Audrey DeStefano's History of Art I Blog

  The Saljuq rulers of the region that is presently Iran and Turkey, while only in power for a brief time, were significant in both education and artistic culture. In fact, art crafted by Anatolian Saljuqs was so distinctive from its counterparts that it is regarded as its own period of culture. Goods such as incense burners and perfume containers, (particularly ones modeled after animals, as most pieces were in this time period), were a common and popular artistic outlet. This piece, titled, “Incense Burner of Amir Saif al-Dunya wa’l-Din ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi”, is a bronze incense burner fashioned after a lion, notably large and engraved with Arabic calligraphy. Its style and height are unique – certainly markers of its time.   Works Cited Glenna Barlow, "Arts of the Islamic world: The medieval period," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed September 22, 2020, Canby, Sheila R. "The Scented World : Incense Burners and Perfume Containers from Spain to Central Asia....

  The Archaic period marked significant change in the artistic character of Greek art. Instead of the stylistic rigidness that characterized the art of the previous era, Greek artists embraced a more naturistic style. This shift in art style is most obvious in the sculptures modeled after people – the artists hyper-focused on a more accurate representation and simultaneously, the beauty of human anatomy. This piece of art was modeled after a young, male Athenian aristocrat. Along with the detailed anatomy, this piece is sculpted in a rigid, straightforward pose that was common with many statues depicting humans in this era. This is widely theorized to set a viewer’s focus on appreciating individual minutiae rather than the sculpture as a whole. The nudity was also a very common facet of these statues, again derived from the theorized desire to display the anatomy in its entirety. This piece is said to have been one of the earliest of this period, so it isn’t nearly as anatomica...

Uruk was significant in that it was the first major city in Sumer, as well as the place at with written language was used (as far as we can tell). Uruk heralded their kings not just as royalty, but as shepherds and priests (the most dominant theories state that it was ruled by priests alone before the monarchy was established). This piece of art is believed to represent one of their so-called “priest-kings”, an iconic mark of this substantial historical era. Not much is known about this piece, as this was crafted at the beginning of history, but most debate lies around the hat or headband and what it represents. Notably, many of the other pieces crafted to represent Uruk “priest-kings” were also clad in this odd headwear for thus far indefinite reasons. The most prevalent theory is that it is a shepherd’s hat – a physical depiction of a king’s royal and priestly duties to their people. Some websites, such as Sumerian Shakespeare, have entire pages dedicated to this debate, as well as t...