ceiling 1390s
  • Made of stone and wood
  • Found in London, England
• Form
  • Bare walls were probably decorated with tapestries.
  • Windows placed high up, surrounded by Romanesque arches.
  • Hammerbeam style roof; made of oak; beams curve to meet in the center of the ceiling like a corbelled arch.
  • Hammerbeam: a type of roof in English Gothic architecture, in which timber braces curve out from walls and meet high over the middle of the floor
• Function
  • Meant for grand ceremonial occasions: coronations, feasts.
  • Later used as a law court to dispense justice.
• Context
  • Started under William II (r. 1087–1100) as the largest hall in England at the time.
  • Roof remodeled under Richard II (r. 1377–1399).
  • Original roof has been replaced; there is debate over how the roof was vaulted, perhaps with beams that came down to the floor, denoting a main aisle and two side aisles.
  • Richard II also placed six statues of kings at one entrance, along with his emblems.
  • When the old Houses of Parliament were burned to the ground, this remaining building was the last vestige of the medieval parliament and served as inspiration for the new Houses of Parliament.

➼ Great Portals of the West Façade

• Details
  • 1145–1155
  • Made of limestone
  • Found in Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France
  • Portal: a doorway. In medieval art they can be significantly decorated
• Form
  • Jamb statues stand in front of the wall, almost fully rounded; cf. Romanesque figures, which are flat against the surface.
  • Upright, rigid, elongated figures reflect the vertical columns behind and the vertical nature of the cathedral itself.
  • Figures wear rich courtly dress with vertical folds.
  • The robes are almost hypnotic in their concentric composition; cf. Romanesque nervous excitement to drapery.
  • Heads are serene; slightly heavy eyes; benevolent; humanized faces.
  • Heads are lined up in a row, but the feet are of different lengths.
• Function: These portals were used by church hierarchy, not commoners, as the entry to the church.
• Context
  • Called Royal Portals because the jamb sculptures depict kings and queens from the Old Testament; connection is being made between the French and biblical royalty.
  • Three portals linked by lintels and 24 capitals that contain the life of Christ:
  • Left tympanum: Christ before he takes on mortal form.
  • Central tympanum: Christ as Judge of the World, no menacing Last Judgment as at Conques; Christ surrounded by symbols of the evangelists.
  • Right tympanum: Mary as Queen of Heaven; scenes from her life; Mary with the Christ Child in her lap symbolizing her as the throne of wisdom.
  • Scholasticism stressed in the image of Mary as the throne of wisdom (sedes sapientiae) holding Jesus, in the right tympanum; the seven liberal arts taught at medieval universities are personified in the archivolts of the right tympanum.
  • Originally 24 statues (19 survive).

➼ Röttgen Pietà

• Details
  • Late medieval Europe
  • 1300–1325
  • Made of painted wood
  • Found in Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany
  • Pietà: a painting or sculpture of a crucified Christ lying on the lap of his grieving mother, Mary
• Form
  • Christ emaciated, drained of all blood, all tissue, all muscle.
  • Originally vividly painted, some paint survives.
• Function
  • An Andachtsbild, used in church for services or in a procession.
  • Andachtsbild: an image used for private contemplation and devotion
• Context
  • Horror of the crucifixion is made manifest.
  • This work shows the humanizing of religious themes; Mary as a grieving, very human mother displaying compassion and emotion.
  • Christ’s blood is depicted in grape-like drops, a reference to Christ as a “mystical vineyard.”
  • The imagery asks the viewer to concentrate on the Eucharist: the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

➼ Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere

• Details
  • “Our Lady of the Beautiful Window”
  • c. 1170
  • A stained glass
  • Found in Chartres Cathedral
• Function:
  • Part of a lancet stained-glass window in Chartres Cathedral.
  • Lancet: a tall narrow window with a pointed arch usually filled with stained glass
• Context
  • Mary, the throne of wisdom, is crowned Queen of Heaven with the Christ Child on her lap.
  • Color patterns on the cathedral's gray stone represent the divine.
  • Bands across the surface are typical of Early Gothic stained glass.
  • Undamaged by the fire of 1194, it was reset with blue framing and framing angels on either side of the main scene, contrasting the two stained glass styles in the same window.

➼ Scenes from the Apocalypse

• Details
  • From a Bible moralisée (Moralized Bible), Gothic Europe
  • c. 1225–1245
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
  • Found in Cathedral, Toledo
  • Apocalypse: the last book of the Christian Bible, sometimes called Revelations, which details God’s destruction of evil and consequent raising to heaven of the righteous
  • Moralized Bible: a Bible in which the Old and New Testament stories are paralleled with one another in illustrations, text, and commentary
• Form
  • Eight medallions; format derives from the stained-glass windows.
  • Luminosity of text a reflection of stained-glass windows; strong black outlining of forms.
  • Two vertical columns of four painted scenes.
  • Modeling is minimal.
• Function: Moralized Bible.
• Content
  • Each scene has a text with a summary of the event depicted in the roundel.
  • Old and New Testament scenes are paired as complementing one another.
• Context: Done for the royal court at Paris.

➼ Dedication Page with Blanche of Castile and Louis IX of France

• Details
  • 1225–1245
  • Made of  illuminated manuscript, ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum
  • Found in Morgan Library, New York
• Content
  • Top left — Blanche of Castile, mother and regent to the king; her gestures indicate her dominant role at this time.
  • Since she is a widow, she is wearing a white widow’s wimple.
  • Top right — teenage king Louis IX; beardless, enthroned, holding a bird surmounting fleur-de-lis scepter in his right hand and a round object, possibly a seal matrix, in his left hand.
  • Bottom — older monk dictates to younger scribe; younger scribe is drawing circles as seen in Scenes from the Apocalypse

➼ Golden Haggadah

• Details
  • (The Plagues of Egypt, Scenes of Liberation, and Preparation for Passover),
  • From late medieval Spain
  • c. 1320
  • Made of illuminated manuscript, pigments and gold leaf on vellum
  • Found in British Library, London
  • Passover: an eight day Jewish festival that commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses.
• Form
  • Style similarities to French Gothic manuscripts in the handling of space, architecture, figure style, facial/gestural expression, and the manuscript medium itself.
  • 56 miniatures; gold leaf background.
• Function and Content
  • A Haggadah is a book that illustrates the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt under Moses and its subsequent celebration.
  • It contains a narrative cycle of events from the books of Genesis and Exodus.
  • It is to be read at a Passover Seder.
  • This Haggadah was used primarily at home, therefore avoiding the more stringent restriction against holy images in a synagogue.
• Context
  • Haggadah means “narration”; fulfills the Jewish requirement to tell the story of the Jewish escape from Egypt as a reminder of God’s mercy.
  • Haggadot (plural) are generally the most lavishly painted of Jewish manuscripts.
  • The book is read right to left according to the manner of Hebrew texts.
  • Two unknown artists, probably Christian, illustrated the Golden Haggadah; a Jewish scribe wrote the Hebrew script.
  • Painted around the Barcelona area of Spain.

Chapter 13: Gothic Art in Italy

Chapter 13 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Lamentation: scenes that show Jesus’s followers mourning his death. Usually the scene contains Mary, Saint John, and Mary Magdalene
• Last Judgment: in Christianity, the judgment before God at the end of the world
• Maniera greca: (Italian for “Greek manner”) a style of painting based on Byzantine models that was popular in Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
• Tempera: a type of paint employing egg yolk as the binding medium that is noted for its quick drying rate and flat opaque colors
• Trecento: the 1300s, or fourteenth century, in Italian art

➼ Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel

• Details
  • Unknown architext
  • c. 1303, brick
  • Found in Padua, Italy
• Context
  • The Arena Chapel was built by an unknown architect over an ancient Roman arena.
  • It is also called the Scrovegni Chapel after the name of the patron, Enrico Scrovegni.
  • It was built to expiate the sin of usury through which Scrovegni’s father amassed a fortune; shows the rise of patronage from the European business class.
  • Some narrative scenes illustrate biblical episodes of ill-gotten gains.
  • The life of Christ appears on one side of the chapel, the life of Mary on the other.

➼ Last Judgment from the Arena Chapel

• Details
  • Painted by Giotto
  • 1305
  • A fresco painting.
  • Found in Padua, Italy
  • Last Judgment: in Christianity, the judgment before God at the end of the world
• Content
  • Christ as judge, coming at the end of the world.
  • Heavenly powers are arranged in an organized chorus; heads aligned in a row.
  • Twelve apostles are arranged symmetrically around Christ.
  • Cross at bottom center divides the saved from the damned.
  • On the side of the saved is Enrico Scrovegni in his role as donor presenting a model of the church to angels.
  • At right is the devil, who eats and excretes sinners.
  • Those guilty of usury or money-related sins like prostitution are particularly noted.

➼ Lamentation from the Arena Chapel

• Details
  • Painted by Giotto
  • 1305
  • A fresco painting.
  • Found in Padua, Italy
  • Lamentation: scenes that show Jesus’s followers mourning his death. Usually the scene contains Mary, Saint John, and Mary Magdalene
• Form
  • Shallow stage; figures occupy a palpable space pushed forward toward the picture plane.
  • Diagonal cliff formation points to main action daringly placed in lower left-hand corner.
  • Modeling indicates direction of light; light falls from above right.
  • Figures seen from the back isolate the main action.
• Content
  • Lamentation shows scenes of Jesus’s followers mourning his death. Usually the scene contains Mary, Saint John, and Mary Magdalene.
  • Saint John throws his hands back—recalling his iconographic symbol as an eagle; Mary Magdalene cradles Jesus’s feet; Mary holds Jesus’s head.
  • At left is the Old Testament scene of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and returning to life, a parallel with the New Testament scene of Christ dying and rising from the dead.
  • Range of emotions: heavy sadness, quiet resignation, flaming outbursts, despair.
  • Sadness of scene emphasized by grieving angels.
  • Leafless tree echoes the theme of death in the painting; also represents the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, which dies after Adam and Eve are expelled; a dead tree also symbolizes the wood of the cross Jesus was crucified on.
  • Christians believe Jesus sacrificed himself, in part, to expiate the expulsion from the ­Garden of Eden.

Chapter 14: Renaissance in Northern Europe

Chapter 14 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Altarpiece: a painted or sculpted panel set on an altar of a church
• Annunciation: in Christianity, an episode in the Book of Luke 1:26–38 in which Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she would be the Virgin Mother of Jesus
• Donor: a patron of a work of art, who is often seen in that work
• Engraving: a printmaking process in which a tool called a burin is used to carve into a metal plate, causing impressions to be made in the surface.
• Etching: a printmaking process in which a metal plate is covered with a ground made of wax.
• Oil paint: a paint in which pigments are suspended in an oil-based medium.
• Polyptych: a many-paneled altarpiece
• Predella: The base of an altarpiece that is filled with small paintings, often narrative scenes
• Reformation: a division in western Christianity in which reformers broke away from the Catholic Church and formed a series of Protestant movements.
• Triptych: a three-paneled painting or sculpture
• Woodcut: a printmaking process by which a wooden tablet is carved into with a tool, leaving the design raised and the background cut away.

➼ Annunciation Triptych

• Details
  • Robert Campin workshop
  • also called Merode Altarpiece
  • 1427–1432
  • An oil on wood
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Form
  • Annunciation: in Christianity, an episode in the Book of Luke 1:26–38 in which Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she would be the Virgin Mother of Jesus
  • Triptych: a three-paneled painting or sculpture
  • Triptych, or three-paneled altarpiece.
  • Meticulous handling of paint; intricate details are rendered through the use of oil paint.
  • Steep rising of the ground line; figures too large for the architectural space they occupy.
• Function: Meant to be in a private home for personal devotion.
• Technique
  • Oil paint gives the surface a luminosity and shine.
  • Oil allows for layers of glazes that render soft shadows.
  • Oil can also be erased with turpentine, allowing for changes and corrections.
• Content
  • Left panel: donors, middle-class people kneeling before the holy scene.
  • Messenger appears at the gate to an enclosed ­garden.
  • Center panel: Annunciation taking place in an everyday Flemish interior.
  • Symbolism
    • Towels and water represent Mary’s purity; water is a baptism symbol.
    • Flowers have three buds, symbolizing the Trinity; the unopened bud represents the unborn Jesus.
    • Mary is seated on a kneeler near the floor, symbolizing her humility.
    • Mary blocks the fireplace, the entrance to hell.
    • The candlestick symbolizes Mary holding Christ in the womb.
    • The Holy Spirit with a cross comes in through the window, symbolizing the divine birth.
  • Humanization of traditional themes: no halos, domestic interiors, view into a Flemish cityscape.
  • Right panel: Joseph is working in his carpentry workshop; the mousetraps on the windowsill and the workbench symbolize the capturing of the devil.
  • The mousetraps on the bench and in the shop window opening onto the street are thought to allude to references in the writings of Saint Augustine identifying the cross as the devil’s mousetrap.
• Context
  • Unusually, the main panel was not commissioned.
  • Wings were commissioned when the main panel was purchased; the donor portrait was added at this time.
  • Donor: a patron of a work of art, who is often seen in that work
  • After the donor’s marriage in the 1430s, the wife and messenger were added, which accounts for the rather squeezed-in look of the donor’s wife.

➼ Arnolfini Portrait

• Details
  • Painted by Jan van Eyck.
  • 1434
  • An oil on wood
  • Found in National Gallery, London
• Form
  • Meticulous handling of oil paint; great concentration of minute details.
  • Linear perspective, but upturned ground plane and two horizon lines unlike contemporary Italian Renaissance art.
  • Great care is taken in rendering elements of a contemporary Flemish bedroom.
• Theories
  • Traditionally assumed to be the wedding portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife.
  • It may be a memorial to a dead wife, who could have died in childbirth.
  • It may represent a betrothal.
  • Arnolfini may be conferring legal and business privileges on his wife during an absence.
  • The painting may have been meant as a gift for the Arnolfini family in Italy.
  • It had the purpose of showing the prosperity and wealth of the couple depicted.
• Context
  • Symbolism of weddings:
  • The custom of burning a candle on the first night of a wedding.
  • Shoes are cast off, indicating that the couple is standing on holy ground.
  • The groom is in a promising pose.
  • The dog symbolizes fidelity.
  • Two witnesses in the convex mirror; perhaps the artist himself, since the inscription reads “Jan van Eyck was here 1434.”
  • The woman pulls up her dress to symbolize childbirth, although most likely she is not pregnant; the gesture may simply be a fashion of the time.
  • Statue of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth, appears on the bedpost.
  • The man is standing near the window, symbolizing his role as someone who makes his way in the outside world; the woman appears further in the room to emphasize her role as a homemaker.
  • Wealth is displayed in the opulent furnishings, the elaborate clothing, and the importing of fresh oranges from southern Europe.

➼ Adam and Eve

• Details
  • Engraved by Albrecht Dürer
  • An engraving
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Form
  • Influenced by classical sculpture; Adam looks like the Apollo Belvedere, and Eve looks like Medici Venus.
  • Italian massing of forms, which he learned from his Italian trips.
  • Ideal image of humans before the Fall of Man (Genesis 3).
  • Contrapposto of figures from the Italian Renaissance, in turn also based on classical Greek art.
  • Northern European devotion to detail.
• Content
  • Four humors are represented in the animals:
  • cat (choleric, or angry),
  • rabbit (sanguine, or energetic),
  • elk (melancholic, or sad),
  • ox (phlegmatic, or lethargic);
  • The four humors were kept in balance before the Fall of Man;
  • The humors fell out of balance after the successful temptation of the serpent.
  • The mouse represents Satan.
  • The parrot is a symbol of cleverness.
  • Adam tries to dissuade Eve; he grasps the mountain ash, a tree from which snakes recoil.
• Context: Prominent placement of the artist’s signature indicates the rising status of his occupation.

➼ Isenheim altarpiece

• Details
  • Painted by Matthias Grünewald
  • 1512–1516
  • An oil on wood
  • Found in Musée d’Unterlinden, Colmar
• Context
  • Placed in a monastery hospital where people were treated for Saint Anthony’s fire, or ergotism—a disease caused by ingesting a fungus that grows on rye flour.
  • The name of the disease explains the presence of Saint Anthony in the first view and in the third.
  • Theme: healing through salvation and faith;
  • Saint Sebastian (left) was saved after being shot by arrows;
  • Saint Anthony (right) survived torments by devils and demons.
  • Those suffering in the hospital were brought before this image, which symbolized ­heroism, sacrifice, and martyrdom.
  • Ergotism causes convulsions and gangrene.
• First view
  • A scene of the crucifixion is in the center:
  • Surrounded by a symbolically dark background.
  • Christ’s body is dead with decomposing flesh emphasized as inspired by the writings by the mystic Saint Bridget.
  • Christ’s arms are almost torn from their sockets.
  • The body is lashed and whipped.
  • The agony of the body is unflinchingly shown and acts as a symbol for the agony of ergotism.
  • A lamb holds a cross, a common symbol for Christ, who is called the Lamb of God.
  • A chalice catching the lamb’s blood parallels the chalice used to hold wine—the blood of Christ—during the Mass.
  • The crucified body of Christ would have paralleled the raising of the sacramental bread called the Eucharist.
  • A swooning Mary is dressed like the nuns who worked in the hospital.
  • When panels open to reveal the next scene, Christ is amputated.
  • Patients suffering from ergotism often endured amputation.
  • Amputation also in the predella: Christ’s legs seem amputated below the kneecap.
• Second view
  • Marian symbols: the enclosed garden, closed gate, rosebush, rosary.
  • Christ rises from the dead, on the right; his rags changed to glorious robes; he shows his wounds, which do not harm him now.
  • Message to patients: earthly diseases and trials will vanish in the next world.
• Third view
  • Saint Anthony in the right panel has oozing boils, a withered arm, and a distended stomach: symbols of ergotism

➼ Allegory of Law and Grace

• Details
  • Made by Lucas Cranach the Elder
  • c. 1530,
  • A woodcut and letterpress
• Function
  • Designed using the woodcut technique to make the image available to the masses.
  • Its purpose was to contrast the benefits of Protestantism versus the ­perceived disadvantages of Catholicism.
  • Influential image of the Protestant Reformation; text appears in the ­people’s language: German, and not the church language: Latin.
• Context
  • Protestantism: the faithful achieve salvation by God’s grace; guidance can be achieved using the Bible.
  • Meant to reflect the Lutheran ideas about salvation.
  • Done in consultation with Martin Luther, a leader in the Protestant movement.
  • Left: Last Judgment
  • Moses holds the Ten Commandments.
  • The Ten Commandments represent the Old Law, Catholicism.
  • The Law of Moses is not enough; it is not enough to live a good life.
  • A skeleton chases a man into hell.
  • Right: Figure bathed in Christ’s blood
  • Faith in Christ alone is needed for salvation.
  • Symbolically, the barren branches of the tree on the left side contrast with the full bloom on the right.

➼ Hunters in the Snow

• Details
  • Painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
  • 1565
  • An oil on wood
  • Found in Art History Museum, Vienna
• Form
  • Alpine landscape; typical winter scene inspired by the artist’s trips across the Alps to Italy.
  • Strong diagonals lead the eye deeper into the painting.
  • Figures are peasant types, not individuals.
  • Landscape has high horizon line with panoramic views, a Northern European tradition.
  • Extremely detailed.
• Function
  • ne of a series of six paintings representing the labors of the months—this winter scene is November/December.
  • Placed in a wealthy Antwerp merchant’s home.
  • Patrons were wealthy individuals of high status; Bruegel’s paintings offered them a view of the world of the peasants.
• Context
  • Hunters have had little success in the winter hunt; dogs are skinny and hang their heads.
  • Peasants in the sixteenth century were regarded as buffoons or figures of fun;
  • Bruegel does not give them individuality but does treat them with respect

Chapter 15: Early Renaissance in Italy: Fifteenth Century

Chapter 15 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Bottega: the studio of an Italian artist
• Chapter house: a building next to a church used for meetings
• Humanism: an intellectual movement in the Renaissance that emphasized the secular alongside the religious.
• Madonna: the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ
• Mullion: a central post or column that is a support element in a window or a door
• Neoplatonism: a school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian humanists of the Renaissance
• Orthogonal: lines that appear to recede toward a vanishing point in a painting with linear perspective
• Perspective: depth and recession in a painting or a relief sculpture.
• Pietra serena: a dark-gray stone used for columns, arches, and trim details in Renaissance buildings
• Pilaster: a flattened column attached to a wall with a capital, a shaft, and a base
• Quattrocento: the 1400s, or fifteenth century, in Italian art
• Trompe l’oeil: (French, meaning “fools the eye”) a form of painting that attempts to represent an object as existing in three dimensions, and therefore resembles the real thing

➼ Pazzi Chapel

• Details
  • Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi
  • Basilica di Santa Croce
  • Designed 1423; Built 1429–1461,
  • A masonry,
  • Found in Florence, Italy
• Form
  • Two barrel vaults on the interior; small dome over crossing; pendentives support dome; oculus in the center.
  • Interior has a quiet sense of color with muted tones that is punctuated by glazed terra cotta tiles.
  • Use of pietra serena (a grayish stone) in contrast to whitewashed walls accentuates basic design structure.
  • Pietra serena: a dark-gray stone used for columns, arches, and trim details in Renaissance buildings
  • Inspired by Roman triumphal arches.
  • Ideal geometry in the plan of the building.
• Function
  • Chapter house: a meeting place for Franciscan monks; bench that wraps around the interior provides seating for meetings.
  • Rectangular chapel with an apse and an altar attached to the church of Santa Croce, Florence.
• Attribution
  • Attribution of portico by Brunelleschi has been recently questioned;
  • The building may have been designed by Bernardo Rossellino or his workshop.
• Patronage
  • Patrons were the wealthy Pazzi family, who were rivals of the Medici.
  • The family coat-of-arms, two outward facing dolphins, is placed at the base of each pendentive on the interior.

➼ Palazzo Rucellai

• Details
  • Designed by Leon Battista Alberti
  • c. 1450, stone,
  • A masonry
  • Found in Florence, Italy
• Form
  • Three horizontal floors separated by a strongly articulated stringcourse; each floor is shorter than the one below.
  • Pilasters rise vertically and divide the spaces into squarish shapes.
  • An emphasized cornice caps the building.
  • Square windows on the first floor; windows with mullions on the second and third floors.
  • Rejects rustication of earlier Renaissance palaces; used beveled masonry joints instead.
  • Benches on lower level connect the palazzo with the city.
• Function
  • City residence of the Rucellai family.
  • The building format expresses classical humanist ideals for a residence:
  • the bottom floor was used for business;
  • the family received guests on the second floor;
  • the family’s private quarters were on the third floor;
  • the hidden fourth floor was for servants.
• Context
  • The articulation of the three stories links the building to the Colosseum levels, which have arches framed by columns:
  • the first floor pilasters are Tuscan (derived from Doric);
  • the second are Alberti’s own invention (derived from Ionic);
  • the third are Corinthian.
  • Original building:
  • Five bays on the left, with a central door.
  • Second doorway bay and right bay added later.
  • Eighth bay fragmentary: owners of house next door refused to sell, and the Palazzo Rucellai never expanded.
• Patronage
  • Patron was Giovanni Rucellai, a wealthy merchant.
  • Rucellai coat-of-arms, a rampant lion, is placed over two second-floor windows.
  • Friezes contain Rucellai family symbols: billowing sails.

➼ Madonna and Child with Two Angels

• Details
  • Painted by Fra Filippo Lippi
  • c. 1465
  • Tempera on wood
  • Found in Uffizi, Florence
  • Madonna: the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ
• Content and Symbolism
  • Symbolic landscape
  • Rock formations symbolize the Christian Church.
  • City near Madonna's head is the Heavenly Jerusalem.
  • Pearl motif: seen in headdress and pillow as products of the sea.
  • Pearls used as symbols in scenes of the Incarnation of Christ.
• Context
  • Mary is seen as a young mother.
  • Model may have been the artist’s lover.
  • Landscape inspired by Flemish painting.
  • Scene depicted as if in a window in a Florentine home.
  • Humanization of a sacred theme; there is a sense of domestic intimacy.
  • Lippi was a monk, as indicated by the word “Fra” that precedes his name; he was working in a Carmelite monastery under the patronage of the Medici.

➼ Birth of Venus

• Details
  • Painted by Sandro Botticelli
  • c. 1484–1486
  • Tempera on canvas
  • Found in Uffizi, Florence
• Form
  • Crisply drawn figures.
  • Landscape flat and unrealistic; simple V-shaped waves.
  • Figures float, not anchored to the ground.
• Content
  • Venus emerges fully grown from the foam of the sea with a faraway look in her eyes.
  • Roses scattered before her; roses created at the same time as Venus, symbolizing that love can be painful.
  • On the left: Zephyr (west wind) and Chloris (nymph).
  • On the right: handmaiden rushes to clothe Venus.
• Context
  • Medici commission; may have been commissioned for a wedding celebration.
  • Painting based on a popular court poem by the writer Poliziano, which itself is based on Homeric hymns and Hesiod’s Theogony.
  • A revival of interest in Greek and Roman themes can be seen in this work.
  • Earliest full-scale nude of Venus in the Renaissance.
  • Reflects emerging Neoplatonic thought.
  • Neoplatonism: a school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian humanists of the Renaissance

➼ David

• Details
  • Sculpted by Donatello
  • c. 1440–1460
  • Made of bronze
  • Found in National Museum, Bargello, Florence
• Form
  • First large bronze nude since antiquity.
  • Exaggerated contrapposto of the body.
  • Sleekness of the black bronze adds to the femininity of the work.
  • Androgynous figure; homoerotic overtones.
• Function
  • Life-size work, probably meant to be housed in the Medici palace courtyard; not for public viewing.
• Content
  • The work depicts the moment after David slays the Philistine Goliath with a rock from a slingshot; David then decapitates Goliath with his own sword.
  • David contemplates his victory over Goliath, whose head is at his feet; David’s head is lowered to suggest humility.
  • Laurel on David’s hat indicates he was a poet; the hat is a foppish Renaissance design.
• Context
  • David symbolizes Florence taking on larger forces with ease; perhaps Goliath would have been equated with the Duke of Milan.
  • Nothing is known of its commission or patron, but it was placed in the courtyard of the Medici palace in Florence.
  • Modern theory alleges that this is a figure of Mercury, and that the decapitated head is of Argo;
  • Mercury is the patron of the arts and merchants, and therefore an appropriate symbol for the Medici.

Chapter 16: High Renaissance and Mannerism

Chapter 16 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Arcadian: a simple rural and rustic setting used especially in Venetian paintings of the High Renaissance; named after Arcadia, a district in Greece to which poets and painters have attributed a rural simplicity and an idyllically untroubled world
• Canvas: a heavy woven material used as the surface of a painting; first widely used in Venice
• Cassone (plural: cassoni): a trunk intended for storage of clothing for a wife’s trousseau
• Chiaroscuro: a gradual transition from light to dark in a painting.
• Cinquecento: the 1500s, or sixteenth century, in Italian art
• Entombment: a painting or sculpture depicting Jesus Christ’s burial after his crucifixion
• Flood story: as told in Genesis 7 of the Bible, Noah and his family escape rising waters by building an ark and placing two of every animal aboard
• Genre painting: painting in which scenes of everyday life are depicted
• Glazes: thin transparent layers put over a painting to alter the color and build up a rich sonorous effect
• Ignudi: nude corner figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling
• Last Supper: a meal shared by Jesus Christ with his apostles the night before his death by crucifixion
• Neoplatonism: a school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian humanists of the Renaissance
• Sfumato: a smoke-light or hazy effect that distances the viewer from the subject of a painting
• Sibyl: a Greco-Roman prophetess whom Christians saw as prefiguring the coming of Jesus Christ
• Still life: a painting of a grouping of inanimate objects, such as flowers or fruit

➼ The Last Supper

• Details
  • Painted by Leonardo da Vinci
  • 1494–1498
  • Made of tempera and oil,
  • Found in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
  • Last Supper: a meal shared by Jesus Christ with his apostles the night before his death by crucifixion
• Form
  • Linear perspective; orthogonals of ceiling and floor point to Jesus.
  • Apostles are grouped in sets of three
  • Jesus is alone before a group of three windows, a symbol of the Trinity.
  • A rounded pediment over Jesus’s head acts as a symbolic halo; Leonardo subtlety suggests Jesus’s divinity.
• Function
  • Painted for the refectory, or dining hall, of an abbey of friars.
  • A relationship is drawn between the friars eating and a biblical meal.
• Patronage: Commissioned by the Sforza family of Milan for the refectory of a Dominican abbey.
• Materials
  • Leonardo experimented with a combination of paints to yield a greater chiaroscuro.
  • The paints began to peel off the wall in Leonardo’s lifetime.
  • As a result, the ­painting has been restored many times and is a shadow of itself.
• Content
  • Great drama of the moment: Jesus says, “One of you will betray me” (Matthew 26:21); Jesus also blesses the bread and wine, creating a sacred Eucharist (Matthew 26:26–27).
  • Various reactions on the faces of the apostles: surprise, fear, anger, denial, suspicion; anguish on the face of Jesus.
  • Judas, the betrayer, falls back clutching his bag of coins; his face is symbolically in darkness.

➼ Sistine Chapel ceiling

• Details
  • By Michelangelo
  • 1508–1512
  • Made of fresco
  • Found in Vatican City, Italy
• Form
  • Masculine modeling of forms.
  • Bold, direct, powerful narrative expression.
• Function
  • Function of the chapel: the place where new popes are elected and where papal services take place.
  • Name derives from Pope Sixtus IV, who was the patron of the building’s redesign between 1473 and 1481.
• Content
  • Michelangelo chose a complicated arrangement of figures for the ceiling, which broadly illustrates the first few chapters of Genesis in nine scenes, with accompanying Old Testament figures and antique sibyls
  • The grand and massive figures are meant to be seen from a distance, but also echo the grandeur of the Biblical narrative.
  • 300 figures on the ceiling, with no two in the same pose; a tribute to Michelangelo’s lifelong preoccupation with the male nude in motion.
  • Enormous variety of expression.
  • Painted cornices frame groupings of figures in a highly organized way.
  • Many figures are done for artistic expression rather than to enhance the narrative; the ignudi, for example.
  • Ignudi: nude corner figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling
• Context
  • Sistine Chapel was erected in 1472 and painted by quattrocento masters, including Botticelli, Perugino, and Michelangelo’s teacher, Ghirlandaio.
  • Quattrocento paintings are of the life of Christ and the life of Moses; Michelangelo needed a different topic for the ceiling; he chose the cosmic theme of creation.
  • Michelangelo’s paintings are painted over the window level of the chapel as well as the ceiling.
  • The chapel is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as such the central panel on the ceiling depicts Eve, the archetype of Mary, who, according to tradition, began the redemption necessitated by the sin of Eve and Adam.
  • Acorns, a motif on the ceiling, were inspired by the crest of the chapel’s patron, Pope Julius II.

➼ Delphic Sybil

• Details
  • By Michelangelo
  • 1508–1512
  • Made of fresco
  • Found in Vatican City, Italy
  • Sibyl: a Greco-Roman prophetess whom Christians saw as prefiguring the coming of Jesus Christ
• Form and Content
  • The sibyl wears a Greek-style turban.
  • Her head is turned as if listening.
  • She has a sorrowful expression.
  • There is a dramatic contrapposto positioning of the body.
  • She holds the scroll containing her prophecy.
  • She is a powerfully built female figure.
• Context
  • One of five sibyls (prophetesses) on the ceiling.
  • Greco-Roman figures whom Christians believed foretold the coming of Jesus Christ.
  • This shows a combination of Christian religious and pagan mythological imagery.

➼ The Flood

• Details
  • By Micheangelo
  • 1508–1512
  • Made of fresco
  • Found in Vatican City, Italy
  • Flood story: as told in Genesis 7 of the Bible, Noah and his family escape rising waters by building an ark and placing two of every animal aboard
• Form
  • Sculptural intensity of the figure style.
  • More than 60 figures are crowded into the composition.
• Function: One of the scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
• Content
  • Story details Noah and his family’s escape from rising floodwaters, as told in Genesis 7.
  • The few remaining survivors cling to mountain tops; their fate will be sealed.
  • A man carrying his drowned son to safety will meet his son’s fate as well.
  • The ark in the background is the only safe haven.
  • The salvation of the good (as opposed to God’s destruction of the wicked) is stressed.

➼ Last Judgment

• Details
  • By Michelangelo
  • 1536–1541
  • Made of fresco
  • Found in Vatican City, Italy
• Form
  • In contrast to the ceiling, there are no cornice divisions; it is one large space with figures greatly integrated.
  • The Mannerist style is shown in the distortions of the body: ­elongations and crowded groups.
• Function
  • Last Judgment scenes are traditional on altar walls of chapels
  • This was not the original choice of subject matter for the wall.
• Patronage: Pope Paul III was the patron.
• Context
  • The subject was chosen because of the turbulence in Rome after the sack of the city in 1521.
  • Counter-Reformation message: the true path to salvation is through the Catholic Church.
  • Spiraling composition is a reaction against the High Renaissance harmony of the Sistine Ceiling and reflects the disunity in Christendom caused by the Reformation.
  • In the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, the genitalia were painted over after Michelangelo’s death.
• Content
  • Four broad horizontal bands act as the unifying element:
  • Bottom: dead rising on the left and the mouth of hell on the right.
  • Second level: ascending elect, descending sinners, trumpeting angels.
  • Third level: those risen to heaven are gathered around Jesus.
  • Top lunettes: angels carrying the cross and the column, instruments used at Christ’s death.
  • Christ, in center, gestures defiantly with right hand; complex pose.
  • Justice is delivered: the good rise, the evil fall.
  • Lower right-hand corner has figures from Dante’s Inferno: Minos and Charon.
  • Saint Bartholomew’s face is modeled on a contemporary critic.
  • Saint Bartholomew holds his skin, a symbol of his martyrdom, but the skin’s face is Michelangelo’s, an oblique reference to critics who skinned him alive with their criticism.
  • It may also represent Michelangelo’s concern over the fate of his soul as expressed in his poetry.

➼ School of Athens

• Details
  • By Raphael
  • 1509–1511
  • Made of fresco
  • Found in Apostolic Palace, Vatican City, Italy
• Form
  • Open, clear light uniformly spread throughout the composition.
  • Nobility and monumentality of forms parallel the greatness of the figures represented; figures gesture to indicate their philosophical thought.
  • Raphael’s overall composition was influenced by Leonardo’s Last Supper
• Patronage and Function
  • Commissioned by Pope Julius II to decorate his library.
  • This is one painting in a complex program of works that illustrate the vastness and variety of the papal library.
  • Painting originally called Philosophy because the pope’s philosophy books were meant to be housed on shelving below.
• Content and Context
  • Opposite this work is a Raphael painting called La Disputà,
  • based on religion;
  • religious books were placed below;
  • parallels drawn between the two themes expressed in the paintings.
  • To the left of Philosophy is Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus, referencing literature.
  • The building depicted in the background might reflect Bramante’s plan for Saint Peter’s; Bramante appears as the bald Euclid in the lower right.
  • In the center are the two greatest figures in ancient Greek thought:
  • Plato (with the features of Leonardo da Vinci) on the left pointing up, and
  • Aristotle (perhaps with the features of the architect Giuliano da Sangallo) pointing out.
  • Their gestures reflect their philosophies.
  • On the left are those interested in the ideal (followers of Plato); on the right, those interested in the practical (followers of Aristotle).
  • Raphael is on the extreme right with a black hat.
  • Michelangelo, resting on the stone block writing a poem, represents the philosopher Heraclitus; the figure was added later and was not part of the original composition.

➼ Venus of Urbino

• Details
  • By Titian
  • 1538
  • Made of oil in cavas
  • Found in Uffizi, Florence
• Form
  • Sensuous delight in the skin tones; layers of glazes produce rich, sonorous effect.
  • Oil painted in layers; glazes achieve rich color.
  • Complex spatial environment: figure placed forward on the picture plane, servants in middle space; open window with plants in background.
• Content
  • Venus looks at the viewer directly.
  • Venus is reclining in an open space in a luxurious Venetian bedroom.
  • Roses contribute to the floral motif carried throughout the work; roses with their thorns symbolize the beauty and problems of love.
  • The dog may symbolize faithfulness.
• Context
  • May not be Venus; may be a courtesan in the tradition of a female reclining nude.
  • Cassoni: trunks intended for storage of clothing for a wife’s trousseau seen in the background of the painting.
  • May have been commissioned by the Duke of Urbino as a wedding painting.

➼ Entombment of Christ

• Details
  • By Jacopo da Pontormo
  • 1525–1528
  • Made of oil on wood
  • Found in Santa Felicità, Florence
• Form
  • Anticlassical composition.
  • Linear bodies twisting around one another.
  • In the center of the circular composition is a grouping of hands.
  • Hands seem disembodied.
  • No ground line for many figures; what is Mary sitting on?
  • Elongation of bodies.
  • Some androgynous figures.
  • No weeping, just yearning.
  • High-keyed colors, perhaps taking into account the darkness of the chapel the work is placed in.
• Context
  • The painting is called Entombment of Christ, although there is no tomb, just the carrying of Jesus’s lifeless body.
  • It is placed over the altar of a family chapel near the right front entrance of Santa Felicità in Florence.
  • The composition and Mannerist style may reflect the instability in European politics brought on by the Protestant Reformation.
  • There is a self-portrait on the extreme right of the painting.

➼ II Gesù

• Details
  • By Giacomo della Porta
  • 1568–1584
  • Made of brick and marble
  • Nave by Giacomo da Vignola, 16th century
• Form Façade:
  • Column groupings, tympana, and pediment emphasize the central doorway.
  • A slight crescendo of forms directs the viewer to the center.
  • The two stories separated by a cornice; united by scrolls and a ­framing niche.
  • The letters of Jesus’s name (IHS) are over the central doorway in a cartouche.
  • Patron: Cardinal Farnese has his name placed directly over the cartouche with Jesus’s name.
• Form Interior:
  • Interior has no aisles; meant for grand ceremonies.
  • Ceiling painting
• Function: Principal church of the Jesuit order.
• Context: Jesuits are seen as the defenders of Counter-Reformation ideals.

Chapter 17: Baroque Art

Chapter 17 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Di sotto in sù: (“from the bottom up”) a type of ceiling painting in which the figures seem to be hovering above the viewers, often looking down at us
• Genre painting: painting in which scenes of everyday life are depicted
• Impasto: a thick and very visible application of paint on a painting surface
• Still life: a painting of a grouping of inanimate objects, such as flowers or fruit
• Tenebroso/Tenebrism: a dramatic dark and light contrast in a painting
• Vanitas: a theme in still life painting that stresses the brevity of life and the folly of human vanity

➼ Santa Maria della Vittoria

• Details
  • By Carlo Maderno
  • 1605–1620
  • Found in Rome
• Form
  • First story: six Ionic pilasters; emphasis placed on center of façade.
  • Round and triangular pediments; broken pediments; swags and scrollwork.
• Function: Catholic church, originally dedicated to Saint Paul.
• Context
  • Rededicated to the Virgin Mary in gratitude for a military victory in Bohemia in 1620.
  • The Turkish standards captured in the Siege of Vienna in 1683 are on display.
  • Single wide nave
  • One of the side chapels houses Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, with a window added to illuminate the sculptural group.

➼ Saint Charles of the Four Fountains

• Details
  • By Francesco Borromini
  • 1638–1646
  • Made of stone and stucco
  • Found in Rome
• Form: So named because it is on a street intersection in Rome with four fountains.
• Exterior
  • Unusually small site.
  • The building is designed with alternating convex and concave patterns and undulating volumes in both the ground plan and on the façade.
  • The façade higher than the rest of the building.
• Interior
  • The interior side chapels merge into a central space.
  • The interior dome is oval shaped and coffered.
  • The dome has an interconnection of different shapes that fit together seamlessly; they illustrate the Baroque admiration for multiplicity that resolves into a unified space.
  • The walls are treated sculpturally; Baroque drama and complexity.
  • Borromini worked in shades of white, avoided colors used in many other Baroque buildings.
• Function: It was built as part of a complex of monastic buildings for the Spanish Trinitarians, an order of religious dedicated to freeing Christian slaves.
• Context
  • Sculptures of Trinitarian saints are placed on the façade.
  • Medallion on façade once held a fresco of the Trinity.
  • Borromini worked on the building for free, giving him more artistic license.

➼ Versailles

• Details
  • By Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart
  • Begun 1669
  • Made of masonry, stone, wood, iron, and gold leaf; gardens
  • Found in Versailles, France
• Function
  • This is the palace of King Louis XIV and subsequent kings and their courts.
  • The palace expresses the idea of the absolute monarch; the massive scale of the project is indicative of the massive power of the king.
• Form and History
  • Louis XIV reorganized and remodeled an existing hunting lodge into an elaborate palace.
  • The center of the building is Louis XIV’s bedroom, or audience chamber, from which all aspects of the design radiate like rays from the sun (hence Louis’ sobriquet the Sun King).
  • The building is centered in a vast garden and town complex that radiated from it.
  • There is a subdued exterior decoration on the façade; the undulation of projecting members is understated.
• Hall of Mirrors
  • 240 feet long, facing the garden façade.
  • Barrel-vaulted painted ceiling (paintings stress the military victories of Louis XIV; rooms that flank the Hall of Mirrors are thematically related, one of Peace and the other War).
  • Light comes in from one side and ricochets off large panes of glass, the largest that could be made at the time.
  • This is an example of a use of flickering light in an architectural setting.
  • Mirrors were among the most expensive items manufactured in the seventeenth century—the Hall of Mirrors is an extravagant display of wealth.
  • Mirrors were made exclusively in Venice at the time; workers had to be imported from Venice to make the mirrors, which conformed to the dictates that the decorations at Versailles had to be made in France.
  • Hall of Mirrors used for court and state functions: embassies, births, and marriages were celebrated in this room.
  • Subsequent history:
  • Used by Bismarck to declare William I as German emperor after the defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
  • Used reciprocally by the French after the defeat of the Germans in World War I to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
• Gardens
  • Classically and harmoniously arranged.
  • Formal gardens near the palace; more wooded and less elaborate plantings farther from the palace.
  • Baroque characteristics:
  • Large size.
  • Long vistas.
  • Terminal views in fountains and statuary.
  • Geometric plantings show control of nature.
  • A mile-long canal crossed by another canal forms the main axis of the gardens; linked to the rising sun over the palace.
  • Only the fountains near the palace were turned on all the time; others were turned on only when the king progressed through the gardens.
  • Illustrates the belief that humans can organize and control nature to make a more refined experience.

➼ Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

• Details
  • By Gian Lorenzo Bernini
  • 1647–1652
  • Italian Baroque Art
  • Made of marble, stucco and gilt bronze
  • Found in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
• Form
  • Marble is handled in a tactile way to reveal textures: skin is high gloss, feathers of angel are rougher, drapery is animated and fluid, clouds are roughly cut.
  • Figures seem to float in space; the rays of God’s light symbolically illuminate the scene from behind.
  • Natural light is redirected onto the sculpture from a window hidden above the work.
  • The work captures a moment in time—a characteristic of Baroque art.
• Patronage: Stage-like setting with the patrons, members of the Cornaro family, sitting in theater boxes looking on and commenting.
• Function and Context
  • Saint Teresa was canonized in 1622; a new saint at the time.
  • This is a sculptural interpretation of Saint Teresa’s diary writings, in which she tells of her visions of God, many involving an angel descending with an arrow and plunging it into her.
  • Saint Teresa’s pose suggests sexual exhaustion, a feeling that is consistent with her description of spiritual ecstasy in her diary entries.
  • This is a Counter-Reformation work that illustrates the use of images to increase piety and devotion among the Catholic faithful.
  • It is located inside Santa Maria della Vittoria.
  • Cf. Visionary experience depicted in Lintel 25, Yaxchilán.

➼ Calling of Saint Matthew

• Details
  • By Caravaggio
  • 1597–1601
  • Italian Baroque Art
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
• Function and Patronage: One of three paintings illustrating the life of Saint Matthew in a chapel dedicated to him by the Contarelli family.
• Form
  • Diagonal shaft of light points directly to Saint Matthew, who points to himself as if unsure that Christ would select him.
  • Light coming in from two sources on the right creates a tenebroso effect on the figures.
  • Christ’s pose is the inverse of Adam’s on the Sistine Ceiling.
  • Only a slight suggestion of a halo on Christ’s head indicates sanctity of the scene.
  • Foppishly dressed figures wear cutting-edge Baroque fashion.
  • Figures placed on a shallow stage.
  • Sensual figures, everyday people.
  • Naturalist approach to the Baroque.
• Context
  • Matthew was a tax collector; hence he is seated at a table with coins being counted.
  • Story taken from Matthew 9:9: “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”
  • Two figures on the left are so concerned with counting the money they do not even notice Christ’s arrival; symbolically their inattention (and by implication, everyone else’s) to Christ deprives them of the opportunity he offers: eternal life.
  • Jesuit influence on Counter-Reformation Baroque art; the sensual or physical expression of faith as expressed in Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises.

➼ Triumph of the Name of Jesus

• Details
  • By Giovanni Battista Gaulli
  • 1676–1679
  • Italian Baroque Art
  • Made of fresco and stucco
  • Found in Il Gesù, Rome
• Form and Content
  • On the ceiling in the main nave of Il Gesù, Rome
  • In the center is the monogram of Jesus, IHS, in a brilliant sea of golden color.
  • Figures tumble below the name; some are carved in stucco and enhance the three-­dimensional effect.
  • Some cast long shadows across the barrel vault.
  • Some painted figures are not stucco, but maintain a vibrant three-dimensional illusion.
  • It is as if the ceiling were opened to the sky and the figures are spiraling around Jesus’s name.
  • Depicted in the center are holy men and women.
  • Around the rim are priests, soldiers, noblemen, and the Magi.
  • Allegories of avarice, simony, heresy, and vanity occupy the lowest registers.
  • Di sotto in sù: a type of ceiling painting in which the figures seem to be hovering above the viewers, often looking down at us
• Function
  • A Last Judgment scene, placed over the barrel vault of the nave; cf. Last Judgment scenes placed on the walls of chapels.
  • Message to the faithful: the damned are cast into hell; the saved rise heavenward.
• Context
  • Inspired by Saint Paul’s epistle to the Philippians 2:10: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”
  • There is the influence of Bernini’s dramatic emotionalism in the style; Gaulli was Bernini’s pupil.

➼ Las Meninas

• Details
  • By Diego Velázquez
  • 1656
  • Spanish Baroque Art
  • Made of oil in canvas
  • Found in Prado, Madrid
• Content
  • Portrait of the artist in his studio at work; he steps back from his very large canvas and looks at the viewer.
  • Central is the Infanta Margharita of Spain with her meninas (attendants), a dog, a dwarf, and a midget. Behind are two chaperones in half-shadow. In the doorway is perhaps José Nieto, who was head of the queen’s tapestry works (hence his hand on a curtain).
  • The king and queen appear in a mirror. But what is the mirror reflecting?
  • Velázquez’s canvas?
  • The king and queen perhaps standing in the viewer’s space—is this why people have turned around?
  • Or is it reflecting a painting of the king and queen on the far wall of the room?
  • What is the painter painting?
  • The royal family?
  • The Infanta?
  • A painting of this painting?
  • Us?
  • Ultimately, there is no answer, which expresses the Baroque fascination with exploring reality.
• Form
  • Alternating darks and lights draw the viewer deeper into the canvas; the mirror simultaneously reflects out into the viewer’s space.
  • Dappled effect of light on shimmering surfaces.
  • Painterly brushstrokes seen in the sleeves of the Infanta and the hands of the artist.
• Function: Painting originally hung in King Philip IV’s study.
• Context
  • Velázquez wears the cross of the Royal Order of Santiago, which elevated him to knighthood; this work seeks to establish painting as a noble occupation.
  • Paintings on the back wall depict Minerva, goddess of wisdom and patroness of the arts.

➼ Marie de’ Medici Cycle

• Details
  • By Peter Paul Rubens
  • 1621-1625
  • Flemish Baroque Art
  • Made of oil in canvas
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Heroic gestures, demonstrative spiraling figures.
  • Mellow intensity of color, inspired by Titian and Caravaggio.
  • Sumptuous full-fleshed women.
  • Splendid costumes suggest an opulent theatrical production.
  • Allegories assist in telling the story and mix freely with historical people.
• Function and Context
  • 24 huge historical paintings allegorically retelling the life of Marie de’ Medici, queen of France, wife of King Henry IV; the series also contains three portraits.
  • Commissioned by Marie de’ Medici, at the time the widow of Henry IV.
  • The series was placed in Marie de’ Medici’s home in Paris, the Luxembourg Palace.
• Henri IV Receives the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici
  • Henry IV is smitten by the portrait of his intended; the portrait is the center of a swirling composition.
  • The portrait is held by Cupid (the god of love) and Hymen (the god of marriage).
  • Mythological gods Jupiter (symbolized by an eagle) and Juno (symbolized by a peacock) look down from below; they are symbolic of marital harmony. They express their support.
  • Royalty was considered demigods; the approval of mythological gods is in concert with their beliefs about themselves.
  • This represents the tradition of portraits being exchanged before the marriage.
  • They were actually married by proxy in 1600.
  • Behind Henry is the personification of France: –France is a female figure with a masculine helmet and manly legs. –She whispers to Henry to choose love over war.

➼  Self-Portrait with Saskia

• Details
  • By Rembrandt
  • 1636
  • Dutch Baroque Art
  • Made of oil in canvas
  • Found in Art Institute of ­Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Content
  • Rembrandt is seen drawing or perhaps making an etching.
  • Saskia is seated deeper into the work, but is very noticeable because she is portrayed with a lighter touch.
• Function: Not for general sale but for private purposes.
• Context
  • The scene depicts the 30-year-old Rembrandt with his new bride.
  • This is the only image of Rembrandt with his wife together in an etching.
  • Images of Saskia are abundant in Rembrandt’s output; she was a source of inspiration for him.
  • Marital harmony; Saskia as a muse who inspires him.
  • Characteristic of Rembrandt: they are wearing fanciful, not contemporary, dress.
  • Saskia was the mother of four.
  • Rembrandt’s self-portraits included 50 paintings, 32 etchings, and 7 drawings.

➼  Woman Holding a Balance

• Details
  • By Johannes Vermeer
  • c. 1664
  • Dutch Baroque Art
  • Made of oil in canvas
  • Found in National Gallery of Art, Washington
• Form and Content
  • Light enters from the left, illuminating the figures and warmly highlighting textures and surfaces: the woman’s garments, wooden table, marble checkerboard floor, jewelry, the painting, etc.
  • A moment in time: stillness and timelessness.
  • The woman is dressed in fine, fur-trimmed clothing.
  • Geometric lines focus on a central point at the pivot of the balance.
  • The figure seems unaware of the viewer’s presence.
  • Her pensive stillness suggests she may be weighing something more profound than jewelry.
• Context
  • A small number of Vermeer works are in existence.
  • Except for two landscapes, Vermeer’s works portray intimate scenes in the interior of Dutch homes.
  • The viewer looks into a private world in which seemingly small gestures take on a significance greater than what first appears.
  • A family member may have posed for the painting, perhaps Vermeer’s wife, Caterina.
• Theories
  • Is it a genre scene or an allegory? Or both?
  • A moment of weighing and judging.
  • In the background is a painting of the Last Judgment, a time of weighing souls:
  • The woman is at a midpoint between earthly jewels and spiritual goals such as meditation and temperance.
  • The balance (scale) has nothing in it; pearls and coins on the table waiting to be measured; may be symbolic of a balanced state of mind.
  • The balancing reference perhaps relates to the unborn child.
  • This is Catholic subject matter in a Protestant country; Vermeer and his family were Catholic.
  • Vanitas painting: gold should not be a false allure.
  • Vermeer may have used a camera obscura.

➼  Fruit and Insects

• Details
  • By Rachel Ruysch
  • c. 1664
  • Dutch Baroque Art
  • Made of oil in wood
  • Found in Uffizi, Florence
• Form
  • Asymmetrical, artful arrangement.
  • A finely detailed illustration of natural objects in a rural setting.
• Content
  • Not a depiction of actual flowers, but a construct of perfect specimens all in bloom at the same time.
  • The artist probably used illustrations in botany textbooks as a basis for the painting.
  • Wheat and grapes juxtaposed: may have been a reference to the Eucharist.
• Context
  • The artist’s father was a professor of anatomy and botany as well as an amateur painter.
  • The artist produced a number of such still lifes in woodland settings.
  • Parallels Dutch interest in botany, and the growing of flowers for decorative and medicinal purposes.
  • Flowers were symbols of wealth and status.

Chapter 18: Art of New Spain: Spanish Colonies in the Americas

Chapter 18 Flashcards

Key terms

• Biombos: folding freestanding screens
• Casta paintings: paintings from New Spain showing people of mixed races
• Enconchados: shell-inlay paintings; tiny fragments of mother-of-pearl placed onto a wooden support and canvas and covered with a yellowish tint and thin glazes of paint
• Escudo: a framed painting worn below the neck in a colonial Spanish painting
• Mestizo: someone of mixed European and Native American descent
• Viceroy: a person appointed to rule a country as the deputy of the sovereign

➼ Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza

• Details
  • Viceroyalty of New Spain
  • c. 1541–1542
  • Made of ink and color on paper
  • Found in Bodleian Library, Oxford University
• Content
  • The main scene depicts the founding of Tenochtitlán; below is the conquest of Colhuacan and Tenayucan.
  • Aztecs were told to found their city at the spot where an eagle was perched on a cactus growing from a rock—today this is the symbol used on the Mexican flag.
  • An eagle landing on a cactus at the intersection of the two waterways commemorates the division of Tenochtitlán into four quarters.
  • Enemy temples are on fire; Aztec warriors carry clubs and shields.
  • Skulls represent sacrificial victims.
  • There is a small representation of the Templo Mayor above the eagle.
• Function
  • The book was intended as a history of the Aztecs for Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire—although he never received it.
  • Named after Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain.
  • Viceroy: a person appointed to rule a country as the deputy of the sovereign
• Context
  • The book was created 20 years after the Spanish conquest.
  • The book depicts Aztec rulers and daily life in Mexico to a European audience.
  • The book uses glyphs created by Aztec artists that were later annotated in Spanish.

➼ Angel with Arquebus (Asiel Timor Dei)

• Details
  • Master of Calamarca (La Paz School)
  • 17th century
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in National Art Museum, La Paz, Bolivia
• Content
  • Latin inscription: Asiel, fear of God.
  • The angel is depicted with an arquebus (a form of rifle) instead of a traditional sword.
  • An arquebus is a state-of-the-art weapon brought by the Spanish to the New World.
• Form
  • The elongated hat with feathers is a feature of dress of Inkan nobility.
  • Indigenous people favored gold embroidered on fabrics.
  • Military poses are derived from European engravings of military exercises.
  • The drapery is of a seventeenth-century Spanish-American aristocrat; rich costuming.
  • The angel appears in an androgynous stance.
  • Mannerist influence in the stiffness of the figure and dance-like pose.
• Function: Probably one in a series of angel drummers, buglers, standard bearers, and holders of swords.
• Context
  • A relationship is expressed between this kind of image and the winged warriors of pre-Columbian art.
  • The work may have originated in the region around Lake Titicaca, in the Collao region of Peru.
  • The Master of Calamarca may have been José López de los Ríos, a Bolivian painter.
  • The feathered hat may reference Andean royalty.
  • Guns were symbols of power and dominance over native American peoples and their beliefs.
  • The painting is related to Spanish-American writings that allude to angels coming at the Last Judgment well-attired with feathered hats and carrying guns.

➼ Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and a hunting scene

• Details
  • Circle of the González family
  • 1697–1701
  • Made of tempera and resin on wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl
  • Found in Brooklyn Museum, New York
• Form
  • Only known example of an artwork that combines biombos and enconchados.
  • Biombos: folding freestanding screens
  • Enconchados: shell-inlay paintings; tiny fragments of mother-of-pearl placed onto a wooden support and canvas and covered with a yellowish tint and thin glazes of paint
• Function and Patronage
  • The screen was commissioned by José Sarmiento de Valladares, viceroy of New Spain.
  • Displayed in Viceregal Palace in Mexico City.
  • The screen was meant to divide a space into smaller areas; similar to Japanese screens in function.
  • Only half of the screen is illustrated in the official image set; the other half is in Mexico City.
• Context
  • Two faces of the screen: one has a hunting scene, and the other has a war scene (the Siege of Belgrade).
  • The hunting scene is suited to an intimate space for small receptions.
  • The hunting scene is based on tapestry designs for the Medici, a great family of art patrons in Renaissance Italy; the design is derived from prints exported from Europe.
  • The war scene is more suited for a grander room of political importance.
  • The war scene depicts the contemporary event of the Great Turkish War (1683–1699); a Dutch print was used for inspiration.
  • The war scene illustrates a scene of Hapsburg power.
  • Lacquer-style imported works from Japan influenced the decorative floral elements and the landscape motifs.

➼ Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe)

• Details
  • By Miguel González
  • Based on original Virgin of Guadalupe
  • From Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City, 1698
  • Made of oil on canvas on wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl
  • Found in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
• Form
  • The Virgin Mary is surrounded by four roundels that tell the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
  • In the roundels there are depictions of her appearance to Juan Diego, and the moment the Virgin’s image is revealed on his tunic.
• Materials
  • Brocade on Virgin’s robes made of enconchados.
  • Enconchado paintings often include ornate frames inspired by Japanese Nanban lacquer work.
  • Enconchado paintings have a luminous and vibrant color patterning that enhance the other-worldly effect that this object represents.
• Context
  • The painting describes an event in which Mary appeared to Native Americans on a hill called Tepeyac, a shrine sacred to a pre-Columbian goddess.
  • In 1531 Mary ordered a Native American convert, Juan Diego, to tell the local archbishop to build a sanctuary on this site; Mary addressed Juan Diego in Nuhuatl, his native tongue.
  • Mary made the hilltop flower, and Juan Diego brought the flowers to the archbishop; Juan Diego’s cloth revealed the Virgin’s image.
  • The Virgin of Guadalupe is the most revered symbol in Mexico and the patroness of New Spain.
  • In Guadalupe images, Mary always stands on a crescent moon surrounded by sunrays with clouds behind her.
  • An eagle perched on a cactus at bottom center is a symbol of Mexico today.
  • Cf. Revelations 12:1: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.”
  • Image was in demand: many made for export around New Spain.

➼ Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo

• Details
  • Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez
  • c. 1715
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in Breamore House, Hampshire, United Kingdom
• Form
  • A Spanish gentleman married an indigenous woman and produced a mestizo, who is carried on the back of a servant.
  • Many Africans and Indians are rendered with Southern European features: slim noses, curly hair, almond-shaped eyes.
• Function
  • Spanish colonists commissioned these works to be sent abroad to show the caste system of the New World.
  • Not considered art objects but illustrations of ethnic groups.
• Context
  • Panel from the first known series of casta paintings; may not have been a completed set.
  • Casta paintings: paintings from New Spain showing people of mixed races
  • Spanish social hierarchy with the European ancestry at the top; sixteen different gradations on the social scale.
  • Spanish blood linked to civilizing forces; wearing lavish costumes.
  • Africans and Indians are rendered with respect; showing harmony and mixing of the classes.

➼ Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

• Details
  • By Miguel Cabrera
  • 1750
  • Made oil on canvas
  • Found in Museo Nacional de Historia, Castillo de Chapultepec, Mexico
• Function
  • Many portraits survive, but all images derive from a now-lost self-portrait.
  • Painting was done for her admirers 55 years after Sor Juana Inés’s death.
• Content
  • Portrayed seated in her library surrounded by symbols of her faith and her learning.
  • She wears the habit of the religious order of the Hermits of Saint Jerome nuns of Mexico City; the habit includes the escudo—a framed vellum painting.
  • Painting may have been inspired by the image of Saint Jerome seated at a desk.
  • Escudo: a framed painting worn below the neck in a colonial Spanish painting
• Context
  • Sor Juana Inés (Sister Juana Agnes), a child prodigy (1651–1695).
  • She was a criollo woman who became a nun in 1669.
  • A feminist culture survived in Mexican convents, where privileged nuns could live in comfort with servants and households.
  • Sor Juana was a literary figure who wrote books that were widely read; she also wrote poetry and theatrical pieces, and maintained a great library.
  • Sor Juana was instrumental in giving girls an education in a male-­dominated world.

Chapter 19: Rococo and Neoclassicism

Chapter 19 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Academy: an institution whose main objectives include training artists in an academic tradition, ennobling the profession, and holding exhibitions
• Exemplum virtutis: a painting that tells a moral tale for the viewer
• Fête galante: an eighteenth-century French style of painting that depicts the aristocracy walking through a forested landscape
• Grand Tour: in order to complete their education young Englishmen and Americans in the eighteenth century undertook a journey to Italy to absorb ancient and Renaissance sites
• Pastel: a colored chalk that when mixed with other ingredients produces a medium that has a soft and delicate hue
• Salon: a government-sponsored exhibition of artworks held in Paris in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

➼ The Swing

• Details
  • By Jean-Honoré Fragonard
  • 1767
  • Made of oil on canva
  • Found in  Wallace Collection, London
• Form
  • Pastel palette; light brushwork.
  • Figures are small in a dominant garden-like setting.
  • Use of atmospheric perspective.
  • Puffy clouds; rich vegetation; abundant flowers; sinuous curves.
  • Symbolically a dreamlike setting.
• Patronage and Content
  • Commissioned by an unnamed “gentleman of the Court:” a painting of his young mistress on a swing; in an early version, a bishop is pushing the swing with the gentleman admiring his mistress’s legs from below.
  • In the finished painting, the older man is no longer a priest, a barking dog has been added, and Falconet’s sculpture of Menacing Love comments on the story.
  • The patron in the lower left looks up the skirt of a young lady who swings flirtatiously, boldly kicking off her shoe at a sculpture.
  • The dog in the lower right corner, generally seen as a symbol of fidelity, barks in disapproval at the scene before him.
• Context
  • Fragonard answers the libertine intentions of his patron by painting in the Rococo style.
  • Fragonard often used different styles at the same time, and he seems to have seen the Rococo as particularly appropriate for an erotic scene.
  • An intrigue painting; the patron hides in a bower; the garden sculpture of Menacing Love asks the lady to be discreet and may be a symbol for the secret hiding of the patron.

➼ Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun Self-Portrait

• Details
  • 1790
  • Made of oil on canva
  • Found in Uffizi, Florence
• Form
  • Light Rococo touch in the coloring.
  • Inspired by the portraits of Rubens.
• Context
  • Forty self-portraits exist, all highly idealized.
  • The artist was 45 when this was painted, but she appears much younger.
  • Painted in Rome during the French Revolution when the artist was exiled for political reasons.
  • The artist was granted admission to the male-dominated French Royal Academy through the influence of Marie Antoinette.
  • The artist looks at the viewer as she paints a portrait of the French queen Marie Antoinette, who is rendered from memory since she was killed during the French Revolution.
  • Subject in the painting looks admiringly upon the painter.

➼ The Tête à Tête from Marriage à la Mode

• Details
  • By William Hogarth
  • c. 1743
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in National Gallery, London
• Marriage à la Mode
  • Richly decorated rooms painted in brilliant color.
  • Myriad of details; each detail adds to the symbolism in the work.
  • Elements of French Rococo style used to indict those who are flattered in French art.
• Function
  • Highly satiric paintings about a decadent English aristocracy and those who would have liked to buy their way into it.
  • A series of six narrative paintings; later turned into a series of prints.
• Context: Second of six scenes in a suite of paintings called Marriage à la Mode.
• The Tête-à-Tête
  • Shortly after the marriage each partner has been pursing pleasures without the other.
  • The husband has been out all night with another woman (the dog sniffs suspiciously at another bonnet); the broken sword means he has been in a fight and probably lost (and may also be a symbol for sexual inadequacy).
  • The wife has been playing cards all night, the steward indicating by his expression that she has lost a fortune at a card game called whist; he holds nine unpaid bills in his hand (one was paid by mistake, further illustrating their carelessness).
  • The painting over the mantlepiece is a symbolic depiction of Cupid among the ruins.
  • A turned-over chair indicates that the violin player made a hasty retreat when the husband came home.

➼ A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery

• Details
  • By Joseph Wright of Derby
  • 1763–1765
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby, U.K.
• Form
  • One of a series of candlelight pictures by Wright; inspired by Caravaggio’s use of tenebrism.
  • Clearly drawn and sharply delineated portraits of individuals.
• Content
  • An orrery is an early form of a planetarium, imitating the motion of the solar system.
  • The lamp in the center represents the sun; it is blocked by the silhouette of a figure.
  • All ages of man are represented by the mixed group of middle-class people in attendance.
  • Some curious, some contemplative, some in wonder, some fascinated.
  • The philosopher is based loosely on a portrait of Isaac Newton; he is demonstrating an eclipse.
  • The philosopher stops to clarify a point for the note-taker on the left.
• Context
  • Influenced by a provincial group of intellectuals called the Lunar Society, who met once a month to discuss current scientific discoveries and developments.
  • To complete the celestial theme, each face in the painting is an aspect of the phases of the moon.
  • Illustrates the eighteenth-century period called the Enlightenment and the democratization of knowledge.

➼ Monticello

• Details
  • By Thomas Jefferson
  • 1768–1809
  • Made of brick, glass, stone, and wood
  • Found in Charlottesville, Virginia
• Form
  • Monticello is a brick building with stucco applied to the trim to give the effect of marble.
  • It appears to be a one-story building with a dome, but the balustrade hides a modest second floor.
  • The octagonal dome functions as an office or retreat.
  • The rooms generally have a symmetrical design.
  • Tall French doors and windows allow air circulation in hot Virginia summers.
  • Jefferson was concerned with saving space: very narrow spiral staircases; beds in alcoves or in walls between rooms.
• Function: Chief building on Jefferson’s plantation, supported by slave labor.
• Context
  • Monticello is “little mountain” in Italian, sited on a hilltop in Virginia.
  • Inspired by books by the Italian Renaissance architect Palladio and by Roman ruins Jefferson saw in France.
  • The design is also impacted by eighteenth-century French buildings in Paris.
  • Illustrates the Roman Republican goals of equality and democracy expressed in this adaptation of Roman architectural themes.

➼ The Oath of the Horatii

• Details
  • By Jacques-Louis David
  • 1784
  • Made of oil on canvas
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Male forms are vigorous, powerful, animated, emphatic, angular; symbolically they are figures of action.
  • Female forms are soft and rounded, displaying “feminine” emotion; symbolically they are figures of inaction or reaction.
  • Gestures are sweeping and unified.
  • Figures are pushed to the foreground.
  • Neoclassical drapery and tripartite composition.
  • Not neoclassical in its Caravaggio-like lighting and un-Roman architectural capitals.
• Patronage
  • Painted under royal patronage, Louis XVI.
  • The artist presented the finished canvas in his studio in Rome in 1785 and at the Paris Salon later that year—on both occasions to acclaim.
• Content
  • Story of three Roman brothers (the Horatii) who do battle with three other brothers (the Curiatii—not painted) from the nearby city of Alba; they pledge their fidelity to their father and to Rome.
  • One of the three women on right is a Horatii engaged to one of the Curiatii brothers; another woman is the sister of the Curiatii brothers and wife of the eldest Horatii.
• Context
  • Exemplum virtutis.
  • David presents this episode as an example of patriotism and stoicism, which should override family relationships.
  • Influenced by Enlightenment philosophers, such as Diderot, who advocated the painting of moral subjects.
  • Emulated Grand Style of French painting of the seventeenth century.

➼ George Washington

• Details
  • By Jean-Antoine Houdon
  • 1788–1792
  • Made of marble
  • Found in State Capitol, Richmond, Virginia
• Form and Content
  • Washington is dressed as an eighteenth-century gentleman with a Revolutionary War uniform.
  • Military associations minimized: he wears only epaulettes on his shoulders; the sword is cast to the side.
  • Naturalistic details: the missing button on his jacket and the tightly buttoned vest around a protruding stomach.
  • Seen as a man of vision and enlightenment.
  • Stance inspired by Polykleitos’s Doryphoros linking Washington’s actions with the greatness of the past.
• Materials
  • Marble, appreciated for its durability and luster, was used to associate the figure of Washington with the great sculptures of the Renaissance and the ancient world.
• Function and Patronage
  • Commissioned by the Virginia legislature to stand at the center of the state capitol in Richmond, which was designed by Jefferson.
  • Meant to commemorate the central position of Washington in the founding of American independence.
  • Installed in 1796, the year Washington published his farewell address.
• Symbolism
  • The badge of Cincinnatus is on his belt: Washington was a gentleman-farmer who left Mount Vernon to take up the American cause much as Cincinnatus from the Roman Republic left his farm to command Roman armies and then returned to the farm.
  • Washington leans on the Roman fasces: a group of rods bound together on the top and the bottom; the 13 rods symbolize the 13 colonies united in a cause.
  • Washington leans on the 13 colonies, from which he gets his support.
  • Arrows between the rods likely refer to Native Americans or the idea of America as wild frontier.
  • Plow behind Washington symbolizes his plantation as well as the planting of a new world order.

Chapter 20: Romanticism

Chapter 20 Flashcards

Key terms

• Calotype: a type of early photograph, developed by William H. F. Talbot that is characterized by its grainy quality.
• Camera obscura: (Latin, meaning “dark room”) a box with a lens which captures light and casts an image on the opposite side
• Caprice: usually a work of art that is an architectural fantasy; more broadly any work that has a fantasy element
• Daguerreotype: a type of early photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre that is characterized by a shiny surface, meticulous finish, and clarity of detail.
• Drypoint: an engraving technique in which a steel needle is used to incise lines in a metal plate.
• Odalisque: a woman slave in a harem
• Photogram: an image made by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light to produce a silhouette
• School: a group of artists who share the same philosophy, work around the same time, but not necessarily together
• The sublime: any cathartic experience from the catastrophic to the intellectual that causes the viewer to marvel in awe, wonder, and passion

➼ Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament)

• Details
  • By Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin
  • 1840–1870
  • Made of limestone, masonry, and glass
  • Found in London
• Function
  • The building holds the two chambers of the United Kingdom’s government:
  • the House of Commons and the House of Lords
  • Today, the House of Lords is largely a ceremonial body.
• Form
  • Enormous structure of 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases, 2 miles of corridors.
  • It is a modern office building cloaked in medieval clothes.
  • Barry, a classical architect, accounts for the regularity of plan.
  • Pugin, a Gothic architect, added Gothic architectural touches to the structure.
  • The profusion of Gothic ornament (pinnacles, spires, vertical thrust) is greater than would appear in an original Gothic building.
  • Modern adaptation of a Gothic building includes innovations like air ventilation shafts.
• Context
  • Competition held in 1835 for a new Houses of Parliament after the old one burned down in 1834.
  • There were 97 entrants: 91 in the Perpendicular Gothic style and 6 in the Elizabethan style; these styles were thought to be native English styles suitable for a new capitol building.
  • Big Ben is a clock tower; in a sense a village clock for all of England.
  • The building is a reaction against art as a mass-produced product of the Industrial Revolution; it has a hand-crafted look.

➼ And There’s Nothing to Be Done (Y no hai remedio)

• Details
  • By Francisco De Goya
  • from The Disasters of War (Les Desastres de la Guerra), Plate 15
  • 1810–1823 (published 1863)
  • Made from etching, drypoint, burin, and burnishing
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Context
  • Original title: “Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War with Bonaparte and Other Emphatic Caprices.”
  • Caprice: usually a work of art that is an architectural fantasy; more broadly any work that has a fantasy element
  • Drypoint: an engraving technique in which a steel needle is used to incise lines in a metal plate. The rough burr at the sides of the incised lines yields a velvety black tone in the print
  • Artwork was critical of the French occupation of Spain and the subsequent Spanish rulers.
  • Influenced by Spain’s continuous warfare.
  • Eighty etchings and aquatints.
  • Published in 1863, 35 years after the artist’s death.
  • Explores themes of war, famine, and politics.
• Technique
  • Goya used a combination of etching and drypoint.
  • Etching gives the work fine details.
  • Drypoint is added to the metal etched plate.
  • The rough burr at the sides of the incised lines yield a velvety black tone in the print.
  • The effect is a very rich black and white surface.
• And There’s Nothing to Be Done
  • Bitterly ironic and sardonic.
  • Guns at very close-range point toward the victims, assumedly Spanish patriots, who will be summarily killed by French soldiers.
  • The mangled body on the ground accentuates the sense of despair.
  • Are civilians or soldiers being shot? Ambiguity intentional.
  • Central figure is seen in a Christ-like pose.
  • Compositional elements reference Goya’s painting called The Third of May 1808.

➼ La Grande Odalisque

• Details
  • By Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
  • 1814
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
  • Odalisque: a woman slave in a harem
• Form
  • Inconsistent arrangement of limbs: rubbery arm, elongated back, odd placement of leg, one arm longer than other.
  • Mannerist-like elegant distrortions.
  • Raphael-like face.
  • Not a traditional frontal nude.
• Patronage and Reception
  • Commissioned by Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s sister, Queen of Naples.
  • Exhibited at the Salon of 1819; the critics did not understand Ingres’s style; he was criticized for his disregard for anatomical reality, a trait that set him apart from his teacher, Jacques-Louis David.
• Context
  • Turkish elements: incense burner, peacock fan, tapestry-like turban, hashish pipe; expresses an exoticism; Orientalism was a form of exoticism.
  • Heavily influenced by Italian Mannerism in the figure style; perhaps the decorative motifs were influenced by Persian illuminated manuscripts.

➼ Liberty Leading the People

• Details
  • By Eugène Delacroix
  • 1830
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Louvre, Paris
• Form
  • Strong pyramidical structure.
  • Red/white/blue (colors of the French flag) echo throughout the painting.
• Content
  • Liberty, with breast exposed and wearing no shoes, charges symbolically over the ­barricades.
  • Liberty wears a red Phrygian cap, worn in the ancient world by freed slaves; portrayed as rebellious, vibrant, and fiery; she references the French Revolution of 1789.
  • Notre Dame Cathedral is seen through the smoke on the far right; the French tricolor is raised on its tower.
  • The Parisian landmark of Notre Dame is mixed in with the true historical event and the allegorical and symbolic figures.
• Context
  • The painting symbolically depicts the July Revolution of 1830;
  • Liberty with the French tricolor in her hand marches over the barricades to overthrow government soldiers.
  • The painting memorializes the overthrow of the French government of Charles X, the last Bourbon king of France, in favor of the “citizen king” Louis-Philippe.
  • The child with pistols symbolizes the role of students in the revolt;
  • the middle class is represented by a man with a top hat and carrying a rifle;
  • the lower classes are symbolized by the man at extreme left with a sword in his hand and a pistol in his belt.
• History
  • Exhibited at the Salon of 1831 and then acquired by the French state
  • Not exhibited publicly for twenty-five years because of its subversive message.

➼ Slave Ship

• Details
  • By Joseph Mallord William Turner
  • Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On
  • 1840
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Form
  • Color expresses emotions.
  • Rapid brushwork.
  • Recognizable forms—the ship, the hands, the chains—are reduced in size and pale in comparison with the mightiness of the turbulent seascape.
  • The bloody sunset acts as a symbol of the scene taking place.
  • Use of the sublime enhances dramatic impact.
• Context
  • Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, with an excerpt from Turner’s own poem called “The Fallacies of Hope:”
  • “Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay; \n Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds Declare the Typhon’s coming. \n Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard \n The dead and dying—ne’er heed their chains \n Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope! \n Where is thy market now?”
  • Based on a true story, an event in 1781 in which a slave ship, the Zong, sailed for the Americas full of slaves.
  • The slaves were insured against accidental drowning, but not insured against sickness; a policy instituted to force captains to treat slaves humanely.
  • Knowing that he would not collect insurance money on sick and dying slaves, the captain cast them overboard.
  • Turner’s painting was inspired by an account of the scandal published in a book by Thomas Clarkson, which had been reprinted in 1839.
  • England freed the slaves in 1833 by an act of Parliament, however, there were exceptions, which were not addressed until 1843.
  • Nature responds to the inhumanity of the slave trade.

➼ The Oxbow

• Details
  • By Thomas Cole
  • The View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm
  • 1836
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Form
  • Actual view in Massachusetts.
  • Landscape divided into two clearly contrasting areas: the Romantic landscape on the left and the Classical landscape on the right.
  • On the right, man’s touch is light: cultivated fields, boats drifting down the river.
• Function
  • Painted as reply to a British book that alleged that Americans had destroyed a wilderness with industry.
  • Painted for an exhibit at the National Academy of Design; hence the unusually large size.
• Context
  • Illustrates the nineteenth-century American belief in Manifest Destiny.
  • Cole is the founder of the Hudson River School.
  • Cole’s self-portrait can be seen in the foreground in a dense forest.
  • The wild landscape includes broken trees and a storm: the sublime.
  • Cole at the center of the composition, between the two worlds expressed in the painting; challenges Americans to be good stewards of the land.

➼ Still Life in Studio

• Details
  • By Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre
  • 1837
  • Daguerreotype
  • French Photographic Society, Paris
• Form
  • Photograph reproduces a variety of textures: fabric, wicker, plaster, framed print, etc.
  • Inspired by painted still lifes, such as vanitas paintings.
• Context
  • New art form proclaimed while referencing older art forms.
  • Daguerreotypes have a shiny surface and a sharp eye for detail.
  • No negative; therefore, copies could not be made.
  • Long exposure times required.
  • Produced on a metallic surface; photos have a glossy finish.

Chapter 21: Late-Nineteenth-Century Art

Chapter 21 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Aquatint: a kind of print that achieves a watercolor effect by using acids that dissolve onto a copper plate
• Avant-garde: an innovative group of artists who generally reject traditional approaches in favor of a more experimental technique
• Caricature: a drawing that uses distortion or exaggeration of someone’s physical features or apparel in order to make that person look foolish
• Japonisme: an attraction for Japanese art and artifacts that were imported into Europe in the late nineteenth century
• Lithography: a printmaking technique that uses a flat stone surface as a base. The artist draws an image with a special crayon that attracts ink. Paper, which absorbs the ink, is applied to the surface and a print emerges
• Modernism: a movement begun in the late nineteenth century in which artists embraced the current at the expense of the traditional in both subject matter and in media. Modernist artists often seek to question the very nature of art itself
• Plein-air: painting in the outdoors to directly capture the effects of light and atmosphere on a given object
• Positivism: a theory that expresses that all knowledge must come from proven ideas based on science or scientific theory; a philosophy promoted by French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
• Skeleton: the supporting interior framework of a building
• Zoopraxiscope: a device that projects sequences of photographs to give the illusion of movement

➼ The Stone Breakers

• Details
  • By Gustave Courbet
  • 1849
  • Oil on canvas
  • Formerly in Gemäldgalerie, Dresden, destroyed in 1945
• Content
  • Peasants are breaking stones down to rubble to be used for paving.
  • Poverty emphasized.
  • The figures are born poor, will remain poor their whole lives.
  • No idealization of peasant life or of the working poor.
• Form
  • Large massive figures dominate the composition; a style usually reserved for mythic figures in painting.
  • Thick heavy paint application.
  • Browns and ochres are dominant hues reflecting the drudgery of peasant life.
  • Concentration on the main figures; little in the foreground or background to detract from them.
• Function
  • Submitted to the Salon of 1850–1851.
  • Large size of painting usually reserved for grand historical paintings; this work elevates the commonplace into the realm of legend and history.
• Context
  • Reaction to labor unrest of 1848, which demanded better working conditions.
  • Reflects a greater understanding of those who spend their entire lives in misery; cf. Dickens’s novels.

➼ Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art

• Details
  • By Honoré Daumier
  • 1862
  • A lithograph
  • Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
• Content
  • Nadar often took his balloon over Paris to photograph scenes from above.
  • Daumier was a satiric artist who portrayed political and social events with a critical eye.
• Function: Originally appeared in a journal, Le Boulevard, as a mass-produced lithograph.
• Context
  • The print satirizes the claims that photography can be a “high art;” irony implied in title.
  • Nadar was famous for taking aerial photos of Paris beginning in 1858.
  • The work was executed after a court decision in 1862 that determined that photographs could be considered works of art; this is Daumier’s commentary.
  • Presents Nadar as a silly photographer; in his excitement to get a daring shot he almost falls out of his balloon and loses his hat.
  • Photography used as a military tool: Nadar’s balloon reused in the 1870 siege of Paris.
  • Every building has the word “Photographie” on it; foreshadows modern ­surveillance photographs, drones with cameras, Google Earth.

➼ Olympia

• Details
  • By Édouard Manet
  • 1863
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Form and Content
  • Olympia’s frank, direct, uncaring, and unnerving look startled viewers.
  • The figure is cold and uninviting; no mystery, no joy.
  • No idealization of the female nude.
  • The maid delivers flowers from an admirer; a cat responds to our entry into the room.
  • Simplified modeling; active brushwork.
  • Stark contrast of colors.
• Reception: Exhibited at the Salon of 1865; created a scandal.
• Context
  • Olympia was a common prostitute name of the time.
  • A mistress was common to upper-class Parisian men, often sympathetically portrayed in contemporary literature, but never so brazenly depicted as in this painting.
  • The painting is inspired by Titian’s Venus of Urbino and seen as a modern commentary on the classical feminine nude.
  • This painting is a reaction to academic art that was based on Renaissance and classical ideals.
  • Images of prostitutes and black women are not new with this painting, but Manet creates a dialogue between the nude prostitute and the clothed black servant, named Laure, which brings up issues of sexuality, racism, and stereotypes.

➼ The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel

• Details
  • By Jose María Velasco
  • El Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel
  • 1882
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in National Art Museum, Mexico City
• Form
  • Dramatic perspective; small human figures.
  • The painting depicts Tepeyac and offers a sweeping view of the Valley of Mexico, the basilica of the Lady of Guadalupe, as well as Mexico City and two volcanoes in the distance.
  • The work glorifies the Mexican countryside as well as emerging industrialism with the depiction of the train.
  • The artist as a keen observer of nature: rocks, foliage, clouds, waterfalls.
• Context
  • The artist was primarily an academic landscape painter.
  • Velasco specialized in broad panoramas of the Valley of Mexico.
  • He rejected the realist landscapes of Courbet; he preferred the romantic landscapes of Turner.
  • The artist settled in Villa Guadalupe with an overview of the Valley of Mexico.

➼ The Horse in Motion

• Details
  • By Eadweard Muybridge
  • 1878
  • Albumen Print
• Patronage
  • Hired by Leland Stanford (the founder of Stanford University) to settle a bet to see if a horse’s four hooves could be off the ground at the same time during a natural gallop.
• Technique
  • The photographer used a device called a zoopraxiscope to settle the bet.
  • Cameras snap photos at evenly spaced points along a track, giving the effect of things happening in sequence.
  • For the time, it was very fast shutter speeds, nearly 1/2000th of a second.
  • Photography now advanced enough that it can capture moments the human eye cannot.
  • These motion studies bridge the gap between still photography and motion pictures.
• Content
  • One photograph with sixteen separate images of a horse galloping.
  • Images could be played in sequence to simulate motion pictures.

➼ The Saint-Lazare Station

• Details
  • By Claude Monet
  • 1877
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Form
  • Effects of steam, light, and color; not really about the machines or travelers.
  • Subtle gradations of light on the surface.
  • Forms dissolve and dematerialize; color overwhelms the forms.
  • Figures are painted in a sketchy way with brief brushstrokes.
• Content
  • The painting depicts the interior of a train station in Paris; a modern marvel of engineering.
  • Trains were propelled by steam; accent on the energy of the steam rather than the train that produces it.
• History: Exhibited at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877.
• Context
  • One of a series depicting this train station.
  • Monet is famous for painting a series of paintings on the same subject at different times of day and days of the year.
  • Originally meant to be hung together for effect: Haystacks were his first group to hang this way.
  • Shows modern life in Paris with great industrial iron output.
  • New view of a modern city that reflects Haussmann’s redesign of Paris.

➼ The Coiffure

• Details
  • By Mary Cassatt
  • 1890–1891
  • Drypoint and aquatint
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Form
  • Aquatint: a kind of print that achieves a watercolor effect by using acids that dissolve onto a copper plate
  • Drypoint: an engraving technique in which a steel needle is used to incise lines in a metal plate. The rough burr at the sides of the incised lines yields a velvety black tone in the print
  • No posing or acting; the figures possess a natural charm.
  • Cassatt’s work possesses a tenderness foreign to other Impressionists.
  • The figures are from everyday life.
  • Pastel color scheme.
  • The work contains contrasting sensuous curves of the female figure with straight lines of the furniture and wall.
  • Japanese influence:
  • Decorative charm.
  • Japanese hair style.
  • Japanese point of view: figure seen from the back.
  • Graceful lines of the neck.
• Function: Part of a series of ten prints exhibited together at a Paris gallery in 1891.
• Technique
  • Drypoint and aquatint.
  • Drypoint yields soft dense lines.
  • Aquatint is generally used with engravings like drypoint; it also yields flat colored areas on a print.
• Context: Cassatt’s world is filled with women; women as independent and not needing men to complete

➼ Starry Night

• Details
  • By Vincent van Gogh
  • 1889
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Form
  • Thick, short brushstrokes.
  • Heavy application of paint called impasto.
  • Parts of the canvas can be seen through the brushwork; artist need not fill in every part of the surface.
  • Strong left-to-right wave-like impulse in the work broken only by the tree and the church steeple.
  • The tree looks like green flames reaching into a sky that is exploding with stars over a placid village.
• Context
  • The mountains in the distance are the ones that Van Gogh could see from his hospital room in Saint-Rémy; steepness exaggerated.
  • Combination of images: Dutch church, crescent moon, Mediterranean cypress tree.
  • Cypresses were often associated with cemeteries.
  • Landscape painting was popular in the late nineteenth century as a reaction to the industrialization of cities.

➼ Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

• Details
  • By Paul Gauguin
  • 1897–1898
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Content
  • The story of life, read right to left.
  • Right: birth, infant, and three adults—the beginning of life.
  • Center: mid life; picking of the fruit of the world.
  • Left: death (a figure derived from a Peruvian mummy exhibited in Paris, cf. The Scream); the old woman seems resigned.
  • The blue idol with arms half-raised represents “The Beyond.”
  • The figures in foreground represent Tahiti and an Eden-like paradise; background figures are anguished, darkened figures.
• Context
  • Title of the painting poses more questions than it answers.
  • Gauguin thought the painting was a summation of his artistic and personal expression.
  • Painted during his second stay in Tahiti between 1895–1901.
  • Gauguin suffered from poor health and poverty, obsessed by thoughts of death.
  • He learned of the death of his daughter, Aline, in April 1897 and was deeply shaken; he was determined to commit suicide and have this painting be his artistic last will and testament.
• Influences
  • Many nontraditional influences:
  • Egyptian figures used for inspiration.
  • Japanese prints in the solid fields of color and unusual angles.
  • Tahitian imagery in the Polynesian idol.
  • A rejection of Greco-Roman influence.

➼ Mont Saint-Victoire

• Details
  • By Paul Gauguin
  • 1902–1904
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
• Form
  • Used perspective through juxtaposing forward warm colors with receding cool colors.
  • Cézanne had contempt for flat painting; wanted rounded and firm objects, but ones that were geometric constructions made from splashes of undiluted color.
  • Not a momentary glimpse of atmosphere, as in the Impressionists, but a solid and firmly constructed mountain and foreground.
  • The landscape is seen from an elevation.
  • Cézanne’s landscapes rarely contain humans.
  • Three horizontal sections divide the painting, connected by a complex series of diagonals that bring your eye back.
  • The viewer is invited to look at space, but not enter.
  • Cézanne allows blank parts of the canvas to shine through.
  • Broad brushstrokes dominate the painted surface.
• Context
  • One of 11 canvases of this view painted near his studio in Aix in the south of France; the series dominates Cézanne’s mature period.
  • Not the countryside of Impressionism; more interested in geometric forms rather than dappled effects of light.

➼ The Scream

• Details
  • By Edvard Munch
  • 1893
  • Tempera and pastels on cardboard
  • Found in National Gallery, Oslo
• Form and Content
  • The figure walks along a wharf; boats are at sea in the distance.
  • Long, thick brushstrokes swirl around the composition.
  • The figure cries out in a horrifying scream; the landscape echoes his ­emotions.
  • Discordant colors symbolize anguish.
  • Emaciated, twisting stick figure with skull-like head.
• Function: Painted as part of a series called The Frieze of Life; a semi autobiographical succession of paintings.
• Context
  • Said to have been inspired by an exhibit of a Peruvian mummy in Paris.
  • The work prefigures Expressionist art.
  • The work is influenced by Art Nouveau swirling patterns.

➼ The Kiss

• Details
  • By Gustav Klimt
  • 1907–1908
  • Oil and gold leaf on canvas
  • Found in Austrian Gallery, Vienna
• Form
  • Little of the human form is actually seen: two heads four hands, two feet.
  • The bodies are suggested under a sea of richly designed patterning.
  • The work is spaced in an indeterminate location against a flattened background.
• Context
  • The male figure is composed of large rectangular boxes; the female figure is composed of circular forms.
  • The work suggests all-consuming love; passion; eroticism.
  • The use of gold leaf is reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics
  • The work is influenced by gold applied to medieval illuminated manuscripts.
  • Part of a movement called the Vienna Succession, which broke away from academic training in schools at that time..

➼ Louis Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building

• Details
  • 1899–1903
  • Iron, steel, glass, and terra cotta
  • Found in Chicago
• Form
  • Horizontal emphasis on the exterior mirrors the continuous flow of floor space on the interior.
  • The exterior is covered in decorative terra cotta tiles; original interior ornamentation elaborately arranged around lobby areas, hallways, elevator; interior ornamentation now lost.
  • The architect designed maximum window areas to admit light, but also to make displays visible from the street.
  • Nonsupportive role of exterior walls; held up by an interior framework.
  • Open ground plan allows for free movement of customers and goods.
• Function: A department store on a fashionable street in Chicago.
• Context
  • Some historical touches exist in the round entrance arches and the heavy ­cornice at the top of the building.
  • Cast iron decorative elements transformed the store into a beautiful place to buy beautiful things.
  • Shows the influence of Art Nouveau in decorative ironwork on the entrance.
  • Sullivan motto: “Form follows function.”

➼ The Burghers of Calais

• Details
  • By Auguste Rodin
  • 1884–1895
  • Made of bronze
  • Found in Calais, France
• Function and Reception
  • Commissioned by the town of Calais in 1885 to commemorate six burghers who offered their lives to the English king in return for saving their besieged city during the Hundred Years’ War in 1347.
  • Town council of Calais said it was inglorious; they wanted a single allegorical figure.
  • In 1895, more than 10 years after Rodin presented the first maquette, it was installed at the entrance of the Jardin du Front Sud, on a pedestal designed by the city architect Decroix, with an octagonal iron gate around it.
  • Rodin resented this installation and wanted the work mounted on a very low, “but impressive,” base on the Place d’Armes in the center of Calais.
  • Meant to be placed on the ground so that people could see it close up. Context
  • Rodin’s direct literary source is Jean Froissart (ca. 1333–1410) who described how King Edward of England demanded the six citizens to appear before him bareheaded, only dressed with a sackcloth, with a rope around their necks and the keys to the town in their hands. He wanted them to sacrifice their lives for their town.
  • The English king was impressed by the self-sacrifice and allowed the citizens to live.
  • Parallels between Paris besieged during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and Calais besieged by the English in 1347.
• Context
  • Rodin's inspiration for his sculpture "The Burghers of Calais" comes from Jean Froissart's account of King Edward of England demanding six citizens to appear before him bareheaded, dressed only in sackcloth with a rope around their necks and the keys to the town in their hands.
  • The king wanted them to sacrifice their lives for their town.
  • The English king was impressed by the self-sacrifice and allowed the citizens to live.
  • Parallels between Paris besieged during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and Calais besieged by the English in 1347.
• Form
  • Figures sculpted individually and then arranged as the artist thought best.
  • Rodin concentrates on the figures’ misery, doubt, and internal conflict.
  • Each has a different emotion: some fearful, or resigned, or forlorn.
  • Figures suffer from privation; they are weak and emaciated.
  • The men are placed on an equal level, symbolizing their uniform sacrifice.
  • The central figure is Eustache de Saint-Pierre, who has large, swollen hands and a noose around his neck, ready for his execution.
  • Details are reduced to emphasize an overall impression.

Chapter 22: Early- and Mid-Twentieth-Century Art

Chapter 22 Flashcards

Key Terms

• Abstract: works of art that may have form, but have little or no attempt at pictorial representation
• Action painting: an abstract painting in which the artist drips or splatters paint onto a surface like a canvas in order to create the work
• Assemblage: a three-dimensional work made of various materials such as wood, cloth, paper, and miscellaneous objects
• Biomorphism: a movement stressing organic shapes that hint at natural forms
• Cantilever: a projecting beam that is attached to a building at one end, but suspended in the air at the other
• Collage: a composition made by pasting together different items onto a flat surface
• Color field painting: a style of abstract painting characterized by simple shapes and monochromatic color
• Documentary photography: a type of photography that seeks social and political redress for current issues by using photographs as a way of exposing society’s faults
• Earthwork: a large outdoor work in which the earth itself is the medium
• Ferroconcrete: steel reinforced concrete; the two materials act together to resist building stresses
• Happening: an act of performance art that is intially planned but involves spontaneity, improvisation, and often audience participation
• Harlem Renaissance: a particularly rich artistic period in the 1920s and 1930s that is named after the African-American neighborhood in New York City where it emerged.
• Installation: a temporary work of art made up of assemblages created for a particular space, like an art gallery or a museum
• Mobile: a sculpture made of several different items that dangle from a ceiling and can be set into motion by air currents
• Neoplasticism: a term coined by Piet Mondrian to describe works of art that contain only primary and neutral colors and only straight, vertical, or horizontal lines intersecting at right angles
• Photomontage: The technique of creating an image by combining photographs, sometimes with other materials, to form a unified image
• Ready-made: a commonplace or found object selected and exhibited as a work of art
• Silkscreen: a printing technique that passes ink or paint through a stenciled image to make multiple copies
• Venice Biennale: a major show of contemporary art that takes place every other year in various venues throughout the city of Venice; begun in 1895

➼  Goldfish

• Details
  • By Henri Matisse
  • 1912
  • Oil on canvas
  • Formerly in Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow, Russia
• Form
  • Strong contrasts of color.
  • Thinly applied colors; the white of the canvas shows through.
  • Energetic, painterly brushwork.
  • Broad patches of color anticipate color-field painting later in the century.
• Content
  • Still-life painting.
  • Compare to Ruysch, Fruits and Insects, and Daguerre, Still Life in Studio.
• Context
  • May have been in response to a trip in Morocco, where Matisse noted how the local population would daydream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls. Form, color, and subject matter were inspired by this trip.
  • Admired the relaxed and contemplative lifestyle of the Moroccans, which symbolized a meditative state of mind and a sense of paradise lost to Europeans.
  • May have been influenced by the decorative quality of Asian art and diverse cultures from North Africa.

➼  Improvisation 28 (2nd Version)

• Details
  • By Vassily Kandinsky
  • 1912
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Form
  • Strongly articulated use of black lines.
  • Colors seem to shade around line forms.
• Content
  • Using schematic means, Kandinsky depicts cataclysmic events on the left (boat and waves—a deluge, a serpent, a cannon) and a sense of spiritual salvation on the right (a couple embrace, a candle, a church on a hill).
• Context
  • Kandinsky wanted the viewer to respond to a painting the way one would to an abstract musical composition: a concerto, a sonata, a symphony.
  • The artist felt that sound and color were linked; for example, it was possible to hear color.
  • He used words such as “composition” and “improvisation” in the titles of his works, words associated with musical composition.
  • Kandinsky’s works have a relationship to atonal music, which was evolving at this time.
  • Movement toward abstraction; representational objects suggested rather than depicted.

➼  Self-Portrait as a Soldier

• Details
  • By Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
  • 1915
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio
• Form
  • Nightmarish quality.
  • Colors are nonrepresentational but symbolic, chosen to provide a jarring impact. Expressive quality of horrified facial features and grim surroundings.
  • Tilted perspective moves things closer to the picture plane.
  • Main figure has a drawn face, with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips.
  • The eyes are unseeing and empty, without pupils; the iris reflects the blue of his uniform.
  • The bloody stump of a hand represents losses in war, loss of the artist’s ability to paint, his creativity, his artistic vision, and his inspiration.
  • Sharp angular lines reinforce a sense of violence and anxiety.
• Context
  • Kirchner became an “unwilling volunteer,” a driver in the artillery in World War I, to avoid being drafted into the infantry.
  • He is wearing the uniform of his field artillery regiment.
  • He was declared unfit for service; he had lung problems and weakness and suffered a mental breakdown—there is scholarly debate as to whether he faked these ailments to avoid service.
  • This self-portrait was painted during a recuperation period.
  • His life was plagued by drug abuse, alcoholism, and then paralysis.
  • The artist feared that war would destroy his creative powers.

➼  Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht

• Details
  • By Käthe Kollwitz
  • 1919–1920
  • Woodcut
  • A Private Collection
• Form
  • Stark black and white of the woodcut used to magnify the grief.
  • Human grief dominates.
• Patronage: Family of Liebknecht asked Kollwitz to memorialize him.
• Technique
  • Wood-block print.
  • Kollwitz used this technique to reinforce the emotions depicted in the scene.
  • She liked the “primitive” quality that wood-block prints could render.
• Context
  • Liebknecht was among the founders of the Berlin Spartacus League, which became the German Communist Party.
  • In 1919, Liebknecht was shot to death during a Communist uprising in Berlin called the Spartacus Revolt (named for the slave who led a revolt against the Romans in 73 B.C.E.).
  • Liebknecht was held to be a martyr in the Communist cause.
  • There are no political references in the woodcut.
  • Themes of war and poverty dominate the artist’s oeuvre.
  • She often emphasized the theme of women grieving over dead children; her son died in World War I; the artist then became a socialist.

➼  Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

• Details
  • By Pablo Picasso
  • 1907
  • Oil on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Content
  • Depicts five prostitutes in a bordello in Avignon Street in Barcelona, each posing for a customer.
  • Poses are not traditionally alluring but awkward, expressionless, and uninviting.
• Form
  • The three on the left are more conservatively painted; the two on right more radical; reflects a dichotomy in Picasso.
  • Multiple views are expressed at the same time.
  • Depth is limited, but ambiguous and ever shifting.
  • The painting has semitransparent passages.
• Context
  • This is the first cubist work, influenced by late Cézanne and perhaps African masks (faces on the right) and ancient Iberian sculpture (figure on the left).
  • Influenced by Gauguin’s so-called Primitivism.

➼  The Portuguese

• Details
  • By Georges Braque
  • 1911
  • Oil on canvas
  • Art Museum, Basel, Switzerland
• Form
  • Braque rejected naturalistic and conventional painting.
  • Fractured forms; breaking down of objects into smaller forms.
  • Clear-edged surfaces at the front of the picture plane, not recessed in space.
  • Nearly monochrome.
• Context
  • Analytical Cubism; Braque worked in concert with Pablo Picasso to develop this style.
  • This is not a portrait of a Portuguese musician, but rather an exploration of shapes.
  • The only realistic elements are the stenciled letters and numbers; perhaps they suggest a dance hall poster behind the guitarist, a café-like atmosphere.

➼  The Kiss

• Details
  • By Constantin Brancusi
  • 1907–1908
  • Stone Sculpture
  • Found in Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
• Form
  • Symbolic, almost Cubist rendering of the male and female bodies.
  • Simplified carving.
  • Intertwined and enveloped figures.
  • Interlocked forms; fused bodies.
  • Two eyes become one, almost Cyclops-like.
  • Rough surface contributes to a feeling of naturalism; this is an artistic break from the high-polish effect of past sculpture.
• Patronage: Requested by John Quinn, Brancusi’s patron in New York, who admired the small plaster version of The Kiss in the collection of the artist Walter Pach.
• Context
  • Brancusi worked in Rodin’s studio; cf. Rodin’s The Kiss.
  • This is the fourth stone version of this subject:
  • First version was one of Brancusi’s earliest efforts at stone carving (Craiova Art Museum, Romania).
  • Second version (a plaster cast) was exhibited at the Armory Show.
  • Third version used as a tombstone in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris over the body of a suicide victim: a young Russian anarchist.
    • The artist was asked by a friend of the deceased, who had jilted her, for a marker for her grave.
    • The artist said take what you want; he took this work.
  • There may be many more undocumented versions.

➼  The Steerage

• Details
  • By Alfred Stieglitz
  • 1907
  • photogravure
  • A private collection
• Form
  • Interested in compositional possibilities of diagonals and lines acting as framing elements.
  • Diagonals and framing effects of ladders, sails, steam pipes, etc.
  • Stieglitz photographed the world as he saw it; he arranged little, and allowed people and events to make their own compositions.
  • Influenced by experimental European painting; compared with a Cubist drawing by Picasso, Cubist-like in arrangement of shapes and tonal values.
• Content
  • Steerage: the part of a ship reserved for passengers with the cheapest tickets.
  • Depicts the poorest passengers on a ship traveling from the United States to Europe in 1907; they were allowed out for air for a limited time.
  • Some may have been people turned away from entrance to the United States; more likely, they were artisans whose visas had expired and were returning home.
• Context
  • The work depicts social divisions in society.
  • Published in October 1911 in Camera Work.

➼  Fountain

• Details
  • By Marcel Duchamp
  • Originally 1917; this version is 1950
  • readymade glazed sanitary china with black paint
  • Found in Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
• Form
  • Ready-made sculpture; actually a found object that Duchamp deemed to be a work of art.
  • Signed by the “artist,” R. Mutt, a pun on the Mutt and Jeff comic strip and Mott Iron Works.
  • Item purchased from a sanitary-ware supplier and submitted to the Society of Independent Artists, a group that Duchamp helped to found.
• Function and History
  • Entered in an unjuried show, the work was refused—narrowly voted out by the organizers.
  • Thought to be indecent, not fit to show women.
  • Duchamp resigned in protest.
  • It is not fully understood why Duchamp resigned; it may have come from his experience exhibiting an earlier work Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 to the Salon des Indépendants in Paris; although the work was illustrated in the show’s catalog, Duchamp was asked to remove it a few days before the opening.
  • He removed the object but felt betrayed; said it was a turning point in his life.
  • Fountain can be seen as an experimental replay by Duchamp, testing the commitment of the new American Society to freedom of expression and tolerance of new conceptions about art.
• Context
  • The title is a pun: a fountain spouts liquid, a urinal collects it.
  • The placing of the urinal upside down is an added irony.
  • The rotation of Fountain may symbolize seeing something familiar from a new perspective.
  • The original is now lost; Duchamp oversaw the “remaking” of a few models in 1964.

➼  Object (Le Dejéuner en fourrure)

• Details
  • By Meret Oppenheim
  • 1936
  • fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Form: An assemblage.
• Context
  • Said to have been done in response to Picasso’s claim that anything looks good in fur; Oppenheim said to respond, “Even this cup and saucer?”
  • Erotic overtones.
  • Combination of unalike objects: fur-covered teacup, saucer, and spoon. The tea cup was purchased at a department store; the fur is the pelt of a Chinese gazelle.
  • A contrast of textures: fur delights the touch, not the taste; cups and spoons are meant to be put in the mouth.
  • Oppenheim did not title the work, but the Surrealist critic, Andre Breton, called the piece Le Déjeneur en fourrure, or Luncheon in Fur, a title that references Édouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass as well as the erotic novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch called Venus in Furs.
  • Chosen by visitors to a Surrealist show in New York as the quintessential Surrealist work of art.
  • Because fame came to Oppenheim so young (she was twenty-two when she produced this work), it inhibited her growth as an artist.

➼  The Two Fridas

• Details
  • By Frida Kahlo
  • 1939
  • oil on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City
• Content
  • On the left: Kahlo is dressed as a Spanish lady in white lace, linking her to a European heritage.
  • On the right: Kahlo dressed as a Mexican peasant—the stiffness and provincial quality of Mexican folk art was a direct inspiration for the artist.
  • Behind is a barren landscape; two figures sit against a wildly active sky.
• Context
  • There is a juxtaposition to two self-portraits.
  • Kahlo’s two hearts are joined together by veins that are cut by scissors at one end and lead to a portrait of her husband, artist Diego Rivera, at the other; painted at the time of their divorce.
  • The vein acts as an umbilical cord; symbolism: Rivera as both husband and son.
  • Blood on her lap suggests many abortions and miscarriages; also, surgeries related to her health issues.
  • Kahlo rejected the label Surrealism for her artwork.

➼  The Jungle

• Details
  • By Wifredo Lam
  • 1943
  • gouache on paper mounted on canvas
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Form
  • Crescent-shaped faces suggest African masks and the god Elegua.
  • Rounded backs, thin arms and legs, pronounced hands and feet.
  • Long vertical lines suggest sugarcane, which is grown in fields, not jungles.
• Context
  • Cuban-born artist whose career took him to Europe and the United States.
  • The artist was interested in Cuba’s mixture of Hispanic and African cultures.
  • This work was “intended to communicate a psychic state.”
  • The work addresses the history of slavery in colonial Cuba.
  • Influences include African sculpture; Cubist works; Surrealist paintings (Lam was a member of the Surrealist movement in Paris).
  • The painting contrasts a Cuban landscape with a tourist image of Cuba as a tropical paradise.

➼  Illustration from The Results of the First Five-Year Plan

• Details
  • By Varvara Stepanova
  • 1932
  • photomontage
  • Found in Museum of the Revolution, Moscow, Russia
• Form and Function
  • Graphic art for political and propaganda purposes; a photomontage.
  • Red color dominates—the color of Communist Soviet Union.
  • A large portrait of Lenin dominates; although deceased, his image is used to stimulate patriotism.
  • Masses of people below illustrate the popularity of the Five-Year Plan.
  • CCCP (Союз Советских Социалистических Республи) is a Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union.
• Context
  • Stepanova was one of the main figures in the Russian avant-garde movement.
  • Influenced by Cubism and Futurism.
  • Five-Year Plan:
  • Soviet practice of increasing agricultural and industrial output in five years.
  • Launched in 1928, considered complete in 1932.
  • Emphasis on growth of heavy industry rather than consumer goods.
  • Huge increases in electrical output (dominant industrial symbol in the work).
  • The failures of the five-year plan are overlooked in this representation (famine, extreme poverty, political oppression); instead it is a propaganda statement of the virtues of the Stalinist state.

➼  Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow

• Details
  • By Piet Mondrian
  • 1930
  • oil on canvas
  • Found in Kunsthaus,Zurich
• Form
  • Only primary colors used—red, yellow, and blue—plus the neutral colors, white and black.
  • Severe geometry of form; only right angles; grid-like forms.
  • No shading of colors.
• Context
  • The artist is interested in the material properties of paint, not naturalistic depictions.
  • The artist expresses ideas using abstract elements—that is, line and color.
  • Influenced by Cubism.

➼  Fallingwater

• Details
  • By Frank Lloyd Wright
  • 1936–1939
  • reinforced ­concrete, sandstone, steel, and glass
  • Found in Bear Run, Pennsylvania
• Form
  • Cantilevered steel-supported porches extend over a waterfall.
  • The accent is on horizontal lines—as opposed to the verticality of much of twentieth-century architecture.
  • The architecture is in harmony with the site.
  • The living room contains a glass curtain wall around three of the four sides; the building embraces the woods around it.
  • The floor of the living room and the walls of building are made from the stone of the area.
  • The hearth (physically and symbolically) is the center of the house, an outcropping of natural stones surrounds it.
  • The interior shows a suppression of space devoted to hanging a painting; Wright wanted the architecture to dominate.
  • The ground plan and design is irregular and complex.
  • Only two colors used: light ochre for the concrete and Cherokee red for the steel.
• Context: Late expression of Prairie School ideas.
• Function and Patronage: Weekend retreat for the Kaufmann family, who owned a department store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

➼  Villa Savoye

• Details
  • By Le Corbusier
  • 1929
  • steel and reinforced concrete
  • Found in Poissy-sur-Seine, France
• Form
  • Boxlike horizontal quality; an abstraction of a house.
  • The main part of the house is lifted off the ground by narrow pilotis—thin freestanding posts.
  • The house appears to float on pilotis; allows air to circulate around the base of the house.
  • The turning circular carport on the bottom floor enables family members to enter the house directly from their car.
  • All space is utilized, including the roof, which acts as a patio.
  • The roof terraces bring the outdoors into the house.
  • Subtle colors: white on exterior symbolizes modern cleanliness and healthful living.
  • Open interior is free of many walls.
  • Some furniture is built into the walls.
  • Ribbon windows wind around the second floor.
  • Streamlined look.
  • Living spaces that are surrounded by glass face an open courtyard-type setting on the second floor.
• Function and Patronage
  • A three-bedroom country house with servants’ quarters on the ground floor.
  • Built in suburban Paris as a retreat for the wealthy.
  • Patrons: Pierre and Emilie Savoye.

➼  Seagram Building

• Details
  • By Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson
  • 1954–1958
  • steel frame with glass curtain wall and bronze
  • Found in New York
• Function: 38-story corporate headquarters of the Seagram Liquor Company.
• Form
  • Bronze veneer gives the skyscraper a monolithic look; bronze is maintained yearly to keep the same color.
  • Set back from Park Avenue on a wide plaza balanced by reflecting pools.
  • Interplay of vertical and horizontal accents.
  • Mullions stress the verticality of the internal frame.
• Context
  • Minimalist architecture.
  • Monolith style expresses corporate power.
  • Mies’s saying of “Less is more” can be seen in this building with its great simplicity, geometry of design, and elegance of construction.
  • Mies also said, “God is in the details;” truthful buildings express their structure, not hide it.
  • Steel and glass skyscrapers and curtain wall construction became the model after World War II.
  • A triumph of the International Style of architecture.

➼  The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 49

• Details
  • By Jacob Lawrence
  • 1940–1941
  • casein tempera on hardboard
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Form
  • The work illustrates the collective African-American experience; therefore, there is little individuality in the figures.
  • Forms hover in large spaces.
  • Angularity of forms.
  • Tilted tabletops show the surface of the table.
  • Flat, simple shapes.
  • Unmodulated colors.
  • Collective unity achieved by painting one color across many panels before going on to the next color; overall color unity in the series unites each painting.
• Content
  • This scene involves a public restaurant in the North; segregation emphasized by the yellow poles that zigzag down the center.
  • Whites appear haughty and self-engrossed.
  • African-Americans appear faceless; forms reveal their bodies and personalities.
• Context
  • One of a series of 60 paintings that depicts the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North after World War I.
  • Negroes escaping the economic privation of the South.
  • Narrative painting in an era of increasing abstraction.
  • Cinematic movement of views of panels: some horizontal and others vertical.
  • Influenced by the Italian masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; used tempera paint.
  • The Phillips Collections in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought the collection and it was split.
  • The Phillips took the odd-numbered paintings; the Museum of Modern Art has the even-numbered ones.

➼   Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park

• Details
  • By Diego Rivera
  • 1947–1948
  • fresco
  • Found in Museo Mural Diego Rivera, Mexico City
• Form
  • 50-foot-long fresco, 13 feet high.
  • Horror vacui; didactic painting.
  • Colorful painting.
  • Revival of fresco painting, a Mexican specialty.
• Placement
  • Originally in the lobby of the Hotel del Prado.
  • After a 1985 earthquake destabilized the hotel, the fresco was placed in a museum adjacent to Alameda Park, Mexico City’s first city park—built on the grounds of an Aztec marketplace.
• Content
  • Three eras of Mexican history depicted from left to right:
  • Conquest and colonization of Mexico by the Spanish.
  • Porfirio Diaz dictatorship.
  • Revolution of 1910 and the modern world.
  • Depicts a who’s who of Mexican politics, culture, and leadership:
  • Sor Juana, in nun’s habit, at left center.
  • Benito Juárez, five-term president of Mexico, left at top.
  • General Santa Ana handing the keys of Mexico to General Winfield Scott.
  • Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota.
  • José Marti, father of Mexican independence (tipping his hat).
  • General Porfirio Díaz, with medals, asleep.
  • A police officer ordering a family out of an elitist park.
  • Francisco Madero, a martyred president.
  • José Posaro, artist and Rivera hero.
  • Rivera is in the center, at age ten, holding hands with Caterina (“Death”) and dreaming of a perfect love (Kahlo is behind him holding a yin/yang symbol—a symbol of Kahlo and Rivera’s relationship).