WESTERN ART

HISTORY

ART IN EARLY
CIVILIZATIONS
• Stone Age is a term used to describe a period of history when stones were
used to make tools for survival.
– Paleolithic (late years of the Old Stone Age)
– Mesolithic (middle Stone Age)
– Neolithic (New Stone Age)
PREHISTORIC ART
Paleolithic Art
• Is a product of climate change. As the climate got
colder, part of the early human’s instinct is to look
for shelters that would provide them with warmth.
 • Beliefs of
life and
fertility

Venus of Willendorf
• Neolithic Art
– Art has developed especially when life
for the early humans has become more
stable.
 EGYPTIAN ART

• Fertile Ribbon
– Starts from the banks of Nile River, which flows north to Africa
and ventures into the Mediterranean.
• 3 civilization in Egypt
– Old
– Middle
– New Kingdom
• Old Kingdom
– Emergence of tombs
• serves as a shelter for the next journey which is
afterlife.
• Narmer Palette
– It was a palette that utilized and applied dark
colors around King Narmer’s eyes.
Pyramid of Giza
• Middle Kingdom
– Emergence of powerful groups of landlords that threatened the
authority and rule of the pharaoh.
• New Kingdom
– Tombs are built not only for the
dead, nut as a place of worship
for the living.

– After the New Kingdom, Egypt

witnessed the Amarna
Revolution led by King
Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti
– Most sculptures during this
period had curving lines and
full-bodied forms.
– Emphasis in face like an
elongated jaw and thick-lidded
eyes.
ART OF EMERGING
EUROPE
 ANCIENT GREECE
• Greeks were known to place prime importance in the use of reason
– 4 periods
• Geometric
• Archaic
• Classical
• Hellenistic
• Geometric period
– Was a time when Greece was starting to
get back from onslaught of what seemed
to be their Dark Ages.
– Geometric shapes and patterns took
place.
• Archaic Period
– Placed
importance on
human figures.
– Result of
Greece’s trading
activities with
other
civilizations.
• Classical period
– Peak of Greek sculpture and
architecture
• Hellenistic period
– Time of Alexander the great
– Art was focused on emotions and reality
• Origins of Drama and Theater traced back during
the Greek civilization.

• Dionysus – god of fertility

 ARCHITECTURE
• Creation of beautiful buildings
• Systems of Construction:
– Post and Lintel: it makes use of vertical supports like
walls, columns or posts that hold horizontal beams or
lintel above them.
– Arch: consists of several wedge shaped
blocks held together by a key stone.
– Dome: a hemispherical extension that forms
part or all of the roof or ceiling resembling an
inverted cup.
– Truss: this makes use of a braced framework
of beams or bars forming one or more
triangles.
– Cantilever: is made of a structural part such
as a truss, a beam, or a slab that projects
horizontally and anchored only at one end.
 GREEK ORDER
• Order, also called order of architecture, that
are defined by the particular type
of column and entablature they use as a basic
unit.

• A column consists of a shaft together with its

base and its capital.
 GREEK ORDER
3 GREEK ORDERS

• DORIC ORDER
• IONIC ORDER
• CORINTHIAN ORDER
• Doric order
– is characterized by a plain, unadorned column
capital and a column that rests directly on the
stylobate of the temple without a base.
• Ionic order
– is notable for its graceful proportions, giving
a more slender and elegant profile than the
Doric order.
• Corinthian order
– Its element is elaborate, carved capital, which
incorporates even more vegetal elements than
the Ionic order does. The stylized, carved
leaves of an acanthus plant.