When in Rome... Part 2

Good morning! What a charming face to wake up to... 

(Image from here.)

This is the head of Augustus. In my time, he is in the Getty museum. This statue is larger than life, had glass eyes, and has proportions based on the Greeks' ideal human form.

 

(Image from here.)

Here's another gorgeous statue, this one is of Constantine the Great. The statue is also called Colossus of Constantine. He was the first one to legalize Christianity in Rome, so many loved him and believed he had a great soul. To show this, they made his eyes very large, since Romans believe that the eyes are mirrors to the soul. Although the proportions do not look correct at this angle, he is placed very high up so that from the ground he looks more proportional. The original statue was a larger-than-life Constantine sitting down, but in my time we only have chunks of this statue. 

Oh look! A horse!

(Image from here.)

(Image from here.)

This is the equestrian bronze of Marcus Aurelius. Equestrian statues were very popular in Rome. It is one of the only surviving equestrian bronzes in my time. The rest had been pilfered, melted down to make coins or a new statue, or they had been destroyed by medieval Christians who thought the statues were all of pagan gods.


(Image from here.)

What in the world is this, a lighthouse? Oh wait, no, this is the Column of Trajan. The professor told me about this one- it has Trajan's ashes inside. It also has a spiral staircase that leads to the lookout at the top like a lighthouse. See the little statues carved into the column? The entire column recorded Trajan's great adventures, conquests, and victories in those little statues. And 98 feet of his victories too! It's kind of like a very narcissistic comic book artist who makes himself Superman. 
 
(Image from here.)

Oh look an art vender selling Frescos!
(Image from here.)

Fresco is the Italian word for Fresh, these paintings were painted on wet plaster, and commonly in houses in Pompeii. Speaking of which, let's visit Pompeii before it goes up in flames, shall we?


(Image from here.)

Rome is far from Pompeii on foot, but by time machine it's just a blink away!

(Image from here.)

 This is what the ruins of the town look like in my time. It's famous for being destroyed by Mount Vesuvius erupting which had followed a great earthquake that had ruined most of the city. It was excavated before my time, around 1748. It had just been a heap of ashes before they dug up the entire city underneath it. Pompeii was a Roman colony, one with lots of art and luxury that often depicted very crass and erotic images. The entire culture was very disgusting and sinful in their sexuality, and lived hedonistic lives of luxury. Some say that through Mount Vesuvius it was wiped out by God like Sodom and Gomorrah were. 

Now onto something a little more savory.

 

(Image from here.)

  

(Image from here.)

This is a Roman mosaic. The Greeks made mosaics first, but the Romans excelled at it. Each piece was only 1-2 centimeters squared, and there were 150 tiles, called tesserae, per square centimeter. There were many different mosaics made from many different artisans, they ranged in size, quality, and color. Some were small and cheap and could be placed in a middle-class home while others were grand and made up of minute tiles, these were worth a lot of money.

 

(Image from here.)

This is the mosaic of Young Women Exercising, which is in the Roman Baths. Another place with mosaics is a Villa in Sicily that had 7,000 feet of mosaics.

And that concludes our Roman art and architecture tour. Time to head back to the time machine and get out of here. Stay classy, Rome.

When in Rome... Part 1

Sometimes I wonder why I stick with you, I mean you can be a lot of work. Do you even know how hard it is to drag you through time and space against your will like this? Forcing you to learn about artistic historical feats all over the ancient world for my crazy professor you've never met and think doesn't exist? I mean really, this is exhausting! 

Yup, I'm just a saint, a martyr even. Well maybe not that last one, but still, you're so lucky I do so much for you. Now come on, the professor needs us to go take a detailed record of the unique architecture of Rome. Why are you resisting like that? Am I going to have to drag you into the time machine again? Wow, you're hard to drag, you should have laid off on the gyros!

Welcome to 8th century B.C. Rome! As you will soon see, the Romans excelled in art and architecture, they stole ideas and methods from many cultures and perfected them. They assimilated all other cultures, quite a feat if you ask me! Did you know the Romans were also the inventors of concrete? Yup, but after they fell the recipe for concrete was lost until the Renaissance era. 

Romans used arches and vaults in architecture. An arch is a cured architectural element used to span an opening, and it had a keystone on the top to support the entire arch. Arches may look simple, but the architecture is a bit complicated:

(Image found here.)

There are many different kinds of arches besides that simple one. 

A vault is an arched roof of covering made of brick, stone, or concrete. There are many different kinds of vaults, here are a few that are often seen in Roman architecture:

 (Image found here.)

 

Let's go see the Colosseum now, it has an archade! Nope, not those kinds of games, but many arches supported by pillars

(Image found here.)

The Colosseum is 16-stories high, 144 feet tall. It can fit 50,000 people. Three emperors were involved in its construction: Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. The Colosseum is made of concrete, the outside was decorated with plaster and marble. The Colosseum is built with the Standard Roman Sequence of architecture, which went from Doric at the bottom, then Ionic, then Corinthian at the top. This sequence was used often in Roman architecture, hence the word "standard." Statues filled the niches in the walls, and the statues were very ornate, painted, and had glass eyes. They were mostly Greek copies. When it rains, there is a giant tarp of canvas called the velarium which was so big and heavy it took 1,000 men to lift it over the top. The Colosseum was the ultimate entertainment center, and Romans were all about entertainment. A few of the "shows" commonly held here were gladiator battles and mock naval battles since the Colosseum could actually be filled with water!

People had tickets to get in, and they sat at different labeled sections, most likely separated by class. The ruins of the Colosseum still stand in even my time! However, the whole thing would probably still be standing if the Romans hadn't pilfered so much of it. They took most of the materials to use for other building projects- they called it resourceful, we call it ruining history.

Next stop on our Roman tour: the Pantheon.

(Image found here.)

The Pantheon was made to worship all gods. The general belief at the time was to worship any god you want, any of them will bring you closer to the real god or gods. The wall of the Pantheon are 20 feet thick to support the giant dome. The floors were 144 feet in diameter and the dome is 144 feet from the floor. The dome walls were coffered, which are inlaid boxes. The dome is thicker at the base and gets thinner towards the oculus. The oculus is the 30-foot-wide hole at the top of the dome that allows light in, symbolically it was meant to be god's eye watching over everyone.

 

 (Image found here.)

 Because there is a hole in the roof, rain comes into the Pantheon. It doesn't flood, however, because there is a drainage system in the ground. The doors and the dome were originally covered in gold until all the gold was pilfered, like much of the Colosseum was. In the front of the Pantheon is the portico, the porch which is supported by Corinthian-style columns. 

I'm tired of these busy streets and the dusty Colosseum, let's go take a bath!

Yeah, you heard me, we're gonna go check out the Roman baths!

...Don't look at me like that, they're separated by gender! Well... most of them are.

Anyways, let's just go check it out.

(Image found here.)

The baths are a big social gathering for Romans, most people will go at least once a week, the rich people sometimes even go twice a day! Romans are so hygienic! The baths are separated by class, see those sad little ugly puddles over there? Those are the servant baths. And that giant one that looks like a Tahitian resort's pool is the rich peoples' bath. They have three temperatures of water: the coldest, the fridgidarium, the tepidarium which is room tempurature, and the caldarium which is hot. Usually they would go to the tepidarium, then the caldarium, then back to the tepidarium, then into the fridgidarium. The Romans believed that going in these different extreme temperatures was healthy.

 (Image found here.)

These baths had changing rooms which had niches in the walls to hold clothing. Special sandals with thick soles were needed for the baths because the floor was heated (except in the fridgidarium) to keep the baths warm. Walls and floors were heated by a furnace system called a hypocaust, where the baths were above a raised floor, underneath which was an air channel for the warm air to circulate.

 

(Image and above information found here.)

Okay, now that we're nice and clean it's time to go do some more sight-seeing! 

 

(Image found here.)

This is the Arch of Constantine. It's a triumphal arch that commemorates his assumption to power. It's covered in sculpture carvings about how great he is. He must have been quite narcissistic to want to be remembered for all time in such a giant arch. 

 

(Image found here.)

 This is our next stop, the Forum Romano. It was a meeting place for Romans to discuss. It was the town square, and the political and religious center. It was also a very large market.

 (Image found here.)

I'm sure that you're starting to notice that Roman is very advanced for it's time. It's clean, the people are hygienic, and the city is planned out instead. Romans made paved roads, and were the only ones to pave roads at this time, so all roads truly did lead to Rome! They also had a sewer system, a fresh water system, and plotted out "zones," like in my time, where certain land is set aside for certain purpose, like industrial land and residential land. The wealthy homes were often two-stories, had different rooms for different purposes (to worship, to entertain, to eat, ect.) and most had a garden or atrium of some sort. Romans even learned how to make pressurized fountains without electricity!
So many architectural advancements we have in my time were based off ancient Rome.


(Artistic blueprint of a Roman house found here.)

As I said, the Romans have a fresh water system, or aqueducts. These aqueducts were composed of arches and vaults, and went from the mountains where the fresh water was all the way to the city. The water in the aqueducts flowed into the city by the force of gravity; the aqueducts had a grade of only half an inch per mile to achieve this! They were made out of concrete, which is heavy, durable, and cheap. Romans would repair the aqueducts during the summer when it was warm because the concrete had expanded, exposing all the cracks. Rome had 77 aqueducts that supplied Rome with 350 gallons of water per day! This was the most advanced water system of the ancient world.

(Image found here.)

We'd better find a hotel for the night, it's getting late. Tomorrow, in Part 2 we'll go see some actual art!

Mi Casa es Greek Casa! Antient Greece

You know, this time machine is getting a little boring. Maybe we should put in some elevator music or something? Oh look! We're here!

 I present to you my humble abode: my ancient roots, Greece!
Well, okay, I'm half Greek, so? This is still the home of my ancestors! And you can see the resemblance, can't you? No? Well, you can see it in my amazing artistic prowess right? ...Okay, okay, let's just move on...

This is the town of Attica, we're here to see a sculpture the professor was asking about.

(Image from this site.)

Here is the Statue of a (Kouros) Youth. As you can see, it is a sculpture in the round and it is standing in almost the same pose those Egyptian sculptures were. They got better at statues later in Greece, this one was just the earliest marble statue of a human they had done. This guy, although he might not look like much compared to our body builders today, was the ideal athlete of the time. He had such a perfect and athletic body, that he represented the Greek god Apollo. The professor told me there was something special about his smile- that it was Archaic or something. I think it's just creepy.

Let us move on to Krit (Crete) and a better artistic feat: the Kritios Boy.

(Image from here.)

This guy's looking much better than the last. He's actually got some muscles! Unfortunately he's also missing most of his limbs... However, the reason this statue looks so much better is because he is standing in Contrapposto. No, he's not standing in pasta, he's doing a certain pose! As you can see, one hip is slightly raised while the opposite knee is bent, giving him a relaxed and natural pose, unlike our stiff Youth.

Both the Statue of a Youth and the Kritios Boy were done during the Archaic era of Greece. Why don't we go back into the time machine and move on to the next period: the Classical period.

(Image from here.)

This is a frize, which is a sculpture from the east pediment (the triangular area on the top of the facade) of the Parthenon. It is the Three Goddesses (Hestia, Dione, and Aphrodite). These three lovely headless ladies are commemorating the birth of Athena. Although it may not look very lively in our time, when it was first made it was painted in very vibrant colors. Look, there's the artist doing a sculpture now! Hm, interesting, all his models are wearing wet clothes so he can get better definition on the folds and body anatomy, what a good idea! ...Oh, now he's yelling at us to leave. I guess he doesn't like to have an audience. Oh well, back into the time machine again! 

And now for the Helenistic period! This is the time where the East meets the West, quite literately, that's what it means.

 

(Image from here.)

This statue is The Dying Gaul. A Gaul is a Celtic man. I wonder how my other ancestors from Ireland ended up in ancient Greece? Well, sadly in current times this statue does not exist, we only have a Roman copy of it. Roman copies are actually how we know in my time what Greece sculptures looked like, since so many have been destroyed partially or completely.  

Come on, we need to go now. There's one last thing from this time period I want to show you. 

(Image from here.)

 

(Image from here.)

This is by far my favorite Greek marble sculpture, The Nike of Samothrace (also known as The Winged Victory). This is a sculpture of an angel landing on the bow of a ship to proclaim victory. The most interesting thing about this sculpture, according to my professor, is not the sculpture itself but the negative space, as you can see from the side-view image. In my time this sculpture is in the Louvre museum in France, a long way from home.

Here is an interesting artistic rendition of it. Sorta looks like a John Lennon version, I think.

(Image from here.)

Now we're off to Milos! Here is the Venus de Milo (in Roman), or the Aphrodite de Milo (in Greek).

(Image from here.)

This is a sculpture of the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, the Greek goddess Aphrodite (also the Roman goddess Venus). This is 6 feet and 8 inches in height, what a tall glass of water! This statue embodied the ideal woman in Greek society. Gee, wish I looked like that. 

Oh shoot! I think I left my sunglasses at the Parthanon! We have to go back!

Well, since we didn't before, why don't we get a good look at the Acropolis. 

(Image from here.) 

Athens is such a pretty city, don't you think? The Acropolis is the highest point in the city, and such a busy place too! They have many buildings up here from temples to the place where the city would come to vote, the Parthenon.

(Image from here.)

This building employed all the best artists around all of Greece to build. It took eight years, and no one even had blueprints for it! What a collaboration! This building is made up over over 70,000 unique pieces. This is in a Doric style of architecture, as you can see from the 33-foot-tall columns.

(The three orders of architecture in ancient Greece. There's the Doric style I was talking about.)
(Image from here.)

 It was made during the Classical period. It celebrates Athena Parthenos, a goddess, and even has a 40-foot-tall gold statue of her inside.

Oh look, my sunglasses, yay! Well... While we're here, let's see some more art! This is The Porch of Maidens.

 

(Images 1, 2, and 3.)

These are caryatids, which are female figures used in place of columns to support architecture. I feel bad for these ladies, their backs' must feel awful! They are on the erectheum, a Greek temple on the Acropolis.

I brought back this painted postcard for the professor, isn't it nice? They were selling these right outside the Acropolis!

(Image from here.)

 Just a few more things I wanted to write about for the professor and we'll be on our way again. One is the famous poetry of ancient Greece.

 

 (Left image from here, right image from here.)

These are amphoras, which are jugs that carry liquid and have two handles. They are generally either black with red-orange painting on them or red-orange with black painting on them. Don't touch them please! This poetry store is expensive!

 

And here is our last piece of artwork to find: a Greek Key

(Image from here.) 

 

 (Image from here.)

These easily distinguishable images are still used in artwork relating to Greece in my time. The top is the original Greek key while the bottom image is a bit of a variation. 

It was fun visiting my home and all, but this is so long ago I really don't know anyone and I'm ready to travel through the time-space-continuum again. See you next time, Greece!

 

(Image from here.)

Antient Vegas Baby! ...Not as lively as I imagined.

Enough of these cold, drafty old caves. Come into the time machine again, we're going on a little vacation to the place where the sun is hot, the palm trees flourish, and the people are oh so tan.
...No, we're not going to Southern California, why would you think that?
We're going... To Egypt!

(Image from this article: http://www.allhotnewz.info/2011/08/18/pyramid-of-djoser-might-be-destroyed/)

Here we are, nice warm Egypt. Around 2,600-2,450 B.C. Egypt to be exact. Oh look, there's Djoser's (Zoser's) Mastaba! This is much better than cold grey rocks, these are hot, blindingly bright rocks! Don't look directly at it, the limestone surface reflects the sun. This structure is five Mastabas (slabs) stacked. This building was made by the first Egyptian architect, Imhotep. He was so proud of his accomplishment he carved his name on the inside of this Mastaba.

Oh look, more pyramids!

(Image from http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Colorful-Sunset-Silhouetting-Men-and-Camels-at-the-Great-Pyramids-of-Giza-Egypt-Posters_i3170727_.htm)

There lie the three pyramids of Giza: Khufu's, Khafre's, and Manakaure's. Khufu's pyramid is the biggest in all of Giza! The pyramid is 755 feet long at the base- wow, talk about a luxurious grave! And it was perfectly proportioned too! Nothing less for the pharaoh, I suppose.


(Image from this article: http://guardians.net/hawass/articles/news_on_the_robot_Dec_2005.htm)

Here is the layout of Khufu's pyramid. Not quite as confusing inside with a map, is it? Unfortunately many raiders didn't have this handy map, and ended up lost or in a trap. They were probably all men. If they had just asked for directions they wouldn't have ended up in that pit full of scorpions at the second turn to the right...


WHAT IS THAT!?
 

(Image from http://www.guardians.net/egypt/sphinx/)

Oh, okay, just a statue of a sphinx. Oh, this is THE Sphinx! It's the 240 foot long and 66 foot tall Sphinx to be exact. This is the statue of Khafre, the guard of the pyramids of Giza, the Micheal Jackson of the Middle East! ...Well not really that last part, but you'll understand some day. In the future some historian decided to cut this great beast's nose off to document it. I don't know why he would do that or why anyone let him, but believe me, this lion looks a lot better without it.

Oh look, there are some actual breathing sphinxes over there!





The statue one is a guard because, well, it's hard to get real sphinxes to stay in one place. The statue is only a human and a lion, but in most mythology sphinxes were like these, half-woman, half-lion, with the wings of a large bird. They're very scary predators and they never sleep. Ever.


(Image from http://www.bestourism.com/items/di/641?title=Abu-Simbel&b=102)

Moving on now, here we are at Abu Simbel! The front entrance has four statues of Pharaoh Ramses II. Under him at the sides of his legs are Nefetari, his favorite wife, and his mother Mut-Tuy. The smaller statues are his first two sons Amun-her-khepeshef, Ramesses, and his first six daughters Bintanath, Baketmut, Nefertari, Meritamen, Nebettawy and Isetnofret. Talk about ego, look how big Ramses II is compared to everyone else in his family!

This entire temple was cut out of a mountain. A mountain which people later moved 200 feet to higher ground in 1968 A.D. so Lake Nasser didn't flood it when the Aswan High Dam was built. People and there rocks, pretty amazing, huh?


(Image from http://www.theathertons.info/2010/04/interior-of-the-small-temple-httpwww-theathertons-infowp-contentuploads201004abu_simbel_16-480x332-jpgat-abu-simbel-part-1/)

Here is the inside of the Abu Simbel temple. The entire temple is filled with amazing architecture, many sculptures, a lot of artwork, and many hieroglyphics. This temple was built so that 61 days before and after the Winter Solstice the sun would go through the sanctuary and light up the sculptures (all except for Ptah, the god of the Underworld). No one is sure why it was built to do this on these two dates, but some think that it's the days of Ramses II's birthday and his coronation day.

Well, we've spent enough time on Ramses II's ego, let's go to another pharaoh. This one is very well-known in the modern world.

(Image from http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2577/4055630519_bfc916c0de.jpg)

I present to you... KING TUT! Tutankhamun, although famous now, may not have been a very great ruler in his time. He died at the age of 19, after only around 10 years of being Pharaoh. He is famous in my time because his tomb was the only one found relatively untouched by raiders. There were over 5,000 artifacts, food, and art found in his tomb. Honey, gold, jewels, and even his body were found in his tomb!

 

(Image from http://ambassadors.net/archives/images/King_Tut_face_tomb.jpg)

Here's a picture of Tut from a little before my time! Poor guy's getting an MRI.

It is believed he had many genetic problems because he was the child of incest. It is known that the mummy of King Tut had malaria in his system as well as a broken leg that lead to infection. Well, now that we're back here when he was alive maybe we should ask him how he died? ...Oh, wait...

Now onto a prettier subject.

(Image from http://madameguillotine.org.uk/2012/01/30/a-dread-and-terrible-queen-the-bust-of-nefertiti/)

I present to you The Bust of Nefertiti! Nefertiti was famed to be the most beautiful woman in Egypt- can't you see her influence? All the women around here get her haircut! She was a queen, and the wife of Akhenaten. The two of them created their own cult worshiping, strangely for that time, only one god: Aten the sun disc. Their cult got pretty popular, maybe because you didn't have to keep track of so many weird names or make sacrifices to ALL the gods!


(Image found here http://arthistoryresources.net/menkaure/menkaure-statue.html)

This is the statue of Menkaure and His Queen. They are both extending their left foot forward, into the afterlife. Menkaure is probably carrying a coffin of some sort. This is not the only statue of its kind, there are a few others in the same pose.

Oh look, a balloon! Let's go follow it!

(Image from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/egypt/luxor-colossi-of-memnon.htm)

Hey, I think I found something else the professor might like! This statue is the Colossi of Memnon! Another great feat of art and architecture, this statue actually makes a moaning sound at dawn and dusk. He is greeting and saying farewell to his mother, Eos the dawn goddess. Unfortunately in 200 A.D. a Roman emperor made the statues shut up.

(Image from  http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html)

Now this is important. The Rosetta Stone, the reason why we know so much about ancient Egypt in the future. This stone made it possible to read the two different languages of Egyptian. They were translated with ancient Greek on this stone. Because of this, we are able to read the records and everything from ancient Egypt and understand their culture and history.


(Image from http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/schools/primaryhistory/images/worldhistory/rosetta_stone/rosetta_stone_hieroglyphs.jpg)



(Left image from http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=143413)
(Right image from http://irnustian.com/2011/06/creation-of-earth-and-sky-and-the-birth-of-adam/)

Just as an artistic reference for later, this is the Canon of Proportion. On the left is ancient Egypt's canon while on the right is the anatomically accurate one used in my time. In ancient Egypt the body was measured in fists, while now it is measured in heads. The Egyptian version is not anatomically accurate, but it is stylized on purpose, the image is instantly recognizable. The differences in art from time to time and place to place are amazing.


Well, I think I've got all the information I need for the professor. And just in time, too. I see a sandstorm brewing, we'd better get back into the time machine, and quick!