Ancient Roman vs Early Christian

                      

                      This is a picture of the Ancient Roman Building of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Most of all the Ancient Roman buildings have the Corinthian Order columns. This was a traditional formation of the buildings and they were all built for a particular reason, for example this building being built in the memory of the Gemini Twins which is basis of the name. These buildings were built with blinding white veneer (marble at times) made of concrete and brick. They were all built very close to one another and in the same area and built with the idea of political propaganda in mind supporting public use. An example of public use is explained with the Temple of Vesta being used for the legal wills and documents of Roman Senators and cult objects. All of these are circular buildings unlike the bulk of other Roman architectural structures that are built in squares and some long and rectangular. Many of the sculptures made by the Ancient Romans were used for propaganda as well, but were mainly focused on a message or an idea. The Ancient Romans took on the similar architectural type of the Greeks, but they did begin to create their own types of structures, such as the arch and vaults, which continued on in the later years of Roman architecture.

                          This is a picture of the Church of San Vitale. This is a perfect example of the architectural structure of the early Christian churches. They have claristory windows, which are windows at the highest level of the building. These windows are used to allow light in from the upper level giving the whole church a heavenly lighting set. The buildings are usually darker on the upper level and then lighter on the lower levels, so the church is even brighter as the light makes its way down to the lower level. I personally believe that is what gives it a more heavenly feel. The ceiling is a high vaulted one, which adds to the depth of the lighting because that allows the light to come into the building and rise and then down into the lower level making it look like it is coming straight from the sky. There are mainly two types of building types: longitudinal building plan and central plan buildings. This church is a central building plan that is used to commemorate the death of a saint or as a baptistery. These central plan buildings are very tall being made sturdy on the inside by Corinthian columns leading to an altar in a long nave, which is roofed with a dome. The dome is believed to be the weakest part of these types of buildings because the windows are what’s holding them up. The two types of domes are domes on pendentives and domes on squinches, and this particular church is a dome on squindels. That allows for a different lighting and the reason for the look of having so much space.

                        These two are very similar type architectural structures. They both have buildings that are both longitudinal and central plan building types. They also both have some scenes in buildings and churches that symbolize similar types of scenes. One example of that is when we see the first baths of the emperors in Roman architectural art and the first bath of Christ in the early Christian architectural art. This is also seen with the Ancient Roman art we saw with the emperor and his followers in an organized fashion with all of their togas on and the emperor being the one in the middle with his hood on, and in early Christian art we see Emperor Justinian and his Attendants, which is in the Church of Vitale (above) and is so similar to the art I just explained from Ancient Rome. Another reason that they are similar is because of the fact that they both were inspired by the empires that came before them, Ancient Roman architecture was inspired by the Ancient Greeks and the early Christian architecture was inspired by the Ancient Romans. When one is inspired by the other, they basically take on that same exact style, but make it fit with the past and present of their particular empire. An example of this being the Ancient Romans giving their own flavor to the Ancient Greeks architecture by creating vaults and arches, and then following that the early Christian architectural structures adopting that and creating domes that have arches to hold them up and vaulted ceilings in the central plan building churches. This is just something that they all naturally do and it is really proven with the Ancient Romans and the early Christians.

Visit to the Parthenon

In this photo one is able to see the top of the Doric columns on the exterior of the Parthenon as well as the acroterion which is the winged figure which sits at the edge of the roof on the corner. One can also see the metope which is the space with the red background and smaller sculptural pieces (the man riding the horse for example). The triglyph is the ridged part in between the metopes. The architrave is the empty space in between the Doric columns and the repetitive metope, triglyph area also known as the Doric frieze.

Doric frieze- This is the area below the pediments and above the architrave and Doric columns. This is a repetitious section of metopes and triglyphs.

Metope- This is the decorative space in between two triglyphs in the Doric frieze section of the building.

Triglyph- These are the vertically channeled ridges separating the metopes in the Doric frieze.

This is a picture that shows the Doric columns that are found on the entire perimeter of the Parthenon. From top to bottom there is the  Abacus (flat square-like part connecting the column to the rest of the roof area), the Echinus (rounded area at the top of the shaft of the column), the Necking which is just the top of the column. All three of these parts that make up the top design of the column are known together as the Capital. The shaft is the long vertical, cylindrical part of the column. It has ridges and does not include the Capital, which is the more decorative part at the top. The Stylobyte is what the entire column sits on top of.

Greek Pottery

This piece of pottetry is one of my particular favorites. The reason for that is mainly because of the fact that it is used for as a present for the winners of the athletic games. It is called a Panathenaic Amphora made in 530 BCE attributed to the Euphiletos Painter, but is made by Nikias. He was an Athenian politician as well as a general during the Peloponnesian War, which is where he led several expiditions and achieved little, but he was very successful with negotiations that led to the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC. He inherited a fortune from his father who passed, which caused him to then become a member of the Athenian aristocracy. His spolitical views were very moderate adn he was strongly against the agressiveness of the democrats imperialism. This vase was usually filled with oil from the olive grove, which the victor from th ePanathenaic games would use all over their body after this victorious win. The figures that are painted on this vase are very geometric with fat bodies, small necks, and small feet. i figured they were painted this way because of the fact that they were used for athletics and that is the stylistic bodily structure of an athlete. The sfigures look very muscular and in an athletic running pose, which is very  fitting since "the early Olympian games were foot rces overtaken under varying distances.

Prezi Presentation Link

                                                   http://prezi.com/0j3risnlgune/the-anachronism/
**I chose this picture of the Great Temple at Luxor because this was the city I focused on mostly in our project! Enjoy!

Individual Blog: Part II

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/whatson/results.asp?id=1114094

                   I chose this image to write on for this blog because it reaminds me of the Parthenon. It reminds me of the Parthenon because of the fact that it has the columns and looks to have the curvature that was referred to in the Pollitt readings. This is a shrine of St Amandus of the early 13th century that is featured in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The author of this article says that many people ask the question "is there something in it?", and I would ask the same thing. If I just walked in and saw this, I would ask what was on the inside, was it hollow? He answers them every time and informs them that there is something on the inside, and I find it fascinating that something so small has something on the inside. I believe that this is something that could be seen during the Classical Period, like the Parthenon, but it is made of something from the Ancient Egyptian Period, with the it being made of gold and having jewels on it. I found that very interesting.

Individual Blog: Part I

                             I find this sculpture to be a very insightful sculpture because like we said in class "it is more realistic". This figure does not have the Archaeic smile, so it looks as if it is a real sculpture of an actual death. The veins of and muscles are showing in his arms to make it look even more real, which is why I like this figure so much. Many of the art from these time periods are very stylistic and don't look natural. "The twisted body that we see is looks as if it is capable of turning in space", so it gives the figure more meaning. He is obviously a fallen warrior, so he is "balanced on his shield" to try to catch himself. He even has a helmet on, in comparison to the Dying Warrior that was created a decade before it who has on, it looks to be, a wig. He does not physically resemble a warrior at all. He even had the Archaeic smile on his face, which is traditional of the art in this time period, that makes him look as if he is happy about the situation he is in.

                            Him being a fallen warrior along with his buldging veins and muscles, lets us be able to imagine and visualize how much pain he is actually in. We can even see the straining on his face that is the first sign of pain. That is something that lets you know that it is realistic because we are able to imagine what is going ton at the time. We can put ourselves in his situation and feel what he feels just by looking at it, and that is one of the main objectives of art. This is an excellent example of art in itself.

Downtown Presbyterian Church Blog

While visiting this church, built in the year 1851, I found the way of building it very original. I have never been inside of a church that looks this ancient, which is very wierd since I am from Nashville, Tennessee and have never been in this church. Referring back to the Horowitz reading, everything in here was built with a roundness to occupy space and show depth, and that is the one thing that I noticed this church continued to do. Even the lines that were on the walls, ceilings, and columns were very geometric, not having much of an end to them. There were also columns painted on the wall behind the pertruding colums to give the illusion that there was more space being occupied behind the front columns. This is called having a foreground and a background, which was played on very well in this particular section of the church. The columns in the front of the church represent volume and show that there is a flow of infinite space. The use of color creates a darker look to the church. The colors used, though, do represent the life of the Ancient Egyptians, the color red represents egyptian life, the color green represents the papyrus they used in many ways, and the tan/yellow color represents their egyptian land. I found that very interesting because we don't have main colors to represent our lifetime, we just have the color scheme that stands for nothing. It just stands for the colors that we learn as children. I also found it very interesting that everything seems to be enlarged, especially the columns, which would represent that worthiness of the Gods they worshiped. It is as if these things were built for the use of the Gods, letting the Gods know that they were an important aspect of the Ancient Egyptian life. I liked this trip to the church, wasn't what I expected at all, but I enjoyed it!