Ceramics 1
Ceramics 1
Unity-Principle of Design
Unity-Principle of Design
Unity-Principle of Design
Unity-Principle of Design
Unity-Principle of Design
Unity-Principle of Design
Line- Element of Art
Line- Element of Art
Classwork & assignments
Presentation slideshow
Presentation slideshow
Classwork & assignments
Classwork & assignments
Lines are everywhere. You can see lines in the grain of a piece of wood or in the cracks on a sidewalk.
In art, Line is an element of art that is the path of a moving point through space.
Lines are used to:
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Create boundaries between shapes
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Create boundaries between colors, textures or values
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Lead the eye from one space to another
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Create textures
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Suggest emotional qualities
Lines are everywhere. You can see lines in the grain of a piece of wood or in the cracks on a sidewalk.
In art, Line is an element of art that is the path of a moving point through space.
Lines are used to:
-
Create boundaries between shapes
-
Create boundaries between colors, textures or values
-
Lead the eye from one space to another
-
Create textures
-
Suggest emotional qualities
Classwork & assignments
Grid drawing is a very old technique of transferring images (from sketches to a full size canvas or fresco, etc...)
Always make sure that the number of squares on the original picture and your working area are exactly the same (even if the size of the squares are bigger on the paper). This is because no matter how many times bigger (or smaller) you make the drawing, the proportions and dimensions can only stay the same if the number of boxes (squares) matches exactly.
Make sure you follow all steps below.
2.3.2 The Van Eycks and Rogier van der Weyden
Prehistoric, Ancient Egyptian, and Minoan Art
Archaeologists have discovered many examples of art dating thousands of years ago with the creation of the earliest-known cave paintings. This is where you will start your journey.
After the caves, there is a time jump to 3000 BC. Over the course of about 3,000 years, the ancient Egyptians left behind enormous pyramids, sculptures, and tombs.
At the same time the Egyptians were sticking to their highly stylized artistic formulas, the Minoans started their own style around 2800 BC. This civilization, born on the island of Crete (now part of modern-day Greece), developed another style and purpose for art.
Get ready to learn about three distinct cultures of visual arts in the ancient world.
Complete the questions on your study guide as you work through this activity. Reviewing your notes before quizzes and tests will help you succeed.
A copy of the Megaloceros or Giant Deer from Lascaux. The original is about thousands of years old.
Why Cave Painting?
Such paintings occur not only in one cave, but in over 130 caves discovered to date. The most notable paintings are found at the caves of Lascaux in southern France and Altamira in northern Spain.
What did the earliest artists draw, and what inspired them to do it?
Check Your Understanding
1.) What do you think the earliest artists painted? Why?
2.) Why do you think they painted right onto the cave walls?
3.) What meaning or importance do these cave paintings have for you, a modern viewer?
Prehistoric Painting
Before there was writing, there was art.
A copy of the Megaloceros or Giant Deer from Lascaux. It is debatable depending on your view of how old the earth is and when the earliest humans lived. But the original is believed to be anywhere from about 5,000 years to 17,000 years old - give or take a few thousand years.
A tribe lives in a cave in southern Europe. This tribe has fashioned crude clothing from animal skins and rough tools from stones.
Hundreds of feet into the black depths of the cave, in the light of sputtering animal-fat lamps, something is happening. Members of the tribe are holding sticks dipped in a mixture of dirt, rocks, and fat and painting on the rough ceilings and walls.
They are creating the earliest surviving paintings produced by humankind.
Caves at Lascaux
There are over 2,000 figures painted across several areas within the Lascaux caves. Some of the figures are quite large — one bull is 18 feet long! But more surprising is the quality of many of the drawings.
Remember, these ancient humans did not have a system of writing and probably used a very basic form of language. Yet their art is magnificent.
Notice the difference between the detail of the animal and the human present in this Lascaux image. Why would animals have been given more attention, do you think?
The proportions of the animals are correct, and their poses are lifelike. Figures are occasionally shaded to suggest the roundness of the animal, speckled to indicate the texture of its pelt, and even drawn on natural angles of the rock surface to give its form more fullness.
In contrast to the animals, the few images of humans are small, roughly drawn stick figures, sometimes carrying spears or bows.
There are also geometric shapes that some scholars think might be an ancient star chart.
Considering the artists used very crude paints created from available minerals and dirt mixed with animal fat and were working in pitch-black caves, their accomplishments are even more impressive.
Just because the caves are closed doesn't mean you can't visit them right now. Check out this amazing virtual tour of the caves.
Notice the difference between the detail of the animal and the human present in this Lascaux image. Why would animals have been given more attention, do you think?
Discovery and Closure
The Lascaux caves were discovered by four teenagers in 1940 and were opened to the public soon after. Unfortunately, the paintings were damaged by carbon dioxide that modern visitors exhaled. As a result, the caves were closed in 1963.
Today, only a very few scientists and preservationists are allowed inside. There are full-size reproductions near the original caves and in museums all over the world.
This replica of the Lascaux cave paintings is displayed at the Moravian Museum in the Czech Republic.
This painting of a bison is one of the most famous images of Altamira.
Altamira
The Altamira cave is much smaller than the Lascaux caves but still impressive. The cave was well-known for years, but the paintings weren't discovered until 1879. One day, an archaeologist was exploring the cave, which he owned since it was on his land. His young daughter looked up and noticed that the ceiling was covered in drawings.
This man, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, was ridiculed and even accused of fraud. People just couldn't believe that paintings could be so old yet so well preserved. They are currently estimated to be anywhere from 6,000 - 35,000 years old.
Just as at Lascaux, the paintings at Altamira were damaged by carbon dioxide from visitors, and the cave was closed in 1977, though a few people are still let in each day. Copies exist in museums, and in 2001, a full-scale replica and museum was opened near the cave.
This 1880 image taken by Sautuola himself shows a black-and-white version of the cave ceiling.
Check Your Understanding
Why the Effort?
Early humans had a lot to worry about. They had to hunt, and they had to avoid being hunted. They had to stay warm and dry and generally worry about surviving every single day. So, why do you think early humans even took the time to create these cave paintings?
1.) Why do you think early humans took the time and effort to create these paintings?
2.) Why do you think there isn't more information about these cave paintings? Why didn't the artists themselves leave some clues behind about why they painted?
Purposeful Paintings
The full significance of the cave paintings will remain a mystery. But, we can make educated guesses.
Surely, these paintings were not mere wall decorations. In the Altamira cave, traces of human habitation exist in only one painted room. This separation of living quarters from painted areas suggests that the paintings served a ritual function, either to ensure a good hunt or to promote the fertility of the animals the tribe hunted.
Some scholars suggest cave paintings functioned as a "how-to" guide to hunting. Paintings in which human figures with weapons appear certainly support a connection with the hunt.
These paintings from the Bhimbetka caves in India are relatively young at circa 2000 – 1500 BC.
Check Your Understanding
Whatever their function in the past, the cave paintings are significant today for the simple but incredible fact that they exist. Hunger, cold, wild animals, and a pitch-black work environment did not deter humans from finding a way to paint their world.
Ancient Egypt
While prehistoric artists focused on depicting animals and hunters, artists from ancient Egypt recorded all of the details of their world.
Ancient Egypt lasted for nearly 3,000 years. It started with the first ruling pharaohs, or kings, around 3000 BC and ended with Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt in 332 BC, at which point Egypt fell to the Greeks.
It All Stayed the Same
Over the course of 3,000 years, the most remarkable feature of Egyptian art is the lack of change. In fact, it stayed so constant that today, ancient Egyptian works can be identified by even the most untrained eye.
Why do you think the art from such a long period of time stayed more or less the same
Look at these two paintings from ancient Egypt.
What comparisons can you make?
Left: Painting from circa 1380 BC. Right: Painting circa 2050.
Art Connects to the Afterlife
So, why so little change in the art of ancient Egypt? There are two likely answers.
First, the endurance of style was an important element that allowed a new pharaoh or king to prove he belonged among past rulers. So, artists were probably not allowed to create anything but the official style of art that was accepted by the pharaoh.
But there is another reason for the continuity. More than any other ancient civilization, the Egyptians were concerned with the afterlife. Death was considered a transition to a better life. Art helped Egyptians document earthly life and assist the dead with their journey to the next world.
Look at this image from a wall in the tomb of Amenemhet, circa 1990 BC. Can you see the conventions at work?
Bigger and Higher
As you learned before, another important convention of Egyptian art was to make gods, the pharaoh, and other important figures much larger than everyone else in the scene. Also, important figures were often put closer to the top of the image. These were two simple ways to indicate status.
This fragment from the Tomb of Menna, circa 1400 BC, shows field workers tilling a wheat crop.
Egyptian Belief System
We are not sure what religion, if any, the cave painters had. In contrast, we know a lot about what the Egyptians believed.
Ancient Egyptians thought everything was controlled by their gods. And by everything, we mean everything. Health, happiness, justice, natural phenomena like lightning storms and earthquakes — the list goes on and on. It was all up to the will of the gods.
As a result, many rituals were designed to win the favor of the gods, and even simple daily tasks like tilling a wheat field could be related to the god or deity that ruled agriculture. Anything that could be seen in daily life was a potential art subject since it was all governed by the gods.
Kings in Art
In ancient Egypt, it was believed that the pharaohs had special powers. The pharaoh represented a connection between humans and the spiritual, and art played an important part in communicating this connection.
As a result, art portraying pharaohs is even more common than art representing spiritual or other topics or subject matter. Pharaohs were generally depicted as the perfect human ideal — godlike.
Exception to the Rule
The only notable exception was during the reign of the New Kingdom pharaoh Akhenaten (1365 – 1347 BC). He preferred artists to render him and his wife, Nefertiti, as realistically as they could.
The work of this period features an emotional intensity not found at any other time in ancient Egypt. Otherwise, the conventions are adhered to. Only a trained specialist can tell the difference between Egyptian artwork created thousands of years apart.
Look at this image from a wall in the tomb of Amenemhet, circa 1990 BC. Can you see the conventions at work?
Not Just Painting
Although painting was important, ancient Egyptians created art using many different mediums. These mediums included stones for carving, glass for beads, and clay for pottery.
They also made jewelry from gold and gems or colored glass.
Sculpture
Sculpture was a very important element of Egyptian art. Pharaohs often had huge sculptures created and pharaohs themselves were common subjects of large statues.
Like painting, sculpture had strict conventions. The most common medium (material) was stone.
A sculptor would start with a large block of stone and trace guidelines based on geometric measurements on all four sides. Then he would carve based on these guidelines, constantly adjusting them as he went.
The bottom part of the stone would generally be left intact as a block for the statue to stand on.
Also, the space between the legs and the arms was almost never carved out. Instead, carvings were done in relief. This was to ensure the strength of the sculpture in the hopes that it would last forever.
The thousands of surviving examples of ancient Egyptian sculpture are a testament to this method. These sculptors created lasting artifacts, indeed.
Architecture
Architecture — the science of designing buildings — is a kind of art. The ancient Egyptians contributed more than their fair share to the history of architecture.
While modern builders use nails to hold boards together and support beams to make a structure strong, ancient Egyptian buildings got their support and strength from very special designs and the precise fitting together of stones.
Minoan Painting
The idea of making art just because it was beautiful or pleasing ranks high among the greatest legacies of the Minoan civilization.
Who were the Minoans? They were a group who lived on the Greek island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea from 2700 – 1450 BC. They were peaceful traders, fascinated with the world around them, and used to the freedom and movement on the ocean that an island life provides. All of this is reflected in their art.
The archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans named them after the legendary King Minos. Evans excavated the royal palace at Knossos, the political and cultural center of the Minoan kingdom.
Why Art for Art's Sake?
Think about the following questions before you study the Minoans. Make guesses about the possible answers to each question if you can, but most importantly, just start thinking about their significance.
Decorative versus Functional Art
Questions
1.) Why do you think the Minoans created art for beauty instead of art for a purpose like the prehistoric cave painters or the ancient Egyptians did?
2.) What does being peaceful have to do with art?
3.) Can you think of another reason why a peaceful civilization might have decorative instead of functional art?
4.) How is our culture preserved today?
This is a mural found in the ruins at Knossos palace on Crete, the center of the Minoan civilization throughout the Bronze Age (19th – 16th century BC). The beautifully colored dolphins seem to jump and dive fluidly among the fish.
Lasting Frescoes
Like their Egyptian contemporaries living 500 miles to the southeast, the Minoans illustrated their figures with legs and faces in profile.
Minoan artists did, however, figure out how to show torsos in profile. They drew bodies as working wholes, not as figures awkwardly twisted in the middle. More importantly, the outlines of their figures are rounded and lively. By comparison, the figures in Egyptian scenes appear stiff and uncomfortable.
The Minoans used a technique called fresco, which contributed to the liveliness of their works. Derived from the Italian word for "fresh," fresco describes paintings made by applying water-based paints to wet plaster.
When dry, the plaster bonds with the color, making the painting part of the actual wall. The colors are vivid and extremely durable. They are applied without shading in flat, bright designs that are easily identifiable, even from a distance.
A Peaceful People
The Minoan civilization was apparently peaceful, with extensive trade networks around the Mediterranean. This trading included goods as well as artistic styles.
No Minoan palace, not even the largest one at Knossos, had any kind of fortifications for war. Except for a unique wall painting from Thera depicting a naval ship, the Minoans left no images or artifacts of war.
Lighthearted, colorful paintings decorate Minoan walls. Their paintings portray humans and animals moving in a vibrant, enjoyable world.
In royal buildings, such as the Knossos palace and in the houses on the island of Thera (modern Santorini), the Minoans covered their walls with scenes of men and women in religious processions. They also painted children boxing and fish flying, women dancing, and antelopes running gracefully.
This fresco (15th century BC) from the Minoan city of Akrotiri shows two young boys engaged in a boxing match. Their torsos are seen from a profile, and the fresco colors remain bright and clear, even today.
Frescoes in a Flash
Because a fresco was created directly on top of a wall's plaster while it was still wet, the artist had to work very quickly to get his or her images painted before the whole thing dried.
For this reason, Minoan art is known for its long and smooth brushstrokes, quickly applied by artists racing against time.
The result? Graceful outlines and fluid figures that seem to drift across the wall.
Since artists had to hurry, they didn't have time for the intricate designs that characterize art from other areas produced at the same time, such as some of the highly detailed artworks seen in ancient Egypt a few hundred miles away.
Scenes of daily life or creatures from nature were much easier to create in a short amount of time than highly detailed patterns.
This fresco from Knossos, circa 1550 BC, is commonly known as the Prince of Lilies. It clearly shows the long and fluid brushstrokes favored by Minoans.
In this fresco from the palace at Knossos, three figures are seen engaging in a bull-leaping event. The two white figures are women, and the reddish-brown figure performing the leaping is a man. Scholars estimate the fresco was painted between 1550 and 1450 BC.
The Role of Women
Unlike other ancient cultures, the Minoans gave a lot of power and status to women.
It is believed that men and women held equal social status, and women were just as likely to hold important political roles or other positions of power as men. Also, it was much more common for a god to take a female form, and most religious figures were priestesses.
In painting, women are often seen performing the same activities as men, including bull-leaping. Bull-leaping was an important ritualistic event in which athletes would take a bull by the horns, then perform acrobatic twists and somersaults as the bull launched him or her toward the sky.
The genders were differentiated by painting the skin a different color. Men were painted as reddish-brown, while women were given pale white skin.
Minoa versus Mycenae
A beautiful Minoan vase from around 1500 BC shows the culture's emphasis on creating fluid and natural-looking art.
While the frescoes endured for 3,500 years, the Minoan civilization did not. Scholarly debate rages (yes, rages) over whether the Minoan civilization was destroyed by the eruption of Thera's volcano, its aftermath, or by a completely different cause.
Whatever the cause of the Minoans' destruction, their palace and its throne room at Knossos were rebuilt around 1450 BC by the war-loving Mycenaeans. They came to Crete from the Greek mainland toward the beginning of their brief existence (the Mycenaeans only endured from about 1600 – 1100 BC).
A fresco in the throne room provides an interesting contrast between the Mycenaean frescoes and earlier Minoan frescoes. For example, mirror-image griffins (bird-headed lions) and plants arranged in strict symmetry flank the throne.
This vase from the Late Mycenaean style (ca. 1200 BC) is very different from the earlier Minoan style. Note the symmetry and stiffness of the design.
A beautiful Minoan vase from around 1500 BC shows the culture's emphasis on creating fluid and natural-looking art.
Same Time, Same Resources, Different Art
This Mycenaean preference for the stiff and symmetrical can be seen across all art styles. A Minoan vase with an octopus and a Mycenaean vase of the same subject are immediately distinguishable.
The Minoan octopus appears to be a living creature swimming through the water, while the Mycenaean one is simply a decorative pattern.
That two starkly different styles could exist within the Mediterranean area, among peoples using the same techniques and colors, is a reminder that there are infinite factors that influence the creation of art.
The Minoan Legacy
Much of Minoan history is lost to us, but their art tells us a lot. Paintings of kissing partridges, swaying palmetto leaves, and boxing children are the enduring legacy of a people who saw the world as a living, colorful place.
Starting in about 700 BC, Greek paintings would display an explosion of movement and color, a direct descendant of the Minoan innovations. More importantly, the Greeks would follow the Minoan example of creating art for the sake of beauty.
A vivid fresco depicting the town of Akrotiri (ca. 1600 BC) shows the Minoan devotion to movement and color.
Check Your Understanding
In Review
Before moving on, review what you have learned in the study. Go over the notes you wrote on the study sheet. Ask your teacher any questions you might have.
If you have not filled out your study sheet, do it now before moving on to the next activity.
Study sheets are a very useful tool to help you study for quizzes and tests.
What Did You Learn?
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Some of the earliest art was made in the form of wall paintings in the Lascaux caves in southern France and the Altamira caves in northern Spain.
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Possibly used to record events or hunting techniques or good harvests, or as an early form of language, these cave paintings were figural yet abstract. They were flat, with no sense of three-dimensional space.
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Ancient Egyptians recorded all aspects of life, sometimes in the form of art.
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Ancient Egyptian artists depicted figures as flat, awkward, and stiff.
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Minoan figures were more rounded and natural-looking. For Minoans, the female figure was a central subject in art.
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The ocean was important to Minoan culture and was often depicted in Minoan artwork.
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Architecture, site-specific works, and small sculpture were the main types of art in these ancient cultures.
Take this opportunity to check your work.