Prehistoric: The First Artists
• The first humans started inventing art
approximately 25,000 years ago.
• When the hunter-gatherers were still living
in caves, the Neanderthal tool-making
mentality gave way to the Cro-Magnon
urge to make images.
• The first creations were made in an
attempt to control or appease natural
forces. Early symbols of animals and
people had supernatural significance and
magic powers.
Cave Paintings of Lascaux
•
•
•
Clear descriptive contour lines but also low relief to show form
Mostly used to educate (many found gouges in rock from spears, game portrayed pierced with
arrows)
Spiritual reason for illustration ie have power over animals before a hunt
First Paintings
• Made in caves 15,000 years ago
• Eg 1879 Marcelino de Sautuola discovery
with his daughter of Altamira caves in
Spain, 1940 Lascaux France
• Pictures of bison, deer, horses, cattle,
mammoths and boars
• Located in most remote recesses of
caves, far from inhabited sunlit entrances
• Low relief , natural media of charcoal,
earth pigments, hand prints, fat used to
mix, bones as airbrush of pigments
Uluru Australia
Contemporary Example
Ulluru Australia
Placement of caves
Circles = Water
Circle = Water eg ripples of
stone in water
Peterborough Petroglyphs
• a remarkable collection of
over 900 ancient images
carved into crystalline
limestone located near
Peterborough in Ontario,
Canada
History
• After being lost for centuries, the
Peterborough Petroglyphs was
rediscovered by historian Charles Kingam
in 1924.
• The limestone at Peterborough is
generally believed to have been carved by
the Algonkian people between 900 and
1400 AD. Today, the First Nations people
of Ontario call the carvings
Kinomagewapkong, meaning "the rocks
that teach."
Other Theories of the
Petroglyphs
•
•
•
•
However, there are several other theories of the date and authors of the remarkable
petroglyphs:
Retired Harvard professor Barry Fell believes the petroglyphs are inscriptions by a
Norse king named Woden-lithi (Servant of Odin), who was said to have sailed from
Norway up the St. Lawrence River in about 1700 BC.
Mayanologist David H. Kelley viewed the petroglyphs and declared that some of the
symbols were European, dating perhaps to ca. 1000 BC
According to Andis Kaulins and Megaliths.co.uk, the petroglyphs are a sky map of the
heavens from c.3117 BC based on European tradition; they have nothing to do with
Native American traditions.
Imagery
•
•
•
The Peterborough Petroglyphs consist of
more than 900 individual images, which are
carved into a slab of crystalline limestone
180 feet (55 m) long and 100 feet (30 m)
wide. About 300 of these are discipherable
shapes, including humans, shamans,
animals, solar symbols, geometric shapes
and boats.
The boat drawings among the petroglyphs
do not resemble the traditional boat of the
Native Americans. One solar boat — a
stylized shaman vessel with a long mast
surmounted by the sun — is typical of
petroglyphs found in northern Russia and
Scandanavia.
A fissure in the rock is thought to have been
revered as the entrance to the underworld
or the symbolic womb of the Earth Mother.
A fissure in the
rock is thought to
have been
revered as the
entrance to the
underworld or
the symbolic
womb of the
Earth Mother
Venus of Willendorf
• 25,000 -20,000 BCE
• Approximately 4
inches in height
• Nomadic culture
• First example of
Exaggerated features
• No facial features
• Emphasis on fertility
• Presently found in the
Museum of Natural
History NYC.
Early Monumental Sculpture &
Architecture
• Once the glaciers receded and the climate
grew more temperate, the Paleolithic or
Old Stone age was replaced by the
Neolithic or New Stone age.
• Humans emerged to become herdsmen
and farmers and created a secure food
supply
• They began the first monumental sculpture
in 5000 BCE eg colossal architecture of
massive upright stones.
Early Forms of Architecture
• Dolmen ie large vertical stones with a
covering slab like a giant table
• Menhir ie single stone set on its end
(largest is 164 feet long and weighs 350
lbs)
• Cromlech eg circular arrangement of
stones eg Stone Henge
Dolmen ie large vertical stones with a covering slab like a
giant table
Menhir ie single stone set on its end (largest is 164 feet long and
weighs 350 lbs)
Cromlech eg Stone Henge
Location of Stone Henge
History of Stone Henge
• Believed to be the
creation of an
ancient race or
giants or (in the
Middle Ages)
conjured and
transplanted from
Ireland by Merlin
the Magician
Stone Henge
• Post & lintel with
indents to hold
stones in position
• Each boulder weights
a ton.
• Several bolders:
bluestones, are from
as far away as Wales
• Stones are oriented
towards the position
of the sun and
summer & winter
soltice
• Used as a calender
and as a spiritual
function for sun
worship
Mesopotamia
• The Sumarians of
3500 BCE inhabited
the area of the
Tigres and
Euphrates valley
known as
Mesopotamia which
is now Iraq.
• They invented formal
religion, writing, the
first wheeled vehicle,
mathematics, law
(the first legal code)
and early
Mesopotamians created
the first culture
• From 4500 BCE to 539BCE , while the
rest of Europe was still using stone and
bone tools, the Mesopotamians created a
wealthy culture based on metal working,
organzed food production and trade.
• They studied the stars, invented writing,
wrote epic poetry and invented formal
religion
• They invented the first wheeled vehicle,
mathematics, law (the first legal code) and
early architecture.
Urban Planners
• Mesopotamians created the first massive
towers, monumental buildings designed
with artistic intent and cities.
• Using a sundried, unfired brick (no timber
or stone was available) mortared with
earth as a building block, the
Mesopotamians devised complex cities
around a temple, including workshops,
storehouses, and residential quarters.
Ziggurat of Ur
Structures were made of brick, which was structurally weak,
therefore walls needed to be made thick. (up to 2o feet) and
sometimes reinforced with buttresses (exterior attachments which
helped to hold up the walls)
Ziggurat of Ur
• A Ziggurat was a sign of the king’s power.
• It was conceived as an artificial mountain where
the priest-king could commune with the godsA
Ziggurat was a tall, terraced tower with up to
seven successively smaller stages.
• Since each new ziggurat was built on top of the
previous ruined one (the unfired brick had a
tendancy to dissolve), the stepped format with
connecting monumental staircases became
deliberate.
• The most famous ziggurat , the Tower of Babel
was
Tower of Babel
• The most famous ziggurat , the Tower of
Babel was 600 feet high.
• The Book of Genesis quotes King
Nebuchadnezzer’s order to ‘raise the top
of the Tower that it might rival heaven”.
• Herodotus described the tower as 7
layered, each level faced with glazed tiles
of a different colour.
• 26 tons of gold furnishings and sculpture
filled the interior of the temple.
Ishtar Gate, Babylon
Ishtar Gate
• In Babylon (25 miles south of
Baghdad), reached its peak of
luxury from 605-562 BCE.
• Two of its most famous
architectural achievements:
The Processional Way and
Ishtar Gate.
• It shows the Mesopotamian
style of colourful tiles as
ornament. The four story high
gates have tiles of hundreds of
almost life-size gold bulls and
dragons.
Egypt
• Religious belief in the afterlife and the sun
god Ra was the main focus of Egyptian art
and architecture.
• Immortality depended upon adequately
providing for the deceased. Tombs were
designed to protect the mummified corpse
and its possessions until the end of time.
Egypt
Geographic Isolation
• The pyramids have stayed the same for 5000
years due to construction techniques.
• The desert and mountains provided geographic
isolation
• The Ancient Egyptian civilization flourished for
3000 years from 3100 BCE to 30 BCE when
Cleopatra, the last of the ruling Ptolemies,
pressed an asp to her bosom and choose death
rather than the dishonour of marching to Rome
as a prisoner
• Through the 30 dynasties (rule by one family)
the most notable buildings were religious
Egypt’s Contributions to
Architecture
• The first large-scale, dressed stone buildings
• The first abstract art ie using pure geometric
form to make art in the form of architecture eg
the pyramid
• Invention of the column, capital, cornice, pylon
(towerlike gate in Egyptian temple complex
where thick walls slant inward) and obelisk (tall,
four sided stone pillar, tapered and crowned with
a pyramidal point)
• Fine craftsmanship including carved bas-reliefs
as an integral part of the whole structure.
Earliest form of pyramid eg Step Pyramid of Zoser
(2700 BCE), 204 feet high
Designed by the first known architect, Imhotep
Egyptian Construction Secrets
• They had to clear and level the site, survey it for a perfect square
base and orient its sides precisely without a magnetic compass
• They quarried millions of stones using levers but no cranes or
pulleys.
• Dressed the stones with only stone and soft copper tools and fitted
them together with exact precision without mortor (can fit a knife
between blocks)
• The top of the pyramid was a perfect point.
• The secret was the task force of farmers who were employed during
the 3 months of the year when the Nile flooded. These farmers
quarried stone, some up to 200 tons and floated them up the Nile on
barges. They hauled the stone up huge earthen ramps that wrapped
around the pyramid and were removed after completion.
• A system of bronze mirrors reflected light to the interior of the
pyramid so that workers could create passages deep inside. After
the coffin was placed in the heart of the pyramid, the props were
knocked away and giant blocks came crashing down to block the
entrance.
Pyramids of Giza
Great Pyramid , Chephren and Mycerinus
Pyramids of Giza
• Great pyramid contains 2,300,000 blocks of granite and
limestone, each weighing 2 tons, stacked in 201
ascending tiers.
• Base covers 13 acres or 10 football fields, is an exact
square.
• The square is so level one corner is only a fraction of an
inch higher than its opposite corner.
• Covered with white limestone
and gold capstone so it could
be seen from afar
• Smaller mastabas for nobility
• .
Queen Hapshepshut’s Temple
eg Hypostyle Hall
Mycerinus & His Queen
Egyptian sculpture
• Built on a rigid formula of scale
• Frontal ie sculpure faced forward with one
foot forward
• Engaged ie negative space filled in.
• Culture stayed the same for 1,000s of
years due to isolated geography and
mindset of resistance to change.
Palette of King Narmor
Rosetta Stone
Egyptian hieroglyphics
Descriptive Perspective
ie status = size
Mummies
• Wrapped in linen & oils
• Organs removed to canopic jars
• Brain not considered important and
therefore removed with a hook
• Death mask covered the body
• Body lay in a coffin inside a saracophocus
King Tut
What went into the
tomb
Greece
Greece
• Kore
• Female votive statue
• Clothed with archaic
smile
• Geography based on
mainland and islands so
open to outside
influences
• Citystates encouraged
competition
Kouros
•
•
•
•
•
18-21 years
Nude
Perfect form
Votive statue
Archaic smile
Kritios boy
Kouros with contrapposto
Parthenon
Parthenon
•
•
•
•
Components of a Greek temple eg capital,
Columns, pediment, metope, frieze
Entablature
How did temples evolve from Doric to Ionic
to Corinthian?
Rome
Roman
Pompeii
Pantheon
Pantheon
• How Roman architecture was built for the
masses. How geography of the empire
played a role in creation of roads
• How Roman architecture was based on
the arch and dome eg aquaduct, coliseum
• How the Romans borrowed from the
Greeks eg gods
Coffered
Ceilings
Cross Section of Pantheon
Roman Sculpture
Dying Gaul