AN INTRODUCTION TO AP ART HISTORY

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AN INTRODUCTION TO AP ART HISTORY
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(No Transcript)
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ART VERSES HISTORY There tends to be a
conflict in using the terms art and history
together in that one usually thinks of art as
something tangible something that exists in the
present, and history as a record of past
events. Still, museums around the world are full
of art.art with a HISTORY.
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When we visit the museum we encounter art and
artifacts spanning a vast range of time. We can
enjoy, or appreciate, these objects simply for
what they are in terms of their appearance,
technique, or use of materials, but to truly
understand a work of art you must understand its
context. Why were these objects created what was
going on during the time it was created who were
they created for? The job of the art historian
is to find those answers.
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In order to construct the history of an artifact,
the date of the object must be determined.
Chronology, or the dating of art objects and
buildings is important to the art
historian. Ways to determine age
include Physical evidence certain materials
have only been available for a specific time such
as acrylic paint, plastics, or photography making
an object relatively easy to categorize. Other
objects are not so easy to date, such as ones
fashioned from wood.
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Documentary evidence often provides specific
information about the date of an object or
building. For example church records that show
when a work of art was commissioned for the
church and how much was paid for it. Visual
evidence such as hair styles or clothing that
would date a piece to a specific era.
Stylistic evidence analyzing the style or
distinctive look to an object that is specific to
a particular artist, culture, or era.
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Style Period Style refers to the specific
look attributed to a specific time period,
generally within a distinct culture.
Dying Gual from Hellenistic Greek Period
Kouros from Archaic Greek Period
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Kritios Boy from Early Classical
Discobolos From Early-High Classical
Kouros from Archaic Period
Dying Gual from Hellenistic
Doryphoros from High Classical
Hermes and Dionysos from Late Classical
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Style Regional Style refers to variations in
style that are linked to geography or a specific
place of origin.
Amenhotep 18th Dynasty 1526-06 BCE
Ramses II 19th Dynasty 1303 BCE
Khafre 4th Dynasty 2558-2532 BCE
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Akhenaton XVIII Dynasty 1353-1335 BCE
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Akhenatons wife, Nefertiti
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Style Within a given HISTORICAL style there may
be variations based on region. For example the
French Gothic Chartres Cathedral differs from the
Italian Gothic Florence Cathedral
Santa Maria Fiore Florence, Italy
Notre Dame Chartres, France
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Personal style the distinct manner of an
individual artist or architect independent of
time and place.
Georgia OKeeffe Jack in-the-Pulpit IV, 1930
Ben Shahn The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti,
1931-32
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Subject The art historian is also concerned with
the subject matter the story or scene being
presented the time and place the characters
involved and the environment that encompasses the
scene. Pictures with recognizable subject matter
are often placed into separate pictorial
categories such as Religious Historical Mytholog
ical Genre (scenes of daily life) Portraiture Land
scape Still life
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Pieter Aertsen, Meat Still-life, 1551
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Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1523
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Jean Honore Fragonard, The Swing, 1765
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Paul Cezanne, Bay from L Estaque, 1886
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Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, 1630
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Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701
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Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, The Return from the
Market, 1738
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ICONOGRAPHY Literally means the writing of
images, but refers to both the content, or
subject of an artwork, AND to the study of
symbols, or images that stand for other images
Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights,
1505-10
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Artists might also depict figures with attributes
that are unique to the subject
Seated Buddha from Mathura 2 6th century CE
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Artists also use personification abstract ideas
in bodily form to convey content
Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence will destroy
the human race
Albrecht Durer, The Four Horsemen of the
Apocolypse, 1498
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Whos yo momma?
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Often a work of art is unsigned. In fact,
artists were anonymous for many years. In order
to place such work, the art historian must look
for similarities in work. In this instance, work
may be attributed to a specific artist, or a
school of artists who worked with similar
subjects in a similar style
Rembrant Van Rijn, Self-Portrait
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Whos yo Daddy?
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Who paid for it? This question is important to
understanding a work of art in that the person
commissioning the work probably had a say in what
the work was to be about, and what it was suppose
to look like
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Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Creation of Adam,
1508-1512
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Michelangelo Buonarroti, ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, 1508-1512
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Augustus wearing corona civica 1st century CE
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Augustus Bushius wearing flakius jacketus, early
21st century CE
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Vocabulary
FORM AND COMPOSTION Form refers to an objects
shape and structure, either in two dimensions (a
figure painted on a canvas) or in
three dimensions (such as a figure carved from
marble) Composition refers to how the artist
organizes forms in an artwork, either by placing
shapes on a flat surface or arranging forms in
space MEDIUM/MEDIA refers to the materials the
artist uses to create a work of art such as
paint, clay, marble, or gold TOOLS are used by
an artist to shape the materials to create a work
of art these include brushes, pens, chisels,
torches TECHNIQUE - the processes artists
employ, such as applying paint to a surface with
a brush, and the distinctive, personal way they
handle the materials
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Line Artists and architects make a line concrete
by drawing it on a plane, a flat and two
dimensional-surface. Lines may be thick, thin,
heavy, wavy, scribbly, whimsical line has many
variations
Albrecht Durer, The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, 1498
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Contour Drawings by Henri Matisse
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COLOR Color is revealed by light. The color
used by an artist differs from natural light.
Natural light, or sunlight , is whole or additive
it is the sum of all wavelengths composing the
visible spectrum. The painters light in art,
which is light reflected from pigments and
objects is subtractive. Paint pigments produce
their individual colors by reflecting a segment
of the spectrum while absorbing all the rest.
Green pigment subtracts or absorbs all the
light in the spectrum except that seen as green,
which is reflect to the eye THE THREE PROPERTIES
OF COLOR HUE The name VALUE The lightness
or darkness INTENSITY The brightness or
dullness
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PRIMARY RED, YELLOW, BLUE SECONDARY ORANGE,
GREEN, VIOLET TERTIARY RED-ORANGE,
YELLOW-ORANGE, BLUE-GREEN, YELLOW GREEN,
RED-VIOLET, BLUE-VIOLET COMPLEMENTARY TWO
COLORS LYING DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM ONE ANOTHER
ON THE COLOR WHEEL. MIXING COMPLEMENTS IN
EQUAL PROPORTIONS RESULTS IN A NEUTRAL TONE OR
GRAY
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TEXTURE The surface quality of an object
revealed by light. Actual textures are those
that can be felt. Represented textures are those
the artist imitates in a painting.
Meret Oppenhiem, Object, 1936
Durer, Young Hare, 1502
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SPACE Space is the bounded or boundless
container of objects. Space may be actual such
as the room in which you now sit. Or, it may be
illusionistic when artists attempt to depict
the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional
surface. Mass and volume describe
three-dimensional space. In architecture and
sculpture, mass is the bulk, density and weight
of matter in space.still, this mass is not
necessarily solid, it may enclose volume.
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Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, Giza,
Egypt
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Pantheon, Rome, Italy, c. 125 CE
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PERSPECTIVE AND FORESHORTENING Perspective is
the mathematical formula for depicting an
illusion of depth or space on a two-dimensional
surface
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This Japanese screen painting does not
exhibit the same conventions of representing the
illusion of depth as a Western painting. That
does not mean it is of lesser quality, but to
understand its beauty you need to be aware of the
difference in approach.
Ogata Korin, White and Red Plum Blossom, 1710-1716
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Foreshortening is a kind of perspective. It
produces the Illusion that one part of the body
is farther away than another, even though all
the forms are on the same surface.
Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ, 1501
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Proportion concerns the relationships (in terms
of size) of the parts of persons, buildings, or
objects. Proportions may be intuitive, or may be
formalized as a mathematical relationships.
Proportion implies using a module, or basic unit
of measure. In certain times and places, artists
have formulated canons, or systems, of correct or
ideal proportions for representing human figures,
and buildings.
Polykleitos, Doryphoros, 450-440 BCE
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Artists have often deliberately used
disproportion and distortion for expressive
effect. In the sculptural group below the artist
has made the central figure larger while the
others are of varying size. Size is used to
denote social rank. This is an example of
hierarchy of scale.
King on horseback with attendants, from Benin,
Nigeria, c. 1550-1680
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CARVING AND CASTING Carving is a subtractive
technique of sculpture. By taking material away
from a block of stone, piece of wood, etc., the
artist arrives at the final form.
Michelangelo, unfinished captive, 1527-1528
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In additive sculpture, the artist builds up the
forms, usually in clay around a framework, or
armature. Or they may fashion a mold, a hollow
form for shaping, or casting, a fluid substance
such as bronze.
Raice Warrior, c. 460-450 BCE
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High Relief Metope sculpture from Parthenon c.
450 BCE
Freestanding Sculpture Augustus of Primaporta C.
20 BCE
Bas-relief Hesire, Dynasty III, Egypt
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ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS A plan is essentially a
map of a floor showing the placement of the
buildings masses, and the spaces they bound and
enclose
Floor plan of Chartres Cathedral, France
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A section, is like a vertical plan,depicting the
placement of the masses as if the building were
cut through along a plane. An elevation is a
head-on view of an external or internal wall.
Elevation of Chartes Cathedral
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People of diverse cultures view the world
differently and various ways of seeing can cause
differences in how artists depict the world. In
the example on the left, artist John Sylvester
has drawn the portrait of Maori chief Te Pehi
Kupe. On the right, Te Pehi Kupe has drawn a
self-portrait emphasizing his tattoo design, not
the contours of his head and upper torso. Again,
this does not make one picture better than the
other.