Ancient art forms

Ancient Art Forms College From the ancient times to humans have been using art as a way of expressing difference on how they live, how they perceive the world and any other concepts in life that can be expressed through art. Ancient art forms from the great civilizations such as the Greek and the Roman empires have been preserved in some of the world’s largest museums such as the Louvre museum, the Smithsonian Institution Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I am going to pick two ancient art forms from each of the three museums, compare and contrast them and give a detailed explanation of them (Polit 67).
Starting with the metropolitan museum I will look at the Statuette of an African also known as Ethiopian. It is from the ancient Greek empire. It is a three dimensional statuette, black in color and its subject matter is the African man. It sought to represent the African people as they were perceived by the Greeks at the time. The statuette was made during the period that the Greeks first started doing trade with the Africans in the 7th century BC. It is also referred to as the Ethiopian because at the time the Greeks considered all Africans to Ethiopians. From the same museum I am going to look at the statuette of a woman. Made in 1st century B. C out of limestone, the statute represents a female wearing tunic with a cloak drawn over her head. It belongs to a collection of Late Hellenistic works in which the pieces represents the “ Herculaneum Maiden” a term used to refer to figures of draped females. These work and other “ Herculaneum Maiden” works represents the way female Greeks dressed at the time (Polit 56).
From the Louvre museum I will look at the Stele of a master craftsman. The stele is made out of limestone. It was found in a place called Abydos where many Egyptians went for pilgrimage. The stele has fifteen lines of hieroglyphic text covering its body. It symbolizes the Egyptian ritual of pilgrimage. There are religious images below the text that symbolize the Egyptian practice of making offerings to their gods and goddesses. In the same museum we have the ‘ Spoon in the form of a bound ibex”. It is curved out of tamarisk wood. It is a spoon with an animal body sculpture. The animal body represented is a Nubian Ibex which is a desert animal. It represents the Egyptian Environment which is primarily a desert and the Egyptian culture of being animal hunters (Harrison 38).
Finally I will highlight works from the Smithsonian Institution Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery. First I look at A Journey to Xiangtangshan. This is a stone sculpture carved into the mountains in northern China. They represent a moment of glory of the Qi (“ Chee”) dynasty as they were curved to mark the achievements of the dynasty. The mountains are covered with limestone and as a result the sculpture was curved out of limestone. Finally from the same institution, I go through the “ Fresco”. It is a rock painting found in the Ajanta caves in India. It represents the way of life at the time of the people in India, their belief and cultural practices (Kleiner 45).
Works Cited
Polit, Jerome, J. The ancient art of Greece: sources and documents. London: Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
Harrison, Jane, E. Ancient Art and Ritual. New York: InfoBase publishing, 2007.
Kleiner, Fred. Art through the Ages. New Jersey: Cengage Learning, 1998.