The Fisherman and the Chariot Krater

Week Five: Aegean Art

The work titled The Fisherman isn’t too hard to identify as Minoan since the Historywiz website identifies him as such.  The point is: how would an art historian who discovered such a fresco determine that is indeed Minoan?  

This mural depicts a nude young man or adolescent male holding up his catch of fish for the viewer.  The fish are identified in the caption as mackerel or tuna which are likely to be found in the sea rather than in a river, are painted in bright colors and overlap each other in a realistic way.  The pose of the fisherman shows some Egyptian composite elements, the figure is mostly in profile but the eyes are frontal.  The torso is turned toward the viewer but isn’t entirely frontal, as it might be shown in Egyptian art, though this scene doesn’t depict an important person so the composite pose might not have been used in any case.  The figure is realistic with the arms attached to the shoulders in a natural manner and the chest appearing to overlap the arm to the left of the scene.  The young man is slender and his waist is small but he doesn’t show the extreme nipped in waist as do most Minoan depictions of the human form however it is narrower than most depictions of Egyptian males.

The theme of this fresco struck me as similar to a work that we have seen in the book of the Girl Gathering Saffron Crocus Flowers on page 81.  Both the figures have shaved heads, which may be growing out, and youth locks, which are definitely similar details.  They also have a natural but mainly profile pose with narrow waists and the frontal eye position.  It’s as if they are an equivalent pair, she is gathering her flowers as a preliminary preparation for her rite of passage into adulthood and he is showing his ability to provide for a family with his successful catch. That the fish are seagoing species also points toward the Aegean Islands rather than the Nile. (When I checked, these works turned out to be from the same Aegean Island town of Akrotiri on Thera.) 

The other work is the Terracotta Chariot Krater which has been identified by the Metropolitan Museum of art as Helladic Mycenaean Late Helladic 1300-1230 BCE.  (I went through their website to print an image of it because I couldn’t get a good one through Flickr.)

This krater of fired pottery is very regularly shaped and appears to have been formed on a potter’s wheel.  There are two handles, each fixed to opposite sides to the rim and to the flared body of the piece.  The foot on the bottom is small but sufficient for the krater to stand upright without additional support.  It’s difficult to tell if the decoration is painted light on dark or dark on light but I will assume dark on light. The decorative figures are painted on to the clay in a very stylized, regimented manner with no overlapping.  A horse is pulling a chariot with two people in it, one appearing to be driving, with a passenger.  A figure that appears to be female stands behind the chariot.  All the human figures have wide open mouths and all have wide open, round eyes, even the horse.  The figures are decorated with dots and horizontal lines and spirals indicate breasts on the female figure.  In the same register band with the figures there are other columnar shapes. These columns have patterns of dots at their tops that may be flames.  There are wide bands of color at the top and bottom of the krater and narrower stripes immediately under the figures and in the narrower, lower parts of this vessel. 

Probably the main indicator of Mycenaean origin is the painted on decorative figures which are unlike the Minoan style of decorating such vessels by carving (see the Minoan Harvester Rhyton on page 89 and the Mycenaean Warrior Krater on page 99 of our textbook).  The poses of the figures are much more stylized and simple than the Egyptian art that we have studied.  The Mycenaeans seem to want to portray the emotions of a scene rather than concentrating on lifelike representations or glorifying their rulers.

Week four Post: Egypt

Art History Blog for Week Four

Egyptian Art: Conventions and Creativity

The art of Egypt obeyed conventions that very often left the human body portrayed in a stiff, unrealistic manner.  The figures representing gods and rulers are larger than the others which follows notions of hierarchic scale and conveys the importance of the leaders.  It was discovered that the figures were laid down with a grid of squares as a guide with the proportions of the torso and legs to the shoulder occupying 16 squares of height, the shoulders themselves are six squares of width, the arms are seven squares long and the heads are three squares high.  The grid may have added to the stiffness of the figures though this canon of proportions was followed as an ideal in medieval art as well.  The conventions of Egyptian art also decreed that important people be posed so that their faces were in profile, except the eyes which were frontal.  Also, the torso was frontal but the hips, legs and feet were in profile.  Servants and animals would appear smaller and were often naturally depicted in realistic poses.   

What we think of as good art and what we regard as creative art are, or can be, two separate concepts.  The art of Egypt survived stylistically unchanged for thousands of years.  It was probably necessary for the artist to follow the conventions to work for rulers and priests when decorating tombs and temples.  Like the art of medieval churches, the path to the afterlife along with other religious and political concepts were drawn out in stylized, conventional ways to tell their stories to an illiterate population.  There is a restful beauty in art that obeys the conventions and styles that are current in an era.  We often prefer the familiar and in a stable society there may be no impetus to change.  This seems to be the case in Ancient Egypt.   Societies that supported scribes usually had low rates of literacy; the priests, scholars and some of the nobility were usually the only people able to read.  There is a lot of hieroglyphic writing in temples and tombs but there is no way of knowing if artists put it there or how much of it they understood.  Artists may have been among the priests, scholars, much like scribes, or they could have been slaves who were taught to write.

 It was within convention for Egyptian artists to be able to portray certain elements of their work naturalistically.  The creativity that they show is not so much in the figures they draw as it is in the composition of the areas of the work surrounding the main subjects.  Creativity means, at least to me, the ability to come up with something that hasn’t been done or seen before.  Following conventions, whether of realistic or unrealistic forms, isn’t as creative as being able to conceive of a completely new idea.  New ideas often aren’t considered to be art at first because people don’t understand the new forms.  In fact, it’s only when the new idea becomes established as a convention that it will be considered to be real art by most members of any society.  New modes shake people up and create or depict instability.  Creative or not, ancient art is still important to modern society because of the stories it tells. We have some answers to our questions about how ancient people were like and unlike us.   We know something about those who lived 4,000 years ago because of the art with which they decorated their monuments.  

Week Three Post

Art of the Ancient Near East

Week #3 Post: Formal Analysis of the Guardian Figures of Gate A of the Citadel of Sargon II

The gates of the palaces of ancient rulers often were guarded by figures carved in stone.  These figures could depict local guardian deities as powerful beasts such as lions and bulls, images of rulers of the past or perhaps a mixture of these.  Much of the time they were very large to show the strength and wealth of the ruler.  The ruler could have been trying to intimidate rivals in this way.  Animals and hybrids had symbolic meanings, something like modern football mascots, except warriors fought and died for their ruler’s power and territory.  One area, era or ruling family could identify lions as their guardian spirit and another would identify with the bull.   The figures could have had sharp teeth or a terrifying snarl but the figures that guarded gate A of the Citadel of Sargon represent a benevolent strength, not one meant to terrify.

The massive sculptures are carved in high to medium relief from stone to make their presence felt as independent beings and yet they were part of the gate they guarded.   Most of the lines of the figures are reassuringly rounded and curved with only a few straight lines.  The hooves and legs of the figures are quite obviously bovine and sturdy, realistically carved, rooted in place from the front view but the side view is of a bull’s body walking with a certain ponderous delicacy.   This illusion is accomplished by adding a fifth leg which is not too noticeable from a straight frontal view; as the opposite foreleg isn’t visible from the side.  The rhythmic impression of them is something like a lane of small tree trunks.  The stone-carver(s) knew that their sculpture would be viewed at a greater distance and for more time as one approached the gate.  The figures then would be observed with more concentration on details as a passer-by came alongside of the figures.  The bulls’ decorative trappings are for festival rather than war as they resemble bells, pompoms or bits of jingling metal instead of armor.  The tail seems like a decorated tassel rather than the utilitarian fly-swatter of the real animal.   The feathers of the wings are quite delicately carved of a low relief and the wings are extended, yet this creature doesn’t look as if it will take flight, it’s more as if it is opening its wings to protect those who come through the entrance of the palace.

The upper parts of the figures show somewhat more weathering than the lower parts since it is likely that the sand or soil that was excavated from the site covered and protected the lower sections for more time.   The human, bearded male faces are sculpted as if growing from the figures in about the place a bull’s head would be in nature.  They look down on those approaching with a neutral, tolerant expression the mouths do not smile or frown.  The eyes are wide open and watchful but not very expressive otherwise. The crown is encircled by triple horns that appear to surround the brow in much the style of some larger turbans such as modern Sikhs still wear.  There is a kind of decorative head covering below the horns.  The beard appears curled or braided in the usual beard-style of that era but may be extended or decorated by horizontal lines.   There is a chest piece below the head which might be an ornamental piece or the curling hair of a bull’s throat.

These sculptures, with their combination of Earthly solidity carved from stone and the implied lightness of the winged figure are meant to convey a sense of security and safety to those entering the citadel.  The large size, bull’s strength and the watchful but benevolent expression of the human faces reassure those coming through the gate that the feathers of the figures’ wings will shield them from harm.     The non-war-like aspect of the figures’ decoration also reassured a closer observer.  The leg’s position and the fact that there were five of them meant that the figures were meant to be seen from directly in front and directly from the side without any other angles considered.  It was necessary for the artists to do this because they wanted the effect of motion flowing away from the viewer once he or she had passed to the side of the figure to emphasize the non-threatening pose.