#those are female figures from the cyclades (ancient aegean art)

[magdaclaire]

the way that i fully forgot to actually add the poem

who wants to see the poem i wrote for class (art history survey 1) twelve days before i have to turn it in

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Prehistoric Figurine of a Harp Player, from the Cyclades (Greece), c. 2700-2300 BCE: this figurine was shaped from a block of solid marble and then slowly sanded into form using pumice and emery

The figurine depicts a musician with a frame harp, an instrument that originated in the Near East and then later spread to the peoples of the Aegean. A sound box forms the section along the base of the instrument, and a small protrusion can be seen near the top of the harp's frame; some experts have argued that this protrusion might represent an ornamental carving of a waterfowl's head, while others argue that it represents a musical extension that facilitates the projection of sound (a feature that often appears on the stringed instruments of the ancient Near East).

This piece measures 35.8cm (about 14 inches) tall.

Musical performances like this are rarely depicted in Cycladic artwork. Depictions of male characters are similarly rare, representing only 5% of the Cycladic sculptures that are known to exist. When male figures are depicted, however, they are frequently shown playing musical instruments, as seen here.

Figurine of a Harpist, c. 2800-2700 BCE: a similar example of a Cycladic sculpture that features a musician with a frame harp

The Museum of Cycladic Art provides a more detailed explanation of the process by which these figures were created:

As we can deduce from the few unfinished figurines that have been discovered so far, the first step in the process was to roughly shape the raw piece of marble into a figure by the impact of a mallet. Emery powder was then used to abrade the surface until it obtained the desired shape and size. Once the desired shape was achieved, the surface was smoothed carefully before the fine work of carving the details started. At the end, the figurine was polished to a high degree that is still amazing.

And according to The Met:

Many of these figures, especially those of the Spedos type, display a remarkable consistency in form and proportion that suggests they were planned with a compass. Scientific analysis has shown that the surface of the marble was painted with mineral-based pigments—azurite for blue and iron ores, or cinnabar for red.

The Cycladic Islands (also known as the Cyclades) are a group of about 30 separate islands in the Southwest Aegean, off the coast of mainland Greece. These islands contain a wealth of natural resources, including marble, emery, pumice, obsidian, and an assortment of precious metals. The prehistoric peoples of the Cyclades made use of these resources for many different purposes, but the marble figurines/sculptures that they crafted during the Bronze Age are perhaps their most famous creation.

The vast majority of these figurines are stylized depictions of the female form. The cultural significance of the sculptures remains unclear; they may have simply been created as decorative pieces/artwork, without any additional function, or they may have been used as fetishes, totems, religious idols, grave goods, or votive offerings.

Sources & More Info:

The Getty Museum: Figurine of a Harp Player

The Met: Cycladic Harp Player

The Met: Early Cycladic Art and Culture

The Museum of Cycladic Art: Techniques

[jacobclefisch-blog]

Week 6

In this week’s readings, we delved into the ancient civilizations that bordered the Aegean Sea. From c. 3000 B.C. to c. 1100 B.C., The Aegean Era was responsible for a great leap forward in Art History and has also expanded on different art forms we learned about in past readings. During this time, civilizations were built around the Aegean Sea for its vast supply of resources and transportation along with providing protection. The people of these ancient communities have brought an expansion of new knowledge and technique to the Art world. The earliest of these civilizations was the Cyclades. The Cyclades own insights and traditions were best seen through their various forms art. One of the best examples of the Cyclades work was the Female Idols. These idols were almost exclusively female but some male and were carved out of marble. Geometric sections composed these figures along with slight curves, pyramidal noses, painted on eyes and mouth. The Minoan civilizations, Greek mythology played a pivotal role in art. Related to Greek mythology, the great Palace at Knossos was the site where the famous mythological Minotaur once dwelled, and is also an example of the advanced level of architecture as pillars, columns and massive stone masonry walls composed this great palace. Those massive stone walls served as canvases for various types of relatively new colored pigments. My personal favorite example of these new style of wall paintings is the way the Minoans created their paintings with lime plaster such as the famous, Toreador Fresco. This technique brought about colors not really used or even thought of now such as blues and greens. I didn’t know a whole lot about how these people could get these designs to look such a way as it does on the wall so finding out they use plaster to blend the color into stone wall to give it more of a natural look really amazed me that they came up with this idea and whole process of bonding the color to the fabric of the wall allowing them to paint additional details over the “fresco” as it dry’s. The afterlife was very important to the people living in these societies and it showed through their marvelous tombs filled with treasures of art. These massive burial grounds housed the royal dead from kings to queens. It is made evidently clear based on the amount of wealth and treasure that has been discovered in these tombs. Royalty typically likes to be buried with the things that gave them the most power in their lives and along with these treasures lies various pieces of art that prove to be some of the most valuable objects recovered from tombs. Objects such as burial daggers with artistic designs such as a dagger that I personally think looks pretty freaking epic with its gold design of armed soldiers fighting off attacking lions that I found during reading this chapter. Gold masks were also created specifically as “Death Masks” for the royal dead to wear as they slumbered. These masks were beaten gold with features of a human face with some resemblance to what he actual person dead looked like.

This chapter was fairly interesting. I learned about most of this stuff along the way from previous world history classes I have been a part of but it was cool to dive deeper into the art side of things.

[linzym13-blog]

Egypt & Aegean Art

During this weeks chapters, I found a lot of interesting things about ancient Egypt and Aegean art. I learned that ancient Egyptian art has been around since 3000 BC to 300 AD. They have a lot of priority put into their painting and sculptures, especially their pyramids. It evolved over different periods of time such as: Predynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. Then there was the Aegean art which existed from 3000 BC to 1200 BC. They developed so many styles/cultures such as: Cycladic, Minoan, and, Mycenaean.

As I was reading, I realized that ancient Egyptian art shows women with much less pace when comparing them to the males. As males had more featured strides/legs, as well as a body that was at attention, the women have parallel legs. The reason behind this was because the queen was ranked below a king, and therefore her left foot doesn’t extend as far outward than the kings. An interesting facts that I learned about Aegean art was that figures of females were much more numerous than those of males. The females were very accentuated, especially in the breasts and the pubic triangle. Although there purpose is unknown, they were thought to be religious processions. I find this very intriguing because back then, not many males or hierarchy thought highly of the women, they were usually lower on the totem pole, but with Aegean art, they were highly important/available. So, I came to the conclusion that Egyptian art that involved women made it clear that women were less important/powerful, and Aegean art pronounced that women were more popular/abundant.

I also really liked reading about the mummification process in Egyptian art. As a nursing major, I love to read about bodies and the processes after death. What really surprised me was that it takes a whole 72 days to complete this process and that they take everything out, except for the heart, and then to top it off, they put 20 layers of linen on the body. Also, the brain was thrown out and considered useless. I would have thought that any other body part be thrown out, besides the brain. To me the brain is the most intelligent and important part of the body, so it surprised me that they would just toss it out like it was nothing special.

All together, I learned that Egyptians were particularly interested in sculptures and pyramids, whereas Aegean’s were more interested with sketches/objects/drawings. Also, both show similarity in that the art was used for religious and cultural reasons. For example, a lot of Aegean art was intended for thanking/representing their gods. On the other hand, Egyptians didn’t perceive their artwork as gods, but believed that gods existed in them. All together, both of these places take high initiative in keeping their culture and beliefs alive.