WEEK 4 DISCUSSION

Week 4 discussion

Question 1: Art of the Americas

Aztec

Teotihuacan

To the north of the Mexican capital, at the spurs of the Eastern Sierra Madre mountain range, is Teotihuacan - an ancient city in the Valley of Mexico City, in the 1st millennium BC. e. - The largest cultural center of Mexico. Worked in Teotihuacan for eleven years - from 1955 to 1966 - an archaeological expedition led by L. Sejourne excavated on an area of ​​1 square. km and discovered a number of magnificent ancient buildings, murals and colored ceramics. L. Sejournet for the first time described the principles of Teotihuacan architecture.

The center of Teotihuacan consists of two long intersecting "avenues" oriented to the cardinal points. From north to south stretches a long (up to 3.5 km) and wide (up to 50 m) “Street of the Dead” (Calle de los Muertos). At its northern end is a gigantic massif of the Luda Pyramid - a five-tier structure with a flat top. The base of the pyramid is 150 × 130 m, height 42 m.

To the east of the "Street of the Dead" stands the main temple of Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Sun - a gray truncated pyramid of enormous size. By the perfection of forms and their skillful location in space, the Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan is considered the standard of world architecture. This is the third tallest pyramid in the world. The brilliant creators of the temple with the power of creative design and artistry of execution continue to inspire modern Mexican architects who create images of Mexico of the 21st century. The Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan has become a distinctive calling card of Mexico, its images can be seen on Mexican coins and banknotes.

Inca

Inca Gold Female Figurine

The ancient Incas recognized the value of gold and silver only in the form of symbols, but not as precious metals. When the Spaniards invaded Peru, the first ransom offered by the Indians was not gold or silver, but the best textiles. The fabric was valued higher, but as an expression of strength, it was valued on a par with gold and silver. There was an image of a huge sun made of gold, beautiful, forged, with inserts of many precious stones.There was a garden in which the earth itself consisted of lumps of pure gold, and cobs of golden corn stick out cleverly planted on the stems. there were about twenty Indians guarding it all. " All figures, like the one shown in the illustration, are made of sheet metal welded together. The arms are usually crossed on the chest, and sometimes a corncob or fan is depicted in the arms. Some figures are symbolically dressed in clothes or feathers. Very often there are pairs of figures made of gold and silver (Kleiner, 2015).

North (Native) American Art

Ipiutak Mask.

The artist shaped the mask out of walrus ivory, the material used for most Arctic artworks because of the dearth of wood in the area. This mask contains of nine cautiously formed parts, unified to produce numerous faces, both human and animal, resounding the alteration theme distinguished in other earliest American cultures (Kleiner, 2015).

Question 2: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism

Neoclassicism

Venus persuades Elena to love Paris.

This is not the first time A. Kaufman has turned to a plot borrowed from Homer's Iliad (III, 390–394 ). A painting of 1773 with the same name, but completely differently solved, is located in Coldstream, Berwickshire (England). Venus (in Greek mythology Aphrodite) promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world if he awarded her a golden apple in a dispute with Hero and Athena for the right to be considered the most beautiful among the goddesses. The moment is captured on the canvas when the divine consolidation with the help of cupid fulfills its promise.

Romanticism

The Lady of Shalott (1888)

John William Waterhouse (1849, Rome - 1917, London) is an English artist whose work is attributed to the late stage of pre-Raphaelitism. Known for his female images, which he borrowed from mythology and literature."The Lady of Shalott" (The Lady of Shalott) - one of the most famous paintings by John William Waterhouse. This is the first picture dedicated to the poem of the same name by the English poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) "The Sorceress of the Shallot" (in Russia the poem is known in the translation of Konstantin Balmont (1867-1943)). (Lecoutre, Negrevergne & Yger, 2017)

In the poem The Sorceress of Shallot, we are talking about a girl named Elaine, who is under a curse: she must remain in a tower on the island of Shallot and always weave a tapestry. Shallot Island is located on a river that flows near the Camelot Castle (Camelot is the legendary knight's castle of King Arthur, in which there was his Round Table).

Realism

Self Portrait Courbet

Gustave Courbet wrote a brilliant art masterpiece! The painting "Despair. Self-portrait »masterfully created in the genre of romanticism. The artist worked diligently and painstakingly on her from 1843 to 1845. Author's work is kept in his private collection. In the picture, the brush master talented and gifted portrayed himself. This is his great art and great spiritual perfection. The skill of the artist is simply unique! Gustave Courbet portrayed himself in moments of indignation, confusion, despair. In his life he had such difficult moments when the soul rushes about and demands to go outside. In this situation, the artist threw out his emotional state with paints on the canvas. In the center of the canvas depicts a beautiful, young man’s appearance, with a mustache, beard and wide eyes, in the look of which fear is noticeable. Eyebrows in an arc speak of some kind of surprise, but at the same moment about the inevitable event that he recognized. His hands are raised up to his head. The artist is very shocked by this moment.

References

Kleiner, F. S. (2015). Gardner s Art Through the Ages: A Global History (Vol. 1). Nelson Education.https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9780357299210/cfi/6/60!/4/312/2/2@0:0

Lecoutre, A., Negrevergne, B., & Yger, F. (2017, November). Recognizing art style automatically in painting with deep learning. In Asian conference on machine learning (pp. 327-342).