Art: Chapter 3

• Historically speaking, the human instinct to create art is universal
• Art


  An approach of a human being to communicate his/her beliefs and express ideas about his/her experiences
• Art provides valuable insights into the past and existing cultures
• Art helps us to understand how others have lived and what they valued
• The history of art reflects the remnant of civilization, the study of artworks, and the lives of artists illuminate much about our shared past
• The history of art also helped us to appreciate the stylistic and recognized development of artistic practices on a large scale and within a broad historical viewpoint
• Art is a product of man's emotional and intellectual connection with the world
• Art aimed to produce a message which will either provoke an unexplainable consciousness within the hearts of its viewers or incite wisdom among inquisitive minds
• Prehistoric art

  Visual culture (paintings, sculpture, and architecture) made before the development of writing in ancient Mesopotamia before 3000 B.C.E.
• Prehistoric art periods


  • Stone Age
  • Neolithic
  • Bronze Age
  • Iron Age
• Prehistoric art includes small sculptures and cave paintings
• Prehistoric art was created and performed as a sign of communication or adoration to the deity
• Prehistoric art like animals are the favorite subjects of hunters, herdsmen, and breeders
• Prehistoric art is a symbolic system that is an integral part of the culture that creates it
• Stone Age art

  • Petroglyphs (rock carvings and engravings)
  • Pictographs (graphic imagery, symbols)
  • Ancient sculpture (totemic statues, ivory carvings)
  • Megalithic arts (performs or any other works associated with the formation of stones)
• The oldest European cave art is the El Castillo Cave (Cave of the Castle) in Spain
• Hand stencils, claviforms (club shapes) and disks made by blowing paint onto the wall in El Castillo cave found that date back at least 40,800 years
• Stone


  Mineral growth, Sedimentary, Metamorphic, and Volcanic
• Sedimentary rocks shaped through the deposition and compression of particulate matter
• Metamorphic rocks changed from the result of extreme temperature and pressure
• Volcanic rocks are from molten igneous magma
• The tools made of stone were the instruments by which early man developed and progressed
• The first stone tools (eoliths) and other types of organic materials (wood, bone, ivory, and antler) were about two million years ago
• Types of Palaeolithic tools

  • Pebble tools (with a single sharpened edge for cutting or chopping)
  • Bifacial tools (hand axes)
  • Flake tools
  • Blade tools
• Pebble tools (Pebble chopper)


  A first cutting device and considered as the oldest type of tool made by humans
• Bifacial tools


  A hand ax prehistoric stone tool flake with two faces or sides, used as a knife, pick, scraper, or weapon
• Flake tools


  Hand tools used during Stone Age, formed by crushing off a small or large fragment then used as the tool
• Blade tools


  A Stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core, integrated into larger tools such as spears
• Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic culture of the Roman Empire and the iconographic practices in the church of the early Christian
• Medieval art portrayed in Pietistic painting (religious art) displayed in a Ceramics, fresco and mosaic paintings, Goldsmith and Silversmith, Stained Glass, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, Tapestry, and Heraldry in churches
• Illuminated Manuscripts (Illumination)


  Colorful religious texts which often use of gold and silver as its main feature, embellished with bright colors by Illuminators
• Metalwork


  Religious objects for church decorations, produced by experts in Bronze art
• Silversmith and Goldsmith


  Excellent artists who created new shapes of jewelry for the Medieval church
• Paintings


  Iconography uses Fresco and panel painting with the religious theme during the medieval period
• Fresco


  Painting performed mostly on wall covers or ceilings
• Panel painting


  Painting showed on several pieces of wood that joined together, also for the Icons of Byzantine art
• Bayeux Tapestry


  Embroidery in colored wool, consisting of eight long strips of unbleached linen sewn together to form a continuous panel
• Ceramics


  Hand shaped cooking pots, jars, and pitchers
• Stained Glass


  Small pieces of glass arranged to form pictures or patterns, held together by strips of lead and supported by a hard frame
• Heraldry


  The manner of designing coats of arms and insignia, using embroidery, paper, painted wood, stonework and stained glass