Art History

-The inland floodplain of the Niger River was for the African continent a kind of "fertile crescent," analogous to that of ancient Mesopotamia (see Chapter 2). Djenne in present-day Mali is the major city in this region. Djenne boasts one of the most ambitious examples of adobe architecture in the world, the city's Great Mosque (FIG. 20-5), first built in the 13th century and reconstructed in 1906- 1907 after a fire destroyed the earlier building in 1830. -The mosque has a large courtyard and a roofed prayer hall, emulating the plan of many of the oldest mosques known (see "The Mosque," Chapter 5, page 150). The facade, however, is unlike any in the Middle East and features soaring adobe towers and vertical buttresses resembling engaged columns that produce a majestic visual rhythm

Aerial view (looking northwest) of the Great Mosque, Djenne, Mali, begun 13th century, rebuilt 1906-1907.

-The dominant artist of the early 16th century in the Holy Roman Empire was ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528) of Nuremberg. Like Leonardo da Vinci, he wrote theoretical treatises on a variety of subjects, such as perspective, fortification, and the ideal in human proportions. -Extremely skilled with print art -Dürer was the first artist outside Italy to become an international celebrity,and he has enjoyed a lofty reputation ever since. -Print shows a depressed angel surrounded by tools but can not work due to depression

Albrecht Dürer, Melancolia

-The impact of European art on Mughal painting under Jahangir is evident in Bichitr's allegorical portrait of Jahangir seated on an hourglass throne, a miniature from an album made for the emperor around 1615-1618. -This was a miniture painting and they are a lot of work to create. -As the sands of time run out, two cupids (clothed, unlike their European models more closely copied at the top of the painting) inscribe the throne with the wish that Jahangir would live a thousand years. -Bichitr portrayed his patron as an emperor above time and also placed behind Jahangir's head a radiant halo combining a golden sun and a white crescent moon, indicating that Jahangir is the center of the universe and its light source. One of the inscriptions on the painting gives the emperor's title as "Light of the Faith."

BICHITR, Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings

-Pontormo's pupil, Agnolo di Cosimo, called BRONZINO (1503-1572), painted Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time for Cosimo I de' Medici, the first grand duke of Tuscany, as a gift for King Francis I of France. -Bronzino demonstrated the Mannerists' fondness for learned allegories that often had lascivious undertones, a shift from the simple and monumental statements and forms of the High Renaissance. Bronzino depicted Cupid fondling his mother Venus, while Folly prepares to shower them with rose petals. Time, who appears in the upper right corner, draws back the curtain to reveal the playful incest occuring.

BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time

-A representation of the mythical event appears on a huge stone disk. -The Temple of Huitzilopochtli at Tenochtitlán commemorated the god's victory over his sister and 400 brothers, who had plotted to kill their mother, Coatlicue (She of the Serpent Skirt). The myth signifies the birth of the sun at dawn, a role Huitzilopochtli sometimes assumed, and the sun's battle with the forces of darkness, the stars and moon. Huitzilopochtli chased away his brothers and dismembered the body of his sister, the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui.

Coyolxauhqui (She of the Golden Bells), Aztec, from the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán, Mexico City,

-A younger contemporary of Ghiberti was Donato di Niccolo Bardi, or DONATELLO (ca. 1386-1466). He participated along with other esteemed sculptors, including Ghiberti, in another major Florentine art program of the early 1400s, the decoration of Or San Michele -Donatello completed Saint Mark for the guild of linen drapers in 1413. In this sculpture, Donatello introduced the classical principle of weight shift, or contrapposto, into Early Renaissance sculpture. As the saint's body moves, the drapery moves with it. -Donatello's Saint Mark is the first Renaissance statue whose voluminous drapery (the pride of the Florentine guild that paid for the statue) does not conceal but accentuates the movement of the arms, legs, shoulders, and hips.

DONATELLO, Saint Mark, Or San Michele,

-This depicts the Buddha's death -Unlike Jesus's death which was dramatic, the Buddha's death was very mellow and passed in his sleep surrounded by his followers. -The roundness of the body is very indicative of sri lankan art

Death of the Buddha, Gal Vihara

-Among the numerous groups who settled the Northwest Coast are the Kwakiutl of southern British Columbia. Kwakiutl religious specialists used masks in their healing rituals. Men also wore masks in dramatic public performances during the winter ceremonial season. -The artist who made the Kwakiutl mask illustrated here (FIG. 19-24) meant it to be seen in flickering firelight, and ingeniously constructed it to open and close rapidly when the wearer manipulated hidden strings. He could thus magically transform himself from human to eagle and back again as he danced.

Eagle transformation mask, closed (top) and open (bottom) views, Kwakiutl,

-Fan Kuan believed nature was a better teacher than other artists and was therefore a recluse -In Travelers among Mountains and Streams (FIG. 17-9), Fan Kuan painted a vertical landscape of massive mountains rising from the distance. The overwhelming natural forms dwarf the few human and animal figures (for example, the mule train in the lower right corner), which the artist reduced to minute proportions. -To appreciate the painted landscape fully, the viewer must focus not only on the larger composition but also on intricate details and on the character of each brush stroke. -Numerous "texture strokes" help model massive forms and convey a sense of tactile surfaces. For the face of the mountain, for example, Fan Kuan employed small, pale brush marks, the kind of texture strokes the Chinese call "raindrop strokes."

FAN KUAN, Travelers among Mountains and Streams, Northern Song period, early 11th century Imaginary landscapes

-From China cast in bronze -Depicting a specific breed of horse. Ancient Chinese emperors were very proud of their stables and provided a military advantage

Flying Horse, from the tomb of Governor General Zhang, Han Dynasty

Under the Guptas, artists formulated what became the standard image of the Buddha. A fifth-century Buddha statue (FIG. 16-7) from Sarnath is a characteristic example. The Buddha wears a clinging monastic robe covering both shoulders. His eyes are downcast in meditation, and he holds his hands in front of his body in the Wheel-turning gesture, preaching his first sermon.

Gupta's interpretation of Buddha

Although the iconography of the frieze is Buddhist, Roman sculptures must have served as stylistic models for the Gandharan artist. For example, the distribution of standing and equestrian figures over the relief ground, with those behind the first row seemingly suspended in the air, is familiar in Roman art of the second and third centuries

Gandhara art and depictions of Buddha

-The leading artist of the Holy Roman Empire in the generation after Dürer was HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER -Holbein produced a superb double portrait of the French ambassadors to England, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. The French Ambassadors exhibits Holbein's considerable talents—his strong sense of composition, his subtle linear patterning, his gift for portraiture, his marvelous sensitivity to color, and his faultlessly firm technique. -The objects on the table are meant to say things about the gentlement and their character.

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER, The French Ambassadors

-The most famous Netherlandish painter at the turn of the 16th century was HIERONYMUS BOSCH (ca. 1450-1516), one of the most fascinating and puzzling artists in history. Interpretations of Bosch differ widely. Scholars debate whether he was a satirist, an irreligious mocker, or a pornographer, a heretic or an orthodox fanatic like Girolamo Savonarola, his Italian contemporary -Bosch's most famous work, the so-called Garden of Earthly Delights (FIG. 9-33), is also his most enigmatic, and no interpretation of it has ever won universal acceptance. -This location suggests a secular commission for private use. Scholars have proposed that, given the work's central themes of marriage, sex, and procreation, the painting probably commemorates a wedding

HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Garden of Earthly Delights

-Slightly shorter than life size, created for funerary purposes, not much else is known

Haniwa warrior figure, from Gunma Prefecture, Japan,

-Van Eyck enhanced the documentary nature of this painting by exquisitely painting each object. He carefully distinguished textures and depicted the light from the window on the left reflecting off various surfaces. The artist augmented the scene's credibility by including the convex mirror, because viewers can see not only the principals, Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room through the door. One of these must be the artist himself, as the florid inscription above the mirror, "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic," announces he was present.

JAN VAN EYCK, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride

-Woodblock prints afforded artists great opportunity for experimentation. For example, in producing landscapes, Japanese artists often incorporated Western perspective techniques. -In The Great Wave off Kanagawa (FIG. 18-17), part of a woodblock series called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the huge foreground wave dwarfs the artist's representation of a distant Fuji. This contrast and the whitecaps' ominous fingers magnify the wave's threatening aspect. The men in the trading boats bend low to dig their oars against the rough sea and drive their long low vessels past the danger

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Edo period, ca. 1826-1833.

-Africans have long considered Ile-Ife, about 200 miles west of Igbo Ukwu in southwestern Nigeria, the cradle of Yoruba civilization, the place where the gods created the universe. -Ife artists often portrayed their sacred kings in sculpture. -One of the most impressive examples is a statuette, cast in a zinc-brass alloy, datable to the 11th or 12th century. This and many similar representations of Ife rulers are exceptional in Africa because of the naturalistic recording of facial features and fl eshy anatomy, apart from blemishes or signs of age, which the artists intentionally omitted.

King, from Ita Yemoo, Nigeria, 11th to 12th century. Zinc brass

-Japanese pottery allowed imperfection, certain aspects could be perfected but these mistakes show the handiwork of the artist. -Wabi and sabi aesthetics underlie the ceramic vessels produced for the tea ceremony, such as the Shino water jar named kogan

Kogan, tea ceremony water jar, Momoyama period, late 16th century

-Some of the most frequent subjects for Rajput paintings were the amorous adventures of Krishna, the "Blue God," the most popular avatar of Vishnu. -Krishna was a herdsman who spent an idyllic existence tending his cows, of luting, and sporting with beautiful herdswomen. His favorite lover was Radha. The 12th-century poet Jayadeva had related the story of Krishna and Radha in the Gita Govinda (Song of the Cowherd). Their love was a model of the devotion, or bhakti, paid to Vishnu. Jayadeva's poem was the source for hundreds of later paintings, including Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion. -Everything in the painting is meant to describe and allude to their relationship.

Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion

-In this groundbreaking work, Leonardo used gestures and a pyramidal composition to unite the Virgin, John the Baptist, the Christ Child, and an angel. The figures share the same light-infused environment. -Modeling with light and shadow and expressing emotional states were, for Leonardo, the heart of painting:

LEONARDO DA VINCI, Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks

-SHITAO (DAOJI,1642-1707), a descendant of the Ming imperial family who became a Chan Buddhist monk at age 20. -Traditional literati painting continued to be fashionable among conservative Qing artists, but other painters experimented with extreme effects of massed ink or individualized brushwork patterns. Bold and freely manipulated compositions with a new, expressive force began to appear.

Shitao, Renaiisance of nanjung, Riding the clouds

-MARTIN SCHONGAUER (ca. 1430-1491) was the most skilled and subtle early master of metal engraving in Northern Europe. His Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons (FIG. 8-12) shows both the versatility of the medium and the artist's mastery of it. -The stoic saint is caught in a revolving thornbush of spiky demons, who claw and tear at him furiously. With unsurpassed skill and subtlety, Schongauer created marvelous distinctions of tonal values and textures—from smooth skin to rough cloth, from the furry and feathery to the hairy and scaly. The use of cross-hatching to describe forms, which Schongauer probably developed, became standard among German graphic artists.

MARTIN SCHONGAUER, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons, ca. 1480-1490. Engraving,

-Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501, when the Florence Cathedral building committee asked him to fashion a statue of David -Despite the traditional association of David with heroism, Michelangelo chose to represent the young biblical warrior not after the victory, with Goliath's head at his feet, but turning his head to his left, sternly watchful of the approaching foe. Every aspect of his muscular body, including his face, is tense with gathering power.

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, David, from Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy,

-Most African art is anonymous however there was Osei Bonsu -OSEI BONSU (1900-1976), a master carver based in the Asante capital, Kumasi, in present day Ghana. A more naturalistic rendering of the face and crosshatched eyebrows are distinctive features of Bonsu's personal style. -The gold-covered wood sculpture (FIG. 20-16) depicting two men sitting at a table of food is a characteristic example of Bonsu's work. This object, commonly called a linguist's staff because its carrier often speaks for a king or chief, has a related proverb: "Food is for its rightful owner, not for the one who happens to be hungry." Food is a metaphor for the office the king or chief rightfully holds. The "hungry" man lusts for the office.

OSEI BONSU, linguist's staff of two men sitting at a table of food, Asante, Ghana, mid-20th century. Wood and gold leaf, section shown approx. 10" high

-At first glance, this painting appears to be a descriptive genre scene (one from everyday life) -Like Massys, Aertsen embedded strategically placed religious images in his painting. In the background, Joseph leads a donkey carrying Mary and the Christ Child. The Holy Family stops to offer alms to a beggar and his son, while the people behind the sacred figures wend their way toward a church.

PIETER AERTSEN, Butcher's Stall, 1551

-The greatest Netherlandish painter of the mid-16th century was PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER -Bruegel chose not to incorporate classical elements into his paintings. Instead, his works reveal an interest in the interrelationship of human beings and nature. But in Bruegel's paintings, no matter how huge a slice of the world the artist shows, human activities remain the dominant theme. -By illustrating more than a hundred proverbs in this single painting, the artist indulged his Netherlandish audience's obsession with proverbs and passion for detailed and clever imagery -The proverbs depicted include, on the far left, a man in blue gnawing on a pillar ("He bites the column"—an image of hypocrisy).

PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559.

-Bonampak (Mayan, "painted walls") in southeastern Mexico is, as its name suggests, famous for its mural paintings. -The example reproduced here (FIG. 19-7) depicts the presentation of prisoners to Lord Chan Muwan. The figures have naturalistic proportions and overlap, twist, turn, and gesture. The artists used fluid lines to outline the forms, working with color to indicate both texture and volume. -The Bonampak painters combined their pigments both mineral and organic—with a mixture of water, crushed limestone, and vegetable gums and applied them to their stucco walls in a technique best described as a cross between fresco and tempera.

Presentation of captives to Lord Chan Muwan, room 2 of Structure 1, Bonampak, Mexico, Maya, ca. 790 CE

-In 1505-1506, Raphael painted Madonna in the Meadow using the pyramidal composition of Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks and modeling the faces and fi gures with the older master's subtle chiaroscuro. But Raphael retained the lighter tonalities of Umbrian painting, preferring clarity to obscurity. -Dusky modeling and mystery did not fascinate Raphael, as they did Leonardo.

RAPHAEL, Madonna in the Meadow, 1505-1506

-One of the earliest Flemish masters—and one of the first to use the new medium of oil painting was the "Master of Flémalle," who scholars generally agree was ROBERT CAMPIN -Campin's most famous work is the Mérode Altarpiece, a private commission for household prayer. -The Mérode Altarpiece is a small triptych (three-paneled painting) in which the center panel represents the popular Annunciation theme. The archangel Gabriel approaches Mary, who sits reading. The artist depicted a well-kept, middle-class Flemish home as the site of the event. The carefully rendered architectural scene in the background of the right wing confirms this identification of the locale. The book, extinguished candle, and lilies on the table, the copper basin in the corner niche, the towels, fire screen, and bench all symbolize, in different ways, the Virgin's purity and her divine mission.

ROBERT CAMPIN (MASTER OF FLEMALLE), Merode Altarpiece

-Shiva is the Destroyer, but, consistent with the multiplicity of Hindu belief, he is also a regenerative force, and, in the latter role, can be represented in the form of a linga (a phallus or cosmic pillar). -Rock cut, representation of a Hindu God. -When Shiva appears in human form in Hindu art, he frequently has multiple limbs and heads, signs of his suprahuman nature, and matted locks piled atop his head, crowned by a crescent moon. Sometimes he wears a serpent scarf and has a third eye on his forehead (the emblem of his all-seeing nature). Shiva rides the bull Nandi (FIG. 16-9) and often carries a trident, a three-pronged pitchfork

Shiva

-Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as moai (meaning "statue"). The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui. -The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century. Over a few hundred years the inhabitants of this remote island quarried, carved and erected around 887 moai. -It is believed that Hoa Hakananai'a dates to around 1200 C.E. It is one of only fourteen moai made from basalt, the rest are carved from the island's softer volcanic tuff. With the adoption of Christianity in the 1860s, the remaining standing moai were toppled.

Row of moai on a stone platform, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

-Fra Filippo's most famous pupil was SANDRO BOTTICELLI (1444-1510), whom the Medici frequently employed and whom art historians universally recognize as one of the great masters of line. One of the works Botticelli painted in tempera on canvas for the Medici is Birth of Venus (FIG. 8-27). The theme was the subject of a poem by Angelo Poliziano -The nudity of Botticelli's Venus was in itself an innovation. As noted earlier, the nude, especially the female nude, was exceedingly rare during the Middle Ages

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Birth of Venus, ca. 1484-1486

-As was common in earlier eras of Japanese history, Muromachi painters usually closely followed Chinese precedents (often arriving by way of Korea). Among the most celebrated Muromachi artists was the Zen priest SESSHU TOYO (1420-1506), one of the very few Japanese painters who traveled to China and studied contemporaneous Ming painting. -His most dramatic works are in the splashed-ink (haboku) style, a technique with Chinese roots. The painter of a haboku picture paused to visualize the image, loaded the brush with ink, and then applied primarily broad, rapid strokes, sometimes even dripping the ink onto the paper.

SESSHU TOYO, splashed-ink (haboku) landscape, Muromachi period

-The sophistication of Harunobu's work is evident in Evening Bell at the Clock -This series draws upon Chinese series, usually titled Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, in which each image focused on a particular time of day or year. In Harunobu's adaptation, beautiful young women and the activities that occupy their daily lives became the subject. -This image incorporates the refined techniques characteristic of nishiki-e. Further, the flatness of the depicted objects and the rich color recall the traditions of court painting, a comparison many nishiki-e artists openly sought.

SUZUKI HARUNOBU, Evening Bell at the Clock, from Eight Views of the Parlor, Edo period

-In 1538, at the height of his powers, Titian painted the so-called Venus of Urbino -The title (given to the painting later) elevates to the status of classical mythology what is actually a representation of an Italian woman in her bedchamber. Indeed, no evidence suggests that Guidobaldo intended the commission as anything more than a female nude for his private enjoyment. -Whether the subject is divine or mortal, Titian based his version on an earlier (and pioneering) painting of Venus (not illustrated) by Giorgione. Here, Titian established the compositional elements and the standard for paintings of the reclining female nude, regardless of the many variations that ensued.

TITIAN, Venus of Urbino

Vishnu (FIG. 16-11) is the Preserver of the Universe. Artists frequently portray him with four arms holding various attributes. He sometimes reclines on a serpent fl oating on the waters of the cosmic sea. When the evil forces of the universe become too strong, he descends to earth to restore balance and assumes different forms (avatars, or incarnations), including a boar, fish, and tortoise, as well as Krishna, the divine lover (FIG. 16-17), and even the Buddha himself.

Vishnu

-Usually Buddha is depicted as sitting but Thailand was the first culture to present him as walking -Sukhothai's crowning artistic achievement was the development of a type of walking-Buddha statue displaying a distinctively Thai approach to body form. -The Sukhothai artists handled bronze best, a material well suited to their conception of the Buddha's body as elastic. The Sukhothai walking-Buddha statuary type does not occur elsewhere in Buddhist art. -Combination of masculine and feminine traits (Broad shoulders with a curvy body)

Walking Buddha, from Sukhothai thailand

-The Tang emperors also fostered a brilliant tradition of scroll painting. Although few examples survive, many art historians regard the early Tang dynasty as the golden age of Chinese figure painting. -The Thirteen Emperors, a masterpiece of line drawing and colored washes, has long been attributed to YAN LIBEN (d. 673). Born into an aristocratic family and the son of a famous artist, Yan Liben was prime minister under the Tang emperor Gaozong as well as a celebrated painter. -This handscroll depicts 13 Chinese rulers from the Han to the Sui dynasties. Its purpose was to portray these historical figures as exemplars of moral and political virtue, in keeping with the Confucian ideal of learning from the past.

Yan Liben, Emperor Xiao and attendents (Detail of the thirteen emperors)

Created clay sculptures

Ye Yushan