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WEEK 2 NOTES

Ancient Mesopotamia PGS 14-15, 22-30

(Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, Neo-Babylonia)

Intro.

Mesopotamia: Greek word, “the land between 2 rivers”

The world’s first great civilization

SUMER:

Greatest Sumerian invention: the city state

WHITE TEMPLE/ZIGGURAT, URUK

5000 years old

Material: mud brick, white washed walls

Aim: provide a grand setting for gods worship

ZIGGURAT, UR

Feature: well preserved

Comparison to Uruk Ziggurat: built a millennium later, grander scale

Material: mud baked brick

Aim: a tower to heaven?

ESHNUNNA STATUETTES

Material: gypsum with shell and limestone

Aim: representing mortals (humans) rather than gods

Elements of human beauty

Proportion: oversized eyes and tiny hands

STANDARD OF UR

Material: shell, lapis lazuli, limestone

Format: 2 sloping sides: 1. The war side 2. The peace side

Divided into ‘registers’

Feature: Ruler’s central place in the composition ‘hierarchical scale’

AKKAD:

Famous city near Babylon

Founder: Sargon

AKKADIAN PORTRAIT

Material: copper

Aim: absolute monarchy

Feature: balance between naturalistic and abstract + textures of flesh and hair

NARAM SIN STELE

Aim: commemorate Naram Sin’s defeat of enemy

Feature: ruler stands alone, taller than his men ‘Hierarchical Scale’

BABYLON:

HAMMURABI STELE

Most powerful king

Material: black basalt

Feature: 3500 lines of cuneiform (shapes as words) + creativity

ASSYRIA: overtook Mesopotamia, named after Assur

LAMASSU, DUR SHARRUKIN

Royal citadel and palace

‘Lamassu’: huge monsters/winged man-headed bulls

Material: limestone

Feature: combining frontal still view and side view in motion

NEO-BABYLONIA: Overtook Assyria, famous hanging gardens

ISHTAR GATE

Plan: gate (arch shaped) with towers,

Material: glazed bricks in sequence

Feature: real/imaginary animals

WEEK 3 NOTES

Egypt under the Pharaohs PGS 32-45

(Pre-dynastic, Early dynastic, Old Kingdom, New Kingdom)

PREDYNASTIC & EARLY DYNASTIC

Sophisticated culture on Nile banks

Divided into upper (South) and lower (North)

Beginning of history: Unification of 2 lands

PALETTE OF KING NARMER

Palette ‘stone slab’

Feature: Pharaoh is isolated and largest figure ‘divine ruler’

OLD KINGDOM

GREAT PYRAMIDS

Location: Giza

Aim: testify to importance and wealth of pharaohs; Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure

Importance: symbols of the sun, a giant stairway

Oldest and largest: Khufu’s pyramid, 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighs 2.5 tons

GREAT SPHINX

Location: Giza

Format: Colossal with Pharaoh head

Aim: importance of sun god, lion with human head

NEW KINGDOM

TEMPLE OF RAMSES II, ABU SIMBEL

Patron: Ramses greatest pharaoh of New Kingdom

Format: four 65-foot tall portrait seated statues, carved as pillars, huge façade

AKHENATON

Role: abandoned worship of former gods, moved capital, religious revolution and upheaval

Style: revolutionary, misshapen form

NEFERTITI

Material: painted limestone

Format: bust statue

Importance: high standard of beauty

WEEK 4 NOTES

Ancient Greece PGS 46-49, 56-84

(The Greeks and their gods, geometry and Archaic Art,

Greek Doric and Ionic Temples,

Early and High Classical Art, Late Classical Art, Hellenistic Art)

Intro.

Greeks borrowed and developed ideas from Mesopotamia and Egypt

Importance: foundation of Western heritage

Geometric and Archaic Art

Geometric Krater

Design: scenes with abstract and geometric patterns

Feature: key pattern

The art of storytelling in pictures

Kouros

Importance: earliest example of life size free-standing statue

Material: Marble

“Kouros”: Youth

Greek Temples

Basic plan:

Order, compactness, symmetry

=

Proportion, efforts to achieve ideal forms, numerical relationships and geometric rules

Example: Parthenon on Acropolis in Athens, Greatest temple with perfect (numerical mathematical) proportions

Early and High Classical Art

Riace Warrior

Material: bronze

Feature: weight shift, natural motion

Myron, Diskobolos (Discus Thrower)

Issue: problem of representing a figure in vigorous action

Features: extended arms, twisted body, off the ground heel, motion like a clock

Acropolis

Architects: Iktinos and Kallikrates

Feature: harmonious design and mathematical precision

Parthenon Pediments

3 goddesses

Feature: surface appearance of human anatomy and mechanics of muscles and bones

Feature: rendition of clothed forms

Format: variety in surface and play of light and shade

Late Classical Art

Change: Greek thought and art focuses more on individual and real world

Battle of Issus/Alexander Mosaic

Theme: Battle between Alexander the Great and Persian King Darius

Feature: shading, use of light, impressive details

Importance: psychological intensity, dramatic

Hellenistic Art

Importance: International culture with Greek language (Latin)

Nike of Samothrace

Feature:

Beating wings and wind swept drapery = theatrical effect, living, breathing, intense emotion

Old Market Woman

Purpose: interest in exploring ‘realism’, opposite of classical periods ‘idealism’

‘Social realism’: Exploring men and women from lowest classes

Format: old bent over woman with basket to sell at market

WEEK 5 NOTES

The Roman Empire PGS 86-87, 93-121

Roman Art: the Republic, Pompeii and Vesuvius (Forum, Amphitheater House), Painting ‘Pompeian Styles’

The Early Empire, the High Empire, the Late Empire

Intro.

Importance: 1st time in history a single government rules an empire

Use of art effectively as a political tool

The Republic

Influence: Greek

Verism

Portraits of older men with power

Veristic (super realistic) portrait: detailed recording of each rise and fall

Portrayal of personality

Pompeii and Vesuvius

A. Forum (public square)

Center of civic life

B. Amphitheater (double theater)

Greek theatres were on natural hillsides, but to support continuous seating required building an artificial mountain.

Concrete used first by Romans.

C. House (domestic architecture)

Only wealthy owned large private houses. Masses lived in multistory apartment houses’

Features: atrium, garden

The Early Empire

Large number of public projects and art works. Purpose: for public opinion

Influence: Greek

Emperor/General Augustus

Material: Marble

Celebrating victory

Livia

Emperors wife and important position

Influence: images of Greek goddesses

Pont-du-Gard

Aim: Aqueduct Bridge provides gallons of water for cities

Format: water channels with a gradual decline from the source to the city

Unique: harmony in proportion of arches

Colosseum

Aim: Largest arena holding 50,000 people

Material: Concrete and marble

The High Empire

Column of Trajan

Trajan: first non-Italian to rule

Central message: expanding on and winning campaigns

Pantheon (Temple of all gods)

Material: concrete

Format: a huge hemispherical dome

Interior: unified coffered dome - coffers: sunken decorative panels, with light through oculus that moves

Mummy Portraits

Painted portraits replaced masks

The Late Empire

Roman power declining

Economic decline, religious decline (Christianity appeared)

The Severans

Unique portrait of emperor and his family

Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus

Material: marble

Format: large, chaotic scenes of battles of Romans

Feature: emotional

Constantine and Christianity

Arch of Constantine

Format: triple passageway

Location: next to Colosseum

Importance: largest arch in Rome

Sculptural decorations taken from earlier monuments of Trajan, etc

Feature: era’s main monument

WEEK 6 AND 7 NOTES

Art of the Islamic World PGS 146-159, 481-483

(The rise and spread of Islam), Islamic Architecture, Luxury Arts, Mughal Empire, Safavid/Ottoman Empires

The Rise and Spread of Islam

Important: swiftness of Islam’s spread.

Caliphates of Damascus (Umayyads) and Baghdad (Abbasids)

Features: builders on a grand scale

Policy: adopt and adapt

Absence of figural representation in religious monuments, exceptions in secular

Dome of the Rock

Importance: first great Islamic monument

Patron: Caliph Abd al-Malik b. Marwan

Location: Jerusalem

Influence: Roman-Byzantine

Decoration: Umayyad mosaic and later Ottoman tiles, calligraphy

Motifs: natural, abstract, geometric

Jami Kairouan

Plan: Hypostyle

Importance: oldest preserved mosque

Influence: Arcaded forecourt (Roman), atrium (Christian)

Abbasid Jami Samarra

Patron: Caliph al-Mutawakkil

Importance: largest in the world

Minaret: ‘al-malwiyya’ spiral

Andalusia: Jami Cordoba

Patron: abd al-Rahman I

Importance: center of European and world culture

Plan: Hypostyle, double-tiered horse-shoe shaped and lobed arches

Feature: light, airy, rhythm

Islamic experimentation: Dome: over mihrab, on octagonal base with ribs

Andalusia: Al-Hambra Palace (Red Palace)

Patrons: Nasrid dynasty

Function: royal residence and tower

Court of the Lions: fountain with 12 marble lions

Decoration: carved stucco, calligraphy, abstract motifs

Jami Isfahan

Patrons: Abbasids, later Seljuks

Plan: hypostyle (qibla iwan is largest)

Importance: 1st 4-iwan plan, later becomes standard Persian mosque plan

Safavid Madrasa Imami Mihrab

16th-17th c. Iran and Turkey: golden age of Islamic tile work and ceramic

Tile and ceramic function: as a veneer over bricks to cover entire buildings

Feature: Union between abstract and calligraphy

Motifs: geometric, abstract, floral

Luxury Arts

Abbasid 9-10th c Quran

Importance: masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy

Format: loose sheets in boxes or bound into books

Popular script: Kufic

Mamluk Mosque Lamp

Material: decorated fragile glass with enamel paint and calligraphy

Patron: Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad

Format: hung from chains, conical neck, 6 handles, inside a small glass container with oil and wick

Timurid ‘Bustan’ Manuscript

Patron: Timur in Central Asia

Theme: secular

Format: full page narration, figures, vivid colours, decorative details, balanced perspective

Safavid Ardabil Carpet

Carpet production was a national industry

Feature: 25 million knots!

Mughal Akbarnama (History of Akbar)

Patron: Emperor Akbar

Format: full page miniatures (small-sized paintings), bold composition, diagonal lines

Material: watercolour on paper

Purpose: book illustrations or loose pages in albums

Mughal Portrait of Emperor Jahangir

Importance: evidence of courts connection with international ambassadors, kings, and Europe

Influence: European art

Mughal Taj Mahal

Patron: Shah Jahan

Purpose: Mausoleum to his wife

Ottoman Suleymaniyya Complex

Patron: Sultan Suleyman

Plan: jami, 2 mausoleums, 4 general madrasas, 2 specialised madrasas, Quran school, hospital, hostel, public kitchen, caravanserai, hammam, small shops

Feature: mass of domes with 4 slender minarets

WEEK 8 AND 10 NOTES

The Early Renaissance in Europe (Medici Patronage and Classical Learning),

The early Renaissance: Burgundy, Flanders and Italy Pgs. 220-227, 234-246

Medici Patronage and Classical Learning

Patrons of art and architecture: Medici Family

The Early Renaissance in Europe

Burgundy and Flanders (Northern Europe)

Ghent Altarpiece

Artist: Van Eyck

Format: free standing, large, interior and exterior decorated wings

Material: oil paint

Feature: all details specified

Italy

Important study: Humanism

Florence

Gates of Paradise

Artist: Ghiberti

Function: doors of Baptistery

Format: panels in relief of biblical scenes

Material: gilded bronze

Features: linear perspective, rhythmic lines, classical poses and motifs, realism in characterisation, movement and surface detail

Influence: classical

Saint Mark

Artist: Donatello

Material: marble

Importance: contrapposto

Feature: body and clothing move together

Holy Trinity

Artist: Masaccio

Material: painted fresco (wall painting)

Feature: mathematical depiction of space

Portraits of patrons in painting

Importance: innovation in illusion painting

Birth of Venus

Artist: Botticelli

Material: tempera paint

The High Renaissance in Europe: Italy

(Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Architecture) PGS. 258-271

Intro.

Importance: origin of ‘fine arts’ and ‘artist genius’

Artists become celebrities

Leonardo da Vinci

Importance: ‘Renaissance Man’

Great understanding of light, colour and perspective

Mona Lisa

Importance: world’s most famous portrait

Material: oil paint

Features: chiaroscuro, sfumato and perspective

Raphael

Importance: individual style

School of Athens (Philosophy Mural)

Patron: Pope Julius II

Material: fresco (wall painting)

Setting: congregation of great philosophers and scientists of the ancient world

Hall’s influence: classical

Central figures: Plato and Aristotle

Features: dignity, calm, reason, balance

Michelangelo

Considered sculpture superior to painting

David ‘the Giant’

Material: Marble block

Importance: symbol of liberty

Features: energy, anatomy, large hands, heroic physique

Influence: Greco-Roman classical

Sistine Chapel

Material: Fresco

Difficulties in painting: ceiling dimensions, perspective problems

Narrative panels: very detailed

Architecture

Inspiration: buildings of ancient Rome

Saint Peter’s

Location: Vatican City, Rome

Architects: Bramante and Michelangelo

Bramante’s plan: equal length cross, huge scale

Michelangelo’s plan: building should follow human body’s form

Format: unified whole from base to summit

WEEK 11 NOTES

Baroque Europe (Europe in the 17th century, Baroque Art and Architecture:

Italy, Spain, Flanders, the Dutch Republic, France, England) PGS. 292-320

Europe in the 17th century

Background: religious and political tension

Colonialism: creation of a worldwide market

Bank of Amsterdam

Effect on European lifestyle and diet

Result: newly wealthy spend more money on art

Conclusion: larger market for artworks

Baroque Art and Architecture:

‘Barroco’: irregular shaped pearl

Style: complex and dramatic, theatrical, elaborate ornamentation, grand scale

Italy

Main patron: the Catholic Church

Façade of Saint Peters

Location: Vatican city, Rome

Purpose: symbol of Catholicism

Architect: Maderno

Feature: different to Bramante and Michelangelo’s plans

Format: to add three bays to earlier plan

Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Cornaro Chapel

Artist: Bernini

Format: combination of architecture, sculpture, painting

Patrons: relief portraits on side balconies

Purpose: recreating spiritual experiences

Effect: inventiveness, technical skill, energy

Conversion of St. Paul

Artist: Caravaggio (naturalism in painting)

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: dramatic (spot)light, including viewer

Format: natural

Unique: contrast between light and dark

Spain

Main patron: Hapsburg kings

Las Meninas

Artist: Velazquez

Material: Oil on canvas

Feature: visual and narrative complexity, contrasts between reality, mirror and picture space

Tricks: king and queen representation

Legacy: tonal gradating and effects, later discovered in photography

Flanders

Main patron: Hapsburg dynasty

Elevation of the Cross

Artist: Rubens

Influence: international

Material: oil on canvas

Features: tension, bright light and deep shadow

Dutch Republic

Amsterdam: financial center of Europe

Patrons of art: merchants and manufacturers

Subjects: landscapes, genre scenes, portraits of middle-class, still-life

Self Portrait

Artist: Rembrandt

Importance: ‘psychology of Light’

Format: artists face in soft light, lower body in shadow

Features: dignity and strength, circles in background

Allegory of the Art of Painting

Artist: Vermeer

Influence: master of lighting

Tools: mirrors and camera obscura (dark room, passing light through a dark hole)

France

Main patron: Louis XIV

Et in Arcadia Ego (Even in Arcadia, I)

Artist: Poussin

Subject: ‘grand manner’

Format: balanced figures, classical

Versailles

Architect: Le Brun with an army of architects, decorators, sculptors, painters, landscape artists

Greatest architectural project at the time

Importance: symbol of power and ambition on a huge scale

Plan: large palace and park with a satellite city for court officials

Feature: Hall of Mirrors

Park: designed by Le Notre, gardens, formal to natural

England

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Architect: Wren

Plan: to restore the old church destroyed in Great Fire

Influence: France and Italy

Format: sky line positioning, two towers and dome (tallest in London)

WEEK 12 NOTES

Rococo to Neoclassicism PGS 322-326, 332-336

(The 18th century, Rococo- Watteau and Fragonard, Neoclassicism)

The 18th century

1800: revolutions overthrown monarchy in France

The Industrial Revolution

Result: major transformation in art

Rococo

From French ‘Rocaille’: pebbles, small stones, shells

A style of interior design

Paris: social capital of Europe

Pilgrimage to Cythera

Artist: Watteau

Feature: outdoor amusement of French high society

Material: oil on canvas

Subtle graceful motion, elegant and sweet

The Swing

Artist: Fragonard

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: pastel colours, soft light

Neoclassicism

Importance: a renewed interest in classical world

Main models: Greece and Rome

Oath of the Horatii

Artist: David

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: celebrating Roman heroism

Death of Marat

Artist: David

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: assassination of propaganda minister in French revolution

Art as a political tool

Format: presenting Marat as a tragic hero

WEEK 13 NOTES

Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Degas) PGS 369-371

Intro.

Art movement born in industrial urban Paris as a reaction

Impressionism

Sunrise

Artist: Monet

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: sensations (artist’s personal responses to nature)

Outdoor work

Importance of light and colour due to: scientific studies of light and introduction of synthetic paints (new colours)

Format: using variety of colours, short brushstrokes, light quality

Le Moulin de la Galette

Artist: Renoir

Material: oil on canvas

Feature: lively atmosphere you can hear, floating sunlight, space continuity

The Rehearsal

Artist: Degas

Features: Patterns of motion, figures are random not central, illusion of a continuous floor, blurry images

Post-Impressionism PGS 373-380

(Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne)

Post-Impressionism

Aim: younger artists more interested in the properties and qualities of line, pattern, form, colour

At the Moulin Rouge

Artist: Tolouse-Lautrec

Format: caricature of Paris night life

A Sunday on La Grand Jatte

Artist: Seurat

Feature: focus on colour analysis

Format: deep rectangular space

‘Pointillism’: Calculated arrangement based on colour theory (colours on canvas in tiny dots, images only comprehensible from a distance)

Starry Night

Artist: Van Gogh

Aim: colours and forms to express emotions

Format: abstract, expressive, exploding stars over the earth

Vision after the Sermon

Artist: Gaugin

Format: expressive colours, use of red, rigid, abstract

Feature: women visualizing sermon at church

Basket of Apples

Artist: Cezanne

Genre: still life

Aim: arranging selected objects in order

Feature: analytical painting, abstract

WEEK 14 NOTES

Modernism PGS 386-395, 399-400, 405-407, 415-416

(Global War, Anarchy and DADA, Global Upheaval and Artistic Revolution ‘Avant Garde’: Fauvism, German Expressionism, Primitivism and Cubism, DADA, Surrealism)

Global War, Anarchy and DADA

World War I ‘The Great War’: 9 million+ died

DADA: art movement belief that reason and logic caused war

Global Upheaval and Artistic Revolution ‘Avant Garde’

A time of radical change

Painters and sculptors challenged basics of art’s purposes and forms

“Avant-Garde”: front-guard, French military term, arts are more about exploration

Fauvism

Fauves: wild beasts, liberating colour

Woman with the Hat

Artist: Matisse

Aim: role of colour in meanings

Feature: composition is conventional but colours startling

German Expressionism

Improvisation 28

Artist: Kandinsky

Format: aggressive, spontaneous, expressive

Features: feelings with colour, intersecting lines, spatial relationships

Primitivism and Cubism

Les Demoiselles des Avignon

Artist: Picasso

Importance: radical new method of representing form in space

Feature: space intertwined with bodies

Influence: Iberian and African sculptures

DADA

Reactionary movement to insanity of war

An attitude, not a single identifiable style

Fountain

Artist: Duchamp

Material: porcelain

Feature: “readymade” sculpture (mass produced common objects selected by artists)

Aim: see objects in new light

Surrealism

Influence: Dada, Freud and Jung (Psychologists)

Aim: engaging fantasy and activating the unconscious

The Persistence of Memory

Artist: Dali

Format: empty space where time has ended, details with precise control

WEEK 15 NOTES

Post-Modernism Pgs 423-427, 433-435

(Art and Consumer Culture, Aftermath of WWII, Painting, Sculpture and Photography: Post-war Expressionism in Europe, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art)

Art and Consumer Culture

Post-World War II: interest in abstraction

Art more accessible to average person

Aftermath of WWII

Conflict and tension

Painting, Sculpture and Photography

Sense of despair and disillusion

“The war to end all wars”: 35 million died

Post-war Expressionism in Europe

Man Pointing

Artist: Giacometti

Material: bronze

Aim: existentialist’s humanity

Format: rough surfaces, sense of isolation (lost in the world)

Abstract Expressionism

Western art shifted from Paris to NY

Lavender Mist

Artist: Pollock

‘Action painting’: emphasis on creative process of drips, splatters, paint dribbles, spider web

Tools: sticks and brushes

Pop Art

Origin: England

Success: USA (because of richer consumer culture)

Short for: “popular art”, mass culture and imagery of contemporary urban environment

Hopeless

Artist: Lichtenstein

Material: oil and synthetic polymer paint

Feature: melodramatic scenes with balloons

Technique: printing ‘dots’ and mass production of image

Green Coca-Cola Bottles

Artist: Warhol

Material: Oil on canvas

Feature: advertising and mass media

Technique: printing images endlessly but each bottle slightly different

Aim: repetition