The Art of Beauty

Prehistoric and Ancient Man

Venus of Willendorf, ca. 28,000-25,000 BCE

Cycladic statuette, ca. 2500-2300 BCE

Ancient Egypt

Seated statue of KhafreHatshepsut asPharaoh

Akhenaton, from the Temple of Aton, Karnak,Egypt, ca. 1353-1335BCE. Sandstone, approx.13’ high

Nefertiti, from Tell el-Amarna,Egypt, ca. 1353-1335 BCE.Painted limestone, approx.1’ 8” high.

King Menkaure and a QueenFourth Dynasty, reign of Menkaure.Graywacke with faint remains of paint.Old Kingdom.

BACK TO ANCIENT GREECE

Kouros, ca. 600 BCE

Kritios Boy, ca. 480 BCE

Polykleitos, Doryphoros, after a bronze of ca. 450-440BCE

LET’S DO THAT WITH THE FEMALE FORM

Peplos Kore, ca. 530 BCE

Three goddesses, from the east pedimentof the Parthenon, ca. 438-432 BCE

Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos, copyafter original of ca. 350-340 BCE

In Honor of Chanukah . . .

Art from the Hellenistic Period: What Was So Appealing?

Hellenism: From the Death of Alexander the Great, 323,to 31 BCE

Let’s See That Again With Women

And with the female nude . . .

Real or Too Real:Roman Verism

Relief portrait head of a man, c. 1st Century BCE, marble,

9 5/8" height

Portrait of the Emperor Antonius Pius, c.138-

161 CE, shown with the style of beard made popular by Hadrian. 

Marble, 15 7/8" height.

Augustus Caesar and wife Livia

The Human Body in the Middle Ages

Good Shepherd Mosaic, 5th century CE

Christ During the Middle Ages

Rottgen Pieta, from the Rhineland (Germany), c. 1300-1325, painted wood

* Increased tragic (lugubrious) tone brought to religious art

• “Humanizing” sacred personages• Expressive reaching out from a

freestanding statue

The Last Judgment

1120-35 Tympanum of west portal

Cathedral of St. Lazare, Autun, France

Psychostasy: weighing of souls

The Renaissance, 1400-1600

Michelangelo’s God Creating Adam, from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, ca. 1511

The Pieta was finished in 1499, when Michelangelo was only 24 years old

Left: The Cowper Madonna, 1504Right: Madonna of the Chair, 1518 Raffaello Sanzio, known as

Raphael, lived from 1483-1520

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1485

The sculpture is symbolic of three major themes of its day:

1. Good conquers Evil 2. Florence (the defeat of France) 3. Man (can accomplish anything

he sets his mind to)

Michelangelo’s David, 1501-1504

Here he is . . .

David,1501-1504

Gianlorenzo Bernini, David1623-24White marble170 cmGalleria Borghese, Rome

The Elevation of the Cross, c. 1610-11

The Judgment of Paris, c. 1600

Peter Paul Rubens, 1577-1640

The Rococo StyleJean-Honore Fragonard,

The Swing, 1766

Jean–Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Grand Odalisque, 1814

The excess and frivolity of the French nobility led to regime change and Romanticism, the promotion of the individual

Theodore Gericault, Portraitof an Insane Woman, 1822

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863

Pablo Picasso,Girl Before a Mirror, ca. 1932

Henri Matisse, Woman Wearing aHat, 1905

Albert Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1947

Kiki Smith, Untitled Barbara Kruger, Untitled