Ancient Art Lecture 1_ Introduction to Art History

I'm sure you've all seen something like this before. This is known as a rebus or a word puzzle. And the way to solve it is to look at it, say what you see, and then bring information that you have from your own experiences to get the answer. And that's very similar to what we'll be doing in this Art History class. So with this rebus, I'm not going to give you the answer, but I'm going to help you solve it. And this is kind of what we'll be doing throughout the semester. So what we have is the at sign, a letter B and I all at the top, and then a letter R, T, and H all at the bottom. And they seem to be spaced out in different parts. A rebus is generally an idiom or a saying or something that we have heard in the past. And so if you take this information and you put it together, you say it out loud, you examine the way it's put together, you might come up with the answer to this puzzle. Since this isn't a philosophy class, I'm not going to put this first thing up for debate. Oftentimes people will argue over what it means to be a work of art. I have a working definition of art and this is how I approach art. Art can be anything as long as it has meaning and the way it is constructed embodies that meaning. In other words, the meaning of the work of art can be solved by examining how the work of art is put together, just like that rebus puzzle we just did. This means you name what you see in the image, you talk about it in different ways, you consider things like the date, which will give you the time period in which it was made, and the other historical events will help you. The title, which will tell you a lot about a work of art. Who the artist is will inform you of whether or not the work of art falls into the overall oeuvre of that artist, or does it stand out as very different. Even knowing who commissioned a work of art will give you context for it and help you understand it. It could tell you about the patron's political agenda, or personal agenda, like how they want to portray themselves, or to say something about the artworks that they have in their illustrious home. All of these things help you in trying to determine the meaning of a work of art, and that's what we're going to do in this class. We're going to look at works of art, we're going to put them into different kinds of contexts, historical, art historical, artist, patron, place, geography, and we're going to try to solve the meanings of all of these works of art. For a while, at the beginning of this class, we are going to struggle with this idea because there are no written records, we're just going to be using archaeological records to do this, but eventually we'll get to a point in history where people explain what they were trying to do with their art, or we will have written historical records of the time, and that will create a deeper feeling of being connected with a work of art. Okay, this painting, this giant painting, is not something that we'll be looking at in this class. It's way beyond the scope of the class, but I want you to see how it's done so that you can apply this lesson to everything else that we look at. All right, so this painting is about a political scandal in France in 1816. By this point, Napoleon was far away and gone. The monarchy had been restored, and corruption was back to pre-revolutionary France level. Part of that corruption was nepotism, and that meant that the captain of this Medusa was supremely unqualified to be the captain of a ship, and he was unwilling to listen to the advice about the dangers of the journey that he was embarking on. So they crash off the coast of Africa because the captain didn't listen to the navigator, and then he tells the crew to build a raft out of the wreckage of their ship that went aground on the sandbar. The captain and the officers use smaller boats to tow the raft for a while, but eventually they cut themselves loose. The captain and the rest of the crew go back to France, and they tell a story about how heroic they were, but there was just no saving the crew. So at least 147 people were set adrift on this hurriedly constructed raft. All but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, and succumbed to cannibalism. Eventually they were rescued, and now you have survivors that have returned to France that are openly disputing this story told by the officers. And after the survivors were found and they told their story, the captain, who was protected by his royal allies, of course because of nepotism, served only three years in jail instead of being put to which he easily would have been had this been another captain. Jericho made this painting to garner sympathy and push the idea that justice should be distributed equally whether noble or otherwise. Okay, so that's the historical context. That's why the time is important. 1819, post-Napoleon, restoration of the monarchy. The title also tells us a lot. This is the that was built of the Medusa. Jericho, the artist, has a history of combining neoclassicism and romanticism. And I know that doesn't mean anything to you, but if you know that stuff and then you look at this painting, you can go, oh I see that. It's prevalent in the classically composed figures. In other words, figures that are based on statues from ancient Greece and Rome. And then you have this dramatic seascape which is a hallmark of romanticism in that you use the landscape or the sea to convey a message of we are all inconsequential in the vast universe, but we must persevere in spite of this fact. Jericho incorporates other art historical tools like the composition is that of a triangle in which the dead are on the bottom and the more youthful and vigorous are on the top. Finally, and it's kind of difficult to see this I know, but he uses another trick to increase the drama which is way off on the horizon, is the little tiny ship that eventually rescues these people and brings this whole scandal to France. Okay, let's move on. This work of art by Andy Warhol is about something and the way that it is made embodies that thing. What's interesting is that this work of art is about the meaning of art itself. Okay, so follow me. By 1964, Andy Warhol created a sort of factory assembly line. He employed carpenters to construct numerous plywood boxes that were identical in size and shape to supermarket cartons. With assistance from other artists, he painted and silk screened the boxes. So when you go to the grocery store today and you see SOS pads or Brillo pads on the shelf, they had to get to the grocery store in cardboard boxes. A long time ago in the 60s and 50s, those boxes were decorated brightly as well. So this box is the box that the Brillo pads would have come to the store in and then been put on the shelves. So art historically, this is a total break from what came before. Before this was Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, all of these abstract expressionists who would just drip and throw and splash paint on canvases. And then Andy Warhol comes around and he makes these really clean supermarket boxes. What is most interesting is that these finished sculptures were virtually indistinguishable from the cardboard supermarket counterparts. And so it was asking the question, what is the difference between a work of art and a supermarket box? And the answer is meaning itself. This box explores the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s. The supermarket box, while aesthetically appealing, is about getting products onto store shelves in the most efficient way possible. What we just did was basically how this class is going to go. You'll find out information about a work of art, you'll understand it through its context, historically and art historically, and then we'll move on. But I want you to know that there's another piece to this, which is art can do something for you. Now this is not a thing we'll usually talk about in class, but I want you to know that this is a part of studying art and looking at art. And that is art can do things. If you are searching, it can provide clues to our past. Just like the raft of the Medusa, it can create empathy for those who have been treated unfairly. It can inspire awe. If you look at a work of romanticism with the giant landscapes, it can help you feel better about things that you feel bad about yourself. Like if you're sad, you can look at a painting of something sad and see that you're not alone. I have included in this week's module a video called What Can Art Do? and I want you to watch that because it will give you a better understanding of this idea. So now we're going to look at a couple works of art and then I'm going to tell you what they're about and I will tell you how they helped me when I experienced them. This first work of art, which upon first glance might just seem like a giant black rectangle, but there's more to it. This painting was made by Ad Reinhart, who tried to produce what he described as a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, faceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting. Okay, so that was his goal, but here's my takeaway. All right, so this is different. I'm not saying this is what this is about. I'm saying this is what it does for me. Okay, so when you, like I said, when you look at this, it just seems like a flat black surface, but the longer you look at it, you can see that there are different shades of black and they create this underlying geometric structure. There is a horizontal stripe that is one shade and then a vertical stripe, so it creates a cross. You see it, right? It takes time to reveal itself and actually if you see this in a museum, it's not so easy to see. When I go with my daughter, I tell her to put on her binoculars and we block out all the light and then it helps to see this painting better. So, to me, it's a lesson. Be patient. Things will reveal themselves in time. These paintings were made by the French post-impressionist artist Edgar Degas and he was influenced by Japanese art and the new technology of photography and his compositions often capture his subjects from strange angles, like we are standing above or way below. And when I look at these, I use them as reminders to try to see the world in a new way when I get frustrated. Sometimes it's fun to look at your apartment from the top of a ladder. You might see something familiar in a whole new way. Here's my last example of what art can do. So, this is called The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. It was made in 1533. It's a very famous and weird painting. The guy on the left is obviously wealthy with his silks and furs and he's worldly. The guy on the right is a priest, but he's also dressed well, just less ostentatiously. The top shelf is everything about what's above. So, celestial globe, instruments to observe and measure the heavens, like what is above us. The bottom shelf is about earthly existence. The globe, the lute, the hymnal book. The star of this painting, though, is actually that weird object that cuts across the bottom. You actually have to look at the painting from the right side and a little above it to make it out, but it is a skull. You can see the skull. So, the question becomes, why did Holbein paint the skull like this? We see skulls in paintings all the time. They're a reminder of death. They're called memento mori. It's very popular, but by distorting it as he does, he forces us to make a choice. We either look upon our earthly possessions in an unobtrusive way or we look upon our mortal fate clearly, but we can't do both simultaneously because something gets distorted when we try to do that. If we look at the painting from the right and the side, then the rest of the painting gets distorted, but we can see the skull. If we look at it straight ahead, the skull gets distorted, but everything else seems clear. This painting reminds me that while I am amassing earthly possessions, experiences, and ideas, they're all distracting me from a very basic fact. I am going to die. But also, it could be saying that while I am so scared of death and dwelling upon it, I might be missing out on the pleasures of life. So, the key to living a good life is balancing these two ideas as well as possible. Here we are finally at your first assignment for this art historical class. I want you to put it all together yourself. So, you are going to engage in a formal analysis of a work of art, and if you don't know what that means, that's fine. There is a whole video that I want you to watch. It's about 10 minutes long. It is a formal analysis of a work art by Goya. They explain to you how you do the whole thing. So, watch that video and then come back. I want you to determine the work of art's historical context. I want you to do your best, and I will help you with this part, to put it in art historical context. And then finally, this is just for you, but I want you to figure out how you can make the work of art pertain to your own life. I expect none of you to know anything about this work of art. Okay? So, let's just start with that. This includes a formal analysis, which basically just means naming things. And if you know the video, formal analysis also means including subject matter. So, what are we looking at? I'm going to provide you with some historical context, and it's not coincidental that I made you watch that video about Goya, because it is pertinent to this. So, Napoleon, who was the emperor of France at the time, commissioned this painter, Gros, to paint this after he became emperor. And he glosses over many atrocities that were conducted by Napoleon. In March 1799, Napoleon was trying to weaken the British Empire by cutting off trade with India. So, he captured Jaffa, which was a stop along the way to India. He sent envoys to reach an agreement about surrender. Allegedly, his envoys were brutally killed when delivering an ultimatum of surrender. So, Napoleon ordered the massacre of thousands of Muslim soldiers who were imprisoned, having surrendered to the French. This actually might have been done, though, because he didn't want to take the effort to transport all these prisoners. Plague broke out, and it did not discriminate between French and Ottoman soldiers. Napoleon went to visit the sick, and you can see him touching a bubo in the man's armpit. They didn't really understand how the plague spread back then, so people just assumed Napoleon was putting himself in danger by touching it. Notice the man covering his mouth and attempting to hold Napoleon back. It has also been said that Napoleon asked the doctor in charge to give the soldiers in the hospital lethal doses of opium so he could move on from this part of his military campaign. But the doctor ultimately refused. Okay, so that's just a little bit of historical context. I want you to know that this is in complete contrast to Goya's painting. So, Goya was painting from the perspective of the vanquished, while Gros is painting from the perspective of the victors. Art historically, Gros incorporates a lot of different art historical tools. He was trying to convey that he was not only a loyal court painter to the emperor, but he was well learned in the history of art. So, he incorporated bits and pieces from some of the greatest works of art. He borrows the idea of Christ laying his hands upon the victims from Poussin, who was a very famous French painter before him. He was highly influential in the look of French paintings until the Impressionists came along in the 1860s. So, by using this pose borrowed by Poussin, he is saying that Napoleon is Christ-like, unlike Goya, who makes the victim of Napoleon's army the Christ figure. He also borrows the pose of the Apollo statue of ancient Rome. He is reminding viewers, all of whom would have immediately understood all these references, of how Napoleon has brought France into its imperial age, which is like the new Roman Empire, the greatest of all civilizations. And by borrowing the arcade structure from David, he accomplishes two goals. He reminds viewers of a painting about ancient Rome, which stresses the importance of patriotism and masculine self-sacrifice for one's country. And he's showing viewers how he, Gros himself, is attached to one of the greatest living painters of the time, Jacques-Louis David. I often tell my students, by the way, if you want to have this feeling of understanding what it would be like to look at a painting or a sculpture from an earlier time, to watch the scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet, with the Oh My Disney thing. That scene is full of internet memes, Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, you name it. There's so many different little things in there that you have to be in the know to understand. But when you see them, you get a kind of a rush because you've understood it. And that's how these paintings were at the time. Finally, in addition to that formal analysis, historical or historical context assignment that I've given you, I'm also going to ask you this question, which is, what was your favorite part of this introduction? Did you like just naming all the bits and pieces? Did you like the historical information? Did you like when I told you about how it fit into other styles? Did you like the part about how it personally affected you? When you answer that question, I will take that information, and I might be able to tailor this class to emphasize one thing over another, if there is a consensus.