Ancient Art (1, 500, 000BC – 2, 000, 000BC )

Prehistoric & Egyptian

Pre – Historic Era

 Includes all human existence before emergency of writing
 Understanding of early human life and culture.

Pre – Historic Era Paintings

-found inside caves
- way of communication
-artifact as human’s first created art
- animals usually correct in proportion

Pre – Historic Era Sculptures

 Materials used vary according to region and locality.
 Frequently carving may have mythological or religious significance.

Pre – Historic Era Architecture

 Megaliths ( a big rock ): Greek words lithos ( stone ) and megas ( big )
 Made of huge stone blocks intended for buried
 Provide plenty of legends and superstitious
 During this era, stones and rocks were associated with divinity

Three Main Types of Megalith Stones

1. Menhir – huge, vertically standing stone on the ground, usually in the middle of the field
or arranged in rows.
2. Dolmens – stone table: form of table consisting of two huge standing stones supporting
a horizontal giant stone: believed as graved or alter.
3. Cromlech – circle of standing stone.

Egyptian Paintings
 Highly stylized, symbolic, and shows profile view of an animal or a person
 Main colors: red, black, blue, gold, and green
Egyptian Era Sculptures
 Symbolic elements such as forms, hieroglyphics, relative size, location materials,
color, actions, and gestures were widely used.
 Most common materials used: wood, ivory and stones.

Egyptian Architecture
Characteristics:
1. Has thick sloping walls with few openings for stability.
2. All walls, columns and piers are covered with hieroglyphics.
3. Ornamentations were symbolic.
4. Temples were aligned with astronomically significant events likes solstices and
equinox with precise measurements.

Classical Art ( 2, 000BC – 400BC )

Greek and Roman

Classical Greek Era

 Most commonly found in vase, panels and tomb.
 Depict natural figures.
 Subject: battle scenes, mythological figures and everyday scenes
 Linear perspective and Naturalistic representation

Most Common Methods of Painting

1. Fresco – water- based pigments on a freshly applied plaster on walls. Ideals for murals,
durable and matte style.
2. Encaustic – developed by Greek ship builders, used hot wax to fill cracks of the ships.
Pigments were added and used to pain a wax hull.

Classic Greek Sculptures

 Tensed and stiff body were hidden within enfolding robes
  After 3 centuries, it evolved and showed all the points of human anatomy and
proportion.

Classic Greek Sculptures

 Temples consisted of a central shrine or room in an aisle surrounded by rows of

columns.
 Buildings were designed in one of the three architectural stylr or order.

The Parthenon
 The Greatest classical temple, ingeniously engineered to correct an
optical illusion.
 Cloumns were slightly inwards: to correct the impression of
deadness and top heaviness.

Classical Roman Era

 Most paintings were copied from Hellenic Greek paintings.
 Fresco techniques was used in brightly colored backgrounds: division of the wall into
a multiple rectangular areas ( tic-tac-toe design); multi – point perspective; and
tropme-l’-oeil effect.

Mosaic
 An art process where image is created using an assemblage of small pieces of
colored glass, stones, or other materials.
 Used for decorative art or interior decorations.
Classic Roman Sculptures
 Made of monumental terra – cotta
 Produced reliefs in the Great Roman triumphal columns with continuous narrative
reliefs around.

Classic Roman Architecture

 Sturdy stone structures both for use and to perpetuate their glory.
 Emperors erected huge halls and arenas for public games, baths and procession
 Built with gigantic arches of stones, bricks and concrete or with barrel vaults.

Medieval Art ( 400BC – 1,400AD )

Byzantine Romanesque and Gothic
Byzantine Paintings
 Lively styles of painting which has been invented in Greek and Rome.
 It lived on the Byzantine but this time for Christian subjects.
 Greek and Oriental styles blend together
 Imposing images, which adorned the churches in large and small forms.

Byzantine Painting
 Dominant theme: religious, everyday life scenes and motifs from nature
  Animals were used as symbols while some had acrostic signs that contained a great
theological significance.

Byzantine Architecture
 Has a lot in common with early Christian architecture.
 Mosaic decoration was perfected as was the use of clerestory to bring light in from
high windows.
Hagia Sophia
 meaning Holy Wisdom
 Narrates how a magnificent construction transformed from being a church into a
mosque into a museum.
 One of the biggest domes ever created.

Romanesque Painting
 Largely placed mosaics on the walls of the churches that follow a strict frontal pose.
 Mozarabic influence – elongated oval faces, large staring eyes and long noses,
figures against flat colored bands and heavy outlining.

Romanesque Sculpture
 Famous pieces: reliquaries, altar frontals, crucifixes and devotional images
 Small works made of costly materials for royal and aristocratic patrons.

Romanesque Architecture
 Romanesque’s churches have grand sculpted doorways/ portals.
 Wood or metal doors are surrounded by elaborate stone sculptures arranged in
zones to fit architectural elements.

Gothic Era Paintings

Stained Glass Windows – were created to transform the vast stone interior with warm and glowing color
and at the same time to instruct Christians in their faith.

Gothic Sculpture
 Have greater freedom of style.
 No longer lay against walls but begun to project outward.
 Figures instead of being set into particular patterns.
 More lively and realistic.
Gothic Architecture
 Design includes two new devices:
Pointed Arch which enabled builders to construct much higher ceiling
vaults and Stone Vaulting borne on a network of stone ribs supported by
piers and clustered pillars.