Gateways to Art (Third Edition)

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Chapter 1.10 Formal Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Engaging with Stylistic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Iconographic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Form and Content Contextual Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
170 Analysis, Critique, and Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Combined Analysis in Historical and Contemporary Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
FEATURES:
Types of Analysis and Critique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176
Research and Interpretation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Part 2 Media And Processes 190

Chapter 2.1 Functions of Drawing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Drawing The Materials of Drawing: Dry Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
The Materials of Drawing: Wet Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
192
Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Life Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Raphael, The School of Athens Drawing in the Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Gateway to Art: Kahlo, The Two Fridas Artist Sketchbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Chapter 2.2 The First Paintings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Painting Encaustic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
209
Tempera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Ink Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Watercolor and Gouache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Acrylic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Mixed-Media Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Mural Art and Spray Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
FEATURES:
José Clemente Orozco: Fresco Painting Inspired by the Mexican Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213
Gateway to Art: Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofernes The Artist in the Act of Painting . . 219

Chapter 2.3 Context of Printmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Printmaking Relief Printmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Intaglio Printmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
226
Collagraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Lithography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Serigraphy (Silkscreen Printing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Editions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Monotypes and Monoprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Print Shops and Digital Reproduction Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Contemporary Directions in Printmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
FEATURE:
Gateway to Art: Hokusai, “The Great Wave off Shore at Kanagawa”
Using the Woodblock Printing Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Chapter 2.4 Approaches to Three Dimensions in Sculpture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Sculpture Bas-Relief and High Relieff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Methods of Sculpture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
242
Pushing beyond Traditional Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Maya Lintel Showing Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc
Varying Degrees of Relief for Emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Michelangelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Antony Gormley: Asian Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Chapter 2.5 Structure, Function, and Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Architecture Ancient Construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Classical Architectural Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
259
The Emergence of the Methods and Materials of the Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
The Postmodern Reaction to Modernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Currents in Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
FEATURES:
Abbot Suger and the Dynamics of Gothic Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Gateway to Art: The Taj Mahal Engineering Eternity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Contrasting Ideas in Modern Architecture: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye
and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Zaha Hadid: A Building for Exciting Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Chapter 2.6 Ceramics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

The Tradition Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Metalwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
of Craft Fiber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
285 Wood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
FEATURES:
Hyo-In Kim: Art or Craft: What’s the Difference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
San Ildefonso-Style Pottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Chapter 2.7 The Visual Character of Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Visual The Communicative Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Layout Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Communication Web Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Design FEATURES:
300 Influence of the Bauhaus on Visual Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
April Greiman: Does It Make Sense? Greiman’s Design Quarterly #133, 1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Color in Visual Communication Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312

Chapter 2.8 Recording the Image: Film to Digital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Photography The Dawn of Photography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Negative/Positive Process in Black and White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
315
In Living Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Photojournalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Photocollage and Photomontage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Postmodern Return to Historic Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
The Art of Photographyy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
 FEATURES:
Traditional and Alternative Darkroom Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Steve McCurry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Gateway to Art: Weems, Kitchen Table Series Story Telling and Sto-re-telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Chapter 2.9 Moving Images before Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Film/Video and Silent and Black-and-White Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Sound and Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Digital Art Animation and Special Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
334 Film Genres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Film as Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
FEATURE:
Bill Viola: How Did Video Become Art? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Chapter 2.10 Context of Alternative Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Alternative Media Conceptual Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Performance Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
and Processes Installation and Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
350 Out of the Shadows and into the Light: Enlivened Gallery Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and Colored Vases
Art that Resists Categories: Interactions with the Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Molly Gochman: Bringing Light to the Scars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Part 3 History And Context 362

Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Chapter 3.1 Prehistoric Art in Europe and the Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

The Prehistoric Mesopotamia: The Cradle of Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Ancient Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
and Ancient Art of Ancient Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Mediterranean Etruscan Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
366 Roman Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
FEATURES:
Hieroglyphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Zahi Hawass: The Golden Mask of Tutankhamun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Classical Architectural Orders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Controversy about the Parthenon Marbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Stylistic Changes in the Sculpture of Ancient Greece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Chapter 3.2 Art of Late Antiquity and Early Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Art of the Byzantine Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Manuscripts and the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Middle Ages Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .400
390 The Rise of the Gothic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
From the Gothic to Early Renaissance in Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .408
FEATURES:
Three Religions of the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Iconoclasm: Destruction of Religious Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Chapter 3.3 India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Art of India, China, China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Japan, Korea, and Korea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
410 FEATURES:
Philosophical and Religious Traditions in Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411
Gateway to Art: The Taj Mahal The Gardens of Paradise in the Taj Mahal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
The Spread of the Image of Buddha along the Silk Road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Gateway to Art: Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
The Value of Art: Questions of History and Authenticity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
The Three Perfections: Calligraphy, Painting, Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Sonoko Sasaki: Arts and Tradition in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
Gateway to Art: Hokusai, “The Great Wave off Shore at Kanagawa”
Mount Fuji: The Sacred Mountain of Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Chapter 3.4 When’s the Beginning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Art of the South America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Mesoamerica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Americas North America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .440
429 FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Maya Lintel Showing Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc
Invoking Ancestors through Bloodletting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
“We Are the Mirrors”: Legislation and Activism to Protect Native Rights and Land. . . . . . . . . . . 444

Chapter 3.5 Art of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Art of Africa and African Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Art of the Pacific Islands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
the Pacific Islands FEATURE:
446 Paul Tacon: Australian Rock Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Chapter 3.6 The Early Renaissance in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Art of Renaissance The Renaissance in Northern Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
The High Renaissance in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
and Baroque Late Renaissance and Mannerism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Europe Italian Baroque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
(1400–1750) Northern Baroque. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
FEATURES:
460
Van Eyck, Panofsky, and Iconographic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Gateway to Art: Raphael, The School of Athens Past and Present in the Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation:
A Comparison through Last Suppers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Gateway to Art: Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofernes The Influence of Caravaggio . . . . . 478
Depictions of David. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Chapter 3.7 Rococo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Art of Europe and Rejecting the Rococo: Sentimentality in Painting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Neoclassicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
America (1700– Romanticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
1865): Rococo to FEATURES:
Romanticism The French Academy of Painting and Sculpture: Making a Living as an Artist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
486
Slavery and Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Chapter 3.8 Art Academies and Modernism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
The Modern Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
A Revolutionary Invention: Photography and Art
Aesthetic: Realism in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
to Expressionism Impressionism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
501 Post-Impressionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Symbolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Fin de Sièclee and Art Nouveau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Expressionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
FEATURES:
Influences on the Impressionists: Japanese Woodcuts and Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Gateway to Art: Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofernes Variations on a Theme . . . . . . . . . . 519

Chapter 3.9 The Revolution of Color and Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Late Modern and Dada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
Surrealism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Early Contemporary The Influence of Cubism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Art in the Twentieth Early Twentieth-Century Art in America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Century Abstract Expressionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
524 Pop Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Minimalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Kahlo, The Two Fridas Was She a Surrealist?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Modern and Postmodern Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Chapter 3.10 Conceptual Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

The Late Twentieth Performance and Body Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Earthworks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Century and Art of Postmodernism, Identity, and Multiculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
the Present Day Narratives of Fact and Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
546 Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Socially Engaged Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
FEATURES:
Borrowing an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Gateway to Art: Weems, Kitchen Table Series Personal and Cultural Narrative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .551
Inside, Outside, Upside Down: Ideas Recontextualized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Gabriel Dawe: Materializing Light, Inverting Constructs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Part 4 Themes 562

Chapter 4.1 Places to Gather. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Art and Art by and for the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Man-Made Mountains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Community Rituals and Art of Healing and Community Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
564 Art in the Public Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
FEATURES:
Art, Super-Sized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Richard Serra: A Sculptor Defends His Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Chapter 4.2 Gods, Deities, and Enlightened Beings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Spirituality Spirits and Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Connecting with the Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
and Art Sacred Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
578 Personal Paths to Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
FEATURE:
Judgment and the Afterlife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

Chapter 4.3 Life’s Beginnings and Endings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Art and the Marking Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
Lineage and Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Cycle of Life Mortality and Immortality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
591 FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: The Taj Mahal Mumtaz Mahal: A Life Remembered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Christian Marclay, The Clock: “Glue” by Darian Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Vanitas: Reminders of Transience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600

Chapter 4.4 Art Celebrating Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Art and Science Astronomy and Space Exploration in Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Using Science and Mathematics to Create Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
603
Perception, Senses, and Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Science as a Tool to Understand and Care for Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Chapter 4.5 Art as an Illusionistic Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

Art, Illusion, and Illusionism as Trickery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620
Illusion and the Transformation of Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
Transformation FEATURES:
615 Gateway to Art: Raphael, The School of Athens Architectural Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .617
Satirizing Illusionism: Hogarth’s False Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
Art and Spiritual Transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

Chapter 4.6 Iconic Portraiture of Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628

Art of Political Female Rulers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Art Used by Rulers to Regulate Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Leaders and Rulers FEATURE:
628 Gateway to Art: Maya Lintel Showing Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc
Queens in Support of Their Husbands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632

Chapter 4.7 Documenting the Tragedies of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

Art, War, and Warriors and Battle Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
The Artist’s Response to War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Revolution Remembrance and Memorials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
638 FEATURE:
Wafaa Bilal: Domestic Tension: An Artist’s Protest against War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648
Chapter 4.8 Art as Protest and Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Art of Protest Art as the Victim of Protest: Censorship and Destruction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
Art that Raises Social Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658
and Social FEATURES:
Conscience Gateway to Art: Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and Colored Vases
652 The Art of Activism: Speaking out at all Costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Censorship of Art: The Nazi Campaign against Modern Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Gateway to Art: Hokusai, “The Great Wave off Shore at Kanagawa”
Using Famous Art to Make a Social Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Chapter 4.9 Archetypal Images of the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663

The Body in Art Ideal Proportion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Notions of Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
663
Performance Art: The Body Becomes the Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670
The Body in Pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673
The Body Reframed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
FEATURES:
Reclining Nudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668
Spencer Tunick: Human Bodies as Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
Henri Matisse: The Blue Nude: Cutouts and the Essence of Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Gateway to Art: Kahlo, The Two Fridas A Body in Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Chapter 4.10 Self-Portraits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

Identity, Race, Challenging the Status Quo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684
Culture on Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
and Gender in Art Identity and Ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689
680 FEATURES:
Gateway to Art: Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofernes
Self-Expression in the Judith Paintings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
Cindy Sherman: The Artist and Her Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Gateway to Art: Weems, Kitchen Table Series Cultural Diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Sources of Quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
Illustration Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706
Preface to Gateways to Art:
Understanding the Visual Arts
Organization and
How to Use this Book
Gateways to Artt is an introduction to the visual
arts, divided into four parts: Part 1, Fundamentals,
the essential elements and principles of art that
constitute the “language” of artworks; Part 2,
Media and Processes, the many materials and
processes that artists use to make art; Part 3,
History and Context, the forces and influences
that have shaped art throughout human history;
and Part 4, Themes, the major cultural and
historical themes that have motivated artists to
create. Each of these parts is color coded to help
you move easily from one section to the next.
Gateways to Artt gives you complete flexibility
in finding your own pathway to understanding
and appreciating art. Once you have read the
Introduction, which outlines the core knowledge
and skills you will need to analyse and understand
art, you can read the chapters of our book in
any order. Each chapter is entirely modular,
giving you just the information you need when
you need it. Concepts are clearly explained and
definitions of terminology in the margins ensure
that you are never at a loss to understand a term;
and new Portal features use thumbnail images to
make direct links to related artworks throughout
the book (see p. 19 for how to identify and use
marginal glossaries and Portals).
This means that you can learn about art in the
order that works best for you. You can, of course,
read the chapters in the order that they are
printed in the book. This will tell you all you need
14 PREFACE TO GATEWAYS TO ART: UNDERSTANDING THE VISUAL ARTS
to know to appreciate art. But you can also choose
your own path. For example, the Introduction
discusses how we define art and what it contributes
to our lives. Next you might read chapter 2.6, “The
Tradition of Craft,” which deals with media that
artists have used for centuries to create artworks,
but which our Western culture sometimes
considers less important than “fine art.” Then the
discussion of Japanese art in chapter 3.3, “Art of
India, China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia,”
reveals how an expertly made kimono (an item of
traditional clothing) is appreciated as much as a
painting that in our culture is usually considered
more prestigious.
In Gateways to Art you will discover the
pleasure of looking at great artworks many times
and always finding something new because there
are many ways of seeing and analysing art. That
is why our book takes its title from its unique
feature, the “Gateways to Art” (introduced on
p. 18). Through eight iconic works of world
art—four of which are new to this edition—we
invite you to come back to these Gateways to
discover something different: about the design
characteristics of the work; the materials used to
make it; how history and culture influenced its
creation; or how the work expressed something
personal. Sometimes we compare the Gateway
image with another artwork, or consider what it
tells us about the great mysteries of our existence,
such as spirituality or life and death. We hope to
encourage you to revisit not only our Gateways,
but also other works, as sources of enjoyment for
years to come.
 Our Gateways to Art boxes are just one of
numerous features we provide to help you in
your studies. In many chapters you will find
Perspectives on Art boxes, in which artists, art
historians, critics, and others involved in the
world of art explain how diverse people engaged
in art think and work. Other boxes will, for
example, help you to focus in depth on a single
artwork, or alternately to compare and contrast
artworks that deal with a similar subject or
theme. “Related Images” pages at the end of
every chapter perform a similar function to
the new marginal Portals: they bring together,
in chronological order, relevant artworks
from throughout the book, expanding on the
works you have encountered in any individual
chapter and allowing you to make interesting
connections across time periods, themes,
and media.
New in this Edition
• More than 150 new artworks, including works
by Julie Mehretu, Yinka Shonibare, Jaune
Quick-to-See Smith, and Mickalene Thomas.
• The eight “Gateway to Art” features have been
refreshed with the substitution of four new
works: an eighth-century Maya lintel, Frida
Kahlo’s The Two Fridas, Carrie Mae Weems’s
Kitchen Table series, and Ai Weiwei’s Dropping
a Han Dynasty Urn n and Colored Vases. See
p. 18 for details.
• Portals are new in-chapter features that make
connections with related artworks in other
chapters, for easy cross-referencing: see p. 19.
• A Global Timeline opens Part 3: History and
Context, showing students how art developed
over time and across global regions.
• The final chapter of Part 3 has been split into
two—now chapters 3.9 and 3.10—to include
more contemporary art, featuring new works
in innovative media with strong messages,
by artists including Wadsworth Jarrell, Jiha
Moon, Gabriel Dawe, and Theaster Gates.
• Our e-media package has been expanded
with new features and improvements for
both instructors and students: see following
sections for more information.
Resources for Instructors
Our instructor resources are designed to help
you teach in the way that you know best; and for
this new edition we have enhanced and added
new resources in response to user feedback.
For full details of all instructors’ resources
go to thamesandhudsonusa.com/college;
if you require any assistance contact your
W. W. Norton representative.
• The Instructor’s Manual is now available in
digital form; fully revised by the authors, this
online manual also now contains the Active
Learning Exercises (previously at the end of
chapters in Parts 1 and 2) and the Discussion
Questions (in Parts 3 and 4). It is available to
download from our instructors’ website.
• The author-written Test Bank is also in
digital form only: more than 1,600 questions
are available on disk in ExamView or as a
download from our instructors’ website.
• A new Interactive Instructor’s Guide makes
lecture development easy with an array of
teaching resources that can be searched and
browsed according to a number of criteria.
Resources include chapter outlines, active
learning exercises, suggested readings,
lecture ideas, and discussion questions.
• Author Ralph Larmann has provided ten new
videos, including a discussion of such key
elements and principles as line and form.
• The interactive e-book links to art videos,
activities, and exercises, and links directly to
the InQuizitive quizzing platform.
RESOURCES FOR INSTRUCTORS 15
 Videos, Animation, and Images
• Fifteen in-the-studio videos demonstrate
how art is made; twenty videos present key
works of world art; ten new author-created
videos discuss various aspects of art; and
author-written video quizzes provide another
valuable means of assessment.
• An exclusive arrangement with the Museum
of Modern Art offers you seventeen
additional videos (and quizzes) that feature
MoMA curators discussing works in the
collection, for example Vincent van Gogh’s
Starry Night,t in which the camera zooms in
on the canvas, bringing students face to face
with the artist’s distinctive thick layers of
oil paint.
• Fifty multimedia animations demonstrate
the elements and principles of art.
• Images from the book are available as JPEGs
A sample search result in the Gateways Global Gallery shows how
and PowerPoint slides, and also as PowerPoint
you can create your own image collections to download and use in lectures, with supporting text written by
your teaching. the authors.
• The Gateways Global Gallery continues to
provide more than 6,500 additional artworks
for your teaching, all searchable as well as
indexed to the chapters of the third edition.

Resources for Students

Our student website (https://digital.wwnorton.
com/gateways3) offers a wide range of
review materials designed to improve your
understanding and your grades.
• The Gateways to Art Journal for Museum
and Gallery Projectss has been revised and
restructured, with new activity assignments
to make museum visits more valuable.
• InQuizitive provides summative assessment
quizzes in a game-like environment,
hot-linked directly to the e-book.
• We have retained and revised our other
resources: self-test quizzes; terminology
and image flashcards; chapter summaries;
a full glossary and an audio glossary to aid
pronunciation of foreign-language terms
and artists’ names; interactive exercises
A sample InQuizitive question shows answer demonstrating key concepts; and videos
feedback for the student. that explain how art is made.

16PREFACE TO GATEWAYS TO ART: UNDERSTANDING THE VISUAL ARTS

The Authors
Debra J. DeWitte has a PhD in aesthetics from
the University of Texas at Dallas. She now teaches
at the University of Texas at Arlington, where
she has devised an award-winning online art
appreciation course.
Ralph M. Larmann has a BFA from the
University of Cincinnati and an MFA from James
Madison University. He currently teaches at the
University of Evansville and is a past President of
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education.
M. Kathryn Shields has a PhD in art history
from Virginia Commonwealth University. She
is Associate Professor of Art History at Guilford
College, where she also serves as Chair of the
Art Department and Associate Academic Dean.
Acknowledgments
The publisher would like to thank the following
for their generous advice and feedback during the
preparation of this new edition:
Naomi Slipp, Auburn University; Cynthia
Mills, Auburn University at Montgomery; Ronnie
Wrest, Bakersfield College; Jennifer Rush, Central
New Mexico Community College; Carolyn Jacobs
and Mary Kilburn, Central Piedmont Community
College; Laura Stewart, Daytona State College;
Brenda Hanegan, Delgado Community College;
Barbara Armstrong, El Centro College; Susan
Dodge, Frostburg State University; David Cook,
Georgia Gwinnett College; Megan Levacy,
Georgia Perimeter College; Marion de Koning
and Malia Molina, Grossmont College; Melanie
Atkinson, Hinds Community College; Jenny
Ramirez, James Madison University; Anita Rogers
and Eric Sims, Lone Star College System;
Buffy Walters, Marion Military Institute;
Terrell Taylor, Meridian Community College;
Errol Alger, Midlands Technical College;
David Hamlow, Minnesota State University–
Mankato; Mano Sotelo, Hirotsune Tashima,
and Michael Nolan, Pima Community College;
Karene Barrow, Pitt Community College; Debra
Schafter, San Antonio College; Patricia Ballinger,
South Texas College; Christian deLeon,
Kristina Elizondo, and Sharon Covington,
Tarrant County College; Alice Ottewill Jackson,
University of Alabama at Birmingham; Patti
Shanks, University of Missouri; Kurt Rahmlow,
University of North Texas; Marta Slaughter,
University of South Florida; Perry Kirk,
University of West Georgia.
The publisher also gratefully acknowledges
the following contributors: Wafaa Bilal, Tracy
Chevalier, Mel Chin, Gabriel Dawe, Molly
Gochman, Antony Gormley, April Greiman,
Zaha Hadid, Zahi Hawass, Hyo-In Kim,
Darian Leader, Loongkoonan, Steve McCurry,
Howard Risatti, Sonoko Sasaki, Richard Serra,
Cindy Sherman, Paul Tacon, Spencer Tunick,
and Bill Viola.
Debra J. DeWitte would like to thank the
following for their scholarly assistance:
Richard Brettell, University of Texas at Dallas;
Annemarie Carr, Southern Methodist University;
Jenny Ramirez, James Madison University;
Beth Wright, University of Texas at Arlington
(Museum Guide); and for their patience and
support she would like to thank her family: Bill
Gibney, Jaclyn Jean Gibney, and Connie DeWitte.
Ralph M. Larmann would like to thank the
following for their scholarly assistance and
support: Ella Combs-Larmann, independent
scholar and artist; Dr. Heidi Strobel, University
of Evansville; University of Evansville, Office of
Academic Affairs, Office of Alumni Relations,
University Library, Department of Art; and for
their patience and understanding: Ella, Allison,
and Tip.
M. Kathryn Shields would like to thank the
following: Laura M. Amrhein, independent
scholar; Damon Akins, Guilford College;
Scott Betz, Winston-Salem State University;
Maria Bobroff, Guilford College; Jenny Ramirez;
Eric Steginsky, independent artist; and to express
love and gratitude to her family: Barry Bell,
Gillian Denise Shields Bell, Alden Emmerich
Shields Bell; and honor the memory of her
mother, Nancy Shields.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 17
How to Use
Gateway to Art and
Other Features
The Gateway Artworks
There are many approaches to art, and
to help you develop the important skills
of looking at, analysing, and interpreting
works of art, we have selected eight
iconic works—the “Gateways to Art”—
that you will encounter repeatedly as
you read this book.
Recurrences
Every time you look at a great work of art, it will
have something new to say to you—and this is
explored through the eight Gateway artworks,
which each recur at least once in all four
Parts of this book: Fundamentals; Media and
Processes; History and Context; and Themes.
If you consider, for example, in Part 1, the
way an artist designed the work, you may
notice something about the use of color
or contrast that had not struck you before.
When in Part 2 you study the medium the
artist chose (such as the particular choice
of paint selected), you will appreciate how
it contributed to the impact of the work. In
Part 3 we take a historical point of view: how
does this work reflect the circumstances
and the society in which it was created?
Does it express the values of those who held
political and economic power, or could it tell
us something about the status of women at
the time? In Part 4, we will ask whether the
work addresses issues that have absorbed the
attention of artists ever since humans began to
paint, draw, and make sculpture. Does it touch
on very big questions, such as the nature of
the universe, or life and death? Or is it engaged
with more personal concerns, such as gender,
sexuality, race, and our own identities?
Gateways_Art_3E_663-679_ch4-9_Out.indd 676
18 PREFACE TO GATEWAYS TO ART: UNDERSTANDING THE VISUAL ARTS
Four Gateway Works are
NEW for the Third Edition
Maya Lintel Showing Shield Jaguar
and Lady Xoc (eighth century)
1.9, p. 162; 2.4, p. 245; 3.4, p. 436;
4.6, p. 632
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas (1939)
1.1, p. 50; 2.1, p. 204; 3.9, p. 532; 4.9, p. 676
Carrie Mae Weems,
Kitchen Table series (1990)
1.1, p. 56; 2.8, p. 329; 3.10, p. 551;
4.10, p. 687
Ai Weiwei, Dropping a
Han Dynasty Urn (1995) and
Colored Vases(2008)
1.5, p. 121; 2.10, p. 357; 3.3, p. 419;
4.8, p. 654
Gateway to Art: Kahlo, The Two Fridas
A Body in Pain
4.9.18a (above) Frida
Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939.
Oil on canvas, 5‘8” × 5’8”.
Museo de Arte Moderno,
Mexico City, Mexico
4.9.18b (above right) Frida
Kahlo, The Broken Column,
1944, Museo Dolores
Olmedo Patino Mexico
(Mexico City, Mexico)
© Banco de México and
INBAL Mexico, 2004
676 PART 4 THEMES
Four Gateway Works Return
from the Second Edition
Raphael, School of Athens
(1510–1511)
1.3, p. 90; 1.7 p. 146; 2.1, p. 194;
3.6, p. 470; 4.5, p. 617
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith
Decapitating Holofernes (c. 1620)
1.8, p. 152; 2.2, p. 219; 3.6, p. 478;
3.8, p. 519; 4.10, p. 681
The Taj Mahal (1632–53)
1.6, p. 136; 2.5, p. 272; 3.3, p. 412;
4.3, p. 594
Katsushika Hokusai,
“The Great Wave…” (1831)
1.6, p. 126; 2.3, p. 229; 3.3, p. 425;
4.8, p. 661
artistic output, combine depictions
pictio of her outward
tapho
appearance with metaphorical references to her
feelings and graph
graphic depictions of the physical
agony she ssuffered.
I The Two Fridas, for example, the presentation
In
of the hearts––one of which is radically torn
open––on the outside of the bodies emphasizes the
A terrible accident brought art into Frida Kahlo’s sensitive emotional content of the painting. A few
life (1907–1954) in a new way. Around the age years later, around the time she painted The Broken
of eighteen she was riding in a bus with a friend Column, Kahlo said, “I am disintegration.” In this
when it collided with a trolley car. Her right leg painting, nails pierce her skin all over, the front
and foot were crushed; her ribs, collarbone, and of her body is cracked open, and her spine is
spine were broken; and her abdomen and uterus exposed. The nails recall depictions of the Catholic
were pierced with an iron handrail. After the martyr St. Sebastian, and her spine takes the form
devastating accident she could not leave her bed of a Greek temple column. The Ionic column,
for three months. Afterward, she endured as considered the feminine architectural order, is
many as thirty-five surgeries and she experienced ancient, ideal, and crumbling. No longer suited to
pain for the rest of her life. support the body, the spinal column is reinforced
While she was recuperating in a full body by a metal corset.
cast, her father brought her art supplies and We see subtle signs of Kahlo’s constant
she began painting. She created very personal anguish in the tears on her cheeks, but not in the
portrayals of the psychological and physical expression on her face. It has the iconic, serene
suffering that plagued her throughout her life appearance seen in the numerous photographs
(even before the accident she had suffered polio taken of her and the many other self-portraits she
as a child, compromising her right foot). Such made, including both faces in The Two Fridas. Like
paintings include The Two Fridas (4.9.18A NEW) the column, Frida is fractured but whole, showing
and The Broken Column (4.9.18B NEW). Kahlo’s evidence of disintegration but still somehow
self-portraits, which comprise up to a third of her surviving, even appearing almost ideal.
20/03/2018 3:43 PM
Portals
A new feature for this edition, Portals
help you make direct connections and
encounter new works.
The authors have selected Portals
that create interesting comparisons or
contrasts: each one shows a thumbnail
image of a related artwork, along with a
short explanation of its relevance to the
current chapter. Each Portal artwork’s
page and figure number indicate its main
position in the book, so you can turn to
that chapter to see the work in full and
find out more.
Marginal Glossaries
Terminology is defined in the margin
of the spread on which the term first
appears (also emboldened in the
text), so you can build your artistic
vocabulary as you read—without
having to navigate to the complete
glossary at the back of the book.
Compare and Contrast
You can learn more about one work by
studying another and comparing the
two. For example, consider how an artist
might portray herself in different ways at
different moments in her life, to express
various elements of her identity. An artist
might also choose to return to certain
aspects, formal or iconographical, that
become a running theme: for example,
Frida Kahlo worked in the genre of self-
portraiture for more than a third of her
paintings, a number of which, including
the two shown here, depict bodily harm,
a repeated reference to the physical pain
and multiple surgeries she suffered for
much of her life.
Related Images
Now at the end of every chapter, galleries
of thumbnail images assemble additional
works from throughout the book to
help you expand your visual knowledge.
In chronological order, these works
show you how to get the most out of
your textbook—and display interesting
connections across time periods, media,
and themes.
1.9.2 Suzanne Valadon,
The Blue Room, 1923. Oil
on canvas, 351⁄2 × 455⁄8".
Musée National d’Art
Moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, France
includes three contrasting patterns (1.9.2). In leaves of the plants, recur at intervals. As this
the blue bed covering, in the lower portion of the work shows, Islamic artists delight in the detail
painting, Valadon has used an organic pattern of pattern.
of leaves and stems. The green-and-white Motif is a common occurrence in traditional
striped pattern in the woman’s pajama bottoms quilting. By unifying a series of simple patterns
dominates in direct contrast to the blue bed into a repeatable motif, a quilter could connect
covering. Above the figure is a mottled pattern
that again contrasts with the other two. The
differences in these patterns energize the work.
The artist has used pattern
and rhythm to structure the
floral forms in Album Quilt:
see 1.6.12, p. 139
Motif
A design repeated as a unit in a pattern is called
a motif. Motifs can represent ideas, images, and
themes that can be brought together through
the use of pattern. An artist can create a strong
unified design by repeating a motif.
A single motif can be interlaced with others
to create complex designs. Many Islamic
Contrast: a drastic works use complex interlaced motifs, as this
difference between such
elements as color or value
work created in seventeenth-century India
demonstrates. The huqqa base (a huqqa is
(lightness/darkness) when
they are presented together a water pipe used for smoking) in 1.9.3 may
Abstract: art imagery that
departs from recognizable
at first glance appear to use little repetition.
1.9.3 Huqqa base, India, Deccan, last quarter of
images from the natural Nevertheless, as we study the overall design we 17th century. Bidri ware (zinc alloy inlaid with brass),
world discover that elements, such as the flowers and 67⁄8 × 61⁄2". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
160 PART 1 FUNDAMENTALS
Gateways_Art_3E_159-169_ch1-9_Out.indd 160 09/02/2018 3:44 PM
Images Related to 3.4 Art of the Americas
4.5.X Olmec Figure in 2.6.4 Zapotec Seated Figure, 2.4.15 Great Serpent Mound, 2.5.5 Maya Temple I, Tikal, 4.4.4 Maya Culture, Flint
Combat Stance, c. 900– 300 BCE–700 CE, p. 295 c. 800 BCE–100 CE, p. 252 Guatemala, c. 300–900 CE, depicting crocodile canoe,
300 BCE, p. 624 p. 26 600–900, p. 601
4.3.10 Maya Sarcophagus 1.2.7 Maya Stela with 4.7.9 Tula Warrior Columns, 4.4.5 Aztec Calendar Stone, 4.1.8 Monk’s Mound,
Lid, tomb of Lord Pacal, Supernatural Scene, 761, p. 71 900–1000, p. 642 900–1521, p. 602 Cahokia, Illinois, c. 1150,
c. 680, p. 594 p. 568
HOW TO USE GATEWAYS TO ART AND OTHER FEATURES 19

Subject, subject matter:
the person, object, or space
depicted in a work of art
Style: a characteristic way
in which an artist or group of
artists uses visual language
to give a work an identifiable
form of visual expression
20INTRODUCTION
Introduction
What Is Art?
The Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–
1849) is said to have created a painting titled
Maple Leaves on a Riverr by dipping the feet of
a chicken in red paint and letting the bird run
freely on a sheet of paper he had just covered
in blue paint. Although we know that Hokusai
was an unconventional character, this painting
has not been found today, and we cannot be
certain that the story is true. If we think about
this curious anecdote for a while, however, we
can begin to understand the most basic question
addressed in this book: What is art? This is not
an easy question to answer, because people
define art in many ways. In Hokusai’s case, he
captured the peaceful sensations of a fall day by
a river, without showing what an actual river
and real leaves look like. In this instance, art
primarily communicates a sensation.
In nineteenth-century Japan, art could be a
means to encourage the quiet contemplation of
nature, but to an Egyptian artist almost 3,000
years earlier, art would have meant something
very different. The Egyptian who in the tenth
century bce painted the wooden coffin of
Nespawershefi had a quite different idea of rivers
in mind from the one Hokusai conceived. For
ancient Egyptians, rivers were important for
survival, because they depended on the flooding
of the River Nile to grow their crops. Rivers also
had religious significance. Egyptians believed
that during the daytime the sun god Re sailed
across a great celestial ocean in his day boat. By
night, he traveled in his evening boat along a
river in the underworld, but before he could rise
again he had to defeat his enemy, the serpent
Apophis, which in 0.0.1 can be seen swimming in
the river. Here the river is again suggested rather
than being realistically portrayed. It is a place of
danger, not of contemplation, and if Re does not
0.0.1 The Journey of the Sun God Re, detail from the
inner coffin of Nespawershefi, Third Intermediate Period,
990–969 BCE. Plastered and painted wood.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England
emerge victorious, the world will be deprived
of the life-giving light of the sun. Re, who in
the image is seated, is protected by another god
carrying a spear. The choice of this subject was
appropriate for a coffin: no doubt Nespawershefi
hoped to emerge from the underworld to live
a happy afterlife, just as Re rose again every
morning. For the painter of this coffin, art was
a way to express profound religious ideas and to
invoke beliefs in a happy life after death.
The American Frederic Edwin Church
(1826–1900) created a very dramatic painting
of a river (or, to be more precise, a waterfall) for
a different purpose than that of the Egyptian
artist who decorated the coffin. Church painted
several views of the Niagara river and falls for
exhibition to a public eager to learn about the
landscape of the still-young American Republic.
Niagara was a popular subject for artists in
the second half of the nineteenth century,
both because of its grandeur and because it
symbolized America’s territorial expansion and
ambitions: it marks the northern border of the
United States. Church’s Niagara of 1857 (0.0.2)
is more than 7 ft. wide. It positions the viewer as
if on the very edge of, or even in, the falls. The
miraculous vantage point inspired one critic
to remark, “This is Niagara, with the roar left
out!” Landscape painters in Church’s time also
used the beauty and power of the landscape to
symbolize the presence of God in nature, and 0.0.2 Frederic Edwin
this painting came to represent America, and, Church, Niagara, 1857. Oil
on canvas, 3'61⁄4" × 7'61⁄2".
for many, God’s support for the country. It is a Corcoran Gallery of Art,
magnificent statement of religion, an expression Washington, D.C.
of national pride, and a spectacular form of
public education and entertainment.
Finally, consider a work by the American
artist Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) that also
features a waterfall (0.0.3, p. 22). Nevelson made
twenty-five painted rectangular and square
wooden sections inside a rectangular frame,
measuring 18 × 9 ft. Inside some of the rectangles
we can see undulating curved forms that suggest
a cascading waterfall or the froth of white water.
Other forms in the upper right of the square
resemble squirming fish. Clearly, Nevelson’s
purpose is not to show an instantly recognizable
likeness of a waterfall full of fish. Instead we are
invited to examine her carefully constructed
work closely and to feel the sensations of
watching water cascade and fish swimming.
If we go back to our original question, what
is art?, can our consideration of these four very
different works help us to find a quick and
simple definition that will tell us whether we are
looking at something called art? Although they
have the same subject matter, these four works The first Part of this book
explains formal analysis,
certainly do not have much in common in terms
or the language used
of their appearance or style. The definition of to read and discuss art:
art also must include a range of materials (in see 1.1.1, p. 43
INTRODUCTION 21
0.0.3 Louise Nevelson,
White Vertical Water, 1972.
Painted wood, 18 × 9'.
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York
Geometric: predictable
and mathematical
Composition: the overall
design or organization of
a work
Renaissance: a period
of cultural and artistic
change in Europe from
the fourteenth to the
seventeenth century
Ceramic: fire-hardened
clay, often painted, and
normally sealed with a shiny
protective coating
Calligraphy: the art
of emotive or carefully
descriptive hand lettering
or handwriting
The materials used to make
art and how these materials
are used are the subjects
of Part 2: Media and
Processes: see 2.1.12, p. 199
and 2.6.18, p. 296
INTRODUCTION
fact, art can be made from almost anything).
Nor do these works have a common purpose.
The Egyptian coffin painting has a clear religious
message. Church’s painting portrays a dramatic
landscape but also carries a powerful message
of nationalism and patriotic pride. Hokusai’s
painting uses very simple means to convey
restful sensations. Nevelson’s work also focuses
on communicating the sensations of being
by a river, but in her case with a meticulously
constructed geometricc suggestion of one.
All of these artists arranged their
compositions to communicate ideas and
emotions (religious feelings, national pride,
or the sensation of watching fish swim down a
waterfall, for example). Art communicates ideas
by visual means that can help us see the world
in new and exciting ways and strengthen our
understanding. In other words, art is a form
of language.
Fine Art, Craft, and
the Commercial Arts
The terms we choose to label things often tell us
more about our own attitudes and stereotypes
than about the object under consideration. For
example, art from cultures outside the Western
tradition (such as the traditional arts of Africa or
the Pacific Islands) was once termed “Primitive
Art,” implying that it was of lesser quality than
the “fine” or “high” arts of Europe. But while—as
in this case—such labels can be misused, they
can nonetheless reflect cultural judgments
and sometimes lead to ways of identifying,
categorizing, and understanding art.
There is no simple definition to enable us
to tell who is an artist and who is not. If we
take a global view, we certainly cannot define
an artist by what he or she made. In Western
culture during some eras of history, particularly
since the Renaissance, painting and sculpture
have been considered to be the most important
categories of art (“high art”), while others,
such as ceramics and furniture, were once
considered less important. The term craft was
usually applied to such works, and their makers
were considered less skilled or of lower status
than painters and sculptors. This distinction
arose partly because the cost of producing a fine
painting or a beautifully carved marble statue
was high. Therefore, those things became status
symbols of the rich and powerful. In other
cultures, the relative importance of various
forms of art was quite different. The people of
ancient Peru placed special value on wool, and
those who made fine woolen textiles were likely
considered as skillful as a painter would be in
our society. In China the art of calligraphy
(elegantly painted lettering) was considered one
of the highest forms of art.
Fine art usually refers to a work of art
(traditionally a painting, drawing, carved
sculpture, and sometimes a print) made with
skill and creative imagination to be pleasing
or beautiful to look at. When the Italian artist
Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572) painted a
portrait of Eleonora of Toledo and her son
Giovanni (0.0.4), he was clearly determined to
demonstrate great skill in his lavish portrait
of this wife of the powerful Duke of Florence,
Cosimo de’ Medici, who was a great patron
of the arts. Eleonora’s dress, which was so
sumptuous that it would have cost more than
the painting itself, is depicted with such great
care that one can almost feel the texture of the
embroidery. Eleonora, her complexion perfect
and her beauty flawless, is composed and icily
aloof, her hand resting on the shoulder of her
young son to draw our attention to him. The
young boy, destined to become a powerful duke
like his father, is equally serious and composed,
as befits a person of high status. Looking at this
painting we can see that Bronzino intended us
to marvel at his skill in producing a supreme
example of fine art that conveys a vivid sense of
wealth and power.
Historically, the graphic arts (those made by
a method that enables reproduction of many
copies of the same image) have been considered
less important, and perhaps less accomplished,
than the fine arts. While Bronzino’s portrait Leader’s task was to design a logo that could be 0.0.4 Agnolo Bronzino,
is unique, made for a single, powerful patron, used on package labels, advertisements, trucks, Eleonora of Toledo and Her
Son, Giovanni, c. 1545.
and probably to be viewed by a select audience, and planes to identify FedEx as a dynamic, global Oil on panel, 451⁄4 × 373⁄4".
works of graphic art are made to be available to organization. The solution was a design that Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
many people and are in that sense much more retained the colors (slightly modified) of the
democratic, which is considered an advantage by existing logo, but shortened the company name
many artists and viewers. Graphic art includes a to FedEx. The type was arranged so that the
wide range of media: books, magazines, posters, white space between the E and x formed a white
advertising, signage, television, computer arrow that suggested speed and precision.
screens, and social media. The design is very simple but we should be
Graphic design is a commercial art, the careful not to assume that it required much Patron: an organization or
essence of which is communication. The less skill and effort than Bronzino’s portrait. individual who sponsors
simplicity of a logo created in 1994 to identify The logo did not involve the same kind of the creation of works of art
Medium (plural media): the
the global brand of the logistics company FedEx material on or from which
(0.0.5) contrasts with the elaborate luxury of an artist chooses to make
Bronzino’s Eleonora. The designer, Lindon a work of art
Graphic design: the use
Leader, discovered that the company’s name at of images, typography, and
the time, Federal Express, gave customers the technology to communicate
impression that it operated only in the United ideas for a client or to
a particular audience
States, rather than internationally. In addition, Logo: a graphic image used
everybody called the company simply FedEx. 0.0.5 FedEx Express logo to identify an idea or entity

INTRODUCTION 23

0.0.6 El Anatsui, Old Man’s
Cloth, 2002. Aluminum and
copper wire, 15'9" × 17'3⁄4"
Part 3 considers the history
and context in which
works of art were made:
see 3.1.2, p. 367
INTRODUCTION
technical finesse as the detailed realism of
the oil painting, or Bronzino’s ability to
communicate the human character. But
Leader and his colleagues held focus groups
to research the public’s impressions of the
company and developed about 200 concepts
before they settled on their chosen design.
Then they made protoypes of planes, vans, and
trucks to test it. Leader’s logo has won more
than forty design awards. There is one crucial
difference between the two works, however. The
purpose of the logo is to identify a company
and sell its services. Bronzino’s portrait was
made to please an individual patron, while the
FedEx logo is intended to communicate with
a worldwide audience.
The Visual World
When we look at an artwork made by a single
artist, we often assume that it was created
entirely from the artist’s own ideas and
inspirations. But art is part of a wider context
of things we experience: the visual culture in
which we live, which includes all of the images
that we encounter in our lives. Think about
how many images you saw on your way to class
today. They will have included traffic signs,
roadside billboards, and the logos of businesses
along the highway. Once you arrived on campus,
you will have seen posters informing you of an
upcoming event, the logo of the coffee shop, and
maps directing you to where your class takes
place. Then a glance at your smartphone or
e-mail revealed more ads, all clamoring for your
attention. We live in, and respond to, a world of
images, and so have artists, whether in ancient
Egypt, sixteenth-century Italy, or twenty-first-
century America. In other words, art reflects
the culture in which it was created, not just the
creative achievement of its maker.
The contemporary artist El Anatsui (b. 1944)
makes artworks that reference both the colonial
history of Africa and the impact of modern
consumerism on cultural values. Old Man’s
Clothh (0.0.6) is made from discarded liquor-
bottle tops. El Anatsui chose bottle tops as his
material because European traders bartered
alcohol for African goods. Slaves were shipped
from Ghana to the sugar plantations of the
Caribbean; then in turn, rum was shipped
from there back to Africa. El Anatsui’s bottle
tops thus remind us of the slave trade, as well
as highlighting the way in which modern
consumerism discards waste. At the same time,
the artist’s use of traditional designs suggests
both the enduring power and the fragility of
Ghanaian culture.
Where Is Art?
You almost certainly have some art in your
home: perhaps a painting in the living room,
a poster in your bedroom, or a beautifully
made flower vase; and there are sculptures and
memorials in parks or other public spaces in
most cities. You have probably also figured out
by now that art can be found in many places: in
the form of a coffin, in a book, in any number
of contemporary media, and, of course, in an
art museum.
Our word “museum” comes from the ancient
Greek mouseion, meaning a temple dedicated
to the arts and sciences. The mouseion of
Alexandria in Egypt, founded about 2,400 years
ago, collected and preserved important objects,
still a key function of museums today. Many
of the great European art museums began as
private collections. The famous Louvre Museum
in Paris, France, was originally a fortress and
then a royal palace where the king kept his
personal art collection. When King Louis XIV
moved to his new palace at Versailles, the Louvre
became a residence for the artists he employed.
After the French Revolution (1789–99), the
king’s collection was opened to the public in
the Louvre.
Museums in America had a different history.
0.0.7 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
The oldest is the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts, founded in 1805 as a museum and an
art school. It continues to serve both functions, Virgin of Guadalupe (0.0.8). According to
as do many other American museums. During Catholic tradition, in December 1531 the Virgin
the nineteenth century, prominent business appeared several times, first on Tepeyac hill, then
figures amassed large private collections outside Mexico City, to an indigenous peasant,
of European art. These collectors founded Juan Diego, when she miraculously imprinted
museums modeled on those of Europe. The her own image on his cloak made of cactus fiber.
Brooklyn Museum was founded in 1823, and (Historical evidence, however, suggests that
in the 1870s alone, great museums opened in Using such scientific tools
as X-ray, museums not only
Boston, New York, Philadelphia (0.0.7), and
care for artworks, but can
Chicago. Many public buildings, including also discover clues about
museums, in the United States were built in the how they were made:
Neoclassical style, which involves symmetrical see 4.4.15b, p. 612

forms that represent democratic ideals derived

from ancient Greece and Rome, where the
Classical architectural style was first developed.
Most art museums hold permanent Oil paint(ing): paint made
collections of artworks that are regularly of pigment suspended in oil
Context: circumstances
displayed, although some can show only a
surrounding the creation
portion of the works in their large collections. of a work of art, including
Museums also organize exhibitions of works on historical events, social
conditions, biographical
loan from other institutions. They often have
facts about the artist, and his
conservation departments to care for and restore or her intentions
the artworks.
If we consider only works that are displayed
in museums and galleries, however, we will 0.0.8 The Virgin of
Guadalupe, 1531. Tempera
ignore many works that are placed in communal on linen. Basilica of
or religious spaces. Perhaps the most enduring St. Mary of Guadalupe,
example of such a work is the painting of the Mexico City, Mexico

INTRODUCTION25

0.0.9 Simon Rodia, Watts
Towers, 1921–54. Seventeen
mortar-covered steel
sculptures with mosaic,
height 99' 6" at tallest point.
1761–1765 East 107th Street,
Los Angeles, California
26INTRODUCTION
the Virgin was painted in tempera on linen.)
The Virgin became the symbol of the Mexican
nation, not just for Mexicans of Indian descent
but also for all the citizens of the country—and
not only for devout Catholics. Today, the original
painting of the Virgin is housed in the National
Basilica of St. Mary of Guadalupe at the base
of Tepeyac hill, which receives hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims annually.
Some works of art are still in situ, in their
original locations. For example, from 1921 to
1954 Simon Rodia (1879–1965) built seventeen
interconnected structures on a residential
lot in a neighborhood of Los Angeles (0.0.9).
Rodia’s work is now known as the Watts Towers,
although he named it Nuestro Puebloo (Spanish
for “our town”). Rodia, a construction worker,
made his structures out of materials he found
or that local people brought to him. The towers
are made of steel rods and pipes, wire mesh,
and mortar, and decorated with bits of broken
glass and pottery. Rodia’s neighbors and the
City of Los Angeles did not approve of his work,
and unsuccessful efforts were made to destroy
it, but the tide eventually turned in his favor.
In 1990 Watts Towers was named a National
Historic Landmark, and today it is recognized
internationally and protected as an important
work of public art.
Art and Creativity
Simon Rodia’s work demonstrates that art can
be found in one’s own neighborhood, and that
many—perhaps most—people possess the
creative impulse to make art, and express it in
numerous, and often surprising, ways. Rodia
devoted many years of his life to creating a single
artwork. He had never trained to be an artist
but he shared with professional artists a creative
impulse that dominated his life. If we consider
the role of creativity in our own lives, we see that
images are ever present in our world: we make
our own photos and videos, and share them
through social-networking services or using our
cell phones. These activities, so common now,
show how people naturally respond to images
and seek to express themselves visually—just
as they did 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. In
other words, most of us instinctively relate to
human creativity.
The American painter James McNeil
Whistler (1834–1903) believed in “art for art’s
sake,” or the idea that art had intrinsic value
regardless of its subject matter or message.
Whistler often titled his paintings Nocturne,
Symphony, y or Arrangement to convey the idea
that he wished his art to trigger emotions
and sensations in the same way music did.
Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold:
The Falling Rocket (0.0.10) was exhibited in
1877 in London. The British critic John Ruskin
described the painting as lacking in subject

0.0.10 James Abbott
McNeil Whistler, Nocturne
in Black and Gold: The Falling
Rocket, 1875. Oil on canvas,
233⁄4 × 183⁄8". Detroit
Institute of Arts, Michigan
Tempera: fast-drying
painting medium made
from pigment mixed with
water-soluble binder, such
as egg yolk
In situ: in the location for
which it was originally made
Medieval: relating to
the Middle Ages; roughly,
between the fall of the
Roman empire and the start
of the Renaissance
Who Makes Art?
Who decides what an artwork looks like? The
simple answer might seem to be the artist who
makes it. We know that art has been made
for thousands of years: at least since humans
first painted images on the walls of caves, and
probably long before then. In general, art from
earlier cultures was a communal effort in
which spirituality and notions of the cycle of
life were common themes. As time progressed,
artists addressed social issues (war and social
conscience) and created more individual
expressions of their identity (gender and race).
The great temples of ancient Egypt, Greece,
and Rome were certainly not the work of one
person, and in some cases, we cannot tell if their
overall design was the idea of a single individual.
Archaeologists have discovered near the Valley
of the Kings in Egypt an entire village, Deir
el-Medina, which was occupied by artisans
who made the tombs that we admire today.
The cathedrals of medieval Europe were the
result of the skills of many different artists and
matter and quality and shamed the artist for
asking “two hundred guineas for flinging a pot
of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler sued the
famous critic for these comments, and the trial
became a public discussion about the definition
of art and creativity. Ruskin’s lawyer argued
that the painting could not have taken much
time to make, that its subject matter was not
clear, and that it therefore did not have much
value. Whistler defended himself by saying that
it was an artistic arrangement that represented
fireworks. He believed its value lay not just in
the time it took to make the work, but also in the
knowledge he had gained over a lifetime, which
he shared with the public through this work.
Although the jury found in favor of Whistler, he
was awarded an amount equal to pennies today,
Part 4 compares works
and the trial led him to bankruptcy. Despite his with common themes,
difficulties, however, the outcome of the trial such as the community
artworks Stonehenge and
became a catalyst or inspiration for future artists
The Gates by Christo and
to create works that were not always readily Jeanne-Claude: see 4.1.8
understood or appreciated by all viewers. and 4.1.9, pp. 570–71
INTRODUCTION27

0.0.11 Hon’ami Koetsu, Tea bowl (called Mount Fuji),
Edo period, early 17th century. Raku ware, height 33⁄8".
Sakai Collection, Tokyo, Japan
For centuries, in Japan, tea bowls have
Manuscripts: handwritten
been highly esteemed for their beauty. The
texts
bowl seen in 0.0.11 would have been prized
for its subtle variations of color, the pleasant
tactile sensations of its slightly irregular
surface, and its shape. It was designed to be
appreciated slowly as the user sipped tea. The
Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci
(1452–1519) lived approximately 200 years
earlier than the artist who made this tea bowl,
but the two had different ideas of what it meant
to be an artist. The Japanese maker of the tea
bowl worked in a society that valued tradition.
0.0.12 Leonardo da Vinci,
Japanese artists followed with supreme skill the
Mona Lisa, c. 1503–6. Oil on
established methods of working and making. wood, 303⁄8 × 207⁄8". Musée
Leonardo, however, became famous in an era du Louvre, Paris, France

artisans: stone carvers, the makers of stained-

glass windows, and carpenters who made the
furniture. These skilled workers remain mostly
anonymous, except for a very few whose names
have been found in manuscripts or carved on
works of art. But though we may never identify
most of these early artists, it is clear that humans
have always wanted to create art. This urge is part
of our nature, just like our need to eat and sleep.
Due to the efforts of Renaissance artists
to elevate their profession as a liberal art, the
Western world has popularized the idea of a lone
individual creating his or her own art to express
something very personal. In the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries it became more common for
artists to determine individually the appearance
and content of their own work, and, in their
search for new forms of self-expression, to
make art that was often very controversial. This
remains true today. But for many centuries
before this, very few artists worked alone. Even
Renaissance artists who promoted the idea of
creative genius operated workshops staffed by
artist assistants who carried out most of the
work involved in turning their master’s design
into a work of art. In nineteenth-century Japan,
the eccentric Katsushika Hokusai was famous
around the world for his prints, but he could
not have made them alone. A wood carver cut
his designs into blocks from which a printer
manufactured copies. Even today, artists often
employ a workshop of assistants to help them.

28INTRODUCTION
Gertrude Stein as an Art Patron

Much of the art that survives today would not only because it represents their interaction, but
have been made without patrons, who financially also because it inspired a new phase of Picasso’s
supported artists or commissioned specific work that relied on his personal vision rather 0.0.13 Man Ray, Gertrude
works of art. The American writer Gertrude Stein than on what he observed, starting him on the Stein with Portrait by Picasso,
1922. Vintage gelatin
(1874–1946) and her brother Leo (1872–1947) path toward Cubism. When someone remarked
silver print, 3¾ × 4¾".
built an outstanding collection of modern art, that Gertrude Stein did not look like her portrait, The Richard and Ellen
which decorated their home in Paris. The weekly Picasso responded, “She will.” Sandor Art Foundation
gatherings Gertrude held in her studio apartment
provided a meeting place for both artists and
writers. In fact, the Steins introduced Pablo
Picasso (1881–1973) and Henri Matisse (1869–
1954) to each other, sparking their friendship and
artistic rivalry.
In 1905, Gertrude Stein commissioned
Picasso to paint her portrait (seen in Man Ray’s
photograph of her, 0.0.13). She wrote that she
sat for Picasso ninety times: he worked on the
painting for months but was never satisfied.
Eventually he abandoned the naturalistic
approach and painted out the details of her facial
features after seeing ancient Iberian sculptures in
Spain and at the Louvre museum in Paris. When
comparing Stein’s actual appearance with her
painted likeness, we see that Picasso replaced the
soft contours of her cheeks, eyes, and mouth with
mask-like forms. The painting is now famous, not

in Europe that valued individual ingenuity. He
was a supremely talented artist whose visionary
interests and inventions extended far beyond the
visual arts, to engineering and science. Between
1503 and 1506 he created a portrait that is now
probably the most famous painting in the world,
although in his own time the work was virtually
unknown because it was not commissioned
by an important patron. Leonardo was not
content to create a likeness of the subject (Lisa
Gherardini, wife of a silk merchant in Florence).
The Mona Lisaa smiles and looks out at the
viewer, inviting us to seek in her face, her pose,
and the surrounding landscape a meditation
on the human soul (0.0.12). Both the tea bowl
and the portrait are great works of art, but they
display very different ideas of what it means to
be an artist.
We must also consider that artworks are
not only the result of the work of those who
made them, but are also influenced by the input
of others: the patrons who employ an artist
to make a work (see Box: Gertrude Stein as
an Art Patron); the collectors who buy it; and
the dealers and gallery owners who sell it. In
contemporary times, both the publicist who
presents artworks and the critic who reviews
them in a newspaper, on TV, or on the Internet
help to make an artist’s work well known and
desirable. All of these people, not just the artist,

INTRODUCTION 29

Jean-Michel Basquiat became
famous for his graffiti; he
later made canvas paintings
critiquing racism, class
injustices, and other social
issues: see 3.10.14, p. 555
Guilds: medieval
associations of artists,
craftsmen, or tradesmen
Academies: institutions
training artists in both
the theory of art and
practical techniques
0.0.14 Jean-Michel
Basquiat, Untitled, 1982.
Acrylic, spray paint,
and oilstick on canvas,
72 1⁄8 × 681⁄8". Collection
Yusaku Maezawa
30 INTRODUCTION
help to determine what art we see, and to some
extent they can influence what we consider to be
art. By controlling access to those who buy art,
the places where art is displayed, and the media
that inform the public about art and artists, they
also often influence what kind of art an artist
actually produces.
Fame and success do not always come in
an artist’s lifetime. Perhaps the most famous
example of this is the Dutch painter Vincent
van Gogh (1853–1890). In his ten years as an
active artist, Van Gogh produced about 1,000
drawings, sketches, and watercolors, as well as
around 1,250 other paintings. Very few people
saw his work in his lifetime, however; he received
only one favorable notice in a newspaper; his
work was shown in only one exhibition; and
he sold only one painting. Yet today his work is
extraordinarily famous, it sells for millions of
dollars, and in his native Netherlands an entire
museum is devoted to his work.
The training of artists also helps to determine
who makes art and what art is shown in galleries
and museums. For example, traditional training
for painters in China focused on the passing of
artistic skill from a master to his students, who
learned by copying his works and those of other
famous artists. Only scholars and government
officials could become professional painters.
Other painters were considered to be just
craftspeople whose work was of lower status.
Similarly, in medieval Europe, only those trained
in associations of craftsmen called guilds were
allowed to make works of art. For example,
there were guilds of carpenters, glassmakers, and
goldsmiths. The system in Europe changed in
the sixteenth century. Schools called academies
were organized (first in Italy) to train artists in
a very strict curriculum devised by specialized
teachers. It was very difficult to succeed as an
artist without being trained in an Academy.
In modern Europe and North America, most
practicing artists are trained in art schools,
which are sometimes independent schools, but
often part of a university or college that teaches
many different subjects. It would be a mistake,
however, to assume that artists must be formally
trained: as we have seen in the case of Simon
Rodia, non-professional, self-taught artists
(often referred to as “naïve” or “outsider” artists)
have always produced art that is just as admired.
The Power and Value of Art
The American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
(1960–1988) set a record in May 2017 when his
painting Untitledd (0.0.14) sold for $110.5 million.
What determines the value of an artwork? And
why would someone pay so much money for
a painting?
Yusaku Maezawa, the man who purchased
Untitled, stated that he felt a strong connection
to the artist and the painting: “Generationally, I
relate to Basquiat’s culture and the essence of his
life story. Rather than monetary or investment
value, I felt I had a personal responsibility to take
care of this masterpiece and preserve it for the
next generation.”
In our modern society, art is often valued
by its sale price, but there are many other ways
of valuing it (see Perspectives on Art: The Value
of Art to Keep Alive Knowledge and Culture,
opposite). When we visit art museums and see
Perspectives on Art: Loongkoonan
The Value of Art to Keep Alive Knowledge and Culture
Loongkoonan (born c. 1910) is an Aboriginal from
Western Australia who started painting in her nineties,
depicting with complexity and beauty the land she
lives in. Her paintings have won several prestigious
awards in Australia, and exhibitions of her work have
been shown as far away as the United States.

I am Loongkoonan and I am an elder of the

Nyikina people. I am a proper Nyikina, one of
the Yimadoowarra or riverside people. I am only
Nyikina, not mixed up with anything else. My
grandfather was proper Nyikina too. He died at
Udialla. I was born at Mount Anderson Station
near the Fitzroy River. When I was born, no one
worried much about recording the births and
deaths of Indigenous people, or teaching us to
read or write. Research by my niece Margaret
suggests that I am aged in my late nineties, but I
am still very lively.
My parents worked on stations, and I was a
good-sized girl when I started work mustering
kookanja [sheep] and cooking in stock camps.
Later on, I rode horses and mustered cattle too.
0.0.15a (above)
Wet season was our holiday time for footwalking Loongkoonan, Bush
Nyikina Country with my grandparents….I have Tucker Nyikina Country,
been a busy person all my life, no drinking, no 2006. Acrylic on canvas.
Collection of Diane and
smoking, just bush medicine….I had a good life on
Dan Mossenson, Perth,
the stations, and three husbands. Western Australia
Footwalking is the only proper way to learn
about the Country, and remember it. That is how I 0.0.15b (left) Loongkoonan
at work in her studio in
got to know all of the bush tucker [wild food] and
Derby, Western Australia,
medicine. Nowadays I show young people how to 2007
live off the Country, and how to gather spinifex
wax, which is our traditional glue for fixing stone
points to spear shafts, patching coolamons friends, so I thought that I would give it a try….In
[shallow vessels with curved sides], and making my paintings I show all types of bush tucker—good
all kinds of things. Nyikina spinifex wax is really tucker that we lived off in the bush….I paint Nyikina
strong. It was so well known in the olden days that Country the same way eagles see Country when
it was traded all over the Kimberley and desert….I they are high up in the sky. I paint the bush foods
still enjoy footwalking my country, showing the and fruits and rivers of Nyikina Country.
young people how to chase barnii [goannas] and I am happy that people like my paintings and
how to catch fish. that they get to understand more about Nyinkina
I was always used to working hard, and the Country and my life. I am happy to be an example
chance came up for me to start painting with my for my community and people.

INTRODUCTION 31

Form: an object that can be
defined in three dimensions
(height, width, and depth)
Cast: a sculpture or artwork
made by pouring a liquid (for
example molten metal or
plaster) into a mold
Monumental: having
massive or impressive scale
32INTRODUCTION
0.0.16 Marc Quinn, Self,f 1991. Blood (artist’s),
stainless steel, Perspex, and refrigeration equipment,
817⁄8 × 24 × 243⁄4". Private collection
artworks displayed inside glass cases or at a
distance from the viewer, who must not touch,
the care to preserve them in perfect condition is
an indication that these works are highly valued.
Sometimes a work is valued because it is very old
or rare, or indeed unique.
In many societies, however, artworks were
not made to be sold or displayed where they
cannot be touched. As we have seen, the Japanese
made fine tea bowls. These bowls were to be
used as part of a ceremony, involving other
fine objects, good conversation, and, of course,
excellent tea. The tea bowl was valued because
it formed part of a ritual that had social and
spiritual significance. Similarly, in the African
art section of many museums we can see masks
displayed that were originally made to form
part of a costume that, in turn, was used in a
ceremony involving other costumed figures,
music, and dancing. In other words, the mask
often had some kind of spiritual or magic
significance for its original creators: but they
would have regarded it as holding this value only
when used as intended, not when displayed in
isolation in a museum.
An essential reason why we value art is
because it has the power to tell us something
important about ourselves, to confront us with
ideas and feelings about the human condition
that we recognize as true, but may otherwise
struggle to understand fully. Art is a powerful
means of self-expression because it enables us
to give physical shape or form to thoughts and
sensations and to see them for what they are.
Marc Quinn (b. 1964) is a British artist whose
art often not only focuses on the body but also
deliberately uses his actual body as a basis for
making the work. Since 1991, Quinn has been
making a lifesize self-portrait of his head every
five years, each time using between eight and
ten pints of his blood, cast and then frozen by
means of a refrigerating device (0.0.16). These
works have an immediate impact, partly because
they are made of blood, a substance we recognize
as viscerally related to the life force and that we
all depend on for survival: looking at Selff we
naturally contemplate our own mortality and
our fear of it. The effect is underscored by our
knowledge that if the refrigerator should fail, the
sculpture would dissolve.
Selff is powerful too because when we look at
such a raw portrait we instinctively compare its
effect on us with how we appear to other people,
which makes us think about self-image: who we
really are, physically, and who we think ourselves
to be. The use of the head and face, which are so
intimately connected to our sense of identity,
also make the image dramatically arresting, in
a way that is similar to sculptures from ancient
cultures, such as Africa and Oceania, where
people have created carved heads, often on
a monumental scale, that still resonate with
compelling power. Despite its title, which could
be interpreted as if it were only a portrait of
the artist, this is a work that strikes a universal
human chord as we view and recognize in it our
own physical vulnerability.
So we see that price is, of course, not the
only, or the most important, measure of the
Perspectives on Art: Tracy Chevalier
Art Inspires a Novel and a Movie
Art can have value as a source of inspiration.
Tracy Chevalier is the author of the bestselling
novel Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999), which
in turn inspired a movie (2003) starring
Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Tracy
tells how her novel was inspired by a poster
of the famous painting by the Dutch painter
Johannes Vermeer.

I first saw the painting Girl with a Pearl

Earring (0.0.17) when I was nineteen and
visiting my sister in Boston for spring break.
She’d hung a poster of it in her apartment.
I was so struck by it—the color! the light!
the girl’s look!—that the next day I bought
a poster of it myself. That same poster has
accompanied me for twenty-nine years,
hanging in my bedroom or—as it does
now—in my study.
Over the years I’ve hung many other
paintings on my walls. But most art, even
great art, loses its punch after a while. It
becomes part of the space designated
for it; it becomes decorative rather than
challenging. It turns into wallpaper.
Occasionally someone will ask a question
about one of the paintings in my house, or
I’ll notice one’s crooked and straighten it,
and I’ll look at it again and think, “Oh yeah,
nice painting. I forgot about you.”
Girl with a Pearl Earring is not like that.
She has never become wallpaper. I have never a flickering moment in a permanent medium. 0.0.17 Johannes Vermeer,
grown tired or bored of her. I notice her all the You would think that, with the paint static, the Girl with a Pearl Earring,
c. 1665. Oil on canvas, 171⁄2
time, even after twenty-nine years. Indeed, girl would be too. But no, her mood is always × 153⁄8". Mauritshuis, The
you’d think I’d have nothing left to say about the changing, for we ourselves are different each time Hague, The Netherlands
painting. But even after writing a whole novel we look at her. She reflects us, and life, in all its
about her, I still can’t answer the most basic variations. Few paintings do that so well, which is
question about the girl: Is she happy or sad? why Girl with a Pearl Earring is a rare masterpiece.
That is the painting’s power. Girl with a Pearl
Earring is unresolved, like a piece of music that
stops on the penultimate chord. Vermeer draws
us in with his technique—his remarkable handling
of light and color—but he holds us with her. He
has somehow managed the impossible, capturing

INTRODUCTION33

0.0.18a Ai Weiwei,
S.A.C.R.E.D., a six-part work
composed of (i) S upper,
(ii) A ccusers, (iii) C leansing,
(iv) R itual, (v) E ntropy,
(vi) D oubt, 2011–13. Six
dioramas in fiberglass and
iron, 1481⁄2 × 771⁄2 × 581⁄2".
Installed in the Church
of Sant’Antonin, Venice,
Italy for the Venice
Biennale 2013
34 INTRODUCTION
value of an artwork. We might place a high value
on a work because it is aesthetically pleasing
or because its creation involved great skill.
This can be true even if there is no possibility
of our owning it. Many museums organize
large exhibitions of the work of famous artists
because they know that great numbers of people
will pay to see the work. Enthusiasts will travel
long distances, even to other continents, to
visit such exhibitions. In 2012, for example,
758,000 people visited an exhibition of the
work of various Old Master artists, including
Vermeer’s famous Girl with a Pearl Earringg (see
Perspectives on Art: Art Inspires a Novel and a
Movie, p. 33), as well as paintings by Rembrandt,
Frans Hals, and Anthony van Dyck at the Tokyo
National Museum, Japan.
Protest and Censorship of Art
Art can be a form of expression and
communication so powerful that those who
are challenged or offended by it wish to
censor it. If we examine the history of the
censorship of art, we see that people have
found many reasons to attack, destroy, or
prevent the display of artworks. Art may be
censored because it challenges the politically or
economically powerful; because some consider
it pornographic; because it offends religious
beliefs; or because it represents values that
somebody considers offensive or improper.
Probably the most famous contemporary
artist who has suffered for his work and his
opinions is Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (b. 1957).
Ai’s father was a revered Chinese poet and a
member of the ruling Communist Party, and
Ai was involved in the design of the stadium for
the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He was therefore,
in some ways, an establishment figure in China.
But 2008 was also the year of a devastating
earthquake during which several schools
collapsed, killing many children. Their parents
complained that poor construction, because
of official corruption, was responsible for their
children’s deaths. Ai made a memorial to the
dead out of children’s backpacks and exhibited
it in Münich, Germany. In January 2011 Chinese
government officials ordered the demolition
of his studio and in April Ai was arrested for
“economic crimes.”
Another random document with
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 DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
 FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
 Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
 The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

 This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
 “We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
 Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
 BRAZIER

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

 FINISHING THE BOTTOM

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

 LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
 Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

 BEATING THE BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN