Week 2: Global Prehistoric Art Paleolithic/ ‘Old Stone Age’: 1st art, 1st pictures, 1st representations● Food gathering; migratory Neolithic/ ‘New Stone Age’: ‘Agricultural Revolution’● Food production, animal domestication; settlements

1. Apollo 11 stones. Namibia. c.25,500-25,300 BCE. Charcoal on stone.7 painted stone (quartzite) slabs Small scale (4.5 x 5 in) → portable!

Painted animals● Felines? Bovids? Zebra? ● Stylized forms: all strict profile (silhouette)

○ Shows the most info about the animal

Were buried together deliberately in cave (able to radiocarbon date the burial, but not the stones)

Some of the oldest known artworks in the worldRadiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon (14. C), a radioactive isotope of carbon.

2. Great Hall of the Bulls. Lascaux, France. Paleolithic Europe. 15,000-13,000 BCE. Rock Painting.

Discovered ‘in situ:’ in its original place● Deep inside caves, hard to reach● Opens up to cavernous space ● Created/viewed in flickering firelight

Painted with reed brushes, stone palettes, or colors blown by mouth

Variety of bulls and horses● Not a herd: different animals moving

different ways

Different painters over time● Overlapping images

● Both silhouette and outline depictions

● Twisted perspective/Composite pose: A convention of representation in which part of a figure is shown in profile and another part of the same figure is shown frontally

● Contours of cave, flickering light = sense of movement?

Visitors experience replica, “Lascaux 2”

Function? Only theories...

Commonly interpreted as related to hunting scenes (“hunting magic”)

Alternative theories

● Part of spiritual rituals

● Paintings correspond to rhythms of the year, regeneration

● Symbolic pairings All theories have some flaws, and there's probably no single explanation. ● BUT likely understood as the image having power

Spotted Horses and Painted Hands, Pech-Merle Cave, Dordogne, France Horses: 25,000 BCE Hands: 15,000 BCE Paint on limestone, horses 5’

3. Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine. Tequixquiac, central Mexico. 14,000-7,000 BCE Bone

One of earliest artifacts from Mesoamerica● Difficult to date: missing stratigraphic info!

Carved sacrum bone: symbolically important bone● From extinct relative of camel

Shape suggests image→ Made to look like a canine: holes to resemble nostrils

Function: unknown. ● A mask? Associated with fertility? Hunting?

Saharan rock painting.

4. Running horned woman. Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria. 6,000-4,000 BCE Pigment on rock.

Running/dancing? Woman● Painted dots on body● Horned headdress● No face● A shaman? (person thought to

have access to spiritual world, enters into trances, practices divination and healing)

● A ritual performance?

Dynamic motion: running pose, fringes, twisted perspective

In a hard-to-access area Layers of paintings from different periods

Similarities? Differences? (Remember form, function, content, context)

5.Bushel with ibex motifs.Susa, Iran. 4200-3500BCE. Painted terra cotta. Neolithic. 12” h

Louvre

Register: horizontal band of decorationTerracotta: unglazed earthenware

Louvre

From Mesopotamian Neolithic settlement● From secondary burial (reinterment of remains)● No written records!

A grave good (item buried with a body): originally serve another purpose?● Shows prosperity of neolithic city

Local animals (domesticated and wild) ● Aquatic birds, running dogs, ibex/goat● Other meaning to shapes?

Stylized● Form of animals echo/emphasize shape of the potUse of registers to divide space Probably hand-built (no wheel)

6. Anthropomorphic stele. Arabian Peninsula. Fourth millennium BCE. sandstone

Anthropomorphic: having human characteristics

Stele: upright stone slab

6. Anthropomorphic stele. Arabian Peninsula. Fourth millennium BCE. Sandstone

~ 60 similar stele found in Arabian Pen. ● Savannah-like in this period)● How do they look similar over large area? Caravans?

Function: Understood to be grave marker in open air sanctuary

Stylized man with split-blade dagger, 2 straps across chest● Geometric● Frontal ● Minimal features ● Shallow relief

List the similarities and differences of these two objects in terms of content, context, form, and function

This work can be identified as:

A. The Apollo 11 stones from Namibia, created c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E.

B. A section of the Great Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux, created 15,000–13,000 B.C.E.

C. The Ambum Stone from Papua New Guinea, created c. 1500 B.C.E.

D. A Lapita terra cotta fragment from the Solomon Islands, created 1000 B.C.E.

This work was found in which of the following contexts:

A. Painted on the wall of a cave

B. Buried with other grave goods

C. Located in a cave in the mountains

D. Embedded in the ruins of an ancient temple

The form of the animal is represented using which of the following techniques?

A. Composite pose to show the animal from different angles

B. Profile so that distinctive aspects of the animal are recognizable

C. Foreshortening to create the illusion that the animal is in motion

D. Overlapping extremities that convey a sense of spatial depth

The culture that created the work can be characterized as

A. Defined by social rank and a specialization of labor

B. Composed of groups of mobile hunters and gatherers

C. Organized into an early farming community with domesticated animals

D. Engaged in trade with small seafaring communities on other continents

7. Jade cong. Liangzhu, China. 3,300-2,200 BCE. Carved jade.

Neolithic Liangzhu culture: lower Yangtze● Socially stratified society

○ Congs are items of privilege!

Cong: hollow square sculpture decorated with lines: interlocking circles and squares● Geometric, symmetrical● Jade: precious green stone

Carved by rubbing with sandFound in graves, but unclear function● Witchcraft/the supernatural?

What do they represent? ● Faces - monsters or humans? ● Symbols - cosmos?

Ritual Object (Bi)Period: Neolithic periodDate: ca. late 3rd–2nd millennium B.C.Culture: ChinaMedium: Jade (nephrite)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bi

Megalith: colossal stoneHenge: circular raised bank of earth + ditch (often with upright stones) Site-specific: purposely created/built for a specific placePost and lintel: simplest way to span a space; upright posts topped by a horizontal lintel

Neolithic!

Built in at least three phases: 1. 36o’ henge + stones or posts2. Addition of wooden posts (maybe a roof),

burials3. Bluestones (from Wales!!) and 30 Sarsen

stones in an interior circle +lintelsa. 180’ diameterb. Stones are 13’ high, weigh 25 tons!

Stones were originally brighter and whiter

What was its function? ● ‘Heel Stone’ aligns with

sunrise of summer solstice (longest day of the year)

● Evidence of burials● Pilgrimage for healing?

○ Bluestones

9. The Ambum Stone, Ambum Valley, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea c.1500 BCE, Greywacke

One of the earliest pieces of Pacific art● Disc. in a cave in 1960s

Similar to animal-shaped pestles (for grinding) from same period, but carved at a much higher level (imp!) ● Greywacke is very difficult to carve● Maybe depicts an anteater?

Unknown original function● Europeans viewed/valued as example of the

‘primitive,’ pure, exotic● Present-day indigenous people believe these have

supernatural powers (“bones of the ancestors,” used in rituals)

10. Tlatilco female figure. Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco, 1200-900 BCE Ceramic

10. Tlatilco female figure. Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco, 1200-900 BCE. Ceramic

One of many figurines found abundantly in burials● Mostly female figurines ● Function: fertility? Religious?

Most have similar (stylized) form: ● Hand-made: pinched and incised● Wide hips, spherical thighs, pinched waist, elaborate hair● Narrow, half-closed eyes ● No hands, feet

Rare two-headed figurine:● Idea of duality? Supernatural?

In the Tlatilco figurine shown, the artist created an effect of stylization through which of the following visual characteristics?

A. Monochromatic coloration to give a smooth, even tone to the work

B. A static pose to create a sense of balance and harmony

C. Hierarchical scale to demonstrate the central importance of the figure

D. Exaggerated proportions that place an emphasis on truncated arms and expansive hips

11. Terra cotta fragment. Lapita. Solomon Islands, Reef Islands. 1000 BCE. Terra cotta (incised)

Pottery finds show ‘Lapita’ culture spread eastward over time: ● >250 sites from Micronesia to

Polynesia ● Seafaring culture

Function: some funerary, some functional pots (serving, storing)

FORM: ● Clay mixed with sand (durability) ● Hand built ● Painted with slip (liquid clay) to fire red● Incised and stamped decoration● White coral lime applied to pattern ● Fired at low temperatures (no kiln)● Geometric patterns● Stylized faces

CONTENT: Depicts ancestors? Creation myth?

Tattoo: in the 18th century taken from the Polynesian word tatua Tapa or barkcloth

220. Tamati Waka Nene. Gottfried Lindauer. 1890 CE oil on canvas

219. Hiapo (tapa) Niue. C.1850-1900 CE Tapa or bark cloth, freehand painting

Vestiges of Lapita design appear in later tattooing and bark cloth decoration

151. Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake, Utah, U.S. Robert Smithson. 1970 C.E. Earthwork: mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, and water coil.

Earthwork: excavation and embankment of earth

Made from materials on site● Projects 1500’ into Great Salt Lake ● Show change and decay over time

○ Entropy: gradual decay

Difficult to reach: idea of pilgrimage● Meant to be walked on,

experienced

Shape found in nature, ancient art

Themes of creation, history, change

Environmental Art: reminder of human stewardship of the earth

As I looked at the site, it reverberated out to the horizons only to suggest an immobile cyclone while flickering light made the entire landscape appear a quake. A dormant earthquake spread into the fluttering stillness, into a spinning sensation without movement. This site was a rotary that enclosed itself in an immense roundness. From that gyrating space emerged the possibility of the Spiral Jetty. No ideas, no concepts, no systems, no structures, no abstractions could hold themselves together in the actuality of that evidence. My dialectics of site and nonsite whirled into an indeterminate state, where solid and liquid lost themselves in each other. It was as if the lake became the edge of the sun, a boiling curve, an explosion rising into a fiery prominence. Matter collapsing into the lake mirrored in the shape of a spiral. No sense wondering about classifications and categories, there were none."

Seasons/Nature and Change

234.

210.207.

AP History of Art Exam

Section IMultiple Choice — 80 Questions | 1 Hour | 50% of Exam Score

● Approximately 8 sets of questions (3 to 6 questions each) based on color images

● Approximately 35 individual multiple-choice questions

Section IIFree Response — 6 Questions | 2 Hours | 50% of Exam Score

● Two long essay questions (35, 25 minutes)● Four 15-minute essay questions● Essay questions often include images of works of art as stimuli.● Analytic grading: points for each task completed