Cave art

I had an extremely difficult time finding a piece that was inspired by the periods we went over last class that included text or could be called graphic design (or that weren't Egyptian!). I also could find very little about this particular design, other than it is art that is printed on many products on a not very well design website. This image itself, however, is well done, I think. It really is consistent with a lot of the cave art that we looked at, and at a very quick first glance at the thumbnail, could almost be mistaken for an actual image. The UFO throws that off though. It is a funny modern idea put in an ancient context, and not very badly either. I wish I could have found a more serious design, but I did find this one very amusing and thought it combined ancient art with modern ideas in a very obvious way.

THIS BLOG IS NOW FOR A DIFFERENT CLASS!

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE POSTS BELOW.

Well, you can, but they're not relevant to this class. Because it's a different class. The stuff down there is probably cool, but... yeah.

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