Activity #07 Mid-Term

Throughout history, art has been valuable means to gain insight into cultural aspects of past and current societies. From the cave-paintings of early civilizations to the murals of today art has been used to record time, document rituals or communicate stories. There was art prior to any type of formal writing system was formed. This exhibit, History and Culture in Art includes works of arts from various societies from 1570 BCE until 1859 and each piece speaks to an cultural or historic event of that time.

Selection number one is the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is depicting a funeral ritual to ensure the dead will have a smooth transition to heaven. The colors are triadic, brown, black and white. Multiple hues of brown are employed. Horizontal lines are dominant within the piece and direct the eye to the focal point of the piece, the Egyptian God at the right of the portrait. This is an asymmetrical piece, that utilizes lines for movement. The horizontal lines represents the calmness in which the Egyptians are bringing the dead to pray to the God. Interesting the most prevalent vertical lines in the portrait are the paintings on the wall, which are prayers. The prayers are going up to heaven.

Selection number two, Sennacherib II is history as recorded on a slab of stone, of tablet around 700 BCE. This piece tells the story of a siege of ancient city in Palestine. The movement of the army coming in the siege the city is illustrated in by the diagonal lines that are prevalent on both the right and left side of the piece and forms an implied geometric shape, a triangle. There are multiple implied triangles in this piece. Right at the tip of the highest triangle, the contour line of the city dips downwards as to indicate seizure by the forces marching upward. To the right of the downward dip, there is more movement upward and a gradual rebuild of the city lines, indicating victory. Like selection one, this is an asymmetric piece, most of the battle occurs to the right. There color scheme is monochromatic and hatching is used through out the portrait, specifically in the fall left and for the weapons.