Art History Exams

10-9 Name: Calling of Saint Matthew Creator: Caravaggio Medium: Oil on canvas, 11'1" x 11'5" Date: 1597-1601 Initial Location: Contarelli chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Present Location: Contarelli chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.

- This is a painting by Caravaggio - This is an example of Baroque painting - This painting depicts a story from the Bible The stark contrast of lightand dark is a key feature of Caravaggio's style. Here, Christ, cloaked in mysterious shadow, summons Levi the tax collector (Saint Matthew) to a higher calling

10-16 Name: Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles Creator: Peter Paul Rubens Medium: Oil on canvas, 12' 11.5" x 9' 7" Date: 1622-1625 Initial Location: Luxembourg Palace, Paris, France Present Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

- This is an example of Baroque painting - This painting depicts the arrival of Marie de Medici at Marseilles - This is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens Rubens painted 21 large canvases glorifying Marie de' Medici's career. In this historical-allegorical picture of robust figures in an opulent setting, the sea and sky rejoice at the queen's arrival in France.

10-4 Name: David Creator: Gianlorenzo Bernini Medium: Marble, 5'7" Date: 1623 Initial Location: Villa Borghese, Rome Present Location: Galleria Borghese, Rome

- This is an example of baroque sculpture - This is a sculpture by Bernini - This sculpture depicts David, from the Bible Bernini's sculptures are expansive and theatrical, and the element of time plays an important role in them. His emotion-packed David seems to be moving through both time and space.

10-14 Name: Las Meninas (The Maidsof Honor) Creator: Diego Velazquez Medium: Oil on canvas, 10' 5" × 9" Date: 1656 Initial Location: Present Location: Museodel Prado, Madrid.

- This painting depicts the Spanish princess and other members of the court, including the artist himself - This is an example of Baroque painting - This is a painting by Velazquez Velázquez intended this huge and complex work, with its cunning contrasts of real, mirrored, and picture spaces, to elevate both himself and the profession of painting in the eyes of Philip IV.

7-35 Name: Annunciation Creator:Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi Medium: Tempera and gold leaf on wood Date: 1333 (frame reconstructed in the 19th century) center panel, 10' 1" × 8' 8 1/4". Initial Location: Altar of Saint Ansanus, Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy Present Location: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

A pupil of Duccio's, Simone Martini was instrumental in the creation of the Interna-tional Gothic style. Its hallmarks are radiant colors, fluttering lines, and weightless figures in golden, spaceless settings

19 - 19 Name: The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji Creator: Katsushika Hokusai Medium: Woodblock print, ink and colors on paper, 9 7/8" × 1' 2 3/4" Date: Edo period, ca. 1826-1833 Initial Location: Present Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Bigelow Collection)

Adopting the low horizon line of Western painting, master woodblock printmaker Hokusai used the flat and powerful graphic forms of Japanese art to depict the threatening wave in the foreground. Landscape painting—long revered as a major genre of Chinese and Korean art—emerged in the 18th century in Japan as an immensely popular subject with the proliferation of inexpensive multicolor woodblock prints. One of the foremost Japanese landscape art-ists was Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). In The Great Wave off Kanagawa (fig. 19-19), from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the huge foreground wave dwarfs the artist's representation of the distant mountain. This contrast and the whitecaps' ominous fingers magnify the wave's threatening aspect. The men in the boats bend low to dig their oars against the rough sea and drive their long vessels past the danger. Although Hokusai's print draws on Western techniques and incorporates the distinctive European color called Prussian blue, it also engages the Japanese pictorial tradition. Against a background with the low horizon typical of Western painting, Hokusai placed in the foreground the wave's more traditionally flat and powerful graphic forms, mainly curved triangles.

21 - 1 Name: King on horseback with attendants Creator: Medium: Brass, 1' 7 12" × 1' 4 12" Date: ca. 1550-1680 Initial Location: Benin, Nigeria Present Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller)

At the center of the symmetrical, hierarchical composition is the Benin king, who wears an elaborate headdress, multistrand coral necklace, and coral and agate bracelets and anklets—emblems of his high office. Horses have been a symbol of power and wealth in many societies worldwide. The Benin bronzecaster represented his king as a larger thanlife figure who, contrary to nature, dwarfs his steed. Flanking the king are several attendants whose size varies greatly according to their importance in Benin society. The two largest hold shields over the king's head, underscoring his elevated status.

21 - 17 Name: Asante linguist's staff of two men sitting at a table of food Creator: Osei Bonsu Medium: Wood and gold leaf, section shown 10" high Date: mid-20th century Initial Location: Ghana Present Location: Collection of the Paramount Chief of Offinso, Asante

Bonsu carved this gold-covered wood linguist's staff for someone who could speak for the Asante king. At the top are two men sitting at a table of food— a metaphor for the office of the king Traditionally, Africans have tended not to exalt artistic individuality as much as Westerners have, but some 20th-century African artists achieved enviable reputations (see "African Artists and Apprentices," above). One of these was 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 per-sonal style. The gold-covered wood sculpture illustrated here (fig. 21-17) is a characteristic example of his work. It is a linguist's staff, so named because its carrier often speaks for a king or chief. This one depicts two men sitting at a table of food and reflects an Asante proverb: "Food is for its rightful owner, not for the one who happens to be hungry." Food is a metaphor for the office that the king or chief rightfully holds. The "hungry" man lusts for the office. The linguist, who is an important counselor and adviser to the king, might carry this staff to a meeting at which a rival contests the king's title to the stool (his throne, the office). Many hundreds of Asante sculptures have proverbs or other sayings associated with them, which has created a rich verbal tradition related to Asante visual arts.

9 - 35 Name: Butcher's Stall Creator: Pieter Aertsen Medium: Oil on wood, 4' 3/8" × 6' 5 3/4" Date: 1551 Initial Location: Present Location: Uppsala University Art Collection, Uppsala

Butcher's Stall appears to be a genre painting, but in the background, Joseph leads a donkey carrying Mary and the Christ Child. Aertsen balanced images of gluttony with allusions to salvation. This tendency to inject re minders about spiri-tual well-being into paintings of everyday life emerges again in Butcher's Stall (fig. 9-35) by Pieter Aertsen (ca. 1507-1575), who worked in Antwerp for more than three decades. At first glance, this painting appears to be a descriptive genre scene (one from everyday life). On display is an array of meat products—a side of a hog, chick-ens, sausages, a stuffed intestine, pig's feet, meat pies, a cow's head, a hog's head, and hanging entrails. Also visible are fish, pretzels, cheese, and butter. But, 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 holy family wend their way toward a church. Furthermore, the crossed fishes on the platter and the pretzels and wine in the raf-ters on the upper left all refer to "spiritual food" (pretzels were often served as bread during Lent). Aertsen accentuated these allusions to salvation through Christ by contrasting them to their opposite—a life of gluttony, lust, and sloth. He represented this degeneracy with the oyster and mussel shells (which Netherlanders believed possessed aphrodisiacal properties) scattered on the ground on the painting's right side, along with the people seen eating and carous-ing nearby under the roof. Underscoring the general theme is the placard at the right advertising land for sale—Aertsen's moralistic reference to a recent scandal involving the transfer of land from an Antwerp charitable institution to a land speculator.

4-20 Name: Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George Creator: Encaustic on wood, 2' 3" × 1' 7 38" Medium: Date: 6th or early 7th century Initial Location: Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt. Present Location: Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt.

Byzantine icons are the heirs to the Roman tradition of portrait painting on small wood panels (fig. 3-42), but their Christian subjects and function as devotional objects broke sharply from classical models.

8 - 3 Name: Mérode Altarpiece (open) Creator: Robert Campin (Master of Flémalle) Medium: Oil on wood, center panel 2' 1 3/8" × 2' 7/8", each wing 2' 1 3/8" × 10 7/8" Date: ca. 1425-1428 Initial Location: Present Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Cloisters Collection, 1956)

Campin, the leading painter of Tournai, was an early master of oil painting. In the Mérode Altarpiece, he used the new medium to reproduce with loving fidelity the interior of a Flemish merchant's home One of the earliest important Flemish painters was the man known as the Master of Flémalle, whom many scholars identify as Robert Campin (ca. 1378-1444) of Tournai. Campin was a highly skilled practitioner of the new medium of oil painting (see "Tempera and Oil Painting," above). Flemish painters built up their pictures by superimposing translucent paint layers over a carefully planned drawing (compare fig. 8-1) made on a panel prepared with a white ground. With the oil medium, artists could create richer colors than previously possible, giving their paintings an intense tonality, the illusion of glowing light, and glistening sur-faces. These traits differed significantly from the high-keyed color, sharp light, and rather matte (dull) surface of tempera. The brilliant and versatile oil medium suited perfectly the formal intentions of 15th-century Flemish painters, who aimed for sharply focused clarity of detail in their representation of objects ranging in scale from large to almost invisible. Campin's most famous work is the Mérode Altarpiece (fig. 8-3), one of the many small altarpieces of this period produced for private patrons and intended for household prayer. Perhaps the most striking feature of these private devotional images is the integration of religious and secular concerns. For example, artists often presented biblical scenes as taking place in a house (com-pare fig. 8-1). Religion was such an integral part of Flemish life that separating the sacred from the secular was almost impossi-ble—and undesirable. Moreover, the presentation in religious art of familiar settings and objects no doubt strengthened the direct bond that the patron or viewer felt with biblical figures. The Mérode Altarpiece is a small triptych (three-panel paint-ing) with Annunciation as the center panel. Unseen by the Vir-gin, a tiny figure of Christ carrying the cross enters the room on a ray of light, foreshadowing his incarnation and passion (see "The Life of Jesus in Art," pages 120-121). The archangel Gabriel approaches Mary, who sits reading in a well-kept Flemish home. The view through the window in the right wing, as well as the depicted accessories, furniture, and utensils, confirm the locale as Flanders. However, the objects represented are not merely deco-rative. They also function as religious symbols. The book, extin-guished candle, and lilies on the table; the copper basin in the corner niche; the towels, fire screen, and bench all symbolize the Virgin's purity and her divine mission. In the right panel, Joseph, apparently unaware of Gabriel's arrival, has constructed two mousetraps, symbolic of the theologi-cal concept that Christ is bait set in the trap of the world to catch the Devil. The ax, saw, and rod that Campin painted in the foreground of Joseph's workshop not only are tools of the carpenter's trade but also are mentioned in the account of the Annunciation in Isaiah 10:15. In the left panel, the closed garden is symbolic of Mary's purity, and the flowers Campin included relate to Mary's virtues, especially humility. The altarpiece's donor, Peter Inghelbrecht, a wealthy mer-chant, and his wife, Margarete Scrynmakers, kneel in the garden and witness the momentous event through an open door. Donor portraits—portraits of the individual(s) who commissioned (or "donated") the work—became very popular in the 15th century. In this instance, in addition to asking to be represented in their altar-piece, the Inghelbrechts probably specified the subject. Inghelbrecht means "angel bringer," a reference to Gabriel's bringing the news of Christ's birth to Mary in the central panel. Scrynmakers means "cabinet- or shrine-makers," and probably inspired the workshop scene in the right panel.

7-29 Name: Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets Creator: Cimabue Medium: Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 12' 7" × 7' 4" Date: 1280-1290 Initial Location: Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy Present Location: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Cimabue was one of the first artists to break away from the maniera greca. Although he relied on Byzantine models, the Italian master depicted the Madonna's massive throne as receding into space.

3-51 Name: Portrait of Constantine Creator: Medium: Marble, 8' 6" high Date: 315-330 CE Initial Location: Basilica Nova, Rome, Italy Present Location: Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini, Rome.

Constantine's portraits revive the Augustan image of a perpetually youthful ruler. This colossal head is one fragment of an enthroned Jupiter-like statue of the emperor holding the orb of world power.

19 - 3 Name: Haniwa warrior figure Creator: Medium: Low-fired clay, 4' 3 1/4" high Date: late Kofun period, fifth to mid-sixth century Initial Location: Gunma Prefecture, Japan Present Location: Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo

During the Kofun period, the Japanese set up cylindrical clay statues (haniwa) of humans, animals, and objects on burial tumuli. They may represent the realm that the deceased ruled when alive The Japanese also placed unglazed ceramic sculptures called haniwa on and around Kofun tumuli. These sculptures, usu-ally several feet in height, as is the warrior shown here (fig. 19-3), are distinctly Japanese. Compared with the Chinese terracotta soldiers and horses (fig. 18-3) buried with the First Emperor of Qin, these statues appear deceptively whimsical as variations on a cylindrical theme (hani means "clay"; wa means "circle"). Yet haniwa sculptors skillfully adapted the basic clay cylinder into a host of forms, from abstract shapes to objects, animals, and human figures. These artists altered the shapes of the cylinders, emblazoned them with applied ornaments, excised or built up forms, and then painted the haniwa. The variety of figure types suggests that the haniwa did not function as military guards but rather represented the realm that the deceased ruled during life. The Japanese set the statues both in curving rows around the tumulus and in groups around a haniwa house placed directly over the deceased's burial chamber. The arrangement may mimic a funeral procession in honor of the dead. Presumably, the number of sculptures reflected the stature of the dead person. Emperor Nintoku's tumulus had about 20,000 haniwa placed around the mound.

4-27 Name: David Composing the Psalms, folio 1 verso of the Paris Psalter Creator: Medium: Tempera on vellum, 1' 2 1/8" × 10 1/4" Date: 950-970 Initial Location: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Present Location: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

During the Macedonian Renaissance, Byzantine artists revived the classical style. This painter portrayed David as if he were a Greek hero, accompanied by personifications of Melody, Echo, and Bethlehem.

9 - 5 Name: Madonna in the Meadow Creator: Raphael Medium: Oil on wood, 3' 8 1/2" × 2' 10 1/4" Date: 1505-1506 Initial Location: Present Location: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Emulating Leonardo's pyramidal composition (fig. 9-2) but rejecting his dusky modeling and mystery, Raphael set his Madonna in a well-lit landscape and imbued her with grace, dignity, and beauty. Raphael worked in Florence from 1504 to 1508, where he painted Madonna in the Meadow (fig. 9-5), in which he adopted Leonardo's pyramidal composition and model-ing of faces and figures in subtle chiaroscuro. But Raphael retained Perugino's lighter tonalities and blue skies, preferring clarity to obscurity, not fascinated, as Leonardo was, with mystery. Raphael quickly achieved fame for his Madonnas, which depict Mary as a beautiful young mother tenderly interacting with her young son. In Madonna in the Meadow, Mary almost wistfully watches Jesus play with John the Baptist's cross-shaped staff, as if she has a premoni-tion of how her son will die.

4-1 Name: Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus Creator: Medium: Marble, 3' 10 12" × 8' Date: 359 Initial Location: Rome, Italy Present Location: Museo Storico del Tesoro della Basilica di San Pietro, Rome.

Episodes from the Hebrew scriptures, including Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, appear beside scenes from the life of Jesus on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a recent convert to Christianity. The enthroned Christ is long-haired and youthful in the Early Christian tradition. Below him is the personified Roman sky god. Flanking the new ruler of the universe are Saints Peter and Paul. The Jewish scenes on this mid-fourth-century sarcophagus had special significance for Christians. Adam and Eve's original sin of eating the apple in the Garden of Eden necessitated Christ's sacrifice.

17 - 18 Name: Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings Creator: Bichitr Medium: Opaque watercolor on paper, 1' 6 7/8" × 1' 1" Date: ca. 1615-1618 Initial Location: Present Location: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

European influence on Mughal painting is evident in this allegorical portrait of the haloed emperor Jahangir on an hourglass throne, seated above time, favoring spiritual over worldly power. Although india had a tradition of mural painting going back to ancient times (fig. 17-8), the most popular form of painting under the Mughal emperors (figs. 17-17 and 17-18) and Rajput kings (fig. 17-21) was min-iature painting. Art historians usually call these paintings miniatures because of their small size (about the size of a page in this book) com-pared with paintings on walls, wood panels, or canvas, but the original terminology derives from the red lead (miniatum) used as a pigment. The artists who painted the indian miniatures designed them to be held in the hands, either as illustrations in books or as loose-leaf pages in albums. owners did not place indian miniatures in frames and only very rarely hung them on walls indian artists used opaque watercolors and paper (occasionally cotton cloth) to produce their miniatures. The manufacturing and painting of miniatures was a complicated process and required years of training as an apprentice in a workshop. The painters' assistants cre-ated pigments by grinding natural materials—minerals such as mala-chite for green and lapis lazuli for blue; earth ochers for red and yellow; and metallic foil for gold, silver, and copper. They fashioned brushes from bird quills and kitten or baby squirrel hairs. For minute details, the painters used brushes with a single hair. The artist began the painting process by making a full-size sketch of the composition. The next step was to transfer the sketch onto paper by pouncing, or tracing, using thin, transparent gazelle skin placed on top of the drawing and pricking the contours of the design with a pin. Then, with the skin laid on a fresh sheet of fine paper, the painter forced black pigment through the tiny holes, reproducing the outlines of the composition. Painting proper started with the darkening of the outlines with black or reddish-brown ink. Painters of miniatures sat on the ground, resting their painting boards on one raised knee. each pigment color was in a separate half seashell. The paintings usually required several layers of color, with gold always applied last. The final step was to bur-nish the painted surface. The artists accomplished this by placing the miniature, painted side down, on a hard, smooth surface and stroking the paper with polished agate or crystal.

19 - 1 Name: Evening Bell at the Clock, from Eight Views of the Parlor Creator: Suzuki Harunobu Medium: Woodblock print, 11 14" × 8 12" Date: Edo period, 1765 Initial Location: Present Location: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Clarence Buckingham Collection)

From a sharply elevated viewpoint, Harunobu depicted two beautiful women in an intimate setting. The Edo artist's nishiki-e (brocade pictures) took their name from their costly pigments and paper. The maid attending her mistress turns her head toward a chiming clock. Harunobu based his print on a Chinese series featuring temple bells, but substituted a Japanese clock for the Chinese bells. Harunobu's prints focus on the daily lives of Japanese women, a subject he pioneered. Erotic themes are quite common in ukiyo-e. Here, a beautiful woman dries herself on her veranda after bathing.

18 - 10 Name: Travelers among Mountains and Streams Creator: Fan Kuan Medium: Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 6' 7 1/4" × 3' 4 1/4" Date: Northern Song period, early 11th century Initial Location: Present Location: National Palace Museum, Taibei.

Fan Kuan, a daoist recluse, spent long days in the mountains studying the effects of light on rock for-mations and trees. He was one of the first masters of recording light, shade, distance, and texture. For many art historians, the Song era is the golden age of Chinese land-scape painting, which first emerged as a major subject during the Period of Disunity. Although many of the great Northern Song masters worked for the imperial court, Fan Kuan (ca. 960-1030) was a Daoist recluse (see "Daoism and Confucianism," page 488) who shunned the cosmopolitan life of Bian-liang. He believed that nature was a bet-ter teacher than were other artists, and he spent long days in the mountains studying configurations of rocks and trees and the effect of sunlight and moonlight on natural forms. Song critics lauded Fan and other leading Chinese painters of the day as the first masters of the recording of light, shade, distance, and texture. In Travelers among Mountains and Streams (fig. 18-10), Fan painted a verti-cal landscape of massive mountains ris-ing 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. The nearly 7-foot-long silk hanging scroll cannot con-tain nature's grandeur, and the landscape continues in all directions beyond its bor-ders. Fan showed some elements from level ground (for example, the great boulder in the foreground), and others obliquely from the top (the shrubbery on the highest cliff ). The shifting perspectives direct viewers' eyes on a vicarious journey through the mountains. To appreciate the painted land-scape fully, observers must focus not only on the larger composition but also on intri-cate details and on the character of each brushstroke. 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."

18 - 5 Name: Flying horse Creator: Medium: Bronze, 1' 1 1/2" high Date: Han dynasty, late second century ce Initial Location: the tomb of Governor-General Zhang, Wuwei, China Present Location: Gansu Provincial Museum, Lanzhou

Found in a late Han dynasty tomb, this cast-bronze galloping, flying horse has one hoof on a swallow with spread wings, suggesting the deceased's heaven-ward journey to the afterlife. Another Han tomb of special interest is that of Governor-General Zhang, discovered in 1969 at Wuwei. The tomb contained almost 100 cast-bronze sculptures of horses, chariots, and soldiers—a miniature version of the life-size army (fig. 18-3) guarding the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin. The figurine illustrated here (fig. 18-5) represents a distinctive breed of horse from Turkestan. It differs from all the others in Zhang's tomb because it is not prancing or standing still but galloping, or, more accurately, flying because one hoof rests on a swallow with spread wings. The sculptor posed the horse with its head tilted to one side but presented the animal's body in a pure profile. The Wuwei horse has an elegant silhouette, with its legs spread widely and its tail lifted behind it like a fifth leg, balancing the curved neck and the rear left leg. Zhang's airborne horse suggests that the journey from his tomb will take him heavenward to an immortal afterlife.

8 - 10 Name: Melun Diptych. Left wing: Étienne Chevalier and Saint Stephen. Right wing: Virgin and Child. Creator: Jean Fouquet Medium: Oil on wood, 3' 12" × 2' 9 12" (both) Date: ca. 1451 Initial Location: Present Location: Left: Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Right: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.

Fouquet's meticulous representation of a pious kneeling donor with a standing patron saint recalls Flemish painting, as do the three-quarter-view stances and the realism of the donor's portrait head. Images for private devotional use were popular in France, as in Flanders. Among the French artists whose paint-ings were in demand was Jean Fouquet (ca. 1420-1481), who worked for King Charles VII (r. 1422-1461) and for the duke of Nemours. Fouquet painted a diptych (two-panel painting; fig. 8-10) for Étienne Chevalier, the royal treasurer of France. In the left panel, Chevalier appears with his patron saint, Saint Stephen (Étienne in French). Appropriately, Fouquet depicted Chevalier as devout—kneeling, with hands clasped in prayer. The representation of the pious donor with his standing saint recalls Flemish art, as do the three-quarter stances, the realism of Chevalier's portrait, and the painting medium (oil-based pigment on wood). The artist por-trayed Saint Stephen holding the stone of his martyrdom (death by stoning) atop a Bible. Fouquet rendered the entire image in meticu-lous detail and included a highly ornamented architectural setting. The placement of the figures unites the diptych's two wings. The viewer follows the gaze of Chevalier and Saint Stephen over to the right panel, which depicts the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in a most unusual way—with marblelike flesh, surrounded by red and blue angels. A straightforward reading of the diptych is complicated, however, by the fact that Agnès Sorel (1421-1450), the mistress of Charles VII, was Fouquet's model for the Virgin Mary. The Madon-na's left breast is exposed, presumably to nurse the infant Jesus, but the holy figures look neither at each other nor at the viewer. Chevalier commissioned this painting after Sorel's death, probably by poison-ing while pregnant with the king's child. Thus, in addition to the religious interpretation of this diptych, there is surely a personal and political narrative here as well.

3-23 Name: Fourth Style wall paintings Creator: Medium: Date: 70-79 CE Initial Location: Ixion Room (triclinium P) of the House of the Vettii Present Location: Pompeii, Italy.

Fourth Style murals are often multicolored, crowded, and confused compositions with a mixture of fragmentary architectural views, mythological paintings, and First and Third Style motifs.

7-32 Name: Lamentation Creator: Giotto di Bondone Medium: Fresco, 6' 6 34" × 6' 3 Date: 1305 Initial Location: Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy Present Location: Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy

Giotto painted Lamentation in several sections, each corresponding to one painting session. Artists employing the buon fresco technique must complete each section before the plaster dries.

4-8 Name: Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes Creator: Medium: Mosaic Date: 504 Initial Location: Top register of the nave wall above the clerestory windows of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy Present Location: Top register of the nave wall above the clerestory windows of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy

In contrast to fig. 4-7, Jesus here faces directly toward the viewer. Blue sky has given way to the otherworldly splendor of heavenly gold, the standard background color for medieval mosaics.

9 - 33 Name: Garden of Earthly Delights Creator: Hieronymus Bosch Medium: Oil on wood, center panel 7' 2 5/8" × 6' 4 3/4", each wing 7' 2 5/8" × 3' 2 1/4" Date: 1505-1510 Initial Location: Present Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid

In the fantastic sunlit landscape that is Bosch's Paradise, scores of nude people in the prime of life blithely cavort. The horrors of Hell include sinners enduring tortures tailored to their conduct while alive. The leading Netherlandish painter of the early 16th century was Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516), one of the most fascinating artistic personalities in history. Bosch's most famous painting, Garden of Earthly Delights (fig. 9-33), is also his most puzzling, and no interpretation has ever won universal accep-tance. Although the work is a large triptych, which would suggest a religious function as an altarpiece, Garden of Earthly Delights was on display in the palace of Count Henry III of Nassau-Breda (r. 1516-1538) no later than seven years after its completion. This suggests that the triptych was a secular commission, and some scholars have proposed that given the work's central themes of sex and procreation, the painting may commemorate a wedding. Mar-riage was a familiar theme in Netherlandish painting. Among the many 15th-century examples is Jan van Eyck's Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife (fig. 8-6). Any similarity to earlier paintings ends there, however. Whereas Jan and other painters grounded their depictions of married couples in contemporary Netherlandish life and custom, Bosch's image portrays a visionary world of fantasy and intrigue—a painted world without close parallel until the advent of Surrealism more than 400 years later (see page 394). In the left panel, God (in the form of Christ) presents Eve to Adam in a landscape, presumably the Garden of Eden. Bosch's wildly imaginative setting includes an odd pink fountainlike struc-ture in a body of water and an array of fanciful and unusual animals, including a giraffe, an elephant, and winged fish. The central panel is a continuation of Paradise, a sunlit landscape filled with nude people, including exotic figures of African descent, who frequently appear in Renaissance paintings (for example, fig. 8-39), both north and south of the Alps. All those in Paradise are in the prime of youth. They blithely cavort amid bizarre creatures and unidentifi-able objects. Some of the youths exuberantly stand on their hands or turn somersaults. The numerous fruits and birds in the scene are fertility symbols and suggest procreation. Indeed, many of the fig-ures pair off as couples. In contrast to the orgiastic overtones of the central panel is the terrifying image of Hell in the right wing, where viewers must search through the inky darkness to find all of the fascinat-ing though repulsive details that Bosch recorded. Beastly creatures devour people, while other condemned souls endure tortures tai-lored to their conduct while alive. A glutton must vomit eternally. A miser squeezes gold coins from his bowels. A spidery monster fondles a promiscuous woman while toads bite her. Scholars have traditionally interpreted Bosch's triptych as a warning about the fate awaiting the sinful, decadent, and immoral, but as a secular work, Garden of Earthly Delights may have been intended for a learned audience fascinated by alchemy—the medieval study of seemingly magical chemical changes. Details throughout the triptych are based on chemical apparatus of the day, which Bosch knew well because his in-laws were pharmacists.

9 - 31 Name: The French Ambassadors Creator: Hans Holbein the Younger Medium: Oil and tempera on wood, 6' 8" × 6' 9 1/2" Date: 1533 Initial Location: Present Location: National Gallery, London

In this double portrait, Holbein depicted two humanists with a collection of objects reflective of their worldliness and learning, but he also included an anamorphic skull, a reminder of death. The leading artist of the Holy Roman Empire in the generation after Dürer was Hans Holbein the Younger (ca. 1497-1543), who excelled as a portraitist. The surfaces of Hol-bein's paintings are as lustrous as enamel, and the details are exact and exquisitely drawn, consistent with the tradition of 15th-century Flemish art. Yet he also incorporated Italian ideas about monumen-tal composition and sculptural form. Holbein began his artistic career in Basel, but because of the immediate threat of a religious civil war, he left for England, where, with Erasmus's recommendation, he became painter to the court of King Henry VIII and produced a double portrait of the French ambassadors to England, Jean de Dinteville (1504-1557) and Georges de Selve (1509-1542). The French Ambassadors (fig. 9-31) exhibits Holbein's considerable talents—his strong sense of compo-sition, gift for recording likenesses, marvelous sensitivity to color, and faultless technique. The two men, both ardent humanists, stand at opposite ends of a side table covered with an oriental rug and a collection of objects reflective of their worldliness and their interest in learning and the arts. These include mathematical and astronom-ical models and implements, a lute with a broken string, compasses, a sundial, flutes, globes, and an open hymnbook with Luther's trans-lation of Veni, Creator Spiritus and of the Ten Commandments. Of particular interest is the long gray shape that slashes diago-nally across the picture plane and interrupts the stable, balanced, and serene composition. This form is an anamorphic image, a dis-torted image recognizable only when viewed with a special device, such as a cylindrical mirror, or by looking at the painting at an acute angle. In this case, if the viewer stands off to the right, the distorted image becomes a skull. Artists commonly incorporated skulls into paintings as reminders of mortality. Indeed, Holbein depicted a skull on the metal medallion on Jean de Dinteville's hat. Holbein may have intended the skulls, in conjunction with the crucifix that appears half hidden behind the curtain in the upper left corner, to encourage viewers to ponder death and resurrection. The French Ambassadors may also allude to the growing ten-sion between secular and religious authorities. Jean de Dinteville was a titled landowner, Georges de Selve a bishop. The inclusion of Luther's translations next to the lute with the broken string (a sym-bol of discord) may also subtly refer to religious strife. In any case, the painting is a supreme artistic achievement. Holbein rendered the still-life objects with the same meticulous care as the men them-selves, the woven design of the deep emerald curtain behind them, and the Italian marble-inlay floor, drawn in perfect perspective.

17 - 8 Name: Bodhisattva Padmapani Creator: Medium: detail of a wall painting Date: second half of fifth century Initial Location: the antechamber of cave 1, Ajanta, India Present Location: the antechamber of cave 1, Ajanta, India

In this early example of Indian painting in an Ajanta cave, the artist rendered the sensuous form of the richly attired Bodhisattva with gentle gradations of color and delicate highlights and shadows. - Ajanta was a site of a small Buddhist monastery, but during the second half of the fifth century, royal patrons from the Vakataka dynasty (allies of the Guptas by marriage) added more than 20 new cave paintings. - "Illustrated here (fig. 17-8) is a detail of one of the restored mural paintings in cave 1 depicting the seated bodhisattva Padmapani among a crowd of devotees, both princes and commoners. With long, dark hair hanging down below a jeweled crown, he stands holding his attribute, a blue lotus flower, in his right hand. The painter rendered with finesse the sensuous form of the richly attired bodhisattva, gently modeling the figure with gradations of color and delicate highlights and shadows, especially evident in the face and neck." - "The artist also carefully consid-ered the placement of the painting in the cave. The bodhisattva gazes downward at worshipers enter-ing the antechamber of the cave on their way to the rock-cut Buddha image in a cell at the back." - Hindus and Buddhists worshipped side by side in the caves, the Hindu Vakataka king Harishena and his court sponsored new caves in the Buddhist monastery at Ajanta - In Hinduism, the Buddha is one of the 10 incarnations of Vishnu

6-15 Name: Crucifix commissioned by Archbishop Gero (Gero Crucifix) for Cologne Cathedral, Germany Creator: Medium: Painted wood, height of figure, 6' 2" Date: 970 Initial Location: Cathedral, Cologne. Present Location: Cathedral, Cologne.

In this early example of the revival of large-scale sculpture in the Middle Ages, an Ottonian sculptor depicted with unprecedented emotional power the intense agony of Christ's ordeal on the cross.

19 - 12 Name: splashed-ink (haboku) landscape, detail of the lower part of a hanging scroll Creator: Sesshu Toyo Medium: Ink on paper, full scroll 4' 10 1/4" × 1' 7/8", detail 4 1/2" high Date: Muromachi period, 1495 Initial Location: Present Location: Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo

In this haboku landscape, the artist applied primarily broad, rapid strokes, sometimes dripping the ink on the paper. The result hovers at the edge of legibility, without dissolving into abstraction. Muromachi painting displays great variety in both style and subject matter. Among the most celebrated Muromachi artists was the Zen priest Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506), one of the few Japanese painters who traveled to China and studied contempora-neous Ming painting. His most dramatic works are in the splashed-ink (haboku) style, a technique with Chinese roots. The painter of a haboku picture pauses to visualize the image, loads the brush with ink, and then applies primarily broad, rapid strokes, sometimes even dripping the ink onto the paper. The result often hovers at the edge of legibility, without dissolving into sheer abstraction. This balance between spontaneity and a thorough knowledge of the painting tradition gives the pictures their artistic strength. In the haboku landscape illustrated here (fig. 19-12), images of mountains, trees, and buildings emerge from the ink-washed surface. Two fig-ures appear in a boat (to the lower right), and the two swift strokes nearby represent the pole and banner of a wine shop.

6-4 Name: Chi-rho-iota page, folio 34 recto of the Book of Kells Creator: Medium: Tempera on vellum, 1' 1" × 9 1/2" Date: late eighth or early ninth century Initial Location: Iona, Scotland Present Location: Trinity College Library, Dublin

In this opening page to the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the painter transformed the biblical text into abstract pattern, literally making God's words beautiful. The intricate design recalls early medieval metalwork.

18 - 21 Name: Rent Collection Courtyard (two details of a larger tableau) Creator: Ye Yushan and others Medium: Clay, 100 yards long with life-size figures. Date: Dayi, China, 1965 Initial Location: Present Location:

In this propagandistic tableau incorporating 114 figures, sculptors depicted the exploitation of peasants by their merciless landlords during the grim times before the Communist takeover of China. In Rent Collection Courtyard (fig. 18-21), a 1965 tableau 100 yards long and incorporating 114 life-size figures, Ye Yushan (b. 1935) and a team of sculptors employed by the Com-munist government in Dayi depicted the grim times before the Peo-ple's Republic. Peasants, worn and bent by toil, bring their taxes (in produce) to the courtyard of their merciless, plundering landlord. (The group was first displayed in the actual courtyard of the former home of the pre-Communist rural landlord Liu Wencai.) The mes-sage is clear—this kind of exploitation must not happen again, and the Communists will ensure that it does not. Initially, the authorities did not reveal the artists' names. The anonymity of those who depicted the event was significant and consistent with the Com-munist ethic. By withholding the identities of the artists, the state underscored that collective action, not individual initiative, was the best means to transform society for the better.

8 - 17 Name: Saint Mark Creator: Donatello Medium: Marble, figure 7' 9" high Date: ca. 1411-1413 Initial Location: niche on the south side of Or San Michele, Florence, Italy Present Location: Modern replica. Original statue in the museum on the second floor of Or San Michele, Florence

In this statue carved for the guild of linen makers and tailors, Donatello intro-duced classical contrapposto into Renaissance sculpture. The drapery falls naturally and moves with the body A former apprentice in Ghiberti's workshop, Donato di Niccolo Bardi, called Donatello (ca. 1386-1466), participated along with other leading sculptors, including Ghiberti, in another major Florentine art program of the early 1400s—the decoration of Or San Michele. At various times, the building housed a church, a granary, and the headquarters of Florence's guilds. City officials had assigned each of the niches on the building's four sides to a specific guild to fill with a statue of its patron saint. Donatello carved Saint Mark (fig. 8-17) for the guild of linen makers and tailors in 1413. In this sculpture, Donatello introduced the classical principle of weight shift—contrapposto—into Renaissance statuary. As the saint's body moves, his garment moves with it, hanging and folding naturally from and around different body parts so that the viewer senses the figure as a nude human wearing clothing, not as a stone statue with arbitrarily composed drapery folds. Donatello's Saint Mark is the first Renais-sance statue whose voluminous robe (the pride of the Florentine guild that paid for the statue) does not conceal but accentuates the move-ment of the arms, legs, shoulders, and hips. This development further contributed to the sculpted figure's independence from its architec-tural setting. Saint Mark's stirring limbs, shifting weight, and mobile drapery suggest impending movement out of the niche.

8 - 27 Name: Birth of Venus Creator: Sandro Botticelli Medium: Tempera on canvas, 5' 9" × 9' 2" Date: ca. 1484-1486 Initial Location: Present Location: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Inspired by Angelo Poliziano's poem and Greek Aphrodite statues (fig. 2-47), Botticelli revived the theme of the female nude in this elegant and romantic representation of Venus born of sea foam. Painted a few years later, Botticelli's Birth of Venus (fig. 8-27) is based on a poem by Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), a leading humanist of the day. In Botticelli's lyrical representation of Poliziano's version of the Greek myth, Venus (the Greek Aph-rodite, born of the sea foam—aphros) stands on a floating cockle-shell. Zephyrus, carrying Chloris, blows the goddess to her sacred island, Cyprus. There, the nymph Pomona runs to meet her with a brocaded mantle. Zephyrus's breath moves all the figures with-out effort. Draperies undulate easily in the gentle gusts, perfumed by rose petals that fall on the whitecaps. In this painting, unlike in Primavera, Venus is nude, as in the famous statue (fig. 2-47) by the ancient Greek master Praxiteles. As noted earlier, the nude, especially the female nude, was exceedingly rare during the Middle Ages. Botticelli's depiction of Venus unclothed (especially on such a large scale—roughly life-size) could have drawn harsh criticism. But in the more accommodating Renaissance culture and under the protection of the powerful Medici, the painter's nude Venus went unchallenged, in part because Birth of Venus, like Primavera, is sus-ceptible to a Neo-Platonic reading, namely that those who embrace the contemplative life of reason will immediately contemplate spiri-tual and divine beauty whenever they behold physical beauty.Botticelli's paintings stand apart from those of many other Quattrocento artists who sought to comprehend humanity and the natural world through a rational, empirical order. Indeed, Bot-ticelli's elegant and beautiful linear style seems removed from all the scientific knowledge that 15th-century artists had gained in the areas of perspective and anatomy. For example, the seascape in Birth of Venus is a flat backdrop devoid of atmospheric perspective. Botticelli's style paralleled the Florentine allegorical pageants that were chivalric tournaments structured around allusions to classical mythology. The same trend is evident in the poetry of the 1470s and 1480s. Artists and poets at this time did not directly imitate classi-cal antiquity but used the myths, with delicate perception of their charm, in a way still tinged with medieval romance. Ultimately, Bot-ticelli created a style of visual poetry parallel to the love poetry of Lorenzo de' Medici.

4-26 Name: Lamentation Creator: Medium: Wall painting Date: 1164 Initial Location: Saint Pantaleimon, Nerezi, Macedonia Present Location: Saint Pantaleimon, Nerezi, Macedonia

Working in an alternate Byzantine mode, this Middle Byzantine painter staged the emotional lamentation over the dead Christ in a hilly landscape below a blue sky and peopled it with fully modeled figure.

8 - 6 Name: Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife Creator: Jan van Eyck Medium: Oil on wood, 2' 9" × 1' 10 12" Date: 1434 Initial Location: Present Location: National Gallery, London

Jan van Eyck played a major role in establishing portraiture as an important Flemish art form. In this portrait of an Italian financier and his wife in their home, the painter depicted himself in the mirror The first Netherlandish painter to achieve interna-tional fame was Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390-1441), who in 1425 became Philip the Good's court painter. In 1431, he moved his studio to Bruges, where the duke maintained his official residence. Jan used oil paints to render the entire altarpiece in shimmer-ing oil colors that defy reproduction. No small detail escaped the painter. With pristine specificity, he revealed the beauty of the most insignificant object. He depicted the soft texture of hair, the glitter of gold in the heavy brocades, the luster of pearls, and the flashing of gems, all with loving fidelity to appearance. Both the Mérode Altarpiece and the Ghent Altarpiece include painted portraits of their donors. These paintings marked a significant revival of portraiture, a genre that had lan-guished since antiquity. The elite wanted to memorialize themselves in their dynastic lines and to establish their identities, ranks, and stations with images far more concrete than heraldic coats of arms. Portraits also served to represent state officials at events they could not attend. Royalty, nobility, and the very rich would sometimes send artists to paint the likeness of a prospective bride or groom. For example, when young King Charles VI (r. 1380-1422) of France sought a bride, he dispatched a painter to three different royal courts to make portraits of the candidates. Prosperous merchants also commissioned portraits for their homes. Early examples are Jan van Eyck's Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife (fig. 8-6) and the Diptych of Martin van Nieuwenhove (fig. 8-6A ) by Hans Memling (ca. 1430-1494). Jan depicted the Lucca financier (who had established himself in Bruges as an agent of the Medici family) and his second wife, whose name is not known, in their home. According to the traditional interpretation, the couple are taking their marriage vows. As in the Mérode Altarpiece, almost every object carries mean-ing. For example, the little dog sym-bolizes fidelity. The finial (crowning ornament) of the marriage bed is a tiny statue of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. (The bride is not yet pregnant, although the fashion-able costume she wears makes her appear so.) From the finial hangs a whiskbroom, symbolic of domestic care. Indeed, even the placement of the two figures is meaningful. The woman stands near the bed and well into the room, whereas the man stands near the open window, sym-bolic of the outside world. Many art historians, however, dispute this interpretation because, among other things, the room in which Arnolfini and his wife stand is a public reception area, not a bed-chamber. One scholar has suggested that Arnolfini is conferring legal privileges on his wife to conduct business in his absence. In either case, the artist functions as a wit-ness. In the background is a convex mirror, whose spatial distortion Jan brilliantly recorded. Reflected in the mirror are not only the prin-cipals, 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 elegant inscription above the mirror—Johannes de Eyck fuit hic ("Jan van Eyck was here")—announces that he was present. The self-portrait also underscores the painter's self-consciousness as a professional artist whose role deserves to be recorded and remembered.

19 - 9 Name: Portrait statue of the priest Shunjobo Chogen Creator: Medium: Painted cypress wood, 2' 8 38" high Date: Kamakura period, ca. 1206 Initial Location: Todaiji, Nara, Japan Present Location:

Kamakura artists' interest in naturalism is evident in this moving portrait of a seated priest. The statue is noteworthy for its finely painted details and power-ful rendering of personality and old age. Rebuilding in Nara after the destruction that the civil wars inflicted presented an early opportunity for architectural experimentation. A leading figure in planning and directing the reconstruction efforts was the Shingon priest Shunjobo Chogen (1121-1206), who sources say made three trips to China between 1166 and 1176. After learning about contemporary Chinese architecture, he oversaw the rebuilding of the Todaiji Buddhist complex (fig. 19-5A ), among other projects. Chogen's portrait statue (fig. 19-9) is one of the most strik-ing examples of the high level of naturalism prevalent in the early Kamakura period. It features finely painted details and a powerful rendering of the signs of aging, including sunken cheeks and eye sockets, lined face and neck, and slumping posture. Details such as the nervous handling of the prayer beads capture the personality as well as the appearance of the priest. The statue is the work of the Kei School of sculptors, known for their expert craftsmanship and use of inlaid rock crystal for the eyes, a technique unique to Japan. One of the Kei School's leading masters, Unkei, carved a huge statue of Agyo (fig. 19-9A ) for Todaiji. The Kei School, which traced its lineage to Jocho, a master sculptor of the mid-11th century, typified traditional Japanese artistic practice. Indeed, until recently, hierarchically organized male workshops produced most Japanese art. Membership in these workshops was often based on familial relationships. Dominating each workshop was a master, and many of his main assistants and apprentices were relatives. Outsiders of considerable skill sometimes joined workshops, often through marriage or adoption. The eldest son usually inherited the master's position, after rigorous training in the necessary skills from a very young age. Therefore, one meaning of the term art school in Japan is a network of workshops tracing their origins back to the same master, a kind of artistic clan.

9 - 2 Name: Madonna of the Rocks Creator: Leonardo da Vinci Medium: Oil on wood (transferred to canvas), 6' 6 1/2" × 4' Date: 1483-1490 Initial Location: San Francesco Grande, Milan, Italy Present Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris

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. Shortly after set-tling in Milan, Leonardo painted Madonna of the Rocks (fig. 9-2) as the center panel of an altarpiece in San Francesco Grande. Leonardo presented the Madonna, Christ Child, infant John the Baptist, and angel in a pyramidal grouping. The four figures pray, point, and bless, and these acts and gestures, although their meanings are uncertain, visually unite the individuals por-trayed. The angel points to the infant John and, through his outward glance, involves the viewer in the scene. John prays to the Christ Child, who blesses him in return. The Virgin herself completes the series of interlocking gestures, her left hand reaching toward her son and her right hand resting protectively on John's shoulder. A ten-der mood suffuses the entire composition. Nonetheless, Leonardo's most notable achievement in Madonna of the Rocks was to paint the figures sharing the same light-infused environment, made pos-sible by his deep understanding of chiaroscuro. The biblical figures emerge through nuances of light and shade from the half-light of the mysterious cavernous landscape.

9 - 8 Name: Pietà Creator: Michelangelo Buonarroti Medium: Marble, 5' 8 1/2" high Date: ca. 1498-1500 Initial Location: Saint Peter's, Vatican City, Rome Present Location: Saint Peter's, Vatican City, Rome

Michelangelo's representation of Mary cradling Christ's corpse captures the sadness and beauty of the young Virgin, but was controversial because the Madonna seems younger than her son. Michelangelo began his career in Florence, but when the Medici fell in 1494 (see page 244), he fled to Bologna and then moved to Rome. There, still in his early 20s, he produced his first masterpiece—a Pietà (fig. 9-7 )—for Jean de Bil-hères Lagraulas (1439-1499), Cardinal of Saint-Denis and the French king's envoy to the Vatican. The cardinal commissioned the statue to be placed in the rotunda attached to the south transept of Old Saint Peter's (not shown in fig. 4-3) in which he was to be buried. (The work is now on view in the new church [fig. 10-3] that replaced the fourth- century basilica.) The theme—Mary cradling the dead body of Christ in her lap—was a staple in the repertoire of French and German artists (fig. 7-27), and Michelangelo's French patron doubtless chose the subject. The Italian sculptor, however, rendered the northern European theme in an unforgettable manner. Michelangelo transformed marble into flesh, hair, and fabric with a sensitivity for texture almost without parallel. The polish and luminosity of the exquisite marble surface can be fully appre-ciated only in the presence of the original. Also breathtaking is the tender sadness of the beauti-ful and youthful Mary as she mourns the death of her son. In fact, her age—seemingly less than that of Christ—was a subject of controversy from the moment the statue was unveiled. Michelangelo explained Mary's age-less beauty as an integral part of her purity and virginity. Beautiful, too, is the son whom she holds. Christ seems less to have died a mar-tyr's crucifixion than to have drifted off into peaceful sleep in Mary's maternal arms. His wounds are barely visible.

21 - 18 Name: Doors from the shrine of the Yoruba king's head in the royal palace Creator: Olowe of Ise Medium: Painted wood, 6' high Date: 1910-1914 Initial Location: Ikere, Nigeria Present Location: British Museum, London

Olowe's painted highrelief doors to the shrine of the king's head depict the 1897 visit of the British provincial commissioner to the ikere palace. The enthroned Yoruba king is the largest figure. The leading Yoruba sculptor of the early 20th cen-tury was Olowe of Ise (ca. 1873-1938). Kings throughout Yoruba-land (southern Nigeria and southern Benin) commissioned Olowe to carve reliefs, masks, bowls, veranda posts, and other works. The ogaga (king) of Ikere, for example, employed Olowe for four years starting in 1910, during which he resided at Ikere and produced the magnificent carved and painted doors (fig. 21-18) of the shrine of the king's head in his palace in northeastern Yorubaland. Departing from convention, Olowe made the two doors of unequal width to accommodate a rare historical narrative in 10 panels in five regis-ters. The reliefs recount the 1897 visit of the representative of the British Empire, Major W. R. Reeve-Tucker, the first traveling com-missioner of Ondo province. Litter-bearers carry Reeve-Tucker into the palace compound, where the enthroned king (who is far larger than the British emissary) and his principal wife receive him. The other panels on each door depict the entourage of the two protago-nists, including, at the left, the king's bodyguards and other wives, and, on the right door, shackled slaves carrying chests. Characteris-tically for Olowe, the relief is so high that some of the figures project as much as 6 inches from the surface, which has a vividly colored patterned background. Olowe also carved the veranda posts of the courtyard in front of the shrine.

3-1 Name: Apotheosis of Antonius Pius and Faustina the Elder Creator: Medium: Marble, 8' 1.5" high Date: 161 CE Initial Location: Relief on the pedestal of the Column of Antoninus Pius, Rome, Italy. Present Location: Musei Vaticani, Rome

On the pedestal of the memorial column erected in his honor, Antoninus Pius ascends to the realm of the gods with his wife, Faustina. The empress, however, died 20 years before her husband. The setting of Antoninus's apotheosis is the Campus Martius, here personified by a reclining long-haired, seminude young man holding the Egyptian obelisk that was an important local landmark. Bidding farewell to the emperor and empress is the seated goddess Roma (Rome personified), leaning on a shield decorated with the she-wolf suckling Rome's two founders, Romulus and Remus

21 - 12 Name: Kongo power figure (nkisi n'kondi) Creator: Medium: Wood, nails, blades, medicinal materials, and cowrie shell, 3' 10 3/4" high Date: ca. 1875-1900 Initial Location: Shiloango River area, Democratic Republic of Congo Present Location: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

Only priests using ritual formulas could consecrate Kongo power figures, which embody spirits that can heal or inflict harm. The statue has simplified anatomical forms and an oversized head. The Congo River formed the principal transportation route for the peoples of Central Africa during the 19th century. Some of the most distinctive African artworks of that period come from Kongo—for example, the large standing statue (fig. 21-12) shown here. It represents a man bristling with nails and blades—a Kongo nkisi n'kondi (power figure). These figures, consecrated by priests using precise ritual formulas, embodied spirits believed to heal and give life, or sometimes to inflict harm, disease, or even death. Each statue had its specific role, just as it wore particular medi-cines—here protruding from the abdomen, which features a large cowrie shell. The Kongo also activated every image differently. Owners appealed to a figure's forces every time they inserted a nail or blade, as if to prod the spirit to do its work. People invoked other spirits by repeating certain chants, by rubbing the images, or by applying special powders. The roles of power figures varied enor-mously, from curing minor ailments to stimulating crop growth, from punishing thieves to weakening enemies. Very large Kongo figures, such as this one, had exceptional ascribed powers and aided entire communities. Although benevolent for their owners, the fig-ures stood at the boundary between life and death, and most villag-ers held them in awe. Compared with the sculptures of most other African peoples, this Kongo figure is relatively naturalistic, although the carver simplified the facial features and magnified the size of the head for emphasis.

10-20 Name: The Company ofCaptain Frans Banning Cocq (Night Watch) Creator: Rembrandt Van Rijn Medium: Oil on canvas, 11' 11" × 14' 4" (trimmed from original size) Date: 1642 Initial Location: Musketeers Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands Present Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Rembrandt's dramatic use of light contributes to the animation of this militia group portrait in which the artist showed the company rushing to organize themselves for a parade.

6-7 Name: Crucifixion, front cover of the Lindau Gospels Creator: Medium: Gold, precious stones, and pearls, 1' 13/8" × 10 3/8". Date: 870 Initial Location: Saint Gall, Switzerland Present Location: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

Sacred books with covers of gold and jewels were among the most costly and revered early medieval art objects. This Carolingian cover revives the Early Christian imagery of the youthful Jesus.

4-17 Name: Justinian, Bishop Maximianus, and attendants Creator: Medium: Mosaic Date: 547 Initial Location: The north wall of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy Present Location: The north wall of the apse, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

San Vitale's mosaics reveal the new Byzantine aesthetic. Justinian is foremost among the weightless and speechless frontal figures hovering before the viewer, their positions in space uncertain.

3-4 Name: Sarcophagus with reclining couple Creator: Medium: Painted terracotta, 3' 9.5" x 6' 7" Date: 520 BCE Initial Location: Banditaccia necropolis, Cerveteri, Italy Present Location: Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome.

Sarcophagi in the form of a husband and wife on a dining couch have no parallels in Greece. The art-ist's focus on the upper half of the figures and the emphatic gestures are Etruscan hallmarks

8 - 12 Name: Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons Creator: Martin Schongauer Medium: Engraving, 1' 1/4" × 9" Date: ca. 1480 Initial Location: Present Location: Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Corte di Mamiano

Schongauer was the most skilled of the early masters of metal engraving. By using a burin to incise lines in a copper plate, he was able to create a marvelous variety of tonal values and textures. The woodcut medium hardly had matured when the technique of engraving, begun in the 1430s and well developed by 1450, proved much more flexible. Predictably, in the second half of the century, engraving began to replace the woodcut process for making both book illustrations and widely popular single prints. The most skilled and subtle early master of metal engraving in northern Europe was Martin Schongauer (ca. 1430-1491). 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—with hatching. The use of cross-hatching (sets of engraved lines at right angles) to describe forms, which Schongauer probably developed, became standard among German graphic artists. The Italians preferred parallel hatching (fig. 8-28) and rarely adopted the other hatching method, which, in keeping with the general northern European approach to art, tends to describe the surfaces of things rather than their underlying structures.

7-15 Name: Annunciation and Visitation Creator: Medium: Date: 1230-1255 Initial Location: right side of the central doorway of the west facade, Reims Cathedral (fig. 7-1), Reims, France Present Location: right side of the central doorway of the west facade, Reims Cathedral (fig. 7-1), Reims, France

Several sculptors working in diverse styles carved the Reims jamb statues, but all the figures resemble freestanding statues, with bodies and arms in motion. The biblical fig-ures speak using gestures.

18 - 20 Name: Reminiscences of Nanjing: Riding the Clouds Creator: Shitao Medium: Album leaf, ink and colors on paper, 1' 1/4" × 8 7/8" Date: Qing dynasty, 1707 Initial Location: Present Location: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Shitao experimented with unusual composi-tions and extreme effects of massed ink. In this album leaf, the solitary rider scaling a steep mountain expresses loneliness and perseverance. Other Qing painters, however, took landscape painting in new directions. Perhaps the most innovative was Shitao (Daoji, 1642-1707), a descendant of the Ming imperial family who became a Chan Buddhist monk at age 20, which protected him from pros-ecution as a Ming loyalist. (Most of his family had been murdered, and he was orphaned as an infant.) Shitao's theoretical writings, most notably his Sayings on Painting from Monk Bitter Gourd (his adopted name), called for use of the "single brushstroke" or "pri-mordial line" as the root of all phenomena and representation. Riding the Clouds (fig. 18-20) is one album leaf (see "Chinese Painting Formats," page 491) in a series of 12 that Shitao produced during the last year of his life. Each of the paintings encapsulates his personal feelings, some happy, some sad, about his reclusive life in Nanjing. Here, the solitary rider scaling a steep mountain path amid low-hanging clouds expresses the themes of loneliness and perseverance. The sharp angle that Shitao used to record the land-scape and the massing of thick ink alternating with sinuous lines and large blank areas are characteristic features of this pioneering artist's distinctive style. Unlike traditional literati, Shitao did not so much depict the landscape's appearance as animate it, applying ink with unprecedented expressive force.

17 - 9 Name: Dancing Shiva Creator: Medium: rock-cut relief Date: late sixth century. Initial Location: cave 1, Badami, India Present Location: cave 1, Badami, India

Shiva here dances the cosmic dance and has 18 arms, some holding objects, others forming mudras. Hindu gods often have multiple limbs to indicate their suprahuman nature and divine powers. - Hinduism recognises no founder or great prophet, and the name originates from the Indus Valley Civilisation (3000 BCE), though some practices and beliefs predate it. - "The goal of sacrifice is to please a deity in order to achieve liberation (moksha) from the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) and become one with the universal spirit." - There are three important deities, according to the textbook, Shiva the Destroyer, Vishnu the Preserver, and Devi the Great Goddess - "Shiva is the Destroyer, but, consistent with the multiplicity of Hindu belief, he is also a regenerative force. In the latter role, Shiva can be represented in the form of a linga (a phallus or cosmic pillar). When Shiva appears in human form in Hindu art, he frequently has multiple limbs and heads (figs. 17-9, 17-10, and 17-16), 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. 17-9) and often carries a trident, a three-pronged pitchfork." - "Vishnu is the Preserver of the Universe. Artists frequently portray him with four arms holding various attributes. He sometimes reclines on a serpent floating on the waters of the cosmic sea (fig. 17-12). 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. 17-21), and even the Buddha himself." - "Devi is the Great Goddess who takes many forms and has many names. Hindus worship her alone or as a consort of male gods (Parvati or Uma, wife of Shiva; Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu), as well as Radha, lover of Krishna (fig. 17-21). She has both benign and horrific forms, and she creates as well as destroys. In one manifestation, she is Durga, a multiarmed goddess who often rides a lion (fig. 17-8A ). Her son is the elephant-headed Ganesha (fig. 17-9)."

7-11 Name: Rose window and lancets Creator: Medium: Stained glass, rose window 43' in diameter Date: 1220 Initial Location: North transept, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France Present Location: North transept, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France

Stained-glass windows transformed natural light into Suger's lux nova. This huge rose window with tall lancets fills almost the entire facade wall of the High Gothic north transept of Chartres Cathedral.

5-16 Name: Court of Gayumars, folio 20 verso of the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp Creator: Sultan-Muhammad Medium: Ink, watercolor, and gold on paper, 1' 1" × 9" Date: 1525-1535 Initial Location: Tabriz, Iran Present Location: Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan Collection, Geneva

Sultan-Muhammad painted the legend of King Gayumars for the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp. The off-center placement on the page enhances the sense of lightness permeating the painting.

5-13 Name: Koran page with beginning of surah 18 Creator: Medium: Ink and gold on vellum, 7 1/4" × 10 1/4". Date: 9th or early 10th century Initial Location: Present Location: Chester Beatty Library and Oriental Art Gallery, Dublin

The script used in the oldest-known Korans is the stately rectilinear Kufic. This page has five text lines and a palm-tree finial, but characteristically does not include depictions of animals or humans.

5-15 Name: Carpet from the funerary mosque of Shaykh Safi al-Din Creator: Maqsud of Kashan Medium: Knotted pile of wool and silk, 34' 6" × 17' 7" Date: 1540 Initial Location: Ardabil, Iran Present Location: Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Textiles are among the glories of Islamic art. This carpet required roughly 25 million knots. It presents the illusion of a heavenly dome with mosque lamps reflected in a lotus-blossom-filled pool of water.

18 - 3 Name: Army of the First Emperor of Qin in pits next to his burial mound Creator: Medium: Painted terracotta, average figure 5' 10 7/8" high Date: Qin dynasty, ca. 210 bce Initial Location: Lintong, China Present Location: Lintong, China

The First emperor was buried beneath an immense mound guarded by thousands of life-size terracotta soldiers. although produced from common molds, every figure has an individualized appearance. One of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever made anywhere came to light in 1974 when farmers digging a well in a village near Lin-tong in Shaanxi Province discovered some broken terracotta statues. Chinese excavators soon concluded that they belonged to the immense burial mound of Qin Shi Huangdi, China's "First emperor." Like many other powerful monarchs throughout history, during his lifetime Shi Huangdi began construction of his home in the eternal afterlife. For this ambitious undertaking, he conscripted more than 700,000 laborers. The First emperor's tomb remains unexcavated, but Chinese archae-ologists believe that it contains a vast treasure-filled underground funerary palace designed to match the fabulous palace the emperor occupied in life. The historian Sima Qian (136-85 bce) described both palaces, but scholars did not take his account seriously until the discovery of pits around the tomb containing life-size painted terracotta figures (fig. 18-3) of soldiers and horses, as well as bronze horses and chariots, which probably numbered 8,000 or more. The terracotta army served as the First emperor's bodyguard deployed in perpetuity outside his tomb. Today, the Lintong army consists of about 2,000 statues of cavalry, chariots, archers, lancers, and hand-to-hand fighters. The huge assemblage testifies not only to the power and wealth of Shi Huangdi but also to a high degree of organization in the Qin imperial workshop. Manufacturing this army of statues required a veritable army of sculptors and painters, as well as a large number of huge kilns. The First emperor's artisans could have opted to use the same molds over and over again to produce thousands of identical soldiers standing in strict formation. In fact, they did employ the same molds repeatedly for different parts of the statues, but assembled the parts in many different combinations. Consequently, the stances, arm positions, garment folds, equipment, coiffures, and facial features vary, sometimes slightly, sometimes markedly, from statue to statue. additional hand modeling of the cast body parts before firing enabled the sculptors to differentiate the figures even more. The Qin painters undoubtedly added further variations to the appearance of the terracotta army. The result of these efforts was a brilliant balance of uniformity and individuality.

21 - 5 Name: Aerial view of the Great Mosque (looking northwest) Creator: Medium: Date: constructed in the 13th century, razed in 1830, and rebuilt in 1906-1907 Initial Location: Djenne, Mali Present Location: Djenne, Mali

The Great Mosque at Djenne resembles Middle Eastern mosques in plan (large courtyard in front of a roofed prayer hall), but the construction materials—adobe and wood— are distinctly African. The inland floodplain of the Niger River was for the Afri-can continent a kind of "fertile crescent" analogous to ancient Mes-opotamia (see page 22). By about 800, a walled town, Djenne in present-day Mali, had been built on high ground left dry during the flooding season. Djenne boasts one of the most ambitious examples of adobe (sun-dried mud-brick) architecture in the world, the city's Great Mosque (fig. 21-5), first built in the 13th century and recon-structed 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," page 147). The facade, however, is unlike any in the Mid-dle East and features soaring adobe towers and vertical buttresses resembling engaged columns. The many rows of protruding wood beams further enliven the walls, but also serve a practical function as perches for workers undertaking the essential recoating of sacred clay on the exterior that occurs during an annual festival. Djenne is also noteworthy for the extensive series of terracotta sculptures (for example, fig. 21-5A) found in the region, most dating to between 1100 and 1500.

17 - 23 Name: Death of the Buddha (Parinirvana) Creator: Medium: Granulite, Buddha 10' × 46'. Date: 11th to 12th century Initial Location: Gal Vihara, near Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka Present Location:

The sculptor of this colossal recumbent Sri Lankan Buddha emulated the classic Gupta style of a half millennium earlier in the figure's clinging robe, rounded face, and coiffure. One of the largest sculptures in Southeast Asia is the 46-foot-long recumbent Buddha (fig. 17-23) carved out of a rocky outcropping at Gal Vihara. To the left of the Buddha, much smaller in scale, stands his cousin and chief disciple, Ananda, arms crossed, mourning the death of Shakyamuni. Although more than a half millen-nium later in date, the Sri Lankan representation of the Buddha's pari-nirvana reveals its sculptor's debt to the classic Gupta sculptures of India, with their clinging garments, rounded faces, and distinctive renditions of hair (compare fig. 17-7)

20 - 1 Name: Presentation of captives to Lord Chan Muwan Creator: Mural, 17' × 15'; copy by Heather Hurst at one-half scale Date: ca. 790 ce Initial Location: Room 2 of Structure 1, Bonampak, Mexico, Maya Present Location: Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven

The Maya lord Chan Muwan, wearing a jaguar pelt and elaborate headdress, stands at the top of what is probably a pyramid and faces a crouching captive who appears to beg the ruler for mercy Other richly clad members of the Bonampak ruling class stand to either side of Chan Muwan. Among them is his wife. The Maya rulers' spouses figured prominently in state ceremonies, such as bloodlettings. On the pyramid's steps are naked captives awaiting death. Some of them kneel and dumbly contemplate the blood dripping from their mutilated hands. The slaughter of captives appeased the Maya gods.

20 - 16 Name: Vessel in the shape of a portrait head Creator: Medium: Painted clay, 1' 1/2" high Date: Initial Location: the northern coast of Peru, Moche Present Location: Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera, Lima

The Moche culture produced an extraordinary variety of painted vessels. This one in the shape of a head may depict a warrior, ruler, or royal retainer. The realistic face is particularly striking The Moche occupied a series of river valleys on the north coast of Peru around the same time that the Nasca flourished to the south. The Moche left behind an extraordinary variety of painted vessels illustrating architecture, metallurgy, weaving, the brewing of maize beer, human deformities and diseases, and even sexual acts. Predominantly flat-bottomed stirrup-spouted jars, Moche vessels are generally decorated with a two-color slip. Although the Moche made early vessels by hand without the aid of a potter's wheel, they fashioned later ones in two-piece molds. Thus numerous near-duplicates survive. The portrait vessel illustrated here (fig. 20-16) is an elaborate example of a common Moche type. It may depict the face of a warrior, a ruler, or even a royal retainer whose image may have been buried with many other pots to accompany his dead master into the afterlife. The realistic rendering of the physiognomy is particularly striking.

1-18 Name: Lamassu Creator: Medium: Limestone, 13' 10" high Date: 720-705 BCE, Assyria Initial Location: Citadel of Sargon II, Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), Iraq Present Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris

The statue has 5 legs because the sculptor wanted to present a complete view of it from both the front and the side. Statues like this were installed at the gates of Assyrian palaces. This type of monstrous statue is known as Lamassu.

5-10 Name: Muqarnas dome Creator: Medium: Date: 1354-1391 Initial Location: Hall of the Abencerrajes, Palace of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, Spain Present Location: Hall of the Abencerrajes, Palace of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, Spain

The structure of this dome on an octagonal drum is difficult to discern because of the intricately carved stucco muqarnas. The prismatic forms reflect sunlight, creating the effect of a starry sky.

6-3 Name: Cross-inscribed carpet page, folio 26 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels Creator: Medium: Tempera on vellum, 1' 1 1/2" × 9 1/4" Date: 698-721 Initial Location: Northumbria, England Present Location: British Library, London

The cross-inscribed carpet page of the Lindisfarne Gospels exemplifies the way Hiberno-Saxon illuminators married Christian imagery and the animal-and-interlace style of the early medieval warlords.

20 - 15 Name: Hummingbird Creator: Medium: Dark layer of pebbles scraped aside to reveal lighter clay and calcite beneath Date: ca. 500 ce Initial Location: Nasca Plain, Peru, Nasca Present Location: Nasca Plain, Peru, Nasca

The earth drawings known as Nasca Lines represent birds, fish, plants, and geo-metric forms. They may have marked pilgrimage routes leading to religious shrines, but their function is uncertain. Some 800 miles of lines drawn in complex networks on the dry sur-face of the Nasca Plain have long attracted world attention because of their colossal size, which defies human perception from the ground. Preserved today are about three dozen images of birds, fish, and plants, including a hummingbird (fig. 20-15) several hundred feet long. The Nasca artists also drew geometric forms, such as trapezoids, spirals, and straight lines running for miles The Nasca produced these "Nasca Lines," as art historians have dubbed their immense earth drawings, by selectively removing the dark top layer of stones to expose the light clay and calcite below. Arti-sans created the lines quite easily from available materials and using rudimentary geometry. Small groups of workers have made modern reproductions of them with relative ease. The lines seem to be paths laid out using simple stone-and-string methods. Some lead in traceable directions across the deserts of the Nasca river drainage. Others have many shrinelike nodes punctuating the lines, like the knots on a cord. Some lines converge at central places usually situated close to water sources and seem to be associated with water supply and irrigation. They may have marked pilgrimage routes for those who journeyed to local or regional shrines on foot. Altogether, the vast arrangement of the Nasca Lines is a system—not a meaningless maze but a traversable map that plotted the whole terrain of Nasca material and spiritual concerns. remarkably, until quite recently, the peoples of highland Bolivia made and used similar ritual pathways in association with shrines, demonstrating the tenacity of indigenous Andean belief systems

6-23 Name: Last Judgment Creator: Gislebertus Medium: Marble, 21' wide at base Date: 1120-1135 Initial Location: West tympanum of Saint-Lazare, Autun, France Present Location: West tympanum of Saint-Lazare, Autun, France

The enthroned Christ presides over the separation of the blessed from the damned in Gislebertus's dramatic vision of the Last Judgment, designed to terrify those guilty of sin and beckon them into the church.

1-17 Name: Hammurabi and Shamash, detail of the law stele of Hammurabi Creator: Medium: Basalt, stele 7' 4" high, detail 2' high. Date: Found in Susa, Iraq in 1780 BCE, Babylon Initial Location: Babylon, Iraq Present Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris

The inscriptions on this stele document one of the oldest known codes of law. This is a detail of the Stele of Hammurabi. The carved figures are the Babylonian king Hammurabi and the sun god Shamash.

17 -21 Name: Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion Creator: Medium: Opaque watercolor on paper, 11 1/8" × 7 3/4" Date: 1760 Initial Location: Present Location: National Museum, New Delhi

The love of Krishna, the "Blue God," for Radha is the subject of this colorful, lyrical, and sensual Pahari watercolor. Krishna's love was a model of the devotion paid to the Hindu god Vishnu. One of the favorite subjects for Rajput paintings was the amorous adventures of Krishna, the "Blue God," the most popular avatar of Vishnu. Krishna was a herdsman who spent an idyl-lic existence tending his cows, playing the flute, and sporting with beautiful herdswomen. His favorite lover was Radha. The 12th-century poet Jayadeva 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 (fig. 17-21), a miniature painted in the Punjab Hills by an artist of the "Pahari School," probably for Raja Govardhan Chand of Guler (r. 1741-1773). Although Pahari painting owed much to Mughal drawing style, its coloration, lyricism, and sensuality are distinctive. In the Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion miniature, the lovers sit naked on a bed beneath a jeweled pavilion in a lush garden of ripe mangoes and flowering shrubs. Krishna gently touches Radha's breast while looking directly into her face. Radha shyly averts her gaze. It is night, the time of lovemaking, and the dark mon-soon sky momentarily lights up with a lightning flash indicating the moment's electric passion. Lightning is one of the standard symbols used in Rajput and Pahari miniatures to represent sexual excitement.

20 - 27 Name: Row of moai on a stone platform Creator: Medium: Volcanic tuff and red scoria Date: ca. 1200-1500 Initial Location: Ahu Tongariki, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Polynesia Present Location: Ahu Tongariki, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Polynesia

The moai of rapa Nui are monoliths as much as 50 feet tall. Most scholars believe that they portray ancestral chiefs. They stand on platforms marking burials or sites for religious ceremonies. Some of the earliest datable artworks in Oceania are also the largest. This is especially true of the colossal sculptures, called moai (fig. 20-27), of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in Polynesia, one of the last areas in the world to be settled. Polynesian societies typically are highly stratified, with power determined by heredity. Indeed, rulers often trace their genealogies directly to the gods of creation. Most Polynesian societies possess elaborate political orga-nizations headed by chiefs and ritual specialists. The Rapa Nui moai are as much as 50 feet tall and weigh up to 100 tons. They stand as silent sentinels on stone platforms (ahu) marking burial or sacred sites used for religious ceremonies. Most of the moai consist of huge, blocky figures with fairly planar facial features—large staring eyes, strong jaws, straight noses with carefully articulated nostrils, and elongated earlobes. A number of the moai have pukao—small red scoria (a local volcanic stone) cylinders that serve as a sort of top-knot or hat—atop their heads. Although debate continues, many scholars believe that lineage chiefs or their sons erected the moai and that the sculptures depict ancestral chiefs. The moai, how-ever, are not individual portraits but generic images that the Easter Islanders believed had the ability to accommodate spirits or gods. The statues thus mediate between chiefs and gods, and between the natural and cosmic worlds.

3-25 Name: Portrait of Augustus as imperator (general) Creator: Medium: Marble, 6' 8" high Date: early-first-century ce copy of a bronze original of ca. 20 bce Initial Location: Primaporta, Italy Present Location: Musei Vaticani, Rome

The models for Augustus's idealized portraits, which depict him as a never-aging youth, were Classical Greek statues (fig. 2-35). This statue portrays the armor-clad emperor as commander in chief.

5-14 Name: Pyxis of al-Mughira Creator: Medium: Ivory, 5 7/8" high Date: 968 Initial Location: Medina al-Zahra, near Córdoba, Spain Present Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris

The royal workshops of Abd al-Rahman III produced luxurious objects such as this ivory pyxis decorated with hunting motifs and vine scrolls. It belonged to al-Mughira, the caliph's younger son.

20 - 12 Name: Coyolxauhqui Creator: Medium: Stone, diameter 10' 10" Date: ca. 1469 Initial Location: the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán, Mexico City, Aztec Present Location: Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City

The sacrificed foes' bodies that the Aztecs hurled down the Great Temple's stairs landed on this disk, which depicts the segmented body of the moon god-dess Coyolxauhqui, Huitzilopochtli's sister. 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 (see "Aztec Reli-gion," page 537, and fig. 20-13). The myth signifies the birth of the sun at dawn, a role that Huitzilopochtli sometimes assumed, and the sun's battle with the forces of darkness, the stars and moon. Huitzilopochtli killed or chased away his brothers and dismem-bered the body of his sister, the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, at Coatepec Mountain near Tula (represented by the pyramid itself ). The mythical event is the subject of a huge stone disk (fig. 20-12) that the Aztecs placed at the foot of the staircase leading up to one of Huitzilopochtli's earlier temples on the site. (Cortés and his army never saw it because it lay within the outermost shell of the Great Temple.) The relief presents the image of the murdered and seg-mented body of Coyolxauhqui. The mythological theme also car-ried a contemporary political message. The Aztecs sacrificed their conquered enemies at the top of the Great Temple and then hurled their bodies down the temple stairs to land on this stone. The victors thus forced their foes to reenact the horrible fate of the dismem-bered goddess. The unforgettable image of the fragmented goddess proclaimed the power of the Mexica over their enemies and the inevitable fate that must befall their foes when defeated. Marvel-ously composed in low, almost flat, relief, the horrific representation has a kind of dreadful beauty. Within the circular space, the design's carefully balanced and richly detailed components have a slow turn-ing rhythm reminiscent of a revolving galaxy.

19 - 16 Name: Kogan (tea-ceremony water jar) Creator: Medium: Shino glazed stoneware with underglaze iron slip decoration, 7 34" high Date: Momoyama period, late 16th century Initial Location: Present Location: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (John L. Severance Fund)

The vessels used in the Japanese tea ceremony reflect the concepts of wabi, the aesthetic of refined rusticity, and sabi, the value found in weathered objects, suggesting the tranquility of old age Sen no Rikyu also was influential in determin-ing the aesthetics of tea-ceremony utensils. In his view, value and refinement lay in character and ability and not in bloodline or rank, and he therefore encouraged the use of tea items whose value was their inherent beauty rather than their monetary worth. Even before Rikyu, in the late 15th century, admiration of the technical brilliance of Chinese objects had begun to give way to greater appreciation of the virtues of rustic wares. This new aesthetic of refined rusticity, or wabi, was consistent with Zen concepts. Wabi suggests austerity and simplicity. Related to wabi and also important as a philosophical and aesthetic principle was sabi—the value found in the old and weathered, suggesting the tranquility reached in old age. Wabi and sabi aesthetics underlie the ceramic vessels produced for the tea ceremony, such as the Shino water jar named Kogan (fig. 19-16). The name, which means "ancient stream bank," comes from the painted design—marsh grass—on the jar's surface as well as from its coarse texture and rough form. The term Shino generally refers to ceramic wares produced during the late 16th and early 17th centu-ries in kilns in Mino. The Kogan illustrated here has surface cracks, an irregular rim, and sagging contours (all intentional) to suggest the accidental and natural, qualities essential to the values of wabi and sabi

20 - 25 Name: Eagle transformation mask, closed (top) and open (bottom) views Creator: Medium: Wood, feathers, and string, 1' 10" × 11" Date: late 19th century Initial Location: Alert Bay, Canada, Kwakwaka'wakw Present Location: American Museum of Natural History, New York

The wearer of this Kwakwaka'wakw mask could open and close it rapidly by manipulating hidden strings, magically transforming himself from human to eagle and back again as he danced. mong the numerous groups who settled the Northwest Coast are the Kwakwa- ka'wakw of southern British Columbia. Kwakwa- ka'wakw religious specialists wore masks in their healing rituals and in dramatic public perfor-mances during the winter ceremonial season. The animals and mythological creatures represented in masks and a host of other carvings derive from the Northwest Coast's rich oral tradition and celebrate the mythological origins and inherited privileges of high-ranking families. The artist who made the Kwakwaka'wakw mask illustrated here (fig. 20-25) meant it to be seen in flickering firelight, and inge-niously 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. The transformation theme, in myriad forms, is a central aspect of the art and religion of the Americas. The Kwakwaka'wakw mask's human aspect also owes its dramatic character to the exaggeration and dis-tortion of facial parts—such as the hooked beaklike nose and flat flaring nostrils—and to the deeply undercut curvilinear depressions, which form strong shadows. In contrast to the carved human face, but painted in the same colors, is the two-dimensional abstract image of the eagle painted on the inside of the outer mask.

5-12 Name: Mihrab Creator: Medium: Glazed mosaic tilework, 11' 3" × 7' 6" Date: 1354 Initial Location: Madrasa Imami, Isfahan, Iran Present Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This Iranian mihrab is a masterpiece of Iranian tilework, but it is also a splendid example of Arabic calligraphy. In the Islamic world, the walls of buildings often displayed the sacred words of the Koran.

6-16 Name: Reliquary statue of Sainte Foy (Saint Faith) Creator: Medium: Gold, silver gilt, jewels, and cameos over a wood core, 2' 9 1/2" high Date: late 10th to early 11th century Initial Location: Treasury, Sainte-Foy, Conques Present Location: Treasury, Sainte-Foy, Conques

This enthroned image containing the skull of Saint Faith is one of the most lavish Romanesque reliquaries. The head is an ancient Roman helmet, and the cameos are donations from pilgrims.

21 - 4 Name: Ife king Creator: Medium: Zinc-brass, 1' 6 1/2" high Date: 11th to 12th centuries Initial Location: Ita Yemoo, Nigeria Present Location: Museum of Ife Antiquities, Ife

This figure with an overly large head has a naturalistically modeled torso and facial features approaching portraiture. The crown, heavily beaded costume, and jewelry indicate that he is a king. The relationships between leaders and art forms are strong, complex, and universal in Africa. Political, spiritual, and social leaders—kings, chiefs, titled people, and religious specialists—have the power and wealth to obtain the services of the best artists and acquire the most expensive materials to adorn themselves, furnish their homes and palaces, and make visible the cultural and religious organizations they lead. Leaders also possess the power to dispense artworks and the right to own and display them. Several formal or structural principles characterize leaders' arts and thus set them off from the popular arts of ordinary Africans. Leaders' arts—for example, the lavish and layered regalia of chiefs and kings (figs. 211 and 214)—tend to be durable and fashioned of costly materials, such as ivory, beads, copper alloys, and other metals. Some of the objects made specifically for African leaders, such as thrones and footstools (fig. 2110), ornate clothing (fig. 2121), and special weaponry, draw attention to their superior status. Handheld objects—for example, staffs (figs. 2113 and 2115), spears, knives (fig. 2115), scepters, pipes, and fly whisks (fig. 213A )—extend a leader's reach and magnify his or her gestures. Other objects associated with leaders, such as fans, shields (fig. 211), and umbrellas, protect the leaders both physically and spiritually. Sometimes the regalia and implements of an important person are so heavy that they render the leader virtually immobile (fig. 2121), suggesting that the temporary holder of an office is less significant than the eternal office itself. in African art, leaders are also commonly portrayed as largerthanlife figures flanked by diminutive attendants (figs. 211 and 2115) or mounted on undersized horses (fig. 211). Often, the leaders, both male and female, have facial scars (figs. 213A and 217; compare fig. 2120A ), indicating their elevated status in society. Although leaders' arts are easy to recognize in centralized, hierarchical societies, such as the Benin (figs. i13, 211, 217, and 2116) and Bamum (fig. 2110) kingdoms, leaders among less centralized peoples have been no less conversant with the power of art to move people and effect change. For example, African leaders often oversee religious rituals in which they may be less visible than the forms used in those rituals: shrines, altars, festivals, and rites of passage such as funerals. The arts that leaders control thus help create pageantry, mystery, and spectacle (see "African Masquerades," page 568), enriching and changing the lives of the people.

18 - 9 Name: Emperor Xuan and Attendants, detail of The Thirteen Emperors Creator: Attributed to Yan Liben Medium: Handscroll, ink and colors on silk; full scroll 17' 5" long, detail 1' 8 1/4" high Date: Tang dynasty, ca. 650 Initial Location: Present Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

This handscroll portrays 13 Chinese rulers as Confucian exemplars of moral and political virtue. Yan Liben, a celebrated Tang painter, was a master of line drawing and colored washes. Mural paintings in caves (fig. 18-8) were popular in China, as they were in South asia (fig. 17-8), but Chinese artists also employed sev-eral other materials and formats for their paintings. The basic require-ments for paintings not on walls were the same as for writing—a round tapered brush, soot-based ink, and either silk or paper. The Chinese were masters of the brush. For contours and interior details, they sometimes used modulated lines that elastically thicken and thin to convey depth and mass. In other works, scroll painters used iron-wire lines (thin, unmodulated lines with a suggestion of tensile strength) to define the figures. Chinese artists also used richly colored minerals as pigments, finely ground and suspended in a gluey medium, and watery washes of mineral and vegetable dyes. The formats of Chinese paint-ings on silk or paper tend to be personal and intimate, and they are usu-ally best viewed by only one or two people at a time. The most common types are listed here. Hanging scrolls (figs. 18-10, 18-15, and 18-19) Chinese painters often mounted pictures on, or painted directly on, unrolled vertical scrolls for display on walls. Handscrolls (figs. 18-6, 18-9, and 18-11) artists also frequently attached paintings to, or painted on, long, narrow scrolls that the viewer unrolled horizontally, section by section from right to left. Album leaves (figs. 18-14 and 18-20) Many Chinese artists painted small panels on paper leaves, which collectors placed in albums.

1-5 Name: Left wall of the Hall of the Bulls Creator: Medium: Date: 16000-14000 BCE, Paleolithic Era Initial Location: Lascaux, France Present Location: Lascaux, France

This is an example of Paleolithic painting. Most cave paintings from this period depict animals. This is a view of the Hall of the Bulls, found in a cave at Lascaux, France. No one knows why pre-historic people painted in caves.

1-2 Name: Venus of Willendorf Creator: Medium: Limestone, 4 1/2" high Date: 28000-25000 BCE, Paleolithic Era Initial Location: Willendorf, Austria Present Location: Naturohistorisches Museum, Vienna.

This sculpture is known as the "Venus of Willendorf" This sculpture dates from the Paleolithic period

7-27 Name: Röttgen Pietà Creator: Medium: Painted wood, 2' 10 1/2" high Date: 1300-1325 Initial Location: Rhineland, Germany Present Location: Rheinisches Landemuseum, Bonn.

This statuette of the Virgin grieving over the distorted dead body of Christ in her lap reflects the increased interest during the 13th and 14th centuries in the Savior's suffering and the Virgin's grief.

3-11 Name: Head of an elderly patrician Creator: Medium: Marble, life-size Date: Mid-1st century BCE Initial Location: Osimo Present Location: Palazzo del Municipio, Osimo.

Veristic (super-realistic) portraits of old men from distinguished fami-lies were the norm during the Republic. The sculptor of this head painstakingly recorded every detail of the elderly man's face.

17 - 26 Name: Walking Buddha Creator: Medium: Bronze, 7' 2 1/2" high Date: 14th century Initial Location: Sukhothai, Thailand Present Location: Wat Bechamabopit, Bangkok.

Walking Buddha statues are unique to Thailand and display a distinctive approach to human anatomy. The Buddha's body is soft and elastic, and the right arm hangs loosely, like an elephant trunk. Sukhothai's crowning artistic achievement was the development of a type of walking-Buddha statue (fig. 17-26) displaying a distinctively Thai approach to body form. The bronze Buddha has broad shoulders and a narrow waist and wears a cling-ing monk's robe. He strides forward, his right heel off the ground and his left arm raised with the hand held in the do-not-fear mudra to encourage worshipers to come forward in reverence. A flame leaps from the top of the Buddha's head, and a sharp nose projects from his rounded face. The right arm hangs loosely, seemingly without muscles or joints, and resembles an ele-phant's trunk. The Sukhothai artists intended the body type to suggest a supernatural being and to express the Buddha's beauty and perfection. Although images in stone exist, 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 is unique in Buddhist art, but it may reflect the ancient Buddhist iconographic tra-dition of representing the Buddha only by his footprints (see page 464).