The Main Ideas
 
 
 

Fig. 250 Parthenon, Pentelic marble 
111 x 237 ft. at base 447-438 BCE 
Athens, Greece.
Classic Greek		 form
(1) : orderly method of arrangement (as in the presentation of ideas) : manner of coordinating elements (as of an artistic production or course of reasoning)
(2) : a particular kind or instance of such arrangement <the sonnet is a poetical form>
b : PATTERN, SCHEMA <arguments of the same logical form>

c : the structural element, plan, or design of a work of art --  visible and measurable unit defined by a contour : a bounded surface or volume

(3) The literal shape and mass of an object or figure.
(4) More general, the materials used to make a work of art, the ways in which these materials are used utilized in terms of the formal elements (medium, line, light, color, texture, size and composition.)
chiaroscuro/monochromatic


Metope or frieze from the Parthenon depicting the 
Battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs,
Pheidias (sculptor) c 450 BCE, Classical Greek Period or Style		 formal analysis
Is the analysis of a work by discussing its form such as its medium or media, color, line, shape, value or tone, texture, volume or form and composition.

realistic or abstract
naturalistic or abstract
representational or non-representational

specific terms for this work
haut relief
bas relief
The Pantheon c12-25 BCE
Architect is unknown possibly Lucius Cocceius Auctus, Hadrian or Trajan
Classical Roman
Rome Italy
 formal analysis
Is the analysis of a work by discussing its form such as its medium or media, color, line, shape, value or tone, texture, volume or form and composition.



 
 
Composition

asym.met.ri.cal or asym.met.ric adj [Gk asymmetria lack of proportion, fr. asymmetros ill-proportioned, fr. a- + symmetros symmetrical] (1690) 1: not symmetrical 2 usu asymmetric, of a carbon atom: bonded to four different atoms or groups -- asym.met.ri.cal.ly adv -- asym.me.try n 		 sym.me.try n, pl -tries [L symmetria, fr. Gk, fr. symmetros symmetrical, fr. syn- + metron measure--more at measure] (1541) 1: balanced proportions; also: beauty of form arising from balanced proportions 2: the property of being symmetrical; esp: correspondence in size, shape, and relative position of parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or median plane or about a center or axis--compare bilateral symmetry, radial symmetry 3: a rigid motion of a geometric figure that determines a one-to-one mapping onto itself 4: the property of remaining invariant under certain changes (as of orientation in space, of the sign of the electric charge, of parity, or of the direction of time flow)--used of physical phenomena and of equations describing them

bilateral symmetry n (1860): symmetry in which similar anatomical parts are arranged on opposite sides of a median axis so that only one plane can divide the individual into essentially identical halves

 


The Parthenon, 447-438 BCE
Architects Iktinos and Kallicrates
Patron Perikles and the City of Athens
 Athens, Greece.
The Pantheon c12-25 BCE
Architect is unknown possibly Lucius Cocceius Auctus,
(Hadrian or Trajan might have been the patrons)
Classical Roman
Rome Italy

 

Nicola Pisano. Nativity,
Detail of Pulpit from Pisa's Baptistry c1259
Italian Gothic

Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned c1280
Italian Gothic, sometimes called proto Renaissance, 
sometimes called Early Renaissance, 


Where's the emphasis?  How is it created?



Nicola Pisano. Nativity,
Detail of Pulpit from Pisa's Baptistry c1259
Italian Gothic
 iconography
Etymology: Medieval Latin iconographia, from Greek eikonographia sketch, description, from eikonographein to describe, from eikon- + graphein to write -- more at CARVE
Date: 1678
1 : pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject
2 : the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject
3 : the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art
4 : ICONOLOGY

Fig. 250 Parthenon, Pentelic marble 
111 x 237 ft. at base 447-438 BCE 
Athens, Greece.

iconography
Etymology: Medieval Latin iconographia, from Greek eikonographia sketch, description, from eikonographein to describe, from eikon- + graphein to write -- more at CARVE
Date: 1678
1 : pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject
2 : the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject
3 : the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art
4 : ICONOLOGY


 

Fig. 34 Jan van Eyck Arnolfini Wedding 1434 
oil and tempera on oak 82x60cm
Flemish Renaissance
iconography
Etymology: Medieval Latin iconographia, from Greek eikonographia sketch, description, from eikonographein to describe, from eikon- + graphein to write -- more at CARVE
Date: 1678
1 : pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject
2 : the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject
3 : the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art
4 : ICONOLOGY

context
Etymology: Middle English, weaving together of words, from Latin contextus connection of words, coherence, from contexere to weave
 together, from com- + texere to weave

1 : the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning

 2 : the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs : ENVIRONMENT, SETTING


 
Fig. 34 Jan van Eyck Arnolfini Wedding 1434 
oil and tempera on oak 82x60cm
Flemish Renaissance
contextual analysis
Is the analysis of a work by discussing its history, culture, environment, and or background.

contextualism A methodological approach in art history which focuses on the cultural back ground of an art object.  Unlike connoirsseurship, contexualism utilizes the literature, history, economics, and social developments (among others) of a period, as well as the object itself, to explain the meaning of an artwork.

Irwin Panofsky, Art Historian
Craig Harbison, Art Historian
Jacques Paviot, Naval Historian

In the early 1990s Jacques Paviot, a French naval historian found something that challenged previously accepted beliefs about the painting. While doing unrelated research, he stumbled across a reference to what appears to have been what was generally accepted to be happening in the painting: Arnolfini's wedding to Giovanna Cenami. But the document Paviot found placed the wedding in 1447, 13 years after the date on the double portrait and six years after van Eyck's death.

 

The Parthenon, c450 BCE Athens, Greece

 

Detail of the Panathenaic Procession
(The Elgin Marbles) 
from the North frieze of the Parthenon Phidias? 
c438-432 BCE approximately 3' 6" tall
Pheidias Panathenaic Frieze		 contextualism
A methodological approach in art history which focuses on the cultural back ground of an art object.  Unlike modern connoisseurship, contexualism utilizes the literature, history, economics, and social developments (among others) of a period, as well as the object itself, to explain the meaning of an artwork.

Context can also be the physical environment it is placed in.

These sculptures are in situ.