Untitled Flashcards Set

Functional Objects

#53 Merovingian looped fibulae

Title: Merovingian looped fibulae

Date of Creation: Mid-6th century CE

Culture of Origin: Early medieval Europe

Materials/Media: Silver gilt worked in filigree with inlays of garnets and other stones

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Status symbol

• Commonly found in barbarian graves

  • Barbarian is a blanket term for non-Roman groups who migrated into western Europe in the early middle ages

#54 Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George

Title: Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George

Date of Creation: 6th or early 7th century CE

Culture of Origin: Early Byzantine Europe

Materials/Media: Encaustic on wood

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Devotion/prayer

• Encaustic: colored hot wax

• Icon: sacred image used in religious devotion

• 8 figures: Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, two saints, two angles, and God

• Classical influence? (Greco-Roman)

  • Naturalism: shading of faces, neck muscles, realistic neck twist, bodies outlined under robes

  • Space: shadow of throne and saints, armrest recedes, foot rest protrudes, architecture in the back

  • Drama: angles react to the hand of God

#59 Bayeux Tapestry

Title: Bayeux Tapestry

Date of Creation: c. 1066-1080 CE

Culture of Origin: Romanesque Europe (English or Norman)

Materials/Media: Embroidery on linen

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Narrative

• Tells the story of the events surrounding the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy

• 75 scenes with Latin inscriptions

• Narrative devices: reads left to right, sequential organization, horizontal registers, simultaneous narration, hierarchy of size (basically all of them…)

#56 Great Mosque of Cordoba 

Title: Great Mosque

Date of Creation: c. 785-786 CE

Culture of Origin: Cordoba, Spain (Islamic Spain)

Materials/Media: Stone masonry

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Worship

• Mosque: a place of worship or prayer

• Courtyard with fountain in the middle and grove of orange trees

• Colonnade circling courtyard

• Later additions: minirate encased in a square tower, church in middle

• Horseshoe arch at the South entrance

  • Specific to Islamic Spain

• Interior: a large hypostyle prayer fall

• Two-tiered, symmetrical arches (stone and red brick)

• Mihrab: prayer niche (identifies wall that faces Mecca)

  • Tesserae: small pieces of glass with gold and color backing mosaic

#57 Pyxis of Al-Mughira

Title: Pyxis of Al-Mughira

Date of Creation: c. 986 CE

Culture of Origin: Umayyad

Materials/Media: Ivory

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Holding precious gems, jewelry, aromas, perfume etc

• Luxury personal vessels given to members of the royal family

• Ivory: smooth, beautiful, easy to carve

• Several medallions on it with figures and animals

• Figures are unusual for Islamic art 

• Influenced by intricate animal styles found in early medieval metalwork

#65 The Alhambra 

Title: The Alhambra

Date of Creation: c.1354-1391 CE

Culture of Origin: Granada, Spain (Islamic Spain)

Materials/Media: Whitebased adobe stucco, wood, tile, paint, gliding

Artist: Unknown

Purpose: Worship, barracks, housing

• Red Fort: built by last Muslim dynasty to rule Spain

• Only 4 entrances

• Holds palaces, gardens, housing, workspaces, etc.

• Carved stucco (plaster-like material) on inside of complex

• Palace of the Lions: carved stucco carvings on slender columns

• Walls lined with words written in calligraphy (poetry, building documentation, religious text)

• Muqarna: small niche-like component usually stacked and used in multiples (honeycomb vaulting)

• Outside: shaded walkways, gardens, fountains; heat relief, quiet, oasis

• Inspired Irvine Spectrum

#84 Mosque of Selim II 

Title: Mosque of Selim II

Date of Creation: 1568-1575 CE 

Culture of Origin: Edirne, Turkey (Islamic)

Materials/Media: Brick and stone

Artist: Sinan (architect)

Purpose: Worship; protection

• Squinches: architectural support that transitions dome to piers

• Muqarnas: decoration (honeycomb vaulting)

• Piers: weight-bearing columns

• 2 Madrassas: schools

• Exterior buttresses hold most of the weight

• Original decoration: polychrome iznik tiles

#63 The Arena Chapel, Lamentation

Title: The Arena Chapel, Lamentation

Date of Creation: Chapel: c. 1303 CE; Fresco: c.1305 CE

Culture of Origin: Padua, Italy

Materials/Media: Brick (architecture); fresco

Artist: Unknown architect; Giotto

Purpose: The frescoes in the Arena Chapel tell the story of Mary and Christ

• Pivotal change in history of western art: emulation of the natural world (individual depiction of grief, illusion of space, it seems like we are a viewer within the scene)

  • Problem: halos

• Order of the frescos: vices and virtues with painted architecture → the passion → life of jesus → life of mary and jesus’ grandparents

• Ceiling is azure blue with golden stars (symbolic of the heaven)

• Patron: Scrovegni family

  • Chapel for forgiveness

#69 David

Title: David

Date of Creation: c. 1440-1460 CE

Culture of Origin: Italian

Materials/Media: Bronze

Artist: Donatello

Purpose: God’s grace; youthful male beauty

• David is depicted and feminine and weak

• Emphasis on the miraculous and sensuality

• Epitomizes new trends in early renaissance art

  • Freestanding nude sculpture

  • Bronze

• Patron: Medici

#71 Madonna and Child with Two Angels

Title: Madonna and Child with Two Angeles

Date of Creation: c. 1465 CE

Culture of Origin: Italian

Materials/Media: Tempera on wood

Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi

Purpose: Religious

• New: halo, mary’s shadow, transparent lace, frame, perspective

#72 The Birth of Venus

Title: The Birth of Venus

Date of Creation: c. 1484-1486 CE

Culture of Origin: Italian

Materials/Media: Tempera on canvas

Artist: Botticelli

Purpose: Rebirth of civilization after Middle Ages

• Roman copies of Praxiteles’ Aphrodite were thought to be the first nude sculpture of a woman (shocking, rejected, quickly became famous)

  • Context