Online Study Guide Chapter 15

Online Study Guide Chapter 15

Art imitates, admires, and judges the world around us. This chapter will consider art relating to nature, knowledge, and technology. Art helps record and further our study of the natural world and of technology. Modern inventions have made our lives easier, but artist have also begun to look at the negative impact technology has inflicted on our planet.

Nature includes all of the earth's flora and fauna.
Animals
The first known example of art made by humans feature animals. Animals are studied, admired, feared, and used for food and human companionship. Animals have been widely used in all cultures as symbols for humans, human nature, and other aspects of the world at large. Humans have also invented fantastic creatures for these same purposes.
Fantastic Creatures
Fantastic creatures are usually amalgamations of human and animal features, and are created from the human imagination out of desire and fear.
Figure 15-1, Relief, Olmec culture, Mexico, 6th century BC, Basalt, 38.5 inches high.
A warrior or priest wears a helmet resembling the fierce serpent-bird hovering over him.
1. Olmec standing-figure relief
Figure 15-2, The Unicorn in Captivity, from a series of six tapestries entitled "Hunt of the Unicorn," French or Flemish, from the Château of Verteuil, late 15th century.
The unicorn was a popular creature in Medieval religious and secular folklore. Unicorns symbolized Jesus Christ as well as chivalrous love.
1. Another image from the Unicorn series
Figure 15-3, Shaman's Amulet, Tlingit, Alaska/British Columbia, ca. 1820-1850, Sperm whale tooth, 6.5 inches long.
The Shaman's Amulet serves to symbolize and augment the holy man's power as a link between human, animal, and spirit forces. Qualities of the various animals depicted on the amulet are imparted onto the wearer.
1. Tlingit Shaman's Mask
Figure 15-4, Mask of Hanuman, Thailand, mother of pearl, gilt, gems and other materials.
In Thailand, monkeys often are metaphors for humans, who aspire to be gods. This magnificent mask represents a monkey hero from Hindu legends.
1. Mask of Hanuman, Thailand, from the National Museum of Bangkok
Figure 15-5, Chris Ofili. Monkey Magic – Sex, Money and Drugs. Acrylic, collage, glitter, resin, pencil, map pins, and elephant dung on canvas, 96" x 72". Great Britian, 1999. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
1. Chris Ofili on Artnet
Observed Animals
The depiction of animals without embellishment in art is sometimes created for the admiration of their beauty and their abilities. At other times, art about animals expresses the desire to dominate other living creatures.
Figure 15-6, Ashurbanipal II Killing Lions, Assyria, from the Palace of Ashurbanipal, Ninevah, c. 650 BC, limestone relief, approximately 60 inches high.
Reliefs of royal lion hunts lining the Assyrian palace walls boast of the king's skill and bravery. The lions are skillfully rendered, conveying strength and majesty even in death.
1. Arts of Archaemenians
2. Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions, from the Palace of Ashurbanipal, Ninevan
Figure 15-7, Spider. Large drawing created when brown surface rocks were scraped away to reveal yellowish surface below. Nazca, Peru, c. 200-600.
1. Other drawing from Nazca, Peru.
Figure 15-8, Vessel in the Form of a Monkey, Veracruz, Mexico, 800-900, clay, 8.5 inches tall.
This sculptural vessel features a spider monkey that has a rattle inside the vessel to imitate the monkey's chatter. Mesoamericans kept monkey as pets, and they are mentioned in many of their myths.
1. Examine the Veracruz polychrome jaguar from the Late Classic period
The Land
This section will focus on four types of art featuring the land: 1) land imagery in painting and photography; 2) planned gardens and cultivated flowers; 3) earth used as sculptural material; and 4) art that addresses ecological concerns.
Landscape Imagery
Landscapes in art are often idealized and carry social or religious significance. Landscapes became increasingly popular as urbanization spread.
Figure 15-9, Beyond the Solitary Bamboo Grove, from an album of six leaves, Sheng Maoye, Landscapes inspired by Tang Poems, China, 1625-1640, ink and colors on silk, 11.25" x 12".
Landscapes became popular among the wealthy and the middle class living in crowded cities. Chinese landscape paintings are often paired with poetry and are enjoyed for its reflection of Daoist principles.
1. Autumn Landscape, Sheng Maoye
2. Landscape Painted on the 40th Birthday, Tang Yin, from the Ming Dynasty
Figure 15-10, The Haywain, John Constable, England, 1821, oil on canvas, 51 x 74 inches.
Constable's painting reflects ideas about healthy country living, private property rights, scientific study of light and weather, and Romanticism.
1. The Haywain, John Constable, England
2. Another version of Constable's The Haywain
Figure 15-11, Claude Monet. Water Lily Pool. Oil on canvas. France, 1900. The Art Institute of Chicago.
1. Biography of Claude Monet.
Figure 15-12, Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California, 1944, Ansel Adams, U.S.A., Photograph.
United States artists focused on the uncultivated, untouched majesty of the American frontier. Adams was a virtuoso in producing grand and romantic prints of the West, and his work helped create support for national parks.
1. Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California, Ansel Adams
Flowers and Gardens
Flowers and gardens have many symbolic meanings. Art about flowers often represents fertility, fleeting beauty, mortality, love, peace, sexuality, or nature. Gardens are living sculptures that express harmony or control of humans with or over nature. They also often symbolize wealth or paradise.
Figure 15-13, Apricot Blossoms, Ma Yuan, China, early 13th century, album leaf with ink and color on silk, height 10 inches.
Ma Yuan was a court painter. This painting was paired with a poem written by the EmpressYang.
1. Other Song Dynasty Artworks
Figure 15-14, Little Bouquet in a Clay Jar, by Jan Bruegel, Flanders, c. 1599, oil on panel, 20 x 15.75 inches.
Bruegel may have masterfully recorded the likeness of flowers observed in real life, but this bouquet never existed. He combined flowers that did not bloom at the same time or grew in different locales in his compositions.
1. Collection of Jan Bruegel images
Figure 15-15, Babur Supervising the Layout of the Garden of Fidelity, Bishndas, with portraits by Nanha, Mughal India, c. 1590, manuscript painting, gold and gouache on paper, 21.9 x 14.4 cm.
Emperor Babur built many gardens throughout his land. Islamic gardens often represent Paradise. A waterway channeled water in four perpendicular directions, dividing the garden into squares. (See also figures 2.20)
1. Detailed image of Babur at court, from a Mughal manuscript
2. View of Babur Supervising the Layout of the Garden of Fidelity
Figure 15-16, Ryoan-ji Zen Garden of Contemplation, Daiju-in Monastery, Kyoto, Japan, c. 1488-1499.
The Japanese Zen garden reflects the Zen Buddhist concept of the cosmos. Visitors do not enter the garden but view it from the edges for meditative purposes.
1. Ryoan-ji Zen Garden
2. The Zen Garden at Ryoan-ji
Earthworks and Site Pieces
Figure 15-17, Serpent (or Snake), near Locust Grove, Ohio, Native American, c. 900-1300, earthen sculpture, 1,400 feet long.
North Americans created large-scale ceremonial sculptures of mounded earth.
1. Image of the Great Serpent Mound, Ohio
Figure 15-18, Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson, Great Salt Lake, Utah, U.S.A., 1970, black rocks, salt, earth, red water, algae, 1,500 feet long.
Earthworks make the surrounding environment part of the artwork. Smithson constructed a huge, earthen spiral extending out into the Great Salt Lake. He was interested in moving art outside of traditional venues.
1. Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson, Great Salt Lake, Utah
Figure 15-19, Lightning Field, Walter de Maria, New Mexico, U.S.A., 1971-1977, 400 stainless steel poles, averaging 20 feet tall, in a land area one mile by one kilometer.
This installation looks very different dependent upon seasonal and weather conditions. Lightning strikes only occasionally on the remote field, making the piece exist primarily through photographs and conceptually as an idea of electrifying potential.
1. Lightning Field, Walter de Maria, New Mexico, USA
Ecological Concerns
Figure 15-20, The Social Mirror, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, U.S.A., 1983, New York city garbage truck covered with mirrors and reflective acrylic trim.
By installing large mirrors to the sides of a New York City garbage truck, the artist used the city streets and residents as his material to literally reflect upon urban waste.
1. The Social Mirror, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, USA

Art contributes to a civilization's body of knowledge about ourselves and about the world. This section will look at informative images, images about intuitive knowledge, and critiques of knowledge.
Informative Images
Figure 15-21, The Fourth Plate of Muscles, from De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, Flanders, published 1543, engraving.
Vesalius' detailed anatomical illustrations of human dissections are considered the beginning of modern medicine. The Classically posed figure stands as if still alive, producing a beautiful and gruesome image.
1. Images from De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Andreas Vesalius
Figure 15-22, Carolina Parroquet, Original for Plate #26 of Birds of America, John James Audubon, U.S.A., 1827-1838, watercolor, 29.5 x 21.25 inches.
Audubon's book of birds is based on his original watercolor paintings. Carolina Parroquet is an example of an aesthetically beautiful print that also educates viewers.
1. Carolina Parroquet, from Birds of America, John James Audubon, USA
Figure 15-23, Hunter and Kangaroo, Oenpelli, from Arnhem Land, Australia, c. 1913, paint on bark, 51 x 32 inches.
The aboriginal painting serves as an educational and perhaps a spiritual aid. Indicating the location of a kangaroo's internal organs helps hunters with the kill.
1. Hunter and Kangaroo, Oenpelli, from Arnhem Land, Australia
Figure 15-24, Current, Bridget Riley, Great Britain, 1964, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, approximately 58.5 inches square.
The undulating curves of Riley's disorienting pattern demonstrate the scientific principles of optics.
1. Splice, Bridge Riley
Art and Intuited Knowledge
Knowledge includes an exploration of the personal, internal realm of the mind and spirit. It is not necessarily rational or ordered.
Figure 15-25, The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, Spain, 1941, oil on canvas, 9.5 x 13 inches.
Surrealist artists like Dali tried to give form to the dream world of subconscious fear and desire. Watches, humanmade devices used to keep order, lie limp and useless in this fantastic yet plausibly rendered landscape.
1. The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, Spain
Figure 15-26, Green, Red, Blue, Mark Rothko, U.S.A., 1955, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 77.75 inches.
Rothko layered thin"veils" of paint to create abstract patches of color that seem to glow. Rothko attempted to express the sublime through color.
1. View another Mark Rothko work
The Critique of Learning
Figure 15-27, Gods of the Modern World, José Clemente Orozco, Mexico, 1932-1934, Fresco, located at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 126 x 176 feet.
Orozco satarizes the sterility and esotericism of academia.
1. Gods of the Modern World, Jose Clemente Orozco, fresco at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
2. Katharsis, Jose Clemente Orozco
Figure 15-28, Breaking of the Vessels, Anselm Kiefer, Germany, 1990, lead, iron, wire, charcoal and aquatec, height 17 feet.
Breaking of the Vessels alludes to the fact that all human endeavors are cyclical in nature, and subject to periods of decline. The installation also references the Kristallnacht, when Nazis destroyed Jewish communities in riots in 1938.
1. Nachtschatten, Anselm Kiefer

Technological Advances
Technology brings positive and negative consequences.
Figure 15-29, Farm Scene, China, Sung dynasty, c. 1000-1240, ink and color on silk.
Inventions of human innovation have existed for a long time. Water pumps, bridges, boats, and fishing poles harmoniously exist with humans and the natural environment in this Sung dynasty painting.
1. View a similar image from the Sung dynasty
2. A Scholar in His Study, a Sung dynasty painting
Figure 15-30, The City, Fernand Léger, France, 1919, oil on canvas, 90.75 x 117.25 inches.
Inspired by the forms, sounds and rhythm of the Industrial Revolution, Léger painted a tight jumble of geometric shapes and bright colors reminiscent of a big city.
1. The City, Fernand Leger, France
Figure 15-31, Cubi XXVI, David Smith, U.S.A., 1965, steel, approximately 10 x 12.5 x 2.3 feet.
Smith uses industrial materials and fabrication techniques to produce heavy, geometric sculptures of simple, precise forms. Cubi XXVI suggests the impersonality and movement of machines.
1. National Gallery of Art Sculptur Garden
2. See CubI XXVI from another view
Evaluating the Constructed World
Figure 15-32, The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to Her Last Berth To Be Broken Up, Joseph Mallord William Turner, England, 1838, oil on canvas, 35.25 x 48 inches.
Turner eulogizes the passing of archaic sailing ships. The romanticized seascape is marred by the blackened smudge of a newer steam-powered ship.
1. The Fighting"Temeraire" Tugged to Her Last Berth To Be Broken Up, Joseph Mallord William Turner, England
Figure 15-33, Homage to New York: A Self-Constructing, Self-Destructing Work of Art, Jean Tinguely, Swiss, 1960.
Junkyard machine parts are rigged together to create a useless machine that unpredictably self-destructs. Tinguely backhandedly celebrates the frenetic dynamism of the most populous city in the United States. (See also figure 2.327)
1. Homage to New York: A Self-Constructing, Self-Destructing Work of Art, Jean Tinguely, Swiss
Figure 15-34, Megatron (three views), Nam June Paik, in collaboration with Shuya Abe, Korea, 1995, eight-channel video and two-channel sound installation in two parts, overall size 3.62 x 10.1 x .6 meters.
A barrage of dislocated images is flashed on over 200 television monitors. The abrupt juxtapositions of modern sensory overload are also potentially liberating and constructive.
1. Megatron mediascape view by Nam June Paik