Renaissance

Renaissance (1400-1550)

The Renaissance was a cultural art movement; it began in Italy and spread all around Europe. It influenced literature, art, music, science and many other subjects. They searched for realism and human emotion in art. Renaissance could be viewed in order to improve, revive ideas from the past. The name renaissance (means rebirth). There are plenty of major artists in this movement for example: Leonardo da Vinci and his human anatomy, Michelangelo, Raphael Sandro Botticelli, Donatello and Titian.  

The three major artists Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael dominated the high renaissance, which lasted to the early 1490s. Leonardo was the categorised as the “Renaissance man” for his intellect, interest, talent, and his expression on humanist and classical values. The Mona Lisa, The Virgin of Rocks and The last Super were some of his best works. Michelangelo was the best sculptor of the High Renaissance; he produced masterpieces such as Pieta in St Peter’s Cathedral and The David in Florence. Many Renaissance works depicted religious images.

Other Characteristics:

The grotesque featured a combination of creatures, masks, vases, figures and of scrolling plants.

Moresque is the interlacing patterns of stems, leaves and tendrils these were a common in Renaissance design.

 

Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1445, he had changed the world. Before his invention bookmaking was a burden, individuals had to copy all the words and illustrations by hand. The copying was done on parchment, animal skin that had been scraped clean, thin and smooth. Gutenberg’s press could produce books quickly and with little effort, bookmaking had become less expensive, and because of this the demand of books had risen, before the printing press, most books were written in Latin, but since the release of the printing press the demand grew. Individuals wanted books in their own languages; there was a variety of books being made.

Reference: 

History of Graphic Design, Renaissance, http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/index.php/a-graphic-renaissance/renaissance-graphic-design, visited 26th of October 2013

Annenberg learner, Renaissance printing and thinking, http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/printing.html , 2013, visited 26th of October 2013

The Celtic book designs (manuscripts) and the Gothic era

Celtic book design

A Celtic design is abstract and very difficult to understand; geometric patterns, twist and space filled with thick visual textures, bright pure colours are used in close juxtaposition. Highly abstract patterns were applied to the books. Manuscripts containing the four narratives of the life of Christ are the summit of Celtic book design. The Book of Durrow 680CE is recorded to be the earliest fully designed Celtic book.

The book of Durrow, is represented as a flat cubist painting, made out of simple geometric forms. The designs itself  as many of the Celtic art is presented to be oriental.  

Gothic era:

The Romanesque period evolved into the Gothic in 1150 CE up till the fourteenth-century. This is the Pauline Epistles, the mid-twelfth century; this is an example of a gothic style manuscript (made in France). The serpent looking letter ‘P’ is a complex design influenced from the Celtic manuscripts.

Other than manuscripts other important creations were made at this time for example: The architecture.

The period had dominated for 350 years, which was followed by Renaissance. The characters of this movement being: sculpture, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts and the architecture.

Before the period the architecture had block designs, buildings were heavy and dark. The Gothic architecture had changed designs it included: curves and pointed arches. The reasoning was to create buildings which were wider, but also taller. Good examples of such constructions would be the cathedrals, some of which stand above a 100 feet tall. The tallest gothic building being Gothic nave, found at Beauvais cathedral which reaches 160 feet. These architectures came with the use of the stained glass.  

A man by the name of Benedictine abbot, said that the previous churches were boring and dull, his mind transformed he wanted to make it tall enough to reach the sky, he wanted to make side walls made of glass and invent curves to hold everything.

Reims Cathedral in France

This Cathedral has good use of the Gothic architecture; one of the most known traits that make this architecture important is the roof of the building being one of the highest this building’s roof stands up to 125 feet. The whole upper of the Cathedral is stained glass

Reference: 

Philip.B.Meggs, Alston W.Purvis Megg's History of Graphic design 5th Edition,1998, New Jersey.

Dr.Karen Carr , Gothic Architecture, http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/medieval/architecture/gothic.htm October 10, 2013 (updates), date visited 25th October 2013 

Art Fortune, Gothic, http://www.artfortune.com/gothic/, date visited 25th of October 2013

Gothic Architecture, http://library.thinkquest.org/11114/html/gothic.htm, date visited 25th of October 2013

History of Writing part 4:

Chinese writing is purely a visual language. Every letter has a different shape lines, Chinese was first written in approximately 1800BCE. The earliest ever Chinese writing is on “Chiaku-wen” or “bone-and-shell” script. This script was used to communicate the Chinese citizens with the gods and their long-dead ancestors.

This is example of Chiaku-wen:

The symbolism is abstract, and is more difficult to read than the Egyptian hieroglyphs. it is also stated there are approximately forty eight thousand characters in the language and each one means something different. There are 128 characters on this stone piece.

“Bone-and-shell”

Paper:

They also invented paper; Ts’ai Lun is known to be the first of papermakers. In early times the Chinese use to write in bamboo slats using a bamboo pen with a dense and durable ink.

Printing

Printing is one of the finest things in graphic design, and in art. Printing was also invented by the Chinese. This was used in order to create seals or stamps on paper. How it worked: This was basically a ceramic piece that left a symbolism on the paper, this worked by having the flat surface bottom surface of the ceramic to being inked and getting a sheet of paper, pressing on the sheet of paper will result into a marked sheet.

Printing in Europe:

Easter influence arrived in Europe, printing arrived on paper. Creating playing cards, religious prints,  were some early manifestations. By early 1300s pictoral designs were printed on textiles in Europe. The first ever European block printing were devoted to prints of saints:

 The pieces were hand draw, and also early uses of typography can be seen.

Here is another example in the early 15^th century this piece demonstrates how powerful hand-painting, symbolism and printing can get, at such an early time too! 

Reference: 

 Philip.B.Meggs, Alston W.Purvis Megg's History of Graphic design 5th Edition,1998, New Jersey. 

History of writing part 3:

The cylinder seal (also known as “the Tyszkiewicz seal”) created in the 1650-1200 BCE

The cylinder seal was also created by the Egyptians, it is a tool to decorate clay surfaces, for this to work they use to put the clay on a flat surface and roll the cylinder seal on top of it, the seal also represented a particular meaning for example: 

This Is portraying a ritual, with a sacrificial offering. 

Codex:

Codex was used instead of the papyrus because it proved to be more efficient, more durable from tearing, therefore they started to use vellum, which was a very expensive material, however this does not mean papyrus wasn't used, it was less ideal when vellum was created, but papyrus was still used. 

Illuminated manuscripts:

Other than the writing material they provided the Egyptians also created the illustrated manuscripts, in these scripts both words and images are combined in order to communicate information.  They used papyrus paper, and a thick writing material from the skin of an animals (most likely a calf, goat or a sheep) the most high quality parchment was vellum.  

 The north semetic alphabet (early Canaanites, Hebrews and Phoenicians)

North Semitic writing is the historical beginning of the alphabet.

The Hebrew script (this forms the Hebrew Alphabet)

The Phaistos Disc. There are 241 signs on this disc, which includes a man in a headdress, a hatchet, an eagle, a carpenter’s square, an animal skin and a vase.

 The Greek Alphabet

Greece provided a lot for the Westerns: Science, philosophy  and democratic government all the foundation steps were provided from the Greek civilization. 

This is a Greek wheel made out of Bronze dedicated to the mythological creature/god Apollo, there is written letters formed on the surfaces, this was used to worship.

The Latin Alphabet

Roman scholars had studied and captivated Greek literature, studies, religion and altered it to roman society. Roman’s used alphabets from A to R and later formed S,T,V,X. Y and Z was Greek, the Romans added these two letters into their alphabet.

Controlled brush drawing forms on the stone. The precision of the stonemason’s craft create letter-forms of majestic proportion and harmonious form. 

Reference:

Beth Carswell, Illuminated manuscripts, http://www.abebooks.com/books/hours-gold-vellum-decorated-parchment/illuminated-manuscripts.shtml, visited:15/10/2013 BGHater, Mysterious Book: Codex Gigas, 06 July 2009, visited: 15/10/2013

 Philip.B.Meggs, Alston W.Purvis Megg's History of Graphic design 5th Edition,1998, New Jersey. 

History of writing Part 2:

Egyptians hieroglyphs:

The first ever Egyptian hieroglyphs are stated to be in the 3,100, while the last known were carved in 394 CE. Hieroglyphics consisted of pictograms that depicted objects and beings. The Egyptians tried to create the hieroglyphics to denote sounds. The Egyptian scribes were confronted with words that were difficult to express in visual form, they devised a rebus, using pictures for sounds, to write the desired words. They designated a pictorial symbol for every consonant sound and combination in their speech.  Hieroglyphs were used for history, commercial documents, poetry, epics, geography, science, astronomy, medicine, pharmacy, time and other topics. The Egyptian writing style had influenced the Greek culture. The hieroglyphs themselves already started to look more like a language; Egyptians used to write hieroglyphs on either stone or clay.

In 1790-1832 Jean-Francois Champollion had deciphered the Rosetta stones hieroglyphs, he had realized that some of the signs were alphabetic and syllabic . The signs were functioned as phonograms, not just pictographs, Champollion, able to sound out the name of Ptolemy. After sounding out and understanding, the hieroglyphic translations, he went to decipher the cartouche for Alexander the Great. Champollion had gathered all the cartouches he could possibly find from the Grec-Roman era, he managed to translate eighty, building up a large vocabulary of glyphs in the process. Champollion died young at the age of forty-two, his research on the English dictionary and grammar were both published. The progress toward translating the hieroglyphics had enabled nineteenth –century Egyptologist to unlock mysteries of Egyptian history and culture. 

The Rosetta stone showed the key secrets to ancient Egypt

Papyrus:

Papyrus is a paper like substrate for manuscripts.  The Egyptians made extensive use of the Cyprus papyrus plant; the plant became one of Egypt’s major exports. The word paper originates from the word papyrus. The Egyptians crafted the papyrus plant in order to create different things, not just paper, for example: rope, sandals, mats and baskets.

Reference:

Philip B.Meggs, Alston W.Purvis Meggs’ History of graphic design 5^th Edition, New Jersey

Egyptian papyrus u.k. http://www.egyptian-papyrus.co.uk/, 2008 , (visited, 12,10,2013) 

History of Writing

History of writing: Part 1

In prehistoric times, in order to communicate or leave a trace of memory, humanoids used to engrave or paint on cave walls, or craft on pottery. However when Homo sapiens started to become more civilized they started using symbols, anagrams, in order to have communication or to keep records.Earliest studies shows that writing started in Mesopotamian.

The earliest written records are these tablets:

This is an early Sumerian pictograph tablet, as one can see the tablet is constructed by grid work, and symbols of seeds, plants, tools and other information. The writing style evolved over centuries. They later developed a sense of writing the pictographs left to right, and from top to bottom, this had made it easier to follow, this was in 2800bce. Three hundred years later, by replacing the current stylus into a sharp-pointed triangle-tipped one, had made it easier to write. This tool pushed into the clay instead of being dragged through its surface.

Cuneiform became rebus writing, which is pictures or pictographs that represent words and syllables, with very similar or the same sound as the object presented. Early Sumerian artists had mixed writing and images together. The “Blau” monument could be the eldest extant artifact that combines both words and pictures on the same surface. Mesopotamians had libraries which had contained thousands of tablets on religion, history, law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. There was also the beginning of literature as poetry, epics, myths and legends on the clay tablets.  After the fall of Mesopotamia the gift of writing that they provided us went to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. The Egyptians had evolved a complex writing based on pictographs (hieroglyphs), whilst the Phoenicians replaced the complexity of the cuneiform with simple phonetic signs.

The Blau

Reference to information and images:

Philip B.Meggs, Alston W.Purvis Meggs’ History of graphic design 5^th Edition, New Jersey.

Personal comment:I found the way Mesopotamian civilization communicated with each other very interesting, and also very well crafted, especially at those times to engrave meaning on tablet, a very impressive start in ways to communicate. It was a start, they even depicted law, religion, mathematics plenty other things on these clay pieces without this method of “writing” the Egyptians and Phoenicians would have never evolved their own ways of writing (or would have developed it much later,which possibly means we would not have any way to communicate verbally). 

Fertility Goddesses

Fertility goddesses:

The form of the goddess of fertility represents a healthy woman of that era; she was highly respected because she represents both the people and the land of where these people lived, the robust figure represent health and fertility. Later in history the fertility goddess represented to nature earth. Each goddess had different meanings, for example:

Bona Dea was a goddess of fertility, childbirth, midwives, and was also linked to fresh water; whilst Ceres was the goddess of crops and agriculture (both goddesses are Roman) there are many other goddesses which are from different regions of the planet. (Also I want to point out Bona Dea and Ceres were not the first goddesses these came later, the figure of Bona Dea and Ceres is different than the Goddess of fertility Venus)

In the following link there is a list representing each one a different deity/fertility goddesses and what she represented:

Link Information:

Goddess guide, Fertility Goddessses and Goddesses of pregnancy and childbirth, http://www.goddess-guide.com/fertility-goddesses.html

The Venus of Willendorf

The very famous sculpture is well known to be one of the eldest fertility goddesses; it is stated to be crafted in the 15,000 B.C. What struck me the most is possibly the braided hair, and the overall design.

Individuals mention the anatomy of the Venus to be very well crafted and designed, I do believe it is very good, but personally I find the proportions off for example: The feet being too small and that there are no visible ankles. I do find it to be a very interesting art work, it has different aspects and I would like to know why the faces of these certain types of fertility statues are hidden, is it to portray some being that has been hidden? Was it to show that the body was the most important thing at that era? There are many conclusions. I would like to know which could be the true ‘reasoning’ behind it.

The sculpture is very well known to be one of the goddess of fertility or to be a robust Stone Age woman. This sculpture was made out of limestone. The Venus represents the roman equivalent of Aphrodite. She is one of the main fertility goddesses. 

Very interesting and in-depth information about the Venus and prehistorical art information:

Don Hitchcock,The Venus of Willendorf, 2008,http://donsmaps.com/willendorf.html  

Prehistory

Prehistorical (The earliest recordings of art work)

There are many findings of Prehistorical work pieces, which are yet unknown, the artist remains anonymous, and the set date of the art work which was created is still unrecorded.  I personally like this era, because it was the base start of art, it is a mystery, it is a recording of memory of artists at that era, beliefs of pre-history, and there is possibly a lot more art work to be discovered.

Characteristics of Prehistorical art:

Cave Paintings:

Goddesses of Fertility:

Megalithic structures:

Cave Paintings are one of the earliest means of communication. Here are some examples:

A very well-known cave to find these kinds of paintings is located in Lascaux, France. 

Chris Quigley, Cave Paintings at Lascaux, Wednesday May 27, 2009

http://quigleyscabinet.blogspot.com/2009/05/cave-paintings-at-lascaux.html

Follow at: http://quigleyscabinet.blogspot.com

“Sections have been identified in the cave; the Great Hall of the Bulls, the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines. The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures, which can be grouped into three main categories - animals, human figures and abstract signs. Most of the major images have been painted onto the walls using mineral pigments although some designs have also been incised into the stone.”

BradshawFoundation, The cave Paintings at Lascaux, http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/

follow at: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/

The painting, engravings on the cave wall is of a great size; its quality of work is beautiful. The painting is said to be over 20,000 years old, possibly somewhere between the 18,000-15,000 B.C era although it is not the eldest cave painting.

This explains the definition of the bison, Taurus, red bulls and horses. This is still just an indication and is not defined, as a thorough explanation of what in reality the cave painting is hiding, but I do love the idea of the horoscopes.

Others say it could possibly be a recording of the different experiences of the artists at that time, and they wanted to write down history or show their memories and findings the best way they had known how to at that time. 

The information that really got my interest on the cave paintings was the following website: 

 merlynne6 ,What the Lascaux Cave Paintings Tell Us About How Our Ancestors Understood the Stars, 2009, http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/what-the-lascaux-cave-paintings-tell-us-about-how-our-ancestors-understood-the-stars/15506 

Follow at: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/users/merlynne6

Read more at http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/what-the-lascaux-cave-paintings-tell-us-about-how-our-ancestors-understood-the-stars/15506#mwyKA26bXI7Ch5kl.99