Roman and Early Christian Connections

The Pantheon was designed and constructed during the reign of Hadrian in the Roman forum as a temple to all the Olympian gods (Pantheon: "all the gods"). The building consists of a rectangular porch (portico) with two rows of Corinthian columns in the usual fashion of a Greek inspired Roman temple. This porch opens into a  massive rotunda (circular room) with the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. The original layout of the temple included an enclosed courtyard so that viewers could not see the rotunda from the outside, making the inside seem impossibly and unexpectedly huge. The domed ceiling includes patterns of sunken coffers and a 29-foot wide oculus (central opening) that helps to illuminate the temple. It was dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" in the 7th century as a Roman Catholic church. 

The Church of Santa Costanza was originally built as the mausoleum of Constantina, the daughter of Constantine. It was dedicated as a Catholic church in 1256 to Santa Costanza, which is the Italian name for the later sanctified Constantina.  The building has a large rotunda surrounded by a barrel vaulted ambulatory, and displays Composite columns and clerestory windows, giving the interior a divinely lit feel. It also displays complicated mosaics, sculptures, and marble work, contrasting its relatively simple exterior. 

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Many examples of early Christian architecture display elements and even near copies of Roman art and architecture. For instance, the Pantheon and the Church of Santa Costanza both exhibit large domed rotundas as their central architectural feature, although they were built for different purposes they have a similar layout. Roman traditions and images were also reinvented for use in emerging Christian traditions. In mosaics in the Church of Santa Costanza, grapevines and putti (naked cherubs) surround a bust of Constantina. The putti drive wagon loads of grapes to pavilions where more putti are making grape juice for wine. The images are traditionally Roman and associated with Bacchus, but are reinvented to suit the Christian context referencing the Eucharist and symbolizing death and resurrection (the trampling of the grapes to be remade into wine). This is just one example of the connections between Roman and early Christian traditions. 

 The Parthenon is a octostyle peripteral Doric temple with some Ionic architectural features. One feature is the set of Ionic columns inside the Parthenon. The other is the frieze that runs along the upper part of the naos (inner building, sanctuary). The frieze is missing from the Nashville Parthenon replica. On the original Parthenon, it is a low relief sculpture. It is a 525 foot long procession “celebrating the festival that took place in Athens every four years.” (Stokstad 133)

 There is a second frieze on the Parthenon, this one Doric. It consists of 92 marble relief panels, called metopes. Each group of metopes portrays a legendary battle, with each of the individual metopes showing a fight between two representative figures within that battle. The fourteen metopes on the east side of the Parthenon convey the story of the battle between the Olympian gods and the Giants. The metopes on the west side show the invasion of Athens by the Amazons. The northern metopes are representative of the Trojan War. The southern metopes, which include some of the best preserved on the original Parthenon, shows the Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs. This scene is likely representative of the Greek’s battle against the Persians, and we never see the Centaurs winning in one of these fights. 

The Athena Parthenos is the colossal cult statue of Athena as the warrior goddess. The original was created by the renowned sculptor, Phedias. Unfortunately, the original was lost long ago, and we only know what it looked like from copies, coins, miniatures, and descriptions. The ancient historian, Pausanias, described it like this:

“The statue itself is made of ivory silver and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx ... and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. ... The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. This serpent would be Erichthonius. On the pedestal is the birth of Pandora in relief.

Bell-krater

This bell-krater, used for mixing wine and water at the Greek symposium, displays the story of Persephone's return to her mother, Demeter. Persephone steps up from Hades on the left, with Hermes standing back nearby. Hekate is in the center of the vase, lighting the journey with her two torches. Demeter stands at the far right, waiting for her daughter. The art on this vase is red figure, and the black background is identified as night-time by Hekate's large torches. Persephone's return from the underworld meant the return of spring and the growing season, so the story on this krater is rather important. 

An ornate border is above the figures, filled with what looks like leaves. Another more geometric border is below them, and it reminds me of a stone road or path on which the deities are standing. The figures' clothing is very detailed, with precise lines representing the folds. They are not stiff and regular like Archaic figures, the clothing falls more naturally, and Persephone and Hekate are caught mid-movement. The faces and anatomy of the figures have a much more Classical feel, and the krater dates back to 440B.C. It is simply attributed to "the Persephone Painter." I could find no actual artist name.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/28.57.23

Egypt Presentation

The presentation!

Pompeii

Call it morbid, but I've had a fascination with the disaster at the city of Pompeii ever since reading about it in a DK kids book about natural disasters at the age of seven. The fact that so many people were encased in ash, their last moments preserved in a mold, is so darkly poetic to me, I've always found it very interesting. That's why this article stood out to me so much. The article talks about an exhibit in the National Museum of Singapore that displays many artifacts from Pompeii and details life in the city before its ruin. The thing that caught my attention was the picture of the cast of a man's final moments. It's frightening, but something that sparks my interest, and if this exhibit comes to Nashville anytime soon, I WILL be seeing it. 

Pompeii on ArtDaily

The East Pediment

I chose to talk about a relatively small part of the Parthenon, the east pediment figures. There are nine surviving figures on the east pediment, including the two horses. The first horse is that of Helios, the sun god, while the horse on the right side is Selene's, the moon goddess. The central figures are missing, but were likely Zeus with his daughter Athena. The reclining male on the left side is either Herakles or Dionysos, the two seated women next to him are possible Demeter and Persephone, the earth and grain goddesses respectively. The next figure is Iris, a messenger of the gods. To the right of the missing central figures are likely Hestia, Dione, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. 

The figures of the reclining Dione and Aphrodite are stunning to me. The folds of their dresses are so complicated and natural, clinging to the bodies of the two goddesses with surprising lightness. Their heads are missing, but you can still see that they look like they are just waking up and are very relaxed. These, like the other statues in the pediment, were once painted, which must have added to their lifelike nature. Though, at the height where they were situated, I wonder how much of the detail in these statues would have been visible. 

The Downtown Presbyterian Church

The best way I could describe my reaction to the interior of the Downtown Presbyterian Church is that I was completely shocked. I expected something subtle, some kind of similarity in columns, or maybe a similar floral pattern in the carpet. What I saw was a full representation of a barge going down the Nile to an Egyptian temple, with blues to represent the river and clouds on the ceiling above. Stained glass windows lined the walls, depicting palm trees and papyrus on a sandy shore, and ahead of us were massive  colorful columns with more columns painted in the "distance" behind them. 

The site of the church was very central, right in the middle of downtown. The man showing us around told me that it was the highest point in the city, which is why the North used it as a base and a hospital during the Civil War, it was a prime location. The space inside the sanctuary was enormous. Or at least it felt enormous. The painted sky on the high ceiling and the vertical columns made the room feel much bigger than it was. The stained glass windows played with the lighting in the room, giving the area a surreal kind of feeling. Every part of the room was decorated with bright colors representing the Nile, Egyptian motifs, etc. The false painted columns painted on the walls helped the room feel bigger as well. As far as materials, the dark wood was beautiful. Most of the decoration was painted, but there was the stained glass as well (which is one of the few things that made the place feel like a traditional church at all). The bright colors were striking, the blues and oranges, and they represented the Egyptian style well. The repeated columns and wood paneling created rhythm throughout the room. The most distinctive features were the columns, the motif with the sun and snakes and wings, the bright colors, the stained glass windows, and the organ in the front of the room.

Individual Blog Assignment 9-16-10 #2

This article is all about a local artist named Cindy Wunsch. She creates whimsical, colorful paintings, layered deep with subtle emotions. A lot of her paintings have to do with birds and women, and the emotion and thought she puts into each one touches people in very versatile ways. She talks about how one of her paintings, I Wonder if He Knows How Much I Miss Him, makes one woman think of her husband who passed away, another of her son that committed suicide, and yet another of her husband away in Iraq. Her paintings seem to resonate with people at a deep level, and they have a very unique appearance on top of that. She uses layers of paint to create personality and feeling, and incorporates paper and cloth and other media as well. While I don't personally like all of her work, a lot of it has a very unique beauty to it, and it is definitely worth taking a look. 

Original Article

Individual Blog Assignment 9-16-10 #1

The first thing I notice about the Stele of Naram-Sin is the detail. I'm a very detail-oriented sort of person, so I notice the obscure things very quickly, namely the tree. It's surprisingly delicate compared to the rest of the piece, forming an interesting contrast. It also gives us an idea of where this battle happened, and that it was probably a real battle, since the trees are identifiable (as stated in the Stokstad textbook). The tree might seem more delicate in the picture, since it is so scaled down. The stele must be stunning in person, at six and a half feet tall. It stands as a formidable tribute to the Akkadian king's reign. 

Even though the rules we know for art could not have been in place, we can tell that the person in charge of sculpting this piece had a good eye. The repetition of the king's soldiers toward the bottom of the stele is visually pleasing, as well as a means of conveying the perhaps idealized order and fearlessness of the Akkadian army. Scale and placement are big factors in the stele as well. The king is much larger than all the rest of the figures, and he is placed at the very top of the crowd, emphasizing his importance and authority. He is also given a sign of divinity: the horns on his head, which were a sign of the gods to that culture. This whole piece serves as a representation of Naram-sin's authority, both in war and the religion of the time. 

Butterflies and machinery

In my collage, I wanted to express how I see God in every part of my life. The shapes that the pictures are cut into are especially representative of this to me. I see myself as surrounded by a careful design, thought out from the beginning like a machine, although I am ever changing. The butterflies are representative of metamorphosis; they also have to do with the fragile nature of life, and of freedom in Christ. The gears are an overarching plan, a careful design. The bottom gear is the past, and the top is the present. The metallic and sepia colors are meant to make them appear old, as if they are thought out from thousands of years ago and in effect in me today. The black can be interpreted as the darkness of the past, and even perhaps the reality of sin, but it is not in control, and it is fading into light every day. I did not want the picture to feel too incredibly cluttered, so the black and white make up a somewhat large portion of the picture, to help draw attention to each individual element. 

• Light - The light areas of the collage are what is important, the black area is what the rest is coming out of, triumphing over.
• Texture – I tried to use paint to create an aged, metallic texture over the gears without covering the pictures. The sepia tone of the pictures is meant to add to the feel of old metal. The repeating teeth of the gears also are a pattern to help draw your eye across the picture.
• Volume – The pictures on my arm are arranged to mimic the actual shading of my reference photo of my arm and make it look more three dimensional.
• Line – There is a diagonal line created by the arm and the butterflies above and below it. The curving lines of the gears also create a triangle meant to draw your eye to the other side of the collage.
• Space – The landscape pictures and the perspective shot of the street in the background of the gears are meant to feel somewhat like windows to other places, and the black and white background of the rest of the collage is meant to create contrast and light. The gears are about mid-ground, and the arm and butterflies are in the foreground.
• Size - The largest butterfly at the top of the hand is the most important butterfly, and the gears are very large to indicate their importance as well.
• Symbolism - The butterflies, as I said, are symbolic of change, freedom, and fragility. The gears are symbolic of a higher plan and design, and the top one (my life) is affected by the bottom one (history, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection). In the small butterfly nearest to the center of the bottom gear, there is a spider and a fedora. Those two objects are symbolic of people in my past that I had to give over to God, and ultimately become better with that decision. The objects have to do with a specific memory of each of those people.
• You – Inside each of the butterflies is part of me, of what I am interested in. There is painting, fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, video games, piano and music, and most importantly, Jesus and the Bible at the very top. Many of the butterflies are filled with my own pieces of artwork, since they are almost literally pieces of me and are very important to me. The central shape of my arm is the more literal representation of me in the collage.
• Friends and Family – Covering the arm like a glove are pictures of my closest friends and my family. They have all deeply affected me and helped shape me into who I am today, so I thought it fitting to have them make up the part of the collage that is meant to be me.
• Town, community, school – The outer part of the top gear, which is again representative of my life and where I am today, is partly made up of pictures of pictures of Belmont and pictures of some of my favorite places in Nashville. The middle part of the gear is filled with members from my church, specifically the youth group worship team, which I have be a part of for several years.
• Country – This is also incorporated into the top gear, as it is a part of who I am. The boy is a friend of mine whom I have a long history with, he is now serving our country in the Air Force, and is very proud of it.
• Art – Art is everywhere in this collage. My paintings are in the butterflies, and the bottom gear is filled with more classical paintings. I photoshopped some of the pictures and painted directly on the collage. I love, it is one of the more important things in my life, and few things make me happier than being able to create things with my hands and my eyes. It is also represented in a commercial way with the poster of The Lord of the Rings and the video game concept art that I worked into the collage. Art is everywhere, whether fine, personal, or commercial.
• History - The bottom gear is representative of history. More specifically, the most important historical figure who I think has affected the world and me: Jesus Christ. Art has been used to represent His life throughout history, and the picture of him in the butterfly was painted by me. His life and what He did is what sets my life in motion, like the bottom gear turns the top gear. I do not mean to be preachy, this is just honestly what I believe is true and what defines me.

I apologize for the long answers, I put a lot of thought into this, so it’s difficult to explain in one or two sentences per point. 

"Video games can never be art," eh? - Individual blog assignment, part 2

Roger Ebert, a critic whom I cannot say I have any sort of good opinion about, has been quoted as saying that "video games can never be art." He obviously has never played Bioshock. Or Okami. Or Final Fantasy. I could go on. Some video games are simply beautiful, with immersive environments, unique style, gorgeous music, intensely thought-provoking plots, well thought out characters, etc. Ebert calls filmmaking an art, but games are not? Some video games are simply a movie where you are in control of the main character. He makes a point that video games are not art because you can win, there are rules and an objective, and so on. I'll half agree with his point: playing video games is not exactly an art. Where the art lies is in the game itself, in the work that has gone into it. Creating video games simply breaks out of artistic tradition, much like Van Gogh broke out of tradition with his unique, unrealistic style. Creating a video game is not the same as creating an oil painting, but neither is choreographing a ballet. But is that not also an art?

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Starry Night - Individual blog assignment 1

For this assignment, I chose Van Gogh's Starry Night. It is not one of my favorite paintings, but it has always intrigued me somewhat as a very influential piece of art.  The thing I notice at first glance is how contradicting it is. The scene is very calm, but the style is very agitated. The short, mashed together lines seem to vibrate with intensity in the wind and the tree, shimmer like ripples in the sky with the stars and the moon, and flow and crash like waves in the hills and small trees near the town. It has a very tumultuous sort of feel, it's very unpredictable and unstable, much like the artist himself. I think this is as much a self-portrait of Van Gogh as his literal self-portraits. He also must have spent a very long time on it. Oil paint takes at least a day to dry, and to get this separated sort of texture would require letting each color dry separately, especially where the colors change drastically. 

Starry Night is a departure from the more realistic painting styles before its time. It is still representative, but it is more about the emotion than the appearance. It's highly unlikely that anyone would have commissioned a painting like this at the time, the artist had to have painted it for himself, at least just to get the image out of his head. This seems to be art for the sake of art. Speaking separately from any prior knowledge of Van Gogh, it's not likely that artist had much training. However, he did have a good eye, or at least enough teaching to know good composition. The swirling lines of the wind are offset by the more predictable circles of the stars in the sky, the sudden triangular shape of the tree is balanced by the long, sweeping horizontal lines of the hills. It is a well thought out composition, every part of it is noticeable, nothing is overwhelming or out of place. 

Heleane Mi Salain

I spent a long time trying to decide what one of my favorite pieces of art would be. I'm the kind of person who can hardly ever have just one or two favorites, so it was a tough process. I finally chose Heleane Mi Salain, by digital artist Linda Bergkvist (also known to the internet fantasy art community as Enayla). I came across Enayla years ago when searching through the internet for fantasy art. Hers is hands-down some of the best art I have ever seen,  both in terms of fantasy art and digital painting. She created this picture entirely on her computer, with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop.

The thing that always blows my mind about this image is the level of detail, especially in the grass around the figure and the lace of her dress. The picture, to me, seems like paint over a photograph; it's so realistic, and yet so surreal. You feel as if you can fall into that field, and yet you feel like you'll never reach it. The original art is much, much bigger than these pictures. I wish I could see the full size, I can hardly imagine the detail she put into it. 

The woman's expression seems sinisterly perfect, particularly after you read the artist's story about the painting. The other thing that I always think about when I see this image is how much I want that dress! The design of the thing is gorgeous, and the colors simply make it. That can be said of the whole painting: the colors make it beautiful, sensual, and dream like. The soft fade of the purples and grays into the background make the foggy space feel expansive, despite how close the figure is to the viewer. The woman's dark hair and eyes convey mystery to me, and the blues and pinks in her dress are sweet and enticing, like something you know you shouldn't have. The woman and the flow of her skirt fall into a triangular shape and a curved line that draws the eye across the painting. The light in the painting is focused on her face, drawing you back to her all-too-perfect expression over and over. Her placement in the image is close enough to the center to make her the unmistakable subject, without being directly in the middle (which tends to be less interesting). Another thing that lends to the focus on her is the incredible detail and brightness of her compared to the background, which is softer and darker. 

I think almost every choice made in the creation of the picture was perfect, I can't think of anything to make it better. Any more realistic would detract from the style, any more stylized would take away from the amazement that comes from viewing it. I could go on about this picture for a long, long time. It simply is a beautiful picture that always inspires me to try to hone my own artistic skill to that kind of level. It also always makes me want to run right out and buy myself a Wacom tablet! I need one!

Enayla's website

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