Art History Roundup!

Okay, images have been googled, texts have been referenced, and lecture notes have been reviewed to give you all this: The Art History Roundup! (Trust me, the Roundup will probably become a semi-regular feature here, mostly because art history rocks! I should develop a Roundup logo....hmmm)

Read on, gentle audience, it's good for you!

First off, Commodus, because I promised it to Katie. I wish I had the hand-drawn rendering of Commodus to post here for comparison, but alas it is pinned to my wall at home 3000 miles away. Part of the caption accompanying this statue from the text book ("Art History" by Marilyn Stokstad, in case you were curious...it really is quite wonderful) reads:

...When he proposed to assume the consulship dressed and armed as a gladiator, his associates, including his mistress, arranged to have him strangled in his bath by a wrestling partner. In this portrait, the emperor is shown in the guise of Hercules, adorned with references to the hero's legendary labors: his club, the skin and head of the Nemean Lion, and the golden apples from the garden of Hesperides.

I personally like the look of disdain in his eyes.

Next up, we jump back in time to Ancient Sumer! *Insert Wayne's World noises and wiggling fingers here* These guys are called "votive figures" (really boring name for really cool sculptures!) and Sumerians would commission them and place them in the temple. Essentially, the statues would carry on the prayers of the statue-buyer even when the buyer was not physically in the temple. Check out the eyes on these guys...In Sumer (Iraq), gods were to be approached with eyes wide open in an attentive gesture. The eyes are exaggerated to emphasize the utter piety of the donor. Draws interesting comparisons to Precious Moments figures, I think...sounds like a doctoral thesis if I ever heard one!

Plus, I think this guy (from the far left) is just about the cutest little bugger ever...don't you just wanna hug him? Well, don't you?

Finally, in case you haven't heard yet, I plan on taking my art history class for honors credit. In order to earn that honors credit I have to write a paper or do a research project this semester. It's not finalized yet, but I'm hoping to do a paper on imagery of the Hellmouth in illuminated manuscripts (but they have to be from before 1400...bummer). The paper might also evolve over the semester into a paper on William de Brailes (one of the few manuscript illuminators to sign his work) or a particular image (such as is found in the de Brailes "Book of Hours" or the "Trinity Apocalypse" or even from a wall sculpture at a cathedral in France). To give you an idea of what I'll be researching, here's a very famous image of a Hellmouth from the Winchester Psalter (a psalter being a book containing the Psalms). Things to look for in the picture: 1.The angel locking the door of the Hellmouth 2. the presence of kings (gold crowns) as well as monks (shaved heads) IN the Hellmouth 3. and the cool creatures growing from the hair of the Hellmouth beast.

You'll definitely be kept well up to date with the progress of this paper (mostly because I don't have any friends to share it with here....sad face).

I hope you enjoyed this first (although it's really kind of the second, if you count the Lamassu post back at the beginning of the blog) Art History Roundup! (I need theme music, too). I'm sure there will be many many more as I run across cool stuff to share.

Also, the computer naming contest is NOT over yet! It has hardly yet begun! The suggestions I've gotten so far are pretty great, but I still want more before I make this all-important decision. By the way, you're all invited to the baptism once the name finally is chosen!