Amanda Garret ART 211 Blog

  Mihrab (prayer niche), c. 1270, Konya, Turkey, now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin (photo: Glenna Barlow) https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/75cecedb908a82439c2d4c9166e7674793561758.jpg            The picture depicted above is a single wall of a mosque. It was built in Konya, Turkey in c. 1207 and it can now be found in a Berlin museum today. Just like the early period, the medieval period consisted of art that expressed Islamic religion, just like this mosque. This building is said to be made by the Seljuqds. The Seljuqs were rulers from the Turkic origin. The people of Islam made use of this prayer niche by facing towards it when they pray. These buildings were often made of stone, brick, and wood, and often had representations of animals and humans within them. If you look closely, it seems as though there are animals or birds towards the top of this wall. Comparing this mosque to the one in my last blog post, it is inev...

  https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/4aeeba71008b9eb56309a8470b464f2db39a3ebf.jpg https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ornament_and_writing_at_Dome_of_the_Dome_of_the_Rock_inside_2-EDITED-300x480.jpg      The two pictures above are of a mosque called  Dome of the Rock.  This structure was made in 687 and can still be found today in the city of Jerusalem. The first picture shows the outside of the dome, while the second picture depicts the base of the dome. Aside from the piece depicted above, another well-known mosque is the Great Mosque of Corbada (784-786), which can be found in Spain. Just like the Dome of the Rock,  this mosque expresses styles that already existed.     During the early period, many new religions were on the come up. Therefore, mosques, along with religious books, were one of the very first creations that played a role in Islamic religion. This dome, is in fact still a designated place in modern day...

  https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/693912f845404a0e196670895e66dc0d383849c9.jpg      The beginnings of Christian art are traced all the way back to the end of the second century and into the third century.  Historians believe that the emergence of Christian art was due to the important role images in Greco-Roman culture. Early Christian art had a lack of imagery. In the early period, there are no images that express the Crucifixion or the Resurrection of Christ. Instead, common themes of Christian art were the idea of dying and being reborn into the afterlife.      The picture above is an early representation of Christ and the Apostles from the 4th century. This image was discovered in the Catacomb of Domitila , which is in Rome. I previously mentioned that early Christian art represented the idea of eternal life. However, the artwork posted above does not express the idea of being reborn. Instead, it conveys that Chr...

                                 https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/6607b0e560cc3dc3cce42932492accc2e348bc40.jpg      In one of my blog posts from last week, I talked about Greek Artwork. As you can see, it is no secret that Greek artwork had a huge influence of Roman creators. In fact, some sculptures and portraitures look almost identical at first glance. It would make sense that the Romans inherited many ideologies from the Greeks because Rome conquered Greece. In addition, it is also common to see Etruscan and Egyptian influences in Roman art as well. Although there were many influences on Roman art, Roman art is not to be defined as derivative.      The founding of the Roman Republic is said to have happened 509 B.C.E. During the Republican period, art was created to express imagery for a political purpose/propaganda. Portraiture like the picture posted above e...

    https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/307599fd648993c7194dd5e89e7da1b9b3fcdfd2.jpg https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/8b34bfc0dd24271a3a4f7138b2c0154e5148f97a.jpg     In my last blog post, I talked about artwork from Greece. The Etruscans, alongside the Greeks, were the first two powers to develop the earliest and most successful cities in Europe. The Etruscans had a great influence over the Greeks. The Greeks inherited gladiatorial combat, h ydraulic engineering, temple design, and religious rituals, and more from the Etruscans. Phoenicians and Egyptians also had similar ideas and artistic vocabulary.  The Etruscans had religious beliefs that influenced their art. The Etruscans believed that when someone died, they were believed to be cremated and provided a new home in the afterlife.          The piece of art on the left was known as a 'hut hurn', which was a home for the dead during this time period. This 't...

  https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/korecouple.jpg     This piece of artwork is from the Archaic Period, which was from  c. 600-480/479 B.C.E. Two of the most distinctive forms of free-standing sculpture (kouros and kore) emerged from this time period. Kourai can represent heroes and gods, but they were mostly grave markers because these statues idealized characteristics of the youth: beauty, athleticism, etc. Korai can be either larger than life or less than life but were always made with marble. These statues were made of marble because years before this time period, most of their art was made of bronze. However, they discovered that bronze melts, which destroyed their artwork. The statue to the left is a kouros (male youth), and the statue to the right is a kore (female youth).  The kouros in the picture above (and all other kouros) have a conventional pose. The head and body are divided by a central line, and the legs are parted s...

  https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/2a657a483fdcd78987cd5f245502628e22425c53.jpg      This piece of artwork originates from Assyria anywhere from 824-671 B.C. Here, you can see  Ashurbanipal (the king at the time), and other military men slitting off the throat of a lion. Additionally, the man in the back is fighting off another lion. It is known that the Assyrian empire was entirely military; even state officers were considered to be military men. Assyrian culture was brutal: the military did not march on the battlefield. Instead, they terrorized, raped, and beheaded their opponents, then publicly displayed their corpses for everyone to see how tough they were.      This picture directly illustrates the ideology of Assyrian culture. The leaders of Assyria fought a lion and displayed this piece for the people to see because it shows how strong, brave, and brutal they were. It can be interpreted that they wanted their people...