This lecture introduces eight thematic categories for analyzing art: the sacred realm, politics and social order, stories and history, looking outward, the here and now, looking inward, the human experience, invention and fantasy, the natural world, and art and art. The focus for the current week is on the first three themes.
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hello class in today's lecture video
we're going to be talking about themes
that are presented in
so for the purpose of this class what
we're going to be looking at
is eight themes which are listed on this
page you have the sacred realm
politics and social order stories in history
history
looking outward the here and now looking
inward the human experience
invention and fantasy the natural world
and art and art
now it's not to say that these are the
only eight themes
that you can talk about when you're
discussing art these are just the ones
that we're going to be talking about in
this class so this week we'll be
focusing on the first three
the sacred realm politics and social
order and social or stories in history
and then next week is when we're going
to cover the remaining five
as far as our themes looking up
is what's called the sacred realm the
sacred realm of the
spirit includes gods and goddesses
spirits of ancestors
spirits of nature and this idea of one
god and one god alone
so all of which has to do with these
universal questions of man
the nature of the human condition so who
made the universe how did life begin
what is its purpose what happens to us
after we pass away so this idea of faith
and from the earliest times art has
played an important role in our
relationship to the sacred
helping us to envision it to honor it
and to communicate with
it the first artwork that your book gives
gives
is saint chappelle that goes along with
this idea of the sacred realm this is
located in paris from 1243 to 1248
this particular chapel housed the relics
of pieces of the true cross
as well as the crown of thorns it was a
private chapel that was intended to be
used for a french king and his court
so some of the ideas the things that are
done artistically to be able to enhance
the idea of spirituality in the sacred
realm within this structure
is the height of the interior the knave
that we're seeing here
so very tall soaring up towards the ceiling
ceiling
this idea that heaven is above us and so
the closer we can kind of reach towards
that heaven
that concept is being represented in
this particular architectural structure
we also have an abundance of gold that's
being represented
this is characteristic of a byzantine
time period
the idea of christ is the light of the
world and
using gold to be able to make that um
that iconography that symbolization
within the piece
we also have stained glass so that's
another idea of the light that's
entering through
the windows itself creating this kind of
like dazzling radiant effect
very otherworldly so the glory of
heaven and those different concepts are
being represented in
the architectural features within this
another building that your book gives to
be able to represent the idea of the
sacred realm is the great mosque of
cordoba this is located in spain
and it's been expanded on several times
but in multiple editions
so the time span goes over the 8th to
the 10th century
so in this case what we're seeing in our
hypo style hall which is going to be the
image that's on your left here so
hypostyle hall means
literally a forest of columns so you
have several columns that are being
incorporated here and the columns
themselves were actually
used they were for a previous culture
and they were discarded
and kind of set off to the side and what
ends up happening is when the muslims
come into spain
they see the columns that are there they
incorporate those columns as more of a
utilitarian structure these are already
features that are here
we might as well use them but the
problem is is they're not tall enough so
what ends up happening is we have the
creation of this double
horseshoe arch that's being represented
we also have the multi-lobed arch that's
being seen
in the image that's at the bottom right
corner and then the dome that's being
represented in the top right corner
is showing us the dome
of paradise so here we see a lot of
floral motifs
we see calligraphy part of the islamic religion
religion
is that the images of god muhammad
these are all forbidden so what we end
up seeing predominantly
is going to be images of floral motifs
geometric patterns
decorative script so that's what we're
seeing within the
imagery that's in that top dome there so
in both
images we're seeing the idea of
the worshipers kind of taking away from the
the
everyday world that's kind of shut out
we're being transported
into this essentially kind of sacred place
now religious images they serve to focus
the thoughts and the faithful
by giving concrete form to very abstract
ideas and we have two images that we can
kind of compare here
the image that's on the left is our
transcendent buddha of the cell from tibet
tibet
13th century opaque watercolor and cloth
and then the image that's on the right
here is madonna and thrown by chimbu
so we notice that we have at about the
same time period
two completely different religions representing
representing
some of the main individuals within that religion
religion
in very similar ways so the one on the
left we have buddha
we notice that he is larger than all of
the other figures within the composition
he's centrally located um
the main focus is essentially on him
same thing with mary and christ in our
image that's on the right here
they're also larger centrally located we
have some of the other figures that are
kind of pointing or even looking
up towards them so this concept is
what's referred to
as hierarchical scale when we want to
show a figure being more important than
some of the other figures and the main focus
focus
there's a couple different ways that we
can do that we can make them larger
we can put them in the center we can
have other figures kind of drawing their
attention towards that figure
so that's something that we see within
both of these images
now even though we're in completely
different locations the world different religions
religions
we're using very similar conventions to
the second theme that we have is
referred to as politics and social order
so these specific questions that we have
when we start to develop as a culture
and start to develop cities things like that
that
um the answers to these questions that
arise are oftentimes depicted
in artwork throughout history
so the first piece that we're looking at
is the pyramids of giza
so this isn't three pyramids that we're
seeing here
the largest one is actually the one
that's farthest away from us so
it's going to be the pyramid that's on
the right hand side of the composition
that is a pyramid dedicated to khufu
the one in the center is caffrey his son
and then the smallest one that's closest
to us
is mankari which would be kafri's son
so in ancient egypt the belief here is
that a pharaoh is actually considered a god
god
not only do they mediate between the
gods but they are considered gods
themselves they have ultimate power
that's after absolute after death the
pharaoh would return to reside with the
gods so the burial served as not only a
pride of the pharaoh during the time
that they reigned
but it also served as a place of worship
for god after they passed away
so the size of the structures here
and the amount of work that went into
making them the engineering
of all of that that attached to the
power of
the pharaoh at the time so not only does
the pyramids of giza
serve as this concept of
politics and social order this can also
be associated with the sacred realm because
because
the pharaoh is a god and this idea of
life after death those are all concepts
that are
incorporated within that theme and then
the next theme that we are going to look
at is going to be stories in history
which is another theme that could be
associated with our pyramids at giza
our equestrian statue of marcus aurelius
so this is from rome the year 800.
before our modern mass media it was art that
that
served as a means of being able to
project the presence of the authority of
the rulers
any time you had an emperor that came
into power
his exact likeness so they take a mold
of the face of the figure
and then that would be sent to all the
artists throughout the roman empire and
they would start working
to make copies so that everybody in the roman
roman
empire knew exactly what the ruler would
have looked like at that time
so that's something that we see within
this particular image it's very important
important
to be able to project that presence to a
large area and large amount of people
without the ability to have tv and
liberty leading the people is going to
be an artwork that is not necessarily for
for
the person who's in charge our leader at
this time but this is actually for
the lower and the middle class and so
it's the people here
that are kind of uprising and going over
the king
at this time in france so
what we see with this particular artwork um
um
the context here so this is about the
revolution of 1830 specifically the july
uprising against the
bourbon king charles the 10th resulting
in louis felipe becoming a citizen king
so the french government would go into
the homes in the middle of the night of
many of the
civilians at that time and they would
take entire families and murder them
they would then bring their bodies into
the middle of the town center
so when everybody woke up the next
morning they would see this entire
family that's been executed by the
french government
and this was a means of intimidation so
that the people would not
uprise and go against the king at the time
time
but that's exactly what ends up
happening the people
want to fight for their rights and they
go against the king
so the composition here there's a couple
different things that are added
we have what's called a pyramidal
composition so if you notice the apex of
the triangle that we're seeing here this pyramid
pyramid
is where the flag is at the top that
liberty is holding
then we can follow that and make a triangle
triangle
down to each of the corners of the
composition at the bottom there
we have this idea of personification so liberty
liberty
is a an idea it's not actually a person
and so when we take that idea and we put
it into bodily form
that's what's referred to as a personification
personification
the subject here there's quite a few
things that the artist is doing to bring
the whole piece together
so we're seeing this idea the common
cause here so it doesn't matter
how wealthy you are if you're young if
you're old
if you're black if you're white we the
people the french people are going to
come together and we are going to go against
against
and fight for our rights go against the
king at the time
so we see that being represented here so
this is what's called a conceptual unity
we also see a chromatic unity that's
being formed so
the red white and blue are the most
predominant colors in that flag that
we're seeing at the top there
this red white and blue is being
repeated throughout the rest of the
image so we're also seeing
some of the red and blue on the french
soldiers the white of the
nightgown that the french civilian who
was murdered is wearing so
these colors are repeated over and over
and over again
which helps to bring the entire
composition together
so that's what's referred to as
the next artwork that we have is what's
called guernica this is by pablo picasso
um so we have um our context here a
little background so the germans wanted
to test aerial bombing
to see if it could wipe out an entire
city um this
happening at the time of world war ii
where hitler is in power and what ends
up happening is on april 28th
the year 1937 we
they test this on a small city a town by
the name
of guernica and so what pablo picasso is
doing here is he's protesting against
the brutality of war and tyranny
and so he does this in a way the
composition um the size
of the painting is very very large we're talking
talking
a little over 11 feet by a little over
25 feet
so just the size of it kind of uh adds
to that idea
of the protest kind of
in your face type concept this
the fact that we're using just black and
white and we're getting the feel that
it's almost kind of like a newsprint
especially with the small dashes that
are placed on some of the figures in the center
center
that's also he's essentially announcing
to the news
to the people this event that happens
he's combining
two different styles here it's what's
called analytic and synthetic cubism
but the subject is just supposed to
display extreme pain and anguish
he painted this and it was actually held
in a museum of modern art in new york
until francisco franco
who was the fascist leader leader who
was in charge at the time died and then
after his death it was allowed to be
returned to madrid
the capital of spain
so the image here
it's not only politics and social order
that's being represented but another
concept that we see here is the sacred realm
realm
there are two figures on either side of
the composition so if we look on the
left side
we have a mother figure holding a dying
child here this is a representation of
the pie top
it's supposed to be a symbol of mary
holding her dead son
christ and same thing with that figure
that we're seeing all the way on the
right side of the composition that has
the arms up
even though the arms are kind of more in
a vertical orientation
it is supposed to be a representation of
the crucifixion
so we are seeing that concept of the
sacred realm being represented in this
piece along with
obviously stories and history as this is
a moment a specific event that happened
so stories in history are is a theme that
that
shares stories to be able to create a
sense of community
within the artwork so this could be
deeds of heroes the lives of saints folk
tales all of these kind of shared
stories that we passed down from one
the ramanana which is an image that
we're seeing here
of rama and lakshmana being bound by
arrow snakes
this is something that is showing
a story that represents
your your specific role within
each individual relationship that you
have so
it's all about behavior it's about your
dharma so
the story that's being represented in
india would have been something that
every child would have learned
kind of growing up so it'd be something
that you would be very familiar with
so what the artist is doing here is he's
using what's called space cells
so we're using separate parts in the
composition to represent different
aspects of a story
it's a very long story that is being told
told
so we're seeing different aspects of the
beginning the middle the end of that story
story
alter to the chase's high school this is
a piece that
we have an artist who has taken a photograph
photograph
and he has enlarged some of the images
of the photograph the photograph is actually
actually
a class picture from
a all jewish school and this is right at
the time
uh before the start of world war
ii so what he's done here is he's taken
three images
because he's enlarged them they seem
very blurry he's added lamps on top of them
them
and some boxes so he's drawing on the
historical event of the holocaust
the mass murder of jews and other
populations by the nazis during world war
war
ii um so the different aspects in this
particular piece
they depending on the individual they
can kind of represent different things
so the lamps that are above the figures
they can be interpreted
as the interrogation lamps that were
used by the nazis
they can also be interpreted as kind of halos
halos
to go over the figures that have passed
away in the holocaust
the boxes can refer to some of their
personal belongings that they have lost
in the holocaust
maybe possibly the ashes of the cremated
remains of the individuals
so here we're referring to a historical
event and we're taking
um the several different mediums to be
able to
represent that particular event in history
history
so that's the last image that we're
going to be looking at for
part one of our themes of art and make
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