Art History

Early Medieval Art ( 5th - 11th century ) Hiberno-saxon art : 6th-8th centuries in the British Isles Viking art : 8th-11th centuries in Scandinavia Carolingian art : 8th-9th centuries in France and Germany Ottonian art : 10th-early 11th centuries in Germany The Middle Ages of the European world covers approximately 1,000 years of art history in Europe, and at times extended into the Middle East and North Africa. The Early Middle Ages is generally dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 CE) to approximately 1000, which marks the beginning of the Romanesque period. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres , and revivals. Early medieval art exists in many media. The works that remain in large numbers include sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, metalwork, and mosaics, all of which have had a higher survival rate than fresco wall-paintings and works in precious metals or textiles such as tapestries.  ...

Byzantine Art (Architecture) Along with the transfer of Imperial authority to Byzantium went thousands of Roman and Greek painters and craftsmen, who proceed to create a new set of Eastern Christian images and icons known as Byzantine Art. Byzantine art includes word created from the fourth century to the fifteenth century and encompassing parts of the Italian peninsula, the eastern edge of the Slavic world, the Middle East and North Africa. Early Byzantine (c. 330-750) Middle Byzantine (c. 850-1204) Late Byzantine (c. 1261-1453) Characteristic of byzantine art Byzantine art had a didactic function but was essentially impersonal, ceremonial and symbolic. It was an element in the performance of religious ritual. Byzantine architecture and painting remained uniform and anonymous and developed with a rigid tradition. New architectural techniques included the use of concave triangular sections of masonry known as pendentives , in order to carry the weight...

Greek Art (sculpture) Greek art is believed to be a mixture of Egyptian, Syirian, Manoan (Crete), Mycenean and Persian cultures. Judging by the language, they are derived from Indo-European tribes that migrate from the open steppes north of the Black Sea. Greek sculptors learned both stone carving and bronze-casting from the Egyptians and Syrians, while the traditions of sculpture within Greece were developed by two main groups of settlers from Thessaly - the Ionians and Dorians. 1. History of Greek sculpture Bone and ivory carving has been produced in Egypt since about 5,000 BCE as part of cultural traditions established during the late Stone Age (10,000 - 5,000 BCE). After the "Dark Ages" - a 400 year period of chaos and fighting, when little if any art was produced. During the calmer 8th century BCE , a new culture of visual art began to emerge. It involving pottery, some painting and sculpture, while Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey were also written ar...

Chinese Art (Pottery) The Oriental way or also be called by Chinese Art is to discount the observed natural phenomenon, to seek the essence of life i intuitively apprehended values, in spiritual intimations and in the abstract elements of color and creative formal organization. Eastern art, less obviously humanistic, natural, intellectual and feeds the spirit. Its glories are achieved in the realms of the abstract, the contemplatively mystical and the richly sensuous.   What is porcelain? In ceramic art, the Porcelain is a type of translucent shell. It describes any ceramic ware that is white and translucent, no matter what ingredients it contains or what it is made for. It was fired at a higher temperature. The porcelain clay body is usually heated in a kiln to between 1,200 and 1,400 degree Celsius. These temperature cause the formation of glass and other chemical compounds, which is turn gives the porcelain its toughness, strength and translucence. ...

Egyptian Art (Painting) Although the ancient Egyptians had no word for the "art" they revered beauty and produced architecture, paintings, murals, statues, decorative arts and variety of crafts. Much of the ancient Egyptian art that has made to us today was oriented towards death, the dead and the quest of the afterlife.  They (Egyptians) believed that artistic renderings of images placed in tombs would become real and accompany the deceased to the afterlife. Some of them belief in the afterlife is what helped ancient Egypt survive even after the empire had died. How were they made? The Egyptians painted on papyrus rolls, tomb walls , coffin lids and other surfaces. They used a variety of materials for pigments. They made yellow and orange pigments from soil and produces blue and red from imported indigo and madder and combined them to make flesh color. By 1000 B.C , they developed paints and varnishes using the gum of the acacia tree ( gum Arabic) as their ba...

What is Prehistoric Art? Pre-history are all of human history that precedes the invention of writing systems (~3100 BCE) and the keeping of written records. Studying prehistoric art and artifacts helps us to understand the culture of prehistoric peoples. What is culture? Culture are the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. Human learned behavior (not genetic or biological) including languages, customs, beliefs, technology, etc. It also shared by a group Paleolithic period also known as Old Stone Age., ancient cultural stage or level of human development. characterized by the use of chipped stone tools. Cave Painting The cave paintings are found all over the world. Western Europe, primarily Southern France and Northern Spain are rich with canvas containing Stone Age wall paintings. The rock paintings have been found to include line drawings in charcoal and red ochre. The first painting was discovered in 1879 in Altamira, Spai...