Art 101 Unit 1 study guide

Paleolithic art:

1)-Concerned itself with either food (hunting scenes, animal carvings) or fertility (Venus figurines). Its predominant theme was animals. 2)-Is considered to be an attempt, by Stone Age peoples, to gain some sort of control over their environment, whether by magic or ritual. 3)-Represents a giant leap in human cognition: abstract thinking.

The images found at Lascaux and Altamira are more recent, dating to approximately ________B.C.E

15,000

Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardéche valley in France, are more than 30,000 years old and were discovered in what year?

1994 (older than Lascaux and Altamira)

What are 2 categories of art?

2-dimensional (flat work) 3-dimensional (sculptures)

Cave art has been found on which continents?

Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Australia

Persians

Also called the Achaemenids. Persia was the first empire known to have acknowledged the different faiths, languages and political organizations of its subjects. The Persian Empire was, famously, conquered by Alexander the Great.

Portrait Head of Queen Tiye with a Crown of Two Feather

Amarna Period- mother of Akhenaten

Bust of Nefertiti

Amarna period, limestone and plaster- It was found in a studio and never meant to be completed.

Calyx crater

An attic red-figure by Niobid Painter. Used to mix wine and water. A severe style in time with an influence in wall painting.

A.D. stands for

Anno Domini (latin for "in the year of our lord")

(Quiz) Who sculpted Boxer at Rest, 100-50 B.C.E.?

Apollonius

Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal decorated the public walls of his palace with images of himself performing great feats of bravery, strength and skill. Some covered with lion hunts of the king killing a lion which was a symbolic act of keeping nature at bay. Most proud of was the total destruction of the city of Susa.

Great Lyre

Bull's head made of gold, blue beard with a body made out of wood. Also has 4 registers in the front.

Ishtar Gate and Processional Way

Called one of the wonders of the world. Eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. The lions represent Ishtar (babylonian goddesses) goddess of war & wisdom and sexuality.

cyclical time and linear time

Came to be associated with two of their primary deities: Osiris, the eternal lord of the dead, and Re, the sun god who was reborn with each dawn.

Cuneiform

Cuneiform writing was used to record a variety of information such as temple activities, business and trade. Cuneiform was also used to write stories, myths, and personal letters. Cuneiform signs could represent a whole word or an idea or a number. Most of the early tablets (Cuneiform) come from the site of Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia.

Parthenon sculptures-Acropolis

Dedicated to virgin Goddess Athena(Goddess of wisdom). Classical period. Can be found in the pediment, metopes and frieze. Each side of the building represents their own story. Birth place of democracy. Doric temple with Ironic elements. There was an older temple that was destroyed when Persians invaded. Store house and treasure room.

Leonard Woodley

Discovered 16 royal tombs. Standard of Ur was an artifact, wooden box that contained different registers on the image.

The cave of Lascaux

Discovered in 1940. We find images of horses, deer, bison, elk, a few lions, a rhinoceros and a bear. Among these images are abstract marks—dots and lines in a variety of configurations. A bison, drawn in strong, black lines, bristles with energy, as the fur on the back of its neck stands up and the head is radically turned to face us. Hall of Bulls room.

Naram Sin, the king, is larger than other figures and wears a horned helmet, a symbol of . . .

Divinity

B.C.E. stands for

before the common era

Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)

Early Classical Period, Roman marble copy after a Greek bronze original from c. 450-440 B.C.E. All beauty through ratio. Sculpture on the perfection of human body. Polykleitos

Plastered heads

First evidence for religious practice during neolithic period. People were buried under homes and skulls were removed and covered in plaster.

The Great Sphinx

First truly colossal sculpture in Egyptian history.

How did Akkadian artists represent the human body in relief sculpture?

They used a composite view.

(Quiz) True or false: The city of Persepolis contained a massive columned hall called an Apadana.

True

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun was only the age of nine when he became king of Egypt during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. Discovered in 1922. Tutankhamun ruled after the Amarna age, when the pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's probable father. Tutankhamen shifted the focus of the country's worship back to the god Amun and returned the religious center back to Thebes.

The highest degrees of naturalism are referred to as

Verism

Ancient Greek Temples at Paestum

Was a Greek settlement sometimes called a colony. Paestum has 3 Greek Doric temples one from classical period and one from archaic period. Oldest is dedicated to Goddess Hera, wife of Zeus.

Narmer palette

Was discovered in 1898 by James Quibell and Frederick Green. A smooth greyish-green siltstone, is decorated on both faces with detailed low relief. These scenes show a king, identified by name as Narmer.

(Quiz) A fibula is

a) a kind of large ornamental safety pin used to fasten a robe b) a precious object found near woman in Etruscan tombs c) an object of personal adornment

Three-dimensional representations

aimed to reproduce the real-world—statuary of gods, royalty, and the elite was designed to convey an idealized version of that individual.

Egyptians divided the year into 3 seasons called

akhet "inundation," peret "growing/emergence." and shemw "harvest." Egyptian history is also divided into larger chunks, known as "kingdoms" and "periods," to distinguish times of strength and unity from those of change, foreign rule, or disunity.

Dark schist

also called graywacke

(Quiz) A 2-handled storage jar is

an ampohora

(Quiz) When a date is preceded by circa it means:

around, or approximately

Hatshepsut commissioned many pieces of this kind of art

her mortuary temple

Mycenaean

is the term applied to the art and culture of Greece from ca. 1600 to 1100 B.C.

The Doryphoros is exceptional because

its very intellectual work

Why is Egyptian design important today?

many concepts developed in Egypt are still used in architecture today

(Quiz) A flat-roofed rectangular brick or stone structure with sloping sides is a

mastaba

Kemet

means "black lands"

Deshret

means "red lands" of the sterile desert

Dubsar

means scribe

Ka

means spirit

e-dubba

means tablet house

Queen Nefertiti

name means "the beautiful one has come"

Overlapping

placing a shape over and partly covering a more distant shape

What was with main reason Hatshepsut engaged in extensive building projects?

propaganda

What was used as the media of the first artwork?

red ochre

The decorative reliefs that Hatshepsut had commissioned had what overtones?

religion

What are 3 styles of art?

representational abstract non-representational or non-objective

Which is the longest continually paracticed art in the world?

rock art in Australia

Hatshepsut is unique among pharaohs because

she was a woman and successful ruler, in part because she effectively utilized art and architecture

"Dynastic" Egypt

sometimes referred to as "Pharaonic" (after "pharaoh," the Greek title of the Egyptian kings.

What other artistic objects have been found in China?

stone flutes

Surrealism

stress subconscious or non rational imagery in a super realistic manner

(Quiz) The great pyramids at Giza are symbols of the ________.

sun

Why have we not been able to precisely determine how old the first art is

technological limitations

(Quiz) Betyls refer to

the famous god blocks found in Petra

(Quiz) The patron is

the person paying for the work of art

What happened to many of the images of Hatshepsut after her death?

they were systematically deface

(Quiz) True or False: A necropolis is a cemetery.

true

(Quiz) True or False: The Doric Order is less ornate than the Ionic Order.

true

(Quiz) True or False: The Hellenistic period can refer to artistic and cultural similarities in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Egypt and the Middle East.

true

(Quiz) True or False: The animals depicted on the walls of the Paleolithic cave Chauvet Pont d'Arc are a complex combination of naturalism and abstraction.

true

(Quiz) True or False: The statue of Menkaure and Khamerernebty(?) was executed in dark schist (also called graywacke).

true

Hatshepsut commissioned what great monument was constructed at the Temple of Karnak?

two massive obelisks (They were erected at the entrance of the temple; one is still standing and is the tallest surviving ancient obelisk.)

Horus

virile falcon-headed god who was believed to bestow the throne to the first human king.

Laocoön and his sons

was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear.

Osiris

was the lord of the underworld, ruler of the realm of the dead

(Quiz) Kouros means

youth

What knowledge inspired Pythagoras to explore visual harmony as related integers of length?

chords played on a lyre (as the ratios were relevant to the length of the lyre's strings)

C.E. stands for

common era

Light and shadow

communicate time of day or season, environment, texture or form.

(Quiz) A lamassu is an example of a:

composite creature

Which of the following was not a role of the Pharaoh?

connect with the needs of individual subjects

(Quiz) Amarna Period art is characterized by ________.

curvilinear forms and swollen bellies

(Quiz) Minoan columns are characterized by their ___ capitals.

cushionlike

(Quiz) A small pierced object like a long bead that is carved in reverse (intaglio) with a unique image and sometimes the name of the owner is a(n):

cylinder seal

(Quiz) True or False: On a Greek temple, the metope is located on the pediment.

false

Ziggurat of Ur

Like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, an ancient Near Eastern ziggurat has four sides and rises up to the realm of the gods. Not smoothed but tiered. Ziggurats are found scattered around what is today Iraq and Iran. One of the largest and best-preserved ziggurats of Mesopotamia is the great Ziggurat at Ur. Sir Leonard Woolley revealed the monument in 1920.

Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi

Made in kingdom Babylonia (now Iraq). It is a tall carved object in relief divided into 3 parts. Written in Akkadian language with a composite view. More than 300 laws on the bottom.

(Quiz) By 1500 BC a distinctive _____ culture was flourishing on the Greek mainland

Mycenaean

The stele commemorates . . .

Naram Sin's military victory over the Lullubi people.

How were the Etruscans mysterious?

None of their own histories or literature survives.

Satyr

Not a human being but part animal or a subhuman in Greek mythology. Half civilized and half wild.

(Quiz) Paleolithic means

Old Stone Age

Discus Thrower (by Myron)

Original was in bronze. This is a Roman copy. Capture the sense of harmony and balance.

Seated scribe

Painted limestone, frontal and very lifelike sculpture.

Phersu

Phersu'-- the frightful, masked figure you see in this Early Etruscan tomb painting who would engage his victims in a dreadful 'game' of blood letting in order to appease the soul of the deceased (the original gladiatorial games, according to the Romans!).

focal point

Place in a work of art on which attention becomes centered

(Quiz) Black-figure painting refers to

Placing dark figures against a red background

What are three kinds of sculptures?

Relief, Intaglio, in the round (freestanding)

Alexander Mosaic

Roman copy (Pompeii) of a lost Greek painting, c. 315 B.C.E., Hellenistic Period. Battle with Darius.

Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters

Ruler Akhenaten changes the state religion from worship of god Amun to sun god Aten.

Polyclitus' statues had poses that when broken down into constituent parts could be described as what?

S-shaped (weight-bearing and relaxed form, also knowns as contrapposto)

Statue of Sleeping Eros

Sculpture of a child sleeping.

Composite view

Shoulders are frontal but the face is in profile.

Petra: The rose red city of the Nabataeans

Stone carvings, camel caravans and betyls (the famous god blocks) set in niches, appear. The rock-cut façades are the iconic monuments of Petra. Of these, the most famous is the so-called Treasury (or Khazneh), which appeared in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as the final resting place of the Holy Grail.

(Quiz) The Sarcophagus of the Spouses:

Tells us about the relatively high social status Etruscan women enjoyed

Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc

The cave's drawings depict other large animals including horses, mammoths, musk ox, ibex, reindeer, aurochs, megaloceros deer, panther, and owl. We see a group of horses, rhinos and bison and we see them as a group, overlapping and skewed in scale. There is also a drawing of a bison and a lion and the images are nearly intertwined. In addition to the drawings, the cave is littered with the skulls and bones of cave bear and the track of a wolf. There is also a foot print thought to have been made by an eight-year-old boy.

Cycladic culture

The figures are very stylized. They don't look realistic, aren't detailed, and have very simplified forms. Many are shaped like female nudes with folded arms. Other subjects include male figures, who are often playing musical instruments.

Exekias

The heroes are Achilles on the left and Ajax on the right, two Greek heroes. Exekias labeled their names. Two men are here playing a game.

Great Pyramids of Giza

The last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Three pyramids, three rulers. The three primary pyramids on the Giza plateau were built over the span of three generations by the rulers Khufu, Khafre (largest, 1st built), and Menkaure(smallest and 3rd built). The shape of the pyramid was a solar reference, perhaps intended as a solidified version of the rays of the sun.

Head of Akkadian Ruler

The life-sized bronze head shows in sharp geometric clarity, locks of hair, curled lips and a wrinkled brow.

Jericho

The site of Jericho is best known for its identity in the Bible.

pediments

The triangle part with sculptures.

City of Uruk

There was a large temple complex dedicated to Innana, the patron goddess of the city. The City-State's agricultural production would be "given" to her and stored at her temple. Uruk the first known theocracy. We know this because of cuneiform script found that were left by Sumerians.

Egyptian art

These images, whether statues or relief, were designed to benefit a divine or deceased recipient. Statuary provided a place for the recipient to manifest and receive the benefit of ritual action and were not meant to be seen.

(Quiz) True or False: The Venus of Willendorf is realistic in its shape and proportion.

false

(Quiz) True or False: The well-known Regolini-Galassi tomb from the city of Cerveteri functioned as an extravagant house for the living.

false

(Quiz) True or False: The ziggurat is the least distinctive architectural invention of the Ancient Near East.

false

Dying Gaul

A Roman copy. We can see his pain, suffering and weakness. He's fallen and has been wounded about to lose his strength.

The stele breaks with tradition in its use of. . .

A diagonal ground line.

Story of Gilgamesh

A legendary ruler of Uruk, and his search for immortality.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin

A relief sculpture made of pink limestone. Symbolic image telling a story. It is one of the first pieces of art to depict an actual historial event; the stele commemorates Naram-Sin's victory over the Lullubi people. Naram with soldiers marching behind him. Wearing a horned helmet which is a symbol of divinity.

Barberini Faun

A satyr (part animal) that has a tail and pointy ears. Was discovered in Rome by the Pope Barberini who added him to his collection and was named after him.

Keros Harpist

A small sculpture of a man seated on a chair. Only 10 have been discovered in the Cycladic islands. Abstract sculpture with areas painted in very bright colors. Male figure is more round while female is more frontal with more detailed geometry.

Marble Statue of a Kouros

A stone sculpture of a new young man wearing a band around his head and a choker on his neck. Meant to mark a tomb.

Etruscans

Etruscans were the first "superpower" of the Western Mediterranean who, alongside the Greeks, developed the earliest true cities in Europe. Etruscans who were responsible for teaching the Romans the alphabet and for spreading literacy throughout the Italian peninsula.

(Quiz) True or False: A landscape is a sketch, painting or photograph depicting a view of the sea.

False

Minoan culture

They invented an early form of writing and built large complex palaces with multiple stories, staircases, colonnades (long series of columns with a roof overhead), bathing rooms, indoor plumbing, and even spaces for theater performances and public spectacles.

Cave art never has the following subjects

Landscapes

Lamassu

From the city of Sargon II. Guardian figures protected the palace. They were carved of monolithic stone of single pieces of stone with one cut.

Seth

God of chaotic desert

Nike of Samothrace

Goddess of victory.

Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)

Found in 1908 in a village called Willendorf, Austria. Has no feet or facial features, thin arms, large breast, symmetrical,woven hat, limestone object and can be carried around comfortably in the palm of your hand. Originally painted with orchre paint (a kind of red paint).

(Quiz) Non-representational Art/nonobjective:

Having no recognizable objects as an image

Apollonius, Seated Boxer

Hellenistic Period (Period after Alexander the Great). Sculpture is hollow with eyes missing. He is muscular and powerful but he is defeated. Seated figure with broken nose.

The Pergamon Altar

Hellenistic Period (last period of Greek art). Athena and Zeus. Athena in the center battling a monster.

Two types of scripts

Hieroglyphic script whose source of inspiration was probably Egypt, and a linear script, Linear A, perhaps inspired by the cuneiform of the eastern Mediterranean.

Stonehenge

Is an example of the cultural advances brought about by the Neolithic revolution—the most important development in human history. The way we live today, settled in homes, close to other people in towns and cities, protected by laws, eating food grown on farms, and with leisure time to learn, explore and invent is all a result of the Neolithic revolution. Most famous aspect is its relationship with the solar and lunar calendar.

Library of Ashurbanipal

Is the oldest surviving royal library in the world holding over 130,000 texts and fragments.

Which of the following is true about Egyptian imagery?

It has a sense of decorum

(Quiz) Which of the following is true about the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin:

It is one of the first pieces of art to depict a historical event

What have modern scholars seen in Polyclitus' work?

a balance of opposites

Hatshepsut commissioned sculptures of herself that had what characteristic?

a beautiful woman

(Quiz) The Alexander Mosaic, c. 100 B.C.E., tessera mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, may be based on:

a lost Hellenistic painting by Philoxenos of Eretria, The Battle of Issus, c. 315 B.C.E.

(Quiz) A trilithon is

a pair of upright stones with a lintel stone spanning their tops

Gesture drawing

a quick and loose drawing to show movement

What is the Canon of Polyclitus?

a renowned ancient treatise on art (discusses ideal mathematical proportions for the parts of the human body and proposes for sculpture of the human figure a dynamic counterbalance - between the relaxed and tensed body parts and between the directions in which the parts move.)

(Quiz) Naturalism is

a resemblance to the "real world," as we see it

(Quiz) Perspective refers to

a technique for depicting a mathematical system of spatial relationships

(Quiz) Terracotta is

a type of ceramic also called earthenware

Contour line drawing

drawing as though the drawing tools were moved along the edge and ridges of the form

(Quiz) This quartz-based medium could be easily shaped, molded, and mass produced.

faience

(Quiz) True or False: Many rock-cut facades have been unearthed in Aegina, Greece.

false