1.
Europa (mythology)
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In Greek mythology Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, a woman with Phoenician origin of high lineage, and for whom the continent Europe was named. This can especially be said of the story of Europa, Europas earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BC. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, the earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from mid-7th century BC. Greek Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ/ὠπ-/ὀπτ- eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion. It is common in ancient Greek mythology and geography to identify lands or rivers with female figures, thus, Europa is first used in a geographic context in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander. Barry adduces the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of night, sunset, in opposition to Asu sunrise and this proposal is mostly considered unlikely or untenable. They call it the temple of Astarte, I hold this Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa and this legend I heard from other Phœnicians as well, and the coinage current among the Sidonians bears upon it the effigy of Europa sitting upon a bull, none other than Zeus. Thus they do not agree that the temple in question is sacred to Europa, the paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa is Astarte in her guise as the full, broad-faced moon. Sources differ in details regarding Europas family, but agree that she is Phoenician, and from a lineage that descended from Io, the mythical nymph beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor, the Phoenician King of Tyre, other sources, such as the Iliad, claim that she is the daughter of Agenors son, the sun-red Phoenix. So some interpret this as her brother Phoenix gave his siblings name to his three children and this Europa is also loved by Zeus, but because of the same name, gave some confusions to others. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons fathered by Zeus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died, in Crete she married Asterion also rendered Asterius and became mother of his daughter Crete. There were two competing myths relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to Crete, the mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull, which had been worshipped in the Levant. There is also a sanctuary of Demeter Europa, the mythographers tell that Zeus was enamored of Europa and decided to seduce or ravish her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a white bull and mixed in with her fathers herds. While Europa and her helpers were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete
2.
Dallas Museum of Art
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The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, the new building was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, the 2007 winner of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. The museum collection is made up of more than 24,000 objects and it is also defined by its dynamic exhibition policy and award-winning educational programs. The Mildred R. and Frederick M. Mayer Library contains over 50,000 volumes available to curators, with 159,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, it is one of the largest art museums in the United States. The museums history began with the establishment in 1903 of the Dallas Art Association, frank Reaugh, a Texas artist, saw in the new library the opportunity to display works of art. This idea was championed by May Dickson Exall, who was the first president of the Dallas Public Library. ”The museum’s collections started growing from this moment on and it soon became necessary to find a new permanent home. The museum, renamed the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1932, relocated to a new art deco facility within Fair Park in 1936 and this new facility was designed by a consortium of Dallas architects in consultation with Paul Cret of Philadelphia. It is still possible to visit this building, in 1943, Jerry Bywaters became the director of the museum, a position he held for the next twenty-one years. Artist, art critic, and teacher, Bywaters gave a sense of identity and community to the museum, under Bywaters tenure, impressionist, abstract, and contemporary masterpieces were acquired and the Texas identity of the museum was emphasized. This identity is represented by works by Alexandre Hogue, Olin Herman Travis, Bywaters himself. In 1963, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts merged with the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art, rueppel became the director of the newly merged Museum. In 1965, the museum held an exhibition called The Art of Piet Mondrian and one entitled Sculpture, by the late 1970s, the greatly enlarged permanent collection and the ambitious exhibition program fostered a need for a new museum facility. Under Harry Parker’s direction, the museum was able to once again, to its current venue. The $54 million facility, designed by New York architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, was financed by a 1979 City bond election, the project was galvanized by the slogan “A Great City Deserves a Great Museum, ” and the new building opened in January 1984. The museums collections include more than 24,000 works of art from around the world ranging from ancient to modern times and they are conceived as a celebration of the human power of creation. Objects in the museum’s African collection come from West Africa and Central Africa, the objects date primarily from the 16th to the 20th centuries, although the earliest object is a Nok terracotta bust from Nigeria that dates from somewhere between 200 BC to 200 AD. Some works in the collection were created as symbols of leadership and status, the American art collection includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the United States from the colonial period to World War II, and art from Mexico, and Canada. One of the most important pieces in the collection is The Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church and this painting had long been referred to as a lost masterpiece
3.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
4.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
5.
Western culture
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The term also applies beyond Europe, to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western Culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture, with the worlds first democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science, Greece was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. European culture developed with a range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and mysticism. Rational thinking developed through an age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment. More often an ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category, many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire are considered Western today but were Eastern in the past. Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the West is and it is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all cultures are, to some extent. Stereotyped views of the West have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of the East, as Europe discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly considered the Orient became the Near East, as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time. Thus, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East, the Greeks contrasted themselves to their Eastern neighbors, such as the Trojans in Iliad, setting an example for later contrasts between east and west. In the Middle Ages, the Near East provided a contrast to the West, concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Latin Christendom, Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all cultures, it has evolved and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity. Nevertheless, the Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves as something between the wild barbarians of most of Europe and the soft, slavish Middle-Easterners. In the meantime, however, Greece, under Alexander, had become a capital of the East, the Celts also created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity
6.
Fine art
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Historically, the five main fine arts were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, with performing arts including theatre and dance. Today, the fine arts commonly include additional forms, such as film, photography, video production/editing, design, sequential art, conceptual art, and printmaking. However, in some institutes of learning or in museums, fine art, in that sense, there are conceptual differences between the fine arts and the applied arts. The word fine does not so much denote the quality of the artwork in question and this definition originally excluded the applied or decorative arts, and the products of what were regarded as crafts. According to some writers the concept of a category of fine art is an invention of the early modern period in the West. Larry Shiner in his The Invention of Art, A Cultural History locates the invention in the 18th century, There was a traditional “system of the arts” in the West before the eighteenth century. ”Similar ideas have been expressed by Paul Oskar Kristeller, Pierre Bourdieu, and Terry Eagleton, though the point of invention is often placed earlier, in the Italian Renaissance. The separation of arts and crafts that often exists in Europe, in Japanese aesthetics the activities of everyday life are depicted by integrating not only art with craft but man-made with nature. Traditional Chinese art distinguished within Chinese painting between the mostly landscape painting of scholar gentlemen and the artisans of the schools of court painting. A high status was given to many things that would be seen as craft objects in the West, in particular ceramics, jade carving, weaving. Drawing is a form of expression and is one of the major forms of the visual arts. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, chalk, pastels, markers, stylus, There are a number of subcategories of drawing, including cartooning. Mosaics are images formed with pieces of stone or glass. They can be decorative or functional, an artist who designs and makes mosaics is called a mosaic artist or a mosaicist. Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print is considered an original, as opposed to a copy, the reasoning behind this is that the print is not a reproduction of another work of art in a different medium — for instance, a painting — but rather an image designed from inception as a print. An individual print is also referred to as an impression, prints are created from a single original surface, known technically as a matrix. But there are other kinds, discussed below. Multiple nearly identical prints can be called an edition, in modern times each print is often signed and numbered forming a limited edition
7.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
8.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
9.
History of theatre
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The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. The history of theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent development of the theatre as an autonomous activity, since classical Athens in the 6th century BC, vibrant traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world. Theatre probably arose as a performance of activities that did not require initiation on the part of the spectator. The physical location of such performances was accordingly named theatron, according to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy, rituals typically include elements that entertain or give pleasure, such as costumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As societies grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non-ritualistic conditions, as this occurred, the first steps towards theatre as an autonomous activity were being taken. Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition, participation in the city-states many festivals—and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member in particular—was an important part of citizenship. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play, Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BC, it flowered during the 5th century BC, no tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos. As contestants in the City Dionysias competition, playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays, the performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BC, official records begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced. More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics, Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the surviving plays of Aristophanes. New Comedy is known primarily from the papyrus fragments of plays by Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of people that involves some kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, the Roman historian Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a performance by Etruscan actors. Beacham argues that Romans had been familiar with pre-theatrical practices for some time before recorded contact. Following the expansion of the Roman Republic into several Greek territories between 270–240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama, while Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a variety of theatrical entertainments
10.
Western painting
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The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract. Developments in Western painting historically parallel those in Eastern painting, in general a few centuries later, african art, Islamic art, Indian art, Chinese art, and Japanese art each had a significant influence on Western art, and, eventually, vice versa. Initially serving imperial, private, civic, and religious patronage, Western painting later found audiences in the aristocracy, from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy. Beginning with the Baroque era artists received commissions from a more educated. The idea of art for arts sake began to find expression in the work of the Romantic painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, during the 19th century commercial galleries became established and continued to provide patronage in the 20th century. Following the depth of discovery and the complexity of innovations of the Renaissance, the history of painting continues into the 21st century. The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, the oldest known paintings are at the Grotte Chauvet in France, claimed by some historians to be about 32,000 years old. They are engraved and painted using red ochre and black pigment and show horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, mammoth, there are examples of cave paintings all over the world—in France, India, Spain, Portugal, China, Australia etc. Various conjectures have been made as to the meaning these paintings had to the people who made them, Egyptian wall painting and decorative painting is often graphic, sometimes more symbolic than realistic. Egyptian painting depicts figures in bold outline and flat silhouette, in symmetry is a constant characteristic. Egyptian painting has close connection with its written language—called Egyptian hieroglyphs, painted symbols are found amongst the first forms of written language. The Egyptians also painted on linen, remnants of which survive today, Ancient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient Egyptians created paintings to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place, the themes included journey through the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld. Some examples of paintings are paintings of the gods and goddesses Ra, Horus, Anubis, Nut. Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive, in the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife, to the north of Egypt was the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. The wall paintings found in the palace of Knossos are similar to those of the Egyptians, around 1100 BC, tribes from the north of Greece conquered Greece and its art took a new direction
11.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
