Advice for Future Art History Students

Sorry this is late Mr. Lovell. I blame it on the senior trip and a lack of free internet connection.
Anyways, here is my advice for future art history students...
1) Take the class. It's interesting and makes you sound smart. People tend to believe your interpretations of art or architecture even if you are making stuff up. It's great.
2) Read the textbook. Sometimes I did it before class and was ahead, other times I was incredibly behind. I would advise to not get too far behind, but just read it at some time.
3) Don't put too much information on your notecards. I filled each notecard with writing and then didn't feel like re-reading what I wrote when I was studying. You need name of work, artist, where and when it's from, the period, and then include important information about that specific work. I also took notes in a notebook to summarize the different movements and write down historical information.
4) Review random sections during the year. Flip through notecards or buy a review book. My review book was from 2008, so the information about the AP test was incorrect, but the art history had not changed. It helped sum things up to aid me in distinguishing different artistic periods.

Overall, just do what Lovell tells you to do. Make notecards, study the notecards, read the textbook, come up with weird ways to remember each piece/artist. It works. Good luck.

Outside the European Tradition Blog #3

Select and fully identify two works of art that depict one or more women. The works must come from two different cultures, one of which must be from beyond the European tradition. Explain how each work reveals its culture's attitude about women.

In the Belau culture of Micronesia, Dilukai were common images of splayed female figures. The figures served as symbols of fertility and protection. They commonly surmounted the main entrances into the village’s men’s ceremonial houses. Although the men held the power in the Belau culture, women did have important symbolic and societal functions. Dilukai were created to protect the men’s houses—demonstrative of the power of women in Belau culture. The men created rituals--excluding women and taking place in the men’s ceremonial houses--to counteract the power of women—especially their power to procreate.

Jacques-Louis David’s painting of the Oath of the Horatii features men in its foreground, but the group of women on the right demonstrates the eighteenth century French’s views on women. With Enlightenment thought in mind, the French public associated men with the virtues of courage, patriotism, and loyalty. David used the despair of the women to foil the men’s patriotism and sacrifice. The women’s bodies are soft curvilinear shapes that contrast with the rigid, angular bodies of the men. The women’s faces are openly distraught over the event that is taking place, and their body language enhances their intense emotions. In a painting glorifying sacrifice and loyalty, the addition of a group of women shows the French culture’s view of women as being connected with emotions.

Outside the European Tradition Blog #2

Question: Many cultures use architecture to express or reinforce power and authority. Select and fully identify two works of architecture. The works must come from two different cultures, one of which must be from beyond the European tradition. Discuss how each work conveys power and authority.

The Iatmul people of Papua New Guinea lived in communities based on kinship. The men’s ceremonial house was the social center of the villages. The house was open only to men to discuss and lead their villages. The Iatmul ceremonial men’s house in East Sepik, Papua New Guinea is monumental compared to the houses in the village. Its size augments its political and cultural importance. The saddle-shaped roof of the house represents the ancestors’ protective mantle. Throughout the house’s interior and exterior decoration are symbols representing male and female ancestors. The comparatively immense size of the men’s house shows where the power belonged in the Iatmul society.

Like the Iatmul’s ceremonial men’s house, the palace that Louis XVI built at Versailles asserts the king’s power with its size. Versailles dwarfs the men’s house with its quarter mile long length. It took an army of architects, decorators, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects to create Louis’s greatest symbol of absolute power and authority. Along with the expansive palace, Louis also demanded the construction of a satellite city to house the palace’s workers and government officials. The construction of the palace ensured that all of his opponents would be under his supervision. The axes of the town further declare Louis’s power by intersecting in the king’s bedroom.

Outside the European Tradition Blog #1

Question: The human body is often highly stylized or abstracted in works of art. Fully identify two works of art in which the body has been highly stylized or abstracted. At least one of your choices must be a work from beyond the European tradition. Discuss how the stylization or abstraction of each figure is related to cultural and/or religious ideas.





The monumental moai on Easter Island in Polynesia mark burials or sacred sites. Both the faces and the bodies of the figures are stylized. The planar faces differ little throughout the line. With deep, large eyes, strong jaws, and long, straight noses, these huge statues are not individual portraits. The moai are generic images produced by the inhabitants of Easter Island. It was the belief of the Easter Islanders that spirits or gods could be housed in the huge statues. Although their true subject is still debated, most scholars agree that they portray ancestral chiefs. Thus, the monolithic statues bridge the roles of chief and god and the cosmic and natural worlds.


Pablo Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon is a pivotal work in art history, as it presented an entirely new method of representing forms in space. The bodies of the women depicted in the painting are not continuous shapes. They are broken into jagged parts that are intertwined with planes of drapery and empty space. His abstraction of their bodies creates a picture with incomprehensible space. The body of the woman on the right is so abstracted that it seems to be depicted in a combination of views. Picasso challenged the traditional method of painting what the eye sees with his new method of painting. With the advent of photography, painters were able to depart from paintings of visual realities, but Picasso took this new interest in experimentation further than changing colors to representing the human body in a new way.

Is She or Isn't She?

When I first looked at Jan van Eyck's painting Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride in my art history textbook, I was shocked by the scandal. A woman is pregnant before marriage in fifteenth century Flanders? The bride doesn't have one of those "is she or isn't she" stomachs; her stomach is clearly protruding. As I looked for an explanation, the book thankfully provided me with one. Giovanni's betrothed is actually not pregnant, but she is wearing a fashionable costume that makes it appear so. For some reason this trend has not come back into fashion, but van Eyck did spark other trends.

Jan van Eyck was the first Netherlandish painter to achieve international fame. He was also one of the Dutch masters who made oil painting popular. Oils allowed van Eyck to paint with incredible detail. Looking closely at Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride, his eye for detail can be seen. He carefully distinguished textures and depicted the effects of the light from the window. The convex mirror on the back wall is another important detail. The mirror not only shows Giovanni and his bride, but also two other figures. One of the figures is thought to be van Eyck himself.

The painting is also full of symbols. On the surface, it is a purely secular painting, but certain objects with religious undertones are also included. A pair of cast-aside clogs signify the event taking place on holy ground. The small dog represents fidelity (we get the common canine name Fido from the Latin "fido" meaning to trust). The finial (crowning ornament) on the bedpost is a small stature of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth. The single candle burning and the mirror symbolize God's all-seeing eye. All of the symbols convey the sanctity of the event and the holiness of matrimony.

With incredible detail and precision, Jan van Eyck revolutionized painting with the use of oils and the secular subject matter.

What is a pig's favorite ballet?

Answer: Swine Lake

When I think of ballet, I think of pink, tutus, and grace, but then I saw a preview for Black Swan. My previously positive views of ballet are now clouded by the creepy eyes and suspenseful music from the short 30 second trailer for the Golden Globe nominated movie. After watching the trailer, my mind was flooded with the horrors of my own ballerina days.

I was four years and doing a tap dance at the annual Christmas dance recital for Dotty's Dance Company. Everything was going smoothly until my kick ball change resulted in a stumble. Just as the cameraman zoomed in on me, I slipped onto my knee. With fierce determination, I got up off that floor and kept dancing while holding my injured knee. Flash-forward to third grade and I was struck by yet another dance catastrophe. While dancing to "We Got the Beat," I was on cloud nine. I was front row center and couldn't wait to show off my toe touch. Then, it happened. I didn't do my toe touch; I just jumped straight up. Tears welled in my eyes as I finished the dance with a look of sheer hatred on my face. It's a wonder that I made it through that.

Looking past the horrid memories of my life as a ballerina, I remember some happier memories. In second grade, my art class was given the assignment of drawing a ballerina imitating the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. To do so, the class needed a model, and I was honored to be chosen as the model for my class. Standing on the table frozen in a tendu, I became obsessed with Degas and his paintings of ballerinas.

Ten years later, I was able to view one of Degas' ballerina paintings in person. A few dedicated Art History students and I ventured to the Frist Center to hear a lecture and to view their latest exhibit, The Birth of Impressionism. One of Degas' famous paintings of his beloved ballerinas is "Ballet Rehearsal on the Set." The ballerinas are not posed or at the center of the composition; Degas arranged them in a seemingly random manner. The center is in fact void of any figures. The informal composition shows Degas' interest in capturing fleeting moments. Like other Impressionist painters, Degas did not focus on depicting minute details--the faces of the ballerinas are painted with little detail--, but rather on the effects of light and reproducing a single moment. The different poses of the ballerinas show that Degas was also intrigued by showing the moving human body in different positions.

Even with blurred lines, the random positioning of the dancers makes the painting look realistic. I recall many Tuesday nights at the barre practicing for hours, though we weren't allowed to wear big fun tutus in our rehearsals. Degas will always hold a special place in my heart for giving me the chance to be the center of attention in my second grade art class.

Family Ties

In the world of art, artists tend to run in clans. Will Smith's family is full of rising actors and singers, the Cyrus's all enjoy to be in the spotlight, and there is even an art to the Kardashian family. Back in 13th-century Italy, there was another family full of artistic talent--the Pisano family. Nicola Pisano was a famous sculpture whose work shows a clear interest in classical forms. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II encouraged a revival of the past glory of Rome, which inspired artists. Nicola Pisano was one of these artists. He studied in Sicily or southern Italy before moving north and settling into Pisa--an excellent profitable commissions.

The pulpit of Pisa Cathedral baptistery is perhaps one of Nicola Pisano's most famous works. The pulpit shows lingering of medieval traditions: the trilobed arches and the lions that support some of the columns. Rather than employ only medieval elements, Nicola also integrated many classical components too. He added Gothic variations of the Corinthian capital, rounded arches, and large rectangular panels of relief.

In one panel, titled The Annunciation and the Nativity, densely packed large-scale figures resemble the composition of panels on Roman sarcophagi. The way that Mary is reclined is similar to the lid figures on both Etruscan and Roman sarcophagi. The faces, the beards, the hair styles, and the drapery are all clearly inspired by Roman relief sculpture. The bulk and weight of the figures also connect Nicola Pisano's representation to classical reliefs.

Nicola Pisano's son also happened to be a sculptor, and he created a relief panel of the same name--The Annunciation and the Nativity. Giovanni Pisano's panel was part of the pulpit of Sant'Andrea at Pistoia and was completed about 40 years after his father's. Giovanni's figures differ from the weighty, tranquil figures of his father. His figures are loose and dynamic with an excited energy that provides a sense of motion. The characters react to the action in the scene, and they all share a sense of spiritual passion from the miraculous events. Unlike his father's, Giovanni's figures are slender, enfolded by twisting draperies, and full of emotions.

Though they share family ties, there representations of the same scene differ greatly. As Nicola Pisano is an excellent example of the revived interest in classical works, Giovanni Pisano represents the developing movement of naturalism. Perhaps, Giovanni wanted to rebel against his father or not be classed alongside him, but either way he helped in the movement towards naturalistic representation.

Sadly, Daffy has no artistic talents, and Tommy is a more athletic than artistic type. Without any trace or hint of art in my genes, I have to take Art History as my art in order to graduate (not complaining Mr. Lovell...just saying).