art app 1

• Stone Age


  A period of history when stones were used to make tools for survival
• The term Stone Age conjures an image of men and women dressed in skin, huddling before a fire in a cave
• Stone Age roughly spans this period

  14,000-2,000 BCE

  
• Three periods of Stone Age

  • Paleolithic - Late years of the old Stone Age
  • Mesolithic - Middle Stone Age
  • Neolithic - New Stone Age

  
• Paleolithic Art


  • A product of climate change
  • Caves became protective havens for early humans, paving the way for the birth of their first attempt to create art
• Halls of Bulls


  • Found in the cave in Lascaux, France
• Early human techniques


  • Used spray-painting techniques by using ground pigments blown through reeds or hollowed-out bones
  • Worked with foreshortening and contrasting of lights and shadows
• Venus of Willendorf


  • Highly abstracted woman highlighting body parts associated with fertility
• Mesolithic Art


  Ancient cultural stage between Paleolithic and Neolithic, with chipped stone tools and polished stone tools
• Mesolithic innovations


  • Microliths - very small stone tools intended for mounting together on a shaft to produce a serrated edge
  • Polished stone
• Neolithic Art


  • Developed especially when life for early humans became more stable
  • They learned to cultivate the land and domesticate animals
• Stonehenge in England


  • Purpose remains a mystery, some regard it as a temple, others see it as a complex calendar tracking the movements of the Sun and Moon, others associate it with Merlin the Magician

  
• The Fertile Ribbon starts from the banks of the Nile River, which flows north to Africa and ventures into the Mediterranean
• Periods of Egyptian civilization

  • Old Kingdom
  • Middle Kingdom
  • New Kingdom
• Egyptian art in Old Kingdom

  • Religion was bound to the afterlife, as evident in the erection of tombs
• Narmer Palette


  • Utilized and applied dark colors around King Narmer's eyes, a symbol commemorating the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
• The Great Pyramid of Giza


  • One of the architectural wonders constructed during the Old Kingdom, serving as tombs for pharaohs

  
• The Great Sphinx (Pyramid of Kafre)


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• Egyptian art in Middle Kingdom


  • Shift in political hierarchy, with the emergence of powerful groups of landlords threatening the authority and rule of the pharaoh
  • Experimentation in style, with portrait sculptures and fresco paintings that were freely drawn
• Egyptian art in New Kingdom


  • References from both the Old and Middle Kingdoms
  • Egypt established itself as a more advanced and powerful civilization
• After the New Kingdom, Egypt witnessed the Amarna Revolution led by King Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti
• During the Amarna Revolution, the only god to be revered was Aton, and Egypt became monotheistic
• Art during the Amarna Revolution

  • Emphasis on life-like features of the face, with elongated jaws and thick-lidded eyes
  • Naturalism was used to depict the pharaoh and members of the royal family
• Bust of Queen Nefertiti


  • Has a long and sensuous neck
• King Tutankhamun


  • Became king at a very young age and died at the age of eighteen
  • Howard Carter discovered his tomb in 1922, which contained gold artworks and a coffin made of solid gold
  • The body of the young king was covered in linen and a gold mask covered his face
• King Tutankhamun's treasure had come to symbolize the mystery, power, and riches of the ancient Egyptian civilization