Chapter 17 Roman Art

The first work of art I found was earliest art which was from 120,000 BCE-100 CE. IT had the most depicting animals including large and powerful creatures that suggested the artists desire to imitate the actual appearance of the animals represented. Giving the animals a sense of volume by using gradation of color. It also created sculptural objects small and carved figures of people mostly of women and animals. It reflected a more abstract and less naturalistic approach to representation.

Neolithic cultures are flourished along the banks of the Yellow River in China, which produced large quantities of pottery. These cultures were based on growing rice and millet.

Another work of art was Megaliths or ‘big stones’ were constructed without the use of mortar and represent the most basic form of architectural construction. The original purpose is still unknown but its orientation toward the rising sun of the summer solstice indicated a connection to planting and harvest.

Mesopotamian cultures between 4000-3000 BCE. In the southern plains of Mesopotamia, people known as the Sumerians that developed writing, schools, libraries, and written laws. IN Egyptian civilization it was dedicated to providing a home for the ka, that part of the human being that defines personality and that survives life on earth after death. Complex societies in the Americas started as early as 1500 BCE a group known as the Olmec. Aegean civilization had an impressive center of power and wealth. The Minoans might have arrived as about 6000 BCE, but their culture reached its peak between 1600 and 1400 BCE.

Greek Art marks the moment when western culture begins to celebrate its own human strengths and powers. The creature genius of the mind itself over the power of nature. They became personified, taking human form and assuming human weaknesses. They were otherwise versions of us, no longer angry beast or natural phenomena such as the earth, the sun, or the rain. Hellenism is the culture of Greece.

Roman Art was another one I found. IT is imported thousand of original Greek artwork and had them copied in even greater numbers. As a matter of fact, much of what we know today about Greek art we know only through Roman copied. The Romans used the Greek architectural orders in their own building and temples especially the highly decorative Corinthian order.

The last work of art I came across in chapter 17 was triumphal arches, triumphant armies marched through them, composed of a simple barrel vault it enclosed within a rectangle and enlivened with sculpture and decorative engaged columns that deeply influenced later architecture of the Renaissance, especially the facades of the Renaissance cathedral.