Exam #2 | Chp 7 | Art Pieces Flashcards
- Piece:*
- *The Goddess Hathor and the Overseer of Sealers**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Egyptian**
Importance:
RELIGIONS AND THEIR IMAGERY OF DEITIES AND HOLY BEINGS (1 of 3)
• Artists make images or sculptures of gods and goddesses and other beings to aid in ritual.
• Many things can symbolize deities in art and architecture:
•• geometric shapes (spheres, domes, circles, triangles)
•• words (Islamic calligraphy)
•• light
•• animals and animal features
•• earth
The goddess Hathor (associated with sky, stars, love, mirth, and joy) was depicted as a cow or a combination of woman and cow.
• Hathor encompasses and hovers protectively over Psamtik, an Egyptian official.
• Hathor’s depiction includes:
•• horns which surround the head of a cobra, a sign of royalty, and the sun disk with a crown of feathers.
•• a side view showing the entire length of the cow striding forward, with beautifully sculpted bone and muscle.
•• a calm, majestic face with stylized features (repeated ridges above the eyes and the radiating pattern in the ears).
Other Info:
6th century BCE
Psamtik. Saqqara, Egypt
Late 26th Dynasty
- Piece:*
- *Great Stupa**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Indian, Hindu**
Importance:
Pantheism
(the belief that a divine spirit pervades all things in the universe)
• Although Hinduism appears to have numerous gods, it is pantheism rather than polytheism.
• This is because their “gods” are all “avatars” of a divine universal spirit, Brahman the Unbounded.
• Brahman is one—pure being, intelligence, and delight—and is, therefore, unknowable.
• Never pictured, Brahman can be known through the human senses because all natural things, humans, and spiritual beings reflect Brahman.
Stupa symbolism:
• form represents the cosmos, dwelling place of the ancient gods, and sacred womb of the universe.
• low balustrade wall containing four heraldic gates called toranas are located at the four cardinal points.
• the square enclosure on top of the dome symbolizes the heavens.
• mast with umbrellas called chatras unite the world with the paradises above.
The stupa as a symbol of Buddhahood spread throughout Asia with local variations in its design.
• One symbol for Sakyamuni (Buddha) was the stupa, a sign of his death and of attainment of nirvana.
• Originally, a stupa was a mound tomb, which was later transformed into a monument that contained the ashes or relics of a Buddha.
Other Info:
3rd century BCE – 1st century CE
Sanchi, India
- Piece:*
- *Guanyin**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *China, Buddhist**
Importance:
• Over the centuries, Buddhist beliefs became more complex.
• In some variations, Bodhisattvas are living beings who have attained Buddhahood but have chosen to remain on earth to help others.
• The Water and Moon Guanyin Bodhisattva, the most powerful Bodhisattva, has great capacity for salvation.
• Depictions of Guanyin vary radically with 2 to 12 arms, crowned, sometimes with a muscular male body and sometimes with an effeminate body.
Other Info:
ca. 1100
Song Dynasty, China
Painted wood
- Piece:*
- *Madonna of the Meadow**
Artist:
Raphael
(full name Raphael Sanzio)
- Period / Movement:*
- *High Renaissance**
Importance:
Monotheism
• Christianity has many kinds of images of God.
• Some understand God as a single being, others conceive of God as a Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
•• The Father is usually depicted as an aged patriarch, wise, powerful, and judging. • The Son was incarnated as Jesus and founded the Christian religion.
•• The Holy Spirit is represented as a symbol, either a dove or a flame of fire.
•• Jesus Christ is believed to be both divine and human but is often presented in human form as both a baby and a grown man.
• Jesus, the child in the center, is seen with his cousin St. John the Baptist and Mary, his mother.
• The children’s solemn composure and the cross they hold portends their roles as savior and prophet.
• Mary and the two children fit into an implied triangle—a stable, symmetrical, sacred shape recalling the Trinity.
Other Info:
1505
Panel painting
- Piece:*
- *Retablo of Maria de la Luz Casillas and Children**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown (Unimportant?)**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Central Mexico**
Importance:
HUMANS RESPOND TO GOD
• Religious ceremonies, offerings, sacrifices, and prayers acknowledge God and
request what is needed for earthly or spiritual existence.
• Many religions require humans to make offerings to the gods as outward signs of their devotion.
• Art frequently is part of the process.
• Retablos are small votive paintings with bright colors and text that dramatically record emotional, miraculous events, and often contain multiple scenes.
• They also may contain holy cards, pictures of loved ones, diplomas, or legal papers.
• In this example, we see Maria twice, once as a vulnerable patient on the operating table and again as a supplicant with her children imploring the Virgin’s help with her recovery.
Other Info:
1961
Oil on metal
- Piece:*
- *Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Mayan**
Importance:
Sacrifices
• Various forms of religious sacrifices have been practiced throughout the ages.
• Judeo-Christian religions recognized the offering of foodstuffs and have a history of blood sacrifice through animals and animal fat.
• Although blood sacrifices are no longer offered in mainstream Christian religions, the Eucharistic offering of bread and wine may be celebrated (in some cases as the body and blood of Christ).
• In various Mesoamerican cultures, the sun was believed to be ever-thirsty for blood to stave off the power of the moon and was symbolized by a fiery tongue. More extreme forms of blood sacrifice were practiced by them, such as cutting out the hearts of captured warriors or the captains of ball teams.
• This relief depicts a blood sacrifice that was required of the Maya nobility:
•• A Mayan ruler holds a torch over his wife as she pulls a thorny rope through a hole in her tongue.
•• Participants in blood sacrifices were high ranking, shown by their wrist bracelets, necklaces, crowns, and garb.
•• Flattened foreheads were signs of beauty, an effect created by binding boards on the soft skulls of very young children of nobility.
•• Extreme forms of blood sacrifice were practiced, such as cutting out the hearts of captured warriors or the captains of ball teams.
•• Ballplayers were important members of society, and ball games were important rituals in which the ball itself and the opposing teams symbolized the terrible balance between the sun and the moon.
Other Info:
750
Relief
Piece:
Power Figure
(Nkisi n’Kondi)
- Artist:*
- *Unknown (Unimportant)**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Kongo, Zaire, African**
Importance:
Prayers
• Prayer is a vehicle of communication between human and the gods, and it takes many forms.
This sculpture is used as a form of prayer for protection against evil influences from human, animal, or spiritual enemies.
• Shamans activate them by placing medicines in the figure’s abdomen or in the back or head.
• The figure’s power is released by driving in a metal nail or blade for each request for help.
• Once effective, the exact nail representing a particular request must be removed.
• Power figures are rarely used today, as African religious practices are evolving and rituals may be abandoned or amalgamated into other beliefs.
Other Info:
1998
Wood, nails, blades, medicinal material with cowrie shell
Piece:
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
(Vatican City, Rome)
- Artist:*
- *Michelangelo**
- Period / Movement:*
- *High Renaissance**
Importance:
The Cosmos
• Artists in various religious traditions have created artworks that map the cosmos showing:
•• the origin of the world.
•• the structure of the universe.
•• spiritual beings.
•• the place of humans in relation to the gods.
•• a diagram of time.
The images on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depict the origin of the universe, human beings, and sin. Cosmic moments depicted:
• God is depicted as a powerful, older man in pink robes and separates light from darkness.
• God creates the sun and moon.
• God separates the water from land.
• God creates Adam then Eve.
• Adam and Eve break God’s commandment creating original sin.
• Expulsion from Paradise.
- Other Info:*
- *1508-1512**
- Piece:*
- *Stonehenge**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown Druids**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Neolithic**
Importance:
PLACES OF WORSHIP AND THEIR GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Places of worship may:
•• shelter a congregation.
•• house sacred objects.
•• incorporate elements of nature.
•• incorporate symbolic geometry.
•• be sites of sacred ceremonies and pilgrimages.
Incorporating Elements of Nature
• Places of worship can be natural sites:
•• mountains: meeting places between heaven and earth
•• sacred trees or groves: dwelling places of divine beings
•• rocks: containers or symbols for spirits and deities
•• earth or water: sources/sustainers of life
•• fire, light, or the sun: divine symbols or spirits themselves
Using Geometry Symbolically
Many cultures use geometry and symmetry to symbolize:
• divinity.
• totality.
• perfection.
• timelessness.
Geometry may determine the placement or orientation of religious sites, or a building’s plan, layout, or elevation.
Stonehenge is likely an altar and an astronomical device mapping solar and planetary movement.
• It’s arrangement marks the midsummer solstice, information needed for planting cycles.
• Other Neolithic stone arrangements in the area align with Stonehenge, creating a larger network that may have mapped force fields within the earth.
- Other Info:*
- *2000 BCE**
Piece:
Pantheon
Rome, Italy
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Roman**
- Importance:*
- *PLACES OF WORSHIP**
Incorporating Elements of Nature
Using Geometry Symbolically
• This structure was designed using geometric shapes to which the Romans attributed divine qualities of perfection and completion.
• The Pantheon is a shrine to the chief deities of the Roman Empire.
• The structure is symmetrical and creates the impression of loftiness, simplicity, and
balance.
• A 142-foot-diameter sphere fits into the interior space, making the width equal to its height.
• The dome is a perfect hemisphere.
• The oculus creates a shaft of sunlight that illuminates the interior.
- Other Info:*
- *118–125 CE**
Piece:
Notre Dame du Haut
(Ronchamps, France)
- Artist:*
- *Le Courbusier**
- Period / Movement:*
- *International Style**
Importance:
Providing Sites for Sacred Ceremonies and Pilgrimages
• Places of worship can be sites for sacred ceremonies and pilgrimages.
• A pilgrimage is a journey to a shrine or sacred place for believers hoping to receive special blessings or deepening of faith.
•• Muslims journey to Mecca.
•• Jews journey to Jerusalem.
•• Catholics journey to Lourdes.
•• Hindus journey to various shrines.
• Sometimes worship has no special architecture, instead relying on music, dance, singing, literature, or the visual arts to celebrate.
• This Catholic church’s design recalls praying hands, dove wings, and a boat hull, all Christian symbols of divine generosity.
• To accommodate large crowds, the church has an outdoor altar and pulpit so services can be conducted for 12,000 pilgrims on the lawn.
- Other Info:*
- *1950–1955**
Piece:
Parthenon
(Athens, Greece)
- Artist:*
- *(Iktinos and Kallikrates)…?**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Greek**
Importance:
TEMPLE COMPLEXES AND LARGE-SCALE SACRED ARCHITECTURE
• Religious temple complexes incorporate the characteristics of sacred sites with more grandeur. Grand places of worship are expressions of:
•• temporal power.
•• religious power.
•• broad cultural values.
• A religion that is firmly established and tied to political power can afford these expensive, labor-intensive, long-term projects.
• Their imposing size and lavish detail make them spectacles to see.
• In ceremonies, the individual is reduced to spectator, part of the throng that adds to the religious importance of the site.
The Parthenon is an example of Classical Greek architecture using the post-and- lintel system.
• This particular style (“order”) of temple is called Doric.
• The architects treated the Parthenon more like sculpture than architecture:
•• Like a pedestal, the steps form the base for the structure.
•• The stairs are higher at the middle of each side and lower at the corners to
counteract the illusion of sagging in the middle.
•• High-quality marble blocks were carefully stacked and finished so that the columns originally appeared seamless.
• Religious ceremonies took place outside, where the richly adorned exterior was brightly painted.
- Other Info:*
- *440 BCE**
Piece:
Kandarya Mahadeva Temple
(Khajuraho, India)
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *India**
Importance:
The Hindu Temple
Hinduism is based on two belief systems:
•• nature-based, veneration of the spirits responsible for plant and animal life
•• reincarnation, an infinitely repeating cycle of life and death
Temple architecture gives form to these spiritual beliefs.
•• Earliest temples were cave temples carved into mountains, like opening the earth’s womb.
•• Later temples were freestanding, thick-walled cubes containing a womb- chamber that housed the cult image.
•• Later Hindu temples were more elaborate, but the same basic formula of womb- chamber and mountain remained.
There is no collective service in the Hindu religion, and the temple is the dwelling of the deity.
• This temple is dedicated to Shiva and is seen as an artificial mountain that surmounts a small, dark, womb-like chamber.
• Visual unity in the temple is maintained in the basic mountain-like form and the simple umbrella shape (representing the Unbounded) topping the tallest tower.
• The exterior relief carvings contain images of deities and of smaller shrines, many erotic because the Hindu religion believes that carnal bliss reflects divine union with the Unbounded.
- Other Info:*
- *10th – 11th centuries**
Piece:
Chartres Cathedral
(Chartres, France)
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Gothic**
Importance:
The Gothic Cathedral
• The imposing, mystical Gothic Cathedral is one of the most famous forms of Catholic church.
• Medieval Christians believed that the body and earth were profane and sinful, while the soul was sacred.
• They saw the church as the heavenly Jerusalem on earth.
• Gothic cathedrals were all funded by and built in cities, indicating the rise of cities and monarchies and a decline in feudalism.
• The modern humanist view which values the individual was beginning to develop at this time.
Plan and Design
• Gothic cathedrals towered over the towns around them.
• Spires symbolized the linking of heaven and earth.
• Large windows are filled with tracery, lacy stone framework that holds glass in place.
• Blank spaces are covered with figurative sculptures or decorative carvings.
• Towers, pointed arches, buttresses, and arcades create vertical lines that continue from ground to roof.
The plan of Chartres is symmetrical, in the shape of a cross, symbolizing Jesus’ crucifixion.
• The emphasis on verticality continues inside where the piers flow gracefully up the pointed groin vaults.
• The vaults seem to billow overhead rather than being stone structures that weigh tons.
• There is a strong horizontal pull toward the altar, with the large windows at the apse end acting as beacons.
Other Info:
The oldest western parts date from 1145–1170
Most of the exterior of the structure was built between 1194 and 1220
Piece:
Masjid-I-shah
(Royal Mosque)
Isfahan, Iran
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
- Period / Movement:*
- *Islamic**
Importance:
The Islamic Mosque
• Islam requires its adherents to pray five times a day while bowing toward Mecca, the birthplace of prophet Mohammed.
• On Friday, men are required to attend mosques for collective prayer services called masjid.
• On the wall facing Mecca was the mihrab, a special marker niche.
• A stepped pulpit called the minbar was usually located next to the mihrab.
• The tall minarets could be seen from afar, a beacon to travelers.
• There are no icons, statues, or images in Islamic worship or in mosques.
This is considered one of the most beautiful mosques ever built in Iran.
• Worshipers move through a series of interlocking areas to leave the profane world and enter the sacred realm.
• Its rough exterior contrasts with the lavishly decorated interior.
• The spaciousness and symmetry of the mosque and its circular dome represent the infinity and completeness of Allah.
- Other Info:*
- *1612-1637**
- Piece:*
- *Pyramid of the Sun**
- Artist:*
- *Unknown**
Period / Movement:
Teotihuacan
Mayan
Importance:
The Mesoamerican Temple
• Mesoamerican temples often took the form of a pyramid with a small structure on top.
• Between 100 and 400 CE, the Teotihuacános of Mexico built a vast religious center in a city high on a plateau called Teotihuacán, or “Place of the Gods.”
• The main north-south corridor formed the religious center of the city with more than 100 temples in two miles (Fig. 7.43).
• The style of architecture is consistent throughout, and the overall design emphasizes both mass (the pyramids) and voids (the plazas).
• The building of Teotihuacán led directly to its decline because forests were leveled to fire plaster kilns resulting in soil erosion along with the failure of rains.
- Other Info:*
- *pre-150 CE**
