HISTORY OF ART

Prehistoric art

art produced in preliterate

cave paintings

portable art such as figurines and beads

decorative figured workings also seen on some utilitarian objects

Does not only reveal a quest for beauty but also complex social systems and spiritual concepts

Not always simple but quite complex (realistic but uses abstraction)

Uses yellow, red, brown, black and white

In paintings, or low-relief sculptures

Adornment for cave and rock shelters where hunter-foragers lived

PRINCIPAL MOTIFS

Human figures

Animals

Tools and weapons

Rudimentary local maps

Symbols or idiograms

Note: So-called artworks are either portable or immovable

ARTISTIC INFLUENCES

Painted symbols (hand prints, palm prints, stenciled outlines combined with animal image)

Panel of the hand stencils (situated deep inside Chauvet Cave, near the entrance to the Candle Gallery;
France)

Other techniques to create rock paintings

brush painting (from animal fur)

finger-painting

Stenciling

painting with dry rocks

Red ochre (iron ore mixed with animal fat)

One of the most common pigments in cave painting

Had deeper symbolic significance

Daubed on cult figurines and bodies of the dead

(red ochre may be mixed with butter, ash, and perfumed resin to produce a balm that protects the skin)

Shamanistic practices

Unusual poses

Curled up bison (rolling in its urine to create territorial markings

May be interpreted as dying, sleeping, or giving birth

Mesopotamia/Ancient Near Eastern Art (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Hittite, Assyrian, Persian)

Relationship between King and artists

Patron and the artist

Images

Narratives (cuneiform)

Uses of cylinder seals:

Authenticating or legitimating a transaction (in a similar way to the modern-day signature)

Preventing/restricting access to containers, rooms or houses

Amuletic

Sign of personal identity or professional affiliation

Persian Art

Column capital in shape of a bull

Columns with bell-shaped base that is an inverted lotus blossom

Old Persian Cuneiform writings:Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions

Things to Remember:

Art was used in the service of religion and the state

Rulers’ images are emblazoned on stelai celebrating their achievements

Writing was combined with the creative image resulting in a systematic historical and artistic record of
human achievement

Art works

present the union of human and animal elements in a single figure

Use hierarchy of scale

Shows deification of rulers

Buildings

Are made of mud-bricks (buildings)

Either painted or faced with tile or stone

Entranceways are important

Fantastic animals acted as guardian figures

To protect the occupants

To ward off the evil intentions of outsiders

Key Terms

Capital – top element of a column

cuneiform – system of writing in which the strokes are formed in a wedge or arrow-head shape

Façade – front of a building

Hierarchy of scale – system of representation that expresses a person’s importance by the size of his or
her representation in a work of art

Negative space – empty space around an object or a person, such as the cut-out areas between a figure’s
legs or arms of a sculpture

Relief structure – sculpture that projects from a flat background

Stele (stelai) – a stone slab used to mark a grave or a site

Ziggurat – pyramid-like building made of several stories that indent as the building gets taller; has
terraces at each level

Necropolis – city of the dead, large burial area

Egyptian Art

Wooden, anthropoid sarcophagi

Sarcophagi – with inner board and lid

Things to Remember

Broad frontal shoulders and profiled heads, torso, and legs emphasized

Old Kingdom- static figures

Middle Kingdom – faces with more naturalistic poses and introspective expressions

Amarna Period – softer body types; androgynous

Key terms

Amarna style – art created during the reign of Akhenaton, which features a more relaxed figure style
than in Old and New Kingdom art

In situ – something in its original location

Ka – the soul, or spiritual essence, of a human being that either ascends to heaven or can live in an
Egyptian statue of itself

Sarcophagus (sarcophagi) – a stone coffin

Sample images:

Sumerian Art
Tell Asmar, c. 2700 B.C.E., limestone, alabaster, and gypsum, Iraq Museum, Baghdad

Sumerian Great Lyre, c. 2600 B.C.E. with inlay of gold, shell, and lapis lazuli; found at the Royal Tombs of
Ur (Royal Cemetary) University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia

Ram in Thicket, 2600 B.C.E. Wood, gold foil, lapis lazuli

Standard of Ur, c. 2600 B.C.E., panel inlayed with shell, lapis lazuli, and limestone, British Museum,
London (a historical narrative)

Ziggurat, in sun-dried bricks

Akkadian Art: Head of Sargon The Great/ Head of an Akkadian Ruler from Nineveh, Iraq. 2250 B.C.E.,
Bronze
(naturalistic, not idealized head)

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin,2254-2218 B.C.E., sandstone, Louvre, Paris

Babylonian Art, Stele of Hammurabi, c. 1780 B.C.E., basalt, Louvre, Paris

Ishtar Gate (restored), from Babylon. 575 B.C.E. Glazed brick

Hittite Art, Lion Gate, c. 1400 B.C.E., Boghazkoy, Turkey

Assyrian Art
Human-Headed Winged Lion/Lamassu, Assyrian, from Nimrud, 883-859 B.C.E. limestone, Louve, Paris

Palace of Sargon II, 720-705 B.C.E., Khorsabad, Iraq

* City on a platform 50 feet high
* Huge palace complex: 25 acres, 30 courtyards, 200 rooms

Persian Art
Palace at Persepolis (The City of Persians), c. 500 B.C.E., Iran
Parsa “The wealthiest city under the sun”

Close up of the Tripylon Staircase, showing the alignment of the Immortals

Egyptian Art

Khafre, c. 2500 B.C.E., diorite, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Old Kingdom Art

Palette of Narmer, from Hierakonpolis, 3100 B.C.E., slate, Egyptian Museum, Cairo; (narrative)

Seated Scribe, from Saqqara. 2450 B.C.E. Painted limestone; provision for the ka

Middle Kingdom Art

Senusret III, c. 1860 B.C.E., stone, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

New Kingdom Art

Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el- Bahri. 2009-1997 B.C.E. (with colonnade)

View of sphinxes, the first pylon (gateway) , and the central east-west aisle of Temple of
Amun-Re, Karnak in Luxor, Egypt (photo: Mark Fox, CC: BY-NC 2.0)

Seated Statue of Hatshepsut and Unknown Akhenaten (epicene body, Amarna style)
 Queen Nefertiti. 1345 B.C.E. Painted limestone

Akhenaten and His Family, from Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna) 1345 B.C.E. Painted
limestone, sunken relief

Burial mask of Tutankhamun. 1325 B.C.E. Gold, inlaid with blue glass and semi-precious stones

Judgment Before Osiris, c. 1290-1280 B.C.E., papyrus, British Museum, London (with Anubis,
Thoth, Horus, Osiris, Nepthys, and Isis)

Fragment of a wall painting from the tomb of Nebamun, Thebes. 1450 B.C.E. Paint on plaster

AEGEAN ART

Three Civilizations in Southern Greece: Cycladic, Minoans,Mycenaeans

Cycladic – portable sculptures of stylized standing women and seated men playing musical instrument;
linear abstraction, clear lines

Minoans – built palaces, with columns of bulbous capitals, painted features with long sinuous curves and
exaggeratedly narrow waists

Mycenaeans – cyclopean masonry marked by corbelled vaulting; shaft graves with opulent burial
practices

funerary mask

* in repousse (“push back” through a hammer)

* with curlicue ears

Repousse – “to push back”, a type of metal relief sculpture in which the back side of a plate is hammered
to form a raised relief on the front

Corbel arch – vault formed by layers of stone that gradually grow closer together as they rise until they
eventually meet

Cyclopean masonry – a type of construction that uses rough, massive blocks of stone piled one atop the
other without mortar; named after Cyclops