My favorite art cultures of the quarter

The topics and sculptures that interested me the most this quarter was that of the Aegean period. This period included Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean cultures. The reason I found this period to be the most fascinating is the significance each culture had on art in its own ways. Many of these art pieces stood out to me because they made me stare at them and analyze them. They seemed very interested due to the colors that were on it.

The Cycladic culture was also often called the Early Bronze Age. This culture excelled in pottery. This culture was known to develop pottery and other interesting things such as jewelry. In this culture were used and offered as grace offerings. These sculptures were called Cycladic idols. The Minoan Culture was also known to create good pottery. Not only were they well known just about pottery they introduced new aspects to pottery like spiral designs, rectangular or circular shapes.

Cycladic art that really caught my eye is the statues. They were not realistic looking. The arms of the people would be crossed in front. Their heads were all sorts of shapes, ranging from triangle to square edges. The legs were varying in shape. But the pieces were a great attempt to resemble the human figure.

The Minoan culture was known as the Middle Bronze Age. A lot of the art during this period showed that there was influence from other cultures invading the area. For example, pottery that was of horses shows that Indo-European invaders had influence. The Minoan culture had significant art in that it resembled naturalistic aspects. They used bright colors and smooth lines. They also began to create three dimensional figures, which influenced Greek mainland art that was eventually modified by their geometry.

From the Minoan culture the piece I liked the best was the Bull Leaping located in the text. I found this piece to be particularly interesting because it is hard to tell the meaning so it gets you thinking and leaves room for imagination. The fresco shows someone leaping over a bull and two women on either side. I personally think that it is for some kind of show or a way to win over the women’s love. He could win over their love by showing off his bravery and skill.

The Mycenaean culture was thought to be the tail end of the Aegean period. The style of this culture incorporated aspects of hunting and battle scenes. This culture’s art showed advancement from the previous cultures (Cycladic and Minoan). Advancements included geometric features and ideas.

The Mycenaean terracotta that I have added below is my favorite of this culture. This piece shows a battle scene of warriors riding in a chariot. It seems as though they are going off to battle and departing from their homelands. This piece does not display bright colors or anything but it is appealing through its drawings in scripted on the outer edges.

Stylized Art

 This week’s topic choice was to pick two pieces from the chapter and discuss how they are branching off from naturalistic to more of a stylized picture. I chose to talk about the piece about Christ washing his disciple’s feet from page 451 and the virgin and child with saints and angels on page 245. Both of these pieces involve more stylized artistic elements versus naturalistic.

First of all, naturalistic art is that of a realistic picture. This includes the aspect of innocence and honesty in people in a realistic place. Whereas, stylized art is more manipulation to the natural look and elements of people and the environment.

 The first piece that caught my eye is of Christ washing his disciple’s feet. This particular art piece is very interesting to me. The reason why it is very interesting is because the colors stand out a lot and it has to do with religion which I am very interested in. The color that I see a lot is gold which means this piece is valuable. This is more of a relaxed art piece because it has a religious belief and there is soothing colors around the main character of the art piece. On the left side of the art piece it looks like there are people in need of help with their lives. It looks like the people on the left side are giving them advice, bread, and water. The main character looks sacred and holy due to the people staring and hoping to meet him/her next. The people are not wearing shoes and it looks like the main character is also providing water to clean them out.

In the art piece of the Virgin the child and angels and saints, there are five people in it. The three characters look like the main ones due to them having the halos on their head. At first when you notice the art piece we think that the main character in the middle is standing while holding the baby. Then we see that she is actually sitting down due to looking at the gold looking chair on the back. This shows a stylized characteristic because the people sitting in the front are not painted shorter than the people standing behind them. The baby does not look as realistic as the rest of the other characters, due to the small head. The two other characters look very interested in something on the roof or they are just doing that for the painter. All the hair on these characters are very different. At first I thought these characters were somehow related but I think they are not by the texture of their face and their hair.

I personally liked both of these pieces, hence why I chose them. At first glance, the piece of Christ washing his disciples feet stood out to me because it has a lot to reveal and ponder on. And the Virgin and child piece is so simple that it makes you try and imagine possibilities of what it could be trying to reveal. 

Comparison of Commodus of Hercules and the portraits of Caracalla

The two emperors Commodus and Caracalla portray themselves as strong, powerful, and vain in the pieces Commodus as Hercules and the portraits of Caracalla.

According to the text book Commodus was all about the luxury in life. He had the perception that he is the reincarnation of Hercules, which this fact alone shows his vanity. With his obsession of luxury items he sponsored many artists, and had them create a sculpture of him as Hercules.

Commodus was killed by his associates in his own bath tub, and I am guessing it is because they were fed up with him being so into himself and thinking so highly of himself.

Comparing both the Commodus as Hercules and the Caracalla portrait we can see that they both have facial hair displaying maturity and wisdom with age. They both show an expression of knowing they have control over the people and power to keep the empire safe from invasions. Both of the pieces eyes are very detailed as if that is the focal point of the sculpture, showing their emotion. The emperor Caracalla eyes show anger and capability of hurting enemies to ensure his peoples security. Commodus as Hercules eyes look focused and determined as if he is thinking what his next move is going to be.

The message they are trying to get across is that men as rulers play a large role during this era because they play the leadership role of the empire. I believe this point of power gets across to the viewer because it is clearly sculpted into the pieces with strong depictions of emotion.

            Personally I think that the pieces do convey the message of strength and power because when I first viewed them I immediately thought they were sculptures of rulers and important people. I think the sculptor did a good job in capturing their vanity and belief of being all powerful. 

Controversy over the Parthenon Marbles

           I chose to write about the Parthenon marbles this week because it seems to be a hot topic of controversy among the art world. From what I understand the marbles originally were created in what is now known as Greece. Greece was first under the control of the Ottoman Empire. A man named Eglin was a ruler of the Ottoman Empire when the marbles were taken from Greece. Eglin had a strong passion and fixation with classical pieces. Eglin began “missions” to uncover and track down pieces from all over. This is how Eglin landed up with the Parthenon Marbles.

            After watching the video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGitmYl6U90) you can see that Eglin’s people during their missions took statues and things by lowering them with crane like tools, while doing this some pieces were dropped and crumbled to ruins.

            Eglin soon got his share of karma for all of these missions of taking classical pieces that are not essentially his, just his desire. Eglin caught a disease which landed him losing part of his nose. His wife also left him, probably because his attention was so preoccupied with gathering these classical pieces. She left him for his best friend and the divorce caused him to fall into even more debt. In order to dig himself out of a hole of debt, Eglin sold his marbles to the British government for a price equaling $4 million dollars today.

            In my opinion since the historical setting of the Parthenon marbles is in Greece they should be displayed there in one of their museums. One of the British arguments is that Greece does not have a good enough museum to display them in, and now that they have the idea or built the new museum it seems fitting that the Parthenon marbles make their way back. One proposal I have for the British to agree to send them to Greece would be to have a cut of any income of admissions from the museum in Greece hosting the marbles. I also propose that with the display of the marbles in the museum in Greece, they should clearly state that the marbles are British property in the description of the history of the piece. Over time I think that the British government would be thankful with this move because it settles the dispute of them having the marbles and they earn money on top of not having the controversy anymore.

            Recently, a Greek minister met with a director of the British museum for the first time over the controversial issue dealing with the marbles. The Greek government has gone out of their way to assure the British government and British museum that their intentions do not lie in owning the marbles just in the location of the marbles. 

Week 5-Unknown art pieces

This week we were given two unknown pieces of art to determine whether they are from the Cycladic, Mycenaean, or Minoan cultures.

First here’s a quick overview of the three cultures art, Cycladic art commonly consisted of figurine sculptures made of marble. The sculptures were mostly made to represent females, that were nude, with folded arms across there chest. It is thought they used bright paints to finish off these pieces. Mycenaean art commonly show hunting themes and battles with warriors. They show people as looking cartoon-like. Mycenaean art is filled with distinct shapes, like pots being small at the bottom and large at the top, and crater shapes to hold liquids. Minoan art consisted of animals, components of nature, flowers and things to show naturalistic designs. They also used vibrant colors and smooth lines.

The first unknown piece is the pot. I believe this pot to be from the Mycenaean culture. The pot starts out very small at the bottom and then gets larger and larger as it goes up to the top. The pot is also wide so it showing the “crater shape,” which they were using for liquids like water. The pot also has a picture on it that shows warriors heading off to battle. Two of the warriors are on a cart being pulled by an animal, and they are painted to look like cartoon characters which is common of the Mycenaean art.

The second unknown piece is a painting of a man holding two bunches of fish. I see this piece fitting best into that of the Minoan art. The piece shows a man that is naked, and this is part of Minoan art because they were demonstrating nature. Also supporting the naturalistic theme is the bunches of fish. The picture also consists of curved lines and linear structure. The picture seems to be of a fisherman and he has caught a great deal of fish, which shows power and strength. The man has greyish hair that could show wisdom and knowledge, justifying why he has caught so many fish. Power and knowledge/strength were also something the Minoan culture showed through their art pieces. And a final factor leading me to believe this piece is from the Minoan culture is that it has strong vibrant colors, the red in the man and the blues of the fish are deep rich colors.  

Ziggurats and Pyramids of Giza

Reading about these two significant structures expanded my knowledge about how big our world really is. Personally I have not gone to vacation anywhere outside of our country, so topics like this are very interesting to me.  This week’s topic is about the Ziggurats and the pyramids of Giza.

These two structures being from different countries actually have some interesting similarities to them. Both the Ziggurats and the Pyramids of Giza are man-made structures built upwards instead of wide. Elevation was done to preserve the structures from flooding and weather damage. They both are a place that holds symbolic pieces of the cultures of the people. Both structures utilize stairs due to the high structure of the buildings and add stability.

Although these two structures have some similarities they are yet very unique in their own way. For example, the Ziggurats were used as shrines and were thought of as the bridge to travel from earth to heaven. They were sometimes called “house of the mountain” and “bond between heaven and earth.” The pyramids of Giza served as tombs for the three fourth dynasty kings. The largest pyramid was named after the King Khufu, the middle sized one is after King Khafre, and the smallest, which is significantly smaller than the rest, is after King Menkaure. The largest pyramid was 13 acres across the base, and the limestone caused the pyramid to reach almost 481 feet in height.

The pyramids of Giza were created with a great amount of math skill and critically planned to perfection. They were made to follow the suns path. They also had to know how to have the land just perfect and level to where all the stones would align just right in order to have the stones meet perfectly at the top. They uncovered the work station of the workers of the pyramids that demonstrated the difficulty and intensity of the labor going into these structures. Their tactics included things like hauling stones weighing two plus tons by rolling them over logs or sliding them across muddy grounds. I find it interesting that it is still unknown exactly how the pyramids were built. The text talks about how it is assumed that a ramp was made around the pyramid to put the higher stones in place. Unlike the perfection in building the pyramids, the Ziggurats were built on top of rubble of previous buildings and then repeated eventually raising up the level of them which helped to prevent flooding. The Ziggurats were not as carefully planned or thought out as well as the creators of the pyramids of Giza.

In conclusion, I find these structures very interesting due to their significance and their uniqueness in their influence on religion to the cultures beliefs and rituals. I personally enjoyed reading and studying about the pyramids of Giza the most due to the way they were created and how much thought and work went into the building of these structures.

Week Three Art Post

               

              This piece of art from 1350-800 B.C. and is called a tray with miniature animals and vessels, it was from Iran in the Iron Age I-II. The sculpture is made of clay and it is 6.5 centimeters in hieght, and 23.1 centimeters wide, with a 14.8 centimeter diameter.

My first reaction when I saw this piece of art was how it has to do with the wildlife of animals. The types of animals that I see is African native animals. The snouts on the animals made me think that they are lions. I also see a third type of animal  which the head is located on the side of the tray.  The body of the third animal that I mentioned looks like is the whole tray and the legs look like they are part of the tray as well. The color of this tray makes me think that they are in a dry dirt dessert since it is brown and white. For that reason I feel like these animals have pots almost like they have water in them and the lions are very thirsty. The animal on the far looks bigger so in my opinion it looks like a male while the animal closest to the camera looks much smaller and looks like a female. 

                I think this tray was used for many reasons including a plate, or a place to set small tools. It could be a plate that someone of high importance ate off of, like a king or tribe leader. I think that someone higher up would have been the one to eat off of this because it is so well done and probably like what we view china dishes as today. And the pot like things, on the edge of the sculpture could be used to hold side dishes or they could have been used as cups for liquids. It also shows that it could have been used by someone of a leadership role because the animals that are touching the small pots almost look like bulls guarding the cup. This would resemble power and strength because this animal is seen as strong and fierce, so it would be like how kings and royalty have used lions as a symbol of power but with a bull.

                The composition of this art piece is fairly simple. All three of the animals are facing one direction. The animals and the pots are all placed on one side of the sculpture, leaving the other side just flat and bare.

                The medium of this piece was said to be made out of clay. And the color is just a brownish white, which makes sense with the color in the animals and the theme they are trying to portray.

The style is unique in that the animals were made to seem as though they are guarding the pots or some kind of entrance of the tray.

                The line of this piece is interesting; the main part of the piece is curved with a dip in the middle, as if to hold food on it.

                The texture looks smooth and bumpy in certain areas. The top of the animals, the top of the tray, and sides of the pots are all made smooth by the sculptor. The sides of the dish and the feet it has to stand on look more rough and bumpy, which was probably done on purpose to add texture and a different look to the piece.

                For the proportion one of the animals looks smaller than the other, but I am not sure if this is just due to the camera angle or if it is actually like that. Also the animals are way smaller than the pots, and to me the animals look like bulls which are very large compared to most pots we have today, so maybe the sculptor was trying to show the large size of these pots. Or it could be to show that it is designed to be a grand entrance of some sort, because usually entrances are distinguished with pillars or tall statues or something.

                Overall, I find this piece interesting due to being so small, so expensive, so old, and the significance it may hold to other cultures.