Class 8.1Humans in an Animal World: Art of the Paleolithic

papers? no I know you are eager to have them back. I will get them done as soon as possible. By Oct 20, at absolute latest.

PART II: HISTORIES

Week 8: 10.10.16

TU 10.11 Early Humans in an Animal World

TH 10.13 Inside the Walls of Jericho

Week 9: 10.17.16

TU 10.18 Art and Power in the Settled Societies

TH 10.20 Emergence of the Figure: Sculpture in Egypt, Greece and Rome

Week 10: 10.24.16

TU 10.25 Being There: Pilgrimage, Place and Medieval Relics

TH 10.27 Invention of Virtual Space: Perspective & Modeling

 

Week 11: 10.31.16

TU 11.1 The Emergence of Self (Portraiture)

TH 11.3 Making Multiples I: Printing

Week 12: 11.7.16

TU 11.8 Art Academies to the Open Market

PAPER II DUE 11.7, by 11:59 PM online

TH 11.10 Making Multiples II: Photography

Week 13: 11.14.16

TU 11.15 The Rise of a Commercial Visual Culture

TH 11.17 Art with Options HARRISON, pp. 130-50; 295-319.

 

FALL BREAK: 11.21.16

TU 11.22 Thanksgiving Break

TH 11.24 Thanksgiving Day

Week 14: 11.28.16

TU 11.29 Out of the Gallery, Into the Street

Read: Patrick POTTER, Banksy: You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat, 5th edition, (London: Carpet Bombing Culture, 2015).

TH 12.1 Participatory Art

Read: Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July, Learning to Love You More (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2007). And browse through archived website: http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/

 

Week 15: 12.5.15 CONCLUSIONS AND REVIEW

TU 12.6 Art for People

TH 12.8 Reading Day, No Class Meeting

FR 12.9 FINAL EXAM, on Compass during scheduled exam period, 1:30-4:30 PM, per guidelines: http://registrar.illinois.edu/fall2016schedulingguidelinesfaculty_staff

what is art?STRICT, MODERN, WESTERN DEFINITION• A relatively modern invention—last couple of centuries

in Europe.• Something that is made for “pure, disinterested

contemplation.”• Something that is appreciated for its sensuous qualities

(for example, its form, its coloring, its tactile appeal, its sound).

• An invention of the West, though we have appropriated objects from around the world to join this category

But...many of the things we would today call "art" or store in museums do NOT fit this definition at all. They were made for a variety of other purposes now suppressed or distorted in the art museum.

the “art” context

As John Dewey warned us, the "art context" —the object's framing and display as a work produced for disinterested contemplation—can easily get in the way of our connecting with what the object is.We need to become aware of the original contexts from these objects—found all over the world—in order to understand and appreciate the significance of these objects.

The Art Institute, 1900

The Art Institute of Chicago: those lions aren't just for show. They areguardians of the concept of 'high art'!

Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877, installed at the Art Institute

Cueva de las manos, (Cave of the Hands)Santa Cruz Province, Argentinac. 7300 BCE

• what are the materials?• what is the subject matter?

• the line between art and non-art• Makapansgat cobble, 3 mya [million years ago]• incised ochre from Blombos cave, c. 77,000 BCE• plastered human skull, Jericho, c. 7000 BCE [next time]• plastered human skull, Beisamun, c. 4000 BCE [next time]

where is the line between art and non-art? human and non-human?

Our picture of humanity’s origins is constantly changing.• There is an active community of research around the

question of our earliest human ancestors.• Who were they?• Where did they live?• What is unique about their anatomy and physiology?• What behaviors did they engage in? Did they make tools?

art?• How do we draw the line between human and non-human?

These all seem like simple enough questions, but the answers keep changing fairly dramatically as we find new evidence from month to month.

The past isn’t static, but dynamic.Therefore, please be aware as you work through this

material that some of the specific information you are reading here may change. The point is not to memorize specific facts of human prehistory, but to become aware of how ongoing discovery keeps revising our sense of the past, and to begin interpreting the significance of what we know at this point.

The Laetoli footprints, 3.6 million years ago

These are not the only hominin footprints that have been found in Africa, but they remain the most famous physical evidence that our hominin ancestors (in this case, Australopithecus afarensis) walked upright. This evolutionary change came before larger cranial size, according to current state of research.

Cast of the Laetoli footprints displayed in Tanzania

http://leakeyfoundation.org/about-us/leakey-family/mary-leakey/

PROFILE OF MARY LEAKEY

Hominid footprint, 3.5 million BC, found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

LEARN MORE about the LAETOLI FOOTPRINTS:http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/humanorigins/history/humans3.php

LAETOLI FOOTPRINTS

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/humanorigins/history/humans4.php

fossil remains of 'Lucy':

AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS

LEARN MORE ABOUT LUCY!: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/humanorigins/history/humans5.php

'LUCY,' human ancestor of species Australopithecus afarensis

It is widely agreed upon that original routes of human migration began with emigrations from Africa into the Mideast, Asia, and Europe, and only much later from Asia to the Americas. Exactly when and how migrations occurred is highly debated.

Terms

paleolithic: “Old Stone Age” Greek– paleo = old; lithos = stoneincise: To cut into a surface with a sharp instrument; a means of decoration, especially on metal and pottery.manuport: something that can be carried in the hand

hominid fossil sites inEastern and SouthernAfrica

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Pebble with wear pattern resembling a human face.

Found at an australopithecine site in Makapansgat, South Africa, dated to c. 3 million years ago.Reddish brown jasperite, approx. 2 3/8” wide.

Would you consider this to be "art"? Why or why not?

http://www.originsnet.org/oldowangallery1/pages/a%29makapansgat.htm

location of Blombos Cave, virtually at the tip of South Africa

exterior of the cave

The Indian Ocean, seen from inside the cave. Layers of sandbags areprotecting the surface from the excavators walking in and out.

excavation at BlombosBLOMBOS CAVE, SOUTH AFRICAexcavation at work, note the meticulously flagged layershttp://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Blombos.html

incised ochre, Blombos Cave, c. 77,000 BCE

Marine shell bead excavated at Blombos Cave, South Africa,dating to 70,000 years ago (string of beads at bottom is a reconstruction)

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Human with feline head, from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany, ca. 30,000–28,000 BCE. Mammoth ivory, 11 5/8” high. Ulmer Museum, Ulm.

36Animal figure, from the Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, ca. 23,000 BCE. Charcoal on stone, 5” X 4 1/4”. State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek.

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Nude woman (Venus of Willendorf), from Willendorf, Austria, ca. 28,000–25,000 BCE. Limestone, 4 1/4” high. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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Woman holding a bison horn, from Laussel, France, ca. 25,000–20,000 BCE. Painted limestone, approx. 1’ 6” high. Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux.

Rock-Cut WomanLa Magdelaine,

France

Used the natural contours of the cave wall as abasis for the representation.Incised and carved.

40Two bison, reliefs in cave at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France, ca. 15,000–10,000 BCE. Clay, each 2’ long.

41Bison with turned head, fragmentary spearthrower, from La Madeleine, France, ca. 12,000 BCE. Reindeer horn, 4” long.

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How were cave paintings made?• The caves were pitch black, so artists needed

simple stone lamps that burned animal fat.• To DRAW they used chunks of red and yellow

ochre, but also other minerals.• The PALETTE was a large flat stone.• BRUSHES were made from reeds, bristles or

twigs.• May have used reed or blowpipe to spray

paint on hard to reach locations.• Used ledges and perhaps primitive scaffolds to

reach the walls.

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Bison, detail of a painted ceiling in the cave at Altamira, Spain, ca. 12,000–11,000 BCE. Each bison 5’ long.

44Spotted horses and negative hand imprints, wall painting in the cave at Pech-Merle, France, ca. 22,000 BCE. 11’ 2” long.

Lascaux Cave,Lascaux, France

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Hall of the Bulls (left wall) in the cave at Lascaux, France, ca. 15,000–13,000 BCE.

cave painting, Lascaux, France ca. 15,000 – 13,000 BCE. 47