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How Jacques Louis David's study of Brutus gives you permission to be subjective | Art, Explained

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How to talk about art and artist from a personal and historically balanced perspective in 5 minutes

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How Jacques Louis David's study of Brutus gives you permission to be subjective | Art, Explained

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This 3,000-year-old Olmec face was made to last. What can we learn from it? | Art, Explained

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This 3,000-year-old Olmec face was made to last. What can we learn from it? | Art, Explained

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How to talk about art or an artist in 5 minutes.

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The Cathedral of Chartres, 1970 | From the Vaults

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The Cathedral of Chartres, 1970 | From the Vaults

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Conserving Albrecht Dürer's Monumental Arch

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Conserving Albrecht Dürer's Monumental Arch

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Photography: 19th Cent.: Innovation and Experimentation

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Photography: 19th Cent.: Innovation and Experimentation

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110 Still Life in Studio. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. 1837 C.E. Daguerreotype. (V: daguerreotype, calotype, hypo, Nicéphore Niépce)

114 Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art. Honoré Daumier. 1862 C.E. Lithograph. (V: lithograph, Nadar, collodion method, Le Géant)

117 The Horse in Motion. Eadweard Muybridge. 1878 C.E. Albumen print. (V: Animal Locomotion, zoopraxiscope, persistence of vision, Leland Stanford)

127 The Steerage. Alfred Stieglitz. 1907 C.E. Photogravure. (V: Photo-Secessionists, 291)

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The work shown is a video still of The Crossing by Bill Viola. In this work, Viola uses water conceptually to transmit meaning.

Select and completely identify another work of art that uses water conceptually to transmit meaning.

What meaning is transmitted in each work? Using visual or contextual evidence, analyze at least two similarities between the two works in terms of how water is used conceptually to transmit meaning.

Then, using visual or contextual evidence, analyze at least two differences between the two works in terms of how water is used conceptually to transmit meaning.

To answer this question, you may select a work from the list below or any other relevant work of art.

Task 1: Accurately identifies another work of art that uses water conceptually to transmit meaning.

Task 2: Accurately explains the meaning that is transmitted in the selected work of art.

Task 3: Accurately explains the meaning that is transmitted in The Crossing.

Task 4 & 5: Accurately uses specific visual or contextual evidence to analyze the similarities between the two works in terms of how water is used conceptually to transmit meaning.

Task 6 & 7: Accurately uses specific visual or contextual evidence to analyze the differences between the two works in terms of how water is used conceptually to transmit meaning.

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Abstractions Impact on Conceptual Art(through installations, technology)

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Abstractions Impact on Conceptual Art(through installations, technology)

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Review: 236 En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop). Pepon Osorio. 1994 C.E. Mixed-media installation. (V: Nuyorican, St. Lazarus, chucherrias)

238 Electronic Superhighway. Nam June Paik. 1995 C.E. Mixed-media installation (49- channel closed-circuit video installation, neon, steel, and electronic components). (V: Fluxus, closed-circuit video, neon)

239 The Crossing. Bill Viola. 1996 C.E. Video/sound installation. (V: Video art)

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Review: 247 Preying Mantra. Wangechi Mutu. 2006 C.E. Mixed media on Mylar. (V: preying mantis, Kuba cloth, Romare Bearden)

235 Rebellious Silence, from the Women of Allah series. Shirin Neshat (artist); photo by Cynthia Preston.1994 C.E. Ink on photograph.  (V: Farsi, chador (hijab), Iranian Revolution)

245 Old Man’s Cloth. El Anatsui. 2003 C.E. Aluminum and copper wire. (V: Sankofa movement, kente cloth, malleable)

237 Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000). Michel Tuffery. 1994 C.E. Mixed media. (V: povi sculptures, processed meat)

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212 Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan. Artist unknown; based on an oil painting by Liu Chunhua. c. 1969 C.E. Color lithograph. (V: Chairman Mao, Cultural Revolution, Anyuan Miners’ Strike)

230 Pink Panther. Jeff Koons. 1988 C.E. Glazed porcelain. (V: kitsch)

246 Stadia II. Julie Mehretu. 2004 C.E. Ink and acrylic on canvas.

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231 Untitled (#228), from the History Portraits series. Cindy Sherman. 1990 C.E. Photograph. (V: Postmodernism, appropriation, Judith, Holofernes)

242 Lying with the Wolf. Kiki Smith. 2001 C.E. Ink and pencil on paper. (V: feminism, Sainte   Geneviève, Little Red Riding Hood)

244 The Swing (after Fragonard). Yinka Shonibare. 2001 C.E. Mixed-media installation. (V: Dutch wax fabrics, batik, imperialism)

247 Preying Mantra. Wangechi Mutu. 2006 C.E. Mixed media on Mylar. (V: preying mantis, Kuba cloth, Romare Bearden)

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Tuesday: Global Art since 1980: Class and Society

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Tuesday: Global Art since 1980: Class and Society

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Review: 246 Stadia II. Julie Mehretu. 2004 C.E. Ink and acrylic on canvas.

229 A Book from the Sky. Xu Bing. 1987–1991 C.E. Mixed-media installation.

241 Pure Land. Mariko Mori. 1998 C.E. Color photograph on glass. (V: virtual reality)

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Wednesday: African American Art since 198: Investigating Identities

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Wednesday: African American Art since 198: Investigating Identities

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Review: Horn Players Jean-Michel Basquiat

232 Dancing at the Louvre, from the series The French Collection, Part I; #1. Faith Ringgold. 1991 C.E. Acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced fabric border. (V: Feminist movement, story quilt, Buddhist thangkas)

243 Darkytown Rebellion. Kara Walker. 2001 C.E. Cut paper and projection on wall. (V: Antebellum South, silhouettes)

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250 Kui Hua Zi (Sun ower Seeds). Ai Weiwei. 2010–2011 C.E. Sculpted and painted porcelain. (V: porcelain)

236 En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop). Pepon Osorio. 1994 C.E. Mixed-media installation. (V: Nuyorican, St. Lazarus, chucherrias)

Answer the FRQ with the alternative artwork.

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Tuesday: Impact of Abstract Expressionism on Contemporary Artists (2D, 3D, Interactive)

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Tuesday: Impact of Abstract Expressionism on Contemporary Artists (2D, 3D, Interactive)

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228 Androgyn III. Magdalena Abakanowicz. 1985 C.E. Burlap, resin, wood, nails, string. (V: Holocaust, totalitarianism, burlap, resin, androgynous)

233 Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People). Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. 1992 C.E. Oil and mixed media on canvas. (V: Rauschenberg, combine)

248 Shibboleth. Doris Salcedo. 2007–2008 C.E. Installation. (V: shibboleth)

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Review: 227. Summer Trees, Song Su-Nam

145 Woman, I. Willem de Kooning. 1950–1952 C.E. Oil on canvas. (V: Abstract Expressionism, automatism, New York School, Clement Greenberg)

149 The Bay. Helen Frankenthaler. 1963 C.E. Acrylic on canvas. (V: Color Field painting, acrylic paint, unprimed canvas)

226 Horn Players. Jean-Michel Basquiat. 1983 C.E. Acrylic and oil paintstick on three  canvas panels. (V: Neo-Expressionism, graffiti, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie)

234 Earth’s Creation. Emily Kame Kngwarreye. 1994 C.E. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. (V: aboriginals, dreamings)

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Wednesday: Installation and Environmental Art: Challenging Tradition 

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Wednesday: Installation and Environmental Art: Challenging Tradition 

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148 Narcissus Garden. Yayoi Kusama. Original installation and performance 1966. Mirror balls. (V: Venice Biennale, narcissism, installation, performance art, nihonga)

224 The Gates. New York City, U.S. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. 1979–2005 C.E. Mixed- media installation. (V: Central Park, Frederick Olmsted, saffron, site-specific installation)

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Thursday: Earth Art and Minimalism: Man and the Natural World

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Thursday: Earth Art and Minimalism: Man and the Natural World

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151 Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake, Utah, U.S. Robert Smithson. 1970 C.E. Earthwork: mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, and water coil. (V: Earth art, entropy, basalt, Great Salt Lake)
((Ch. 30))

225 Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Washington, D.C., U.S. Maya Lin. 1982 C.E. Granite. (V: Minimalism, granite, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, Frederick  Hart)

HW: Watch Maya Lin video

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Friday HW: The "Isms" is my favorite unit in Art History and I am very sad to miss it! You are going to "own" an "ism," which means that you are going to present to the class a full assessment of an art history movement (within 17th -20th century). For example: Carlos would do Italian Baroque, Daniel would do Romanticism, and Shiloh would do Impressionism, etc....

I'd love it if everyone selected what they wanted, but we DO need all of the selections that are listed to be covered in class. Figure it out. Use Friday to make selections and get started!

This should be more in-depth like the December's Asia Presentations with an interactive component. THERE IS A TIME ALLOCATION.

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Thursday: Enlightenment

98.

The Tête à Tête, from Marriage a la Mode, William Hogarth

100.

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery, Joseph Wright of Derby

Thursday's HW:

96.

Fruit and Insects, Rachel Ruysch

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Wednesday: Rococo

101.

The Swing, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

105.

Self-Portrait, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Wednesday's HW: No HW - catch-up if you need to

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UNIT 7.1_ ROCOCO _ ENLIGHTENMENT ART.pptx

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Monday: Baroque

85.

Calling of St. Matthew, Caravaggio

89.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Monday's HW:

86.

Henri IV Receives the Portrait of of Marie de’Medici, from the Marie de’Medici Cycle, Peter Paul Rubens

Tuesday: Baroque

91.

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez

92.

Woman Holding a Balance, Johannes Vermeer

Tuesday's HW:

87.

Self-Portrait with Saskia, Rembrandt van Rijn

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Review Monday and Tuesday's HW In-Class

Monday's HW:

Read 97 Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo. Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez. c. 1715 C.E. Oil on canvas. (V: casta paintings, mestizo, huipil, viceroy)

Tuesday's HW:

Read 99 Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Miguel Cabrera. c. 1750 C.E. Oil on canvas. (V: Sor Juana, St. Jerome, Jeronymite order, The Answer, escudo de monja, rosary)

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Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and hunting scene. Circle of the González Family. c. 1697–1701 C.E. Tempera and resin on wood, shell inlay. (V: biombo enconchado, Great Turkish War, Japanese lacquerware)

The Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe). Miguel González. c. 1698 C.E. Based on original Virgin of Guadalupe. Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City. 16th century C.E. Oil on canvas on wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. (V: Virgin of Guadalupe, Juan Diego, enconchado, tilmatli, Nahuatl, Tonantzin, Tepeyac, criollo) Additional Resource

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Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza. Viceroyalty of New Spain. c. 1541–1542 C.E. Ink and color on paper. (V: Mexica (Aztec), Juan de Zumarraga, Tenochtitlán, frontispiece, New Fire Ceremony)

Angel with Arquebus, Asiel Timor Dei. Master of Calamarca (La Paz School). c. 17th century C.E. Oil on canvas. (V: Aspiel, arquebus, Cuzco School)

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Monday & Friday - CHAVÍN ART and INKAN ART

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Monday & Friday - CHAVÍN ART and INKAN ART

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Chavín de Huántar. Northern highlands, Peru. Chavín. 900–200 B.C.E. Stone (architectural complex); granite (Lanzón and sculpture); hammered gold alloy (jewelry). (V: shamanism, Smiling God, Staff God, anthropomorphic, Huánstan, mescalin, tenon heads)

Maize cobs. Inka. c. 1440–1533 C.E. Sheet metal/repoussé, metal alloys. (V: maize, chicha, repoussé)

City of Cusco, including Qorikancha (Inka main temple), Santo Domingo (Spanish colonial convent), and Walls at Saqsa Waman (Sacsayhuaman). Central highlands, Peru. Inka. c. 1440 C.E; convent added 1550–1650 C.E. Andesite. (V: Inka, Pachacutec, sapa, Coricancha, Inti)

City of Machu Picchu. Central highlands, Peru. Inka. c. 1450–1540 C.E. Granite (architectural complex). (V: Intihuatana, andenes)

All-T’oqapu tunic. Inka. 1450–1540 C.E. Camelid fiber and cotton. (V: camelid, acllacuna, t’oqapu, quipu)

Transformation mask. Kwakwaka’wakw, Northwest coast of Canada. Late 19th century C.E. Wood, paint, and string. (V: Kwakwaka’wakw, potlatches, Sisuitl, hamat’sa)

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Yaxchilán. Chiapas, Mexico. Maya. 725 C.E. Limestone (architectural complex). (V: Maya, Xibalba, roof comb, glyphs, Lady Xoc, bloodletting, Lord Shield Jaguar II, k’uh, Tlaloc, Itzamnah) Additional Resource

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Tlatilco female figurine. Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco. 1200–900 B.C.E. Ceramic. (V: diprosopus)

Templo Mayor (Main Temple). Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City, Mexico). Mexica (Aztec). 1375–1520 C.E. Stone (temple); volcanic stone (The Coyolxauhqui Stone); jadeite (Olmec-style mask); basalt (Calendar Stone). (V: Tlaloc, Huitzilopochtli, chinampa, chacmool, tzompantli, techcatl, Tonatiuh, tecpatl, Coyolxauhqui) Additional Resources

Ruler’s feather headdress (probably of Motecuhzoma II). Mexica (Aztec). 1428–1520 C.E. Feathers (quetzal and cotinga) and gold. (Motecuhzoma II, amantecas, quetzal)

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Tuesday & Wednesday- MISSISSIPPIAN ART and NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN ART

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Tuesday & Wednesday- MISSISSIPPIAN ART and NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN ART

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Great Serpent Mound. Adams County, southern Ohio. Mississippian (Eastern Woodlands). c. 1070 C.E. Earthwork/effigy mound. (V: Mound builders, effigy mound)

Bandolier bag. Lenape (Delaware tribe, Eastern Woodlands). c. 1850 C.E. Beadwork on leather. (V: Lenape, wampum, bandolier bag) Additional Resources

Transformation mask. Kwakwaka’wakw, Northwest coast of Canada. Late 19th century C.E. Wood, paint, and string. (V: Kwakwaka’wakw, potlatches, Sisuitl, hamat’sa)

Painted elk hide. Attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody), Eastern Shoshone, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming. c. 1890–1900 C.E. Painted elk hide. (V: Shoshone, Sun Dance, Wolf Dance)

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Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. Montezuma County, Colorado. Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi). 450–1300 C.E. Sandstone. (V: Ancestral Puebloan, kiva, sipapu)

Black-on-black ceramic vessel. Maria Martínez and Julian Martínez, Tewa, Puebloan, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. c. mid-20th century C.E. Blackware ceramic. (V: San Ildefonso Pueblo, olla, black on black ware)

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66 Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece). Workshop of Robert Campin. 1427– 1432 C.E. Oil on wood. (V: Northern Renaissance, oil painting, Annunciation, donors, triptych, disguised symbolism, Gabriel, St. Joseph)

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69 David. Donatello. c. 1440–1460 C.E. Bronze. (V: Italian Renaissance, Medici, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, David, Goliath, Mercury, petasus, Ganymede, St. Michael the Archangel, Antinous)

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» An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century

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From the advent of the printing press to the perfection of oil paint, this was a time of change in northern Europe.

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When you think of the Renaissance, the names that come to mind are probably the artists of this period (the High Renaissance): Leonardo and Michelangelo, for instance. And perhaps when you think of the greatest work of art in the western world, Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling might come to mind. This is a period of big, ambitious projects.

How is the High Renaissance different from the Early Renaissance?

As the Humanism of the Early Renaissance develops, a problem arises. Have a look at Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child with Angels. We see a Madonna and Christ Child that have become so real-the figures appear so human-that in some ways we can hardly tell that these are divine figures (except perhaps for the faint outline of a halo, and Mary's sorrowful expression and hands clasped in prayer). On the other hand, in the Middle Ages, the need to create transcendent spiritual figures, meant a move toward abstraction-toward flatness and elongation.

In the Early Renaissance then, a tension arises. To create spiritual figures, your image can't look very real, and if you want your image to appear real, then you sacrifice some spirituality. In the late 15th century though, Leonardo da Vinci creates figures who are physical and real (just as real as Lippi's or Masaccio's figures), and yet they have an undeniable and intense spirituality. We could say that Leonardo unites the real and spiritual, or soul and substance.

The best way to see this is in this painting by Verrocchio-an important Early Renaissance artist who Leonardo was apprenticed to when he was young. Verrocchio asked Leonardo to paint one of the angels in his painting of the Baptism of Christ.

Can you tell which angel is Leonardo's? One angel should look more like a boy-that's the Early Renaissance angel (the one painted by Verrocchio) and the other angel should look truly divine, sent by God from heaven (that's Leonardo's angel).

The angel on the left is Leonardo's.

Leonardo's angel is ideally beautiful and moves in a graceful and complex way, twisting her upper body to the left but raising her head up and to the right. Figures that move elegantly and that are ideally beautiful are typical of the High Renaissance.
Additional resources Expanding the Renaissance: a new Smarthistory initiative.
Read a chapter in our textbook, Reframing Art History, about rethinking how we approach Italian renaissance art ( art in republics as well as in sovereign states).
Explore Leonardo from The National Gallery.
Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:

[flickr_tags user_id="82032880@N00″ tags="HighRenaissance,"]
More Smarthistory images...

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Toward the High Renaissance, an introduction

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Proficient in anatomy and perspective, artists aimed at complex poses, ideal beauty-and spiritual transcendence.

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How to Recognize Italian Renaissance Art

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How to Recognize Italian Renaissance Art

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How to recognize Italian Renaissance art

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Look for a revival of classical forms, increasingly precise anatomy, naturalistic movement, and convincing space.

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A life-size youth, naked except for a shepherd's hat and sandals, stands triumphant, one foot resting upon his foe's severed head. The hand near his supporting leg holds a massive sword, while his other hand, placed at his hip, clasps a stone, presumably the one used to defeat the hulking warrior at his feet. This androgynous figure-cast in bronze by in the 1440s-is the adolescent King David, ancestor of Christ and hero of the Hebrew Bible. David famously defeated the giant Goliath, liberating his people armed only with a sling-shot and the grace of God. His story was a popular subject for renaissance artists. David's triumph of faith over brawn communicated anti-tyrannical political themes and epitomized the Christian message that God's chosen people would inevitably prevail.

While the subject is Judeo-Christian, the form of this figure communicates a different set of visual interests. Nowhere in the bible is David described as stripping down to his bare body to wage battle. David's sensual nudity and his contrapposto pose reflect the forms of ancient Greek and Roman pagan sculpture rather than those of the medieval era. The work is fully free-standing and, like an ancient sculpture, was originally displayed upon an elevated column. This placement, as well as the scale and bronze medium, are also characteristic of ancient Greco-Roman art.

Donatello's is an example of humanist interests crossing over into the realm of visual art: beginning in the thirteenth century, Italian buildings, sculptures, and paintings began to look increasingly like they did in the ancient Greco-Roman world, even if the subject matter, contexts, and functions were vastly different. Eager to serve the interests of their classically inclined patrons and to demonstrate their own ingenuity, visual artists explored new approaches to form inspired by surviving art and architecture from antiquity as well as ancient authors' discussions of them. (See this essay for a detailed discussion of humanism and its origins in literature.)

What did they see?

Few ancient paintings survived for renaissance people to see. Excavations of Nero's Golden House in the 1480s did reveal fanciful paintings of animals, plants, people, architecture, and hybrids of these, which came to be called "grotesques". However, the main repositories of Roman painting known to us, such as the extensive decorations at Pompeii, were not excavated until long after the renaissance and no painting from ancient Greece was known to have survived.

Archeological pursuits went hand-in-hand with humanist scholarship. Perhaps the most famous example is the a 1st century C.E. marble sculpture described by the ancient author Pliny as the greatest of all works of art. Excavated in 1506, the sculpture was discovered in the ruins of the palace of the Roman Emperor Titus-just where Pliny said it would be.

Much of the ancient art known in the renaissance, however, was not excavated but already part of the visual environment: buildings and sculptures, mostly in a ruinous or fragmented state. Roman sarcophagi were used as tombs, fountains, and other forms of decoration. Massive structures like the and , numerous friezes and bronzes, triumphal arches , and scores of ancient coins had never ceased to be part of the Italian visual world. Still, until the rise of humanism in the late medieval period, interest in these works was sporadic.

The , for example, a fragmentary work from the 1st century B.C.E., is the epitome of an ancient sculpture that inspired renaissance artists such as on the Belvedere Torso Michelangelo, who adapted it for his famed Sistine Chapel ceiling. The work was likely unearthed for at least a century before anyone paid much attention to it. And, while Greco-Roman antiquity was revered, its material remains had not always been treated with reverence. Renaissance artists not only drew inspiration from ancient works, they also played an important role in preserving it. Raphael famously pleaded with Pope Leo X to preserve ancient sites in Rome and protect them from pillaging.

Artists also drew inspiration from written descriptions of art from antiquity. The detailed descriptions ( ), of art by ancient authors like Pliny, Lucian, and Philostratus were influential on renaissance visual culture. Botticelli's Calumny of Apelles is perhaps the most famous example; the artist re-creates a work described by Lucian (whose text was widely translated in the fifteenth century) by the Greek artist, Apelles. In his 1435/6 treatise On Painting , Leon Battista Alberti specifically singles out this ancient image-known only through verbal description-as a worthy source for artists and a model for narrative art.

Which Antiquity?

While it is helpful for a broad overview such as this, to use a blanket term like "Antique" to designate cultural production of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds is misleading as it suggests there was a single artistic tradition, passed from Greece to Rome, that constituted art before the Christian era. In fact, what we designate as "ancient art" includes a vast range of subjects and styles. Renaissance artists responded to different facets of ancient art at different times, often due to their own or their patron's interests or to broader stylistic trends. Donatello, for example, drew upon Etruscan, Early Christian, Neo-Attic, as well as ancient Greek and Roman art forms from various periods throughout his career.

Scholars note that artists gravitated to those ancient art forms that best aligned with their personal or regional world view. Venice, for instance, with its deep ties to the Byzantine visual tradition and nostalgia for terra firma , embraced the world of romantic, erotic landscapes evoked by ancient pastoral poetry and realized in works like Giorgione's Sleeping Venus .

Old forms, new meaning

Greco-Roman art comprised a rich language of gestures and symbols to visually communicate to broad audiences, and it was adapted to new contexts. Architects designed buildings that re-used the vocabulary of ancient structures. Michelozzo's inventive designs for the Medici Palace in Florence (begun 1444) combine ancient and modern (medieval) forms in entirely novel ways. Topped with a massive overhanging cornice (classical), the structure's second and third stories display round-arched (classical) and biforate windows (medieval), while the heavy rustication of the ground floor recalls the Palazzo dei Priori, Florence's (medieval) town hall.

Christian spaces, like the church of -with that of a temple front-like the in the Sant'Andrea in Mantua (begun 1470) designed by Alberti, creatively combines the form of an ancient triumphal arch-like the Arch of Titus Constantine Pantheon-while the flanking colossal Corinthian pilasters recall the ancient Roman arches of Septimius Severus and Roman Forum. These architectural forms are given new meaning by being re-used in a renaissance context. This hybrid of classical forms is ultimately new and not found in antiquity-these are old forms translated to new forms and given new meanings. At Sant'Andrea, the massive arch, a structure used to celebrate military triumph in ancient Rome, becomes a symbol of Christian triumph.

Bodies, bodies everywhere

The idealized nude bodies of ancient figures, with their careful rendering of anatomical detail, appealed to renaissance Christians who understood humanity to be created in the image of God . Brunelleschi's polychromed wooden crucifix in Santa Maria Novella shows Christ's life-sized body rendered with anatomical precision comparable to that of ancient sculptures, giving powerful physical presence to the Christian savior. This kind of palpable realism aligned with the new, urban religiosity of the early renaissance that promoted physically and emotionally charged piety. The reality of Christ's suffering body would have encouraged sympathy and compassion in worshipers. Anatomical specificity, like that demonstrated in Brunellschi's crucifix, reminded viewers of the reality of Christ's humanity just as it conjured the idealized anatomy of ancient art.

At Orsanmichele , a public grainery and shrine centrally located in Florence, the leading guilds of the city were tasked with providing large-scale sculptures of their patron saints to adorn the building's exterior. Conscious of the high visibility of this site, these powerful institutions sought to one-up each other by commissioning the most avant-garde work from the city's leading sculptors, including Nanni di Banco, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello. Cutting edge here meant sculpture all'antica , or "after the antique." Works were carved from marble or cast in bronze on a massive scale not common since the Roman era.

Ghiberti's , standing a looming 8'4" was the first monumental bronze figure of the renaissance. Created for the guild of cloth finishers and merchants in foreign cloth, this costly bronze statue advertised the wealth of the sponsoring guild. Ghiberti's saint also marks the development towards free-standing figural sculpture, a tradition popular in the ancient world but largely unused in the medieval. While Saint John does occupy an architectural niche, the figure is rendered wholly in the round and stands within the space rather than being attached to the structure's walls (see the figures on the portal of Saint John the Baptist Chartres Cathedral for an example). This movement towards fully free-standing, or sculpture in-the-round, became a hallmark of the renaissance tradition, familiar to us in the sculptures of Donatello and Michelangelo

Painted bodies

The new figurative style embraced by sculptors like Ghiberti and Donatello was also adopted by artist's working in two dimensional media. In Masaccio's cycle of frescoes dedicated to the life of Saint Peter in Florence's Brancacci Chapel, the figures are modeled in light and shade to produce sculptural effects that suggest their three-dimensionality. In the scene of the Tribute Money the figures occupy a firm ground-line and their volumetric bodies cast regular shadows as though lit from a light source from the right. The figure types Masaccio develops for his apostles are relatable, rugged men of the street like Donatello's Saint Mark at Orsanmichele and evoke the strong psychological presence found in images of Roman senators. Each figure is presented with a distinct human personality, responding to the unfolding scene through varied facial expressions.

Creating "real" space

The development of , is credited with devising this system, inspired by his careful study of ancient Roman monuments and medieval Arabic and Latin theories of optics. Brunelleschi's theories were codified by Alberti in his treatise on painting, which gave detailed instructions for constructing mathematically defined space so that painters may create the appearance of three dimensions in their art. To give credibility to this type of contrived spatial construction, one-point linear perspective , a key invention of the early Italian renaissance, was also informed by humanism. Brunelleschi, the famed architect of the Florentine Duomo On Architecture Alberti draws upon the writing of the ancient author Vitruvius whose widely read 1st century B.C.E. treatise, , celebrated the illusionistic mathematical space of ancient Roman painting.

New/Old subjects

One of the critical developments of the fifteenth century was the transformation of the subjects of ancient mythology into large-scale imagery. Previously used primarily for religious subjects, renaissance artists employed the monumental scale for the gods and heroes of antiquity.

In the Hall of the Months at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, the artists Francesco del Cossa, Cosme Tura, and Ercole de' Roberti frescoed the walls of Duke Borso d' Este's pleasure palace with large-scale scenes that combined images of contemporary court life with pagan subjects. Divided into twelve sections, each set of images is separated by Corinthian columns, and includes at the lowest register a scene from Borso's court-such as the duke dispensing justice or interacting with courtiers-above which is the zodiac sign for the month depicted and, at the highest register, a triumphal depiction of the pagan god associated with that month.

Throughout the imagery at Schifanoia are recognizable portrait likenesses of Duke Borso. While incorporated into a larger narrative, these likenesses do point to another key humanist-inspired development of the early renaissance: the genre of independent portraiture.

Living sinners depicted in art

While popular in ancient Greece and Rome, portraiture had all but disappeared in European art until the fifteenth century. The many surviving portrait busts of Roman senators and the heads of emperors on imperial coins fascinated renaissance audiences and provided ready models for the rising genre. Initially used to record the features of the ruling class, portraiture spread in popularity and became a key form of commemoration for the rising merchant and artisan classes.

An early example is Pisanello's portraits of Leonello d'Este which show the Ferrarese ruler in profile and bust-length, an approach drawn from the tradition of imperial profile portraits on ancient coinage. By the late fifteenth century the profile view was largely displaced by the three-quarter view (initially popular Botticelli's Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo de'Medici in northern Europe), seen in . Turning the sitter towards the viewer encouraged a new kind of viewing experience, one that suggested a reciprocity with the audience-the viewer looks upon the sitter who appears to look back.

Humanism and the rising status of the artist

Humanist interests informed another key development of the renaissance: the rising social status of the visual artist. The authors of antiquity celebrated the creations of their own leading artists and described the honors paid to them, giving renaissance patrons reason to encourage artistic ingenuity and artists worthy models to emulate. Traditionally seen as humble craftsmen and valued as manual workers (however skillful), visual artists became increasingly appreciated for their intellectual abilities during the early renaissance. Artists commanded ever greater social prestige so that by the sixteenth century it meant something to own a work by Raphael, Michelangelo, or Mantenga. Works of art were seen as expressions of individual ingenuity, valued for the virtues attributed to their creators.

Renaissance Italy and beyond

Humanism and its reflection in contemporaneous art was certainly not confined to the Italian world. Artists north of the Alps and beyond Europe also responded to the forms of ancient art, but as in the Italian peninsula, they did so in ways that reflected their personal and regional interests. There is no single renaissance style inspired by the "Antique" anymore than there was a single antique world. Much the same can be said for our own, modern-day artistic engagements with the Greek and Roman past. The whitewashed world of the 1959 movie or the heavily muscled hunks of the 2006 epic say much more about us than they do the ancient past. Such was always the case.
Additional resources:

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A life-size youth, naked except for a shepherd's hat and sandals, stands triumphant, one foot resting upon his foe's severed head. The hand near his supporting leg holds a massive sword, while his other hand, placed at his hip, clasps a stone, presumably the one used to defeat the hulking warrior at his feet.

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The noble achievements of our far-off ancestors, the men of ancient Rome, are forgotten, and have become impossible to modern men. Where was the painter's art till Giotto tardily restored it? A caricature of the art human delineation!

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The altar and the sacrament of the Eucharist

Every architectural space has a gravitational center, one that may be spatial or symbolic or both; for the medieval church, the altar fulfilled that role. This essay will explore what transpired at the altar during this period as well as its decoration, which was intended to edify and illuminate the worshippers gathered in the church.

The Christian religion centers upon Jesus Christ, who is believed to be the incarnation of the son of God born to the Virgin Mary.

During his ministry, Christ performed miracles and attracted a large following, which ultimately led to his persecution and crucifixion by the Romans. Upon his death, he was resurrected, promising redemption for humankind at the end of time.

The mystery of Christ's death and resurrection are symbolically recreated during the Mass (the central act of worship) with the celebration of the Eucharist - a reminder of Christ's sacrifice where bread and wine wielded by the priest miraculously embodies the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Christian Savior.

The altar came to symbolize the tomb of Christ. It became the stage for the sacrament of the Eucharist, and gradually over the course of the Early Christian period began to be ornamented by a cross, candles, a cloth (representing the shroud that covered the body of Christ), and eventually, an altarpiece (a work of art set above and behind an altar).

In Rogier van der Weyden's Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments, one sees Christ's sacrifice and the contemporary celebration of the Mass joined. The Crucifixion of Christ is in the foreground of the central panel of the triptych with St. John the Evangelist and the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross, while directly behind, a priest celebrates the Eucharist before a decorated altarpiece upon an altar.

Though altarpieces were not necessary for the Mass, they became a standard feature of altars throughout Europe from the thirteenth century, if not earlier. One of the factors that may have influenced the creation of altarpieces at that time was the shift from a more cube-shaped altar to a wider format, a change that invited the display of works of art upon the rectangular altar table.

Though the shape and medium of the altarpiece varied from country to country, the sensual experience of viewing it during the medieval period did not: chanting, the ringing of bells, burning candles, wafting incense, the mesmerizing sound of the incantation of the liturgy, and the sight of the colorful, carved story of Christ's last days on earth and his resurrection would have stimulated all the senses of the worshipers. In a way, to see an altarpiece was to touch it-faith was experiential in that the boundaries between the five senses were not so rigorously drawn in the Middle Ages. For example, worshipers were expected to visually consume the Host (the bread symbolizing Christ's body) during Mass, as full communion was reserved for Easter only.

Saints and relics

Since the fifth century, saints' relics (fragments of venerated holy persons) were embedded in the altar, so it is not surprising that altarpieces were often dedicated to saints and the miracles they performed. Italy in particular favored portraits of saints flanked by scenes from their lives, as seen, for example, in the image of St. Francis of Assisi by Bonaventura Berlinghieri in the Church of San Francesco in Pescia.

The Virgin Mary and the Incarnation of Christ were also frequently portrayed, though the Passion of Christ (and his resurrection) most frequently provided the backdrop for the mystery of Transubstantiation celebrated on the altar. The image could be painted or sculpted out of wood, metal, stone, or marble; relief sculpture was typically painted in bright colors and often gilded.

Germany, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia were most often associated with polyptychs (many-paneled works) that have several stages of closing and opening, in which a hierarchy of different media from painting to sculpture engaged the worshiper in a dance of concealment and revelation that culminated in a vision of the divine.

For example, the altarpiece from Altenberg contained a statue of the Virgin and Christ Child which was flanked by double-hinged wings that were opened in stages so that the first opening revealed painted panels of the Annunciation, Nativity, Death and Coronation of the Virgin (image above). The second opening disclosed the Visitation, Adoration of the Magi, and the patron saints of the Altenberg cloister, Michael and Elizabeth of Hungary. When the wings were fully closed, the Madonna and Child were hidden and painted scenes from the Passion were visible.

Variations

English parish churches had a predilection for rood screens, which were a type of carved barrier separating the nave (the main, central space of the church) from the chancel. Altarpieces carved out of alabaster became common in fourteenth-century England, featuring scenes from the life of Christ; these were often imported by other European countries.

The abbey of St.-Denis in France boasted a series of rectangular stone altarpieces that featured the lives of saints interwoven with the most important episodes of Christ's life and death. For example, the life of St. Eustache unfolds to either side of the Crucifixion on one of the altarpieces, the latter of which participated in the liturgical activities of the church and often reflected the stained-glass subject matter of the individual chapels in which they were found.

Gothic beauty

In the later medieval period in France (15th-16th centuries), elaborate polyptychs with spiky pinnacles and late Gothic tracery formed the backdrop for densely populated narratives of the Passion and resurrection of Christ. In the seven-paneled altarpiece from the church of St.-Martin in Ambierle, the painted outer wings represent the patrons with their respective patron saints and above, the Annunciation to the Virgin by the archangel Gabriel of the birth of Christ. On the outer sides of these wings, painted in are the donors' coats of arms.

Turrets (towers) crowned by triangular gables and divided by vertical pinnacles with spiky crockets create the framework of the polychromed and gilded wood carving of the inner three panels that house the story of Christ's torture and triumph over death against tracery patterns that mimic stained glass windows found in Gothic churches.

To the left, one finds the Betrayal of Christ, the Flagellation, and the Crowning with the Crown of Thorns - scenes that led up to the death of Christ. The Crucifixion occupies the elevated central portion of the altarpiece, and the Descent from the Cross, the Entombment, and Resurrection are represented on the right side of the altarpiece.

There is an immediacy to the treatment of the narrative that invites the worshiper's immersion in the story: anecdotal detail abounds, the small scale and large number of the figures encourage the eye to consume and possess what it sees in a fashion similar to a child's absorption before a dollhouse. The scenes on the altarpiece are made imminently accessible by the use of contemporary garb, highly detailed architectural settings, and exaggerated gestures and facial expressions.

One feels compelled to enter into the drama of the story in a visceral way-feeling the sorrow of the Virgin as she swoons at her son's death. This palpable quality of empathy that propels the viewer into the Passion of Christ makes the historical past fall away: we experience the pathos of Christ's death in the present moment.

According to medieval theories of vision, memory was a physical process based on embodied visions. According to one twelfth-century thinker, they imprinted themselves upon the eyes of the heart. The altarpiece guided the faithful to a state of mind conducive to prayer, promoted communication with the saints, and served as a mnemonic device for meditation, and could even assist in achieving communion with the divine.

The altar had evolved into a table that was alive with color, often with precious stones, with relics, the chalice (which held the wine) and paten (which held the Host) consecrated to the blood and body of Christ, and finally, a carved and/or painted retable: this was the spectacle of the holy.

As Jean-Claude Schmitt put it:

this was an ensemble of sacred objects, engaged in a dialectic movement of revealing and concealing that encouraged individual piety and collective adherence to the mystery of the ritual. J.-C. Schmitt , "Les reliques et les images," in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symbols (Turnhout: 1999)

The story embodied on the altarpiece offered an object lesson in the human suffering experienced by Christ. The worshiper's immersion in the death and resurrection of Christ was also an engagement with the tenets of Christianity, poignantly transcribed upon the sculpted, polychromed altarpieces.

Additional resources

Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmond Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

Paul Binski, "The 13th-Century English Altarpiece," in Norwegian Medieval Altar Frontals and Related Materials. Institutum Romanum Norvegiae, Acta ad archaeologiam et atrium historiam pertinentia 11, pp. 47-57 (Rome: Bretschneider, 1995).

Shirley Neilsen Blum, Early Netherlandish Triptychs: A Study in Patronage (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969).

Marco Ciatti, "The Typology, Meaning, and Use of Some Panel Paintings from the Duecento and Trecento," in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, 15-29. Studies in the History of Art 61. Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Symposium Papers 38 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

Donald L. Ehresmann, "Some Observations on the Role of Liturgy in the Early Winged Altarpiece," Art Bulletin 64/3 (1982), pp. 359-69.

Julian Gardner, "Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History: Legislation and Usage," in Italian Altarpieces 1250-1500: Function and Design, ed. Eve Borsook and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi, 5-39 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Peter Humfrey and Martin Kemp, eds., The Altarpiece in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Lynn F. Jacobs, "The Inverted 'T'-Shape in Early Netherlandish Altarpieces: Studies in the Relation between Painting and Sculpture" Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54/1 (1991), pp. 33-65.

Lynn F. Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces, 1380-1550: Medieval Tastes and Mass Marketing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Justin E.A. Kroesen and Victor M. Schmidt, eds., The Altar and its Environment, 1150-1400 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009).

Barbara G. Lane, The Altar and the Altarpiece: Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting (New York: Harper & Row, 1984).

Henning Laugerud, "To See with the Eyes of the Soul, Memory and Visual Culture in Medieval Europe," in ARV, Nordic Yearbook of Folklore Studies 66 (Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2010), pp. 43-68.

Éric Palazzo, "Art and the Senses: Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages," in A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard Newhauser, pp. 175-94 (London, New Delhi, Sidney: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

Donna L. Sadler, Touching the Passion-Seeing Late Medieval Altarpieces through the Eyes of Faith (Leiden: Brill, 2018).

Beth Williamson, "Altarpieces, Liturgy, and Devotion," Speculum 79 (2004): 341-406.

Beth Williamson, "Sensory Experience in Medieval Devotion: Sound and Vision, Invisibility and Silence," Speculum 88 1 (2013), pp. 1-43.

Kim Woods, "The Netherlandish Carved Altarpiece c. 1500: Type and Function," in Humfrey and Kemp, The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, pp. 76-89.

Kim Woods, "Some Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Carved Wooden Altar-Pieces in England," Burlington Magazine 141/1152 (1999), pp.144-55.

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The story embodied on the altarpiece offered an object lesson in the human suffering experienced by Christ.

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Classic, classical, and classicism explained

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Classic, classical, and classicism explained

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Classic, classical, and classicism explained

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What's the difference between classic art, classical art, and classicism?

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74 Adam and Eve. Also known 'The Fall of Man'. Albrecht Dürer. 1504 C.E. Engraving. (V: Apollo Belvedere, Vitruvius, four humors, sanguine, melancholy, saturnine, engraving, burin) Germany

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77 Isenheim altarpiece. Matthias Grünewald. c. 1512–1516 C.E. Oil on wood. (V: polyptych, predella, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Sebastian, St. Anthony, ergotism)

79 Allegory of Law and Grace. Lucas Cranach the Elder. c. 1530 C.E. Woodcut and letterpress. (V: Martin Luther, Erasmus, Protestant Reformation, Ten Commandments, woodcut, Dance of Death)

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73 Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci. c. 1494–1498 C.E. Oil and tempera. (V: High Renaissance, Last Supper, refectory, linear perspective, Ludovico Sforza, Judas, John the Beloved, Trinity)

76 School of Athens. Raphael. 1509–1511 C.E. Fresco. (V: Stanza della Segnatura, Julius II, Plato, Aristotle, Timaeus, Nichomachean Ethics, Pythagoras, Euclid, Diogenes, Heraclitus, Sodoma, transubstantiation)

75 Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall frescoes. Vatican City, Italy. Michelangelo. Ceiling frescoes: c. 1508–1512 C.E.; altar frescoes: c. 1536–1541 C.E. Fresco. (V: sibyl, prophet, grisaille, ignudi, Belvedere Torso, Drunkenness of Noah, Zechariah, St. Bartholomew, St. Peter, Charon, Minos, Sack of Rome, attribute)

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67 Pazzi Chapel. Basilica di Santa Croce. Florence, Italy. Filippo Brunelleschi (architect). c. 1429–1461 C.E. Masonry. (V: pietra serena, tondo, chapter house, loggia)

70 Palazzo Rucellai. Florence, Italy. Leon Battista Alberti (architect). c. 1450 C.E. Stone, masonry. (V: palazzo, cornice, stringcourses, opus reticulatum, pilasters, piano nobile)

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71 Madonna and Child with Two Angels. Fra Filippo Lippi. c. 1465 C.E. Tempera on wood. (V: atmospheric perspective, linear (painting) style)

72 Birth of Venus. Sandro Botticelli. c. 1484–1486 C.E. Tempera on canvas. (V: humanism, Neoplatonism, Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, Zephyrus, Chloris, St. John the Baptist, Medici Venus)

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63 Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, including Lamentation. Padua, Italy. Unknown architect; Giotto di Bondone (artist). Chapel: c. 1303 C.E.; Fresco: c. 1305. Brick (architecture) and fresco. (V: Proto-Renaissance, St. Francis of Assisi, Enrico Scrovegni, usury, giornate, modeling, Mary Magdalene, St. John)

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Agenda

82. Il Gesù (Rome)

88. San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. (Rome)

93. The Palace  at Versailles (France)

HW: Compare the different Baroque architectural sites (Venn diagram)

How does context shape the form of these architectural sites?

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Thursday: Early Italian Renaissance Architecture

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Thursday: Early Italian Renaissance Architecture

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Agenda

67. Pazzi Chapel.

70. Palazzo Rucellai.

HW: Techniques & Methods

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Agenda: Medieval Manuscript Presentation 

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Agenda: Medieval Manuscript Presentation 

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Students present. They will be given a printout of collegeboard questions. They must answer them at the end of presentations. The following day, I will give them the answers. They are to explain why the other answers are wrong.

We will review 2-3 questions in class.
Each person presenting will receive at least 1 question.

Hw: complete 1 index card

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Work Time

Extended Time to submit late assignments

Prep for Presentation

Check-in with Presentation Dates

Quiz 3: December 1st (Friday)

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Presentation Video

Work Time

HW: FFCC #188. Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis), Mohammed ibn al-Zain

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Day 58. Reliquary St Foy from Church of Saint Foy

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Day 58. Reliquary St Foy from Church of Saint Foy

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First 5 min and Last 5 min

Work Time

HW: 59. Bayeux Tapestry Video and FRQ Prompt

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Architecture 22 of 23 The Abby Sainte Foy de Conques

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Presentation

Work Time

HW: Reading Selection

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Agenda

56. Great Mosque. Córdoba

65. Alhambra.

84. Mosque of Selim II.

HW: 186. Great Mosque (Masjid-e Jameh), Isfahan - what makes this structure "Islamic"? How do these sites function? Which site is your favorite and why? (Make an index card of your fav)

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Agenda

Engaging Activity - "Round the Table"

Students will have an image card. They must ADD new information in under 15 seconds. Rotate.

HW: Make 2 Index Cards - 1 architecture site that you knew the MOST; 1 architecture site that you knew the LEAST

West & Central Asia:

181. Petra, Jordan: Treasury and Great Temple

183. The Kaaba

185. Dome of the Rock

South & Southeast Asia:

192. Great Stupa at Sanchi

197. Tōdai-ji

198. Borobudur Temple

199. Angkor, the temple of Angkor Wat

200. Lakshmana Temple

206. Forbidden City

207. Ryōan-ji

209. Taj Mahal

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Reading: The vibrant visual cultures of the Islamic West

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Reading: The vibrant visual cultures of the Islamic West

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» The vibrant visual cultures of the Islamic West, an introduction

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This essay provides an overview of the art and architecture of the Islamic West (the Iberian Peninsula when it was under Islamic rule, and what is today Morocco in northwest Africa).

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Known locally as Mezquita-Catedral, the Great Mosque of Córdoba is one of the oldest structures still standing from the time Muslims ruled Al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia including most of Spain, Portugal, and a small section of Southern France) in the late 8th century. Córdoba is a two hour train ride south of Madrid, and draws visitors from all over the world.

Temple/church/mosque/church

The buildings on this site are as complex as the extraordinarily rich history they illustrate. Historians believe that there had first been a temple to the Roman god, Janus, on this site. The temple was converted into a church by invading Visigoths who seized Córdoba in 572. Next, the church was converted into a mosque and then completely rebuilt by the descendants of the exiled Umayyads -the first Islamic dynasty who had originally ruled from their capital Damascus (in present-day Syria) from 661 until 750.

A new capital

Following the overthrow of his family (the Umayyads) in Damascus by the incoming Abbasids, Prince Abd al-Rahman I escaped to southern Spain. Once there, he established control over almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and attempted to recreate the grandeur of Damascus in his new capital, Córdoba. He sponsored elaborate building programs, promoted agriculture, and even imported fruit trees and other plants from his former home. Orange trees still stand in the courtyard of the Mosque of Córdoba, a beautiful, if bittersweet reminder of the Umayyad exile.

The hypostyle hall

The building itself was expanded over two hundred years. It is comprised of a large hypostyle prayer hall (hypostyle means, filled with columns), a courtyard with a fountain in the middle, an orange grove, a covered walkway circling the courtyard, and a minaret (a tower used to call the faithful to prayer) that is now encased in a squared, tapered bell tower. The expansive prayer hall seems magnified by its repeated geometry. It is built with recycled ancient Roman columns from which sprout a striking combination of two-tiered, symmetrical arches, formed of stone and red brick.

The mihrab

The focal point in the prayer hall is the famous horseshoe arched mihrab or prayer niche. A mihrab is used in a mosque to identify the wall that faces Mecca-the birth place of Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. This is practical as Muslims face toward Mecca during their daily prayers. The mihrab in the Great Mosque of Córdoba is framed by an exquisitely decorated arch behind which is an unusually large space, the size of a small room. Gold tesserae (small pieces of glass with gold and color backing) create a dazzling combination of dark blues, reddish browns, yellows and golds that form intricate calligraphic bands and vegetal motifs that adorn the arch.

The horseshoe arch

The horseshoe-style arch was common in the architecture of the Visigoths, the people that ruled this area after the Roman empire collapsed and before the Umayyads arrived. The horseshoe arch eventually spread across North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and is an easily identified characteristic of Western Islamic architecture (though there are some early examples in the East as well).

The dome

Above the mihrab, is an equally dazzling dome. It is built of crisscrossing ribs that create pointed arches all lavishly covered with gold mosaic in a radial pattern. This astonishing building technique anticipates later Gothic rib vaulting, though on a more modest scale.

The Great Mosque of Córdoba is a prime example of the Muslim world's ability to brilliantly develop architectural styles based on pre-existing regional traditions. Here is an extraordinary combination of the familiar and the innovative, a formal stylistic vocabulary that can be recognized as "Islamic" even today.
Additional resources
Claire Anderson, " Mihrab at the Great Mosque of Córdoba," Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, October 19, 2020.

Jerrilynn D. Dodds, editor, Al-Andalus: the art of Islamic Spain (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992).

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Recycled Roman columns fill the prayer hall of this dazzling mosque, one of the oldest built in Islamic Spain.

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It is hard to summarize the impact of a movement that spanned centuries and continents, crossed social lines, and affected all levels of culture. However, there are a few central effects that can be highlighted.

Military orders

First, the earliest military orders originated in Jerusalem in the wake of the First Crusade. A miltary order is a religious order in which members take traditional monastic vows-communal poverty, chastity, and obedience-but also commit to violence on behalf of the Christian faith. Well-known examples include the Knights Templar (officially endorsed in 1129), the Knights Hospitaller (confirmed by papal bull in 1113), and the Teutonic Knights (originated in the late twelfth century).

The military orders represented a major theological and military development, and went on to play central roles in the formation of key political units that still exist today as nation-states.

Territorial expansion

Second, crusading played a major role in European territorial expansion. The First Crusade resulted in the formation of the crusader states in the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean), which were initially governed, and in small part populated, by settlers from Europe.

Crusading in northern and eastern Europe led to the expansion of kingdoms like Denmark and Sweden, as well as the creation of brand-new political units, for example in Prussia. As areas around the Baltic Sea were taken by the crusaders, traders and settlers-mostly German-moved in and profited economically.

In the Mediterranean Sea, crusading led to the conquest and colonization of many islands, which arguably helped ensure Christian control of Mediterranean trade routes (at least for as long as the islands were held). Crusading also played a role in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula (now Spain and Portugal). This was finally completed in 1492, when the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I conquered the last Muslim community on the peninsula-the city of Granada. They expelled Jews from the country in the same year. And of course, they also authorized and supported the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, who-like many European explorers of his day-believed that the expansion of the Christian faith was one of his duties.

Impact in Europe (religious and secular)

Third, the crusading movement impacted internal European development in a few important ways. The movement helped both to militarize the medieval western Church and to sustain criticism of that militarization. It arguably helped solidify the pope's control over the Church and made certain financial innovations central to Church operations. And it both reflected and influenced devotional trends. For example, while there was some dedication to St. George from the early Middle Ages, the intensity of that devotion soared in Europe after he reportedly intervened miraculously at the Battle of Antioch in 1098, during the First Crusade.

Secular political theories were influenced by crusading, especially in France and the Iberian peninsula, and government institutions evolved in part to meet the logistical needs of crusading. Credit infrastructures within Europe rose to meet similar needs, and some locales-Venice, in particular-benefitted significantly in economic terms.

It goes without saying that the crusades also had a highly negative effect on interfaith relations.

Impact world-wide

Fourth, the crusading movement has left an imprint on the world as a whole. For example, many of the national flags of Europe incorporate a cross. In addition, many images of crusaders in our popular culture are indebted to the nineteenth century. Some in that century, like the novelist Sir Walter Scott, portrayed crusaders as brave and glamorous yet backward and unenlightened; simultaneously, they depicted Muslims as heroic, intelligent, and liberal. Others more wholeheartedly romanticized crusading.

These trends in nineteenth-century European culture impacted the Islamic world. Sometimes this influence was quite direct. In 1898 German Emperor Wilhelm II visited the grave of Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, a Muslim leader who led the recapture of Jerusalem in 1187) and was appalled at its state of disrepair. He paid to have it rebuilt, thus helping encourage modern Islamic appreciation of Saladin.

Sometimes the European influence was more diffuse. Modern crusading histories in the Islamic world began to be written in the 1890s, when the Ottoman Empire was in crisis. After the Ottomans, some Arab Nationalists interpreted nineteenth-century imperialism as crusading, and thus linked their efforts to end imperial rule with the efforts of Muslims to resist crusading in previous centuries.

It would be reassuring to believe that nobody in the West has provided grounds for such beliefs, but it would not be true. Sadly, the effects of the crusading movement-at least, as it is now remembered and reimagined-seem to be still unfolding.
Additional resources What were the crusades? How was crusading justified? The when, where and who (of crusading). Dr. Susanna A. Throop, The Crusades: An Epitome (Leeds: Kismet Press, 2018), an open access book. Dr. Ariel Fein, "Material culture of the Crusades," Reframing Art History, 2022. The Crusades on The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

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The Crusades played a major role in European territorial expansion and also militarized the Western church.

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This Hebrew book copies an Arabic text that itself began life as a work of classical Greek philosophy.

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Ancient Egypt
Religious Art

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Prehistoric Art
FRQ WEEK artworks

Ludovisi Sculpture
Benin Plaques
Nike Adjusting her Sandal
Seated Boxer
Taj Mahal
Streams mountains - p 9
Islamic Architecture - esp p 9

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Project Work Time

HW: Select Reading

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These ornate brooches were trendy accessories in the 5th and 6th centuries. Pin, body, and catch form a “crossbow.”

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UNEP · UN Environment Programme · Dec 6, 2021

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Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000) MICHEL TUFFREY

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Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000) MICHEL TUFFREY

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Michel Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe - Google Search

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

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At nearly twenty feet wide and nine feet high, Emily Kame Kngwarreye's painting is monumental in its scale and impact, rivaling Earth's Creation Abstract Expressionist paintings by Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock not only in size but also in its painterly virtuosity (see a photo of it in a gallery here , to get a sense of its scale). Patches of bold yellows, greens, reds, and blues seem to bloom like lush vegetation over the large canvas. Comprised of gestural, viscous marks, each swath of color traces the movement of the artist's hands and body over the canvas, which would have been laid horizontally as she painted, seated on (or beside) and intimately connected to her art.

rreye was born around 1910, and spent most of her life in an isolated Anmatyerr community in Central Australia. The area, however, was forcibly occupied by European pastoralist settlers in the 1920s, and the artist, alongside other members of her community, worked on the pastoral property. In 1976, Aboriginal land rights were legally granted, and she was able, finally, to live independently.

Aboriginal culture has long been intimately connected to the landscape of Australia; inhabited by humans for over 40,000 years, the region is characterized by deserts, grasslands, and dramatic arched rock formations. Kngwarreye was an established elder of her community and was trained to create ceremonial sand paintings inspired by her ritual "dreamings,'" as well as to paint decorative motifs on women's bodies as part of a ceremony called Awelye. These visual forms were connected to cultural expressions in song, storytelling, and dance. While her paintings have never been figural, they remain influenced by the culture in which she grew up as well as the natural environment.

Artistic intervention

In the late 1970s, Kngwarreye began to work in the medium of batiks, making works that were purely artistic endeavors for the first time. In 1977, she was a founding participant of the Utopia Women's Batik Group. Her compositions were abstract and featured the motif of repeated dots, acting sometimes as a linear stroke, or elsewhere used to fill large patches of space. A decade later, in 1988, the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney initiated a "Summer Project" that sought to facilitate the creation of Aboriginal art, as well as to establish a market for the genre. Sponsored by the collector Robert Holmes à Court, curators traveled to the Aboriginal homeland of Utopia and delivered acrylic paints and materials. After two weeks, they returned to find "abstract and richly expressive" compositions created by many of the artists and held a group exhibition in Sydney.

Kngwarreye's painting Emu Woman was selected for the cover of the exhibition catalogue as a gesture of respect for her seniority, as she was the oldest artist from the community. Dominated by rich, earthy tones, the painting-her first ever on canvas-contained references to plants and seeds that featured in her "dreaming" ritual. Against a dark field of charcoal, violet, and black, the piece is punctuated with bright marks in tangerine and white hues, which lend the work an electric sense of energy and rhythm. Her decades-long experience in painting directly on the human body informs the curving swells of dotted marks that comprise the composition.

Critics lauded the piece, and virtually overnight, the artist received international exposure and unprecedented acclaim. The following year, Kngwarreye held her first solo exhibition at Utopia Art Sydney, after which she would be invited to participate in several renowned international exhibitions and biennales.

The arc of Kngwarreye's career runs alongside a period of tremendous change in Australia, moving from the end of a phase of colonial settlement through to a more ethical embrace of Aboriginal culture by the nation's Western population. Yet the period in which she came to prominence also reflects changes taking place in the contemporary art world internationally, as the 1980s and 1990s saw a notable expansion within the mainstream to include non-Western or historically underrepresented artists.

documents the lushness of the "green time" that follows periods of heavy rain, and makes use of tropical blues, yellows, and greens. The piece has often been likened to Earth's Creation belongs to the "high colorist" phase in Kngwarreye's work, which is characterized by a loosening of her compositions-which were no longer reliant on pseudo-geometric patterns-and the expansion of her color palette to include a range of tones beyond the familiar clay and ochre hues that dominated her prior works. Still connected to the natural environment; however, these works reference the changing atmospheric character of seasonal cycles. Earth's Creation Claude Monet's studies of seasonal and temporal change, and given its formidable, room-filling scale, a comparison to the artist's Water Lilies of 1914-26 might be remarkably apt.

Earth's Creation was created as part of the larger Alhalkere Suite, which contains twenty-two panels, and is still considered one of the most virtuosic of Kngwarreye's immense and prolific artistic output. In the last two weeks of her life, Kngwarreye completed a suite of twenty-four small paintings. These were characterized by extremely broad, milky strokes of jewel-toned hues of blue and rose, and communicate the artist's long-standing fascination with color and her sophisticated grasp of abstract composition.

Additional resources The artist's works at the National Gallery of Australia.
Read a Emily Kame Kngwarreye's Reframing Art History textbook chapter that includes Earth's Creation- "Re-Mapping Land Art: Earthworks, Borderlands, Ecology"
"Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye" at the National Museum of Australia. Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The Alhalkere suite from the National Gallery of Australia. "Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye" review by Chrischona Schmidt. More on Australia 1900-present from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

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This huge, abstract painting pulses with vivid color and bold gestural marks.

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» Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine

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Though some debated that this was made by humans, scholars are now confident some of its markings were hand-carved.

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Late Antiquity & Christianity

Manuscript Project

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Architecture Week 1

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Ancient Greece, Etruscans, Romans

Art Historical Interpretations

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Ancient Greece, Etruscans, Romans

Art Historical Interpretations

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Ancient Egypt

Art Historical Interpretations