Achilles and Ajax

Achilles and Ajax Playing a Game
Exekias, c. 540-530 BCE

In the art of Ancient Greece, painted pots played a predominant role.  While the many variations of ceramic vessels (undecorated) fulfilled everyday household purposes, the same standardized styles of pots (beautifully painted) served much more than their utilitarian roles by showcasing "scenes of human interaction evoking a story", a characteristic tradition of Ancient Greek art in general.  On occasion, the creators of these masterful works would leave their signature, though oftentimes the potter and the painter were not the same.  In the case of Achilles and Ajax Playing a Game, however, the amphora (a large, generally all-purpose storage jar, perhaps used most notably for wine) was signed by Exekias as both potter and painter.  

This particular vessel belongs to the Archaic period and the black-figure tradition.  During this period, Athens became known as the center for the manufacture and trade of pottery in all of Greece, and the Corinthian tradition of painting black figures upon a reddish background (hence the name "black-figure") distinguished itself as the principal style of decoration.  Exekias, perhaps the most famous of Athenian black-figure painters and like many of the artists of this time period, created representations of figures drawn from Greek mythology.  This amphora shows a relaxed Achilles and Ajax, heroes of Homer's Trojan War, playing a game of dice.  On the right-hand side of the composition, Ajax calls out the number three as Achilles, on the left, calls out the number four, signaling his victory in their leisurely game.  This picture of ease between two mighty warriors would have been mournfully ironic to Greek viewers familiar with their story and painful partings, Achilles' death in battle and Ajax's subsequent suicide.  Aside from its symbolic weight, however, the image itself is also compositionally pleasing.  The careful contours of the bodies, emphasized in importance against the red background, and dynamic diagonals display the Greeks' aptitude for creating exceptional artwork even on difficult surfaces (notice the complete gracefulness with which the figures conform to the amphora's swollen shape). Exekias' amphora follows the Greek tradition of idealism in standards of human supremacy and beauty, both in subject matter and design.  The richly textured and majestic heroes of myth in this work are merely one example of the many portrayals of human interaction through these carefully crafted vessels.

The Anachronism

http://prezi.com/0j3risnlgune/the-anachronism/

"Art's Bold New Direction"

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Arts-Bold-New-Direction.html

The article I chose for this week offers an insightful look into "Art's Bold New Direction" as given by Richard Koshalek, director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum.  In the article, Koshalek enthusiastically embraces an art world which he refers to as "changing at warp speed" and describes the museum's future efforts to promote engagement between art audiences and the ever-evolving methods of creation.  It is obvious, as Koshalek notes, that art has come leaps and bounds in terms of methodology and technology since, say, the days of Fragonard.  Nowadays, we carry artwork around with us all day long on our cellphones, though we rarely pause to recognize that fact.  This connection between art and our everyday lives is something that Koshalek emphasizes as his hope for the future and something that I find interesting and extremely relevant.  As our modern world revolves more and more around technology, it would seem to revolve less and less around the more artistic aspects of life--that is to say, recreational painting, sculpture, and the like.  However, as the article describes, this is not the case.  

Koshalek's two major initiatives for 2012 aim to enrich what he believes is "the primary responsibility of museums...to teach us to live life with greater imagination".  He supports the notion that "in the future, the art world will be even more liberated to make use of all the media around us", that it "will not perceived as something 'exotic' or marginalized--but rather as a normal mode of existence along with other pursuits".  Technology will not minimize art's influence in the world, but serve as an indispensable tool for the creative minds that will shape the society of the future.  The two, art and technology, are thus indefinitely fused into one boundlessly progressive entity that will define the human experience for many years to come.

The Mask of Agamemnon

Mask of Agamemnon
Greece. c. 1600-1550 BCE.

The funerary mask of legendary Homeric king Agamemnon is an interesting and controversial piece.  The mask itself belongs to the ancient civilization of Mycenae, Greece.  Famous for their metalworking, ceramics, and architectural developments, the Mycenaeans gave much more prominence to their funerary structures than other cultures of the time and ultimately created in them the most sophisticated architectural monuments of the Aegean Bronze Age.  However, the earliest tombs, like the one in which this mask was originally found, were vertical pits 20-25 feet deep known as shaft graves.  Uncovered by archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in November of 1876, the so-named Mask of Agamemnon became the archaeologist's most famous discovery.  He accredited the golden-wrought mask with having belonged to the infamous king and commander of Greek forces in Homer's The Iliad, an epic account of the Trojan War.  This association itself was enough to make both the mask and its discoverer interesting beyond doubt, considering that, in finding such an artifact, Schliemann was in fact proving the Homeric mythological narrative to be true (a huge deal among Greeks, whose fascination with representing their history through myth was considerable).  However, the controversy made its appearance known as well upon further analyzation.  The first important discrediting factor was the fact that the graves which Schliemann unearthed in 1876 were later proven to be 300 years older than he thought, displaying different burial practices than those described by Homer.  The second is the stylistic composition of the mask itself; the facial features are far different than those of the other funerary masks among which it was found.  The beard and handlebar mustache, especially, suggest a suspicious synonymity to contemporary styles and trends.  They even resemble the archaeologist himself.  This fallibility paralleled previous deceits committed by Schliemman with the intent of embellishing his career.  The verdict on the mask's true authenticity is unclear, to be certain, but it introduced a definite and significantly questionable element into the practice of history-writing.

'Feeling' out the Architecture

Downtown Presbyterian Church, Nashville

Upon entering the sanctuary of Downtown Presbyterian Church, my first reaction was one of surprise.  The "Egyptomania" we have discussed in class is certainly evident this Nashville historic architecture.  In terms of the Horowitz reading, there are many important architectural elements used in this structure that contribute to the overall aesthetic and emotional response that one experiences while interacting with it.  Approaching from the outside, the first thing I noticed was obviously the site of the church.  Situated between bustling downtown sidewalks, city streets, and commercial businesses, the church itself, though not strikingly contrasted physically or visually, offers a brief reprieve symbolically from its very urban environment.  (This would undoubtedly have been different at the time it was constructed).  Once inside, this sensation becomes intensified.  You are immediately transported from 5th Avenue to another place entirely, one reminiscent of Ancient Egypt.  

The sanctuary is cavernous.  The vast space dwarfs the viewer in colorful grandeur, emphasizing its sacredness and the single person's relative insignificance in comparison.  The tall sky-painted ceilings, many windows, and monumental columns amplify this effect.  The light streaming through richly-colored stained glass windows, bathes the space in a warm glow.  In combination with the Egyptian-esque landscapes depicted in the windows' glass, this particular lighting creates a kind of other-worldly ambience that would be ideally characteristic of a religious experience.  The variety of colors used in the rest of the room, on the somewhat Corinthian style columns for example, though slightly out of context contemporarily speaking, would have once payed tribute to the god or gods in question.  Not a regular or particular church attender myself, I find this aspect very interesting--the extreme differences in perspective regarding color, embellishment, and such.  The decoration of Downtown Presbyterian is both elaborate and strategic.  The idea is to convey majesty.  The paintings of sky on the ceiling and hypostyle halls on the walls create an illusion of deeper and open space, as if you were in an outdoor temple rather than a church in downtown Nashville.  The rhythm of the columns, both actual and painted, manifest the same strength and permanence as those of Amun's Temple at Karnak.

Each of these elements--site, light, color, decoration, et cetera--plays a unique role, as I have illustrated here, in contributing to the overall atmosphere of an architectural space and the way a person feels encountering it.