Prehistoric and Native American Art

Prehistoric Art

• Earliest known drawing by Homo sapiens is estimated to be 73,000 years old.
• Prehistoric art did not function as artistic expression, but instead as historical, spiritual, or social purposes.
• Preference for aesthetics wasn’t a thing till 100,000 to 50,000 years ago.
• Common mediums were:
  • Engravings on stone, mineral, wood, and solids
  • Fine detail on weapons and tools
  • Clay and stone sculptures
  • Cave paintings using natural pigments

Archaic Period

• Weapons, cave paintings, and tools were made around 80,000 to 8,000 BCE.
• Anything made of fiber, hideskin, and other plants did not survive.
• Common mediums were:
  • Pictographs (painted image)
  • Petroglyphs (carved image)

Native American Art

• Native American art derives from five main regions: Arctic, Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, The West, and Southwest.
• Native American decorative styles differ up and down the continent.
• The West favored geometric designs, whereas the Arctic leaned towards organic.
• Mesoamerican groups were typically divided, more variety in the west, with Teotihuacan, Mixtec, and Aztec taking lead, and the Maya being prominent downwards east.
• The Olmec were the first to fully develop and establish traditions.

South American Art

• Andean region had a more ornamental approach.
• Region consists of modern day countries such as Peru, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Ecuador.
• Highly praised for its intricate gold jewelry and headwear.

Ancient Greek Art

• Revolved around pottery, sculpture, and architecture, mostly inspired by their daily lives.
• Common pose of their sculptures is known as contrapposto, Italian for “counterpoise”.
• Divided stylistically into three periods: the Archaic, the Classical and the Hellenistic.
  • Archaic period was the most simplified of all three - it lacks realism and subjects were drawn mostly in profile.
  • Classical period is based on idealism and personal ideas of beauty, with the Golden Ratio is introduced and used in artwork.
  • Hellenistic period’s art style became complex and ornamental. No more idealism, only reality and emotion.

Roman Art

• Roman art was derivative from Greek.
• Roman artists sought to memorialize events of their state and to glorify their emperors.
• The most prestigious form of art besides sculpture was panel painting.

Ancient Chinese Art

• Mostly created amateur artists who attended school.
• Scholars frequented other arts, such as poetry, calligraphy, and ceramics.
• Art was meant to express the artist's good character.

Ancient Japanese Art

• Contained calligraphy and pottery – their collection is one of the oldest on Earth.
• Art stands out due its solitary behavior and lack of influence from foreign cultures.
• Preferred medium was painting and woodblock art.

Early Christian Art

• It is hard to know when Early Christian art began, since they began as a persecuted group.
• Eventually, the Roman Empire finally accepted them as a legit religious group, and they could start producing durable works.
• The figures in their artwork remain frontal.

Byzantine Art

• Highly ornamental.
• The capital, Constantinople, was adorned with a large number of classical sculptures.
• One of their important genres was the icon, an image of a religious identity, used to bless a church or home.
• The illumination of manuscripts was another major genre; decorations frame book pages.

Gothic Art

• Came in mainly as architecture and developed in France.
• Its critics saw this type of art as unrefined and too inaccurate; exaggerated in length and detail.

High Renaissance

• Italy went from religious symbolism to academic themes.
• Returned to achieving accuracy in the human body.
• Prioritized their ideas of beauty, like Ancient Greece.

Mannerism

• Artists begin to experiment with fluid figures and gradations.
• Aimed to create porcelain-like subjects in dynamic poses.
• Used dark backgrounds to emphasize the outline of the main subjects.

Baroque Art

• Moved on from elegance and into dramatism.
• Enforced the shading technique, chiaroscuro, to promote high contrast.
• By increasing the darkness in their paintings, artists practiced tenebrism.

Rococo Art

• The word ‘Rococo’ came from the word rocaille, which was originally a method of decoration.
• Is a reaction against the use of simple, balanced designs.
• Its trompe-l'œil, “to fool the eye”, murals created a dynamic illusion.

Neoclassicism Art

• Coincided with the Age of Enlightenment.
• Despite its similarities with the Renaissance, it aimed for balance.
• Their sculptures and architecture imitated Ancient Greek artwork.

Romanticism Art

• Blooming out of Neoclassicism, Romanticism is a reaction against industrialization.
• Had a mystic influence over paintings of historical events.
• Artists intended to represent historical events in a chaotic fantasy.