Question Description
Make sure you scroll down this dialogue box to see the entire prompt, which includes defining terms and 2 essays. YOU SHOULD ONLY USE THE READINGS AND LECTURES AND THE BASIS OF YOUR ANSWERS. DO NOT USE ANY OUTSIDE SOURCES.
Please define and explain these terms in detail (a short paragraph for each), and give one example for each:
- Animism/fetishism:
- Earth religion
- Corbel arch/vault
- Ma’at
- Book of the dead
- Sophrosyne
- Veristic sculpture
Essays:
Your essays should include all relevant information from your text, reserve readings and lectures. You should presume that you are writing these to a fellow class member who has some base of knowledge but missed the material in question, and to help them out, you are summarizing and explaining the culture and the art—with every specific detail you can include. Each essay should be double spaced, 12 point font, 1″ margins; please submit as a PDF or Word .doc file. Due Sunday by midnight.
1. Please write a 2-3 page essay that explains the Palette of Narmer. Your essay should include: Use the appropriate art historical vocabulary (use the terminology employed in the text and lectures).
a) All relevant details about the culture that produced it (its “context”).
b) The stylistic features common in works produced by that culture (its cultural “style”).
c) What we think its message and/or function likely was, and why we think this.
d) The meaning of the various symbols, and their relation both to the message and to important cultural beliefs.
2. A favorite methodology of Art History is to compare and contrast two images or objects that have similar themes but come from different cultures. The idea is that through comparison, aspects of each work that otherwise might have gone unnoticed become much clearer when considered in relation to each other. For this 3-4 page essay, please compare and contrast: Polykleitos, Doryphorous and the Augustus Primaporta. Your essay should include a thorough discussion of:
a) A summary of key aspects associated with the culture that produced each.
b) What we believe the function and/or meaning of each sculpture, and why we believe this.
c) How the visual characteristics of each work relate to their function and/or meaning.
d) What the difference between the visual characteristics of each work suggest about the different cultures that produced each.