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| Paleolithic Art survives mostly in two forms: Paintings on cave walls and smaller objects carved from bone or stone. It's most frequent subject is the animal-most often those animals that people depended on for food. These renderings of animal forms are incredible lively and naturalistic, though their function and meaning are not well understood. In comparison, when the human figure is depicted, it is much more abstract. |
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| During the Neolithic period, humans domesticated animals and raised their own plants for food, leading to a more settled way of life. Architecture was made from more permanent materials than the earlier Paleolithic dwellings. The Formation of human communities resulted in increased specialization and new technologies, such as pottery making. Sculpted and painted representations give evidence of developing religious practices and concern for the dead. Other innovations include large-scale stone structures for burial and other monuments, which many scholars see as tools for making the passage of the seasons. |
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More than 4,000 years ago the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers began to teem with life--first the Sumerian, then the Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian empires. Here too excavations have unearthed evidence of great skill and artistry.
From Sumeria have come examples of fine works in marble, diorite, hammered gold, and lapis lazuli. Of the many portraits produced in this area, some of the best are those of Gudea, ruler of Lagash.
Some of the portraits are in marble, others, such as the one in the Louvre in Paris, are cut in gray-black diorite.
Dating from about 2400 BC, they have the smooth perfection and idealized features of the classical period in Sumerian art.
Sumerian art and architecture was ornate and complex. Clay was the Sumerians' most abundant material. Stone, wood, and metal had to be imported.
Art was primarily used for religious purposes. Painting and sculpture was the main median used. |
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| The art of this time focuses on exhibiting the status and power of male rulers. Their victories in war and laws are recorded on upright stone slabs. |
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| Blend of Sumerian traditions and Akkadian traditions. Building great Ziggurats to local gods was an act of piety and power. Following the example of the Akkadians, these Sumerian rulers took pains to represent themselves in permanent materials and in monumental form. |
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| After a period of war and turmoil, the region was unified under the rule of the Babylonian dynasty. The most famous ruler of this period was Hammurabi, who combined military prowess with a respect of sumerian tradition. He is best known for his law code, which is one of the earliest surviving written bodies of law. |
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| (1400–600 BC) The characteristic Assyrian art form was narrative relief sculpture. Unlike the other southern Mesopotamian peoples, the Assyrians had access to large quantities of stone, and their many carved reliefs have consequently survived well. These shallow carvings were used to decorate palaces, for example, the Palace of Ashurbanipal (7th century BC). Its finely carved reliefs include dramatic scenes of a lion hunt, now in the British Museum, London. Winged bulls with human faces, carved partially in the round, stood as sentinels at the royal gateways (Louvre, Paris). |
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| Persia has over the centuries blended many influences to create a rich diversity of arts, styles, and techniques. Persian art is particularly noted for its architecture and production of exquisite miniatures, although perhaps best known today for ornate carpets. Although the wide diversity of outside influences make it difficult to pin down distinct characteristics, Persian art is generally characterized by its firm lines, extensive detail, and bold use of colour. he conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC brought about a blending of Persian and Hellenistic styles, seen, for example, in the bronzes, pottery, and jewellery of the Parthians. |
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3 Dynasties- Old, Middle, and New Kingdom.
Old- Artists followed a formula for representing idealized human figures according to an evolving set of proportions.
Middle- More naturalistic expression on royal images. Also popular during this time was rock cut tombs rather then pyramids.
New Kingdom- The best |
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| The most charachteristic art forms of the Cycladic islands are carved marble figures of women and musicians. Although both the meaning and the function of these sculptures are obscure, the clean geometry and smooth surfaces of their abstracted forms hold great appeal to modern viewers. |
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| These structures were adorned with numerous frescoes and wall paintings and other decorative elements that represent, among other things, the natural world in a lively, animated forms. High degree of craftmanship |
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The extraordinary material wealth deposited in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae (ca. 1550 B.C.) attests to a powerful elite society that flourished in the subsequent four centuries.
Source: Mycenaean Civilization | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements. |
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| "city of dead" is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. |
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| The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. |
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| a hypostyle hall has a flat ceiling which is supported by columns, as in the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. In this case the columns flanking the central avenue are of greater height than those of the side aisles, and this allows openings in the wall above the smaller columns, through which light is admitted over the aisle roof, through clerestory windows. |
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| is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, said to resemble a 'petrified ray' of the sundisk |
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| is where the image is made by carving into a flat surface. The images are usually mostly linear in nature. It is most notably associated with the art of Ancient Egypt, where the strong sunlight usually needed to make the technique successful for images is present most of the time. In the sculpture of many cultures, including Europe, it is mostly used for inscriptions and engraved gems – the most likely meaning for "an intaglio" |
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| means the origin, or the source of something, or the history of the ownership or location of an object. |
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| A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired,[1] originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress. |
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| is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. |
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| such as an entranceway in a wall or as the span of a bridge. A corbel vault uses this technique to support the superstructure of a building's roof. |
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| mirror images of eachother |
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| is the great hall of the Mycenaean palace complexes. It was a rectangular hall, fronted by an open, two-columned porch, and a more or less central, open hearth vented though an oculus in the roof above it and surrounded by four columns. It is the architectural predecessor of the classical Greek temple. It was used for poetry, feasts, worship, sacrifice, formal royal functions, councils, and is said to be where guests of the king would stay during their visits. |
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| In Ancient Greek and Roman temples the cella is a room at the centre of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue representing the particular deity venerated in the temple. |
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| is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea first appeared in Ancient Greece |
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| is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building surrounding a court that may contain an internal garden. |
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| a temple or other structure where the columns of the front portico are returned along its sides as wings at the distance of |
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| the stepped platform on which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a leveling course that flattened out the ground immediately beneath the temple. |
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| Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; |
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| he vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze |
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| a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure (entablature), typically supported by columns. |
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| columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform; |
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| is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection |
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| rectangular block under the soffit of the cornice of the Greek Doric temple, which is studded with guttae. It is supposed to represent the piece of timber through which the wooden pegs were driven in order to hold the rafter in position |
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| is the application of a convex curve to a surface for aesthetic purposes |
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| The technique lent itself to a two dimensional and highly decorative effect. |
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| ibulae were not only decorative, they originally served a practical function: to fasten clothes, including cloaks. Fibulae replaced straight pins that were used to fasten clothing in the Neolithic period and Bronze Age |
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| is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement. |
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| where a horizontal member (the lintel—or header) is supported by two vertical posts at either end. This form is commonly used to support the weight of the structure located above the openings in a bearing wall created by windows and doors. |
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| Megaliths that appear in a circle (stone henge) |
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| were massive monuments built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. |
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| is an architectural structure built against (a counterfort) or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. |
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