Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa

150-140 BC

Etruscan

(Source: The British Museum)

Met Mueum...up right now

African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde

November 27, 2012–September 2, 2013

An Appreciation for African Art

"It is through great audacity in taste that we have come to consider these African idols as real works of art."
—Guillaume Apollinaire, in A propos de l'art des Noirs, 1917

Clara E. Sipprell (American, born Canada, 1885–1975). Portrait of Max Weber, ca. 1916. Gelatin silver print, in original exhibition mat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase with funds donated by Hope and Charles Hare and Kyle and Thomas Einhorn (2005.301)

At the start of the twentieth century, the appreciation of African artifacts in the West shifted dramatically: from colonial trophies and ethnographic specimens, they became modernist icons worthy of aesthetic contemplation. Well established is the role played in this transformation by modern European artists such as Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and Henri Matisse, who began collecting African art about 1905, finding in its bold shapes a source of inspiration. Lesser known, but no less constitutive to the recognition of African material culture as fine art, is the history of its reception in America over the subsequent two decades.
New York emerged as a new platform for modern art after the groundbreaking 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show, which opened the door to dynamic transatlantic art commerce. This surge was bolstered in the summer of 1914 with the outbreak of World War I, which provoked the displacement of the art market's epicenter from Paris to New York. Numerous galleries opened in New York that year, and all sought to acquaint their audience with the newest European trends—including African art.
Consequently, while the European avant-garde was first exposed to African artifacts in ethnographic displays tied to colonialism, its counterpart in New York first saw such objects within contexts that underscored their association with abstract art. In New York more than anywhere else, juxtapositions of African art with works by Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, and Francis Picabia, in both galleries and private salons, were systematic, impacting until today the popular imagination to the point of obliterating its original context.
Unfolding both chronologically and thematically, this installation explores the multifaceted circumstances surrounding the reception of African art in conjunction with American modernism, from the initial 1914 exhibitions of African art in New York to the African American engagement inspired by Harlem Renaissance luminaries during the second half of the 1920s.

Islamic Art vocabulary..

Islamic Art vocabulary...


MIHRAB:

QIBLA:

IMAM:

MINBAR:

MAQSURA:

MINARET:

HYPOSTYLE HALLS:

MOSQUE:translation-

Discover Ancient Rome in Google Earth

Is "Lincoln" the Movie Accurate?--Dr Masur will be speaking at PHS this February!

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

METMETMETMETMETMETMETMETMETMETMET

Again..pushed to the front of the line to aid you in your studies

'streams" of inquiry while investigating Byzantine Art

Follow the metamorphosis of architectural engineering...from

POST and LINTEL
CORBELLED WALLS
RELIEVING TRIANGLES
CEMENT
ARCHES
DOMES
COFFERED CEILINGS
BASILICAS
CENTRAL PLANNED STRUCTURES
PENDENTIVES
SQUINCES

Follow the development of painting...from

THE FOUR STYLES OF ROMAN MURALS
PORTRAITS IN ENCAUSTIC FROM THE FAYUM REGION
ATMOSPHERIC/ARIEL PERSPECTIVE
STYLIZATION VS NATURALISM
ICONS/IKONA
VENERATION VS ADORATION
"To pray through not to"
HIERATIC
ILLUSION THAT RE-ENFORCES THE FLATNESS OF THE PICTURE PLANE

Some terms to travel artstor with-
Byzantine icon
iconastasis (sacred image wall)
Ravenna
Hagia Sophia
Mount Athos
Saint Catherines MonastaryByzantine mosaics
Byzantine reliquaries
Andre Rublev
Theophanes

Voluntary slavery? Ancient Egyptians paid a monthly fee to become temple slaves

06 Jan 2013 | 14:07 GMT | Posted by Hazem Zohny | Category: Archaeology

MACMILLAN SOUTH AFRICA

Becoming bound by eternal, unquestioning servitude as someone’s property is not likely most people’s career of choice. 2200 years ago, however, it seems some Egyptians voluntarily signed up to become temple slaves.
Not only that, they even paid a monthly fee for the “privilege.”
The revelation comes from the work of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt of the University of Copenhagen, who has been studying papyrus slave contracts found in a rubbish dump in the ancient Egyptian temple city of Tebtunis.
“I am your servant from this day onwards, and I shall pay 2½ copper-pieces every month as my slave-fee before Soknebtunis, the great god.”
This is part of the translation of 100 of these papyrus slave contracts that Ryholt has spent years trying to collect and analyse. The documents were scattered in fragments across Egypt, Europe and the US after they were illicitly excavated. In one example, a contract was divided between Copenhagen and the British Museum.
Ryholt is the first to analyze these papyri collectively, publishing his findings in a recent article titled: A Self-Dedication Addressed to Anubis – Divine Protection against Malevolent Forces or Forced Labour?
Among his findings was that these voluntary slaves also signed up their descendants.
“I am your servant with my children and the children of my children,” read the contracts, which were written in Demotic script – an ancient Egyptian language.
It is unclear how the temple slaves generated any income in order to pay their monthly fee, but Ryholt says that they likely performed various kinds of manual labour in their “spare” time.
“Slaves in antiquity, as in modern times, were generally allowed to earn some money on their own,” says Ryholt. However, he concedes that we are rarely told how they generated income, though he does mention one example of a literate slave called Ptolemy who made some earnings working as a “dream interpreter.”
Ultimately, the real mystery is why anybody would willingly become a slave. Ryholt argues that these individuals were not driven by some inexplicable masochist streak – as one may be tempted to assume – but were poor individuals at the bottom of the social hierarchy seeking asylum from a worse fate: forced labour.
While these contracts bound them as slaves, they also protected them from being subject to forced labours such as digging canals and other harsh and often fatal projects. However, as temple slaves, they were mainly engaged in agriculture and were exempt from forced labour.
This loophole for escaping forced labour was likely only open during a 60 year period from around 190 BC to 130 BC, with no other evidence that this practice existed during other periods in ancient Egypt. Ryholt speculates that this is because reigning monarchs could not afford losing too many potential labourers to temples in the long-run.

BELOW YOU WILL FIND A FESTIVE AND HOPEFULLY USEFUL GUIDE TO YOUR TEST PREPARATIONS.

COFFERED CEILING
PERMUTATIONS OF THE ARCH
PSEUDOPERIPTERAL
TECHNOLOGY OF "CAEMENTA"
PORTRAITURE
CIVIC,RELIGIOUS,
PRIVATE ARCHITECTURE
VITRUVIUS
FIRST STYLE
SECOND STYLE
THIRD STYLE
FOURTH STYLE
MOSAIC
"AUGUSTAN PEACE""DOMUS AUREA"
VESPASIAN AND HIS TIMES
TRAJAN AND HIS TIMES
HADRIAN AND HIS TIMES
ANTONINES ETAL
CONSTANTINE AND HIS TIMES
PANTHEONINSULA AND URBAN LIFE
LATE STYLES
THE EMERGENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
BASILICAS AND CIVIC SPACE
THE ARCHITECTURAL NEEDS OF THE
"CHRISTIANI"

Hmmmmm

History of art: a degree for the elite?

For too long the study of art has been dismissed as a pastime for the well-heeled. This stereotype is unfair and outdated

• Joy Starkey
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 January 2013 06.59 EST

History of art: out of reach for most students? Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Art. A word that has sat on a gleaming plinth and peered down at us mere mortals for centuries. In the past, the study of art was reserved for the wealthy and educated. Even today, galleries have become an elitist haven for the middle-classes.
Understandably many people go through life purposefully avoiding this terrifying creature, perhaps annoyed by its pretentiousness, or scared off by the people who appear to understand its cryptic language. Whether it's rich aristocrats lounging in gilt frames, or abstract canvases sitting mutely on white washed walls, art can leave us baffled, bemused and squirming under its superior gaze.
As a history of art student at Cambridge University, I have had direct experience of the stigma attached to the subject. I am regularly confronted with the attitude that, as one recent Cambridge graduate put it: "History of art is a niche subject, one that isn't particularly relevant or useful for future life."
The public and students alike regard it as a subject reserved for wealthy students from top private schools. This belief has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a student who came to the subject from a state school background, I am in the minority.
The subject's elitist image has been exacerbated by the long list of royals who have studied it – Prince William, Kate Middleton and Princess Beatrice to name a few. This not only gives the impression that you have to be from the right background to study it, but also reinforces the notion that this subject is not useful in the current barren landscape of graduate recruitment.
In 2011 25 people from state schools and 38 from independent schools applied for history of art at Cambridge University. Just five of the available 16 places were awarded to state school students. Admissions tutors have to select the best applicants. These are most likely to be those who visited art galleries when they were children. They will also be those who studied the subject at A-level, something often only offered by private schools.
But strip history of art of its seemingly pretentious finery and it's clear that it's anything but elitist. In my three years at university I have discovered that art is one of the most vivid ways of viewing history — it is an intimate glimpse into someone's world.
Art has traced many of the sociological changes that have occurred throughout history, all through the eyes of real people. Studying it stretches your analytical and interpretive abilities. And while course content may not be directly related to the average graduate job, this is the case with many degrees, especially humanities subjects. The study of art shouldn't have to carry the weight of a stereotype created so long ago.

Life Before Hairspray: Secrets of Ancient Roman Hairdressing

Life Before Hairspray: Secrets of Ancient Roman Hairdressing