Unit 1: Global Prehistory, 30,000–500 BCE

Contextualization of Prehistoric Art

• Prehistoric art refers to the art created by humans before the invention of writing.

• It is important to contextualize prehistoric art in order to understand its meaning and significance.

• Cultural context, historical context, and environmental context are three important factors to consider when contextualizing prehistoric art.

• Cultural context includes the beliefs, values, and practices of the people who created the art.

• Historical context includes the events and circumstances that were happening at the time the art was created.

• Environmental context includes the physical surroundings and natural resources available to the people who created the art.

• By considering these contexts, we can gain a better understanding of the purpose and meaning behind prehistoric art.

Materials, Processes, and Techniques in Prehistoric Art

• Materials

  • Stone: Prehistoric artists used stone to create sculptures, tools, and weapons. They used different types of stone, such as flint, obsidian, and jade, depending on availability and suitability for their purpose.

  • Bone: Bone was used to create tools, weapons, and decorative objects. It was often carved or engraved with intricate designs.

  • Ivory: Ivory was used to create small sculptures and decorative objects. It was often carved with intricate designs.

  • Clay: Clay was used to create pottery and figurines. Prehistoric artists would shape the clay by hand or using simple tools, and then fire it to harden it.

  • Pigments: Prehistoric artists used natural pigments such as charcoal, ochre, and manganese dioxide to create paintings and drawings. These pigments were often mixed with water or animal fat to create a paint-like substance.

• Processes

  • Carving: Prehistoric artists would carve stone, bone, and ivory using simple tools such as chisels and hammers. They would often use sand or water to smooth the surface of the object.

  • Engraving: Engraving involves cutting or scratching a design into a surface. Prehistoric artists would often use sharp stones or bones to engrave intricate designs onto bone or ivory objects.

  • Modeling: Modeling involves shaping a material such as clay or wax into a three-dimensional form. Prehistoric artists would use their hands or simple tools to shape clay into pottery or figurines.

  • Painting: Prehistoric artists would mix pigments with water or animal fat to create a paint-like substance. They would then apply the paint to a surface using brushes made from animal hair or plant fibers.

• Techniques

  • Relief: Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background. Prehistoric artists would often create relief sculptures by carving into stone or bone.

  • Incision: Incision involves cutting or carving a design into a surface. Prehistoric artists would often use incision to create intricate designs on bone or ivory objects.

  • Hatching: Hatching involves creating a pattern of parallel lines to create shading or texture. Prehistoric artists would often use hatching in their drawings and engravings.

  • Stippling: Stippling involves creating a pattern of small dots to create shading or texture. Prehistoric artists would often use stippling in their drawings and engravings.

Theories and Interpretations of Prehistoric Art

Theories of Prehistoric Art

• Shamanism Theory

  • According to this theory, prehistoric art was created by shamans or religious leaders to communicate with the spirit world.

  • The art was used as a tool for religious and spiritual practices.

  • The images depicted in the art were believed to have magical powers that could help the shamans in their rituals.

• Sympathetic Magic Theory

  • This theory suggests that prehistoric art was created to control the environment.

  • The images depicted in the art were believed to have the power to control the animals and the environment.

  • For example, the images of animals were believed to attract the animals for hunting.

• Narrative Theory

  • According to this theory, prehistoric art was created to tell stories.

  • The images depicted in the art were used to tell stories of hunting, battles, and other important events.

  • The art was used as a form of communication to pass on information from one generation to another.

Interpretations of Prehistoric Art

• Art for Art's Sake

  • This interpretation suggests that prehistoric art was created for its own sake.

  • The art was created for aesthetic purposes and to express the creativity of the artists.

• Social and Political Interpretation

  • This interpretation suggests that prehistoric art was created to express social and political ideas.

  • The art was used to express the power and status of the individuals and the community.

• Psychological Interpretation

  • This interpretation suggests that prehistoric art was created to express the psychological state of the artists.

  • The art was used as a form of therapy to express emotions and feelings.

Global Prehistoric Artworks

➼ 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

  • 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.

Unit 2: Ancient Mediterranean, 3500 BCE–300 CE

Contextualization of Ancient Mediterranean Art

The Near East (3500 BCE–300 CE)

• The Near East is a region that includes modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

• The art of the Near East dates back to the Neolithic period, around 8000 BCE.

• The Sumerians, who lived in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) around 4000 BCE, created some of the earliest known works of art in the region, including cylinder seals and votive statues.

• The Babylonians, who followed the Sumerians, created intricate relief sculptures and decorative tiles.

• The Persians, who ruled the region from the 6th to the 4th century BCE, created elaborate palaces and tombs, such as the famous Persepolis.

• Islamic art, which emerged in the 7th century CE, is characterized by intricate geometric patterns, calligraphy, and the use of bright colors.

• The art of the Near East has been influenced by various religions, including Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

• Many of the works of art from the Near East are now housed in museums around the world, including the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris.

Egypt (3000–30 BCE)

• Egyptian art is one of the oldest and most enduring art forms in the world. It is characterized by its highly stylized and symbolic representations of people, animals, and gods.

• Early Dynastic Period (3000–2686 BCE)

  • Art during this period was highly stylized and focused on the representation of the human form.

  • Sculptures were typically made from limestone and depicted kings and queens in a rigid, formal pose.

  • Paintings were often found in tombs and depicted scenes from daily life, such as hunting and fishing.

• Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BCE)

  • The Old Kingdom is known for its monumental architecture, such as the pyramids of Giza.

  • Sculptures during this period were highly realistic and depicted the pharaohs as powerful and divine beings.

  • Paintings were often used to decorate tombs and depicted scenes from the afterlife.

• Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BCE)

  • Art during the Middle Kingdom was characterized by a more naturalistic style.

  • Sculptures were often made from bronze and depicted everyday people, such as farmers and craftsmen.

  • Paintings during this period were highly detailed and often depicted scenes from daily life.

• New Kingdom (1550–1070 BCE)

  • The New Kingdom is known for its elaborate tombs and temples, such as the temple of Karnak.

  • Sculptures during this period were highly detailed and often depicted gods and goddesses.

  • Paintings were highly symbolic and often depicted scenes from mythology and religion.

• Late Period (664–332 BCE)

  • Art during the Late Period was heavily influenced by Greek and Roman art.

  • Sculptures were often made from bronze and depicted gods and goddesses in a more naturalistic style.

  • Paintings during this period were highly detailed and often depicted scenes from daily life.

Greece (900–30 BCE)

• Ancient Greece was subdivided into city-states, comparable to Near Eastern civilizations. It is renowned for its democracy, military might, and art in particular.

• Geometric Period (900-700 BCE)

  • Characterized by geometric shapes and patterns

  • Pottery was the main art form

  • Used for storage and funerary purposes

  • Figures were stylized and abstract

• Archaic Period (700-480 BCE)

  • Transition from geometric to realistic art

  • Sculptures were made of marble and bronze

  • Kouros and Kore statues were popular

  • Depicted idealized human forms

  • Pottery became more decorative

• Classical Period (480-323 BCE)

  • Considered the height of Greek art

  • Emphasis on balance, harmony, and proportion

  • Sculptures depicted realistic human forms

  • Contrapposto pose was introduced

  • Parthenon was built during this period

• Hellenistic Period (323-30 BCE)

  • Art became more emotional and dramatic

  • Sculptures depicted movement and expression

  • Portraiture became popular

  • Laocoon and His Sons is a famous sculpture from this period

Etruria (900-270 BCE)

• Etruria was a civilization in ancient Italy that flourished from the 9th to the 3rd century BCE.

• Etruscan art was heavily influenced by Greek art, but it also had its own unique style.

  • It was characterized by its use of terracotta, bronze, and gold.

  • It was also known for its intricate and detailed designs, which often depicted scenes from mythology and daily life.

• Etruscan tombs were often decorated with frescoes, which depicted scenes from the afterlife and the deceased's life.

• Etruscan sculpture was also highly detailed and often depicted human figures in a naturalistic style.

• Etruscan pottery was also highly prized and was often decorated with intricate designs and scenes from mythology.

• Etruscan art declined after the Roman conquest of Etruria in the 3rd century BCE, but its influence can still be seen in Roman art and architecture.

Rome (750 BCE -350 CE)

• Rome was founded in 753 BCE and became a powerful city-state in the Mediterranean world.

  • Roman art was heavily influenced by Greek art, but it also had its own unique characteristics.

• Early Rome (750-500 BCE)

  • Art during this period was mostly utilitarian and focused on practical objects such as pottery and weapons.

  • The Etruscan civilization, which was located north of Rome, also had a significant influence on early Roman art.

• Republican Rome (500-27 BCE)

  • During this period, Rome became a republic and art became more focused on public works and propaganda.

  • Roman art during this period was characterized by realism and a focus on the human form.

  • Sculpture was the most prominent form of art, with many examples of busts and statues of important figures.

• Imperial Rome (27 BCE- 350 CE)

  • The Roman Empire was established in 27 BCE and art became more grandiose and focused on glorifying the emperor and the empire.

  • Architecture became a prominent form of art, with examples such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon.

  • Mosaics and frescoes also became popular, with many examples found in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Cultural Contexts of Ancient Mediterranean Art

Mesopotamian

• Mesopotamia, located in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin, was home to some of the earliest civilizations in the world, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.

• Mesopotamian art portrays the cultural, religious, and political ideas of cultures that thrived between 4000 BCE to 539 BCE.

• It is renowned for its enormous building, such as the ziggurat and the palace, as well as its exquisite reliefs, sculptures, and items fashioned from clay, stone, and metal.

• It also features a rich heritage of cylinder seals, which had a number of purposes, including administrative, religious, and commercial.

• It is noteworthy not just for its aesthetic value, but also for the information it provides into the ancient Mesopotamian social, economic, and political systems.

Egyptian

• Ancient Egyptian art, which goes back to roughly 3100 BCE, is renowned for its highly stylized and symbolic qualities.

• It was intricately intertwined with the religious beliefs and rituals of the civilisation, which lasted over 3,000 years.

• It was religious in nature and depicted the gods and goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon, as well as pharaohs and other prominent figures. tombs and temples, as well as depictions of everyday life, were also decorated with Egyptian art.

• It was profoundly inspired by their belief in the afterlife, which resulted in the development of tombs, sarcophagi, and other elaborate funerary artifacts.

• It was defined by the usage of hieroglyphs, which were a sort of writing used to depict words and concepts.

Greek

• Ancient Greek art comprises the art created in the Graeco world from the ninth century BCE to the fourth century AD.

• This time witnessed the rise and collapse of the major city-states of Athens, Sparta, and Corinth, as well as the birth of the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great's conquests.

• The art of ancient Greece was defined by its emphasis on the human form as well as balance, harmony, and symmetry.

• Greek art also reflects the society's political and cultural values as well as its religious beliefs and myths.

• Ancient Greek art continues to amaze and inspire audiences today, from the Parthenon's renowned marble statues to the Minoan civilization's vibrant murals.

Etruscan

• Ancient Etruscan art, the art and architecture produced by the Etruscan civilisation in central Italy between the eighth and third centuries BCE, is distinguished by its particular style, which was inspired by the art of the ancient Greeks and the indigenous cultures of Italy.

• Metalworking is prominent in Etruscan art, particularly in the creation of complex sarcophagi and jewelry. The monumental architecture of the Etruscan civilization included the construction of enormous tombs and ornate city fortifications.

• Etruscan art also includes paintings and pottery. These works of art offer insight into the Etruscans' religious beliefs, social organization, and daily life.

• As a major forerunner to Roman art, Etruscan art is also crucial in the history of Western art.

Roman

• Ancient Roman art is a multifaceted topic that depicts the many cultures and societies that lived inside the Roman Empire.

• From the Republic through Late Antiquity, Roman art spans a variety of techniques and styles, including painting, sculpture, and mosaic, as well as architecture and decorative arts.

• Roman art was significantly affected by the art of the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and the Near East.

• Roman society's values, beliefs, and goals were frequently reflected in this art's utilitarian, religious, and political applications.

• Ancient Roman art is a wonderful and eternally fascinating subject to study due to its rich historical and cultural context. Pantheon:

Ancient Mediterranean Artworks

➼ 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.

  • Bent-axis plan: ascending the stairs requires angular changes of direction to reach the temple

• 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.

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

• Materials

  • Mud-brick building built on a colossal scale and covered with glazed tiles or cones.

  • Whitewash: was used to disguise the mud appearance; hence the modern name of White Temple.

• Context

  • Large settlement at Uruk of 40,000, based on agriculture and specialized labor.

  • Uruk: May be the first true city in history; the first with monumental architecture.

  • 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

  • Votive: Offered in fulfillment of a vow or a pledge

• 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.

    • Ground line: a baseline upon which figures stand

    • Ground plan: the map of a floor of a building

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

• 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.

    • Lapis lazuli: a deep-blue stone prized for its color

• 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.

➼ Lamassu

• Details

  • From the citadel of Sargon II, Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad, Iraq)

  • c. 720–705 B.C.E.,

  • An alabaster

  • Found in Louvre, Paris

• Form

  • Human-headed animal guardian figures: face of a person, ears and body of a bull.

  • Winged.

  • Appears to have five legs: when seen from the front, it seems to be standing at attention; when seen from the side, the animal seems to be walking.

  • Faces exude calm, serenity, and harmony.

• Materials

  • Carved from a single piece of stone.

  • Meant to hold up the walls and arch of a gate.

  • Stone is rare in Mesopotamian art and contrasts greatly with the mud-brick construction of the palace.

• Function

  • Meant to ward off enemies both visible and invisible.

  • Inscriptions in cuneiform at the bottom portion of the lamassu declare the power of the king and curse his enemies.

• Context

  • Sargon II founded the capital at Khorsabad; the city was surrounded by a wall with seven gates.

  • The protective spirits (guardians) were placed at either side of each gate.

  

➼ Apadana of Darius and Xerxes

• Details

  • c. 520–465 B.C.E.

  • Mainly made up of limestone

  • Found in Persepolis, Iran

  • Apadana: an audience hall in a Persian palace

• 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.

  • Hypostyle hall: An indication of one of the many cultures that inspired the complex.

• 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.

  

➼ 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 state.

  

➼ 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.

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

  • 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

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

• Form

  • Axial plan: a building with an elongated ground plan

  • Pylon temple.

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

  • 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.

    • Clerestory: a roof that rises above lower roofs and thus has window space beneath carved into a surface so that the figures seem to project forward

  • Columns elaborately painted.

  • Columns carved in sunken relief.

    • Sunken relief: a carving in which the outlines of figures are deeply

  • 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.

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

• 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.

    • Ankh: an Egyptian symbol of life

• 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.

    • Amarna style: art created during the reign of Akhenaton, which features a more relaxed figure style than in Old and Middle Kingdom art

  • 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.

  

➼ Anavysos Kouros

• Details

  • From Archaic Greek

  • c. 530 B.C.E.

  • A marble with remnants of paint

  • Found in National Archaeological Museum, Athens

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

• 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.

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

  • “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.

    • Frieze: a horizontal band of sculpture

  • Scene from the Panathenaic Frieze depicting the Panathenaic Procession, held every four years to honor Athena.

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

  • 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.

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

  

Unit 3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas, 200–1750 CE

Key Events of Early Europe and the Americas Art

Edict of Milan and the "Peace of the Church"

• Edict of Milan:

  • Issued in 313 AD by Roman Emperor Constantine

  • Granted religious tolerance to Christians in the Roman Empire

  • Ended the persecution of Christians and allowed them to practice their faith freely

• "Peace of the Church":

  • Established in 380 AD by Roman Emperor Theodosius

  • Made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire

  • Prohibited the practice of pagan religions and heresies

  • Strengthened the power of the Christian Church in the Empire

Formation of the Byzantine Empire

• The Byzantine Empire was formed in 324 AD by Emperor Constantine I.

• It was originally known as the Eastern Roman Empire.

• The capital was Constantinople, which was strategically located for trade and defense.

• The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, but with Greek as the official language and Christianity as the dominant religion.

• The Byzantine Empire lasted for over 1000 years, until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

Iconoclastic Controversy

• A dispute over the use of religious images (icons) in the Byzantine Empire

• Began in 726 AD under Emperor Leo III

• Iconoclasts believed that the use of icons was idolatry and violated the Ten Commandments

• Iconodules believed that icons were necessary for religious worship and veneration

• The controversy led to the destruction of many religious images and the persecution of iconodules

• The controversy was resolved in 843 AD with the restoration of the use of icons in the Byzantine Empire

Spread of Islam into al-Andalus

• Muslims conquered al-Andalus in 711 AD

• Tariq ibn Ziyad led the Muslim army

• Abd al-Rahman I established the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba in 756 AD

• Cordoba became a center of Islamic learning and culture

• The Alhambra palace was built in Granada in the 14th century

• The Reconquista ended Muslim rule in al-Andalus in 1492 AD

Hundred Years' War

• The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts between England and France from 1337 to 1453.

• It was fought over territorial disputes and the English claim to the French throne.

• The war saw major battles such as Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. It ended with the French victory and the expulsion of the English from France, except for the port of Calais.

Black Death of 1348

• The Black Death was a deadly pandemic in the mid-14th century

• It originated in China or Central Asia and spread to Europe through trade routes

• It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis

• It was transmitted to humans through fleas that infested rats

• Symptoms included fever, chills, vomiting, and painful buboes

• The mortality rate was extremely high, with estimates suggesting up to 50% of the European population died

• The Black Death caused economic, social, and political upheaval

• It led to increased wages for workers and a decline in feudal lord power

• It also led to a rise in anti-Semitism

• The pandemic inspired works of art and literature reflecting its trauma and suffering.

Italian and Northern Renaissance

• The Italian Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement that began in Italy in the 14th century and lasted until the 17th century. It was characterized by a renewed interest in classical antiquity, humanism, and the arts.

• The Northern Renaissance, which took place in Northern Europe, was influenced by the Italian Renaissance but had its own distinct characteristics, such as a focus on religious themes and a greater emphasis on realism in art.

Protestant Reformation

• The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement in the 16th century that aimed to reform the Catholic Church.

• It was led by figures such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrych Zwingli, who challenged the authority of the Pope and emphasized the importance of individual faith and the Bible.

• The movement resulted in the establishment of Protestant denominations such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and had a significant impact on European history and culture.

Spanish Conquest of the Americas

• The Spanish Conquest of the Americas refers to the period of European colonization and exploration of the Americas by the Spanish Empire.

• It began in the late 15th century with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean and continued throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

• The Spanish established colonies in present-day Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, and brought about significant changes to the indigenous cultures and societies of the region.

• The conquest had a profound impact on the history and development of the Americas.

Artistic Movements of Early Europe and the Americas Art

Late Antique Art

• Materials/Techniques/Processes

  • Mosaic: small pieces of colored glass, stone, or ceramic set in mortar

  • Ivory: carved from elephant tusks

  • Metalwork: gold, silver, bronze, and copper

  • Manuscripts: parchment or vellum, ink, and pigments

• Purpose

  • Religious devotion: many works were created for use in churches and other religious settings

  • Imperial propaganda: some works were commissioned by rulers to promote their power and authority

  • Personal piety: some works were created by individuals for their own spiritual benefit

• Audiences

  • Churchgoers: many works were intended for use in religious services and would have been seen by congregations

  • Rulers and elites: some works were commissioned by rulers and other wealthy patrons

  • Private individuals: some works were created by individuals for their own use or enjoyment.

Byzantine Art

• Materials/Techniques/Processes:

  • Mosaic: tesserae arranged to create an image

  • Fresco: pigments applied to wet plaster, which dries to create a durable surface

  • Encaustic: pigments mixed with hot wax, which is then applied to a surface and fused with heat

  • Icon: painted with egg tempera, a mixture of egg yolk and pigments

• Audiences:

  • Religious communities: Byzantine art was primarily created for use in churches and other religious spaces

  • Wealthy patrons: some wealthy individuals commissioned Byzantine art for their private chapels or homes

• Purpose:

  • Religious devotion: Was intended to inspire religious devotion and aid in worship

  • Political propaganda: Some Byzantine art was created to promote the power and authority of the emperor or other rulers

  • Education: some Byzantine art was used to teach religious stories and concepts to illiterate audiences.

Islamic Art

• Materials:

  • Calligraphy: Writing in Arabic script using ink and paper

  • Ceramics: Pottery decorated with intricate designs and patterns

  • Textiles: Woven fabrics with geometric or floral motifs

  • Metalwork: Decorative objects made of gold, silver, or bronze

  • Carpets: Hand-woven rugs with intricate designs

• Techniques/Processes:

  • Geometric patterns: Using mathematical principles to create intricate designs

  • Arabesque: Interlacing floral and plant motifs to create a continuous pattern

  • Illumination: Decorating manuscripts with gold leaf and bright colors

  • Mosaic: Creating images by arranging small pieces of colored glass or stone

  • Miniature painting: Creating detailed paintings on small surfaces

• Audiences:

  • Religious leaders: Islamic art was often commissioned by religious leaders to decorate mosques and other religious buildings

  • Wealthy patrons: Wealthy individuals would commission artists to create decorative objects for their homes

  • Common people: Islamic art was also created for everyday use, such as textiles and ceramics

• Purpose:

  • Religious devotion: Islamic art often served a religious purpose, such as decorating mosques and illustrating religious texts

  • Cultural expression: Islamic art was a way for artists to express their cultural identity and showcase their skills

  • Status symbol: Wealthy patrons would commission elaborate works of art to display their wealth and status.

Early Medieval Art

• Materials:

  • Parchment or vellum for manuscripts

  • Stone and metal for sculpture

  • Wood for architectural elements and small-scale sculpture

  • Pigments and gold leaf for illuminated manuscripts

• Techniques/Processes:

  • Manuscript illumination

  • Cloisonné and champlevé enamelwork

  • Stone carving and metalworking

  • Animal style and interlace decoration

  • Fresco and tempera painting

• Purpose:

  • Religious devotion and instruction

  • Commemoration of rulers and important figures

  • Decoration of churches and other religious buildings

  • Display of wealth and power

• Audiences:

  • Members of the clergy and religious orders

  • Wealthy patrons and rulers

  • Illiterate or semi-literate laypeople who could understand visual images better than written texts

Romanesque Art

• Materials:

  • Stone: Used for sculptural works such as portals, capitals, and reliefs.

  • Wood: Used for sculptures, altarpieces, and choir stalls.

  • Bronze: Used for casting sculptures and decorative elements.

  • Ivory: Used for carving small sculptures and decorative objects.

  • Manuscripts: Used for illuminated manuscripts, which were highly valued for their intricate illustrations and calligraphy.

  • Stained glass: Used for windows, which were often used to tell religious stories and convey moral messages.

  • Frescoes: Used for painting murals on walls and ceilings.

  • Tapestries: Used for weaving large-scale decorative textiles.

• Techniques/Processes:

  • Sculpture: Carving, casting, and modeling in stone, wood, bronze, and ivory.

  • Painting: Using pigments to create images on various surfaces such as wood, canvas, and walls.

  • Metalworking: Casting and forging metal objects such as chandeliers, candlesticks, and reliquaries.

  • Manuscript illumination: Decorating manuscripts with intricate illustrations and calligraphy.

  • Mosaic: Creating images by arranging small pieces of colored glass or stone.

  • Stained glass: Creating images by arranging colored glass pieces in lead frames.

  • Fresco painting: Painting on wet plaster to create a durable and long-lasting image.

  • Tapestry weaving: Weaving large-scale decorative textiles with intricate designs.

• Audiences:

  • Churchgoers: Romanesque art was primarily created for use in churches and cathedrals, and was intended to inspire devotion and awe in those who attended religious services.

  • Pilgrims: Many Romanesque churches were pilgrimage sites, and the art within them was intended to inspire and guide pilgrims on their spiritual journeys.

  • Monks and nuns: Many monasteries and convents commissioned Romanesque art for use in their chapels and other religious spaces.

  • Royalty and nobility: Wealthy patrons, including kings and queens, commissioned Romanesque art for their private chapels and as gifts to churches and monasteries.

  • Wealthy merchants: Some wealthy merchants also commissioned Romanesque art for their private chapels and homes.

• Purpose:

  • To glorify God and the Church: Romanesque art was created to honor and celebrate the Christian faith and the power of the Church.

  • To educate the illiterate masses about religious stories and beliefs: Many people in the Middle Ages were illiterate, so art was used as a way to convey

Gothic Art

• Techniques/Processes

  • Ribbed vaults: A vault with a framework of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulted sections.

  • Flying buttresses: An arched stone support that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass.

  • Pointed arches: An arch with a pointed crown, characteristic of Gothic architecture.

  • S-curve (ogee) shape: A double curve, shaped like an S, used in architecture and decoration.

  • Elaborate tracery: Decorative stone openwork, typically in the upper part of a Gothic window.

  • Gargoyles and grotesques: A carved or sculpted figure, typically with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building.

  • Illuminated manuscripts: A manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders, and miniature illustrations.

  • Polychrome sculpture: A sculpture decorated in several colors.

• Audiences

  • The Church

  • Wealthy patrons

  • The general public

• Purpose

  • To glorify God and the Church

  • To inspire awe and devotion in the viewer

  • To showcase the wealth and power of the Church and its patrons

  • To educate the illiterate masses about religious stories and figures.

Renaissance Art

• Materials:

  • Oil paint: A type of paint made by mixing pigments with oil, usually linseed oil. It is known for its slow drying time and ability to create rich, layered colors.

  • Canvas: A type of fabric used as a surface for painting. It is typically made from cotton or linen and stretched over a wooden frame.

  • Wood panels: A flat surface made of wood that was commonly used for painting before the introduction of canvas. It was often prepared with a layer of gesso before painting.

  • Fresco: A painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet plaster. This allows the colors to become embedded in the wall and creates a durable, long-lasting artwork.

• Techniques/Processes:

  • Linear perspective: A technique used in art to create the illusion of depth and space on a flat surface by using converging lines that meet at a vanishing point.

  • Chiaroscuro: An Italian term that refers to the use of strong contrasts between light and dark in art to create a sense of volume and three-dimensionality.

  • Sfumato: An Italian term that refers to a painting technique used to create a soft, hazy effect by blending colors or tones together to create a gradual transition from light to dark.

  • Foreshortening: A technique used in art to create the illusion of depth and perspective by shortening the length of an object as it recedes into the distance.

  • Glazing: A painting technique that involves applying thin, transparent layers of paint over a previously painted surface to create depth, luminosity, and color harmony.

• Audiences:

  • Wealthy patrons

  • The Church

  • The general public

• Purpose:

  • To glorify God and the Church

  • To celebrate humanism and individualism

  • To showcase technical skill and artistic innovation

  • To commemorate historical events and figures

Baroque Art

• Materials:

  • Oil paint

  • Canvas

  • Marble

  • Gilt bronze

  • Ivory

  • Tortoiseshell

  • Mother-of-pearl

  • Precious stones

• Techniques/Processes:

  • Chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow)

  • Tenebrism (dramatic use of light and dark)

  • Illusionistic ceiling painting (fresco)

  • Trompe l'oeil (trick of the eye)

  • Contrapposto (pose of figures)

  • Ornate decoration and embellishment

• Audience:

  • Wealthy patrons

  • The Catholic Church

  • Royalty and nobility

  • Aristocracy

• Purpose:

  • To glorify the Catholic Church and its teachings

  • To demonstrate the power and wealth of patrons

  • To evoke emotion and awe in viewers

Early Europe and Colonial America Artworks

➼ 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).

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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

  • 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

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

➼ 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.

➼ 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.

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

  

➼ 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.

Unit 4: Later Europe and Americas, 1750–1980 CE

Key Movements of Later Europe and Americas Art

The Enlightenment (1715 – 1789)

• During the Enlightenment, intellectuals and other thinkers began to see ancient concepts from a fresh viewpoint and advocated skepticism, the study of science, and reasoning over superstition.

• A greater emphasis was placed on individualism and religion (separate from religion). When painters were no longer limited to religious forms, the subject matter of artwork began to change.

• This age witnessed a growing appreciation for the natural world.

• This paved the way for the creation of numerous new artistic trends and genres.

French Revolution (1789-1799)

• People revolted at the unequal treatment of the Third Estate (commoners) by the government, persistent food shortages, and financial distress after fighting in the American Revolution.

• Symbolism in a number of paintings expressed political opinions and conveyed political messages about the current events.

• Romanticism, which concentrated on emotion and expressed the sublime, was one of the aesthetic trends that followed the French Revolution.

Publishing of the Communist Manifesto (1848)

• The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848.

• It was first published in German in London.

• This was commissioned by the Communist League, a political organization that sought to unite various socialist groups.

• The text outlines the principles of communism and critiques capitalism.

• The Manifesto argues that the history of society is a history of class struggle, and that the proletariat (working class) will eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie (capitalist class).

• The Manifesto had a significant impact on political and social movements around the world, and is considered one of the most influential political texts in history.

Revolutions of 1848

• The Revolutions of 1848 were a series of political uprisings across Europe.

• They were sparked by economic hardship, political repression, and demands for greater democracy and national unity.

• The revolutions began in France in February 1848 and quickly spread to other countries including Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary.

• Many of the revolutions were ultimately unsuccessful, with conservative forces reasserting control in most countries by the end of the year.

• The revolutions did lead to some important reforms, such as the abolition of serfdom in Austria-Hungary and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in France.

Perry Expedition and the Forced Opening of Japan (1853-1868)

• Perry Expedition occurred between 1853-1854

• Led by Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy

• Goal was to establish diplomatic relations with Japan and open trade

• Japan had been isolated from the rest of the world for over 200 years

• Negotiations were difficult due to language and cultural barriers

• Treaty of Kanagawa was signed in 1854, allowing American ships to refuel and resupply in two Japanese ports

• This forced Japan to open up to the world and establish trade relations with other countries

World Wars I and II (1914-1945)

• Both World Wars I and II had a profound impact on global economy, populations, and the environment.

• Like to earlier wars in history, art from World War I and World War II contains messages about the political and social climate.

• In particular, World War I gave rise to artistic styles such as Surrealism (abstract form intended to perplex the observer) and Expressionism (work that conveyed the creators' inner sentiments).

The Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s)

• The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that took place in the 1920s and 1930s in Harlem, New York City.

• It was also known as the "New Negro Movement" and was characterized by a celebration of African American culture, art, music, and literature.

• The movement was fueled by the Great Migration, which brought thousands of African Americans from the South to the North in search of better opportunities.

• Prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong.

• The movement had a significant impact on American culture and helped to break down racial barriers and stereotypes.

Interactions Within and Across Cultures in Later European and American Art

• Influences of Non-Western Cultures

  • Non-Western cultures, such as African, Asian, and Native American, influenced later European and American art.

  • Artists were fascinated by the exoticism and spirituality of these cultures.

  • They incorporated non-Western motifs, patterns, and techniques into their works.

• Influences of Eastern Cultures

  • Eastern cultures, such as Japanese and Chinese, also influenced later European and American art.

  • Artists were attracted to the simplicity, elegance, and harmony of these cultures.

  • They adopted Eastern techniques, such as woodblock printing and calligraphy, and incorporated them into their works.

• Influences of Other Western Cultures

  • Western cultures also influenced later European and American art.

  • Artists were inspired by the art of their contemporaries and predecessors from other Western countries.

  • They borrowed styles, techniques, and themes from these artists.