Egyptian Art

POST BY 5 p.m. FEBRUARY 3

Read this article:
http://www.articleclick.com/Article/From-Iceman-to-Ice-T-History-of-Tattoo-Art/1007323

Pick two from the following  four videos.

1- The Great Pyramids
  http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/videos#the-great-pyramids-deconstructed

2- The Sphinx
http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/videos#the-great-sphinx-is-the-worlds-oldest-statue

3- Temple
http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/videos#ramses-temple-at-abu-simbel

4- Egyptian town (use both links)
http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/videos#engineering-an-empire-it-takes-a-village
http://dsc.discovery.com/egypt/


 Read the article about Nefertiti
http://dsc.discovery.com/egypt/nefertiti-story/story.html

Find a photo of the portrait bust of Nefertiti by Thutmose.  Find a photo of the portrait bust of Queen Tiye. from Gurob.

Write an informational reaction about each video you watched.  Respond to two video reactions from your classmates.  

From the Nefertiti article:  Do you agree that the vandalism to the bodies was the work of disgruntled priests or do you think it is the work of some one else?  Why?

Ancient Near Eastern Art

POST BY 5 P.M. JANUARY 27

Early fourth millennium B.C.Mesopotamia and Egypt

Settlement of the great river valleys took place.  In both areas writing, monumental architecture, and new political forms appear. During this time two different and major civilizations developed; Mesopotamia and Egypt.  These two cultures were not cut off from one another.  There were a series of contemporaneous city civilizations connecting Egypt to Mesopotamia.  Along these cities and cultures trade took place, cultures diffused into one another and conquests occurred.  
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/map-01.html

Sumerian Art
The Sumerian people used the wheel and plow, controlled flooding in the area, and constructed irrigation ditches to bring river water to areas not directly on the rivers.  Their techniques created what we know as the fertile crescent.  Sumerians established the first urban communities Uruk (modern day Warka) and Lagash (Al-Hiba).  They also developed the first script- cuneiform.  The Sumerians relied heavily on trade.  Even though they had great fertility of land their area lacked basics like stone, metal and wood.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/masterpieces.html?c=y&page=2

From the Paleolithic period  there has been evidence of people trying to control their environment through the use of magic.  With the emergence of the Sumerians the old magic began to be replaced by a religion of gods and goddesses.  Often these deities personified the forces of nature humans deal with in day-to-day life.  The gods were rulers over everything and humans were responsible for keeping them happy.

Some inventions of the Sumerians that created a urban society were:  division of regularized activities, development of agriculture, and civic administrators.  Priests were the civic administrators directing communal activities, like canal building and distribution of food to those not growing the food.  Because of the division of activities not all members of the society were consumed with growing food, some were able to be involved in manufacturing and trade.

Temples were the cities monumental nucleus.The temple was actually a temple complex.  There were priests and scribes.  It is thought that writing developed into a precise instrument.  The earliest examples have to do with records of accounts. At this time a stylus was pressed into soft clay which eventually hardened into a nearly indestructible record.   To this point hundreds of thousands of these records have survived for us today.

The White Temple and ziggurat at Uruk has been well preserved.  Sumerian builders used mostly mud brick so survival is unusual.  The lack of longevity did not stop the Sumerian builders though they still built monumental settings for worship of their deities.  Have we abandoned the practice of building monumental places of worship?  Give an example to back up your thoughts.

 The Sumerians also introduced monumental statues to the world.  The marble female head (8 inches tall) is entirely manmade.  To create this out of marble the stone had to be imported and would have been too expensive to create a full figure.  This head would have been painted originally- not white as it appears today.  The head is thought to be the goddess associated with Venus, daughter of the moon god.  


The Sumerians also created statuettes.  A group of statuettes ranging in height from a few inches to30" tall was found.  These statuettes are believed to be for the Sumerian god Abu (god of vegetation).  We believe that there is such a difference in sizes because size represents importance in this group of work.  These are votive figures, created to offer up constant prayer to the deity.  We this this is why their eyes are so big it symbolizes their constant wakefulness required to fulfill thier duty.


RESEARCH:  The Royal Cemetery at Ur  find one piece of art OR if you prefer the entire site and discuss the significance.  Write at least 100 words on this topic

About 2300 B.C.  the sity-states known as Sumer came under Akkadian rule.  The Akkadians were very different from the Sumerians but assimilated Sumerian culture.  They did, however, introduce a new concept- royal power.  Now, rather than being loyal to a city-state citizens were loyal to a king.  An example of this loyalty is a hollow cast bronze sculpture Head of an Akkadian ruler  http://www.panoramio.com/photo/29685405  this work has suffered damage becasue it is a political work.  The eyes were once filled with precious and semiprescious stones, there were ears and the other portions which have sustained damage were created without flaw.  The artist who created this work paid special attention to details like hair and the curly beard (this was a Semetic culture).  This piece is one ot the first attempts at hollow cast bronze that we known.  Another piece of art dedicate to the god-like king of Akkadia is the Victory stele of Naram-Sin.  It is a  thin piece of snadstone 6'7" in height representing a victory over a neighboring enemy.  This piece is also the first landscape work in Near Eastern art. 


NEO-SUMERIAN ART

The Sumerians once again came to power after overthrowing another invader the Guti people.  This reemergence created the neo-Sumerian period.  

BABYLONIAN ART

During this time the MEso[otamian political pattern, city-states, reemerged.  Due to the nature of this situation eventually the most powerful ruler of a city-state asserted power over the other sity-states and brought all under one centralized government.  This king was Hammurabi, one of the city-states was Babylon.  Ahmmurabi establised the first code of laws and prescribed penalties.  These laws were inscribed on a Stele.  A piece of basalt 7'4" tall.  http://www.commonlaw.com/Hammurabi.html  check out the different laws and punishments prescribed by the first written code of laws.  Some are similar to laws we have today.

ASSYRIAN ART

Khorsabad palace was guarded by a man-headed, bull with fve legs and wings it is called a lamassu.  It is carved limestone 13' 10" tall.The head is sculpture in the round and the body is high relief. The kings expected their dominance to be displayed through low relief limestone carvings of their hunting and conquering victories.

NEO-BABYLONIAN ART

As I am sure you have figured out the NEar East was an unstable place- warring was practically constant.  With the collapse of Assyrian rule the Babylonians returned to power. King Nebuchadnezzer restored Babylon to one of the greatest ancient cities (his exploits are chronicled in the Bible, the book of Daniel).  Under his direction the "hanging gardens" were built and the great ziggurat of Babylon to Bel (tower of Babel).  A grand entrance way to the temple complex was built.  Along the walled processional way sixty low relief lions were molded and glazed onto colored bricks.  The Lions are brown, yellow and red against a dark blue backround they lead to the also brightly colored Istar Gate. 

SASANIAN ART

" With the conquesr of Persia by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., the history of the ancient Near East becomes part of the history of Greece and Rome.  In the third century A.D., however, a new power rose up in Persia to challenge the Romans and sought to force them out of Asia.  The new dynasts called themselves Sasanians and traced their lineage to a legendary figure names Sasan, who was said to be a direct descendant of the Achaemenid kings."  Gardners Art Through the Ages, 10th ed.  Check out Ctesiphon's palace.  http://www.google.com/imgres?q=ctesiphon&hl=en&safe=active&biw=1152&bih=671&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=AEJ_MMw4XPzutM:&imgrefurl=http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/index.blog%3Ftopic_id%3D1113733&docid=wP4_eI6T8BqADM&imgurl=http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/Ctesiphon-ruin_1864_1qaa1.jpg&w=640&h=397&ei=zcUdT9yZJ4eC2AXXo6DiCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=695&vpy=362&dur=81&hovh=177&hovw=285&tx=120&ty=173&sig=100270782774107038522&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=187&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:0

Check out this link for pictures of the work discussed in this post:
http://www.crystalinks.com/sumerart.html

RESPOND:
Post to the orange prompts above

1.  Use an art history book to identify some architectural element in the Ctesiphon palace.  Describe the feature and give credit to the art history text used.

2.  Why is knowing about this time period important?

Art- The Beginning

POST A RESPONES BY 5 P.M. JANUARY 20

Gardner's Art Through The Ages 10 edition 

This post is adapted from the above text.  If you would like more in depth information or to read more about this topic please check out a copy from Mrs. Lubinski.

FYI:  lithos- (Greek) Stone
         paleo- old (early)
         meso- middle

         neo- new (late)

PALEOLITHIC ART

During the Paleolithic time period ice is still advancing creating a tundra and forest-tundra climate.  People are food gatherers (hunter/gatherers).  Of negligible concern to Stone Age cave people would be the creation of a sophisticated art form; survival was all consuming.  About 30,000 B.C. Cro-Magnon peoples replaced Neanderthals.  These, more highly evolved people began creating more than survival tools; they began creating art.  Venus of Willendorf was created circa (about) 28,000-23,000 B.C.it is Limestone and only about 4 1/4" tall.  Any ideas why it might have been so small? Google images of the Venus of Willendorf  There are other known works of Paleolithic sculpture in stone, bone and clay.  Many of these are depictions of women or animals.  Some of these works are low-relief inside caves.

1879, northern Spain:  Altamira Caves:  The owner of the estate on which the caves are located explores the cave with his young daughter.  Over time the cave has collected debris and this has cause the ceiling to be only inches from the owner's head his daughter actually discerns the pictures on the ceiling.  Her lower vantage point allowed her to have a better viewing perspective. These paintings were dismissed at the 1880  Lisbon Congress on Prehistoric Archeology, as forgeries.  However, in 1896 the paintings were proven to be authentic.  Other caves with prehistoric art were also discovered in the western region of Europe; for example Lascaux, Chauvet and Pech-Merle.

Prehistoric artist's names are unknown.  These works of art significantly predate writing.  The era before writing is referred to as pre history.  Art historians are not sure of the purpose of cave paintings but these paintings have a few things in common that give us clues with which we can speculate.  Interestingly, all of the animals represented in cave paintings are identifiable (even those which are extinct).  These stone age artists took much care in their representations.  Cave paintings were created on walls and ceilings of parts of the caves away from the mouthes.  There are also works incised into cave walls.

Please use the link below to look up the Chapter 1 Web Links  check out the links to Lascaux, Chauvet and Pech-Merle  view the cave paintings.Why do you think prehistoric people created these works of art?

Use this link to view the works cited in the above post.

http://websites.swlearning.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&product_isbn_issn=0155050907&discipline_number=436

MESOLITHIC ART

Around 9,000 B.C. the climate is warming.  which changed the  migration and habitation patterns of animals which changed the life patterns of humans as well.  Since 1903 lesser but very "lively" works of animals and humans in the hunt, battle, ritual dance, and harvest have been discovered in shallow rock shelters and on stone walls.  Art historians continue to believe that these paintings, like the cave paintings, are "...of magical-religious significance, although some observers believe them to be no more than pictorial records of memorable events."  During the Mesolithic period people are still hunter/gatherers but this period is also marked by the domestication of the dog.

PLEASE NOTE:  THERE IS SO MUCH MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MESOLITHIC ART BUT SINCE THIS IS A BLOG AND NOT A BOOK THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH IS A VERY CONDENSED VERSION.

NEOLITHIC ART

Neolithic peoples are identified by certain changes they were able to enact in their day to day lives.  The became herders, rather than hunters (animal husbandry), they built permanent settlements and cultivated crops.  Life became more predictable and permanent. 

7000 B.C. agriculture is well established in Isreal/Jordan, Iran and Turkey.  Jericho was a town located near the Jordan river.  It had an unfailing spring which allowed a village to be supported.  Because the areas wealth neighboring villages developed and the first stone fortification was built.  By 7500 B.C. Jericho had approximately two thousand people.  The wall surrounding the town was 5 feet thick, almost 13 feet tall. As part of he wall the builders built a circular tower alomst 33 feet in diameter and 28 feet tall.  We are unsure if this was a solitary tower or one of several.  this tower was built with only primitive tools which increases the technical achievement. This is the first example of monumental architecture.

In some buildings, believed to be shrines, statuettes of women or goddesses and of animals have been discovered.  These are believed to be associated with a fertility cult.  A group of human skulls with modeled plaster features, seashell eyes, and painted hair have also been found. These skulls are important to art history becasue they mark the beginning of sizable sculpture in the Near East

Possibly the most advanced Neolithic culture between 7,000 B.C. and 5,000 B.C. was in Anatolia.  The areas wealth cam from trade in obsidian.  Obsidian is a volcanic rock valued for it's usefulness, when chipped, to make cutting edges for tools.  Interestingly the settlement did not have streets.  The houses adjoined one anotherand also have no doors.  People would have accessed their homes through an opening in the roof which also served as ventilation for the hearth.   This seems like and absurd arrangement today but when considered with the time period in mind it actually has some advantages.  What do you think some advantages could have been?  These houses were constructed of mud brick and sturdy timber frame.  Surfaces were plastered and painted.  Furniture was built into the walls like shelves.  Dead were buried beneath the floors. These people also built shrines.  Shrines are identifiable by the richness of the interior space.  The housed wall paintings, relief sculptures, animal heads and cow sculls.  They also held symbols of masculine potency like bull horns.  Small statuettes of terracotta clay have also been found.  These Paleolithic people also put effort into preparing the surface on which they were going to paint by plastering over previous paintings.  Preparing the surface before painting is moving these Paleolithic artists closer to our more modern method of preparing to paint.a surface.

In Western Europe during this time there are no settlements as advanced as the settlement in Anatolia.  But perhaps as early as 4000 B.C. the Neolithic people of the area developed a monumental architecture of graves and megaliths (great stones).  In Carnac there is a large alignment of menhirs (single verticle megaliths).  They are arranged in parallel rows some rows run for miles.  We do not know the exact purpose for this arrangement of stones but it is believed it is for religious worship possibly pertaining to the sun.  The rows align with the sun during the solstices.

STONEHENGE
Read this article from Smithsonian magazine.  Click the link

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/light-on-stonehenge.html?c=y&page=

RESPOND:
To the highlighted questions above and the questions below.

What is one new thing you learned about Stone Age art?

What did you find to be particularly interesting?

Art History Timeline (weekly guide)

 DO NOT POST A RESPONSE TO THIS POST!!

The following time line will serve as our weekly guide for posts.  There will be a few weeks where periods will be teamed up so we can cover this IMMENSE amount of information in the time we have left this year.  This will in no way be a complete and far reaching study but rather a general introduction so you will possess a foundation on which you can add a  more detailed and  in-depth understanding in your future art history classes.

The following information is From Art History For Dummies by Jesse Bryant Wilder, MA, MAT

Studying art history starts with taking a look at the timeline of major art periods, including the artists and events that defined these movements and the evolution of art over time.

Art History Timeline

The history of art is immense, the earliest cave paintings pre-date writing by almost 27,000 years! This table  briefly outlines the artists, traits, works, and events that make up major art periods and how art evolved to present day:

We will be using this table as a weekly guide to our very brief overview of art history.   Th week will be highlighted in Red.

Art Periods/ Movements	Characteristics	Chief Artists and Major Works	Historical Events
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)	Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures	Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge	Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000 b.c.); New Stone Age and first permanent settlements (8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.)	Warrior art and narration in stone relief	Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's Code	Sumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.)	Art with an afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb painting	Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti	Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles the Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.)
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.)	Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural orders(Doric, Ionic, Corinthian)	Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles	Athens defeats Persia at Marathon (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian Wars (431 b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the Great's conquests (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476)	Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch	Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan's Column, Pantheon	Julius Caesar assassinated (44 b.c.); Augustus proclaimed Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian splits Empire (a.d. 292); Rome falls (a.d. 476)
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900)	Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating World	Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige	Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk Road opens (1st century b.c.); Buddhism spreads to China (1st–2nd centuries a.d.) and Japan (5th century a.d.)
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453)	Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design	Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra	Justinian partly restores Western Roman Empire (a.d. 533–a.d. 562); Iconoclasm Controversy (a.d. 726–a.d. 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610) and Muslim Conquests (a.d. 632–a.d. 732)
Middle Ages (500–1400)	Celtic art, Carolingian Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic	St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto	Viking Raids (793–1066); Battle of Hastings (1066); Crusades I–IV (1095–1204); Black Death (1347–1351); Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550)	Rebirth of classical culture	Ghiberti's Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael	Gutenberg invents movable type (1447); Turks conquer Constantinople (1453); Columbus lands in New World (1492); Martin Luther starts Reformation (1517)
Venetian and Northern Renaissance (1430–1550)	The Renaissance spreads north- ward to France, the Low Countries, Poland, Germany, and England	Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden	Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation (1545–1563); Copernicus proves the Earth revolves around the Sun (1543
Mannerism (1527–1580)	Art that breaks the rules; artifice over nature	Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini	Magellan circumnavigates the globe (1520–1522)
Baroque (1600–1750)	Splendor and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious wars	Reubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles	Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants (1618–1648)
Neoclassical (1750–1850)	Art that recaptures Greco-Roman grace and grandeur	David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova	Enlightenment (18th century); Industrial Revolution (1760–1850)
Romanticism (1780–1850)	The triumph of imagination and individuality	Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin West	American Revolution (1775–1783); French Revolution (1789–1799); Napoleon crowned emperor of France (1803)
Realism (1848–1900)	Celebrating working class and peasants; en plein air rustic painting	Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet	European democratic revolutions of 1848
Impressionism (1865–1885)	Capturing fleeting effects of natural light	Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas	Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871); Unification of Germany (1871)
Post-Impressionism (1885–1910)	A soft revolt against Impressionism	Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat	Belle Époque (late-19th-century Golden Age); Japan defeats Russia (1905)
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935)	Harsh colors and flat surfaces (Fauvism); emotion distorting form	Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc	Boxer Rebellion in China (1900); World War (1914–1918)
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl (1905–1920)	Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new forms to express modern life	Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich	Russian Revolution (1917); American women franchised (1920)
Dada and Surrealism (1917–1950)	Ridiculous art; painting dreams and exploring the unconscious	Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, de Chirico, Kahlo	Disillusionment after World War I; The Great Depression (1929–1938); World War II (1939–1945) and Nazi horrors; atomic bombs dropped on Japan (1945)
Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s) and Pop Art (1960s)	Post–World War II: pure abstraction and expression without form; popular art absorbs consumerism	Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein	Cold War and Vietnam War (U.S. enters 1965); U.S.S.R. suppresses Hungarian revolt (1956) Czechoslovakian revolt (1968)
Postmodernism and Deconstructivism (1970– )	Art without a center and reworking and mixing past styles	Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Anselm Kiefer, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid			Nuclear freeze movement; Cold War fizzles; Communism collapses in Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R. (1989–1991)

American Art Museum

Check out this video about Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas.

http://artvest.com/cbs-sunday-morning-alice-waltons-crystal-bridges-110611/

Please comment on your reaction to this video, and the discussion topics as well as other's opinions and reactions.  Be respectful and aware that this is an assignment for Portfolio. I am reading this! 

DISCUSSION TOPICS:
What do you think about:
              the attitude of those who believe significant pieces of art should not be in Arkansas? 
             The Wall Street Journal's comment that Allice Walton may be a "...hovering culture vulture." as reported?
            were there other portions of this video on which you would like to comment?