Title: Art history at a glance
Course: EN_History of culture and art > Section: 3. Art History, Part I

An overview about the most important epochs since the beginning of mankind until the 19th century and their characteristics

What is art history?

People have been creating art throughout all times and regions as their way to communicate and to express ideas. Thus, the knowledge of the creative outcomes of art gives insights into the past and bring a better understanding of ourselves and life in general.
The history of art focuses on objects made by humans in visual form for aesthetic purposes and is often told as a chronology of masterpieces created during each civilization.

Art history is a discipline in the humanities that studies architecture, visual arts and media, and craft objects, including their theories and practices, from the Middle Ages to the present. It finds expression in the changing position and function of art in society the development of art forms, styles and the reinterpretation of signs and symbols.

Objectives:

- to explore artistic objects according to their content (iconographically)
- to determine their formal design
- to place them in space & time to understand the work by understanding its regional and historical context
- to analyse their reception

Objects of art history:

- Works of Prehistory and Early History
- Archaeology and Aetiology
- European and Near Eastern works of painting, graphic art, sculpture, and architecture from the early Middle Ages to the present day
- ecclesiastical art
- applied art
- The art of non-European cultures is also considered within the framework of the research of the respective regional studies.

Art history as a science was founded in the second half of the 19th century and essentially goes back to Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

Task: Write a short essay why designers should obtain knowledge on history of art!

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An overview

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Prehistoric Art

The longest phase of human history is called the Stone Age, it lasted about 2.5 million years. It’s named so, since the most important tools and utensils were made of stone during this period. The Stone Age culture was a hunter-gatherer culture named Paleolithic.

After this comes a transitional phase called the Mesolithic period, where agriculture developed, followed by the Neolithic period (the New Stone Age), where people started to settle permanently. The Stone Age ends as stone tools become superseded by the new products of bronze and iron metallurgy and is followed by the Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Stone Age art consists mainly of four different kinds of objects:

- Rock paintings = petroglyphs (rock carvings and engravings, founded in all parts of the globe)
- Pictographs (pictorial images, ideograms or symbols in cave painting and drawing)
- Prehistoric sculpture (small totemic statuettes known as Venus Figurines, various forms of zoomorphic and therianthropic ivory carving, and relief sculptures)
- Megalithic art (stone monuments)

Read the following chapter about "Prehistoric Art" and note its most important characteristics!

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Art_History/Prehistoric_Art

Visit now the Caves of Lascaux and find out:

- With which materials and colours the paintings were done!
- What is the difference in the presentation of the beasts and the men?

https://archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/fr#/en/00.xml/

Ancient Art in Egypt

Interaktive Seite_Ancient Egyptian Art.h5p

Ancient Greek Art

The Greek art did not originate from a single national territory but included all art from the former settlement areas of the Greeks: from the Greek mainland, the Aegean Islands, western Asia Minor, southern Italy, Sicily, France, Spain, North Africa, Palestine, and the Black Sea region. In ancient Greece, the typical community form was the polis, a local community thus Greek art is local art.

The art of Greek antiquity is generally divided into four epochs. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) there are world famous artifacts of all these periods to be found. You can see some of the most important examples for each period, presented by the Met.

Geometric art (1050-700 BC)
The dominant features of this period are mainly geometric shapes and patterns, often combined with free forms, which are the actual motif. Vessels, vases and other clay objects were used for the first time in this period as tombs or as grave goods and depict extracts from the life of the deceased.

Archaic art (700-490 BC)
In this period the geometric patterns of previous years were replaced by a more naturalistic and representational approach influenced by Egypt and the Near East. Architecture becomes more monumental and art more naturalistic: a stylistic device in sculpture becomes the Archaic smile.
In addition to dark, mostly black representations, red decoration was particularly celebrated during this period. Much of the ancient Greek pottery that survives today dates from the Archaic period, including depictions of ancient Greek life and culture. The great literary forms emerge: epics, tragedies, poetry and prose, names like Homer, Hesiod and Aeschylus belong here.

Classical art (490-320 BC)

After the Persian Wars and during the Athenian democracy art became a national revival. It’s the Golden Age where many of the finest examples of classical art and sculpture were built. The Parthenon and other enormous temples were built during this period. Classical art shows a sense of life and harmony. Among all the changes, a sense of grandeur and beauty took shape and carried the harmonious representations of the human body even further, especially in sculpture where the inner unity of the pictorial composition is increasingly expressed. (Javelin and discus throwers)

Hellenistic art (320 BC-1st century AD)
The Hellenistic period is characterized by diverse art and content, as Hellenistic artists adopted aspects of art from previous centuries and added new ones, expressing their individualism as artists. The era is characterized by the broad spread of the Greek language, art, science and way of life as far as India. The cities, with Alexandria at the forefront, played a key role. They were built on the Greek model with marketplaces, theaters and temples and were economic and cultural centers from which Greek thought and culture spread. The Greeks or Hellenes have strongly influenced the cultural development of centuries until the modern times, including visual arts, architecture, literature, sciences, philosophy, architecture, math and many more areas of cultural life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_art

Roman Art

Roman art had its cultural foundations primarily in Greek and Etruscan art. Greek works of art were often imported and copied by the Romans, sometimes even stolen. Later, around the first century BC, a separate Roman imperial art emerged that glorified the imperial house and represented the state.

The Roman Empire was in a constant state of conquest, which shaped society and formed its values which was reflected in physical culture, games and festivals. It extended over a long period of time across geographically diverse areas. This resulted in a corresponding diversity in art, because the Romans incorporated both past artistic trends and contemporary art. In addition, the production of art was considerable in terms of quantity, because private individuals commissioned art on a large scale. In the actual centre of Rome, artistic forms of expression were developed that served political purposes and state self-expression. Statesmen, members of the Senate in republican times, emperors and private individuals paid artists and commissioned works.

The Roman art is often sculpture that is more realistic than the Greek precedents. Roman architecture often used concrete, and features such as the round arch and dome were invented.

Get an overview on Roman art in the following article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_art#Rome

Summary about Greek and Roman Art

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Early Christian Art

Introduction

The origins of Early Christian art

The life of the early Christians took place in the private sphere, which meant that the sphere of activity of these artists was very modest - only catacombs and a few monuments have survived from this period. The early Christians were part of ancient Roman society; thus their art is also part of Greco-Roman art and uses its imagery and style to present Christian themes. Artistic media of the early Christians are frescos, mosaics, sarcophagi, sculptures and decorated manuscripts (illuminated manuscripts).

The visual arts between antiquity and the early Middle Ages are closely connected with Roman, early medieval European and Byzantine art. It brings together works that have been created in the various phases and regions since the beginning of Christianity. The significant period of early Christian art, between 300 and 750, overlaps with late antiquity.

Temporal cornerstones are:

- before the 3rd century: the emergence of Christianity and its existence as an underground movement and the growth of Christianity at the end of the second century. Associated with this, the hidden representation of works in private rooms, tombs and catacombs

- after the 3rd century: the rise to state religion under Emperor Constantine (313), a newly baptised Christian, who put it on an equal standing with the ancient religion, and, pushed for the promotion of Christian art. It thus became the basis of art in western Europe, whereas in eastern Europe it was Byzantine art after the 5th century.

At a glance

Get an overview of important exhibits in the photo show:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paleochristian_art

More Details

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Medieval Art in Europe

After an short overview on Medieval Art in Europe you get short summaries about the most important movements of that era.

Overview

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Byzantine and Islamic Art

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Medieval Art in Europe

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Renaissance

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Baroque Art

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Rococo Art

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Neoclassicism

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Romanticism

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