Time_Traveling_Art_Historian

Final Project: Time Traveling Art Historian Stephen Jeffery HUM/205 World Culture and the Arts April 11, 2010 Professor: William Adams Hello, my name is Stephen Jeffery and I have had the great pleasure to travel back in time to visit a few periods in history and would like to share my experiences with you. The first period I visited was during the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty, particularly the period when the Great Pyramid was built for the pharaoh Cheops (KEE-pos) around 2530 B.C.E., (Benton & DiYanni, 2008). After that I went to visit the nations of the Islamic civilization whose writing styles or calligraphy is very beautiful and stylistic. The Islamic culture flourished between 570 and 1500 CE and is the second largest religion in the world, ( Campo, J. 2009). Finally I traveled to Rome during the Italian renaissance to see the painting of The School of Athens by Raphael. Egypt is busy and bustling during this period in time as the people are building The Great Pyramid for their pharaoh and divine ruler Cheops. Cheops is the second pharaoh of the fourth dynasty of Egypt and ruled a unified country along with his relatives and administrators. He is also the pharaoh the commissioned the building of The Great Pyramid, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. Cheops was very busy as pharaoh, fighting campaigns in the Sinai, initiating building projects in Memphis, along with The Great Pyramid. His reign is detailed on the Westcar papyrus, (Bunson, M. 2002). The afterlife is a big deal to the Egyptians and The Great Pyramid is going to be the tomb from which Cheops ka or spirit will ascend to the heavens and join Re the sun god who is believed to be the father, (Rosalie, D. 2003). To the Egyptians the afterlife is the culmination of their life’s work. The pharaoh’s live for a good afterlife and all of the people of the pharaoh’s dynasty live for and work towards that goal. Part of what makes this civilization and culture so great is the way they work for the unified causes of pleasing the gods and having a good afterlife. You see the people believe that their good service and faith to their divine pharaoh will help them to share in his eternity,( Rosalie, D. 2003). The Pyramid is an important part of the pharaohs’ journey to the afterlife and will be decorated internally with prayers from the book of the dead along with food and everything the pharaoh will need in the afterlife . This particular pyramid is the final step in a long line of perfecting burial rights. The earliest forms of burial were in tombs called a mastaba. These tombs had an underground chamber and were rectangular in shape, but were built of mud brick. The mastaba evolved over time and got larger in size and then the step pyramid was designed by Imhotep during the third dynasty. This early pyramid was a series of superimposed mastaba tombs built for king Djoser. The final culmination of this is of course The Great Pyramid and the others built after it. This Great Pyramid couldn’t have been built without having housing for this large workforce that it will take to build such an architectural marvel. There are about 30,000 men not including their families in the villages surrounding the worksite and even more that come in from nearby Memphis. The workday is long, from about dust till dawn and the work is hard. As we walk through the opening in the boundary wall the site is amazingly vast and very busy with stone being brought up the Nile and laborers moving the stone in place while everything is being coordinated by the architects and their foremen. This cycle of work has been going on for about the last 20 years or so and the finished pyramid is a sight to be seen gleaming in the skyline with its finished white limestone. The nations of Islam are a sight to be seen, with the mosques that are decorated with calligraphy adorning the walls in beautiful designs. We cannot talk about Islam without mentioning the creator of this great religion and civilization Muhammad. Muhammad is a profit, revered by Muslims who consider him to be the final culmination of the prophetic tradition or otherwise known as the “seal”, (Benton & DiYanni, 2008). The word Islam is from the Arabic consonants s-l-m which is related to the Arabic word for "peace," Salam. One of the names for paradise in Arabic is Dar al-Salam, House of Peace. Using these consonants to form the verbal noun Islam creates the meaning "to enter into a state of peace," which is conventionally translated into English as "surrender" or "submission." The word Muslim is an active participle based on the same word; hence, a Muslim is literally "one who enters a state of peace," "one who surrenders," or "one who submits." Islam, therefore, is an action that brings two parties into a peaceful relationship, the one who surrenders and the one to whom one surrenders. According to Islamic teachings, surrender to God leads to eternal salvation, ( Campo, J. 2009). Muslims are devout to their religion and this shows up in their artwork and in most everything they do. That is why it is so important to discuss the religion first. Calligraphers have assembled Quran verses and hadiths about Muhammad to create verbal portraits known as hilya, which people display in mosques and homes in order to instill them with divine blessing or Baraka, ( Campo, J. 2009). The universal adoption of Arabic script aided considerably in the melding of the various cultures into one Islam and the use of script as an artistic motif helped to meld the art of these diverse peoples into a distinctive style. Muslims view Arabic as the sacred language and the writing of the word of the Quran as the highest form of art. Calligraphers hold a place of honor among Islamic artists. Two basic types of script are utilized in decoration: kufic, a very stylized, rather angular type of lettering and naskhi , a rounded cursive that is flowing and easier to read. These writings not only hold religious value but are very appealing to the eye. To Muslims their devotion to Allah and the Quran is the personality of Islamic art . My final destination during this trip is the Vatican Palace in Rome where Raphael Santi Pained the School of Athens from 1510 to 1511 for Pope Julius II. This fresco embodies how the people of the renaissance longed for classical learning and truth, (Benton & DiYanni, 2008). In 1510, upon hearing of the abilities of young Raphael, Pope Julius II ordered him from Florence. Once in Rome, Raphael was ordered by the pope to destroy the paintings on the walls of his council chambers in the Vatican Palace: to plaster over the frescoes and to cover the walls of the rooms now known as the Stanze of Raphael with subjects of his own choice. Raphael started by painting on the walls of the Vatican Palace his vision of the world of Humanist thought. The soaring vaults of Raphael's temple also recall the vaults of a real-world ruin: the Baths of Caracalla, which Raphael visited and studied while in Rome. Raphael called his picture "The School of Athens", which was not any school that actually existed, such as Plato's Academy, but an ideal community of intellects from the entire classical world. Within the uncluttered and clear space of this fictitious setting Raphael displays, like classical statues or clear and distinct ideas, idealized portraits of contemporaries to represent the major figures of classical wisdom and science. In the center of the fresco, Plato and Aristotle are discussing the respective merits of Idealism vs. Realism. In his left hand red-robed Plato holds his book TIMAEUS, one of the few books by Plato that had been recovered by the Renaissance, while explaining how the universe was created by the demiurge from perfect mathematical models, forms and the regular geometric solids, or the "Platonic solids," as they were called. With his right hand Plato gestures upwards, indicating that the eternal verities and forms, such as the ideals of Beauty, Goodness and Truth, are not in or of this world of space, time and matter, but lie beyond, in a timeless, space less realm of pure Ideas. Rebellious against his teacher's extreme idealism, Aristotle points with his right hand straight ahead out into the solid world of material reality, into the world of physical science and practical reason. If you look at the statues Apollo and Athena their heads line up with the heads of Plato and Aristotle. Apollo lines up with Plato's head, and Athena with Aristotle's. In the left foreground is an intense little school huddled around another of Plato's masters, the Greek mathematician and mystic Pythagoras. Here he is demonstrating, not his famous Pythagorean Theorem, but his theory that ultimate reality consists of numbers and harmonic ratios, (Kallistos, A. 2005). There is so much going on in this painting around different schools of thought that it epitomizes the rebirth of learning during this period. I hope you enjoyed my recount of my little trip through time. The Egyptian, Islamic cultures are very exciting and should be examined more and without the renaissance with its rediscovery of learning and science we would not be where we are today. There is a world of discovery out there and art is one way to get to know a culture and time period you are interested in. References Benton, J., & DiYanni, R. (2008). Arts and culture An introduction to the humanities (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bunson, M. (2002). "Cheops." Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Revised Edition. New York: Facts on File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010, from Ancient and medieval history online http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp' Campo, J. (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam, Encyclopedia of World Religions. New York: Facts On File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010 from Ancient and Medieval History Online. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp' Campo, J. (2009). “Muhammad ” Encyclopedia of World Religions. New York: Facts On File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010 from Ancient and Medieval History Online. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp' Kallistos, A. (2005). The Hellenic world, Ancient worlds, retrieved April 11,2010 from http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/555679 Rosalie, D. (2003) "afterlife in ancient Egypt." Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Revised Edition. New York: Facts on File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010, from Ancient and medieval history online http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp' Rosalie, D. (2003) "pyramids and tombs in ancient Egypt." Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Revised Edition. New York: Facts on File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010, from Ancient and medieval history online  http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp' Rosalie, D. (2003) "towns for pyramid workers in ancient Egypt." Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, Revised Edition. New York: Facts on File, Inc., Retrieved April 11, 2010, from Ancient and medieval history online  http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp'