Notes: Art History Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1

prehistory - the period before recorded history.

sculpture-in-the-round - refers to a three dimensional sculpture carved free of any background or block.

anachronism - in general it means that something is out of it's time period but in this instance we are referring to the practice of giving an ancient artwork a new name when it's original title is unknown. For example if we were all killed by a dirty bomb today and aliens dug up the Mona Lisa a million years from now and name it Smiling Human Buffalo Hybrid 616.

Relief Sculpture - a three dimensional image or design whose flat background surface is carved away to a certain depth setting off the figure.

High Relief - is where the subjects extend out from at least half their depth from a relief sculpture.

Bas (low) Relief - where the subjects have less depth than they would in real life. Coins are examples of bas reliefs.

relative dating - a method of dating an item based on where it was found or by what is on or involved with the item. For example a painting of Napoleon would have had to have been painted sometime after he was born.

Absolute Dating - a method of dating using scientific procedures such as radiological or carbon dating.

radiometric dating - all matter contains a certain amount of radioactive material relative to it's contents when it is born. That material degrades over time at a constant rate. If you know that rate then you can compare the amount of radioactive material to the amount that has decayed to determine how old an item is.

megalithic architecture - structures made out of large stones.

henge - a prehistoric construct consisting of a circular pattern of upright stones or wooden pillars.

Post-and-lintel - (also called prop and lintel or a trabeated system) is a building system where strong horizontal elements are held up by strong vertical elements with large spaces between them. This is usually used to hold up a roof, creating a largely open space beneath, for whatever use the building is designed for.

Chapter 2

Mesopotamia - "land between rivers" ancient Iraq.

Sumerians (5000-1750 BCE) - lived in Sumer (Land of the Civilized Kings) the Southern part of Mesopotamia. They referred to themselves as "the black headed people" and called their land "the land of the black headed people". The Sumerian city of Uruk (Uruk period 4100- 2900 BCE) is believed to be the oldest city in the world but the Sumerians believed that Eridu was where civilization began. Until recently it was thought that their culture was established around 4500 BCE but archeologists have discovered remnants of an even older agricultural civilization that existed in the same area (5000-4100 BCE) called the Ubaids (Ubaid Period) that appears to have been replaced by the Sumerians prior to 4500 BCE. Etana of Kish is the first known king of Sumer. Other notable kings are Dumuzi and Gilgamesh all of which are portrayed as God-men in the King's list which was created to legitimize the throne of Utu-Hegle. By 3600 BCE Sumer civilization had been fully established and either they or the Ubaids before them invented the wheel, sail boats, the first known written script, and the concepts of a city.

Akkadians - (2334-2154 BCE) Centered in the city of Akkad, they are considered the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia eventually absorbing Sumeria through Military conquest. The Akkadians insisted their residents spoke their language and gradually phased out Sumerian and other smaller conquered tribes languages and faiths. Notable leaders include the Biblical king Nimrod whom people think may have been another name for Gilgamesh who's story contains a Biblical flood and utopian garden and similar elements. It is thought that the Akkadian civilization was destroyed by a considerable drought.

Amorites/ Babylonians - (2334-2154 BCE) Centered in the city of Akkad, they are considered the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia eventually absorbing Samaria through Military conquest. They conquered all of Mesopotamia twice establishing many city-states the most famous of which was Babylon. Babylon's first King was Hammurabi author of the Code of Hammurabi which is considered the most fair law ever written.

Neo-Babylonians - (626-539 BCE) The last great king of the Assyria died and created a power vacuum in the region that lead to the Babylonians taking control of the empire until they were all sacked by Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE.

Cuneiform - one of the earliest known examples of writing created using a wedge shaped stylus pressed into a clay tablet.

Registers - A device used in systems of spatial definition. In relief sculpture, the placement of self contained bands in vertical arrangement. Representation of rank structure.

Votive Figures - An image created as a devotional offer to a deity. They acted as a surrogate for someone when they couldn't make it to temple.

Convention - Traditional way of representing forms.

Stele - A stone slab placed vertically and decorated with inscriptions or reliefs. They may be used as a grave marker or commemorative monument.

Hierarchic / hieratic scale - Use of size to illustrate importance.

ziggurat - enormous stepped structures with a temple or shrine on top.

Chapter 3

Ra - Egyptian Sun god depicted as a man with a falcon face and an orange disk above his head.

Osiris - Egyptian God of the Dead depicted as a man wearing white with green skin.

Composite pose - a common pose in ancient Egypt where the lower half was walking forward but the top is facing front. Combines two different points of view.

Canon of proportions - A set of ideal mathematical ratios in art based on measurements, as in the proportional elements of the human body.

Mastaba - a necropolis that could have a multitude of burial chambers. Like mini-pyramids.

Serdab - the burial chamber in a mastaba.

Ka - The Egyptian version of a soul which they believed would live on in the afterlife continuing to do the things they enjoyed in life provided they had a body or statue to possess in the land of the living.

Necropolis - a large graveyard, the Egyptian version would have been particularly large containing mastabas, step pyramids, and traditional pyramids.

Dynasty - line of hereditary rulers of a country. There were 32 Egyptian Dynasties (although it is believed the 7th was made up by a priest named Manetho and the 9th and 10th could technically be considered one dynasty. These dynasties carried through 9 periods:

1. Early Dynastic Period - 1 and 2nd

2. Old Kingdom - 3-6

3. First Intermediate Period - 7-10

4. Middle Kingdom - 11-13

5. Second Intermediate Period - 14-16, Abydos, and 17

6. New Kingdom - 18-20

7. Third Intermediate Period - 21-25

8. Late Period - 26-31

9. Graeco-Roman Period - Argead, Ptolemaic, Roman

Imhotep - Built Djoser's Funerary Complex while he was serving as his Prime Minister. He is currently known as the first architect in history to be credited for a construction.

Step Pyramid - a type of pyramid with clearly defined levels that resemble stairs.

Great Pyramids - Khufu (2551-2528 BCE made of lime stone and granite. The Great Pyramid), Khafre (2520-2494 BCE the pyramid that is in the best condition), Menkaure (2490-2472 BCE).

Karnak - was a long standing sacred site where temples were built and rebuilt over 1500 years. During the nearly 500 years of the New Kingdom the site was called the Great Temple of Amun and it was expanded to the size of 12 football fields.

hypostyle architecture - Large rooms or hallways filled with columns to support the ceiling.

Akhenaten - [Amenhotep IV (c. 1353–1336 bce)], radically transformed the political, spiritual, and cultural life of the country. He founded a new religion honoring a supreme god, the life-giving sun deity Aten (represented by the sun’s disk), and changed his own name in about 1348 bce to Akhenaten (“One Who Is Effective on Behalf of the Aten”). Abandoning Thebes, the capital of Egypt since the beginning of his dynasty and a city firmly in the grip of the priests of Amun, Akhenaten built a new capital much farther north, calling it Akhetaten (“Horizon of the Aten”). Using the modern name for this site, Tell el-Amarna, historians refer to Akhenaten’s reign as the Amarna period.

Art under Akhenaten - Akhenaten’s reign led to radical changes in royal artistic conventions. In portraits of the king, artists used startling stylizations, even physical distortions. Many of the works from this period feature characters with an androgynous almost alien appearance.

Book of the Dead - papyrus scrolls from the 19th dynasty that detailed the journey through the afterlife. Egyptians had come to believe that only a person free from wrongdoing could enjoy an afterlife. The dead were thought to undergo a last judgment consisting of two tests presided over by Osiris, the god of the underworld, and supervised by Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming and cemeteries. After the deceased were questioned about their behavior in life, their hearts—which the Egyptians believed to be the seat of the soul—were weighed on a scale against an ostrich feather, the symbol of Ma’at, goddess of truth, order, and justice. Those that were shown to be unworthy were eaten by Ammit (part crocodile, part lion, part hippopotamus monster) on the order of the ibis-headed god Thoth who grades the exam.

Stokstad, M., Cothren, M. W. Art History. [VitalSource Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780134485058/