STRUDY GOTHIC ART

Man with Bison, Lascaux

• Why is it so hidden, about 12-15 feet deep! This the only person in Lascaux. Popular belief is that its to protect urself from it and it forms u. It’s male & ithyphallic. Two creature, man and nature, and it hasn’t worked out for either of them. The entrails have fallen out of the Bison(?). The man has a bird face. The bird is from heaven, it’s a messenger. He’s wearing a bird face mask. The animal is in twisted profile, which means it’s looking at you to some degree.

• The man has a pole with a bird and a snake. Heaven and underworld. And actually the earth too represented by the man.

• This is a “holy” image. It’s separated from the rest.

• Lascaux wa closed in 1963. 1980 there is a remade version with a few of the rooms.

The cave at Altamira

• A girl found the cave

• Why would you go into the scary caves and paint pictures on the ceilings if not for religion, mythology, philosophy (asking why things happen), communication?

• Prehistoric sculpture. Reventive. Venus of Laussel. She’s votive, which is something you use to pray through NOT to. Like a candle and birthday wish.

• A woman probably woulda come here

• Have a direction when you work thru a sculpture. If she had a specific face then you couldn’t imagine someone’s (ur own?) face. She has wide hips, is large, has lactated, and is childbearing. She’s a protector of children. She’s holding a cornucopia, a symbol of fertility.

Venus of Willlendorf 25,000 - 21,000 BCE

• Found by young boy by river. She’s been covered red ochre as way to “recharge”. Hair is in braids or woven cap? It has seven rows, does this mean something? Again, no face, except mouth. She’s voluptuous and very beautiful. If you turn her head it looks like a nipple

Incised Bison, Reindeer Horn and Bison

• The american Indians did not shoot arrows but stampede the bison off the cliff. That’s what’s happening in this second one.

Birds are seen as heavenly

Twisted profile = looking at "you" - dangerous

IMPORTANT: analyze every part of painting from material, color, perspective...

Glossing = putting extra mark to show importance to part of painting

Lascaux closed in 1963, in 1980 a second version made

Cave at Altamira, Spain - 1879

Massive cave

Reasons for cave art: art, religion, communication, philosophic inquiry...

Venus of Laussel

Votive = type of candle, Something to pray through

If it has specific face, people can dislike parts

Where as if face has no facial features, you can think of them as anyone

Venus of Willendorf - 1908

Statue colored with red ochre

Red is also color that symbolizes birth

Bigger body to symbolize being treated well by their man

Wide hips and bigger chest to symbolize good birth form - ideal beauty in moment Number 7 = completion (in ancient world)

*= test material

The Ancient Near East was actually a group of separate societies...

- Neolithic (6,500-5,500): Catal Huyuk

- Uruk (4,500-3,100): maybe Ziggurats*

- Sumer (2,800-1,800): Cuneiform*, Ziggurats*, votives, sound box harp, Gudea

- Akkad (2,300-2,100): Statue of Narmar-Sin

- Neo-Sumerian (2,050-1,900): Gudea

- Babylon (1,800-1,600): Code of Hammurabi

- Hittietes (1,450-1,200): The Lion Gate

- Assyrian (1100-612): Palace architecture

- Neo-Babylon (612-539): Ishtar Gate

Mesopotamia: the land between the Tigris and Euphrates river, said to be the Garden of Eden

Meso = land, potamia = between the rivers

To become a civilization, you have to have all 6 – Religion (can be agnostic or atheist), law,

government, communal living, production, & writing

Cuneiform: the first western writing system, pictographs turned into letters, but also had

phonetic components, 500 different wedge shaped letters, four separate dialects, tablets read

right to left and have registers. Mostly commercial dealings, but also literary, religious and

governmental texts

Stele: tablet with cuneiform, roughly translates to billboard, was used to showcase laws in cities

Ziggurats: made by Sumerian culture (3,500-3,000

BCE), a terraced, multistoried platform for a

religious shrine – 2-7 tiers, 25 known, none of them

intact, made out of 1,000’s of mud dried brick laid in

a herringbone pattern, outer layer whitewashed,

averaged 4 stories tall, a bent access staircases to

symbolize the complicated nature of life

● Other creations by Near Eastern societies:

the wheel, the pulley, irrigation, glass

(faience), bronze (10% tin, 90% copper), accounting, the ziggurat (and the use of

architecture as propaganda), idea of divine right of Kings.

Crenellations: a wall around the ziggurat, that allowed archers to hide

behind blocks

Tripartite: a three part room used to honor the god of agriculture, and two

other smaller deities.

*Votive figurines of Tell Asmar: made of gypsum ($), limestone (), and

alabaster ($), 8-30 inches tall, used as a focal point for prayer for

commoners not allowed into the Ziggurat, used as a social marker, the

bigger = the best, people would pay priests to transport their prayer to the

Ziggurat into the shrine, afterwards, the prayer would be scraped off and resold

Canonical characteristics of Votive Figurines:

1. Wide eyes, turned upwards – (because eyes are the windows to the soul)

2. Hair & dress as social marker – (the longer hair, the more important you are; all priests

are bald)

3. Clasped hands = prayer pose – (used to show respect)

4. Geometric & simplified, not “real people in real space”

5. “Bigger person = more important”

6. Polychrome – (purple, blue, and gold were designated for the royal family, that way

people could watch the figure go up the ziggurat)

7. Many were inscribed with Cuneiform (prayers &

curses!)

The Standard of Ur (3,000 BCE): carved out of

Lebanese cedar, used to store jewelry, inlaid using

pine sap with Lapis and bone; toasting to the King,

while eating; all of the figures are in profile, with

shaved heads; the opposite side depicts war, warriors

are wearing copper helmets

Sound Box Harp (2,685 BCE): found in the tomb of Queen

Puabi in Ur, who was murdered for infidelity; made of wood

and inlaid Lyre; glass in the beard is made from faience

The base: the top layer of the base depicts the ruler fighting nature and winning;

• second layer is servants bringing dinner; third layer is someone playing the harp (which resembles the sound

box itself); fourth layer is a scorpion reciting poetry

Mosaics (?): invented in Sumer; original form was pine tar

and small stones, chips pebbles, or faience attached to walls [small pieces

called Tessera]; Romans would use mosaics to show recipes on the floor; Opus

Vermiculatum = fine work; Sumerian board games were made out of faience and glass paste

Bust of Akkadian Man (2,250 BCE): head, from an original life-size statue, could

be Naram-Sin or Sargon; posted on a stake because he was assassinated; man

has lots of hair; later civilization decapitated him and gouged his eyes out

The Ruler Gudea (2150 BCE): votive carved of diorite, seated figure, with

canonical features; Gudea was clean shaven to represent holiness;

Gudea’s nose was chiseled off by opposing cultures (to mock the leader);

sitting on a folding seat invented by the Romans; Other statues show

Gudea ruling over the Tigris and the Euphrates; carved through using a bow

and arrow like a drill; cuneiform was etched into the rock

Near Eastern Art

Hammurabi Codes (1,792-1,750 BCE): depicts a god with horns and wings

handing down laws unto the ruler; the rules are reiterated beneath the carvings

Assyrian Art (1,800 BCE): constructed citadel to intimidate with crenellations in

the wall; Ashurnasirpal II carved figures into alabaster walls of the palaces

Everything has a ‘story’

Venus of willendorf  25,000-21,000

• Venus 

• City of willendorf 

• Found 1908, by archeologist Joseph Szombathy

• Red color of birth , private devotional object 

• Carved from oolithic limestone 

• Buried her in ground - 1, covered in red ocher 

Woven cap , brades 

• No face ; she can look however you want 

• Mouth she can ‘talk to you’

• Earth goddess , pray to 

Reindeer horn that was carved -> into Incised Bison Tarn , France 11,000-9,000 BCE

• Shoot the bison once - then send it toward the edge   

Pictographs turned into letters but also had phonetic components 

500 different wede shaped letters 

• Four separate dialects 

• Tablets read right to left have registers 

• Mostly commercial 

Writing was consider anicent ‘holy’ 

Stele - bill board 

• Read it aloud to people 

Greeks 

• Geometry 

• The wheel 

• The Pulley 

• Irrigation

• Glass ( faience) 

  • Glass paste

  • Goopy around a form (wood or stone )

• Bronze (10% tin) , (90 %copper)

  • Corn wall England -> trading they knew what they were doing

• Accounting 

• The ziggurat and the use of architecture as propaganda 

  • Zig ; brick sundired platform , not a PRYMID 

  • 2-7 layer , mountain - where you place your temple 

• Idea of Divine Right of kings 

  • In ancient world scarly born into wealthy country and parent you are “more loved by the gods” 

    • Rurler more ‘better’

    • Child of ruler high satus 

Ziggurats ; Sumerian cuulture 3,500 - 3000 BCE

• 2-7 tiers 25 known, none of them intact

•  Is terraced , multistoried platform for religous shrine brick sundired platform ; made out of 1,000s fo mud dried brick outer layer whitewashed averged 4 stories tall 

Creinnaltion 

• Space , then wall

• Archer could be inside

• Intimidation within the environment

• Arrow slot or opening 

Votive figurines from the temple of abu, the God of vegetation )fouund broken and buried)

• Cheap to $$$

• Gypsum limestone and alabaster 

• Height varies

• Buy get a wish to the gods to impress them and go to makert place 

  • The objects that were votive  from  tell asmar

  • Albaser one - higher end