[UNIT ONE: THE ANCIENT WORLD]
P A G E | 1 Summary and Study Guide Introduction to Unit 1: The Ancient World The human race existed for many millennia before producing works of art. We do not know how or when art began; but since their appearance, the arts have provided us with visual records of cultures, of history, and of the human creative impulse. Art was born around 25,000 years ago, when the subhuman Neanderthal evolved into our human ancestor, Cro‐
Magnon man. With greater intelligence came imagination and the ability to create images in both painting and sculpture. Architecture came into being with the construction of ritual monuments. Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France c 13,000 BCE Third Chinese Horse Photo© LaCour Slide Library Living With Art Slide Set Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) artists carved small‐scale sculptures and painted life‐size images on cave walls. In Neolithic (New Stone Age) periods, when settled communities formed, monumental stone architecture began. For thousands of years, as civilizations waxed and waned, these three art forms — painting, sculpture, and architecture — embodied the ambitions, dreams, and values of their cultures. Although early artists are anonymous, most of what we know about their societies comes from the art they left behind. The rise of cities and the invention of writing (c. 3000 B.C.), in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), ushered in a period of enormous artistic creativity, including the first literary epic – the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ancient Egypt was home to one of the world's longest‐lasting civilizations, ruled from about 3100 B.C. to 31 B.C. by dynasties of pharaohs. Their monumental royal art has been preserved by elaborate burials and a dry climate. Ruins of Mesopotamian ziggurats and bas‐relief sculpture, as well as Egyptian pyramids, testify to complex civilizations. Greek art reached a pinnacle of beauty as respect for the individual flourished in Athens, and Roman relics attest to the might of the greatest empire in the ancient world. Venus of Willendorf (stone) 3/4 view 25,000‐20,000) or (15,000‐10,000 BC, Vienna, NatHistMus. Photo© LaCour Slide Library Living With Art Slide Set Ziggurat of King Urnammu, Ur c 2500 B.C. Ziggurat of King Urnammu, Ur (El Muqeiyar), Iraq. c 2500 BC (northeastern façade, with restored stairs), Photo© LaCour Slide Library Living With Art Slide Set Photo© LaCour Slide Library Living With Art Slide Set North of Egypt, Cycladic artists created marble idols dating from the Bronze Age (c. 3000–1100 B.C.). On the Mediterranean island of Crete, the palace period of the seafaring Minoans flourished from about 2000 B.C., but declined when the island was invaded around 1400 B.C. by the Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland. The warrior culture of Mycenae is immortalized not only in its impressive art and architecture, but also in the Homeric epics that recount the Trojan War (c. 1180 B.C.) and its aftermath – the Iliad and Odyssey – and in the dramatic works of later Greek playwrights. Artists became increasingly accomplished in representing the human figure in realistic space until the Middle Ages, when art changed radically. With the triumph of Christianity, interest in the body and the world plummeted. Stylized painting and sculpture existed only to teach religion and adorn cathedrals — the true masterpieces of the middle ages. From 25,000 B.C. to A.D. 1400, the history of art is not a story of progress from primitive to sophisticated or simple to complex — only a story of the varied forms the imagination has taken in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Female Cycladic idol, Amorgos, 2700 – 2300 B.C. Marble 4 ft. 10.5 in. high National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece Photo© LaCour Slide Library Living With Art Slide Set