art history of the west

8/11/2019 Art History of the West

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Art History of the West


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Introduction of Arts

Music- primarily a temporal art, which is tosay that there is music when there is someoneto play the instruments and sing the songs.

Visual arts and architecture- are spatial artsthat have permanence. When a religiousservice is over, people may still come into thebuilding to admire its architecture or marvelat its paintings or sculptures or look at thedecorative details of the building.


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Literature- a permanent quality in that it is

recorded in books, although some literature is

meant not to be read but to be heard.


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How to look at Art

Our response to such objects depends a good

deal on our own education and cultural

biases.

The history of art is nothing more than the

record of how people have used their minds

and imaginations to symbolize who they are

and what they value.


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The very complexity of human art makes it

difficult to interpret. That difficulty increases

when we are looking at art from a much

different culture and/or a far different age.


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Use of arts as communication

This is one of intellectual or emotional context.

An artist may strive for an ideal (I want topaint the most beautiful woman in the world,

or I wish my painting to be taken for realityitself, or I wish to move people to love orhate or sorrow by my sculpture),illustrate thepower of an idea, or (as in the case with mostprimitive art) capture the power of the spiritworld for religious and/or magical purposes.


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The Beginning of Civilization

Mesopotamians were constantly reminded:

Listen to the word of your mother as to your

god; do not anger the heart of your older sister.


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The Beginning of Civilization

1. Some form of urban life involving theconstruction

of permanent settlementscities, in short.

2. A system of government that regulates politicalrelations.

3. The development of distinct social classes,

distinguished from one another by two relatedfactors:

wealth and occupation.


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4. Tools and specialized skills for the production of

goods, leading to the rise of manufacturing and

trade.

5. Some form of written communication, making it

possible to share and preserve information.

6. A shared system of religious belief, whose

officialsor priests often play a significant role in community

affairs.


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Paleolithic Art

Toward the end of the Paleolithic period, around15,000 bce, a major breakthrough occurred. Thehuman desire for self-expression resulted in the

invention of visual art. Although the art of thisremote age would be valuable for its historicalsignificance alone, many of the paintings andstatues stand as masterpieces in their own right.

The earliest cave paintings show animals andhunting, which played a vital part in providing foodand clothing.


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Akkadian and Babylonian Culture

When Akkadian rule was brought to an abruptand violent end by the invasion of the Gutiansfrom Iran, the cities of Mesopotamia reverted

to earlier ways. As in the early Sumerianperiod, the chief buildings constructed werelarge brick platforms with superimposedterraces, known as ziggurats. These clearly

had religious significance; the one built at Uraround 2100 BCE had huge staircases that ledto a shrine at the top.


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ANCIENT EGYPT

In a land where regional independencealready existed in the natural separation ofUpper from Lower Egypt, national unity was

maintained by a strong central governmentfirmly controlled by a single ruler, thepharaoh. He was regarded as a living god, theequal of any other deity. He had absolute

power, although the execution of his ordersdepended on a large official bureaucracywhose influence tended to increase in time.


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EGYPTIAN RELIGION

The funeral rites, together with their meaning,were described in a series of sacred textsknown collectively as the Book of the Dead.

The god who presided over these ceremonieswas Osiris. The worship of Osiris, his wife Isis,and their son, the falcon god Horus, whichcame in time to symbolize a sense of spiritual

afterlife, as opposed to simple materialsurvival, represented the mystical side ofEgyptian religion.


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1.12 Sethos I, c. 1290

1279 bce. Sethos, who

was buriedin a tomb adjoining

the temple decorated

with this image,holds the hand of

Thoth, the ibis-headed

god of wisdom (in

particular, writing),

who places his hand

on Sethos shoulder.


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THE OLD AND MIDDLE KINGDOMS

The huge scale of many Egyptian works of art is at least in part

the result of the easy availability of stone, the most frequently

used material from the early Old Kingdom to the Late Period. In

Dynasty III, the architect Imhotep used stone to construct the

earliest pyramid as a tomb for his master, the pharaoh Zoser.This began the tradition of building massive funerary

monuments that would guarantee immortality for their

occupants. At the same time, the practice of mummification

developed. The body was embalmed to maintain its physicalform, because Egyptian religious belief held that preservation

of the body was necessary for the survival of the soul. Imhotep,

the first architect known to history, was in later ages regarded

as the epitome of wisdom and was deified.


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The Age of the Pyramids

Chefren, who commissioned the second of the threepyramids at Giza, was also responsible for perhaps themost famous of all Egyptian images, the colossalSphinx, a guardian for his tomb. The aloof tranquility of

the human face, perhaps a portrait of the pharaoh, seton a lions body, made an especially strong impressionfifteen hundred years later on the Classical Greeks,who saw it as a divine symbol of the mysterious andenigmatic. Greek art frequently uses the sphinx as a

motif, and it also appears in Greek mythology, mosttypically in the story of how Oedipus solved its riddleand thereby saved the Greek city of Thebes fromdisaster.


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The Great Sphinx, c. 25752525 BCE. Behind the Great Sphinx on the left is the Pyramid of

Chefren, and on the right is the Pyramid of Cheops. The Sphinx is carved out of the natural

surface of the rock. It has the body of a lion and a human head(perhaps an idealized portrait

of Chefren) and guards the pharaohs burial chamber at the heart of his pyramid.


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Chefren (left side and

front), c. 25752525

BCE. The sculptor hasshown the drapery and

anatomy with great

realism, while producingan idealized portrait of

the god king. His divine

power is represented byHorus, the falcon god of

the Morning Sun,

perched behind his head.


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THE NEW KINGDOM

Queen Nefertiti is the subject of perhaps the

most famous of all Egyptian portraits

sculpture that shows none of the exaggeration

to which Amarna art is sometimes prone, buta grace and elegance very different from

earlier official portraits.


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Queen Nefertiti, c. 13551335 BCE. Although the

portrait is not exaggerated, it is idealized.


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Return to Tradition

Our knowledge of the cultures of the ancient world isconstantly being revised by the work of archaeologists;many of their finds are minor, but some are major andspectacular. In the case of excavations such as the

tomb of Tutankhamen, the process of uncovering thepast sometimes becomes as exciting and significant aswhat is discovered. The long search conducted byHoward Carter in the Valley of the Kings thatculminated in the opening of the inner chamber of the

sealed tomb of Tutankhamen on February 17, 1923,and the discovery of the intact sarcophagus of the kinghas become part of history


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Death Mask of Tutankhamen, c. 1323 BCE. Note

the false beard, symbol of kingship, and the

sumptuous use of gold and lapis lazuli.


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By the close of the NewKingdom, the taste formonumental building hadreturned. The templesconstructed during the reignof Ramses II (12981232BCE) at Luxor, Karnak, andAbu Simbel are probably themost colossal of all Egyptian

constructions.Within acentury, however, internaldissensions and foreignevents had produced a sharpdecline in Egypts power.


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Greece


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Principle of Greek Deities

ZeusFather of Gods and Men HeraWife of Zeus, Queen of Heaven

PoseidonBrother of Zeus, God of the Sea

HephaestusSon of Zeus and Hera, God of Fire

AresGod of War

ApolloGod of Prophecy, Intellect, Music, and Medicine

ArtemisGoddess of Chastity and the Moon

DemeterEarth Mother, Goddess of Fertility

AphroditeGoddess of Beauty, Love, and Marriage

AthenaGoddess of Wisdom HermesMessenger of the Gods, God of Cleverness

DionysusGod of Wine and the Emotions


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The Greeks turned to their deities for

explanations of both natural phenomena and

psychological characteristics they recognized

in themselves.


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ART AND SOCIETY IN THE HEROIC AGE

Geometric Art

Based largely on painted pottery, hardly a

major art form even in later times, for little

else has survived.


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THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK

SCULPTURE

The influence of Near Eastern andEgyptian models on Greek

sculpture and architecture is moreconsistent and easier to trace than

that of pottery. The first Greeksettlers in Egypt were given land

around the mid-seventh centurybce by the Egyptian pharaoh

Psammetichos I.


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Calf-Bearer, c. 550 bce. The archaic smile is

softened in this figure. Realism appears in the

displacement of the manshair by the animals

legs and in the expression of the calf.

Peplos Kore, c. 530 bce. The statueis identified by the woolen peplos

(mantle) the woman is wearing

over her dress. The missing left arm

was extended. The Greeks painted

important parts of their stone

statues; traces of paint show here.

Relief Sculpture


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Relief SculptureIn addition to these freestanding figures, two other kinds of sculpture now appeared:

large-scale statues made to decorate temples and carved stone slabs.

High relief the figures projectfrom the background so much

as to seem almost three-dimensional.

Low relief the carving preservesthe flat surface of the stone.

Temple sculpture or, as it is often called,

archi tectural sculpture, was frequently

in high relief, as in the depiction of the

decapitation of Medusa from Selinus.

Individual carved stone

slabs are generally in lowrelief. Most that have survived

were used as grave markers.

The workmanship is often of a

remarkable subtlety, as on the

grave stele, or gravestone, of

Aristion.


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Discovered the numerical relationship of

musical harmonies. Our modern musical

scale, consisting of an octave (a span of

eight tones) divided into its constituent

parts, derives ultimately from hisresearches.

Inspired by this discovery, Pythagoras went

on to claim that mathematical relationships

represented the underlying principle of theuniverse and of morality, the so-calledharmony of the spheres.

The Harmony of the Spheres was in part an ancient scale of

electromagnetic frequencies. These were the sounds thateventually came to be expressed in such music as Gregorian

chants. The unique harmony of these frequencies was believed

to impart spiritual blessing and to lead to a deeper level of

consciousness. Because the musical tones were thought so

potent, they were sometimes banned in Medieval times.

C SS C G C


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CLASSICAL GREECETHE ATHENIAN TRAGIC DRAMATISTS

Aeschylus The earliest of the playwrights,Aeschylus (525456 bce). His work shows a

deep awareness of human weakness and the

dangers of power (he had fought at the Battle of

Marathon in 490 bce), but he retains an enduring

belief that in the end right will triumph. In

Aeschyluss plays, the process of being able to

recognize what is right is painful. One must suffer

to learn ones errors; yet the process is

inevitable, controlled by a divine force of justicepersonified under thename of Zeus.


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Oresteia trilogy. This trilogy, the only complete one that has survived, won

first prize in the festival of 458 bce at Athens. The subject of the trilogy is

nothing less than the growth of civilization, represented by the gradualtransition from a primitive law of vendetta (blood for blood) to the rational

society of civilized human beings.


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Sophocles (496406 bce) written 123 plays,

but only seven have survived, all of whichdate from the end of his career. They all

express a much less positive vision of life

than that of Aeschylus. His philosophy is

not easy to extract from his work,

because he is more concerned with

exploring and developing the individualcharacters in his dramas than with

expounding a point of view; in general,

Sophocles seems to combine an

awareness of the tragic consequences of

individual mistakes with a belief in the

collective ability and dignity of the humanrace.


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