Chris Hodges: Art History Student at Large

There is no question what the standout element of this chapter was for me: stained-glass windows. I have always loved stained glass windows. They seem so technologically advanced, like something that requires being laid out on a computer and created using lasers—the fact that they were made with elements available in the 13th century, created by hand, is astounding to me. I mentioned during the blog post I reblogged last chapter how I am so impressed by rock carvings, and how easy it must’ve been to make a mistake and chip too far and ruin an entire piece. Well this is glass we’re talking about here. People would build these incredibly intricate mosaics using the most fragile medium on earth. I just can’t help but to fixate on how delicately everything had to be treated in order to be assembled, and to that end, that something so fragile could be assembled in such a way that they have lasted for centuries. People are impressed that the pyramids are still around—I mean, this is art made out of glass that is still around 700+ years later. Absolutely incredible.

Most of the rest of this chapter focused on architecture, which is to be expected as that is basically what Gothic are is. I’ve mentioned several times than I’m fairly ambivalent about architecture, and I definitely found some of this chapter a bit difficult to get through. But I still can’t help but to be blown away by some of the cathedrals shown in this chapter. The picture of the Reims Cathedral in France on page 214 is absolutely mesmerizing. You look at how many tiny, intricate details they are, which would’ve already been impressive if it was just a normal-sized church. To have a structure with that much form and detail and embellishment and be as massive as it is is just breathtaking. The fact that there are people who just pass something like that every day on their way to work is so crazy to me. You hope they don’t take it for granted, but we know how stuff like that goes. You don’t appreciate stuff like that when it’s in your backyard.

Anyone who has been following my art history blog thus far can probably already guess what my favorite part of chapter 12 is: the illuminated manuscripts. But rather than reiterate for the umpteenth time how fascinating I am by the history of written record and the evolution of what we know as books and pictures on pages, I decided to focus on a different aspect of the Romanesque period.

There always seems to be one particular image in each chapter that strikes me more than any of the others, and chapter 12 was no exception. This time, it was Last Judgement, shown on page 191. In particular, I was moved by the figure toward the middle of the piece, one of the two main “devils” (the one holding the smaller devil in a scale). There tends to be this sense of Hell, demons, and the devil delighting in the suffering they cause. We often see depictions of the devil cackling as he inflicts torment on the sinners that are sent to hell for him to punish for eternity. In this piece, however, the devil figure that I am referring to isn’t showing glee in what he is being charged to do. To me, his face shows a deep, profound sadness. I like the idea of a demon who is doing his job of weighing the sins of sinners and taking on the worst offenders because that’s what his purpose is, but not automatically enjoying the reason for his existence. I could be completely misreading the demon’s face as sadness, but that’s how I saw it, and as such it made the piece a very powerful one for me.

The first thing that stuck me about this chapter is the picture of the Arches of the Great Mosque on page 172. It almost looks like an M.C. Escher painting, like there is some type of optical illusion or some impossible element to the picture that we should be looking for. I stared at that picture for a good 10 minutes, completely fascinated by it. I would love to visit it in person.

As it happens, a lot of the art from this period is so striking and flawless-looking that it’s hard to believe those are just photos and not paintings. The Odo of Metz from the interior of Charlemange’s chapel on page 179 is so beautiful, that, again, I couldn’t believe I was looking at a photograph.

I tend to have conflicted feelings about religion, but there’s no denying the beauty of ancient chapels. The ones in this chapter are some of the most gorgeous I have ever seen. If faith drives people to create such breathtaking art, it’s hard to find total fault with it.

Continuing with a topic I brought up last week, I’ve loved following the evolution of written records in this course, and it takes another interesting step in the middle ages. This chapter talks of manuscript illumination, which takes a segment of text and builds a piece of intricate art around it. The example the book shows is from the Book of Kells. The translated sentence, “Then they crucified Christ and, with him, two thieves” is turned into a beautiful mosaic where the words wrap around and form an image of their own, and the words are complemented by various artistic flourishes, dragons breathing fire, and people who look to be looking on a tragic event (in this case, a crucifixion). It is a powerful way to make a sentiment come to life.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying about this class is the progression of slowly inventing the concept of a book. We take it for granted today because it just seems like a no-brainer: You have something to say or record, you put it in a book. But it took some time for us to arrive at that idea as a people, and to come up with a feasible way to do so. Obviously, recording events as cave paintings wasn’t going to be realistic long-term—there is only so much cave in the world. Sooner or later, we were going to have to come up with some compact, sustainable way to record stories and such. While things had already been recording on scrolls at this point, it seems like the period we are currently studying—early Christian art—is when we first arrived at what would become what we know of as the concept of a book. As we sit here and easily pound out words on our computers that potentially billions of people can see in a matter of minutes, it’s so humbling to think of how much effort and artistry it used to take to record even the slightest amount of information.

Another interesting thing about this era was the move to monotheism as a source for artistic inspiration. Gone were the days of fantastical gods that attacked creatures with lightning bolts. In fact, much Christian art doesn’t even attempt to depict God “himself” at all, instead using Jesus as his most frequent stand-in. There was some magical elements to early Christian art and the depicting of figures that weren’t just regular humans, like the Muse shown in the sarcophagus on page 155. So at least it wasn’t all grounded in boring realism even as religion tended away from the sorts of tales that we associate with Greek and Roman mythology.

For the additional research, I chose to look into the Kofun period of Japanese art. I’ve always loved Japanese culture, both modern day and in the past, particularly the feudal period and samurai and the like. I had never really dove back quite this far into Japanese history. The Kofun period comprises the first half of what is collectively known as the Yamato period, which begins with Kofun and ends with the Asuka period, which takes us all the way to about 700 A.D. But we’re just going to focus on the Kofun. A kofun is a type of burial mound, which is the centerpiece for this era of art and why the period is named as such. Keeping in the theme of religion, this period of Japanese history sees Japan still largely practicing the Shinto religion, before Buddhism was introduced to the region. 

If I’m being honest, I’m not the biggest appreciator (is that a word?) of architecture. Growing up in Chicago, people always told me to take the famous architectural boat tour downtown, assuring me I’d love it despite my indifference for architecture. Did I love it? Not really. Was it a terrible way to spend an hour? Nah.

All that said, I didn’t mind having a chapter that focused on architecture as a nice change of pace. Ancient Rome was a great excuse to do this, of course, as there are so many iconic structures from that period that we all know and recognize. The Colosseum is breathtaking and I would love to visit it some day. I am never not humbled by how difficult it must have been to build such huge, towering structures out of stone that long ago without cranes and such. 

One of the ancient Romans most important contributions to the world was the invention of the arch for use in architecture. The Romans figured out how structurally sound arches were in supporting tall structures. Other than large buildings like the Colosseum, arches are best demonstrated in the aqueducts, another major innovation that the people of ancient Rome came up with that would forever change the world. 

The entire chapter wasn’t strictly about architecture, though. The chapter also dove into the sculptures and paintings of the era. Like some of the other chapters we studied, many of the sculptures of this time focused on demonstrating the power and influence of its subjects.

It’s impossible to discuss this chapter without talking about the initially unsettling image on page 188 of the wolf nursing two human babies. It’s just a jarring thing to see when you turn a page in a textbook. But the more I read, I came to realize that so much of the art of the Etruscans, at least what the book covers, is refreshingly focus on family. Especially in contrast to the Greeks, the Hellenestic period in particular, that was all about the beauty and grandeur of the gods and of godlike people in evocative poses, the rather humble nature of Etruscan art is a nice change. The only bare breasts you see are being used for their original biological function, to feed children. And the sarcophagus on page 123 shows a beautifully subdued depiction of a couple lying together, as if to just be doing whatever the 500 B.C. equivalent of spending an evening watching TV together would be. It’s more like a snapshot of the quaint, realer moments of their life, rather than an exaggerated depiction of it.

As the textbook points out, women seemed to have a less subservient role in Etruscan culture than they did in ancient Greece. I always love to hear about such old cultures where women were treated relatively fairly and equally, and didn’t just exist to have children and serve men. It’s unfortunate that we had to take so many steps backward as a species in the ensuing centuries knowing that women had gained so much respect so long ago, though. 

Whenever I think about ancient Greece, Greek mythology is typically the first thing that comes to mind. As a kid who grew up reading comic books and watching fantasy movies based around super heroes and the like, it’s easy to see how so much of that has its roots in the tales of the gods and myths of ancient Greece. It’s fascinating to me to have such tales serve not as stories for a movie or video game, but to be seen as real characters and events that occurred. It’s also interesting the way the ancient Greeks had these gods have such direct influence on events, such as participating in the Trojan War, unlike so many other cultures’ “religion” that only had these untouchable, ancient figures that were often more symbolic than anything. It almost makes Greek mythology more believable than other religions, even ones with less fantastical stories. Or maybe it’s just the type of religion I personally find more interesting.

The effect that this has on the art of ancient Greece is very interesting. Sculptures and drawings of Greek gods and goddesses often just look like sculptures and drawings of real--albeit perfect--people, rather than elaborate creatures. There is certainly some of the latter, but even when there was, it typically had a more humanoid base than, say, the art of Indian gods. In a way, it takes more imagination and creativity to come up with a fictional character that still looks human than to just invent some fantastical creature. The fact that it’s fairly easy to identify Zeus even though he’s just a man is a testament to the power of these images and the visual identity that was crafted for him. It’s a lot more impressive than we can identify a sculpture of Zeus than a sculpture of some mythical, non-human creature.

Outside of art, I found it interesting to see just how much of ancient Greek society was later used in the formation of ours. The ancient Greeks were some of the earliest to use a form of government that can be identified as a form of democracy, for instance. That era was one of the first to have a more people-led rule rather than the autocratic nature of many earlier eras of human history, including earlier periods of Greece. Of course, it’s impossible to draw comparisons to ancient Greek culture and our own modern culture without also noting the Greeks attitude toward people of other nations and cultures, inferring that everyone else who weren’t them were inherently uncivilized, especially if they didn’t speak the language. It all sounds uncomfortably familiar...

As far as the podcast we listened to, it reminded me of a conversation I had with someone once that always stuck with me. We were discussing various physical traits that we found attractive in other people, and when I said some of mine, I was told that I was just conforming to what society told me I’m supposed to find attractive. I was initially extremely offended, refusing to believe that I don’t have enough free thought to decide entirely on my own what physical traits I am attracted to in a woman and was being led that way by society. But I realize that there is a reason why so many of us have such stereotypical ideals of beauty. Much of what we currently consider to be beautiful in other people can be traced back to ancient Greek art, so much so that there was a mathematical formula figured out that dictates the exact symmetry and proportions of a beautiful person, and that the formula can be applied to many Greek sculptures and paintings as well as what modern society deems beautiful. It’s impossible to know whether we agree with the ancient Greeks because the foundation they laid is just so ingrained that it’s impossible to not let that inform our personal taste, or whether the ancient Greeks just figured out the formula for stereotypical beauty, and the base foundation for physical beauty in a person is more or less a set formula that just is what it is. 

So far, the Aegean period has been the era I’ve had the least amount of existing knowledge of prior to learning about it in this course. That makes sense, as our book tells us that a lot of Minoan language still hasn’t been translated, and also that the discovery of concrete artifacts from that era were only just discovered near the end of the 19th century. We are living in a time when so much of history has already been discovered and studied, so whenever there is something that is still actively being researched in our lifetime and something we still don’t know all there is to know about, it’s always very exciting to me.

One of the things that stood out to me in this relatively short chapter was the similarity in a lot of the art to the ancient Egyptian art we just looked at last chapter, which makes sense as part of this era overlapped with that one. But you can also see some more middle eastern/Indian flavor to the art, as well as the beginnings of ancient Greek art, which makes the Aegean period an interesting cross-section of all of those different elements. One piece that stood out to me was the octopus vase on page 74. The eyes on the octopus almost gave it a cartoon-like quality to me, looking like an octopus you’d see in a cartoon. 

As far as the essays that we read, they definitely painting a very interesting picture of the study of art history. It probably shouldn’t surprise me that us Westerners struggle with art that we find too challenging, less familiar, or less aesthetically pleasing. Especially when our religious beliefs are challenged, as the polytheistic nature of art from India does. While Mark Twain’s words were harsh, I can’t say I haven’t had similar reactions to some Indian art. A lot of it does seem intimidating and scary. But as the essay pointed out, and I never noticed, much of the Indian paintings of their deities aren’t meant to be scary as much as they are meant to evoke the power of said beings. Compared with our most common religious art image, that of either a warm, smiling Jesus or a Jesus hanging from a cross, it’s just jarring to see gods depicted in such a bombastic manner. But when you realize the intent behind it, it’s much easier to appreciate the art rather than feel confused by it. 

Ancient Egypt has always been one of my favorite historical periods. I can pinpoint when it first took hold, which is from visiting the Field Museum in Chicago and going to there famous permanent exhibit about the period. Going through a loose approximation of a period and seeing all of that colorful, gold-heavy art and artifacts captured by young imagination immediately. Of course,  being raised in a household where cats were always the primary pet, and then finding out how revered the felines were in ancient Egyptian culture definitely helped to further endear me to the period. I was also fortunate enough to still be living in Chicago when the “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs“ exhibit had a stay in Chicago for about a year in 2006. The touring exhibit had over 100 pieces that were leaving Egypt for the first time, and it was exciting to feel like I was part of something special that only a select few people got to see. 

What fascinating my young mind the most about this period of history was the mystique and intrigue around it. Pyramids were often laid out in a maze-like pattern, including deliberate dead-ends designed to confuse potential grave robbers. Images like the one on page 55 of our book that show a diagram of a cross section of a pyramid look more like a map that Indiana Jones would study than an actual real-life structure. I doubt that traversing the inner sanctums of pyramids were as exciting as the trap-filled adventures that Indy took us on, but it still represents something much closer to that kind of fiction than most real life places tend to get.