Middle East Art and Society
This is how I feel when trying to understand art from nothing. The codes of communication, the means by which we understand language are not clear. Art is a language, but a symbolic one. I am trying to understand the reasons and the culture that produces this language. My learning plan, written a few months before we departed for our program, was focused in trying to understand the relationship between culture and art in the Islamic countries. An Islamic art definition that I have repeated before and as presented by Eva Baer is the following: "Islamic arts refers not only to the art made for Islamic practices and settings but also to the art made by and for the people who lived or live in lands where most-or the most important -people were or are Muslims, that is believers of Islam." (Baer: 1998) By this we understand an encompassing definition that refers to the arts of all Islamic cultures and not just related to the religion of Islam.
For clarity purposes of this presentation I will go country by country and I will show you the method that I followed. As well at the end I will share some of the conclusions I have drawn from this research.
According to my learning plan I was interested in understanding the relationship between culture, society and arts. In Turkey, we stayed in Istanbul for the most part, in this setting I chose to research in the history of the contemporary art of Turkey as well as the artist-craftsmen and their work. The art produced after the secularized republic and the main developments of its broader history concerning the Ottomans period and Islamic art. Some of my findings related to the effect of the secularization, in where calligraphy (once one of the most develo...
... middle of paper ...
...vania State University, 1989 Ann Arbor, MI.: University Microfilms Intl: 1990
Baer, Eva. The Human Figure in Islamic Art . Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2004
Baer, Eva. Islamic Ornament . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998
Bloom, Jonathan . Early Islamic Art and Architecture . Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002
Bruderlin, Markus. Ornament and Abstraction : the Dialogue Between non-Western, Modern and Contemporary Art . Basel : Fondation Beyeler, 2001 .
Glassie, Henry. Turkish Traditional Art Today . Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1933
Jereb, James. Arts and Crafts of Morocco . Chicago: Chronicle Books, 1996
Waldstein, Charles. Essays on The Art of Phaeidias: 1885 Greek Sculpture and Modern Art. 2 Lectures Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy of London : London: Cambridge University Press, 1914
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
The term “Manifest Destiny” was never actually used until 1845, but the idea was always implied from the Doctrine of Discovery. Without understanding the Doctrine, it is impossible to understand the reasons and fundamentals behind why Manifest Destiny began.This Doctrine was a set of ten steps and rules that European nations followed in order to avoid conflict over land holdings, created in the early 1400s. The first few steps give the discovering country full rights to buy the land from the native peoples. This is important, since it gave the discovering country the power of preemption. Conquered Indian peoples lose sovereign powers and the rights to free trade and diplomatic relations, and the land they occupy is said to be vacant. Religion played a massive role in the regulations of the Doctrine, since “non-Christian people were not deemed to have the same rights to land, sovereignty, and self determination as Christians”(Miller 4). These rules were all meant to favor the ethnocentric, with full understanding of the repercussions on those who lived in the places being conquered.
Ridgway, Brunilde S. Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. 200-100 B.C. Madison, Wisc.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
The United States, from its inception had a lust for real estate. From the original chants of "manifest destiny" to the calls for the annexation of Indian territories, America has been driven to acquire land. In this country's youth, land was needed for economic expansion; however, by the end of the 19th century, the entire continental United States had been in possession and the citizenry of this country turned their eyes out to sea. The United States no longer sought new lands to farm and work nor did they need new areas for their geological resources; the motives had changed. The United States was now driven by the temptations of world power and political supremacy. The self-absorbed citizenry looked upon their intrusion into foreign areas as a moral obligation; to spread the words of democracy and Christ throughout the world.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA as it is commonly known, is among the world’s largest art collections in North America, and to be specific enough the most prevalent artwork in the western United States (Compton 165). This massive art museum has a collection of over 100,000 artworks, which extends from the ancient times to present days (Gilbert and Mills 174). These collections, which are mainly from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin-America and America itself, are grouped into several departments within the museums buildings, depending on the region, culture, media, and time period. This paper analyzes the different genres of art and explains the main features that make the Islamic artworks distinguish themselves as historic masterpieces, by using stylistic and interpretive analysis methods.
...r. "Ancient Greece." Gardner's art through the ages the western perspective. 13th ed., Backpack ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 101, 123,129. Print.
“Flowers for Algernon” is about a man named Charlie Gordon who is mentally retarded. Charlie signs up for an experiment that is supposed to make him smarter. He wants to be like every one else. To do the experiment he has to keep a journal showing his progress. Charlie starts out spelling almost every word wrong. Charlie’s family and friends have all made fun of him; his parents gave him to his uncle when he was ten.
The entire concept of Manifest Destiny was created by the New York journalist John. L. O’ Sullivan. It meant that America’s fate was to possess or expand across the entire North America; it was undeniable and just waiting to happen. This is the point where many people started traveling west. It is true that America did acquire much land from expanding, but at what cost did we obtain it? I believe that America did not have the proper incentives while fulfilling its “destiny” and its voracious citizens and leaders took advantage of Native Americans.
Castriota, David. The Ara Pacis Augustae and the imagery of abundance in later Greek and early Roman imperial art. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. (P. 64)
The works of art from the Archaic Period, Classical Period, and Hellenic Period developed physically and mentally, and the study of their aesthetic differences from period to period allow for a decided contrast and comparability. This interpretation has had a profound effect on the art world and that continues even in today’s world. The importance of Greek sculptures is evident in the storytelling of the gods, the people, and the culture. We use these sculptures as a tool to go back into the past of the Greek people, letting us admire how far mankind has truly come, whether it is in art or intelligence. Generation after generation has been and will continue to be able to see for themselves the society, culture and uniqueness of these periods through the wonderful sculptures that came out of ancient
Even though Daniel Keyes wrote Flowers for Algernon in 1966, its messages about humanity still are true today. One of these themes is people treat people with mental disabilities poorly. The main character Charlie Gordon is a mentally disabled adult with a low IQ. Charlie is constantly being picked on by others, but he doesn’t realize it because he’s too slow to figure it out. Later on in the story, however, Charlie is chosen to get an operation to have his IQ is raised. I think people today are still picking on others who are less smarter than them.
When walking around a city, you may notice that the architecture and art look similar to other works. Many of these designs have changed along the course of history and time whilst others have not. The designs that many people still see in society and day to day living is from two of the many cultures of the old civilizations, Roman and Islamic. The art and architecture forms from the Islamic and Roman cultures have many comparisons and contrasts between them. They, the Islamic and Roman nations, have both adopted from other cultures and have made their own discoveries in the art and architecture worlds. The Roman and Islamic architecture and art vary drastically from each other and yet have varying comparisons between the two.
“We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march?” (Denial) noted writer John O’Sullivan in 1839, but in fact, there was one limit: territory. Some people believed that in order to spread democracy, it was America’s manifest destiny, or obvious fate, to inhabit the entire North American continent. It had a major impact on American society by it being the cause of social change in the US, it economically revamped America, and lastly, it altered America politically. Manifest destiny caused the change of America socially due to the economic transition from a local market economy to a national market economy. Manifest destiny has also impacted America’s society economically by the large increase in territory gained to profit off of. But, it also altered America politically by causing further division of the North and South which led to a great drama of regional conflict. These social, political, and economical changes in the United States were certainly results of the initiation and usage of manifest destiny.
The rise of American Empire received support because in many ways it seemed a proper product of past American history and tradition (Healy 47). Several American ideals -- such as: expansionism, progress, mission, and racial inequality -- were some of the main assumptions held of imperialism (Healy 34). The idea of Manifest Destiny had been with Americans long before the term was coined by John L O'Sullivan in 1845 (Sanford 26). American had been an expansionist nation since its earliest days (Brinkley 604). Americans saw themselves as expanding more than just political boundaries. They saw themselves as expanding the frontiers of freedom and carrying forward civilization and Christianity as their mission from God (Healy 35). Americans felt that their building of a new and better society in the heathen lands was the very embodiment of progress (Healy 37).
Byzantine art had many basic characteristics. The first was expressionistic using color and emotion. Many of the are lacked depth in a two dimensional fashion. The art was symbolic in nature, decorative, detailed. The figures are stiff and ...