Art History
25,000 B.C.- Greek/ Roman
Venus of Willendorf
25,000 B.C.
Slide 1
Venus Of Willendorf
• During the earliest part of the Stone Age, statuettes
like the Venus of Willendorf are found across Europe
from Spain to Russia to the banks of Mesopotamia.
• Archeologists believe that these feminine figures
represent a worship of the Mother Goddess, the
incarnation of fertility.
• These figures, simple and voluptuous, are made of
stone, bone, ivory and clay. They are frequently given
hair in curls or braids, simple garments or belts, and
are sometimes pregnant.
• The Venus of Willendorf was found in Austria, stands 4
½ inches tall and carved of limestone.
Stonehenge
2000 B.C.
Slide 2
Stonehenge
Stonehenge
• Stonehenge seems to have been built in several phases around
2000 B.C., according to recently calculated radiocarbon dates.
Computer-based calculations have raised something of a
controversy-not so much over the date as over the purpose of
Stonehenge, which seems to have been a kind of astronomical
observatory.
• The mysterious structure, believed in the Middle Ages to have been
the work of the magician, Merlin, who spirited it from Ireland, or
the work of a race of giants, comes from our own time to be
thought of as a remarkably accurate calendar.
• Found on the Salsibury Plain in Wilshire, England, some of the
stones reach as high as 17 feet and weigh tons. Historians call
these types of stones Megaliths (great stones) and the culture that
produced them megalithic.
Horses, Bull and Stags
14,000-13,500 B.C.
Slide 3
Horses, Bull and Stags
• The caves at Lascaux, France were discovered
accidentally in 1940 and their paintings are
now generally regarded as the most
outstanding work of all known prehistoric art.
• Incredibly naturalistic pictures of bulls, horses,
mammoths, lions and other animals-hardly
ever men and never women- were painted in
deep underground caves on wet limestone
walls with powdered mineral pigments.
Ancient Egypt
Historians believe Tutankhamun came to the
throne in 1333 BC at the age of nine or ten.
He reigned all of Egypt until his untimely
death at 19. The following artifacts came
from his tomb.
Slide 9
Hieroglyphics
• Tomb, Ancient Egypt
• Egyptians were a practical people who viewed
their life on earth as a short transition to the
"forever." Their art chiefly concerns the daily
activities and exchanges with the gods that would
best serve them for eternity. Painting was not
seperate from the scribal arts. Hieroglyphics
consisted of phonograms (the combination of
sounds), ideograms (pictures of actual things),
and determinatives (to show the meaning of the
words they follow).
King Tut
• In November 1922, an excavation by Howard
Carter and funded by Lord Carnarvon,
uncovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. When
they poked a hole through the debris they
could see gold statues, chariots and furniture.
All were in the tomb to accompany him on his
journey into the afterlife.
Slide 5
King Tutankhmun’s Sarcophagus
• Within 4 gilded and inlaid, heavy wooden
shrines, Carter discovered a richly decorated
sarcophagus of golden-yellow quartz covered
by a pink granite lid that was painted to match
the base. Inside was a nest of three heavy
coffins, the innermost made of solid gold. All
fitted together so tightly that an improvised
crane was needed to lift them out.
Slide 4
King Tutankhamun’s Death Mask
• Inside the last coffin lay Tutankhamun’s mummy,
tightly wrapped in a linen shroud and protected
by an array of more than 100 precious jewels and
charms. The finest of all the treasures, however,
was the fabulous death mask sculpted from
beaten gold. The mask’s image is of the boyking’s young face, made up as Osiris, King of the
Dead, with striped headcloth, pigtail and beard.
The craftsmanship of the mask is exquisite. The
eyes, made of yellow quartz with black obsidian
for the pupils, give the mask an eerie life-life gaze
that still has the power to engage all who see it.
Slide 6
Canopic Jar
• To preserve the dead, Egyptian priests removed
the internal organs, including the heart, liver,
lungs and intestines-the brain was usually
removed via the nose and the skull was filled with
a preservative resin Organs were preserved
separately in special vessels called canopic jars.
The body was washed and rubbed with salt to
remove all moisture, then left to dry for about a
month. It was then rubbed with oils and
perfumes, before packed with sawdust, mud or
sand and wrapped tightly in resin-soaked
bandages.
Slide 7
Scarab
Slide 8
Cartouche
• A cartouche was an oval circle with a name written in
it, rather like a nameplate.
• In the early days of ancient Egypt, a cartouche was
attached to the coffins of kings and queens. As time
went on, many people hired an artist to create a
cartouche for their own coffins.
• The ancient Egyptians believed that you had to have
your name written down somewhere, so that you
would not disappear when you died. By attaching a
cartouche to their coffin, people made sure their name
was written down in one place at least!
Olive Gathering
Antimines Painter,
Greek Art
520 B.C.
Slide 10
Olive Gathering
• Black Figureware. By the Antimenes painter c.520
B.C. British Museum, London.
• The amphora, a jar used to carry oil or wine, provided
the contoured surface for this lively slice of ancient
Greek life.
• The line quality of pottery drawings, which was incised
by a sharp tool, is still respected as skillful and sensitive
today.
• Decorative Greek vases in a variety of shapes depict
many subjects-mythological legends, feasts for the
gods, animals, warriors, athletic contests, and so on.
Discus Thrower
Myrone
Greek Art
450 B.C.
Slide 11
Discus Thrower
• Myron’s representation of an athlete engaged
in the discus throw, still an Olympic event in
the Olympic Games, was revolutionary as a
result of its vigorous and convincing
movement; it has been widely reproduced in
both the ancient and modern worlds.
The Parthenon
Ancient Greeks
450 B.C.
Slide 12
The Parthenon
• Acropolis East. Athens, Greece. c450 B.C.
• The ancient Greeks built the Parthenon entirely
of marble as a shrine to Athena, the goddess of
wisdom.
• This monumental classical temple of the Doric
order stood 65 feet tall; a 40-foot high statue of
Athena made of ivory and gold, was placed
inside!
• The Parthenon did indeed achieve the Greek
ideal of perfection in its grand scale proportional
harmony.
Nike of Samothrace
190 B.C.
Greek Art
Slide 13
Nike of Samothrace
• The goddess of victory is windswept, her
wings still beating, brings strength, weight and
airy grace into the hard mass of sculptured
marble.