2. Unit Vocabulary Sculpture in the Round Relief Sculpture Abstraction Modeling Post and Lintel Henge Twisted Perspective Carbon Dating Corbelling Dolmen Cairn Incising Passage Grave Composite View
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4. Otherwise known as Old Stone Age, the Paleolithic period marked the development of the human species. Prehistory is considered the period that includes ALL human existence before the emergence of writing. Art is only one clue to understanding Early Human life and culture and is of interest to not only art historians but also archeologist and anthropologist - Art along with fossils, pollens, and other finds - help us understand early human life and culture. Because so few items cover SUCH a large period of time, the study of prehistoric art is a very speculative area of art history. These people were nomadic (meaning they moved around a lot) people who were hunters and gatherers. They “hung out” in caves with their stone tools and sometimes they even decorated their surroundings with cave paintings and rock carvings.
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6. Subjects: primarily animals (rhinos, felines, bison, horses, bear, ibex, reindeer, auroch, mammoths; signs human representation is rare--negative and positive hand prints, half animal/half human figures Techniques: dirt pigments combined with animal fat sprayed or brushed on figures outlined or modeled with pigment; perspective (twisted or composite) and frontal views; no ground line or landscape. http://www.rose.edu/faculty/nmiller/Svy1/Svy1wk1.html 1-2 Dead Bison , Altimira, Spain. 14,000 –12,000 B.C. 1-7 Rhinocerous, wounded man, and disemboweled bison , Lescaux, 15000- 13,000 B.C.
7. There is no evidence to suggest these images were narrative (tell stories), since the images were painted in random order, and many times superimposed one over the other. The animals convey no sense of movement (like running or walking), even though you see four legs. This was more to describe the animal more accurately. You can note that the images also show two horns on the bulls or goats, even though the body is in strict profile. 1-11 Two Bison, clay relief at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, 12,000 B.C. http://www.rose.edu/faculty/nmiller/Svy1/Svy1wk1.html
8. Title: Spotted Horses and Human Hands Date: Horses 25,000–24,000 BCE; hands c 15,000 BCE Medium: Paint on limestone Size: individual horses are over 5' (1.5 m) in length. Source/Museum: Pech-Merle Cave, Dordogne, France
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10. Many of them make artistic use of color and texture, using the natural contours of the rocks to suggest the shapes and curves of the animal's body and create surprisingly “naturalistic” drawings There is a close relationship between animal and man in these early cultures and killing an animal sees often to have been a ritual act. It is a relationship of reverence that is far different from our relationship with animals today. Killing, then, becomes not simply slaughter but a recognition of your dependency on the voluntary giving of this food to you by the animal who has given its life. The hunt is a ritual. Central focus was on the hunt, with the clan moving from place to place (nomadic) with changing climate, seasons, and availability of animals and food sources . 1-1 Bison ceiling, Altimira, Spain 1-4. Hall of Bulls, Lescaux, France, 15, 000 –13,000 B.C. http://departments.ozarks.edu/hfa/slgorman/HIstudyaids.htm#chap1prehist
11. 1-12 Bison with turned head , incised bone, from La Madeleine, Dordogne, France, 12,000 B.C. 1-5 Chinese Horse c. 15,000-10,000 BC Lascaux, France http://www.rose.edu/faculty/nmiller/TV1103/TVwk1.html
12. Sculpture found is in relief and in-the-round. It was small enough to carry in a pouch or your hand. Possibility the animals functioned as totems, while the female figures (no male figures have been found) were fertility symbols. They are called "venus" figures, but their symbolism was different from the Greek goddess of love. They are considered to be an expression of sexual power and childbirth (mother-earth symbol). 1-8 Venus of Willendorf , c. 28,000-23,000 B.C. The Lady of Brassempouy Carved in ivory. Size: 1 1/2 inches Brassempouy, France, 22,000-20,000 B.C. http://www.rose.edu/faculty/nmiller/TV1103/TVwk1.html 3-4 inches = meant to be portable The “so-called” Venus of Willendorf, was found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy near the town of Willendorf Austria .
13. “ Venus” – the ideal woman Venus de Milo , 130-120 BC, marble, 6 ½ ft, Ancient Greece The Birth of Venus , Sandro Botticelli, 1485, oil on canvas
14. Today’s ideal woman? If the Venus of Willendorf was discovered today, do you think she would have wound up with the same name?
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16. Neolithic Art (New Stone Age) 8000 - 3000 BC Otherwise known as New Stone Age, the Neolithic period was a time when people were living in real village-like settings, with farms including animals (now domesticated), crops (grains and eventually rice) and even items that we consider art. (These people are still, essentially hunters and gatherers). Things like pottery and woven items were typical creations of the people of this time period. Functional art you might say. The melting of glaciers of the Ice Age is beginning to have profound changes ALTHOUGH these changes occur VERY slowly. This change did not occur overnight and at the same time for different groups of people, but gradually over thousands of years.
17. Architecture Neolithic people began to build structures to serve as dwellings and storage spaces, they also used this area as an area to keep their animals. Neolithic people, like their Paleolithic predecessors, continued to construct buildings out of wood and other plant materials. People clustered their dwellings in villages and eventually larger towns, and outside their settlements, they built tombs and ritual centers. Around 4,000 BC, Neolithic settlers began to strategically locate settlements at sites that were easy to defend- near rivers, on plateaus, or even in swamps. The Fertile Crescent becomes the center of some of the oldest cities.
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20. The plaster skulls of Jericho are believed by some archaeologists to be a form of ancestor worship. Human skulls were covered in plaster to recreate the features of the deceased person and then the skulls were kept beneath the floors of homes. This skull is one of a group of seven that were discovered in Jericho. Plaster Skull with inlaid cowrie shell eyes, Jericho, 7000 – 6000 BCE
31. It took mathematical calculations to align the major heel stone with the rising of the sun on Mid-Summer's Eve (Summer Solstice), and setting of the sun on Mid-Winter's Eve. We can understand how important it would be to Neolithic man to have an awareness of natural phenomena's like eclipses, and the cycle of the seasons. Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain), c. 2000 B.C. Purpose? calendar? astronomical computer? ceremonial center? 1-21 Stonehenge http://www.rose.edu/faculty/nmiller/art1103_nmiller/course/CDlec1.html
32. Sun Tunnels Nancy Holt, 1974, Utah Sun Tunnels documents the making of Holt's major site-specific sculptural work in the northwest Utah desert. Completed in 1976, the sculpture features a configuration of four concrete tubes or "tunnels" that are eight feet long and nine feet in diameter. The tubes are positioned to align with the sunrise and sunset of the summer and winter solstices, and are also pierced by holes that allow light to be cast in patterns of constellations. A kind of American Stonehenge, Sun Tunnels charts the yearly and daily cycles of the sun, and calls attention to human scale and perception within the vast desert landscape.
