Aurochs

I was reading a book about food, specifically On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee, and there was a description of aurochs - those critters that seem to horn in on every cave painting. As we were collectively so perplexed by Art History's references to these critters, I thought I'd share this description.

The Cow, European and Indian. The immediate ancestor of Bos taurus, the common dairy cow, was Bos primigenius, the long-horned wild auroch. This massive animal, standing 6 feet/180 cm at the shoulder with horns 6.5 inches/17 cm in diameter, roamed Asia, Europe, and North Africa in the form of two overlapping races: the humpless European-African form, and a humped central Asian form, the zebu. The European race was domesticated in the Middle East around 8000 BCE, the heat- and parasite-tolerant zebu in south-central Asia around the same time, and an African variant of the European race in the Sahara, probably somewhat later.

In its principle homeland, central and south India, the zebu has been valued as much for its muscle power as its milk, and remains rangy and long-horned. The European dairy cow has been highly selected for milk production at least since 3000 BCE, when confinement to stalls in urban Mesopotamia and poor winter feed led to a reduction in body and horn size. To this day, the prized dairy breeds - Jerseys, Guernseys, Brown Swiss, Holsteins - are short-horned cattle that put their energy into making milk rather than muscle and bone. The modern zebu is not as copious a producer as the European breeds, but its milk is 25% richer in butterfat.

The Kojo Nnamdi Show - Local Art

This afternoon I heard a segment on The Kojo Nnamdi Show about local art. Check it out.

http://www.wamu.org/programs/kn/07/07/12.php#16639

He interviewed Lenny Campello, the author of the Mid-Atlantic Art News Blog, which might be a neat resource.

http://dcartnews.blogspot.com/

He also interviewed Jeffry Cudlin, a local artist who also blogs.

http://hatchetsandskewers.blogspot.com/

Greece is the word.

My friend Jennifer recently returned from Greece where she was teaching a summer abroad program. I asked her if she learned anything about Greek art on her adventures that she didn't already know. Her response touches on a number of subjects discussed in the Aegean Art chapter. Here is her response:

So, yeah, I learned a ton about Greek art, actually, because I had to teach it to my students. I finally memorized a bunch of the architectural terminology I'd forgotten, and that helped give me a better sense of the significance of certain structures. In addition, I had the students read (and I read) this interesting little book called "The Tomb of Agamemnon" all about the layers of history at Mycenae. I knew about the Myceneans, of course, but I learned a lot about the excavation of that site and the various ideological purposes that artifacts and ruins from the site were put to by Schliemann and then Tsoumas and those who followed both of those guys. Oh, and I got a better sense of the transition in sculpture from archaic to classical and the corresponding changes in composition, gesture, posture, etc. Oh, and I learned more about the different styles of sculpture across time and geographical location (Have you looked at the figures from the Cyclades? that is, early Cycladic culture [c. 2200-1600 BCE], preceding Minoan and Mycenean dominance...Picasso and Mondrian were obviously influenced by these. I have one on my desk. They're beautiful.). And I have a broader understanding of luxury items like mosaics and heated walls and floors, and bodily adornments such as jewelry, and status items such as tripods and armor. I don't really have any better thoughts about pottery, though, which I continue to find kind of boring. I mean, except I like the pictures on the amphoras and kulixes and stuff. I wish I could go to the Walters with y'all...

Egyptian Art: Mummies

Researchers may have discovered the mummified remains of Hatshepsut, the female pharoah from 1474-1453 B.C.E.-ish. The piece I heard about it on NPR sounded more sceptical than either CNN or Scientific American.

Here's the coverage on CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/27/egypt.mummy.ap/index.html

Here's the coverage on Scientific American.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=tooth-clinches-identifica&chanId=sa003&modsrc=reuters_box

Please note the massive amount of self-restraint I showed by not titling this posting: "I want my mummy."

P.S. Mary found more mummy news:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/04/egypt.mummy.reut/index.html

MFA Boston Interactive Tours

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a neat feature on its website: interactive tours of its collection.
http://www.mfa.org/collections/index.asp?key=37
Particularly neato is a feature that allows you to zoom in to see objects very closely - probably more closely than you'd be allowed to get to them in the museum. And the resolution is amazing. The descriptions of the pieces are also nice a thorough, so you can put them in the context of whatever chapter you're reading in Art History.

Lost Wax Method

Here's a link to a website that has pictures and video of making a bronze statute using the lost wax method.

http://store.bronzecreativestore.com/lostwax.html

Most of the examples I found on YouTube were of jewelery making, so much smaller scale, and harder to see. Also, the above link shows a lost wax process using more traditional technology. The YouTube videos seems pretty into the more modern tools one can use to do the same thing.

Thanks

Thank you, Nerdliest of the Nerds! This is awesome.

Brief Contents

The goal of this blog is to discuss the book Art History by Marilyn Stokstad. Specifically, we're working our way through the revised second edition. The blog is an attempt to fill the roll of class discussions, so please use the comment feature liberally. Thank you for joining me to read this book!