Marcus' History of Art

  Image: https://www.trtworld.com/turkey/hagia-sophia-will-be-called-a-mosque-erdogan-25317      Hagia Sophia was built in the year 537 as the patriarchal cathedral for the capital of Constantinople, and was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman empire. It served as a center of religious, political, and artistic life for the Byzantine world and has provided us with many useful scholarly insights into the period. It was also an important site of Muslim worship after Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and turned the cathedral into a mosque. There are few buildings throughout history that change the way we look at architecture, and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of those buildings. The land of which this building resides, was previously inhabited by the Roman Empire, and before that the Greeks. This product of the 6 th century is recognized worldwide for its ambition, scale, and most importantly its design. Instead of them engineering...

  Pictured: https://smarthistory.org/two-royal-figures-saljuq-period/                   Two Royal figures are pieces of Islamic art that come from the mid-11 th -12 th century, that can be found today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Looking back at the few recent posts on my blog, we saw how art was supposed to follow the guidelines of not representing the human body with 3D sculptural pieces.   While the fact of that matter remains true in a lot of cases, early Islamic art enforced that rule for art in mosques and religious spaces, but for the normal citizen, all bets for art are off.                 The Two Royal Figures are made from stucco, a soft cement like material that is easy to mold and then carve afterwards. The material is also rather light, which makes it a easy material to use and hang o...

      The Prayer Niche or, Mihrab, can be found inside Islamic mosque. The mosque is defined as a place of ritual prostration, or place of worship. This work of religious architectural decoration is arguably one of the most significant art pieces from the Islams early religious practices. The photo to the right comes from the year 1250, but the earliest Mihrabs date back to as early as 750, which was during the expansion of the Umayyad Dynasty.  Pictured:  https://smarthistory.org/arts-of-the-islamic-world-the-medieval-period/ The prayer niche' are always made in the name of Muhammad, and always point toward the direction of mecca, the land of Muhammad's birth. The Mihrab has such a significant purpose to it's people because of its power to indicate Muslim presence through prayer. The prayer niche is build into a wall, as it has tile work designs, and in front of the niche is a rug placed on the ground. The rug is where they kneel on all fours, an...

  Photo: https://smarthistory.org/early-christian-art/ As the Roman Empire fell into decline, early Christian art came to popular the Roman area because in times of hardship, this new religious practice gave the people the faith and assurance they so desperately needed. The previous art of the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks had us in way, focused on sculptures. The old testament prohibited the creation of art in relation to religious imagery. Early Christians found a way around the old testaments' prohibition of creating religious imagery. Instead they prohibited only sculptures, or any 3D image that would represent a god, making paintings, relief sculptures and other mediums okay with a relation to religion.      The image above comes from the Catacomb of Domitilla, and the Catacombs were a late practice to the Roman culture when they started burying their dead instead of cremation. The early Christian converts wanted to use the same practice with the deceased...

   Picture: https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-ancient-roman-art/      Does this type of sculpture look familiar to you? If not, it should if you have seen art from both the Romans and Greeks. The Romans adapted a substantial amount of their art practices from the Greeks as the Roman empire spanned across the lands of Greece, Egypt and beyond. In fact we see Greek sculptures of Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus and so many other using this same marble type material.      When viewing Roman art, it is important to note that they often copied popular sculptures from earlier artist! However it wasn't frowned upon by the people at this time for the artist to do so, they did not believe that a copy of a piece presented any less value than the original because they were more so variations rather then direct copies.          The Romans and their art introduced a new form of expression that we haven't seen up until...

Everybody knows about the civilization of Ancient Rome, but there was an important civilization to control that area prior to Romans reign. The Etruscan people controlled almost the entire peninsula we now call Italy. A  vanished culture whose achievements set the stage not only for the development of ancient Roman art and cul ture but for the It alian Renaissance as well. In fact, we only really know about the Etruscan cultur e because of their artwork and  https://smarthistory.org/the-etruscans-an-introduction/ remains they left in bu rial tombs. Arguably the greatest legacy of their civilization was their beautifully painted tombs. These paintings represent lively and colorful scenes from the mythology of the Etruscan, their daily life, heraldic figures, and on a rare occasion, even the tombs deceased's life was depicted on the walls. These paintings were the core reason we were able to learn about their culture and helped us make out a rough structure of their lifestyle an...

      The temple of Athena Nike is the smallest temple at the Acropolis in Athens(of the four temples at the Acropolis). Pictured: (https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/12881046455/in/photostream/lightbox/) Its construction was completed in the year 420 B.C.E. The temple, as with all Greek temples, was considered a home of deity which was represented in its statue. This was not a place where regular people. Believers simply used this place to perform rituals in the front of the temple.The privilege of the temple was reserved for the priestesses, who had a respected position in the Greek society. Placed on the southwest corner, this temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, in relation to her powers of victory. The victory was likely connected to the Greeks victory over the Persians about 50 years earlier. Athena, who herself usually has wings, was sculpted here with no wings to represent her never leaving Greece and her people.      The temple was a...

    Gate of all Nations, Persepolis (photo:  youngrobv , CC BY-NC 2.0) .  https://smarthistory.org/persian-art-an-introduction/     The image shown is the Gate of All nations, made famous by the Persian empire during it's time. Taking place in today's Iran, the image alone shows us similar styles to the artwork that the Egyptians would use, and that is because the Persians adapted a lot of the Egyptian life and for good reason as they were one of the most successful civilizations to ever exist. However it wasn't very common at this point in history for other cultures to adapt different aspects of life from other one another. Persia was the first empire to be know as a "tolerant empire".       "   Persia was the first empire known to have acknowledged the different faiths, languages and political organizations of its subjects. ", said DR. Senta German from smithhistory.com . The Persians also had other ...

  https://smarthistory.org/ancient-egypt-an-introduction/ This is an image of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, Old Kingdom, c. 2675-2625 B.C.E.  Although this image may not look like a lot to most of us, the impact that the Egyptians had on later cultures was immense. The Egyptians are arguably responsible for the traditions that we see through out the history of the Greeks, Romans, and even influenced western tradition. Even until this day, you can find traces of Egyptian imagery, concepts and ideas from architectural ideas to the currency of our country. To put things in  perspective, the 3000+ years that the Egyptian culture lasted, is 15 times the amount that of the United States. What makes the pyramids so impressive is the fact that according to, " Ancient Egypt, an Introduction", written by Dr. Amy Calvert, "  It took humans nearly 4000 years to build something–anything–taller than the Great Pyramids. Contrast that span to t...