August 29th 2023 - ART 102 [1202] // WEEK 1: PREHISTORIC ART - Titles of artworks are usually italicized much like the titles of books. TIMELINE OF ART - Prehistory BCE - 25,000 BCE - Ancient Egyptians - 2,000 BCE - Roman Empire - 0 CE - Rise of Islam - 700 CE - Gothic Period - 1300 CE Apollo 11 Cave Stones, Namibia, quartzite, c. 25,500-25,300 B.C.E. - Back then, there was only access to stone tools, and the pigments they had access to back then were just earth tones. They took anything they could and ground it into a powder; Color is nothing more than powdered pigment with a binder. Woman of Willendorf, c. 28,000-25,000 BCE, limestone, Austria - Scientists started discovering sculptures of women's figures. This specific sculpture is very famous and was discovered in Austria but that doesn't mean it is currently in Austria. When it comes to art history, where the artwork is now is of secondary importance, the origin is the most important thing involving its location. - This sculpture is from the PALEOLITHIC PERIOD. and is a SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND. - PALEOLITHIC PERIOD: "Old Stone'' period, earliest periods of the Stone Age. - SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND: a sculpture that can be seen from all sides (a 3D sculpture) VISUAL OBSERVATION VERSUS VISUAL ANALYSIS - The first step in art historical analysis is to describe what it is you're seeing. And you need to verbalize that, and you need to write it down. Because after you establish what it is you're seeing THEN you can analyze what you're seeing, give it meaning, etc. You will lose your audience if you do not establish what it is you're seeing. Your audience will trust and believe your analysis more if you include your observation. QUESTION!: (You are viewing the following sculpture: Woman of Willendorf, c. 28,000-25,000 BCE, limestone, Austria) 1. Provide a visual observation (What do you see?): A:I see an almost cartoonish sculpture made of stone of a very curvy humanoid woman using her forearms to embrace (?) the top of her breasts while resting upon them. This sculpture is by no means realistic at all, especially since she lacks a face, but it does a very good job at conveying body weight and body type and looks smooth and round despite being made of a rugged, dull, and hard material such as a stone (specifically limestone). Despite being faceless, the head of the sculpture features textured patterns which could be interpreted as hair or even a knitted hat, I do not know if knitted hats existed during this time so I do not know how accurate of an observation this could be though. She seems to have legs but absolutely no feet or very exaggeratedly small feet. She has no ears alongside her lack of facial features. 2. Visual analysis (the interpretation of visual observation): A:The exaggeration and emphasis on her body could very well symbolize and suggest that she is a fertility goddess OR associated with fertility/motherhood/womanhood. Her being faceless could also mean that her face doesn't matter, only her body does which could be either a social commentary of the time or someone just making art to feed a certain need that isn't so safe for work. The small size of the sculpture might suggest that this sculpture was a portable sculpture especially since the culture was very nomadic of the time. Historically, depictions of the female body in art were straight from the male gaze, so its very likely this sculpture was made by a man. The sculpture could have had feet that broke off before it was recovered in Austria. Hall of Bulls, Lascaux, France, 15,000 BCE, Palelotiithic - Depictions of wild mammals, usually prey (hunted by humans), larger-than-life-size depictions of bulls above our eye level - What is the purpose of these cave paintings?: - Religious: worship of the animals they hunted (primarily the bull) - Teaching: to teach generation(s) of future hunters, or to teach the hunt and anatomy of the animal depicted. - Most likely painted with a mixture of saliva and pigment. Saliva is a natural binder but very unsanitary. You could grind up color pigment with your teeth and spit it out, which will give it the consistency and texture to spread it and use it like paint. - These paintings were more than likely painted on the celings of these caves. - About the teaching purpose above, if you cannot teach a future generation or teach future generations with a written form, you might as well substitute it with a visual form such as these cave paintings. - COMPOSITE VIEW: the combination of a profile and frontal view. A COMPOSITE VIEW gives the impression of movement and connects these paintings to the importance of hunting - The artist here is combining the four legs you see on the profile view, and the two horns you see on the frontal view; creating a COMPOSITE VIEW as it's compositing the profile and frontal views. - The artist wanted to convey dynamism and movement within static art and a COMPOSITE VIEW does the job well. Running Horned Woman/Archers, 6,000 BCE-4,000 BCE, pigment on rock, Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria - Further emphasizing the theme of hunting that Hall of Bulls, Lascaux, France, 15,000 BCE, Palelotiithic enforces. Bison, France, c. 13,000 BCE - RELIEF SCULPTURE: A 2D sculpture, can be viewed from one side only. This is the opposite of a SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND - This sculpture is clay over a rock formation. - The Parthenon is decorated entirely in RELIEF SCULPTURES Catalhoyu, Turkey, 7,100-5,700 BCE: The start of the Neolithic period. - This is a settlement discovered in Turkey - One of the earliest settlements in History - During the Neolithic period people stopped being Nomads. People are starting to settle down. - As we progressed things happened naturally when we went from being nomads to settling down. Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England, 2,900-1,500 BCE, Neolithic - Earliest example of monumental and permanent architecture - Use of large and heavy stones to ensure its permanence - Stones transported from afar and then the top stone is secured by capstones. The stones used in Stonehenge were cut from the bedrock nearby its location. The stones used in Stonehenge were also 25 feet tall. - Stonehenge was a result of cutting, transporting, and arranging stones in a particular and precise manner. - Salisbury is located in the south of England. - Construction of Stonehenge started in 3000 BCE and continued for a thousand years. - The stones weigh about 30 tons each - Capstones have dents to fit two stones tightly together - The entrance is a large stone known as the "heel stone" - Stonehenge is precisely in line with the sun on the day of the Summer solstice, and the opposite occurs on the day of the Winter solstice. - The layout of Stonehenge is a circle, but inside it is a u-shaped design. That u-shape itself is aligned with the heel stone of Stonehenge. - People at the time associated wood with living matter and stone with the dead; we today still associate stone with the dead in the form of Tombstones/Gravestones - Possible purposes for Stonehenge are as follows: - People believe Stonehenge was an ancient astrological observation center or a Temple where Sun worshippers performed rituals. - The heel stone marks the Summer and Winter solstices - Stonehenge was used as a burial site more than likely as they found human remains (specifically bones of 57 people) - POST AND LINTEL CONSTRUCTION: a type of construction in which two posts support a crosspiece, or lintel, that spans the equal distance between them, allows architects to evenly distribute the weight and built multistory structures and different archways. You can use this form of construction to build doorways as well. This type of construction also allowed Stonehenge to have maximum permanence. - What we see with Stonehenge and the POST AND LINTEL CONSTRUCTION it uses is the beginning of architecture. - What does the LITHIC suffix mean?: Stone. LITHIC CONSTRUCTION = STONE CONSTRUCTION - MEGALITHIC: Big stones. - MONOLITHIC: One stone. - Stonehenge predates the Easter Island Heads/Moai by about 4,000 years (Moai were built in 1,000 CE) Plastered human skull with shell eyes from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, c. 7200 B.C.E. - The core of the sculpture is a human skull which is used as a foundation, and humans have figured out that mud can work as an adhesive as it hardens when it dries so it can be used for sculptures at the time. This was revolutionary at the time. Figures of a woman and man, c. 4,500 BCE - Very big advancements were made around this time. People figure out they can bake clay and make what we know as CERAMIC. - CERAMIC: Baked clay. That's all there is to it. - More art forms means more ways for artists to express themselves. You can really see how much art has developed by now compared to the first sculpture we saw being the Woman of Willendorf, c. 28,000-25,000 BCE, limestone, Austria - This specific CERAMIC sculpture is carbonate.
