Chapter
13—The Art of the Ancients
Introduction: Consider the various
ancient cultures presented in this chapter: prehistoric
peoples; the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians; the
Egyptians; and the Aegean cultures in the Cyclades Islands, Crete and Mycenae. The number of art images shown in this chapter is
but a tiny portion of the vast number of artifacts now in museums and
collections scattered around the world and in some of the original
cultural sites.
Chapter 13 is a necessarily abbreviated
introduction to the depth of accumulated
archaeological and historical knowledge about these cultures and their art. Taking
time to learn more about each of these cultures and their artistic heritage
will deepen your understanding of what is being
presented to you in class. You will better be able to understand
artistic developments in the cultural time periods that follow in later
chapters, because you'll see that while some things remain basically the same
due to human nature, some things will change, appearing at times to evolve rather
rapidly from previous traditions into new inventions. Humans cling to the past
but seem to love change more! A Closer Look – King Tut: The Face That
Launched a Thousand High-Res Images reveals
a world of information and thought-provoking data, bringing past and present
together thanks to collaborative efforts of forensic archeologists and
art historians.
Chapter 13 – Why Read It? This chapter may seem to
have more to do with the history of art history, rather than art alone. For
each ancient civilization, only a precious few examples of art are discussed, but they were carefully chosen to
somehow remind us of the larger past they stand for: a cave painting,
Stonehenge, a stele depicting and describing
an entire code of law, a relief panel, or a single capital from what was once a
fabulous fortress-like palace. Consider the great pyramids, a CT scan of
a young king Tutankhamen, only 19 years old when he died; a plank idol, or a
great beehive-shaped tomb thought to have held the remains of a Mycenaean king
a thousand years before the Classical period began in Greece!
It seems that people, ever
since the beginning of human history, have made art. Scientists, art
historians, theologians, astronomers, doctors, forensic scientists, and artists
have been fascinated with
the intrinsic depth and wisdom of our most ancient ancestors. Art tells us
stories and reveals to us scientific and medical knowledge, an interest in the
stars, religious beliefs, legends and ideas of how we came to be here, or what
becomes of us after we die.
We can learn much about ourselves by learning
about what interested and inspired those
who built civilizations thousands of years before we ever knew they existed. If
time travel were possible, which culture, civilization, and place would
you choose to visit?
What will our descendents
make of our monuments, our writings, our beliefs, and our art?
Understanding
Concepts: Delving into specifics is a great way to begin to
explore the vast realm of art history. No wonder art historians specialize
their research and teaching expertise within a certain culture—they quickly
realize it would take a thousand lifetimes to learn about them all!
1. Find out more about the
written languages of Sumerian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphs, and how they came to be deciphered in modern times,
revealing much about these intriguing cultures. Did you know that people in
both cultures had written down things ranging from laws to medicinal remedies,
even beer recipes and rules of etiquette? Notes:
2. Study comparative ways
in which the human figure and animals are represented in the drawings, paintings, and carvings of these
cultures. What are the similarities? What is unique to each culture? Use
the chart on the following pages:
•
Cite
and/or sketch two specific examples from our text or other sources
•
Use
ArtExperience Online, to conduct some extra-curricular research:
[start Table]
Culture: Human
figures Animals
Paleolithic (ex.)
few, if any. some Venuses (ex.)
Naturalism, some foreshortening, twisted Perspective. Lascaux Caves, Dordogne,
Fr.
Mesolithic (ex.)
Abstracted (ex.) Same as
Paleolithic
Ritual Dance, Addaura Cave
Monte
Pellegrino, Italy (12-4)
Neolithic
Sumerian (ex.)
Conceptual representation Bull-Lyre, tomb of Puabi Royal Cemetery at Ur
Akkadian
Comparison of
representations by culture, continued
Culture: Human
figures Animals
Babylonian
Assyrian
Persian
Egyptian, Old Kingdom
Egyptian, Middle Kingdom
Egyptian, New Kingdom
Amarna Period
Cycladic
Comparison of representations
by culture, continued
Culture: Human
figures Animals
Minoan
Mycenaean
[end Table]
3. Locate
a timeline in a textbook or online allowing you to see the relative time
periods of each of these cultures mentioned. Begin with Upper Paleolithic,
Mesolithic, and Neolithic, including the
Neolithic cultural time periods for the five different Mesopotamian cultures,
the three major time divisions of Kingdom periods and dynasties for the Egyptians,
and the differing periods for the Minoans (Palace periods), the Cycladic peoples,
and the Mycenaeans.
•
Find
bracketed dates for time periods.
•
Note
specific historical events such as wars or invasions and their dates.
•
Note
art works in their respective places.
4. Look in the Abbreviations section of a dictionary
to discover what the following date designations signify:
•
BC and AD or BCE and CE. Discover how these designations
came about, and what
type of calendar has been used to establish dates and eras for various
cultures.
•
How do historians align Chinese dynasties (see Chapter
18) with comparable time periods for Western Civilizations, so they can know
what was occurring in both?
•
What types of events help historians match up different
ways of measuring time? (Did
you know that the Great Wall in China was built before the Roman Empire had
even begun, and that the birth of the Buddha occurred in India 563 years before
the date given for the birth of Christ?
•
Find out why a date such as 430–336 BCE gets smaller in
numbers, while CE dates
get larger, such as 1504–1512.
•
Why is a date such as 1776 referred to as being in the
18th century?
•
When
you see a date that says ca., or circa, what does this mean?
Making Connections:
This brief chapter introduces you to some of the
earliest known traces of human
activity in the arts. Our understanding of art today is directly linked to and
influenced by decisions made by humans who lived thousands of years ago. The German Expressionist artist Emil Nolde is quoted,
rating art beyond culture or religion. If you do a little more research on him,
you may discover some of the ways he felt ancient art directly
influenced his own early 20th C. artistic endeavors. Look through
the chapters and discover how much art is tied to religious and cultural
purposes. Notes:
1. A Closer Look – King Tut: The Face
That Launched a Thousand High-Res Images: Have you had the desire to travel to
famous archaeological sites, such as Egypt’s
Necropolis or Thebes? Ancient cultures such as Egypt have fascinated people for
hundreds of years. How did they live? What did they do on a daily basis? In
most cases the evidence of the lives of
these people can only be deciphered from what has survived the ravages of time.
However, new scientific applications such as imaging the body have begun
to reveal secrets previously unavailable.
1. Find
some information about Tutankhamen’s life and death from a research source. Does all the information
match what is said in the text? Notes:
2. Try
finding other examples of the application of modern day technology and
scientific procedures to uncover secrets and forensic knowledge about ancient
people found in an archaeological
site. See if your local library or school has the documentary series, “Secrets of the Dead”. Notes:
3. Are
the methods and techniques of the scientists ethical and archival when compared
to the methods of plunder of past “archaeology”? Is disturbing someone’s grave,
thought sacred
by those who created it, excusable when done in the name of scientific
knowledge?
Taking Notes: With this chapter, your
note taking takes on the added dimension of keeping track of historical events
pivotal to developments and changes in the arts of each culture. It will be important to record information about each of
the 29 art or archaeological objects in this chapter that offers you clues as
to which culture it came from. Make your note-taking template with care,
so you will have room for each entry to include dates or bracketed dates and
cultural and stylistic qualities. Note information about what kind of purpose each object served in its time, as well as where
it is now, such as in the Louvre in Paris, France, or in the
Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece. See how well your notes correspond to
the timelines you've located.
Class discussion of these
cultures may include other examples of art or architecture and supplemental details of
the works shown in the text. For example, your instructor may choose to show a
plan or a view of the palace ruins at Persepolis, so you will better be able to
place into context the example of the one capital in the text. The capital
would have been one among hundreds in the palace, high above head, supporting
large roof timbers. You might be shown images or a visual documentary to
enhance your understanding of Egyptian
mummification and burial preparations or of how Stonehenge was built and
has been analyzed as an astronomical calendar, so make room in your note pages
for this supplemental information.
More than 30 vocabulary
terms presented in Chapter 13 offer a challenge of adapting your knowledge of the
visual elements and principles of design and your awareness of various media to
historical and ancient works of art. Many of these terms contain roots that
will give you a key to meaning and context. For example, megalith has two
roots, “mega”
meaning large, and “lith” meaning stone. One of the same roots shows up in
other vocabulary terms: "lith" appears in Paleolithic, Mesolithic,
and Neolithic. This should help you remember what these terms refer to.
•
What
does “neo” refer to, as in Neolithic?
•
Discover the distinctions between naturalism, conceptual
representation, and idealistic
representation.
•
Observe the differences in representation of the figure
in many ancient art forms.
•
What
was the canon of proportions?
•
Do
you know what kind of creature an ibex is?
•
What
kind of stones are lapis lazuli or basalt?
• What
is a portico, a volute, a capital, or a stele?
Preparing for
Tests: When you study your notes for a test over these cultures
and their art,
make sure you are able to distinguish a stele of the Babylonian culture from a
cosmetic palette from the Old Kingdom period of Egypt. Study the interior of a
Mycenaean tomb compared to a ziggurat. What are the characteristics of a
Cycladic plank idol? How does it compare to the Venus of Willendorf?
Consider finding a colleague in your class to
study with, working together on creating your note-taking and study tools.
Studying with a partner from class will help you because you can test each other over different aspects of each art
object, time period, and culture.
Surveys show people study
more effectively when they review their notes in regular and frequent study sessions,
perhaps once or twice a week, rather than waiting until just before a test and cramming in one big siege. Try
a study session reviewing one aspect, such as cultural time period and
stylistic characteristics, of all the subjects. Later, another study session can be devoted to materials and iconography.
Create some likely test questions based on what you have covered in
class. Answers to the following sample multiple-choice test questions are found
at the end of this chapter:
• Image 13-2
Why is this
figure called the Venus of Willendorf?
A. It has a "Willendorf" hairstyle
B. It was found at a site near Willendorf, Austria
C. She resembles the 13th-century
German Countess of Willendorf
D. None of these
• Image 13-8,
Victory Stele of Naram Sin
What does this relief
carving depict?
A. King Narmer uniting Upper and Lower Egypt
B. Babylonian ruler Hammurabi receiving law codes from (God) Shamash
C. The Akkadian king Naram Sin's war victory
D. Gilgamesh battling Centaurs
• Image 13-20, Tutankhamen’s Coffin
From
which Egyptian time period is this artwork?
A. Old Kingdom
B. Middle Kingdom
C. New Kingdom (not Amarna Period)
D. New Kingdom (Amarna Period)
• Image 13-25
Why was
gold the metal of choice for tomb objects?
A. Gold doesn't rust or oxidize.
B. Gold is considered beautiful, rare, and precious.
C. Gold is malleable and easy to work with.
D. All of these
• Sample
essay question: Discuss the specific role art and artists played within one of
the ancient cultures from this chapter. Cite and describe a specific work of
art supporting your discussion.
Review other sample questions provided in the Understanding
Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e),
in the Student Test Packet, or on the ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art.
Enhancing Your
Observational Powers: Timelines and maps help place subjects
into a
world context and in relation to each other. Find some sources that give you a
global perspective on the art you are studying from these ancient cultures.
Some of these cultures were aware of each other, even exchanging goods or
ideas, and others were isolated.
1. Locating
Sites Geographically: Study a world map or a globe of the Earth and observe the
geographical locations and relationships of these cultures, considered the
cradles of civilization,
to one another. Which of these exchanged trade with each other? Which of these warred with each other? What are these
locations called today, and what are they like in the present?
• The
Nile (Fertile Ribbon), Egypt
• Tigris
and Euphrates (Fertile Crescent), Mesopotamia
• The
Indus Valley, India
• The
Yellow (Yangtze) River Valley, China
2.
Exploring
Local Library Resources: Visit a local library or resource center to investigate in more depth one or more of the
cultures presented in this chapter. So much has been written about them,
ranging from magazine articles in National Geographic to books from
Time-Life, giving you a layman's synopsis of information with photographic images or skillfully rendered artists’
reconstructions, to scholarly works of research from specialists in the
field who have devoted their lives to investigating a time period of one
culture, perhaps having participated in seminal study, archaeological
excavations, or curatorial research in
museums. Many informative visual documentaries are available as well,
such as the PBS/Nova Series: Secrets of Lost Empires, or Lascaux
Revisited (Crystal Video in cooperation with Centre Departementale du
Tourisme de Dordogne).
3.
Interviewing
a Specialized Scholar: Perhaps a professor or teacher in your school
specializes in Prehistoric art, archaeology, Egyptology, the Middle East, or Mediterranean region studies. See if you can meet
with them to find out more about their research and knowledge. Perhaps
they have published research you can read!
4. Visit a Local Museum: Visit a museum in
your region or city displaying artifacts from these
ancient cultures. Observe as closely as you can the artwork and its integration
into the function of the object within the context of the museum. How
has the exhibit and information about it been presented?
For More
Understanding: The text includes examples of artwork from ancient
cultures within
other chapters; for example, the view of the Great Temple at Karnak (Chapter 11-4), stone carving methods (Chapter 9), or
beautifully crafted gold jewelry (Chapter 12). Study and research some of these
readily available examples in order to enhance your understanding of
these cultures and the artifacts remaining from them. Find more information
provided in the website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e).
ArtExperience Online
for Understanding Art: Use the flashcard section to view images
and figure drawings seen in this chapter.
Also
learn more about the information and artwork presented in the A Closer Look section.
The special Art Tour feature
will virtually put you in the ancient city of Jerusalem and give you a sense of art
in an ancient location.
Notes and Links to Remember:
(answers to sample
multiple-choice questions: b, a, d, d)