Art History For Dummies E-Book

Jesse Bryant Wilder

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 847

Beschreibung

Ready to discover the fascinating world of art history? Let's (Van) Gogh! Fine art might seem intimidating at first. But with the right guide, anyone can learn to appreciate and understand the stimulating and beautiful work of history's greatest painters, sculptors, and architects. In Art History For Dummies, we'll take you on a journey through fine art from all eras, from Cave Art to the Colosseum, and from Michelangelo to Picasso and the modern masters. Along the way, you'll learn about how history has influenced art, and vice versa. This updated edition includes: * Brand new material on a wider array of renowned female artists * Explorations of the Harlem Renaissance, American Impressionism, and the Precisionists * Discussions of art in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Dadaism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and today's eclectic art scene Is there an exhibition in your town you want to see? Prep before going with Art History For Dummies and show your friends what an Art Smartie you are. An unbeatable reference for anyone looking to build a foundational understanding of art in a historical context, Art History For Dummies is your personal companion that makes fine art even finer!

Leseprobe

Art History For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022932309

ISBN 978-1-119-86866-8 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-86868-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-86867-5 (ebk)

Art History For Dummies®

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1: Getting Started with Art History

Chapter 1: Art Tour through the Ages

Connecting Art Divisions and Culture

It’s Ancient History, So Why Dig It Up?

Did the Art World Crash When Rome Fell, or Did It Just Switch Directions?

In the Machine Age, Where Did Art Get Its Power?

The Modern World and the Shattered Mirror

Chapter 2: Why People Make Art and What It All Means

Focusing on the Artist’s Purpose

Detecting Design

Decoding Meaning

Chapter 3: The Major Artistic Movements

Distinguishing an Art Period from a Movement

Tracking Major 19th-Century Art Movements

Moving Off the Rails in the 20th Century

Part 2: From Caves to Colosseum: Ancient Art

Chapter 4: Magical Hunters and Psychedelic Cave Artists

Cool Cave Art or Paleolithic Painting: Why Keep It a Secret?

Flirting with Fertility Goddesses

Dominoes for Druids: Stonehenge, Menhirs, and Neolithic Architecture

Chapter 5: Fickle Gods, Warrior Art, and the Birth of Writing: Mesopotamian Art

Climbing toward the Clouds: Sumerian Architecture

The Eyes Have It: Scoping Out Sumerian Sculpture

Playing Puabi’s Lyre

Unraveling the Standard of Ur

Stalking Stone Warriors: Akkadian Art

Stamped in Stone: Hammurabi’s Code

Unlocking Assyrian Art

Babylon Has a Baby: New Babylon

Chapter 6: One Foot in the Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Art

Ancient Egypt 101

The Art of a Unified Egypt

The Egyptian Style: Proportion and Orientation

Excavating Old Kingdom Architecture

The In-Between Period and Middle Kingdom Realism

New Kingdom Art

Chapter 7: Greek Art, the Olympian Ego, and the Inventors of the Modern World

Mingling with the Minoans: Snake Goddesses, Minotaurs, and Bull Jumpers

Greek Sculpture: Stark Symmetry to a Delicate Balance

Figuring Out Greek Vase Painting

Rummaging through Ruins: Greek Architecture

Greece without Borders: Hellenism

Chapter 8: Etruscan and Roman Art: It’s All Greek to Me!

The Mysterious Etruscans

Infusing Art with Roman Influence

Revealing Roman Architecture: A Marriage of Style and Engineering

Part 3: Art after the Fall of Rome: AD 500–AD 1760

Chapter 9: The Graven Image: Early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic Art

The Rise and Fall of Constantinople

Early Christian Art in the West

Byzantine Art Meets Imperial Splendor

Islamic Art: Architectural Pathways to God

Chapter 10: Mystics, Marauders, and Manuscripts: Medieval Art

Irish Light: Illuminated Manuscripts

Charlemagne: King of His Own Renaissance

Weaving and Unweaving the Battle of Hastings: The Bayeux Tapestry

Romanesque Architecture: Churches That Squat

Romanesque Sculpture

Relics and Reliquaries: Miraculous Leftovers

Gothic Grandeur: Churches That Soar

Stained-Glass Storytelling

Gothic Sculpture

Italian Gothic

Gothic Painting: Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto

Tracking the Lady and the Unicorn: The Mystical Tapestries of Cluny

Chapter 11: Born-Again Culture: The Early and High Renaissance

The Early Renaissance in Central Italy

The High Renaissance

Chapter 12: Venetian Renaissance, Late Gothic, and the Renaissance in the North

A Gondola Ride through the Venetian Renaissance

Late Gothic: Northern Naturalism

Northern Exposure: The Renaissance in the Netherlands and Germany

Chapter 13: Art That’ll Stretch Your Neck: Mannerism

Detecting the Non-Rules of Mannerism

Pontormo: Front and Center

Bronzino’s Background Symbols and Scene Layering

Parmigianino: He’s Not a Cheese!

Arcimboldo: À la Carte Art

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625): Invading Art History’s Guys’ Club

El Greco: Stretched to the Limit

Lavinia Fontana: The First Professional Female Painter

Finding Your Footing in Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Te

Chapter 14: When the Renaissance Went Baroque

Baroque Origin, Purpose, and Style

Annibale Carracci: Heavenly Ceilings

Shedding Light on the Subject: Caravaggio and His Followers

Elisabetta Sirani and an Art School for Women

The Ecstasy and the Ecstasy: Bernini Sculpture

Embracing Baroque Architecture

Dutch and Flemish Realism

French Flourish and Baroque Light Shows

In the Limelight with Caravaggio: The Spanish Golden Age

Chapter 15: Going Loco with Rococo

What You Get in Rococo Art

Breaking with Baroque: Antoine Watteau

Fragonard and Boucher: Lush, Lusty, and Lavish

Flying High: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Rococo Lite: The Movement in England

Part 4: The Industrial Revolution Revs Up Art’s Evolution: 1760–1900

Chapter 16: All Roads Lead Back to Rome and Greece: Neoclassical Art

When Philosophers and Artists Join Forces

Angelica Kauffman: The Queen of Neoclassicism

Jacques-Louis David: The King of Neoclassicism

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Prince of Neoclassical Portraiture

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Portraitist of the Queen and Fashion Setter

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: From Ideal to Real and Royals to Revolutionaries

Canova and Houdon: Greek Grace and Neoclassical Sculpture

Chapter 17: Romanticism: Reaching Within and Acting Out

Kissing Isn’t Romantic, but Having a Heart Is

Far Out with William Blake and Henry Fuseli: Personal Mythologies

Inside Out: Caspar David Friedrich

The Revolutionary French Romantics: Gericault and Delacroix

Francisco Goya and the Grotesque

J. M. W. Turner Sets the Skies on Fire

Chapter 18: What You See Is What You Get: Realism

Rebels with a Cause

Courbet and Daumier: Painting Peasants and Urban Blight

The Barbizon School and the Great Outdoors

Rosa Bonheur: From a Horse Fair to Buffalo Bill

Keeping It Real in America

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Medieval Visions and Painting Literature

The Ten: America’s First Art Movement

Ashcan Artists: Capturing the Grit of Urban Life

Chapter 19: First Impressions: Impressionism

M & M: Manet and Monet

Pretty Women and Painted Ladies: Renoir and Degas

Cassatt, Morisot, and Other Female Impressionists

American Impressionism

Chapter 20: Making Their Own Impression: The Post-Impressionists

You’ve Got a Point: Pointillism, Georges-Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac

Red-Light Art: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Tracking the “Noble Savage”: Paul Gauguin

Painting Energy: Vincent van Gogh

Love Cast in Stone: Rodin and Claudel

The Mask behind the Face: James Ensor

The Hills Are Alive with Geometry: Paul Cézanne

Art Nouveau: Curves, Swirls, and Asymmetry

Fairy-Tale Fancies and the Sandcastle Cathedral of Barcelona: Antoni Gaudí

Part 5: Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Art

Chapter 21: From Fauvism to Expressionism

Fauvism: Colors Fighting like Animals

German Expressionism: Form Based on Feeling

Austrian Expressionism: From Dream to Nightmare

Chapter 22: Cubist Puzzles and Finding the Fast Lane with the Futurists

Cubism: All Views At Once

Futurism: Art That Broke the Speed Limit

Precisionism: Geometry as Art

The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age

Chapter 23: Nonobjective Art: Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism

Suprematism: Kazimir Malevich’s Reinvention of Space

Constructivism: Showing Off Your Skeleton

Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl Movement

Dada Turns the World on Its Head

Surrealism and Disjointed Dreams

My House Is a Machine: Modernist Architecture

Abstract Expressionism: Fireworks on Canvas

Chapter 24: Anything-Goes Art: Fab Fifties and Psychedelic Sixties

Artsy Cartoons: Pop Art

Fantastic Realism

Louise Nevelson: Picking up the Trash and Assemblage

Louise Bourgeois: Sexualized sculpture

Less-Is-More Art: Rothko, Newman, Stella, Frankenthaler, and Others

Photorealism

Performance Art and Installations

Chapter 25: Photography: From Science to Art

The Birth of Photography

Transitioning from Science to Art

Alfred Stieglitz: Reliving the Moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s uncanny eye

Group f/64: Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Ansel Adams

Dorothea Lange: Depression to Dust Bowl

Margaret Bourke-White: From Industrial Beauty to Political Statements

Fast-Forward: The Next Generation

Chapter 26: The New World: Postmodern Art

From Modern Pyramids to Titanium Twists: Postmodern Architecture

Making It or Faking It? Postmodern Photography and Painting

Installation Art and Earth Art

Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies and Living, Genetic Art

Part 6: The Part of Tens

Chapter 27: Ten Must-See Art Museums

Chapter 28: Ten Great Books by Ten Great Artists

Index

About the Author

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 1

TABLE 1-1: Art Movements of the 20

th

Century

Chapter 6

TABLE 6-1 Ancient Egyptian Historical Periods

List of Illustrations

Chapter 4

FIGURE 4-1: The superbly rendered cave paintings of prehistoric animals in Alta...

Chapter 5

FIGURE 5-1: a) The statuette on the left, carved around 2700

BC

, is one of twel...

FIGURE 5-2: The design on the front of Puabi’s lyre illustrates four ancient fa...

FIGURE 5-3: The Standard of Ur, measuring 8½ inches high by 19½ inches long, is...

FIGURE 5-4: This is the peace side of the Standard of Ur.

FIGURE 5-5:

King Ashurnasirpal II Killing Lions

captures the tense action of a ...

Chapter 6

FIGURE 6-1: The Palette of Narmer chronicles a victory of King Narmer over his ...

FIGURE 6-2: Ka statues, like those of Prince Rahotep and his wife, had to be re...

FIGURE 6-3: Akhenaten’s family portrait brings the royal family down to earth w...

FIGURE 6-4: Queen Nefertiti’s bust denotes both the real and the ideal.

FIGURE 6-5: The funerary mask of Tutankhamun is made of gold inlaid with semipr...

FIGURE 6-6: Detail from Nefertari’s tomb, located in the Valley of the Queens.

FIGURE 6-7: This narrative scene from the Book of the Dead illustrates the weig...

Chapter 7

FIGURE 7-1: The Minoans didn’t run with the bulls like they do in Pamplona; the...

FIGURE 7-2: Marble Kouros statue from Attica (Athens and surrounding area).

FIGURE 7-3: Although still at attention like a frozen soldier, this later

kouro

...

FIGURE 7-4: Greek statues begin to get comfortable around 480

BC

.

Kritios Boy

i...

FIGURE 7-5: This is a marble Roman copy of Myron’s original bronze Discobolus.

FIGURE 7-6: This Roman copy of Polykleitos’s

Doryphoros

is at ease and tense at...

FIGURE 7-7: Praxiteles had a knack for giving statues a soft, sensual look, as ...

FIGURE 7-8: The Dipylon krater, Terracotta illustrates funerary scenes and was ...

FIGURE 7-9: The goddess Athena watches Hercules tangle with the Nemean Lion (th...

FIGURE 7-10: The red-figure Medea krater illustrates the climax of Euripides’ t...

FIGURE 7-11: The Greeks invented the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders.

FIGURE 7-12: The Parthenon, a Doric temple, is the architectural high point of ...

FIGURE 7-13:

Nike of Samothrace

and

Laocoön and His Sons

radiate the energ...

FIGURE 7-14:

Venus de Milo

is one of the most celebrated Hellenistic statues.

Chapter 8

FIGURE 8-1:

Augustus of Primaporta

is the most copied statue of Augustus Caesar...

FIGURE 8-2: Trajan’s Column recounts the two-part Dacian War fought at the begi...

FIGURE 8-3: The

Marriage of Venus and Mars

illustrates Roman artists’ use of in...

FIGURE 8-4: The Flora fresco, from ancient Stabiae, was buried for nearly 1,700...

FIGURE 8-5: The Hylas mosaic illustrates the myth of Hylas, Hercules’s lover, w...

FIGURE 8-6: The Maison Carrée — erected around 19

BC

to 16

BC

and dedicated to ...

FIGURE 8-7: The Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheater (named after Vespasian, whose...

FIGURE 8-8: The Pantheon, built between

AD

125 and

AD

128, is Rome’s supreme ar...

Chapter 9

FIGURE 9-1:

Christ Enthroned and the Apostles in the Heavenly Jerusalem

shows t...

FIGURE 9-2: The interior of Hagia Sophia is celebrated for its mystical lightin...

FIGURE 9-3: The San Vitale mosaic of Empress Theodora and her attendants (on th...

FIGURE 9-4: Andrei Rublev’s

The Old Testament Trinity

(

Three Angels Visiting Ab

...

FIGURE 9-5: The

Icon Shroud of the Assumption/Dormition of St. Mary

icon at the...

FIGURE 9-6: The tunnels of arches in the Great Mosque of Córdoba pull visitors ...

FIGURE 9-7: The magnificent

mihrab

dome of the Mosque of Córdoba was built in 9...

FIGURE 9-8: The elegant, filigree-walled pavilion of the Alhambra’s Court of th...

FIGURE 9-9: Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal, built to honor his deceased wife Mumtaz Mah...

Chapter 10

FIGURE 10-1: The Chi-Rho-Iota page of the

Book of Kells

illustrates the interla...

FIGURE 10-2: The scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the feast before the ba...

FIGURE 10-3: The

cruciform,

or cross-form, is the traditional shape of medieval...

FIGURE 10-4: The nave or parishioner area of St. Sernin had to be large to acco...

FIGURE 10-5: The tympanum over the entrance doors of the Basilica of Ste-Madele...

FIGURE 10-6: Flying buttresses or external supports, together with ribbed vault...

FIGURE 10-7: Notre Dame in Paris is the most famous Gothic cathedral in the wor...

FIGURE 10-8: The jamb statues on the west portal (entrance doors) of the Cathed...

FIGURE 10-9: The south portal statues have a much more realistic look than the ...

FIGURE 10-10: Cimabue’s serene but damaged

Madonna in Majesty

adorns the Basili...

FIGURE 10-11: In

Madonna Enthroned

, Duccio seems to have found a perfect balanc...

FIGURE 10-12: In

The Kiss of Judas

(Arena Chapel), Giotto dramatizes Christ’s b...

FIGURE 10-13: In the “Sight” tapestry of

The Lady and the Unicorn

, the Lady app...

Chapter 11

FIGURE 11-1: Four panels from Ghiberti’s magnificent “Gates of Paradise” (East ...

FIGURE 11-2: In linear perspective an object’s location determines its size.

FIGURE 11-3: The floating body parts in Fra Angelico’s

The Mocking of Christ

ma...

FIGURE 11-4:

The Madonna and Child with the Birth of the Virgin

, by Fra Filippo...

FIGURE 11-5: In Botticelli’s

Primavera,

notice the natural halo around Venus’s ...

FIGURE 11-6: The highly polished bronze of Donatello’s

David

and its graceful l...

FIGURE 11-7: Which baby is Jesus in the Louvre version of Leonardo’s

The Virgin

...

FIGURE 11-8: Among other things, the

Mona Lisa

is celebrated for its use of sfu...

FIGURE 11-9: Leonardo da Vinci painted

The Last Supper

between 1495 and 1498.

FIGURE 11-10: Michelangelo carved David between 1501 and 1504.

FIGURE 11-11: Notice that in

The Creation of Adam,

man is physically almost on ...

FIGURE 11-12: Notice how Raphael divided

The School of Athens

into two balanced...

Chapter 12

FIGURE 12-1:

The Feast of the Gods

, painted by Bellini, was enhanced after the ...

FIGURE 12-2:

The Adoration of the Shepherds

is an early work by Andrea Mantegna...

FIGURE 12-3: Albrecht Dürer’s

Self-Portrait at Age 26

shows the young artist as...

FIGURE 12-4:

Venus of Urbino

is Titian’s most sensual masterpiece.

FIGURE 12-5: In

The Feast in the House of Levi,

Paolo Veronese turned a Last Su...

FIGURE 12-6: Jan van Eyck’s

The Arnolfini Wedding

(or

Portrait of Giovanni Arno

...

FIGURE 12-7: The center of

Mérode Altarpiece

depicts the announcement of t...

FIGURE 12-8: Rogier van der Weyden moves the action to the front in his early L...

FIGURE 12-9: Hieronymus Bosch’s

The Garden of Earthly Delights

contrasts a Gard...

Chapter 13

FIGURE 13-1: The soft pinks and blues and flowing lines of Pontormo’s

Descent f

...

FIGURE 13-2: Agnolo Bronzino’s

Allegory of the Triumph of Venus

is one of the m...

FIGURE 13-3:

Madonna with the Long Neck

(c. 1535) is Parmigianino’s most celebr...

FIGURE 13-4: Arcimboldo’s portrait of

Summer

, along with his other seasonal bus...

FIGURE 13-5:

Giovanni Battista Caselli, Poet from Cremona

by Sofonisba Anguisso...

FIGURE 13-6: In El Greco’s

Holy Family with Mary Magdalen

, while Joseph respond...

FIGURE 13-7: Lavinia Fontana gives us a very human Jesus, one capable of fatigu...

FIGURE 13-8: “Room of the Giants” in Giulio Romano’s Mannerist masterpiece Pala...

Chapter 14

FIGURE 14-1: In Caravaggio’s

Calling of Saint Matthew

, Christ enlists the reluc...

FIGURE 14-2:

Danaë

by Orazio Gentileschi, c. 1623 (on left);

Danaë

by...

FIGURE 14-3: Sirani’s rapid-fire drawing approach can be seen in her

Rest on th

...

FIGURE 14-4: In Elisabetta Sirani’s

Portia Wounding Her Thigh

, Portia stabs her...

FIGURE 14-5: Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s

David

looks wound up for action.

FIGURE 14-6: Bernini’s

Ecstasy of Saint Theresa

is in the Cornaro chapel of the...

FIGURE 14-7: St. Charles, or Karlskirche, designed by Johann Bernhard Fisher vo...

FIGURE 14-8:

Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria

was painted by the 29-y...

FIGURE 14-9: Peter Paul Rubens’s

The Raising of the Cross

(1610) brims with Bar...

FIGURE 14-10: In Rembrandt’s

Philosopher in Meditation

(1632), the old thinker ...

FIGURE 14-11: Frans Hals … oops, I mean Judith Leyster, a bouquet of paint brus...

FIGURE 14-12: In

The Proposition

, Leyster contrasts a man and woman with very d...

FIGURE 14-13:

Girl with a Pearl Earring

has become Vermeer’s most beloved portr...

FIGURE 14-14: Geometrical precision and serene beauty characterize Nicolas Pous...

FIGURE 14-15:

Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor)

is Velázquez’s most intriguing w...

Chapter 15

FIGURE 15-1: Watteau’s

Gilles and Four Other Characters from the Commedia dell’

...

FIGURE 15-2: Fragonard’s

The Swing

entices with subtle sexuality behind a guise...

FIGURE 15-3 In this scene from William Hogarth’s popular

The Rake’s Progress

...

FIGURE 15-4: Thomas Gainsborough’s

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews

dominate the well-tamed...

FIGURE 15-5 Joshua Reynolds’s

Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces.

Chapter 16

FIGURE 16-1: In

Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso

, by Angelica Kauffman, the...

FIGURE 16-2: Angelica Kauffman’s

The Sorrow of Telemachus

shows a man expressin...

FIGURE 16-3:

The Oath of the Horatii

by Jacques-Louis David was painted to insp...

FIGURE 16-4: David’s

The Death of Marat,

painted in 1793, is both a memorial to...

FIGURE 16-5: Ingres’ s

La Grande Odalisque

has Mannerist proportions and Neocla...

FIGURE 16-6: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

’s Marie Antoinette in a Muslin Dress

FIGURE 16-7:

Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie-Gabrielle Capet and Marguerit

...

FIGURE 16-8: In Canova’s

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,

the god of love ...

FIGURE 16-9: Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of George Washington.

Chapter 17

FIGURE 17-1: Blake painted Sir Isaac Newton with pen, ink, and watercolor in 17...

FIGURE 17-2: Caspar David Friedrich confronts God or death in

The Wanderer abov

...

FIGURE 17-3:

Raft of the Medusa,

one of the most imposing masterpieces of Frenc...

FIGURE 17-4: Delacroix’s

Liberty Leading the People

is an icon of the French sp...

FIGURE 17-5: Goya’s

Third of May 1808

confronts viewers with the brutal horrors...

Chapter 18

FIGURE 18-1: Courbet’s

The Stone Breakers

captures on canvas the gritty side of...

FIGURE 18-2: Millet’s

The Gleaners

documents a rural way of life that was begin...

FIGURE 18-3: The silvery mistiness of Corot’s

Pond at Ville-d’Avray

is a ...

FIGURE 18-4: Rosa Bonheur’s

The Horse Fair

dazzled visitors of the 1853 Salon i...

FIGURE 18-5: Thomas Cole’s

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts

...

FIGURE 18-6:

The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak

by Albert Bierstadt helpe...

FIGURE 18-7: George Catlin’s

Osceola, the Black Drink, A Warrior of Great Disti

...

FIGURE 18-8: Edmonia Lewis carved

Indian Combat

in 1868.

FIGURE 18-9: Winslow Homer’s

The Brierwood Pipe

illustrates how some Civil War ...

FIGURE 18-10:

Love’s Messenger

by Marie Spartali Stillman, 1885; Samuel a...

FIGURE 18-11:

In the Garden

by Thomas Dewing, 1892-94; Smithsonian American Art...

FIGURE 18-12: The rough life of a miner is etched on the face of George Luks’s

Chapter 19

FIGURE 19-1: Manet’s

Olympia

is a mid-19th-century example of shock art.

FIGURE 19-2: In

Springtime

(also known as

The Reader

), Monet captures a poetic ...

FIGURE 19-3: In Renoir’s

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

, sunlight dapples th...

FIGURE 19-4: Degas’s

Blue Dancers

is visual music. The colors and forms harmoni...

FIGURE 19-5:

After the Bath

by Mary Cassatt, 1901.

FIGURE 19-6:

At the Ball

paints a poignant picture of womanhood in the 19th cen...

FIGURE 19-7:

Nanny and Child

was one of Eva Gonzalès’s four entries in the 1878...

FIGURE 19-8:

At the Seaside

by William Merritt Chase, Long Island, New York, c....

FIGURE 19-9: Frederick Carl Frieseke painted

On the Bank

in Giverny, c. 1915.

Chapter 20

FIGURE 20-1:

The Circus

is an example of Seurat’s scientific approach to painti...

FIGURE 20-2:

Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge

, created in 1892, is a typical quirk...

FIGURE 20-3:

Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in “Chilpéric

,” by H...

FIGURE 20-4: In

The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel),

G...

FIGURE 20-5: Van Gogh’s

Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy

exhibi...

FIGURE 20-6: Rodin’s

The Thinker

is probably the most celebrated statue since M...

FIGURE 20-7: James Ensor,

Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889.

FIGURE 20-8: Cézanne’s favorite model was a mountain called Mont Sainte-Victoir...

FIGURE 20-9: Wilhelm Beetz designed the Jugendstil underground toilet in Vienna...

FIGURE 20-10: Gaudí’s Casa Batlló is a five-story architectural wonderland.

Chapter 21

FIGURE 21-1: In

Street, Berlin

, Kirchner depicts a slice of stylized urban deca...

FIGURE 21-2:

Sleeping Woman and Child

is one of Kollwitz’s many poignant woodcu...

FIGURE 21-3: In

Composition Number VI

, Kandinsky treats colors and shapes like ...

FIGURE 21-4:

Fate of the Animals

, 1913, by Franz Marc.

FIGURE 21-5:

Watersnakes

, by Gustav Klimt.

FIGURE 21-6:

Death and the Maiden

by Egon Schiele. Belvedere, Vienna, Austria.

Chapter 22

FIGURE 22-1:

La Vie

is one of Pablo Picasso’s most enigmatic Blue Period painti...

FIGURE 22-2:

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

is Picasso’s crossing-the-Rubicon ...

FIGURE 22-3: Boccioni’s

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

illustrates the Fut...

FIGURE 22-4: Gino Severini’s

The Blue Dancer

, painted in 1912, captures the vig...

FIGURE 22-5: In

Church Street El

, 1920, Charles Sheeler transforms a cluster of...

FIGURE 22-6:

Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction

, by Aaron Do...

FIGURE 22-7:

Aspects of Negro Life: An Idyll of the Deep South

, by Aaron Dougla...

Chapter 23

FIGURE 23-1:

Suprematist Painting, 1915

by Kazimir Malevich.

FIGURE 23-2: Marcel Duchamp’s

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2

scandalized vie...

FIGURE 23-3: Max Ernst’s

The Robing of the Bride

is a confrontation between unc...

FIGURE 23-4:

Persistence of Memory,

by Salvador Dalí, depicts a nightmare visio...

FIGURE 23-5: Inviting open windows and intrusive skies, as in

Black Magic

, are ...

FIGURE 23-6: Frida Kahlo explores the dueling sides of her nature while gazing ...

FIGURE 23-7: At Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright harmonizes the arc...

FIGURE 23-8: Notre-Dame du Haut, by Le Corbusier, is one of the most innovative...

FIGURE 23-9: Lee Krasner,

Igor,

1943.

Chapter 24

FIGURE 24-1: Andy Warhol silk-screened his

Liz

series in 1963.

Liz #6

has neon-...

FIGURE 24-2: Hundertwasser gave a dazzling facelift to the Spittelau waste-inci...

FIGURE 24-3:

Within One Soul Two Spirits Cry Forth

by Helen Hardin 1978.

Chapter 25

FIGURE 25-1:

Mer, Méditerrannée — Sète,

Gustave le Gray’s ...

FIGURE 25-2:

Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho,

by Timothy O’Sullivan, shot in...

FIGURE 25-3: Dorothea Lange’s

Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

(1936) is a po...

FIGURE 25-4: Margaret Bourke-White’s

Gandhi with His Nieces

is one of the last ...

Chapter 26

FIGURE 26-1: I. M. Pei’s Pyramide, Le Grande Louvre, is meant to be a bridge be...

FIGURE 26-2: Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center is located on the Ohio State Univer...

FIGURE 26-3: Frank Gehry’s streamlined Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is his crowning...

FIGURE 26-4: Zaha Hadid’s Vitra Fire Station.

FIGURE 26-5: In Cindy Sherman’s

Untitled Film Still #6, 1977

the photographer p...

FIGURE 26-6: Robert Smithson’s

Partially Buried Woodshed,

created on the Kent S...

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Index

About the Author

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Introduction

My goal in writing Art History For Dummies, 2E was to make it as useful, fun to read, and handy as a good travel guide. This book covers a lot of art history, but not everything. I focus on the Western art tradition and cover some art and art movements that other art history books neglect.

Most art history books these days weigh in at about 20 pounds. I made this book leaner so you could stick it in your backpack and carry it to class without feeling weighted down, or so you can take it on a long trip as a guidebook or carry it around a museum as a ready resource.

As you read Art History For Dummies, you’ll journey around the world and travel back in time. Reading many of the chapters is like going on a vacation to an exotic land in a past life. You can hobnob with a Byzantine empress or an Egyptian pharaoh, attend the ancient Olympics (the games were often depicted on Greek vases), or stroll through the Ishtar Gate in ancient Babylon.

Art history is the visual side of history — they’re sister subjects. Studying art history and history together is like adding pictures to text. It makes the story clearer and more interesting. In Art History For Dummies, I often splice history and art history together, giving you a context for the art.

Some people believe art history is a high-brow subject. With all those Italian and French terms, it just has to be snobby, right? I disagree. I believe art history is an everyman/everywoman subject because it’s about humankind’s common cultural heritage. Art history mirrors human evolution. It shows humankind through the ages, from cave to castle, jungle hut to urban high-rise. Each age for the last 30,000 years has left an imprint of itself in its art.

About This Book

In this book, I’m your tour guide through the world of art history. The tour features the greatest art and architecture ever created. On the journey, I point out the key features of these works and structures; often, I suggest possible interpretations that I hope inspire you to make your own interpretations. I also add spicy anecdotes and colorful facts to make every stop on the tour fun.

This book is a reference — it’s something you can turn to again and again, dipping into it to find whatever piece of information is most critical to you at the time. When I introduce new terms, I put them in italics and define them in context.

You don’t have to read the book cover to cover, nor even read all the text if certain parts don’t interest you. Use the table of contents and index to find the subjects that you’re interested in and go from there. Of course, if you want to start with Chapter 1 and read through to the end, you can — but it isn’t a requirement to understand the information in these pages.

Foolish Assumptions

You don’t need to have taken remedial art history or even studied high school art to understand and benefit from this book. This is Art History 101 and there are no prerequisites! I assume you’ve at least heard of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. But if you haven’t, it’s no biggie — you have now. You don’t need any background in art history or art. I give you the background you need as we go along.

I also assume that anything with the word history attached to it may scare you. It conjures up visions of memorizing dates and isms in high school. That’s okay. I give some dates and define some isms, but I don’t dwell on that side of art history. I prefer to get into the fun stuff. Instead of putting dates and isms in the foreground of the subject, in this book I put the story of art front and center. Bottom line: You won’t have to memorize dates. In fact, you won’t have to memorize anything!

Icons Used in This Book

This book uses icons in the margins, designed to flag your attention for a particular reason. Here’s what each icon means:

When I want to compare or contrast artworks or periods, I tip you off with this icon.

This icon is like a nudge in the ribs reminding you to file away information for future use.

When I give you more information than you really need, I mark it with a Technical Stuff icon. This is interesting stuff, but if you just want to know what you need to know, you can skip it.

Paragraphs marked with the Tip icon offer suggestions for unraveling complicated images and making your review of art history easier and more fun.

Beyond the Book

This book will give you an excellent understanding of Western art history. But there’s more. It includes an online Cheat Sheet that divides art history into bite-size chunks in an easy-to-read table. The table provides an overview of the entire span of Western art history; you can see all the art periods and movements, the artists and key artworks associated with that division, and the historical events that helped define it. It’s a bit like looking at a map of the world or globe to see where the continents, countries, and islands are with respect to one another. The table is also useful as a quick reference. If you want to find a particular artist’s niche in art history and history while you’re at a museum or even a party (and you unaccountably forgot to bring your Art History For Dummies book with you!), simply go to dummies.com on your phone and type in Art History For Dummies Cheat Sheet.

Where to Go from Here

You can dive into this book anywhere you like. I’ve organized Art History For Dummies so that you can read it in two ways:

You can take the full tour and read the book chronologically from cover to cover.

This is a great way to see how art evolved over the millennia.

You can jump into any chapter or section within a chapter, extract the information you need, and skip the rest.

For example, if you’re planning to see an Egyptian exhibition or you’re taking a test on the period,

Chapter 6

will give you all the information you need to ace the test or enjoy the show.

If you don’t begin at the beginning, I recommend starting with the chapter that covers the art you like best. If it’s Michelangelo and Leonardo, start with Chapter 11 on the Early and High Renaissance; if it’s Frida Kahlo, start with Chapter 23, which includes Surrealism and other movements. Then fan out from there. Each period or movement will lead you to the periods that it grew out of and that grew out of it, giving you a better understanding of why Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, or Frida Kahlo painted as they did.

Finally, if you have questions or comments about this book, you can e-mail me at [email protected].

Part 1

Getting Started with Art History

IN THIS PART …

Distinguishing between art history and history

Recognizing the effects of culture and society on art

Knowing why artists make art

Checking out the design elements

Identifying art periods and movements

Chapter 1

Art Tour through the Ages

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the difference between art history and plain, old history

Recognizing the importance of art from prehistoric times to the present

Seeing how art periods are linked to environment and culture

Identifying the various art historical periods

Noting the effects of modern pressures on art development

Why study art history rather than music history, literary history, or the history of the postage stamp? Art history, which begins around 30,000 BC with the earliest known cave paintings (see Chapter 4), predates writing by about 26,500 years! That makes art history even older than history, which begins with the birth of script around 3500 BC. Along with archaeology, art history is one of our primary windows into prehistory (everything before 3500 BC). Cave paintings, prehistoric sculpture, and architecture together paint a vivid — although incomplete — picture of Stone Age and Bronze Age life. Without art history, we would know a lot less about our early ancestors.

Okay, but what do you need art history for after people learned to write during the historical period, which kicks in around 3500 BC? History is the diary of the past — ancient and relatively recent peoples writing about themselves combined with our interpretations of what they say. Art history is the mirror of the past. It shows us who we were, instead of telling us, as history does. Just as home movies document a family’s history (what you wore when you were five, how you laughed, and what you got for your birthday), art history is the “home movie” of the entire human family through the ages.

History is the study of wars and conquests, mass migrations, and political and social experiments. Art history is a portrait of humankind’s inner life: people’s aspirations and inspirations, hopes and fears, spirituality, and sense of self throughout the ages.

Connecting Art Divisions and Culture

Art history is divided into periods and movements, both of which represent the artwork of a group of artists over a specific time period. The difference between a period and a movement has to do with duration (periods are typically longer than movements) and intention (movements have specific intent). See Chapter 3 for more about art movements. An art period can last anywhere from 27,000 years to 50 years, depending on the rate of cultural change.

Here is a brief list, with examples of art periods and related cultural attributes:

Prehistoric art, the first leg of the longest art period,

starts with the first known art around 30,000

BC

, give or take a few thousand years, and lasts until the end of the Paleolithic period, or Old Stone Age, around 10,000

BC

. The exact duration depended on where the artists lived with respect to the receding Ice Age. In those days, culture changed about as fast as a glacier melts — and this was long before global warming.

Prehistoric art, the next leg of the first period, the Neolithic or New Stone Age, lasted roughly another 6,500 years, from 10,000 to 3,500 BC, again depending upon where people lived. In the first period, people used stone tools, survived by hunting and gathering (in the Old Stone Age) or agriculture (in the New Stone Age), and didn’t know how to write — these are the period’s defining cultural characteristics.

Painting hit rock bottom during the New Stone Age (the Neolithic Age), despite the fact that they had better stone tools, herds of domesticated animals, and permanent year-round settlements. But architecture really got off the ground with massive tombs like Stonehenge, temples, and the first towns.

Although they couldn’t write, Old and New Stone Agers sure could express themselves with paint and sculpture. In the Old Stone Age, artists painted pictures of animals on cave walls and sculpted animal and human forms in stone. It seems their art was part of a magical or shamanistic ritual — an early form of visualization — to help them hunt.

The Neoclassical art period,

by contrast, only lasted about 65 years, from 1765 to 1830. The pressures from the Industrial Revolution accelerated the rate of social and cultural change after the mid-18th century.

It’s Ancient History, So Why Dig It Up?

Ancient art teaches us about past religions (which still affect our modern religions) and the horrors of ancient warcraft. Rameses II’s monument celebrating his battle against the Hittites (see Chapter 6) and Trajan’s Column (see Chapter 8), which depicts the Emperor Trajan’s conquest of Dacia (modern-day Romania), are enduring eyewitness accounts of ancient battles that shaped nations and determined the languages we speak today.

Art isn’t just limited to paintings and sculptures. Architecture, another form of art, reveals the way men and women responded to and survived in their environment, as well as how they defined and defended themselves. Did they build impregnable walls around their cities? Did they raise monuments to their own egos like many Egyptian pharaohs (see Chapter 6)? Did they erect temples to honor their gods or celebrate the glory of their civilizations like the Greeks (see Chapter 7)? Or did they show off their power through awe-inspiring architecture to intimidate their enemies like the Romans (see Chapter 8)?

Mesopotamian period (3500 BC–500 BC) and Egyptian period (3100 BC–332 BC)

If we know who we were 3,000 years ago during the Mesopotamian period or the Egyptian period, we have a better sense of who we are today. Mesopotamian art is usually macho war art, propaganda art, or religious and tomb art. Egyptian art was nearly all tomb art — art to lead the dead into a cozy afterlife without snags. By learning to read Mesopotamian and Egyptian art, we also learn about how they influenced later cultures, especially the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and in turn, how the Greeks and Romans (and others) still influence, guide, and inspire us today.

Ancient Greek period (c. 850 BC–323 BC) and Hellenistic period (323 BC–32 BC)

Because of the conquests of Alexander the Great (356 BC–323 BC) and the later Roman love affair with Greek culture, the art produced in the city-states of Ancient Greece spread from the British Isles to India, changing the world forever. Even studying a few Ancient Greek vases can reveal a lot about our times — if you know how to read the vases. Many Greek vases show us what Ancient Greek theater looked like; modern theater and cinema are the direct descendants of Greek theater (see Chapter 7). Greek vases depict early musical instruments, dancers dancing, and athletes competing in the ancient Olympics, the forerunner of the modern Olympic Games. Some vases show us the role of women and men: Women carry vases called hydrias; men paint those vases. Modern gender roles are still affected, and in some cases driven, by ancient ones.

The Greeks invented techniques like red-figure painting, the contrapposto pose (in which a human figure stands gracefully at ease with most of its weight on one foot), and perspective to enable artists to represent the world realistically (see Chapter 7). But as real looking as classical Greek art is, it is also idealized (made to look better than real life). Greek statues don’t have pot bellies or receding hairlines. Art of the classical period (when Greek art peaked) is known for its otherworldly calm and beauty. The Hellenistic period (the extension of Greek culture via the conquests of Alexander the Great) added realism and emotion to the Greek’s art palette.

Roman period (300 BC–AD 476)

The Romans and their predecessors on the Italian peninsula, the Etruscans, both copied the Greeks. But art historians don’t call the Roman period a Greek replay. The Romans didn’t merely imitate — they added on to the Greek style, often replacing idealism with realism. The busts and statues of Roman senators and emperors can look tough, chubby, and even pockmarked.

In architecture, the Romans contributed the Roman arch, an invention that helped them to build the biggest system of roads and aqueducts the world has ever seen.

Did the Art World Crash When Rome Fell, or Did It Just Switch Directions?

Art definitely changed course in the West with the exponential rise of Christianity during the last phase of the Roman Empire and in the East and South with the birth and rapid growth of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Byzantine period (AD 500–AD 1453)

Byzantine art — a marriage of Roman splendor, Greek art styles, and Christian subject matter — flourished in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Rome in AD 476. But Byzantine art is less naturalistic than the Greek and Roman art that inspired it. It points to the hereafter rather than the here and now.

The most popular Byzantine art form was icon painting. Icons (holy images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints) were used in prayer. Byzantine artists also worked in mosaic (pictures made from pieces of cut glass).

Islamic period (seventh century+)

Islamic art and architecture spread across the Near East, North Africa, and Spain following the wave of Islamic conquests between AD 632 and AD 732. Like Moses, Mohammed condemned graven images, so there aren’t many representations of people in Islamic art. Instead, Islamic artists created astoundingly intricate patterns in carpets, manuscripts, and architecture.

Medieval period (500–1400)

Medieval art is mostly Christian art created in Europe between Rome’s fall and the Renaissance. Its art forms include stained-glass windows, illuminated manuscripts, reliquaries (containers for holy relics — the bones and clothes of saints), architectural reliefs, and Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.

Throughout the Middle Ages, art and architecture had a spiritual mission: to direct people’s attention toward God. Churches soared in that direction, and sculpture and paintings pointed the way to paradise. They depicted the sufferings of Christ, the Apostles, martyrs, the Last Judgment, and so on. Humans’ physical features mattered less to medieval artists than their spiritual struggles and aspirations. So they tended to represent people more symbolically than realistically.

High Renaissance (1495–1520) and Mannerism (1530–1580)

During the Renaissance, humankind’s spiritual focus shifted again. You could say that the people of the Renaissance had a double vision: Educated men and women wore mental bifocals so that they could see close up (earthly things) and far away (heaven). With this double vision, Renaissance artists celebrated both humans and God without short-changing either.

The close-up focus allowed realism to make the comeback we call the Renaissance: humans reclaiming their classical (Greek and Roman) heritage (see Chapters 11 and 12).

Baroque period (1600–1750) and Rococo period (1715–1760s)

The Reformation split Christianity down the middle, unleashing a maelstrom of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants and nearly 200 years of intolerance. To recover what lost ground it could, the Catholic Church launched the Counter-Reformation in the middle of the 16th century. One critical Counter-Reformation weapon was religious art that reaffirmed Catholic values while rendering them more people friendly. Baroque saints shed the idealistic luster they had during the Renaissance and began to look like working-class folk — the class the Church was trying to hold on to.

Baroque art and architecture are characterized by grandiose decoration, dramatic lighting, and theatrical gestures that reach out to viewers, mixed with earthy realism. Rococo art dropped the drama of Baroque art and most of the religion while taking Baroque’s ornamental side to extremes.

In the Machine Age, Where Did Art Get Its Power?

Many 18th- and 19th-century artists rejected, criticized, or ignored the Industrial Revolution. Instead of uplifting humankind, industry seemed to demoralize and dehumanize people. Men, women, and children were forced to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week in urban factories, without benefits or vacations. Factories polluted the cities, alienated people from the soil, and seemed to benefit only those who owned them. This led many artists to turn to nature or the past or to a make-believe Golden Age when life was beautiful and just. It provoked others to try to reform society through their art. Neoclassicism and Romanticism occurred during the Enlightenment and the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions.

Neoclassicism (1765–1830)

Neoclassicism (neo means “new”) looked back to the pure air and refined beauty of the classical era. Often, artists dressed contemporary heroes like George Washington or Voltaire in Roman togas and posed them like Roman statesmen or Olympians. In Neoclassical art, no one sweats or strains; no one’s hair is ever mussed; everything is elegant, balanced, and orderly (see Chapter 16).

Romanticism (late 1700s–early 1800s)

Romantic artists often criticized the Industrial Revolution, championed the rights of the individual, and supported democratic movements and social justice; they opposed slavery and the exploitation of labor in urban factories.

Freedom, liberty, and imagination were the Romantics’ favorite words, and some were willing to die for these ideals. Many Romantics tried to reform humankind by emphasizing a spiritual kinship with nature. (see Chapter 17).

After Romanticism, art is divided into movements rather than periods (see Chapter 3).

The Modern World and the Shattered Mirror

By the beginning of the 20th century, the camera seemed to have a monopoly on realism. That may be one reason painters turned toward abstraction. But it’s not the only reason. Following Cézanne’s example, many artists strove to simplify form (the human body, for example) into its geometrical components; that goal was partly the impetus for Cubism (see Chapter 22). For others, expressing feeling was more important than painting realistic forms. The Fauves expressed emotion with color while simplifying form, and the Expressionists suggested it by distorting form (see Chapter 21 for details).

Responding to modern pressures

Table 1-1 offers a breakdown of some specific art movements that happened in response to modern political, social, and cultural pressures.

TABLE 1-1: Art Movements of the 20th Century

Stimulus

Responding Art Movement

Description

World War I

Dada

The so-called “anti-art” movement, Dada was a direct reaction to World War I and the old order that triggered it. If war was rational, artists would be irrational. See Chapter 23.

Sigmund Freud’s Theories

Surrealists

Freud’s theories of the role of the unconscious (the home of the irrational) inspired the Surrealists (the offspring of Dada) to paint their dreams and coax the unconscious to the surface so they could channel it into their art. Also in Chapter 23.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Futurists

Published in 1905, Einstein’s theory of relativity stimulated the Futurists to include the fourth dimension, time, in their work. See Chapter 22.

Global Depression, Racism, and World War II

Activist Art

Horrendous acts of injustice fired up many artists, including photographers, to create activist art. New technology enabled photographers to capture people quickly and discreetly, showing life more “honestly,” more unposed than ever before. Pioneering photojournalists like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Dorothea Lange zoomed in on urban life, poverty, and war, and showed the world grim realities that had previously been swept under the carpet. See Chapter 25.

Psychoanalysis

Abstract Expressionism

After the Holocaust and Hiroshima, humankind seemed overdue for an appointment on the psychoanalyst’s couch. This inspired postwar American artist Jackson Pollock to pioneer Abstract Expressionism, the first international art movement spawned in the U.S. Pollock’s works look like he dropped a paint bomb on his canvases. Actually, he just dripped, poured, and threw on paint instead of slathering it on with a brush. See Chapter 23.

Conceptualizing the craft

Pollock’s and de Kooning’s action painting — as dripping and throwing paint came to be called — signaled that art had moved away from craft toward pure expression and creative conceptualization. Many new forms of art grew out of the notion that process is more important than product. Craft had been the cornerstone of art for millennia. But after the war, Pollock and de Kooning seemed to drop an atom bomb on art itself, to release its pure creative energy (and shatter form to smithereens — or to splashes and drips).

Conceptualization began to drive the work of more and more artists. However, while this trend continued in performance art, installation art, and conceptual art, some artists backtracked to representation. The Photorealists, for example, showed that painting could reclaim realism from the camera (see Chapter 25).

Expressing mixed-up times

Postmodernism (see Chapter 26) is an odd term. It suggests that we’ve hit a cultural dead end, that we’ve run out of ideas and can’t make anything new or “modern.” All that’s left is to recycle the past or crab-leg it back to the cave days. Postmodern artists do recycle the past, usually in layers: a quart of Greece, a cup of Constructivism, a pound of Bauhaus, and a heaping tablespoon of Modernism. What’s the point of that?

Postmodern theorists believe society is no longer centered. In the Middle Ages, art revolved around religion. In the 19th century, Realist art centered around social reform. But since the 1970s, point of view has become fluid. To express our uncentered existence, artists try to show the relationships between past eras and the present. Some critics argue that Postmodernism is a spiritual short circuit, a jaded view that cuts off meaning from real life. You be the judge.

Chapter 2

Why People Make Art and What It All Means

IN THIS CHAPTER

Exploring the reasons artists make art

Understanding the design elements of art

Decrypting those deep meanings

Art is sometimes a mysterious form of communication. What did so-and-so mean to convey when he or she carved a stone into a fat fertility goddess or a fractured geometric shape? In this chapter, I help you demystify the visual language that we call art.

Focusing on the Artist’s Purpose

Why do artists make art? To celebrate god, glorify the state, overthrow governments, make people laugh or think, or win fame and fortune? Or do they make art because, for them, creating is like breathing — they have to do it?

Artists create for all these reasons and more. Above all, great artists want to express something deeper than ordinary forms of communication — like talking or writing — can convey. They strive to suggest meanings that are beyond the reach of everyday vocabularies. So they invent visual vocabularies for people to interpret. Each person can “read” this picture language — which doesn’t come with a dictionary — differently.

This difference in the way each person “reads” a piece of art is especially true of art made in the past 500 years. Ancient as well as medieval art (art made before 1400) often had a communal purpose and a common language of symbols that was widely understood; often that communal purpose was linked to religion, ritual, or mythology.

Recording religion, ritual, and mythology

The earliest works of art — prehistoric cave paintings from 30,000 BC to 10,000 BC (see Chapter 4) — were likely to have been a key part of a shamanistic ritual (a priest acting as a medium enters the spirit world during a trance). In many prehistoric cultures, people thought religion and ritual helped them to prepare for an afterlife or control their environment. For example, fertility rituals were linked to a god or goddess of crops and were designed to guarantee a successful harvest. Art (and often dance and music) frequently had a role in these religious rituals.