What do we do with
art?
Art used dynamically in rituals
Art created – and destroyed – as part of a ritual
Using art:
decoration, display, performance, ritual and prayer, entertainment,
leadership and power displays
Keeping art: museums, collections, restoration
Studying art: art
history, aesthetics, art criticism, archeology, cultural anthropology, human
development
Keeping Art
Examine why and how cultures keep art
Art collections
Museums and private collections
National, regional and other art museums
Museums and new technology
Museum design
Preservation and restoration
When Art is Not Saved
Discuss the loss of art and art that is meant to be
temporary
Art destroyed in conflicts
Destruction of art and architecture throughout history
“Iconoclasm”Art used dynamically in rituals
Art created – and destroyed – as part of a ritual
Non-object art
Studying Art
Art history: historical study of visual art
Aesthetics: branch of philosophy that studies “beauty”
Art criticism: judgments about the value of art exhibits and
events
Archeology: study of physical remains of past human life
Cultural anthropology: study of humanity within cultures
Human development: various studies of human growth and
development
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres The Grand Odalisque.
Diego Velázquez Rokeby Venus.
Édouard Manet's Olympia..
Titian Venus of
Urbino.
Using art: decoration, display, performance, ritual and prayer, entertainment,
leadership and power displays
Keeping art: museums, collections, restoration
When art is not saved: destruction of art, art in rituals,
non-object art
Studying art:
art history, aesthetics, art criticism, archeology, cultural
anthropology, human development
Using Art
Examine the different uses for art across cultures and
time. Consider the different uses
of the art below.
Andy Warhol Campbell Soup
Jan Vermeer. The Kitchen Maid.
- rituals for food in ancient times
Gods were believed to watch over the success or failure of
crops. Sacrifice - the offering of food to the gods - formed the principal link
between mortals and the beings they worshipped. Death was observed and the dead
commemorated with meals. Nothing played a more integral role in religious
practices and beliefs in the ancient world than the sharing and consumption of
food.
- food was an important part of ancient funerals
Blood sacrifices were thought to link the human and divine spheres, and were celebrated on countless occasions. Sacrificial victims were usually domestic animals such as goats, sheep, pig and oxen. Their flesh would be shared and consumed by the worshipers present at the sacrifice.
Food played an important part in ancient funerals, with
meals served to feed both the dead and the living left behind. Some Etruscan tombs were painted on the
interior of reclining banqueters.
Inscriptions on funerarys mention a taberna (food shop) located on
the grave plot. Tabernae, which sold cheap foodstuffs and provided a
modest income to their proprietors, were more usually part of residential
complexes. Tomb plots, functioned as a place to mourn, pray, celebrate and eat,
illustrates the integral role of food in both life and death in the ancient
world.- some of the symbols portrayed by food in still lifes
Still-lifes with raisins, apples or pears represented the
blood of Christ, His love for the Church or the softness of His transformation
into Man while a lobster represented His resurrection.
The representation of meat which
could indicate a threat to faith, weak flesh or the ritual sacrifice of an
animal
- 17th century Dutch painters use food in their still life paintings
With the development of overseas
trade, traditional agriculture receded while the development of markets became
spectacular.
Dutch and Flemish people became
more accustomed to buying fruits and other foods and because of the new
opulence, painters had a new approach towards their fetishism. Religious
symbols thus became less important while wealth became the target of hidden
criticisms.
In Holland notably, the trend was
to oppose the traders and the peasants, the former representing economic
prosperity and the latter the old world.
Wayne Thiebaud. Pie Counter
- some contemporary paintings using food
Thiebaud’s Pie Counter, 1963
Warhol’s
Campbell Soup Can, 1965
Keeping Art
Examine why and how cultures keep art
Art collections
Museums and private collections
National, regional and other art museums
Museums and new technology
Museum design
Preservation and restoration
When Art is Not Saved
Discuss the loss of art and art that is meant to be
temporary
Art destroyed in conflicts
Destruction of art and architecture throughout history
“Iconoclasm”
Art used dynamically in rituals
wArt created – and destroyed – as part of a ritual
Non-object art
Tribute in Light, New York
- The purpose of having the Tribute in Light was to show the location of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
”We set out to "repair" and "rebuild"
the skyline—but not in a way that would attempt to undo or disguise the damage.
Those buildings are gone now, and they will never be rebuilt. Instead we would
create a link between ourselves and what was lost. In so doing, we believed, we
could also repair, in part, our city's identity and ourselves.”
Our temporary monument had to address the void in the New
York skyline and symbolize the spirits of the thousands caught in the towers'
tragic collapse.
The lights should be installed in any of a number of sights
in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero, but not where the towers had actually
stood (one idea was to situate them on barges in the harbor). The
reconstruction of the skyline did not have to be literal. Besides, we wanted
our proposal to be a realistic, viable project, not a fantastical one.
Venus of willendorf. Austria.
- some of the misleading assumptions made about the role of women in Prehistory.
They are not a homogeneous set of objects, depicting females
of a wide variety of ages and physical types. Nonetheless, from the few
examples with enormous breasts and buttocks the interpretation as emphasizing
fertility, have expanded to them all, despite the fact that they are not
representative of the genre.
God Te Rongo, Cook Islands, Polynesia. The British Museum, London
Priapos. House of the Vettii.
House of Vettii in relation to Roman works of art
Because of the wall paintings of the Third- and Fourth-
Styles are preserved, therefore the most "modern" styles of Roman
wall painting when the eruption of Pompeii occurred.
The wall paintings were commissioned from one of the leading
artists' workshops in Pompeii so that the home of the Vettii would not only be
comfortable but also a expression of their new found, free, wealthy status.
House of Vettii is a typical Roman house.
Housing was spacious and beautiful for
the wealthy in Rome. The exteriors are plain, but inside, individual rooms
opened onto courtyard spaces that brought fresh air and light into the center
of the house. The house was organized
symmetrically around an axis that ran from the entrance to the back of the
house.
This house was owned by two freedmen who became wealthy
businessmen in Pompeii: Aulus Vettius Conviva and Aulus Vettius Restitutus, and
from their names the house gets its name.
Romans use bath houses
The thermae were an important part of Roman social
life, where most citizens lived in crowded tenaments (insulae) without
running water or sanitary facilities.
- Romans had artworks in the bathhouses for aesthetically pleasing
The universal acceptance of bathing as a central event in daily life belongs to the Roman world and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that at the height of the empire, the baths embodied the ideal Roman way of urban life. Apart from their normal hygienic functions, they provided facilities for sports and recreation. Their public nature created the proper environment—much like a city club or community center—for social intercourse varying from neighborhood gossip to business discussions. There was even a cultural and intellectual side to the baths since the truly grand establishments, the thermae, incorporated libraries, lecture halls, colonnades, and promenades and assumed a character like the Greek gymnasium.
The Greeks people built beautiful architecture for the worship of their gods, and a large percentage of the ancient Greek architecture that we still know today were temples. The gods were the driving force behind any major architecture of the Hellenistic period.
Though the Romans built temples to their gods, the Roman style was more predominantly seen in public dwellings and social gathering areas, such as basilicas and forums, than in their temples. In fact, a majority of the temples that the Romans built were nothing more than copies of Greek temples, with the exception of the domed Pantheon.
Another major difference between Greek and Roman architecture was the purpose behind the design. Greek architecture was meant to be viewed as a piece of art that would give pleasure to the gods. This was obvious in the ornate exteriors of the buildings in the pediments and metopes and the relative drabness of the interiors. The Greek designed buildings as a sculpture in a sense, with all of the beauty to be viewed from the outside.
Roman architectural style turns this around. Although their buildings are beautiful on the outside, the inside is equally beautiful, with the many-colored walls and paintings, and a use of space concerned with the lighting of the room so that the interior decorations could be seen clearly. Roman buildings were meant to be gathering places for the public, the basilica was built to be a gathering place for Romans citizens to hold meetings, an people also met in large civic buildings such as bathhouses and market places know as forums that were as aesthetically pleasing inside as out.
Lucian Freud. Leihg under the Skylight
Lynn Hershman, Deep Contact. 1990
Reproduction and
Sexuality
The Promise of
Fertility
Art as sympathetic magic in the promise of fertility
Fertility gods and goddesses – Mother Goddesses from the
Paleolithic and Neolithic era
Fertility figures – to aid in human reproduction
Rituals – mystical images and enactments
Dogon Primordial Couple, Mali Africa
Massaccio, The Expulsion from Paradise
Lovemaking, Sexuality, Gender
Images of ideal sexuality
Abstracted sexual imagery
Depictions of
Lovemaking
Peruvian Moche pots
Likely made by women
Buried with the dead
Ukiyo, “floating world” subject matter from Japan
Shunga prints
Jeff Koons’s pieces
Blur the boundary between art and pop culture
Hindu depictions from India
In Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion, the lovers sit naked on
a bed beneath a jeweled pavilion in a lush garden of ripe mangoes and flowering
shrubs. Krishna gently touches Radha's breast while gazing directly into her
face. Radha shyly averts her gaze. It is night, the time of illicit trysts, and
the dark monsoon sky momentarily lights up with a lightning flash indicating
the moment's electric passion. Lightning is a standard symbol used in Rajput and
Pahari miniatures to symbolize sexual excitement.
Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya (2009)
Abstracted Sexual Imagery
Allusions to human body
Georgia O’Keeffe
Constantin Brancusi
Louise Bourgeois
Princess X - Constantin Brancusi
Louise-Bourgeois, Fillette
Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois 1982
Banksy
Rat Mural: Let them Eat Crack on Broadway & Howard, SoHo, New York
"Let them Eat Crack"
This Banksy rat mural it shows a rat with a briefcase and an umbrella, and it reads "Let Them Eat Crack".
"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", supposedly spoken by "a great princess" upon learning that the peasants had no bread. Since brioche was enriched with butter and eggs, as opposed to ordinary bread, the quote supposedly would reflect the princess's obliviousness as to the condition of the people.
While it is commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, there is no record of this phrase ever having been uttered by her. It appears in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, his autobiography (whose first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published in 1782). The context of Rousseau's account was his desire for bread, to accompany some wine he had stolen; however, in feeling he was too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he thus recollected the words of a "great princess".
No comments:
Post a Comment