Formal Analysis
This element of design addresses the hues that the artist has chosen for a painting, including how light or dark those hues are.
What is color?
This ancient civilization placed high value on living a moral and ethical life, doing good for others and abiding by the laws, because they wanted to be granted access to the afterlife.
What is Ancient Egypt?
Though this sculpture was used only as a model for more sculptures to be copied from, it shows us that the Egyptian people believed the queen represented the ideal standard of beauty.
What is the Bust of Nefertiti?
This time period is a large umbrella that includes both the Paleolithic and the Neolithic time periods.
What is the Prehistoric Period?
All three of the ancient civilizations that we studied practiced this type of religious belief system.
What is polytheism?
This element of design addresses how an artist might try to make an image look three dimensional (3D) through techniques like foreshortening or adding shadows.
What is form?
This time period encompasses the earliest people groups that were nomadic hunter-gatherers, traveling around to follow their food sources in nature.
What is the Paleolithic Period? (Or, What is the Old Stone Age?)
Though we don't know the functional purpose of this artwork, it tells us how clearly defined the social hierarchy was to this culture, emphasizing the king as the most important person of all.
What is the Standard of Ur?
In this time period, many different people groups began to settle down into permanent locations and begin cultivating agriculture and raising livestock spontaneously.
What is the Neolithic Period?
This ancient civilization built temples in the Doric style.
What is Archaic Greece?
This principle of design addresses how two elements that are right next to each other are totally different.
What is contrast?
This "event" in human history marked the point at which once nomadic people groups began to settle down in permanent civilizations and raise their own crops and livestock.
What is the Neolithic Revolution?
In this painting, we can see how the ancient Egyptians tried to live ethical lives so that they could get into the afterlife.
What is the Last Judgment of Hunefer?
Paleolithic people groups were characterized by this style of living in which they would move around from place to place, as food sources and climate demanded.
What is nomadic?
This ancient civilization was most interested in conquering local people groups to expand their empire, which is ironic since they only survived for a few hundred years.
What is Mycenae?
This principle of design addresses how the left side and the right side of a canvas may or may not contain the same amount of images or visual weight.
What is balance?
Citizens of these ancient Greek city-states did not consider themselves one united Greek nation, but rather as mini-nations independent of one another.
What is a polis?
This style of pottery emphasizes characters and stories that the ancient Greek people would have been familiar with, showing us how important their cultural traditions were to them.
What is Archaic Style?
We have to be careful how we interpret artworks from this time period because there are no written records so we can't be sure what the people's intentions were.
What is the Prehistoric Period?
This important technology was developed by the Mesopotamian civilizations, allowing water to be moved from natural resources to desert regions.
What is irrigation?
In the Standing Male Worshipper from Tell Asmar, this principle of design works by drawing our attention to the praying hands and the wide eyes.
What is emphasis?
This ancient civilization was all about living a lavish lifestyle, make technological advancements that would improve quality of life, such as plumbing.
What is Minoa?
This style of sculpture didn't depict specific women, but rather it celebrated the ancient Greek ideal of youthful beauty.
What is Kore?
In this time period, new technologies such as textiles and pottery were developed.
What is the Neolithic Period?
This style of writing in which images represented ideas or words, was used by multiple ancient civilizations.
What are hieroglyphs?