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Module 4
Why Study Art History?
Why Study Art History?
10 reasons:
10 reasons:
to understand better what we see when looking at art
to learn how many artists are influenced by other artists
to understand better how art reflects different cultures and contexts
to grasp how different forms of art travel between countries and continents
to appreciate diverse forms of art
to learn how to analyze a picture
to exercise critical faculties
to understand art in a contextual way
to understand the chronology of art history
to learn about other cultures, through art
Lithic..means stone
Paleo means old...thus Paleolithic="Old Stone" age
Meso...means middle..Mesolithic
Neo means new... Neolithic
You are all now budding art historians!
The most significant change from the Paleolithic to Neolithic periods was the invention of agriculture. This allowed humans to settle into larger groups, produce a more reliable food source, and pave the way for civilization to develop.
The Beginnings of Art
The Beginnings of Art
Modern Humans, or homo sapiens, first appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago. When they began to make art depends on what you consider to be "art". If you understand art to be something like paintings or sculptures, then the first such works appeared about 40,000 years ago (Venus of Hohle Fels). If by "art" you mean anything that serves an aesthetic purpose such as ritual decoration then you could say art began about 350,000 years ago (paint and paint making tools from Lusaka, Zambia), predating the appearance of homo sapiens!
Rick Steves is a well-known travel writer, his style is amusing, informal, and informative.
One certain thing is that our knowledge of the origins of art is patchy at best, and constantly changing as discoveries are continually being made.
45,000 year old Warty Pig! Watch Here
What was thought to be the oldest before: The Venus of Hohle Fels for example was only just discovered in 2008. Anybody taking this class before then would have been taught something different! So we need to keep this in mind as we proceed. We should not forget, that anything we can say about art "history" especially pre-historic art, must always be taken with a 'grain of salt'.
Warty Pig, Indonesia
Venus of Hohle Fels, Germany
Stonehenge
From 1986-2000, I lived in England. I had read about, and seen photos of Stonehenge before, but what amazed me the most when I saw them in person for the first time, was how much smaller they seemed compared to all of the photos I had seen before. And the whole circle was literally in the middle of a field on the side of the road! This photo, with the sheep and the person in the background gives you a good idea of it's size. Thinking about how the people who made this "henge" (a prehistoric monument consisting of a circle of stone or wooden uprights.) did it over 5 thousand years ago, gives us pause for thought!
Stonehenge is a Neolithic / Bronze Age monument located on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, southern England. The first monument on the site, began around 3100 BCE, was a circular ‘henge’ earthwork about 360 feet (110 metres) in diameter, a 'henge' in the archaeological sense being a circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed by a boundary earthwork.
10 Fun Facts about Stonehenge
10 Fun Facts about Stonehenge
- Some might see it as just a simple circle of stones but for its time Stonehenge would have been the most sophisticated prehistoric stone circle ever to be constructed.
- It was built so long ago there are no written records of it from ancient history.
- Remains of 63 skeletons have been excavated from Stonehenge and carbon dated as far back as 3000BC – over 5000 years ago.
- The stones extend underground, we only see three quarters of the stones exposed – the largest stone stands nearly 22 feet above ground, with 7 foot submerged in the earth below.
- You might be surprised that it took over 1000 years for the ancient tribes to build Stonehenge and it’s a project that was likely never ever completed.
- Stonehenge may have very likely been an ancient calendar as it allowed people to record the passage of the Sun between the longest and shortest days of the year (the Summer and Winter Solstice).
- The stone circle was only raised in 2500 BC and it’s not actually a true “henge” as its ditch is outside the raised earthwork – it needs to be inside to be considered a true “henge”.
- Stonehenge was started 500 years before the first Pyramids were built (though only as a simple earthwork enclosure, nothing too spectacular then).
- The two biggest stones weigh more than 22 tons each and somehow Stone Age people, equipped only with stone and bone tools, moved them huge distances across heavily wooded terrain.
- In 1915 the land was sold at auction for £6600 which is around £890,000 today.
Recap and More:
Recap and More:
Paleolithic: 2 million years to 10,000 BC. Stone Tools, Nomadic
Mesolithic Period: 12,000 BC – 6,000 BC. Beginnings of hunting and gathering and fishing settlements
Neolithic: 9,000 BC - 3,000BC Agriculture, Farming, Livestock, Division of Labor, Urbanization
Paleolithic art, think - Naturalistic (lifelike) cave figures, things looking like animals.
Mesolithic...think migration and changes are coming..
Neolithic Period – Geometric Abstraction Because these people were now settling in place, they began to make pottery and when decorating the pots the images had to look good on the shape of the pots. So, they came up with Geometric Abstraction.
Mesopotamia: Please watch....
Statue of Prince Gudea with a Vase of Flowing Water (detail), Neo-Sumerian period, about 2120 BC, dolerite. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Image © Scala/Art Resource, NY
The Fertile Crescent and Egypt
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