Week 1: Prehistoric Art
Week 2: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Aegean
Week 3: Greek Art and Architecture
Week 4: Etruscan, Roman Republic, Roman Empire
Week 5: Early Christian, Byzantine, Medieval, Romanesque
100
What term describes “of or relating to an earth mother goddess”?
Chthonian → think of Woman from Willendorf, 28,000-25,000 BCE
100
What term describes “a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries”?
Fresco
100
What term describes “a type of building in which the main structure is surrounded on all sides by a freestanding colonnade”?
Peristyle or Peripteral Temple
100
What term describes the philosophical position of being indifferent to fortune, pleasure, or pain, but believing that knowledge leads to virtue and harmonious living?
Hint: This position believes all humans should be treated equally & it was the most public philosophical stance in the Roman Republic.
Stoicism
100
Define the term “scriptorium.”
The writing studio of a monastery.
200
Define Shamanism
practice involving a shaman, a “seer” or wizened one, who metaphorically dies or is transformed so as to be able to journey to another world/parallel universe, the true primordial world, where illnesses can be fixed, catastrophes avoided, animals or humans placated, people cured
200
Define “Hierarchy of scale” and provide an example.
The use of proportion or scale to depict the relative importance of the figures in the artwork.
Possible examples: Stele of Hammurabi; Victory Stele of Naram-Sin; Palette of King Narmer, etc.
200
Define Cella and provide an example.
The inner area of an ancient temple, especially one housing the hidden cult image in a Greek or Roman temple.
Ex: Parthenon, Temple of Portunus
200
Define veristic portraiture.
True to natural appearance and “super-realistic”; characterized by lots of wrinkles, pockmarked, sunken features that are not meant to be flattering. Scholars debate whether Republican veristic portraits are truly blunt records of individual features or exaggerated types designed to make a statement about personality: serious, experienced, determined, loyal to family and state (the most admired virtues during the Republic)
200
What is an architectural device used as a transition from a square to a polygonal or circular base for a dome?
squinch
300
Identify the cave images:
1.
2.
3.
1. Caves at Lascaux, France, c. 15,000-13,000 BCE, Hall of the Bulls & Bird-Headed Man with Bison (Connects to various scholarly interpretations of cave paintings (Reinach, Laming-Emperair, Clottes)
2. Cave at Pech-Merle, France, c. 22,000 BCE Spotted horses and negative hand prints (Be able to describe the materials and techniques of paleolithic cave art)
3. Views inside Cave at Chauvet, France, c. 28,000 BC
300
Identify this building (Name, Date, Location). Explain how its structure supports the building’s purpose.
Ziggurat at Ur, Modern Iraq, c. 2100 BCE
A stepped temple, the ascension was meant to bring people closer to the heavens/gods. The Topmost temple was called “a waiting room for the gods.”
300
Label the parts of this Ionic order.
1- Pediment, 2- Frieze, 3- Architrave, 4- Column
300
Identify what is being shown, then describe the design and its implications.
Corinthian order -- more ornate than Doric and Ionic capitals (the “head” on top of the column), consists of a double row of acanthus leaves (tendrils and flowers) wrapped around a bell-shape echinus, tall fluted column, has an elaborate profile for the base; examples are seen in the Colosseum and the Pantheon; working with Greek idea to have a stylistically similar, proportionate oder; Important reminder: the image shows free standing columns but attached/engaged columns (another vocab term from this week) are built into and protrude partially from a wall.
300
Identify this image. What are the Greek letters represented and what do they stand for?
Book of Kells, early ninth century [Ireland]: Chi Rho Iota page. Chi Rho Iota were the first three initials of Christ’s name (in Greek).
400
How do the materials and construction techniques reveal this Neolithic monument to be an impressive achievement?
- Stones are 24 ft sarsen Stones from a quarry 23 miles away, each weighing about 50 - 60 tons. The stones had to be transported on sledges - pulled by rope with timbers rolled in front.
- Calendrical alignment, summer solstice sun emerges over heel stone as seen from the altar.
400
What were Akhenaton’s changes to egyptian belief, artistic conventions, and the royal court?
Egyptian Belief: Akhenaton worshipped Aton and was unique for privileging this one Egyptian God above the others. During his reign, he supported a more monotheistic religion. The deity, Aton, is symbolized in this Stele as the sun disc.
Artistic Conventions: Change in the body canon and proportions - long, thin necks; stretched crania; androgynous bodies. Unusual to have a casual domestic scene.
Royal Court: Coregency between the king and queen. This is depicted by the hierarchy of size (queen and king are equal) as well as the equal size and decoration of their thrones.
400
Define “entasis” and explain three ways in which it was used in the Parthenon.
Entasis - subtle adjustments or optical refinements that give beauty to an architectural structure.
1 - Slight rise in the middle of the stylobate
2 - corner columns are slightly wider in diameter
3 - shorter distance between the corner columns and their neighbors than the center columns.
400
Identify the image and analyze its function.
Sarcophagus w/ reclining couple Painted terracotta (baked clay) ca. 520 BCE Etruscan; funerary monument so inside were ashes from cremation (favored by Etruscans and not by Egyptians for afterlife), originally painted, terracotta fired in a kiln, male and female couple shown reclining on a banqueting couch (distinctly not Greek because they included a woman & they share the couch) with detailed upper half of body → animated expression and body vs summarily molded legs and unnatural transition to the torso at the waist; she was probably holding a perfumed flask in one hand an a pomegranate in the other (symbol of seasonal growth) while he was holding an egg (symbol of rejuvenation and life)
400
Label these four sections of cathedral. (all four are listed on this week’s term list)
1. Nave
2. Transept
3. Apse
4. Side aisle(s).
500
Compare the urban adaptations at Çatal Höyük, Turkey, ca. 6,000 BC with those at Skara Brae
Catal Höyük
Buildings are all connected
No exterior doorways on the ground level, people navigated this town on the rooftops.
The connection between the houses was used as a method of defense against outside invaders.
Houses made of mud bricks.
Skara Brae
Housing units connected by tunnels, tunnels were very short so people had to crouch to walk.
Circular houses built of stone and covered with midden (organic material)
Defense was built into the structure
500
Identify these two structures and compare and contrast.
Palace of Knossos, Crete, ca. 1700 - 1400 BCE.
Iktinos and Kallikrates, Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens, 447 - 438 BCE.
Palace of Knossos
Palace for the King, also used as the center of administration
Maze like plan with a central courtyard
Columns made of wood and painted, larger at the top and tapered at the bottom with bulbous, pillow like capitals
Lavish interior decorations, frescoes on the walls
Parthenon
Temple
Placed on top of an acropolis; elevated to the gods
Doric temple, columns made of carved white marble
Entasis
Decorated with relief sculpture
500
Identify these objects and compare/contrast.
New York Kouros, ca. 600 BCE
Polykleitos, Doryphoros, 450 - 440 BCE
Kouros
Schematized representation (triangular shape to head and chest, exaggerated shapes to knee), abstract
Egyptian precedent that the Greeks borrowed and adapted
Possibly a commemoration sculpture of an athlete or soldier
Reductive sculpture
Doryphoros
More naturalistic
Idealized, sought to portray the ideal human form through perfect proportions
Contrapposto: weight shift with a cross balance; used to capture movement.
Original sculpture was additive but this version is reductive.
500
Compare and contrast the images.
Etruscan 6th-century temple model: wood, sun dried brick, clay front entrance, columned porch one main side (front), colonnade porch + exterior wall (double colonnade), terracotta statues on roof 3 parallel inner chambers proportions, 3 parts/3 tombs but about a half of the structure is a deep porch which creates a clear entrance point (podium based)
Greek Parthenon – Athens: white marble (expensive, hard to work with), approachable from all sides,peripteral – row of columns all around pedimental statues (even, symmetrical); cella in 2 parts/algebraic ratio of proportions likening to the human body, ionic order, frontal ornamentation
- Both temples devoted structures to honor deities, similar ritualistic/ceremonial function
- Key differences in materials, entrance point(s), sculptures, proportioning/looser or wider spread of columns, structure size
500
Compare and contrast the images below
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, 691-2 A.D.
Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, France, Romanesque, ca. 1070-1120
Saint-Sernin:
Basilica plan (nave and transept)
Relief sculptures, figural depictions of religious figures.
Romanesque style architecture
Dome of the Rock:
Centrally planned
Mosaics made of fired tile - no figurative depictions, decorations focus on vegetative and geometric motifs.
Be able to identify Qibla wall (wall facing Mecca), Mihrab (niche in the Qibla wall), Minbar (short flight of steps used as a platform)
Similarities
Both are pilgrimage sites for their religion.
Both have double ambulatories to facilitate the heavy foot traffic (due to pilgrimage).