1 Medieval art
2 Renaissance
3 Renaissance to Neoclassicism
4 Romanticism
5 Romanticism to Modern Art
6 Modern art
7 Contemporary art
Medieval art
c. 200 - c. 1430 Medieval art
Early Christian art
Byzantine art
Norse art
Celtic art
Anglo-Saxon art
Mosan art
Migration Period art
Pre-Romanesque art
Romanesque art
Gothic art
International Gothic
Sienese School
Renaissance
Renaissance c. 1300 - c. 1602
Italian Renaissance - late 14th century - c. 1600 - late 15th century - late 16th century
Renaissance Classicism
Early Netherlandish painting - 1400 - 1500
Renaissance to Neoclassicism
Mannerism and Late Renaissance - 1520 - 1600
Baroque - 1600 - 1730
Dutch Golden Age painting - 1585 – 1702
Flemish Baroque painting - 1585 – 1700
Rococo - 1720 - 1780
Neoclassicism - 1750 - 1830
Romanticism
Romanticism -1790 - 1880
Nazarene movement - c. 1820 - late 1840s
The Ancients - 1820s - 1830s
Purismo - c. 1820 - 1860s
Düsseldorf school - mid-1820s - 1860s
Hudson River school - 1850s - c. 1880
Luminism (American art style) - 1850s – 1870s
Romanticism to Modern Art
Norwich school - 1803 - 1833, England
Biedermeier - 1815 - 1848, Germany
Photography - Since 1825
Realism - 1830 - 1870, began in France
Barbizon school - c. 1830 - 1870, France
Peredvizhniki - 1870, Russia
Hague School - 1870 - 1900, Netherlands
American Barbizon school - United States
Spanish Eclecticism - 1845 - 1890, Spain
Macchiaioli - 1850s, Tuscany, Italy
Metarealism - 1870, Russia
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - 1848 - 1854, England
Modern art
Modern art - late 19th century - c. 1970
Note: The countries listed are the country in which the movement or group started. Most modern art movements were international in scope.
Russian avant-garde - 1890 - 1930, Russia/Ukraine/Soviet Union
Impressionism - 1863 - 1890, France
American Impressionism 1880, United States
Cos Cob Art Colony 1890s, United States
Heidelberg School late 1880s, Australia
Luminism (Impressionism)
Arts and Crafts movement - 1880 - 1910, United Kingdom
Tonalism - 1880 - 1920, United States
Symbolism (arts) - 1880 - 1910, France/Belgium
Russian Symbolism 1884 - c. 1910, Russia
Aesthetic movement 1868 - 1901, United Kingdom
Post-impressionism - 1886 - 1905, France
Pointillism 1880s, France
Les Nabis 1888 - 1900, France
Fauvism - 1904 - 1909, France
Cloisonnism c. 1885, France
Synthetism late 1880s - early 1890s, France
School of Paris early 20th century, France
Neo-impressionism 1886 - 1906, France
Art Nouveau - 1890 - 1914, France
Vienna Secession (or Secessionstil) 1897, Austria
Jugendstil Germany, Scandinavia
Modernisme - 1890 to 1910, Catalan
Art à la Rue 1890s - 1905, Belgium/France
Young Poland 1890 - 1918, Poland
Mir iskusstva 1899, Russia
Hagenbund 1900 - 1930, Austria
Expressionism - 1905 - 1930, Germany
Die Brücke 1905 - 1913, Germany
Der Blaue Reiter 1911, Germany
Bloomsbury Group - 1905 - c. 1945, England
Cubism - 1907 - 1914, France
Analytic Cubism 1909, France
Orphism - 1912, France
Purism - 1918 - 1926
Cubo-Expressionism 1909 - 1921
Ashcan School 1907, United States
Jack of Diamonds (artists) 1909, Russia
Futurism (art) - 1910 - 1930, Italy
Cubo-Futurism 1912 - 1915, Russia
Rayonism 1911, Russia
Synchromism 1912, United States
Universal Flowering 1913, Russia
Vorticism 1914 - 1920, United Kingdom
Biomorphism 1915 - 1940s
Suprematism 1915 - 1925, Russia/Ukraine/Soviet Union
Dada - 1916 - 1930, Switzerland
Proletkult 1917 - 1925, Soviet Union
Productivism after 1917, Russia
De Stijl (Neoplasticism) 1917 - 1931, Holland
Pittura Metafisica 1917, Italy
Arbeitsrat für Kunst 1918 - 1921
Bauhaus - 1919 - 1933, Germany
UNOVIS 1919 - 1922, Russia
Others group of artists 1919, United States
American Expressionism c. 1920 -
Precisionism c. 1920, United States
Surrealism Since 1920s, France
Acéphale France
Lettrism 1942 -
Les Automatistes 1946 - 1951, Canada
Devetsil 1920 - 1931
Group of Seven 1920 - 1933, Canada
Harlem renaissance 1920 - 1930s, United States
American scene painting c. 1920 - 1945, United States
New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) 1920s, Germany
Constructivism (art) 1920s, Russia/Ukraine/Soviet Union
Art Deco - 1920s - 1930s, France
Grupo Montparnasse 1922, France
Soviet art 1922 - 1986, Soviet Union
a. r. group 1929 - 1936
Northwest School (art) 1930s - 1940s, United States
Social realism, 1929, international
Socialist realism - c. 1930 - 1950, Soviet Union/Germany
Abstraction-Création 1931 - 1936, France
Allianz (arts) 1937 - 1950s, Switzerland
Art and Freedom 1939 - mid-1940s
Abstract Expressionism - 1940s, Post WWII, United States
Action painting United States
Color field painting
Lyrical Abstraction
COBRA (avant-garde movement) 1946 - 1952, Denmark/Belgium/Holland
Tachisme late-1940s - mid-1950s, France
Abstract Imagists United States
Arte Madí 1940s
Art informel mid-1940s - 1950s
Outsider art (Art brut) mid-1940s, United Kingdom/United States
Vienna School of Fantastic Realism - 1946, Austria
The Concretists early 1950s -
Neo-Dada 1950s, international
International Typographic Style 1950s, Switzerland
Soviet Nonconformist Art 1953 - 1986, Soviet Union
Russian Non-Conformist Russia/Ukraine
Pop Art mid-1950s, United Kingdom/United States
Situationism 1957 - early 1970s, Italy
Magic realism 1960s, Germany
Minimalism - 1960 -
Art and Language 1968, United Kingdom
Op Art 1964 -
Post-painterly abstraction 1964 -
Hard-edge painting 1960s, United States
Contemporary art
(Note: there is overlap with what is considered "contemporary," "postmodern," and "modern art.")
Contemporary art - present
Digital art 1990 - present
Postmodern art - present
Modernism - present
New realism 1960 -
Performance art - 1960s -
Fluxus - early 1960s - late-1970s
Conceptual art - 1960s -
Graffiti 1960s-
Junk art 1960s -
Psychedelic art early 1960s -
Lyrical Abstraction mid-1960s -
Process art mid-1960s - 1970s
Arte Povera 1967 -
Photorealism - Late 1960s - early 1970s
Land art - late-1960s - early 1970s
Post-minimalism late-1960s - 1970s
Installation art - 1970s -
Neo-expressionism late 1970s -
Figuration Libre early 1980s
Metaphorical realism
Young British Artists 1988 -
Rectoversion 1991 -
Transgressive art
Synaesthesia events
Neoism 1979
Deconstructivism
Battle Elephants 1984
Massurrealism 1992 -
Stuckism 1999 -
Remodernism 1999 -
Maximalism
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889, Gabriel von Max.
Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.
Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. One of criticism's goals is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation.
The variety of artistic movements has resulted in a division of art criticism into different disciplines, each using vastly different criteria for their judgements. The most common division in the field of criticism is between historical criticism and evaluation, a form of art history, and contemporary criticism of work by living artists.
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874) by James McNeill Whistler
Despite perceptions that art criticism is a much lower risk activity than making art, opinions of current art are always liable to drastic corrections with the passage of time. Critics of the past are often ridiculed for either favoring artists now derided (like the academic painters of the late 19th Century) or dismissing artists now venerated (like the early work of the Impressionists). Some art movements themselves were named disparagingly by critics, with the name later adopted as a sort of badge of honor by the artists of the style (e.g. Impressionism, Cubism), the original negative meaning forgotten.
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874) by James McNeill WhistlerSome critics are unable to adapt to new movements in art and allow their opinions to override their objectivity, resulting in inappropriately dated critique. John Ruskin famously compared one of James McNeill Whistler's paintings, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, to "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face".
Artists have often had an uneasy relationship with their critics. Artists usually need positive opinions from critics for their work to be viewed and purchased; unfortunately for the artists, only later generations may understand it.
History:
Origins
Though critiques of art may have its origins in the origins of art itself, art criticism as a genre is credited to have acquired its modern form by the 18th C.
The first writer to acquire an individual reputation as an art critic in 18th C. France was La Font de Saint-Yenne who wrote about the Salon of 1737 and wrote primarily to entertain while including anti-monarchist rhetoric in his prose.
The 18th C. French writer Denis Diderot is usually credited with the invention of the modern medium of art criticism. Diderot's "The Salon of 1765" was one of the first real attempts to capture art in words. According to art historian Thomas E. Crow, "When Diderot took up art criticism it was on the heels of the first generation of professional writers who made it their business to offer descriptions and judgments of contemporary painting and sculpture. The demand for such commentary was a product of the similarly novel institution of regular, free, public exhibitions of the latest art." [Published in Diderot on Art I, p.x]
A dominating figure in 19th century art criticism was French poet Charles Baudelaire, whose first published work was his art review Salon of 1845, which attracted immediate attention for its boldness. Many of his critical opinions were novel in their time, including his championing of Delacroix and Courbet. When Manet's famous Olympia (1865), a portrait of a nude courtesan, provoked a scandal for its blatant realism, Baudelaire worked privately to support his friend.
Pre-World War II:
Bloomsbury Group members Roger Fry and Clive Bell were notable English pre-war art critics. Fry introduced post-impressionism to the country, and Bell was one of the founders of the formalist approach to art. Herbert Read championed modern British artists such as Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
In the U.S, Clement Greenberg first made his name as an art critic with his essay Avant-Garde and Kitsch, first published in the journal Partisan Review in 1939.
Post-World War II:
As in the case of Baudelaire in the 19th century, the poet-as-critic phenomenon appears once again in the 20th, when French poet Apollinaire becomes the champion of cubism. Later, French writer and hero of the Resistance André Malraux writes extensively on art, going well beyond the limits of his native Europe. Interestingly, his conviction that the vanguard in Latin America lay in Mexican muralism (Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros) changes after his trip to Buenos Aires in 1958. After visiting the studios of several Argentine artists in the company of the young Director of the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires Rafael Squirru, Malraux declares the new vanguard to lie in Argentina's new artistic movements. Worthy of note is the fact that Squirru, a poet-critic of renown himself who became Cultural Director of the OAS in Washington D.C. during the Sixties, was the last to interview the well-nigh forgotten Edward Hopper before his death, creating a revival which consecrated the American artist once and for all time.
In the 1940s there were not only few galleries (The Art of This Century) but also few critics who were willing to follow the work of the New York Vanguard. There were also a few artists with a literary background, among them Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman who functioned as critics as well.
As surprising as it may be, while New York and the world were unfamiliar with the New York avant-garde, by the late 1940s most of the artists who have become household names today had their well established patron critics: Clement Greenberg advocated Jackson Pollock and the Color field painters like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb and Hans Hofmann. Harold Rosenberg seemed to prefer the action painters like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Thomas B. Hess, the managing editor of Art News, championed Willem de Kooning.
The new critics elevated their proteges by casting other artists as "followers" or ignoring those who did not serve their promotional goal.
As an example, in 1958, Mark Tobey "became the first American painter since Whistler (1895) to win top prize at the Biennale of Venice. New York's two leading art magazines were not interested. Arts mentioned the historic event only in a news column and Art News (Managing editor: Thomas B. Hess) ignored it completely. The New York Times and Life printed feature articles."
Barnett Newman, a late member of the Uptown Group wrote catalogue forewords and reviews and by the late 1940s became an exhibiting artist at Betty Parsons Gallery. His first solo show was in 1948. Soon after his first exhibition, Barnett Newman remarked in one of the Artists' Session at Studio 35: "We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image." Utilizing his writing skills, Newman fought every step of the way to reinforce his newly established image as an artist and to promote his work. An example is his letter in April 9, 1955, "Letter to Sidney Janis: ---It is true that Rothko talks the fighter. He fights, however, to submit to the philistine world. My struggle against bourgeois society has involved the total rejection of it."
Strangely the person thought to have had most to do with the promotion of this style was a New York Trotskyist, Clement Greenberg. As long time art critic for the Partisan Review and The Nation, he became an early and literate proponent of abstract expressionism. Artist Robert Motherwell, well heeled, joined Greenberg in promoting a style that fit the political climate and the intellectual rebelliousness of the era.
Clement Greenberg proclaimed Abstract Expressionism and Jackson Pollock in particular as the epitome of aesthetic value. It supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds as simply the best painting of its day and the culmination of an art tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Monet, in which painting became ever 'purer' and more concentrated in what was 'essential' to it, the making of marks on a flat surface.
Jackson Pollock's work has always polarised critics. Harold Rosenberg spoke of the transformation of painting into an existential drama in Pollock's work, in which "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event". "The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint'. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value--political, aesthetic, moral."
One of the most vocal critics of Abstract expressionism at the time was New York Times art critic John Canaday. Meyer Shapiro, and Leo Steinberg were also important art historians of the post-war era who voiced support for Abstract expressionism. During the early to mid sixties younger art critics Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss and Robert Hughes (critic) added considerable insights into the critical dialectic that continues to grow around Abstract expressionism.
Other people, such as British comedian/satirist Craig Brown, have been astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian and Velázquez.
Contemporary art
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
The physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe depicted by the 18th-century Enlightenment were shattered not only by new discoveries of relativity by Einstein[2] and of unseen psychology by Freud,[3] but also by unprecedented technological development accelerated by the implosion of civilisation in two world wars. The history of twentieth century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Then African fetish sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse.
Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realisation of its unattainability. Relativity was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the Postmodern period, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.
Post-ancient Western art & Post-ancient Eastern art
The interior of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.
In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical truths. There was no need to depict the reality of the material world, in which man was born in a "state of sin", especially through the extensive use of gold in paintings, which also presented figures in idealised, patterned (i.e."flat") forms.
The Renaissance is the return yet again to valuation of the material world, and this paradigm shift is reflected in art forms, which show the corporeality of the human body, and the three dimensional reality of landscape.
Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.
Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometric designs instead. However, there are many Islamic paintings which display religious themes and scenes of stories common among the three main monotheistic faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.
Ancient art
So-called "Grande Ludovisi" sarcophagus, with battle scene between Roman soldiers and Germans. The main character is probably Ostilianus, Emperor Decius' son (d. 252 CE). Proconnesus marble, Roman artwork, ca. 250 CE.
The period of ancient art began when ancient civilizations developed a form of written language.
The great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the six great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, or China. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in their art. Because of their size and duration these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. They have also provided us with the first records of how artists worked.
Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans, shown with characteristic distinguishing features (i.e. Zeus' thunderbolt).
Earliest known art
Venus of Willendorf
The oldest surviving art forms include small sculptures and paintings on rocks and in caves. There are very few known examples of art that date earlier than 40,000 years ago, the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period. People often rubbed smaller rocks against larger rocks and boulders to paint pictures of their everyday life, such as hunting wild game. A mammoth sculpture found in a German cave was dated to approximately 35,000 years ago.[1]
One of the most famous examples, the so-called Venus of Willendorf (which is now being called "Woman from Willendorf" in contemporary art history texts) is a sculpture from the Paleolithic era, which depicts a woman with exaggerated female attributes. This sculpture, carved from stone, is remarkable in its roundness instead of a flat or low-relief depiction. Early Aegean art, although it dates from a much later period, shares some of the same abstract figurative elements.
Prehistoric art objects are rare, and the context of such early art is difficult to determine. Prehistoric, by definition, refers to those cultures which have left no written records of their society. The art historian judges early pieces of art as objects in their own right, with few opportunities for comparison between contemporaneous pieces. Interpretation of such early art must be done primarily in the context of aesthetics tempered by what is known of various hunter-gatherer societies still in existence.
Aurochs on a cave painting in Lascaux, France.
Study of art history
The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, c. 1173-1176 AD, Chinese Song Dynasty period.
Study of the history of art is a relatively recent phenomenon; prior to the Renaissance, the modern concept of "art" did not exist, and art was used to refer to workmanship by generally anonymous tradespeople.
The viewpoint of the art historian is a significant input into the defining parameters which are employed. For example, during the early Victorian era, the quattrocento artists were considered inferior to those of the High Renaissance—a notion subsequently challenged by the Pre-Raphaelite movement. There has since been a trend, dominant in most modern art history, to see all cultures and periods from a neutral point of view, with a tendency to shy away from value judgements. Thus, for example, Australian Aboriginal art would not be deemed better or worse than Michelangelo by typical Modernist art historians—just different.
Analysis has also evolved into studying the "political" use of art, rather than reserving analysis to the aesthetic appreciation of its craftsmanship or beauty. It is believed there is always an intent and a philosophy behind art, and an effect achieved by it. Thus, for example, the considerable employment by the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages can be contrasted or compared with "Soviet propaganda", the manifestation of social structure through 19th-century portraiture, an anarcho-religious vision exemplified by Van Gogh, etc. What may once have been viewed simply as a masterpiece is now deconstructed into an economic, social, philosophical, and cultural manifestation of the artist's world-view, philosophy, intentions and background.
There are different ways of structuring a history of art. The following is one which is commonly used, based primarily on time, but within that creating subdivisions based on place and culture. Other views are somewhat disputed, still, even today there are many forms of structuring a history of art.
History of art(THE ANCIENT PART)
The history of art usually refers to the history of the visual arts, such as painting, sculpture and architecture. The term also encompasses theory of the visual arts. It is not usually taken or intended to refer to the performing arts or literary arts. The history of art attempts an objective survey of art throughout human history, classifying cultures and periods and noting their distinguishing features and influences.
The field of "art history" was developed in the West, and originally dealt exclusively with Western painting, and Western art history, with the High Renaissance (and its Greek precedent) as the defining standard. Gradually, with the onset of Modernism, a wider vision of history has developed, seeking to place other societies in a global overview by analyzing their artifacts in terms of their own cultural values. Thus, the subject is now seen to encompass all visual art, from the megaliths of Western Europe to the paintings of the Tang Dynasty in China.
Prominent critical art historians:
Since Heinrich Wolfflin's time, art history has embraced social history by using critical approaches. The goal of these approaches is to show how art interacts with power structures in society. The first critical approach that art historians used was Marxism. Marxist art history attempted to show how art was tied to specific classes, how images contain information about the economy, and how images can make the status quo seem natural (ideology). Clement Greenberg came to prominence during the late 1930s with his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," first published in the journal Partisan Review in 1939. In the essay Greenberg claimed that the avant-garde arose in order to defend aesthetic standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society, and seeing kitsch and art as opposites. Greenberg further claimed that avant-garde and Modernist art was a means to resist the leveling of culture produced by capitalist propaganda. Greenberg appropriated the German word 'kitsch' to describe this consumerism, though its connotations have since changed to a more affirmative notion of left-over materials of capitalist culture. Greenberg was often referred to as a Marxist art critic / art historian. While Greenberg is primarily thought of as a formalist art critic many of his most important essays are crucial to the understanding of Modern art history, and the history of Modernism.
Marxism has figured in the interpretation of art. Meyer Schapiro was the first post-War art historian prominent in the Academy at large to suggest that Marxism had important contributions to make to art historical method and thought. While he wrote about numerous time periods and themes in art, he is best remembered for his commentary on sculpture from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, at which time he saw evidence of capitalism emerging and feudalism declining. Arnold Hauser wrote the first Marxist survey of Western Art, titled "The Social History of Art." In this book he attempted to show how class consciousness was reflected in major art periods. His book was very controversial when it was published during the 1950s because it makes gross generalizations about entire eras. However, it remains in print as a classic art historical text.
Influential Modernist art historians and art critics Barbara Rose and Michael Fried were instrumental in furthering the understanding and popularity of important American Contemporary art in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Rosalind E. Krauss and Lucy Lippard were also crucial influences in the same period. The introduction of postminimalist theory and radical art criticism of the 1970s and 1980s was characterized by art historian/art critics Krauss, Lippard and Griselda Pollock through their writing. T.J. Clark was the first art historian writing from a Marxist perspective to abandon vulgar Marxism per se. He wrote Marxist art histories of several impressionist and realist artists, including Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet. These books focused closely on the political and economic climates in which the art was created.
Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock are prominent art historians writing from a feminist perspective since the 1970s.
Semiotic Art History:
Semiotic art history is an approach to art historical analysis that borrows from the established theories of semiology. It seeks to uncover the codified meaning or meanings in an aesthetic object by examining its connectedness to a collective consciousness. Applying a language-based philosophy to visual media is inherently problematic and for that reason, art historians typically supplement its application with other methodologies that allow for political and historical considerations.
Art historians use semiotics in order to subvert the myth of art as an immediate and unmitigated vision of the world, a window through which the object can be viewed without external mediation. In a tradition that assumes that visual meaning can be intuitively uncovered, the complexity of imagery can only be adequately addressed in reading images as text. Standards of styalization and form replace words as signifiers of meaning. Just as dictionaries are inadequate in supplying true meaning to words, nature is insufficient as the ultimate reference for visual signs if the notion of the Platonic ideal is dismissed.
As opposed to iconography which seeks to identify meaning, semiotics is concerned with how meaning is created. Roland Barthes’s connoted and denoted meanings are paramount to this examination. In any particular work of art, an interpretation depends on the identification of denoted meaning—the recognition of a visual sign, and the connoted meaning—the instant cultural associations that come with recognition. The main concern of the semiotic art historian is to come up with ways to navigate and interpret connoted meaning.
Art historians do not commonly commit to any one particular brand of semiotics but rather construct an amalgamated version which they incorporate into their collection of analytical tools. For example, Meyer Shapiro borrowed Saussure’s differential meaning in effort to read signs as they exist within a system. According to Schapiro, to understand the meaning of frontality in a specific pictorial context, it must be differentiated from, or viewed in relation to, alternate possibilities such as a profile, or a three-quarter view. Schapiro combined this method with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce whose object, sign, and interpretant provided a structure for his approach. Alex Potts demonstrates the application of Peirce’s concepts to visual representation by examining them in relation to the Mona Lisa. By seeing the Mona Lisa, for example, as something beyond its materiality is to identify it as a sign. It is then recognized as referring to an object outside of itself, a woman, or Mona Lisa. The image does not seem to denote religious meaning and can therefore be assumed to be a portrait. This interpretation leads to a chain of possible interpretations: who was the sitter in relation to Leonardo? What significance did she have to him? Or, maybe she is an icon for all of womankind. This chain of interpretation, or “unlimited semiosis” is endless; the art historian’s job is to place boundaries on possible interpretations as much as it is to reveal new possibilities.
Semiotics operates under the theory that an image can only be understood from the viewer’s perspective. The artist is supplanted by the viewer as the purveyor of meaning, even to the extent that an interpretation is still valid regardless of whether the creator had intended it. Rosiland Krauss espoused this concept in her essay “In the Name of Picasso.” She denounced the artist’s monopoly on meaning and insisted that meaning can only be derived after the work has been removed from its historical and social context. Mieke Bal argued similarly that meaning does not even exist until the image is observed by the viewer. It is only after acknowledging this that meaning can become opened up to other possibilities such as feminism or psychoanalysis.
Divisions by period:
The field of Art History is traditionally divided into specializations or concentrations based on eras and regions. Such divisions typically include:
19th century
20th century Contemporary
21st century
Africa
Ancient
Ancient American or Pre-Columbian
Asia
Baroque
Medieval
Prehistoric
Renaissance
A number of sub-fields are included under each specialization. For example, the Ancient Near East, Greece, Rome, and Egypt are all typically considered special concentrations of Ancient art. In some cases, these specializations may be closely allied (as Greece and Rome, for example), while in others such alliances are far less natural (Indian art versus Korean art, for example).
Non-Western art is a relative newcomer to the Art Historical canon. Recent revisions of the semantic division between art and artifact have recast objects created in non-Western cultures in more aesthetic terms. Relative to those studying Ancient Rome or the Italian Renaissance, scholars specializing in Africa, the Ancient Americas and Asia are a growing minority.
Methodologies
Art historians employ a number of methods in their research into the qualities, nature and history of objects.
A formal analysis is one which focuses on the form of the object in question. Elements of form include line, shape, color, composition, rhythm, etc. At its simplest, such an analysis is simply exegesis, but it relies heavily on the art historian's ability to think critically and visually.
A stylistic analysis is one which focuses on the particular combination of formal elements into a coherent style. Often, a stylistic analysis makes reference to movements or trends in art as a means of drawing out the impact and import of a particular object.
An iconographical analysis is one which focuses on particular design elements of an object. Through a close reading of such elements, it is possible to trace their lineage, and with it draw conclusions regarding the origins and trajectory of these motifs. In turn, it is possible to make any number of observations regarding the social, cultural, economic, and/or aesthetic values of those responsible for producing the object.
Finally, many art historians use theory to frame their inquiries into objects. Theory is most often used when dealing with more recent objects, those from the late 19th century onward. A somewhat vague term, theoretical approaches to art can range quite broadly, from psychological analysis to aesthetics to Marxist critique and more.
Since Heinrich Wolfflin's time, art history has embraced social history by using critical approaches. The goal of these approaches is to show how art interacts with power structures in society. The first critical approach that art historians used was Marxism. Marxist art history attempted to show how art was tied to specific classes, how images contain information about the economy, and how images can make the status quo seem natural (ideology). Clement Greenberg came to prominence during the late 1930s with his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," first published in the journal Partisan Review in 1939. In the essay Greenberg claimed that the avant-garde arose in order to defend aesthetic standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society, and seeing kitsch and art as opposites. Greenberg further claimed that avant-garde and Modernist art was a means to resist the leveling of culture produced by capitalist propaganda. Greenberg appropriated the German word 'kitsch' to describe this consumerism, though its connotations have since changed to a more affirmative notion of left-over materials of capitalist culture. Greenberg was often referred to as a Marxist art critic / art historian. While Greenberg is primarily thought of as a formalist art critic many of his most important essays are crucial to the understanding of Modern art history, and the history of Modernism.
Marxism has figured in the interpretation of art. Meyer Schapiro was the first post-War art historian prominent in the Academy at large to suggest that Marxism had important contributions to make to art historical method and thought. While he wrote about numerous time periods and themes in art, he is best remembered for his commentary on sculpture from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, at which time he saw evidence of capitalism emerging and feudalism declining. Arnold Hauser wrote the first Marxist survey of Western Art, titled "The Social History of Art." In this book he attempted to show how class consciousness was reflected in major art periods. His book was very controversial when it was published during the 1950s because it makes gross generalizations about entire eras. However, it remains in print as a classic art historical text.
Influential Modernist art historians and art critics Barbara Rose and Michael Fried were instrumental in furthering the understanding and popularity of important American Contemporary art in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Rosalind E. Krauss and Lucy Lippard were also crucial influences in the same period. The introduction of postminimalist theory and radical art criticism of the 1970s and 1980s was characterized by art historian/art critics Krauss, Lippard and Griselda Pollock through their writing. T.J. Clark was the first art historian writing from a Marxist perspective to abandon vulgar Marxism per se. He wrote Marxist art histories of several impressionist and realist artists, including Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet. These books focused closely on the political and economic climates in which the art was created.
Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock are prominent art historians writing from a feminist perspective since the 1970s.
Semiotic Art History:
Semiotic art history is an approach to art historical analysis that borrows from the established theories of semiology. It seeks to uncover the codified meaning or meanings in an aesthetic object by examining its connectedness to a collective consciousness. Applying a language-based philosophy to visual media is inherently problematic and for that reason, art historians typically supplement its application with other methodologies that allow for political and historical considerations.
Art historians use semiotics in order to subvert the myth of art as an immediate and unmitigated vision of the world, a window through which the object can be viewed without external mediation. In a tradition that assumes that visual meaning can be intuitively uncovered, the complexity of imagery can only be adequately addressed in reading images as text. Standards of styalization and form replace words as signifiers of meaning. Just as dictionaries are inadequate in supplying true meaning to words, nature is insufficient as the ultimate reference for visual signs if the notion of the Platonic ideal is dismissed.
As opposed to iconography which seeks to identify meaning, semiotics is concerned with how meaning is created. Roland Barthes’s connoted and denoted meanings are paramount to this examination. In any particular work of art, an interpretation depends on the identification of denoted meaning—the recognition of a visual sign, and the connoted meaning—the instant cultural associations that come with recognition. The main concern of the semiotic art historian is to come up with ways to navigate and interpret connoted meaning.
Art historians do not commonly commit to any one particular brand of semiotics but rather construct an amalgamated version which they incorporate into their collection of analytical tools. For example, Meyer Shapiro borrowed Saussure’s differential meaning in effort to read signs as they exist within a system. According to Schapiro, to understand the meaning of frontality in a specific pictorial context, it must be differentiated from, or viewed in relation to, alternate possibilities such as a profile, or a three-quarter view. Schapiro combined this method with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce whose object, sign, and interpretant provided a structure for his approach. Alex Potts demonstrates the application of Peirce’s concepts to visual representation by examining them in relation to the Mona Lisa. By seeing the Mona Lisa, for example, as something beyond its materiality is to identify it as a sign. It is then recognized as referring to an object outside of itself, a woman, or Mona Lisa. The image does not seem to denote religious meaning and can therefore be assumed to be a portrait. This interpretation leads to a chain of possible interpretations: who was the sitter in relation to Leonardo? What significance did she have to him? Or, maybe she is an icon for all of womankind. This chain of interpretation, or “unlimited semiosis” is endless; the art historian’s job is to place boundaries on possible interpretations as much as it is to reveal new possibilities.
Semiotics operates under the theory that an image can only be understood from the viewer’s perspective. The artist is supplanted by the viewer as the purveyor of meaning, even to the extent that an interpretation is still valid regardless of whether the creator had intended it. Rosiland Krauss espoused this concept in her essay “In the Name of Picasso.” She denounced the artist’s monopoly on meaning and insisted that meaning can only be derived after the work has been removed from its historical and social context. Mieke Bal argued similarly that meaning does not even exist until the image is observed by the viewer. It is only after acknowledging this that meaning can become opened up to other possibilities such as feminism or psychoanalysis.
Divisions by period:
The field of Art History is traditionally divided into specializations or concentrations based on eras and regions. Such divisions typically include:
19th century
20th century Contemporary
21st century
Africa
Ancient
Ancient American or Pre-Columbian
Asia
Baroque
Medieval
Prehistoric
Renaissance
A number of sub-fields are included under each specialization. For example, the Ancient Near East, Greece, Rome, and Egypt are all typically considered special concentrations of Ancient art. In some cases, these specializations may be closely allied (as Greece and Rome, for example), while in others such alliances are far less natural (Indian art versus Korean art, for example).
Non-Western art is a relative newcomer to the Art Historical canon. Recent revisions of the semantic division between art and artifact have recast objects created in non-Western cultures in more aesthetic terms. Relative to those studying Ancient Rome or the Italian Renaissance, scholars specializing in Africa, the Ancient Americas and Asia are a growing minority.
Methodologies
Art historians employ a number of methods in their research into the qualities, nature and history of objects.
A formal analysis is one which focuses on the form of the object in question. Elements of form include line, shape, color, composition, rhythm, etc. At its simplest, such an analysis is simply exegesis, but it relies heavily on the art historian's ability to think critically and visually.
A stylistic analysis is one which focuses on the particular combination of formal elements into a coherent style. Often, a stylistic analysis makes reference to movements or trends in art as a means of drawing out the impact and import of a particular object.
An iconographical analysis is one which focuses on particular design elements of an object. Through a close reading of such elements, it is possible to trace their lineage, and with it draw conclusions regarding the origins and trajectory of these motifs. In turn, it is possible to make any number of observations regarding the social, cultural, economic, and/or aesthetic values of those responsible for producing the object.
Finally, many art historians use theory to frame their inquiries into objects. Theory is most often used when dealing with more recent objects, those from the late 19th century onward. A somewhat vague term, theoretical approaches to art can range quite broadly, from psychological analysis to aesthetics to Marxist critique and more.
Psychoanalytic art history:
Heinrich Wölfflin was not the only scholar to invoke psychological theories in the study of art. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote a book on the artist Leonardo da Vinci, in which Freud used Leonardo's paintings to interrogate the artist's psyche and sexual orientation. Freud inferred from his analysis that Leonardo was probably homosexual
The use of posthumous material to perform psychoanalysis is controversial; furthermore, the sexual mores of Leonardo's time and Freud's are different.
Another important and famous exponent of psychoanalytic theory as applied to artists and their works is Carl Jung. His ideas about the collective unconscious and archetypal imagery in particular were popular especially among the American Abstract expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s. The surrealist concept of drawing imagery from dreams, and the unconscious, stream of consciousness in writing and painting defined the practice of many 20th century artists. C.G. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology.
Jung's approach to psychology emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Much of his life's work was spent exploring Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype, the collective unconscious, and his theory of synchronicity. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were not merely due to chance but, instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic.
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm. Jackson Pollock famously created a series of drawings to accompany his psychoanalytic sessions with his Jungian psychoanalyst, Dr. Joseph Henderson. Henderson who later published the drawings in a text devoted to Pollock's sessions realized how powerful the drawings were as a therapeutic tool.
After Freud and Jung, several other scholars have applied psychoanalytic theory to art. Jacques Lacan's The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis is one of the most influential text concerning the unconscious gaze. Another well-known scholar is Laurie Schnieder Adams, who wrote a popular textbook called Art Across Time. The prominent feminist art historian Griselda Pollock is drawing upon psychoanalysis both in her reading into contemporary art and in her rereading of modernist art. With Griselda Pollock's reading of French feminist psychoanalysis and in particular the writings of Julia Kristeva and Bracha L. Ettinger, as with Rosalind Krauss readings of Jacques Lacan and Jean-François Lyotard and Catherine de Zegher's curatorial rereading of art, Feminist theory written in the fields of French feminism and Psychoanalysis has strongly informed the reframing of both men and women artists in art history.
Historical development
The ancient world
The earliest surviving writing on art that can be classified as art history are the passages in Pliny the Elder's Natural History concerning the development of Greek sculpture and painting. From them it is possible to trace the ideas of Xenokrates of Sicyon, a Greek sculptor who was perhaps the first art historian. As a result, Pliny's work, while mainly an encyclopaedia of the sciences, were disproportionately influential with respect to art from the Renaissance onwards, particularly the passages about the techniques used by the painter Apelles. Similar, though independent, developments occurred in 6th century China, where a canon of worthy artists was established by writers in the scholar-official class (who, being necessarily proficient in calligraphy, were artists themselves), and the Six Principles of Painting were formulated by Xie He.
The beginnings of modern art history:
While personal reminiscences of art and artists have long been written and read (see Lorenzo Ghiberti for the best early example), it was Giorgio Vasari, the Tuscan painter, sculptor and author of Lives of the Painters, who ushered in the era of the story of art as history, with emphasis on art's progression and development, a milestone in this field. His was a personal and a historical account, featuring biographies of individual Italian artists, many of whom were his contemporaries and personal acquaintances. The most renowned of these was Michelangelo, and Vasari's account is enlightening, though biased in places. Vasari's ideas about art held sway until the 18th century, when criticism was leveled at his peculiar style of history as the personal. Scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), criticised Vasari's "cult" of artistic personality, and argued that the real emphasis in the study of art belonged on the views of the learned beholder and not the unique viewpoint of the charismatic artist. Winckelmann's writings thus were the beginnings of art criticism. Winckelmann was famous for his critique of the artistic excesses of the Baroque and Rococo forms, and subsequently instrumental in reforming taste in favor of the more sober Neoclassicism, in a return to elemental Renaissance thinking. Jacob Burckhardt (1818 - 1897), one of the founders of art history, noted that Winckelmann was 'the first to distinguish between the periods of ancient art and to link the history of style with world history'. Incidentally, from Winckelmann until the early 20th century, the field of art history was dominated by German-speaking academics.
The critical tradition:
Winckelmann's work marked the entry of art history into the high-philosophical discourse of German culture. Winckelmann was read avidly by Goethe and Schiller, both of whom began to write on the history of art, and his account of the Laocoon occasioned a response by Lessing. The emergence of art as a major subject of philosophical speculation was solidified by the appearance of Kant's Critique of Judgment in 1790, and was furthered by Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. Hegel's philosophy served as the direct inspiration for Karl Schnaase's work. Schnaase's Niederländische Briefe established the theoretical foundations for art history as an autonomous discipline, and his Geschichte der bildenden Künste, one of the first historical surveys of the history of art from antiquity to the Renaissance, facilitated the teaching of art history in German-speaking universities. Schnaase's survey was published contemporaneously with a similar work by Franz Theodor Kugler.
Wölfflin:
Most acknowledge Heinrich Wölfflin (1864-1945), who studied under Burckhardt in Basel, as the father of modern art history. Wölfflin certainly made the first formal analysis of the field. He introduced a scientific approach to the history of art, turning on three concepts. Firstly, he attempted to study art using psychology, particularly the work of Wilhelm Wundt, one of the founders of scientific psychology. A principal, if strained, scientific conception was that of the artistic ideal of corporeal correspondence; i.e. that art and architecture are good if they resemble the human body. For example, houses were good if their façades looked like faces. Secondly, he introduced the idea of studying art through comparison. Hence by comparing individual paintings to each other, one were able to make distinctions of style. His book Renaissance and Baroque developed this idea, and was the first to show how these stylistic periods differed from one another. In contrast to Giorgio Vasari, Wölfflin was uninterested in the biographies of artists. In fact he proposed the creation of an "art history without names." Finally, he studied art based on ideas of nationhood. He was particularly interested in whether there was an inherently "Italian" and an inherently "German" style. This last interest was most fully articulated in his monograph on the German artist Albrecht Dürer.
He used a comparison - contrast type of analysis, and believed that both Renaissance and Baroque architecture "spoke" the same language - that of classical Greek and Rome - though with different dialects.
Wölfflin taught at the universities of Berlin, Basel, Munich, and Zurich. A number of students went on to distinguished careers in art history, including Jakob Rosenberg and Frida Schottmuller.
The Vienna School:
Main article: Vienna School of Art History
Contemporaneous with Wölfflin's career, a major school of art-historical thought developed at the University of Vienna. The first generation of the Vienna School was dominated by Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff, both students of Moritz Thausing, and was characterized by a tendency to reassess neglected or disparaged periods in the history of art. Riegl and Wickhoff both wrote extensively on the art of late antiquity, which before them had been considered as a period of decline from the classical ideal. Riegl also contributed to the revaluation of the Baroque.
The next generation of professors at Vienna included Max Dvořák, Julius von Schlosser, Hans Tietze, Karl Maria Swoboda, and Josef Strzygowski. A number of the most important twentieth-century art historians, including Ernst Gombrich, received their degrees at Vienna at this time.
However, the term "Second Vienna School" (or "New Vienna School") is usually reserved for the following generation of Viennese scholars, including Hans Sedlmayr, Otto Pächt, and Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg. These scholars began in the 1930s to return to the work of the first generation, particularly to Riegl and his concept of Kunstwollen, and attempted to develop it into a full-blown art-historical methodology. Sedlmayr, in particular, rejected the minute study of iconography, patronage, and other approaches grounded in historical context, preferring instead to concentrate on the aesthetic qualities of a work of art. As a result, the Second Vienna School gained a reputation for unrestrained and irresponsible formalism, and was furthermore colored by Sedlmayr's overt racism and membership in the Nazi party. This latter tendency was, however, by no means shared by all members of the school; Pächt, for example, was himself Jewish, and was forced to leave Vienna in the 1930s.
DEFINITION OF ART
Definition
Art history is a relatively new academic enterprise, beginning in the nineteenth century. Whereas the analysis of historical trends in, for example, politics, literature, and the sciences, benefits from the clarity and portability of the written word, art historians rely on formal analysis, iconology, semiotics (structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction), psychoanalysis and iconography; as well as primary sources and reproductions of artworks as a springboard of discussion and study. Advances in photographic reproduction and printing techniques after World War II increased the ability of reproductions of artworks accurately. Nevertheless the appreciation and study of the visual arts has been an area of research for many over the millennia. The definition of art history reflects the dichotomy within art; i.e., art as history and in anthropological context; and art as a study in forms.
The study of visual art can be approached through the broad categories of contextualism and formalism. They are described as:
A)Psychoanalytic art history
B)Prominent critical art historians
C)Semiotic Art History
Contextualism
The approach whereby a work of art is examined in the context of its time; in a manner which respects its creator's motivations and imperatives; with consideration of the desires and prejudices of its patrons and sponsors; with a comparative analysis of themes and approaches of the creator's colleagues and teachers; and consideration of religious iconography and temporal symbolism. In short, this approach examines the work of art in the context of the world within which it was created.
Formalism
The approach whereby the artwork is examined through an analysis of its form; that is, the creator's use of line, shape, color, texture, and composition. This approach examines how the artist uses a two-dimensional picture plane (or the three dimensions of sculptural or architectural space) to create his or her art. A formal analysis can further describe art as representational or non-representational; which answers the question, is the artist imitating an object or image found in nature? If so, it is representational. The closer the art hews to perfect imitation, the more the art is realistic. If the art is less imitation and more symbolism, or in an important way strives to capture nature's essence, rather than imitate it directly, the art is abstract. Impressionism is an example of a representational style that was not directly imitative, but strove to create an "impression" of nature. Of course, realism and abstraction exist on a continuum. If the work is not representational of nature, but an expression of the artist's feelings, longings and aspirations, or his or her search for ideals of beauty and form, the work is non-representational or a work of expressionism.
Art history is a relatively new academic enterprise, beginning in the nineteenth century. Whereas the analysis of historical trends in, for example, politics, literature, and the sciences, benefits from the clarity and portability of the written word, art historians rely on formal analysis, iconology, semiotics (structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction), psychoanalysis and iconography; as well as primary sources and reproductions of artworks as a springboard of discussion and study. Advances in photographic reproduction and printing techniques after World War II increased the ability of reproductions of artworks accurately. Nevertheless the appreciation and study of the visual arts has been an area of research for many over the millennia. The definition of art history reflects the dichotomy within art; i.e., art as history and in anthropological context; and art as a study in forms.
The study of visual art can be approached through the broad categories of contextualism and formalism. They are described as:
A)Psychoanalytic art history
B)Prominent critical art historians
C)Semiotic Art History
Contextualism
The approach whereby a work of art is examined in the context of its time; in a manner which respects its creator's motivations and imperatives; with consideration of the desires and prejudices of its patrons and sponsors; with a comparative analysis of themes and approaches of the creator's colleagues and teachers; and consideration of religious iconography and temporal symbolism. In short, this approach examines the work of art in the context of the world within which it was created.
Formalism
The approach whereby the artwork is examined through an analysis of its form; that is, the creator's use of line, shape, color, texture, and composition. This approach examines how the artist uses a two-dimensional picture plane (or the three dimensions of sculptural or architectural space) to create his or her art. A formal analysis can further describe art as representational or non-representational; which answers the question, is the artist imitating an object or image found in nature? If so, it is representational. The closer the art hews to perfect imitation, the more the art is realistic. If the art is less imitation and more symbolism, or in an important way strives to capture nature's essence, rather than imitate it directly, the art is abstract. Impressionism is an example of a representational style that was not directly imitative, but strove to create an "impression" of nature. Of course, realism and abstraction exist on a continuum. If the work is not representational of nature, but an expression of the artist's feelings, longings and aspirations, or his or her search for ideals of beauty and form, the work is non-representational or a work of expressionism.
HISTORY OF ART
Art history is the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and look.[1] Moreover, art history generally is the research of artists and their cultural and social contributions.[2]
As a term, Art history (also history of art) encompasses several methods of studying the visual arts; in common usage referring to the study of works of art and architecture. The definition is, however, wide-ranging, with aspects of the discipline overlapping upon art criticism and art theory. Ernst Gombrich observed that "the field of art history [is] much like Caesar's Gaul, divided in three parts inhabited by three different, though not necessarily hostile tribes: (i) the connoisseurs, (ii) the critics, and (iii) the academic art historians".[3]
As a discipline, art history is distinguished from art criticism, which is concerned with establishing a relative artistic value upon individual works with respect to others of comparable style, or sanctioning an entire style or movement; and art theory, which is concerned with the fundamental nature of art, and is more related to aesthetics investigating the enigma of the sublime and determining the essence of beauty, i.e. artistic appeal. Technically, art history is not these things, because the art historian uses historical method to answer the questions: How did the artist come to create the work? Who were the patrons? Who were his or her teachers? Who was the audience? Who were his or her disciples? What historical forces shaped the artist's oeuvre and How did he or she and the creation, in turn, affect the course of artistic, political, and social events?
Friday, November 21, 2008
LA DONNA DELLA SALUTE AND SAN GIORGIO BY J.M.W. TURNER
ITS THE MOST EXPENSIVE PAINTING BY A BRITISH PAINTER 4 ALL TIME. THE COST WAS 2 MILLION POUNDS IN AN AUCTION AT APRIL 2006
COLLOSEUM OF ROME (History of Coliseum)
Even today, in a world of skyscrapers, the Colosseum is hugely impressive. It stands as a glorious but troubling monument to Roman imperial power and cruelty. Inside it, behind those serried ranks of arches and columns, Romans for centuries cold-bloodedly killed literally thousands of people whom they saw as criminals, as well as professional fighters and animals.
'... the amphitheatre and its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture.'
Indeed, it was the amphitheatre's reputation as a sacred spot where Christian martyrs had met their fate that saved the Colosseum from further depredations by Roman popes and aristocrats - anxious to use its once glistening stone for their palaces and churches. The cathedrals of St Peter and St John Lateran, the Palazzo Venezia and the Tiber's river defences, for example, all exploited the Colosseum as a convenient quarry.
As a result of this plunder, and also because of fires and earthquakes, two thirds of the original have been destroyed, so that the present Colosseum is only a shadow of its former self, a noble ruin.
The Colosseum was started in the aftermath of Nero's extravagance and the rebellion by the Jews in Palestine against Roman rule. Nero, after the great fire at Rome in AD 64, had built a huge pleasure palace for himself (the Golden House) right in the centre of the city. In 68, faced with military uprisings, he committed suicide, and the empire was engulfed in civil wars.
The eventual winner Vespasian (emperor 69-79) decided to shore up his shaky regime by building an amphitheatre, or pleasure palace for the people, out of the booty from the Jewish War - on the site of the lake in the gardens of Nero's palace. The Colosseum was a grand political gesture. Suitably for that great city, it was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world, capable of holding some 50,000 spectators.
Eventually there were well over 250 amphitheatres in the Roman empire - so it is no surprise that the amphitheatre and its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture.
The Coliseum, also known as "Amphitheatre Flavio", built on the order of the Imperator Vespasiano in the honour of the grandiosity of his empire, was inaugurated by his son, Tito, in 80 after Christ with celebrations 100 days long.
The name Coliseum probably comes from the big bronze statue of about 38 metres, known as the "Colosso" (giant), that Nerone wanted built on his image in the Domus Aurea. The work, representing the Imperator in the pants of the God Apollo, wanted to call back to the mind, with its extraordinary dimensions, the prestige and the fascination that another symbol of the Antiquity had had: the Colosso of Rhodes.
The statue was moved by the Imperator Adriano close to the Amphitheatre and afterwards modified in its lines in order to look like to various imperators on one hand, and then, on the other hand, with the addition of a "crown of sun rays", to the God Sun. However, it was only in the Middle Ages, with the oblivion of the imperial magnificence and of the aristocratic "gens", that the name Coliseum started to take the place, in the common diction, of the name of "Amphitheatre Flavio".
The Coliseum, projected by Rabirio or maybe Gaudenzio, was welcoming long combats between gladiators, executions and hunting spectacles. More or less 80000 spectators were following the combats that could go on from the sunrise to the sunset and also up to the deepest night when the gladiators were fighting illuminated by the light of the torches.
According to the chronicles of the time it looks like that the fights preferred by the public were the chaotic melange of tens of gladiators invented by the Imperator Claudio, called "sportule". All the religious celebrations, the recurrence and the military victories were celebrated, during the imperial era, with the combats of the gladiators. To defend the spectators from the ferocious animals they were installing a metallic fence, while during the most sunny days or the raining days, the public was protected by a big blue "velario" with yellow stars operated by a team of sailors of the fleet of Capo Miseno and of Ravenna.
In general, to the Coliseum are also associated the persecutions suffered by the Christian martyrs, also if, according to recent studies, there are not documented proofs demonstrating the effective existence of massacres and slaughters inside the walls of the Amphitheatre Flavio. In any case, in 313 after Christ, the Imperator Constantine proclaimed Christianity the official religion of the empire, obviously forbidding the executions of Christians but also the combats between gladiators and the hunting spectacles.
During the following centuries the Coliseum initially became a cemetery, and then a fortress called "Frangipane" and finally a sort of cava for the construction materials. The degradation of the structure due to fires, earthquakes and sacks was stopped by Pope Benedetto XIV who consecrated the Amphitheatre to the Via Crucis and forbade any ulterior spoliation.
TAJ MAHAL OF INDIA
History of Taj Mahal:
The history of Taj Mahal, a monument which has been described as 'poetry in marble' was constructed by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. He erected this mausoleum in the memory of his beloved wife, Arjumand Bano Begum, popularly known as Mumtaz Mahal, who died in A.D. 1630. According to the history of Taj Mahal it is believed that her dying wish to her husband was "to build a tomb in her memory such as the world had never seen before." Indeed, centuries later, no tomb has been able to even remotely equal the glory of the marvelous Taj.
A study of the history of Taj Mahal reveals that it was started in A.D. 1631 and completed at the end of 1648 A.D. It is believed that the Taj is a result of twenty thousand workmen toiling day and night for twenty two whole years. A small town was built for the laborers called 'Mumtazabad' - named after the deceased empress. The town is now known as Taj Ganj.
Amanat Khan Shirazi was the calligrapher of Taj Mahal, his name occurs at the end of an inscription on one of the gates of the Taj. Poet Ghyasuddin had designed the verses on the tombstone, while Ismail Khan Afridi of Turkey was the dome maker. Muhammad Hanif was the superintendent of Masons. The designer of Taj Mahal was Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.
The material for the construction of the Taj was brought in from all over India and central Asia. It is believed that it took a fleet of 1000 elephants to transport it to the site! The history of Taj Mahal provides us with fascinating details about Mughal history and architecture.
Red sandstone was brought from Fatehpur Sikri, Jasper from Punjab, Jade and Crystal from China, Turquoise from Tibet, Lapis Lazuli and Sapphire from Sri Lanka, Coal and Cornelian from Arabia and diamonds from Panna. In all 28 kind of rare, semi precious and precious stones were used for inlay work in the Taj Mahal. The chief building material, the white marble was brought from the quarries of Makrana, in Rajasthan. Thus the history of Taj Mahal shows us the organizing capacity of the Mughal Empire and the vision of Emperor Shah Jahan, who was able to bring together many skilled artisans to create this beautiful monument to eternal love.
BAL AU MOULIN DE LA GALETTE BY PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR
THE PAINTING COST 42 MILLION OF POUNDS.............
PORTRAIT OF DU DR GACHET BY VINCENT VAN GOGH
THE 3RD HIGHEST RATED PAINTING COS 44.5 MILLION POUNDS AT A AUCTION AT MAY 1990
SIR PETER PAUL IS THE PAINTER IT WAS COSTED 45 MILLION POUNDS.
BOY WITH A PIPE BY PABLO PICASSO(1881-1973)
THIS IS THE MOST COSTLY PAINTING EVER WHICH RATED 52 MILLION POUNDS IN A AUCTION AT MAY 2004
SISTINE CHAPPEL CEILLING BY MICHELANGELO(1475-1564)
=================
by Guy Shaked
“I’ve already grown a goiter at this drudgery...
and the brush that is always above my face,
by dribbling down, makes it an ornate pavement...
Giovanni, from now on defend my dead painting, and my honor,
since I’m not in a good position, nor a painter.” [1]
In this sonetto caudato Michelangelo describes his resentment at working on the Sistine Chapel. He described himself as a sculptor who was forced to paint, not a painter.
His response to those who forced him to paint, perhaps led by Bramante, an advisor to the Pope [2], was to paint a sculpture gallery, which he may have preferred to make in stone for the Vatican. The figures, seated on stone chairs, like the figure of Moses that Michelangelo had made for Pope Julius’s tomb, would not have been too difficult to sculpt in marble. The prophets and sibyls of the Sistine Chapel are representations of statues of prophets and sibyls, and no Biblical scenes are depicted, as one would expect in a painting.
The sculpture gallery Michelangelo painted is quite similar to the Vatican's sculpture galleries, where one walks between rows of Greek and Roman statues on pedestals set along the walls on both sides.
The prophets on their seats display only minimal motion, since their contribution to mankind is their spoken word, written down as their teachings (as in the case of Moses).
In the wall niches between the painted marble statues are painted seated gnudi on columns with their backs turned to us.
The sculpture gallery Michelangelo painted on the ceiling sides surrounds the inner “ceiling” he made in the center of his painting, where he depicted episodes from Genesis and the creation of the world. These scenes (figures in mid-air, some wet with water, tree branches) could not be sculpted but only painted.
The opening scene of the ceiling depicts God, in mid-air like Michelangelo, but of course without supporting scaffolds, creating his own ultimate flesh-and-bone sculpture: Man.
Unlike the theme of the seated prophets, the theme of the ceiling paintings is action. God, according to Michelangelo, is creating Man with his touch rather than his word, as in the biblical account. Michelangelo, who substituted God’s words with his immediate action, displays the enormous difference between the seven days when God’s words operated and the time when the words of prophets and sibyls prevailed: human words are to be written down rather than translated into immediate action; they may materialize later or never.
This is indeed a critique of Pope Julius' treatment of Michelangelo’s work on his tomb, for the agreement between the two was initially kept but was later breached, because, Michelangelo believed, the agreement was made of human rather than divine words.
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
Thursday, November 20, 2008
LAST SUPPER BY LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
An Expression of Legominism in Christian Language
The Retabel of Isenheim
This article is written in preparation for a talk in the All & Everything Conference in Bognor Regis, U.K., which is held on the 24th to 28th of March 2004.
It needed years to understand what Reshad Feild meant, when he repeated again and again for us: “Do not underestimate yourself”. And he spoke also from time to time about periods of 700 years, and about patterns, which are settled in the beginning of such periods. Gradually I begun to see, what these remarks have to do with each other. My vision widened from “working on myself” to seeing the situation on this blue planet in a larger context. And I understood Gurdjieff more and more. I read “All and Everything” by the light of this new understanding. Out of the mosaic stones of very different sources that were given to me patterns become visible. This became a never-ending process of exciting investigation.
These periods of roughly 700 years divide the 2100 years of the Earth month in three periods – according to the Holy Trinity. Now we are in the beginning of the first, affirmative period of Aquarius, which means: our impulses are needed for the structures of the next 700 years. What a responsibility and what a motivation to fulfil our Partkdolg Duty!
Roughly 10 years ago I began to realise, that The Retable of Isenheim is a perfect example for “Objective Art.” At that time my interest widened out to the brotherhood, which made this most beautiful creation of western “Holy Art” possible. Where did they get their knowledge? How did the knowledge of the “real world” find the way from the antic world - which I found in old Greek art – to the middle age in Europe?
Through my investigations I found out, that in the 13th century the brotherhood of the Anthonites was built at the same time when other brotherhoods developed in the Christian world as well as in the Middle East. When you know what the signs of the Fourth Way are, it becomes clear that the Anthonites were a Fourth Way organization. This took place roughly 700 years ago.
This brotherhood spread out in whole Europe, and became a well-organised, wealthy institution, independent from the pope, with unique privileges. The settlements were by well educated, mostly men with university studies, they were connected to each other, and had a strong hierarchic structure. Their Task – as a “Fourth Way” brotherhood – was the nursing of people with a definite incurable illness. They knew, if somebody has to face his or her own death, then it makes sense to work with them spiritually.
In such an environment, in the beginning of the 16th century at the end of their mission, – according to a common spiritual law – they fixed the knowledge of their tradition in the Retable of Isenheim.
Gurdjieff knew only of one artist in the western world, who was in possession of knowledge about the real world: Leonardo da Vinci. Did somebody investigate his work? Why did Gurdjieff have this remark of him? Three years ago I found in the painting of the “Last Supper” the Enneagram in five minutes! But it is necessary to know about the meaning of the Enneagram and to know, how to look for it. An intellectual investigation for decades is necessary, but it is not enough. I can essentially understand something only when understanding is given through my inner process.
Gurdjieff couldn’t have known the Retable of Isenheim. If he had, he would have seen, that the creator had the knowledge of the objective world and the genius to express his knowledge in the pictures. Of course, the Altar with its 12 scenes is built up on the Enneagram.
We “thought” that the Enneagram was brought to the West by Gurdjieff. We “believe” that he “knew everything”. Isn’t it exactly this in “All and Everything” what he tried to destroy? Every spiritual teacher carries a mask to make it impossible for the pupil to become a “follower”.
What is our relationship to Gurdjieff? Are we like children, who take hold of the hand of their daddy, because “he knows what we have to do”? I am sure, Gurdjieff would be the first, who would send us into life and tell us: “When you are able to take responsibility for yourself, for your inner world, then come again.” A teacher can only work with somebody who is adult and who has lost the childish and naive expectations that a teacher should prepare everything for him. The WAY to go is only possible for those who have reached a “responsible age”.
I would like to introduce the structure of the Retable of Isenheim. To see, it is not necessary at all costs to look for knowledge of the real world in cultures far away. In our heritage there is knowledge. We have to find the key to it. Then we can make an input of its essence for the structures of the coming world – for the next 700 years.
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS BY HIERONYMUS BOSCH (c1450-1516)
HIERONYMUS BOSCH THE FLEMISH ARTIST IS THE PANTER OF THIS PAINTING
BIRTH OF VENUS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI (1445-1510)
One of the most famous paintings in the history of art, “The Birth of Venus” by Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli (1444 – 1510) is a representation of spring based upon classical mythology. Renowned for his exquisite Sistine Chapel frescoes, Botticeli was a protégé of the Medici family, who safeguarded “The Birth of Venus” during 1497’s “bonfire of vanities.” Boticelli, who was forgotten after he died, was rediscovered by 19th century Pre-Raphaelite artists.
This high-quality art print is expertly produced to capture the vivid color and exceptional detail of the original.
This high-quality art print is expertly produced to capture the vivid color and exceptional detail of the original.
DEPOSITION OF CHRIST BY FRA ANGELICO(c1400-55)
FRA ANGELICO THE FAMOUS FLORENTIC PAINTER MAKE THIS PAINTING.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
ANCIENT GREECE
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Architecture in ancient Greece:
Greek life was dominated by religion and so it is not surprising that the temples of ancient Greece were the biggest and most beautiful.They also had a political purpose as they were often built to celebrate civic power and pride, or offer thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for success in war.
* Greek Temple Architecture
The Greeks developed three architectural systems, called orders, each with their own distinctive proportions and detailing. The Greek orders are: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.
Doric Style
The Doric style is rather sturdy and its top (the capital), is plain. This style was used in mainland Greece and the colonies in southern Italy and Sicily.
Ionic Style
The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant. Its capital is decorated with a scroll-like design (a volute). This style was found in eastern Greece and the islands.
Corinthian Style
The Corinthian style is seldom used in the Greek world, but often seen on Roman temples. Its capital is very elaborate and decorated with acanthus leaves.
Doric Order:
Parthenon
Parthenon - temple of Athena Parthenos ("Virgin"), Greek goddess of wisdom, on the Acropolis in Athens. The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC, and despite the enormous damage it has sustained over the centuries, it still communicates the ideals of order and harmony for which Greek architecture is known.
Ionic Order:
Erechtheum
Erechtheum - temple from the middle classical period of Greek art and architecture, built on the Acropolis of Athens between 421 and 405BC.
The Erechtheum contained sanctuaries to Athena Polias, Poseidon, and Erechtheus. The requirements of the several shrines and the location upon a sloping site produced an unusual plan. From the body of the building porticoes project on east, north, and south sides. The eastern portico, hexastyle Ionic, gave access to the shrine of Athena, which was separated by a partition from the western cella. The northern portico, tetrastyle Ionic, stands at a lower level and gives access to the western cella through a fine doorway. The southern portico, known as the Porch of the Caryatids (see caryatid) from the six sculptured draped female figures that support its entablature, is the temple's most striking feature; it forms a gallery or tribune. The west end of the building, with windows and engaged Ionic columns, is a modification of the original, built by the Romans when they restored the building. One of the east columns and one of the caryatids were removed to London by Lord Elgin, replicas being installed in their places.
Temple of Apollo at Didyma
The Temple of Apollo at Didyma - The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey (about 300 BC). The design of the temple was known as dipteral, a term that refers to the two sets of columns surrounding the interior section. These columns surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 19.5 m (64 ft) high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple.
The Temple of Athena Nike
The Temple of Athena Nike - part of the Acropolis in the city of Athens. The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey (about 300 BC). The design of the temple was known as dipteral, a term that refers to the two sets of columns surrounding the interior section. These columns surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 19.5 m (64 ft) high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple.
Corinthian Order:
The temple of Zeus
- most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. The oldest known example, however, is found in the temple of Apollo at Bassae (c.420 B.C.). The Greeks made little use of the order; the chief example is the circular structure at Athens known as the choragic monument of Lysicrates ( 335 B.C.). The temple of Zeus at Athens (started in the 2d cent. B.C. and completed by Emperor Hadrian in the 2d cent. A.D.) was perhaps the most notable of the Corinthian temles
The history of Greece can be traced back to Stone Age hunters. Later came early farmers and thecivilizations of the Minoan and Mycenaean kings. This was followed by a period of wars and invasions, known as the Dark Ages. In about 1100 BC, a people called the Dorians invaded from the north and spread down the west coast. In the period from 500-336 BC Greece was divided into small city states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside.
There were only a few historians in the time of Ancient Greece. Three major ancient historians, were able to record their time of Ancient Greek history, that include Herodotus, known as the 'Father of History' who travelled to many ancient historic sites at the time, Thucydides and Xenophon.
Most other forms of History knowledge and accountability of the ancient Greeks we know is because of temples, sculpture, pottery, artefacts and other archaeological findings.
* Troy
* Alexandria
Ancient Greece
Athens is the symbol of freedom, art, and democracy in the conscience of the civilized world. The capital of Greece took its name from the goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge.
In Athens memory never fades. Wherever you stand, wherever you turn, the city's long and rich history will be alive in front of you. This is where that marvel of architecture, the Parthenon, was created. This is where art became inseparable from life, and this is where Pericles gave the funerary speech, that monument of the spoken word. In the centre of town are two hills, the Acropolis with the monuments from the Age of Pericles, and Lycabettus with the picturesque chapel of Ai Giorgis.
Ancient ruins provide a vivid testimony to the glory of Athens, hailed by many people as the cradle of western civilization.
Ancient Greece - important cities and states
Sparta a beautiful town near the river Evrotas, located in the centre of the Peloponnese in southern Greece, is the capital of the prefecture of Lakonia. SPARTA ( known in Greek as Sparti) has a history which dates back to the Neolithic period, at least 3,000 years before Christ.
Even in its most prosperous days, it was merely a group of five villages with simple houses and a few public buildings. The passes leading into the valley of the Evrotas were easily defended, and Sparta had no walls until the end of the 4th century BC. The city itself was destroyed by the Goths under their king, Alaric I, in 396 AD.
Modern Sparta, founded by the government in 1834, occupies part of the site of ancient Sparta and is the capital of the department of Laconia. Excavations of the ancient city have uncovered ruins of temples and public buildings as well as a theatre dating from the Roman period, but the sparse remains are insignificant for a city of such renown in antiquity.
* Ancient Greece: Sparta
* Sparta from Laconian Professionals
* Materials for the Study of Ancient Sparta
* Ancient Sites - Athens
Social Structure and Government
Social Structure
Greece in the Archaic Period was made up from independent states, called Polis, or city state. The polis of Athens included about 2,500 sq kilometres of territory, but other Polis with smaller areas of 250 sq kilometres.
Greek Society was mainly broken up between Free people and Slaves, who were owned by the free people. Slaves were used as servants and labourers, without any legal rights. Sometimes the slaves were prisoners of war or bought from foreign slave traders. Although many slaves lived closely with their owners, few were skilled craftsmen and even fewer were paid.
As Athenian society evolved, free men were divided between Citizens and Metics. A citizen was born with Athenian parents and were the most powerful group, that could take part in the government of the Polis. After compulsory service in the army they were expected to be government officials and take part in Jury Service. A metic was of foreign birth that had migrated to Athens, to either trade or practice a craft. A metic had to pay taxes and sometimes required to serve in the army. However, they could never achieve full right s of a Citizen, neither could they own houses or land and were not allowed to speak in law courts.
The social classes applied to men only, as women all took their social and legal status from their husband or their male partner. Women in ancient Greece were not permitted to take part in public life.
Government
c.800 BC
The majority of Greek states were governed by groups of rich landowners, called aristocrats; this word is derived from 'aristoi', meaning best people. This was a system known as 'oligarchy' the rule by the few.
c.750 BC
Athenian power in the Archaic Period was controlled by Aeropagus, or council. Their policies were delivered through three magistrates called Archons.
c.500 BC
Democracy was introduced by an aristocrat, Cleisthenes. Who was from family of the Alcmaeonids in 508 BC, after 2 years of civil war, they used the help of Spartans to secure power.
Ancient Greek Everyday(http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Life/)
Ancient Greek Language (http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/AncientGreekLanguage/)
Ancient Greek Clothing (http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Clothing/)
Ancient Greek Jewelry (http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Jewelry/)
Ancient Greek Theatre (http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Theatre/)
OLYMPIC:
The Greeks invented athletic contests and held them in honour of their gods. The Isthmos game were staged every two years at the Isthmos of Corinth. The Pythian games took place every four years near Delphi. The most famous games held at Olympia, South- West of Greece, which took place every four years. The ancient Olympics seem to have begun in the early 700 BC, in honour of Zeus. No women were allowed to watch the games and only Greek nationals could participate. One of the ancient wonders was a statue of Zeus at Olympia, made of gold and ivory by a Greek sculptor Pheidias. This was placed inside a Temple, although it was a towering 42 feet high.
The games at Olympia were greatly expanded from a one-day festival of athletics and wrestling to, in 472 BC, five days with many events. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. On the Middle Day of the festival 100 oxen were sacrificed in honor of a God. Athletes also often prayed and made small sacrifices themselves..
On the second day, the foot-race, the main event of the games, took place in the stadium, an oblong area enclosed by sloping banks of earth.
At Olympia there were 4 different types of races; The first was stadion, the oldest event of the Games, where runners sprinted for 1 stade, the length of the stadium(192m). The other races were a 2-stade race (384 m.), and a long-distance run which ranged from 7 to 24 stades (1,344 m. to 4,608 m.).The fourth type of race involved runners wearing full amor, which was 2-4 stade race (384 m. to 768 m.), used to build up speed and stamina for military purposes.
On other days, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium, a combination of the two, were held. In wrestling, the aim was to throw the opponent to the ground three times, on either his hip, back or shoulder. In ancient Greek wrestling biting and genital holds were illegal.
Boxing became more and more brutal; at first the pugilists wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means of deadening the blows, but in later times hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. In the pancratium, the most rigorous of the sports, the contest continued until one or the other of the participants acknowledged defeat.
Horse-racing, in which each entrant owned his horse, was confined to the wealthy but was nevertheless a popular attraction. The course was 6 laps of the track, with separate races for whereupon the rider would have no stirrups. It was only wealthy people that could pay for such training, equipment, and feed of both the rider and the horses. So whichever horse won it was not the rider who was awarded the Olive wreath but the owner. There were also Chariot races, that consisted of both 2-horse and 4-horse chariot races, with separate races for chariots drawn by foals. There was also a race was between carts drawn by a team of 2 mules, which was 12 laps of the stadium track.
After the horse-racing came the pentathlon, a series of five events: sprinting, long-jumping, javelin-hurling, discus-throwing, and wrestling.
The ancient Greeks considered the rhythm and precision of an athlete throwing the discus as important as his strength.
The discus was a circle shaped stone, iron, bronze, or lead. There were different sizes according to age groups. The javelin was a long wooden stick shape with spear head, similar height to that of a person. In the middle was bound a thong for a hurler's fingers to grip and guide to the correct angle it was thrown.
To Jump long distances athletes used lead or stone weights to increase the length of the jump. These weights were known as 'halteres' were held in front of the athlete during his ascent, and then swung behind his back and dropped during his descent to help propel him.
Olympics Through Time the history of the Olympic Games from the time when athletic contests were held during religious ceremonies until the First International Olympic Games in 1896
Ancient Olympics Ancient Olympics FAQs and online Q/A surveys
What is the History and Meaning of the Olympic Games an essay, by Michael Simos
Collection for the Olympic Games
OLYMPIA Project The Spirit of Ancient Olympics
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