Tag: 9:30 AM Class

Blog Post 10: Met Museum Visit

The Met Museum is always quite the experience when you go. I actually went to the Met earlier this year, a little bit after the Met Gala and it was so stunning. Visiting the Met again, I got the same feeling especially because of the holidays and their decorations. I will say that I went during a busy time, so it was more difficult to navigate and fully enjoy, but it was all in all another good experience

For my Renaissance piece  I chose The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Perino del Vaga. I chose to use this painting because I believe that it shows a lot of what Renaissance paintings embody. This picture shows the viewer a sense of serenity through the colors used and the light emotions on the faces. The painting also uses vertical and horizontal view points that are resembled throughout Renaissance artworks. In this painting, as a viewer, your eyes are drawn into the center of the painting, but then subtly brought in a vertical and horizontal point of view to see the clothes child and older man in the painting.

For the Baroque work of art I chose The Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin by Samuel van Hoogerstraten. This painting really caught my attention because of the light contrast that is very evident, and the lighting effects that can be seen are actually a characteristic of Baroque pieces. Another characteristic that this piece shows is the effects of directed focus which is demonstrated by the use of lighting. There is a deep contrast between the dark background and the center of the painting, which causes some of the center to be the focus of the painting. This painting also uses diagonals where your eyes are brought to the angel in the upper left corner and then down to the virgin in the right corner, making a diagonal perspective. Lastly, emotions can be clearly seen through the body language of the Virgin, in which seems in despair but also content; there is no harsh or dramatic emotion of sadness for death.

Final Project Outline

I am choosing a paper proposal for my final project. The topic that I am choosing to explore is Humanism and its role in a developing world. In detail, I want to understand the positive or negative effects that Humanism had on different civilizations throughout history, with an emphasis on the artwork of each civilization. To do this, I will compare early works that focus on religion such as those of Egyptian civilization, to those that incorporate humanism such as Roman, Greek, and modern works.

Title: Cat Statuette

Artist: N/A

Date: ca. 332-30 BC

Museum: The Met; Gallery 134

 

Title: Outer Coffin of the Singer of Amun-Re, Henettawy

Artist: N/A

Date: ca. 1000-945 BC

Museum: The Met; Gallery 126

 

Title: A Hypocrite and a Slanderer

Artist: Franz Xaver Messerschmidt

Date: ca. 1770 – 1783

Museum: The Met; Gallery 548

 

Title: Blind Woman

Artist: Paul Strand

Date: 1916

Museum: The Met;

 

Title: Marble Statue of a Kouros

Artist: N/A

Date: 590 – ca. 580 BC

Museum: The Met; Gallery 154

Final Project: Topic

For the final project I have decided to explore the use of children in art works and what kind of significance they portray. For example, in the Roman era we begin to see the use of children in different sculptures in order to bring the viewers gaze to the lower portion of the artwork. I would like to explore children’s significance in each era in which they begin to appear.

Unit 2 Summary

Unit 2 focused on the artwork of ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, and how art made such developments to reach the status of Ancient Greek and Roman art. One way we analyzed these changes was through humanism. This was a period where society began to rely less on religion and divine explanation for natural occurrences, and placed an emphasis on the human body and its capabilities. Comparing both Egyptian and Mesopotamian artwork with Greek and Roman artwork showed that they have similar and contrasting features.

When analyzing Egyptian and Mesopotamian art, it is easy to notice that they included vast amounts of detail in anything they created. Their paintings and coffin designs consisted of many different shapes and patterns with color, and contained many hieroglyphs. Their three-dimensional artwork was just as detailed as their two-dimensional work. Their coffins where they would place the dead in, such as the Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenpare, was decorated with similar patterns as their paintings, with shapes, color, and design. These coffins also had faces painted onto them, however, compared to the Greek or Roman statues, lacked detail. It is evident that the face was that of a human and not an animal, but you wouldn’t be able to identify if it was depicting a man or woman, nor would you be able to identify the individual that the face was modeled after because there are few distinct facial features. It is also evident, more so through their two dimensional artwork, that they placed a lot of emphasis on the afterlife and religion. Anubis, the half-jackal half-man, god of embalming, is seen in a work of art preparing someone for the afterlife. It was said that he watched over the dead and provided them with good fortune in the afterlife.

Humanism, is a change in mindset that puts more emphasis on human features and capabilities, rather than divine or supernatural factors. Rather than resorting to divine explanations for what were once thought to be unexplainable matters, were now solved with logic and human reasoning. Rather than placing gods on pedestals like the Egyptians did, Greeks were able to understand that their gods were flawed. This gave them a mortal, human status, that allowed Greeks to connect and relate to them more.

Ancient Greek and Roman artwork incorporated these humanistic features, and included more detail and less emphasis on religion. One example would be the statue of Kroisos from Anavysos. In this statue, he is seen standing in a pose that indicated he was perhaps a type of warrior since he is standing upright and appears confident. More importantly however, this statue incorporates much more detail than previous Egyptian and even Greek statues. On minor details that one would not notice immediately, such as hands, feet and hair, there are distinct features carved in such as fingers, toes, and individual hairs. Additionally, the statue of the man is detailed with muscles, and actual facial expressions, that would make the man who was modeled, identificable. Features such as these indicate that through humanism, artwork developed and focused more on the individual rather than religion.

Blog Post: Unit 2 Summary

The past few months we have examined different art works and their relevant history in Ancient civilization such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greek, and Roman. All of these civilizations had many things in common, but also many differences.

For example, both Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egyptian art shared the value of Gods. The Gods were the main focus of art for these civilizations, but were expressed in different ways and had visible physical differences. In Ancient Mesopotamia, the Gods were worshipped extensively as a way to avoid bad fortune. This civilization believed that if bad things were to happen to the community, for example bad crops, then this was because they were not pleasing the Gods enough. Statuettes were made, such as the Standing Male Worshipper, as a way to show the Gods that even though they were working or doing other everyday activities, they were still worshipping and praying to the Gods. When looking at this statue, some “identifiers” of Mesopotamian art are big eyes, long hair organized in a uniform manner, and hands folded in prayer. In Ancient Egypt, the Gods were worshipped as well and played a huge part in the civilizations narrative, but we begin to see more sculptures and artwork regarding Pharaohs, who were considered to be the mediators between the Gods and the people. When looking at Ancient Egyptian art, specifically Menakure and Queen we begin to see some differences. For example, although the similarity is that both sculptures are clothed, one important thing to note is the fact that the Pharaohs feet do not touch the ground, this was to signify that he was above the people and closer to the Gods in social class. This sculpture is also more polished.

Moving on to Greek and Roman art, there are many similarities that arise then there is a shift to new differences as new eras arise. During Greek and Roman Art, there began to be a new emphasis on Humanism, which is focusing and emphasizing on the human as the main object of the world instead of the Gods. In addition to that, Humanism focuses on the human beliefs, values, and individuality. Humanism can be seen in Discobolus, in which the physical human body is clearly emphasized. In strong contrast to the previous artworks that were mentioned, this sculpture portrays the naked human body. The Greeks saw the human body as something to take pride in and to value, and instead of using headpieces and other things to signify power, they allowed the human body to signify power and strength. Lastly, we delved in to the history of the Roman Republic which once again showed a change in the expression of artwork. The Roman Republic still fixated on humanism, but now emphasized verism which means truth-telling. Verism was used to show the Roman Republic’s value of age, wisdom, and real human emotion/personality traits. For example, looking at this sculpture, we see that this man does not have a polished face to show youth, which can be seen in previous Greek and Roman art, instead we see effort to make the man’s face have very noticeable wrinkles. The Roman’s wanted to display age because it was now deeply valued and age meant that someone had a lot of wisdom to give. In this sculpture, we also see emotion, but not dramatic emotion. In this era emotions displayed in the artworks were more realistic and in-tune with a person’s own personality traits. In this sculpture, we could simply say that man just seems ill-tempered or grumpy.

Greek Humanism Blog #8

Humanism in art is all about having the human body as the central focus. Humanism can be represented in whatever painting, sculpture, or work of literature. This concept focuses more on realistic artwork rather than focusing on the opposite. During ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, the art was filled with gods and supernatural creatures and it represented a lot of what the people at that time were focused on. Image result for lamassuWe can always refer to the Lammasu that came from ancient Sumeria. The Lammasu was known as a protective deity, and it consisted of a combination between a human and animal. This deity had a human head with a lion body and the wings of a bird. People would put this symbol of protection outside their homes. 

Image result for hunefer papyrus

Hunefer “Book of the Dead” papyrus scroll can all be looked at to show how supernatural was heavily shown in ancient Egyptian. This scroll depicts Hunefer, who was a royal scribe, in the afterlife going through a process to see if he is fit to live in the underworld. We first see him in front of these deities with some type of ritual words or prayers underneath, as if he needed to perform these to them to pass. Later on, we see him with Anubis, God of the underworld, who is looking at these scales that determine whether Hunefer has lived a good moral life. In between the scales we this monster, Ammitt, who would devour Hunefer if he did not live a good life. We also see Toth who was in charge of recording everything. When the scales showed that Hunefer lived an ethical life, he was introduced to Osiris, Horus (Osiris‘s son), Isis (Osiris‘s wife), and Nephthys (sister). In essence, we can obviously see just how animated and how divine art was for Egyptians as well as Sumerians. 

Image result for kouros 600 bce

In contrast we see humanism start to arise in ancient Greece. We first start to see it in the sculpture of Kouros, 600 BCE. Kouros slightly resembled Egyptian statues, like the statues of Menkaure and Queen. But he contradicted them by being a bit more realistic in the body and in the details. Kouros was the representation of manhood and perfection at the time. He was also different in his pose and in the way he was created. He is positioned with one foot in front of the other and the only thing holding him up is his two feet which differ from Egyptian sculptures that would have something behind them holding them up. This statue had transcendence and it was made to trespass lifetimes. 

Image result for polykleitos doryphoros

Fast forwarding to 450-440 BCE, we see a completely revolutionized type of statue in Polykleitos Doryphoros. This statue, in particular, had such a focus on the human body. He had details that just were not seen in the past statues. We see more details in his abdomen, his pose, and in his arms that even show detail of veins. With his pose we even see movement (contrapasto), this figure has some kind of fragileness that was just not seen in the rest of the statues before him. It is much more precise in representing humans. 

Overall, we see how much art has evolved during the centuries. It went through different stages and this classical past was very much emphasized on humanism. It was a such a significant thing that we even saw it present in their myths of gods. The Greek gods and their stories sounded a lot like human problems. These deities had human features and human woes. It’s very interesting seeing just how much impact humanism had on artwork. 

Humanism

Humanism is the focus on the individual person, or concept of humanity, instead of the spiritual, divine and supernatural.  Humanism is very focused on material reality and dismisses concepts that separate themselves too much from human praise.  This praise of the human identity is expressed through the realism in humanist art.

The Seated Boxer for example is an extremely detailed work of art.  Time was taken to work on the posture, muscularity and hair.  Instead of simply showing a man sitting upright, he is shown with the top of his spine bringing his upper torso forward and his right legs are asymmetrical in placement.  This seems like a snapshot in time because of the way his head is placed.  It seems as if something has caught his attention to his right.  One can read this from the statue not only because of the way his head has been moved but also because of his facial expression.  All of these details serve to worship the beauty in the realism of humanity.

In the King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and Queen statue, the focus is not on the realism of the art.  The two figures are depicted with less detail and certainly less movement.  A stand and a forward stride are all that is needed because instead of vulnerability and humanity being displayed, the art is meant to display power, grace, and control.  Despite the stride, the figures don’t look like they are actually in motion when compared to the Seated Boxer.

Blog Post: Humanism

Thus far the Ancient Worlds that we have learned about in class tended to create works of art that were more naturalistic instead of humanistic. Examples of Ancient Worlds that focused on naturalistic art were Mesopotamia and Egypt, where there was more of a focus on the Gods and that everything else was surrounded by the Gods. In contrast, Greek and Roman art focused on humanism. Humanism focused and emphasized humans as the “main object” of the world and that instead of Gods, humans were, in  a way, at the center of the universe. Humanism focuses on human values, beliefs, and individuality; and that humans have  the capability to be good. In terms of Greco-Roman art, humanism meant putting an emphasis on the human potential, as well as the human body.

For example, in the Ancient Egyptian sculpture, Seated statue of Pharaoh Seti (*picture would not upload), humanism is not portrayed. In this sculpture, the human body is not emphasized and instead his rank his emphasized. For this piece of artwork, the eyes are instantly drawn to the Pharaoh’s headpiece, the object in hand, and his feet that are on top of an object in order for them to not touch the ground. All of these observances can instantly make the viewer come to the conclusion that this person was in fact a Pharaoh and therefore of very high rank. In addition to that, the Pharaoh’s body is not emphasized, and instead the viewer can see the outlining of the garments that the Pharaoh wears, once again demonstrating social class and power.

In contrast, in this Greek sculpture, Discobolus, humanism is very evident. Most noticeable is that the naked human body is on display, clearly showing human emphasis. The Greeks saw the display of the human body as something natural and something “show off” and take pride in. Their bodies showed their strength and exuded their power. The Greeks did many things in the nude, as it was considered the norm, even the Olympics were done in the nude. This sculpture does not put an emphasis on rank or social class, it is ambiguous and is left for the viewer to assume.

Blog #7 Brooklyn Museum-Soul of a Nation

Although, I was anticipating all of the works I would encounter at the Brooklyn Museum, I was most interested and excited to explore the Soul of a Nation exhibit. This is an exhibit that now holds a special place in my heart after experiencing it and getting to see the work of many Black artists and the different depictions of blackness across the US (NY, Chicago, L.A.). One of my favorite parts was all of the work depicting the Black Panthers and their movement. I’ve always had a fascination with the Black Panthers movement because of the stories my dad would tell about them and things he experienced growing up in the era of their movement.

Although, this part of the exhibit was something I was increasingly interested in, I found myself instantly drawn to this painting of the American Flag, named American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding, 1967 by Faith Ringgold. I went back to this piece about three times, each time finding some new meaning and new emotion in regards to it. I chose to post this piece because in this recent political climate and over the past few years, more and more people have become vocal about the oppression faced by Black people everyday. In this work, it depicts that in America we all stand united and in solidarity, but in reality once you look beyond this stance it can be seen that that isn’t the truth. The oppression of Blacks had never diminished and as said previously, can still be seen today. This piece relates to the rest of the exhibit because the main focuses of it are discrimination and oppression, and the Civil Rights Movement that fixated on fixing these problems. This piece embodies both discrimination and oppression of Blacks, even though we are all given these rights under the Constitution and should be united from it, African Americans had a small chance at escaping oppression and discrimination. The colors of this work are vivid and saturated, which instantly draws your eyes to it and makes you begin analyzing it. Also, shading and shadowing are used to clearly show facial features. The color that draws your eyes in the most is the red, which is used for the stripes on the flag as well as the blood that is dripping from those stripes, once again showing not only emotional pain, but physical pain.

Blog #6: Brooklyn Museum-Ancient World

For this assignment, I was very excited to visit the Brooklyn Museum because I live right in Crown Heights and have yet to be able to visit. The museum had a beautiful layout and so many pieces that caused me to be in awe the entire time. Once I finally reached the Ancient World section on the third floor, I found myself remembering and thinking about all of the things we have learned about in class regarding Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, and beginning to analyze all of the wonderful works that were displayed. Upon my way out towards the stairs, I stumbled upon the Assyrian Palace Reliefs that all had amazing and intricate details that I became more appreciative of when I saw them in person. I thought the placement of the reliefs near the entrance/exit stairs was very telling as to what they are and their purpose because when you reach the beginning of the exhibit, it explains that these reliefs would be seen at the entrances of Assyrian palaces to “overwhelm” visitors. I remember discussing this in class when we learned of the many figures that would be used to showcase power and attempt to frighten visitors. The relief I found myself in complete awe of was the Relief with Two Registers that came from the Neo-Assyrian Period under the rule of Ashur-nasir-pal II. In doing formal analysis, the first thing I became aware of was the complete symmetry of the two registers. Although they are different characters, they are complete mirror images of one another, even down to the piece that the figures are holding/touching which I later found out was the sacred tree. Also, in doing formal analysis one can take note of the depth of the lines that were used, in some places of the register, both top and bottom, there are certain parts that have deeper lines and others that have more shallow lines. The shallow lines seemed to be used for parts that were not the main focus of the relief, such as clothes; and the deeper lines were used to enhance/showcase detail such as the scared tree of or the wings of the mythical creature and the genie. I also noted that unlike some of the registers we viewed in class, there did not seem to be a hierarchy and instead they were equal to show their equal importance and meaning.