Introduction

Great Sphinx combines human intelligence (Khafra) and animal strength (lion) to show power of ruler
Sphinx symbolizes mysterious wisdom and immortality
Creators used imagination and skill to create art
What is Art?
Art is no dependent on ideal of beauty or skill of artist
Art = Latin word is ars or skill, Greek word is tekne or technique
Aristotle and Plato considered art in intellectual terms, study of beauty and truth led to universal good
Aesthetics is consideration of nature and creation of beauty and art
Aristotle evaluated art based on mimesis (imitation) = how they record the natural world
Led to styles or manners of representation, which are realistic or unrealistic
Fictions (ex. unicorns) can have a realistic style
Plato thought great works were shadows of material world, removed from reality
Ideal style = harmony created by symmetry and proportion
When this idealism occurred in Greece, the term classical emerged
Classic also defines peak of perfection in any time period
Triumph of human reason over nature shown through perfect balance and harmony
Shows no imperfections or irregularities
Carved top, or capital, of a Corinthian column, a type or order or column, shows no blemishes
Nature or Art?
Greeks enjoyed realistic styles, shown through story about rival Greek painters, Zeuxis and Parrhasios
Zeuxis painted grapes, birds pecked at them
Parrhasios painted a curtain, Zeuxis thought it was real and covering his painting
Adriaen van der Spelt and Frans van Mieris
Flower Piece with Curtain = blue curtain drawn to show garland of flowers
References tale of Pausias who painted garlands of Glykera
Raised question of who was the artist, painter or maker
Iconography, significance and interpretation of subject, can show meaning of work
Flowers were most expensive of time, symbolize wealth and power
Garland symbolizes passage of time and fleeting quality of human riches
Flower piece is a still life of flowers, popular in Netherlands at the time

Styles of Representation
Painting or modern photography can show beauty of plants at the right time
Edward Westons Succulent used straightforward camera work
Made photography expressionistic with a close- up view to evoke emotional response
Leonardo da Vinci said painters who copied nature were acting only as a mirror
True artists should attempt to capture inner life (energy and power)
Georgia O Keeffes Red Canna created abstract beauty by painting the essence
David Smiths Cubi works are nonrepresentational = so abstract it doesnt represent natural world
Abstract has subject and content matter, nonrepresentational has meaning
Cubi represents how mechanistic society challenges nature
Meaning can change over time so no interpretation is definitive = contextualism

The Human Body as Idea and Ideal

Human body has been used to express ideas, popular culture obsessed with beauty
Medici Venus = goddess of love, represented peak of female beauty

Sculpture was generalized to stick to classical canon (rule) of proportions

Leone Leonis bronze statue, Charles V Triumphing Over Fury
Muscular, athletic torso shows authoritarian rule
Body of Greek or Roman god shows portrait of living man
Kitagawa Utamoros woodblock print, Woman at the Height of Her Beauty
Complex society regulated by convention and ritual
Abstract, simple yet elegant
Bronze sculpture from India, Punitavati
Beautiful and generous woman, offered her beauty to Shiva
Shiva turned her into a fanged hag
Punitavati provides music for Shiva as he keeps universe in motion
Why Do We Need Art?
Art speculates on nature of things and meaning of life
Fulfill our need to understand and need to communicate
Art and the Search for Meaning?
James Hamptons Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly
New Testament imagery on right, Old Testament on left
Monument to his faith, created out of worthless materials
People use special objects in rituals, outsiders do not know their significance
Chalice of Abbot Suger = used in ceremony for Christian religion
Christians = communication between God and humans, Last Supper
Catholic Christians = wine into blood of Christ
Protestants = wine is symbol of blood
Abbot Suger added handles, stones, to a vase (secular to chalice)
Yoruba offering bowl, in Africa, used to communicate w/ gods
Calls on the god Olodumare (or Olorun, the god of destiny, certainty, order)
Carved by Olowe of Ise
Men and women support the bowl
Child suggests life- giving power of women and Olodumare
Art and the Social Context
Goverments can use art to strengthen unity
In Venice, officials ordered Veronese to fill ceiling of Council Chamber
Triumph of Venice = show peace, abundance, fame, happiness, honor, security, freedom
Venice was personified as a woman
Lion of Venice (symbol of city) and patron, St. Mark oversee everything
Who Are Artists?
Artists were considered skilled workers and craftspeople, until the Renaissance
Il Guercino thought saints and angels made art, through humans w/ divine gifts
Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin
Many thought Luke painted the portrait of Virgin Mary
If St. Luke was a divinely endowed artist, there had to be others
Teams often conceived a single art piece, but one person was creative center
Dale Chihuly made complex glassworks, w/ multiple parts
The pieces take on different meaning when they are reassembled

Ex. Violet Persian Set with Red Lip Wraps

Jan Steens The Drawing Lesson = boy apprentice and young woman learning rudiments of art
They are learning from sculptures b/c women could not work from nude models
Rembrandt van Rijn studied da Vincis The Last Supper
The Last Supper = Christ announces that one of apostles will betray him
Despite the chaos, composition is symmetrical
Rembrandt copied The Last Supper in hard red chalk, made his own revisions is soft chalk
Shifted Jesuss position to right, gave Judas more emphasis

What is a Patron?
Patrons who commissions a work has an impact on it
Ex. Great Sphinx designed by priests, statue of Charles V was to glorify totalitarian rule
Individuals, museums, national governments and more support arts

Individual Patrons
Patrons participate in creation of work, when they provide economic support
Christine de Pizan Presenting Her Book to the Queen of France
Queen Isabeau was de Pizans patron, de Pizan was Anataises patron
Sometimes, patrons dont pay the artists, or artists dont respect the patrons wishes
Frederick Leyland had Whistlers painting The Princess from the Land of Porcelain
Asked Whistler what color to paint shutters
Whistler went overboard and painted the entire room with turquoise, and gold
Became called Harmony in Blue and Gold, Leyland did not like it
Institutional Patronage: Museums and Civic Bodies
Curators acquire works of art for collections, and help patrons get fine pieces
Frank Lloyd Wrights Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum avant- garde appearance w/ avant- garde works
Avant- garde = new, experimental, or radical at the time
Guggenheim Foundation opened new museum in Bilbao, Spain designed by Frank Gehry
Shows how museums can be works of art themselves
Athens practiced democracy, rebuilt civic and religious center, the Acropolis
Sir Lawrence Alma- Tademas Pheidias and the Frieze of the Parthenon
Artist Pheidias sculpting and painted the top of wall of Temple of Athena (Parthenon)
Showing it to Pericles and his civic sponsors
What is Art History?
Art depends on skill, training, observation, time it was created, intention of creator, etc
Giorgio Vasaris Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors
Considered the very first art history book
Combines formal analysis (out of time and place) and contextualism (in historical and cultural context)
Studying Art Formally and Contextually
Connoisseurship is intense study of individual art objects
Study of formal qualities that make up design and composition is formalism
Art historians use knowledge on social and political history to understand pieces
Results in understanding of =
Iconography = narrative and allegorical significance
Context = social history
Ex. Knowing to read hieroglyphs helps understand the Great Sphinx
Anthropologists and archeologists study a range of material produced by a society

Art historians reject an idea of a fixed canon of superior pieces

Distinction that some mediums or techniques are better, disappeared
Defending Endangered Objects
Damaged or restored pieces are harder to interpret
Restorations can damage art pieces
Lacoon and his Sons = Lacoon warned Trojans about invasion in Greeks (Trojan War)
Goddess Athena sided with Greeks and sent serpents to strangle him and his sons
Lacoon represents a tragic hero, a virtuous person destroyed by unjust forces
Early restoration had Lacoons hands flinging out melodramatically
Modern conservation did not replace the lost pieces, put more of an impact on agony
Some people intentionally threaten art and architecture
Objects of cultural value in Iraq were being poached and sold illegally
War is the most destructive factor to art pieces
Architecture and art pieces were destroyed to confirm ideologies, or to celebrate victory in war
Natural disasters destroyed art also
Earthquake shook Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, destroying Gothic and Renaissance art
Art historians help to increase understanding of social and political factors
Uncovering Sociopolitical Intentions
Art has been used to promote political and educational agendas
Honore Daumiers Rue Transonain, Le 15 Avril 1834 = criticized the French government
French National Guard fired on unarmed civilians
Used lithography as cheap means of production to spread his message as widely as possible
Government bought and destroyed all newspapers with the print
Historical and political content needs to be known to understand a piece
Roger Shimomuras Diary = about internment camps for Japanese
Grandmother writes in diary while mother and son are standing near door
Door signifies not freedom, but containment (discrimination)
What is the Viewers Responsibility?
Viewers bring pieces to their own experiences, intelligence and prejudices
Styles change from time to time, and the change has a significance
Meanings of a piece can change from person to person
The Object Speaks: Large Plane Trees
Large Plane Trees by Vincent van Gogh
Depicts huge trees and men repairing a street in French town of Saint- Remy
Shows an ordinary scene, in an ordinary little town
Museum curators have traced the provenance, history of ownership
When van Gogh painted this, he was depressed and living in an asylum
Freudian historians (psychoanalytical)
Despite the light and bright colors, the relationship between the trees and men is uneasy
Marxist ideas (humans are result of their environment)
Van Gogh worked as lay minister, identified with underclass
Ferdinand de Saussure developed structuralist theory = language as system of arbitrary signs
Can be applied to art = lines and colors are lines
Jacques Derridas deconstructionism helps more interpretations emerge