Day One!

Artist Unknown, Wheeled feline, 600–900 CE, Late Classic or Classic Veracruz, image source

Artist: Unknown 

Title, or working title: Wheeled feline

Date: 600–900 CE 

Period/Location : Late Classic or Classic Veracruz (Mesoamerican, Veracruz culture, Present Day Mexico) 

Materials: Ceramic with buff-colored slip 

Size: 6  x 3  x 7 in

source: where did you find the image and/or content

provenance: (for portable works, not site-specific) where is the object now, and how did it get there? (why this matters)

Today's plan: 

Introductions: Cabinet of Curiosities

Syllabus

Course Calendar

Cabinet of Curiosities/opening Theme Brainstorm

Notebook Assignment 

Timeline and Map

Lions  (& Art History Methods: 

• Form (Formalism)
• Content/Iconography
• Context (History)
• Interpretation/Reading
• Theories of Art HIstory- 2nd Semester
• Marxism & Social History
• Feminisam
• Psychoanalysis
• Semiotics
• Postcolonialism (we will do background))

Questions to Ask a Work of Art

Community Agreements

Artist Period	Unknown sculptor of the  Proto-Elamite (present-day Iraq)
Year	c. 3000–2800 BCE (5-4000ya)
Type	Limestone
Dimensions	8.3 cm (3.25 in)
Location	Private collection

"Like the portable statuette from 32,000 years ago described above, this 5,000-year-old Guennol Lioness (which is technically too late to be considered Paleolithic but has roots in the same shamanistic traditions as paleolithic figures that we will consider next week) is pierced with two holes. Probably this polished limestone carving was made to be worn, perhaps on the chest. But whose? (Note that if male lions back then did not have manes, "she" may more plausibly be a "he.")

Rather than engaging and potentially obedient, this sphinx is commanding, one of the most powerful, monumental sculptures ever made, especially considering that the heavily muscled figure with the penetrating stare is only 3 1/4 inches high. The closest descendants of the artist are probably found among the Kurds of today's Iran. In 2003, the figure was sold at Sotheby's to an Englishman in a checked gray suit for $57.2 million. " Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, forbes magazine, March 2009

Lion Human,  Stadel Cave, Germany, 40,000 years old, Paleolithic. Mammoth Ivory, ~12"

"The Lion Man is a masterpiece. Sculpted with great originality, virtuosity and technical skill from mammoth ivory, this 40,000-year-old image is 31 centimetres tall. It has the head of a cave lion with a partly human body. He stands upright, perhaps on tiptoes, legs apart and arms to the sides of a slender, cat-like body with strong shoulders like the hips and thighs of a lion. His gaze, like his stance, is powerful and directed at the viewer. The details of his face show he is attentive, he is watching and he is listening. He is powerful, mysterious and from a world beyond ordinary nature. He is the oldest known representation of a being that does not exist in physical form but symbolises ideas about the supernatural." British Museum

Questions