Artreview Part1a

AP Art History Review

May 2009

Prehistoric Art

• Venus of Willendorf: reproductive organs are emphasized while other parts are smaller

Prehistoric Art

• Cave paintings most famously found at Lascaux and Chauvet Cave in France. They depict animals with a sense of vitality and movement. No humans or landscapes.

Prehistoric Art

• Stonehenge is believed to be a solar calendar built over 4,000 years ago.

• Stonehenge impacted modern day art such as Holt’s “Sun Tunnels” from the 1970s

Art of the Ancient Near East

• Ziggurats were the center of a temple complex that formed a city within a city. Votive statues represented the people who couldn’t visit because of work.



• The Standard of Ur: 4-sided rectangular box made with shell and lapis lazuli.

• Tells a narrative with a ‘peace’ side and ‘war’ side. 3 horizontal bands (registers) divide each panel.

• The ruler’s high status is seen with his enlarged size [called hierarchical scale].


• The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is an upright stone slab commemorating Naram-Sin’s victory over the Lullubi. He wears a horned helmet, which, in Mesopotamian times, symbolized divinity. 3 stars symbolize support by gods.

• The sculptor doesn’t use registers to tell the story, but rather, troops are marching up a steep mountain and the defeated Lullubi fall down to the bottom.

Art of the Ancient Near East• Hammurabi’s code helped

unify groups within his empire and was the first known written law code.

• Sculptors depict Hammurabi and god Shamash in bas (low) relief. Shamash is sitting in a throne wearing a horned headdress extending a rod and ring (power) to Hammurabi. Close link between humans and divinity.


• The Assyrians conquered Mesopotamia and their rulers created vast palaces with “beasts of the mountains fashioned out of limestone” for protection known as Lamassus.

• Were five-legged bulls with human heads. The fifth leg made the creature appear to be striding from the side and standing upright from the front.


• Warrior-kings decorated palace rooms with large alabaster panels chronicling their military exploits and lion hunts. Showed power, such as “The Dying Lioness”

Art of the Ancient Near East• Babylon became a big city

after the Assyrian collapse. The Ishtar Gate was named after the Ishtar, the goddess of love, fertility and war.

• Made of dark blue-glazed bricks and double-arched, with horned dragons and bulls covering across the walls. The regal lions point to way to the great ziggurat of Babylon [the Tower of Babel].


• The Persians rose to power. They had a citadel in Persepolis with an apadama (audience hall) and 36 columns surmounted by bull’s heads of gray limestone.

Ancient Egyptian Art

• The Palette of Narmer is one of the world’s first historical works of art. Its two sides commemorate the unification of upper and lower Egypt and serves as a make up palette. Each side is divided into registers and Narmer is shown of hierarchical scale, towering above his enemies.


• Mastabas were flat-topped, single-story trapezoidal structures used to house sarcophagi in an underground burial chamber.


• Architect Imhotep created a pyramid with stepped construction of 6 mastabas on top of one another. Made out of limestone, held King Djoser’s mummy.


• Old Kingdom sculptures were made to hold one’s Ka. Designed out of dionite to last forever. The Khafre Ka Statue is an excellent example, with his body regal and compact. The falcon god Horus protects him.


• Horus!


• The Statue of King Menkaura and Queen Khamerernebty show common depictions of Egyptian human figure – youthful, idealized. Their upright rigid pose influenced early Greek sculpture.


• The Seated Scribe is not as idealized as royalty statues, with formality relaxed and realism increased as a human’s importance decreases.


• In the Middle Kingdom, leaders were buried in rock-cut tombs hallowed out of the faces of cliffs. Paintings depicting daily life covered chamber walls. With rulers facing many challenges, statues, like that of Senusret III, depicted an anxious yet determined face.

Ancient Egyptian Art• In the New Kingdom, the

first great female monarch was Hatshepsut. She constructed a funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri designed by Sehenmut. It rose from the valley floor in 3 colonnaded terraces connected by ramps.

• Statues of Hatshepsut lined the temple. Sculptors were unsure how to portray her so she had a mix of male and female characteristics.


• Akhenaton disavowed Egypt’s traditional gods and found a new religion based on a single god, Aton.

• Developed a new style called Amarna style, which emphasized naturalistic representations, refined sensuality and intimacy.


• Bust of Nefertiti: femininity, Amarna smile, unique neck lines


• Relief of Akhenaton’s family: curvalinear.

• Sunken relief is where outlines are carved on the surface and the figure is modeled within them.


• New Kingdom pharaohs had pylon temples built to honor the gods and emphasize their own power. Two pylons [gateways] flanked the entrance with a hypostyle hall.

Aegean Art

• Cycladic statuettes found in stone tombs, often depicted nude women. Men were portrayed as musicians.

• Pure line and extreme abstraction.

• Made of crystaline white marble.

Aegean Art

• Knossos palaces contained fresco paintings.

• Fresco is a technique where artists paint on the plaster surface of a wall or ceiling while still damp.

• Portrayed lively people with a zest for athletic contests, festivals, and stylish dress. Women had social equality.

• The Minoans had a close relationship with the natural environment.

Aegean Art

• Yay fresco!

Aegean Art

• Yay fresco!

Aegean Art

• Yay fresco!

Aegean Art

• Yay fresco!

Aegean Art

• Sculptors carved statuettes like the Snake Goddess, who represented fertility I think.

Aegean Art• Mycenae had the Lion’s Gate,

which had 2 massive stone posts supporting a lintel, which, above, had a corbel arch.

• Corbelling is technique which stones are laid so that each course projects slightly beyond the course below it which consequently created an irregular arch.

• Above the lintel, a relieving triangle reduced the weight pressing down on the horizontal lintel.

Aegean Art

• When Mycenaean royalty died, they were laid to rest outside the citadel in a tholos, which was a beehive-shaped tomb covered by an earthen mound.

Aegean Art

• Graves were found with treasures and golden funeral masks around the Lions Gate. Made from repousse – hammering a metal plate from the back, leaving raised features on the front of the mask.

Education

Artreview Part1a