A process or a state … a removal from reality -> we can think of all art as abstracted.

Study of signs and symbols in art 

meaning nothingness putting jewelry in a religious painting....Weighing the good and the bad going on in the painting on the right… religious meaning… jewelry is distracting or detrimental to spiritual well being. Woman w/ balance

is one of the most important factors that goes into art.

Patronage is money. Art needs money.

Private patronage is the most popular way…like a private gallery where you put your work and hope someone buys it.

is often commission… make me this statue

Commission is ordering art. (Top right… Vietnam memorial in dc.)

Most basic element of art

o   Edge/Contour

o   Rectilinear/Curvilinear

o   Implied Line

What color is it?

What shade of color is it?

Actual texture (rough brick)

&

depicted texture (ornamentation...illusion of roughness)

reflection of the values of the culture.

o   15^th century till 1 point perspective

o   Organization of Picture (values of Artist/Culture)

old stone age, hunter gathering societies, probably no hierarchy 

Palliolific art has almost no context 

Cave paintings were discovered in late 19th and 20th century

Cannot call this work primitive if you look closely there is sophistication and sensitivity  …. What makes something primitive or advanced??

The idea of primitive has recently been abandoned.

how a culture does something.. What counts as good for them

Why the spots??    Can’t really know for sure, possibly things being thrown at the horse, supernatural/spiritual

4,000-2,000 BCE

New stone age …. End of ice age… more available farm land…. More fishing and hunting available.

Hierarchy’s developed

 Paleolithic art has much more animals than people where Neolithic art has more people … more geometric “a vocabulary or pieces” 

laying a stone on top of another stone only shifted a little how you make arches… each stone goes out a little bit further… end up with a corbel vault .. Narrow at top wider on bottom

how they fit together (stonehenge) 

word for highly abstracted human

(i.e. woman and Man, Romania, c. 3500 BCE, ceramic, height 4 1/2 in.)

·      Nanna Ziggurat c. 2100-2050 bce

o   Used as form of propaganda

·      c. 2550-2400 BCE

o   Lapis Lazuli : Expansive Blue stone

o   Registers layinging out pictorial space

known for squared off beards and curl like things in their art especially in hair.

Power was shown through their architecture… originally these stone figures were painted…. Animal human like creatures (god like) legs represent potential movement (5 legs front look he looks still, side he looks moving)

(6th century bce)

Darius had his image on coins

The Persians art was cosmopolitan 

Formal stiffness seen in this Persian art

Established around Nile river delta… it deposits silt making for great farming

Upper Egypt was further south on the Nile southern Egypt was further north.. They were unified

We assume these were painted

Ceremonial

Right is registered

Conceptual space show everything that can be shown

Perceptual space is how you see it….

Bodies laid out flat on the ground (upper right) heads cut off and sitting between feet

Probably sacrificed

Cutting someone's head off symbolizes loss of identity 

broad flat topped structure where deceased were placed with their stuff, as time went on it became more and more elaborate

Funeral complex designed a stepped mastaba more elaborate, lots of passageways to discourage robbers

built one of the pyramids

He has a certain stiffness, made of stone that would glow blue in sunlight, he was a king, poised, he as formality, 

not a ruler or preist, believed to be a scribe, realistic sculpture, both natural, but the one on the right is realistic compared to khafre

Kai didn’t merrit the kind of regard , somber, way of representation , depicted more naturalistically 

Their architecture demonstrates hierarchical society

Looking at post and lintel construction system, this was part of a much larger temple complex where certain areas were only accessible to the upper people

Columns were carved and painted, only a little sunlight came through the roof

moved capital, monotheistic worship of Aten (sun god)

c. 1300's BC

From the time when Egypt was under control of the Romans. 

Aegean: 2700-2500 BCE Seated Harpist,

·      Cyclades, & two female figures

o   fixed they were found buried and broken

·      Crete, c. 2000-1375 BCE

o   inoan civ. On Crete (speculated by mith)

o   Found 1900’s

o   Reconstruction

o   Palace? Labyrinth?

o   Has many rooms not necessarily a palace, not much is know

o   Organization seems illogical

o   Ancient history to the Greeks already, the myth could be based on the ruins

·      1600-1200 BCE

o   Mainland Greece

o   Presumed Troy

·      Man is the measure of all things

o   Individual is something that matters

§  Hopes, dreams, fears matter

900-700 BCE)

·      Funerary Vase Design, thoughts and feelings more important then in ancient egpyt

620-480 BCE)

·      Statues are stiff, and rather smoothed over, men have long hair (very formal)

o   Idealization

·      600 BCE

o   Human perfection, turm for main Greek statue in Greek period

o   More rounded, musculature indicated more then realized 

·      Anavysos Kouros 530 BCE

·      570-560 bce

o   Female almost always clothed, male nude

o   Kore arcaic female

o   Women thought of as property

o   Sexuality was socially derived not morally derived, homosexuality was practiced in greek.

o   Exekias, Suicide of Ajax, c 540 BCE

§  One of the first know artist names (Vase Signed)

·      Important of artist names

550-320 BCE

·      Polycleitus, Canon, or Spearbearer, Roman Copy after Bronze original c. 450-440 BCE

o   Treatise 71/2 Heads tall “perfect” proportion with Greek systematization

o   Not a portrait it’s a “perfect” human

o   Contrapposto

§  Weight one 1 leg, opposite shoulder thrust up, other leg trails off

·      Apollo with battling Lapiths and Centaurs from pediment, Temple of Olympia 460 BCE

o   Morals expressed through physical beauty

o   is sculpture that’s on the tablature

·      leader of Athens commissioned Parthenon (post war with Persia)

o   Adore Athena with new Peplos every 4 years

·      Praxiteles? Hermes and infant dionysos, 4^th c. BCE orig. (roman or Hellenistic copy)

·      Anecdotal: little story

o   Idea figure changed to 8 heads tall

·      Female nudes became expectable

o   Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos, Composite copies of c. 350 BCE orig.

·      Greek culture spread throughout Europe (Alexander G)

·      Extremely dramatic, theatrical, distorted faces.

·      More clothing not all nudes

·      Laocoon and his Sons, c 2^nd c BCE or Roman copy

·      Roman mosaic copy of c. 310 BCE painting Alexander the great confronts Darius III at Issos

·      Ekphrasis detailed description of picture

o   Keystone

o   Use cement to keep together

o   Help up partial by live forces

o   Temp wood structed centering

o   Buttress on side to keep together

o   Row of arches is arcade

·      Intuitive perspective (no single point)

o   No separation of the arts (all together)

o   Painting for decorating interior

o   Pictorial Unswept floor mosaic

o   Portraiture more common in roman art

·      312-15 CE (Cannibalizing Earlier work)

o   Christian Emperor (edict of Malan: No religious persecution) Mother Christian

§  Converted himself on death bed

(C.480-380 BCE)

• second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC

•  latest part of the Stone Age beginning about 10,000 BC in the Middle East (but later elsewhere)
• of or relating to the most recent period of the Stone Age (following the mesolithic); "evidence of neolithic settlements"