Dreamtime Art

Dreamtime Art

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have been creating art, including body and bark painting, clay and wood sculptures, and rock art. Some surviving rock engravings are about 40,000 years old.

Dreamtime 

According to traditional Australian aboriginal belief, the world was created during a magical period known as the Dreamtime. To aboriginals, the dreamtime is not in the past but is a parallel stream of of time running though past.present and future. In the dreamtime, ancestral beings rose from beneath the Earth and wandered across the landscape, creating the mountains, valleys, and rivers we see today.

 

Technique

Ancient Aboriginal painters used earth colours- reds, browns and yellows, black and white- made from natural plants and minerals. A variety of ways were used to apply the paint. Some pictures were painted using fingers, the palm of the hands, sticks or feathers, grasses, chewed twings, narrow strips of stringy bark or palm leave were also used to make brushes. For, stencil designs, the paint was blown out of the mouth  around an object. Aboriginals make paints from natural plants and minerals such as red, yellow and many other colours of ochre. They grind it to powder, mix it with liquid, then paint using barks or sticks.

   

St. Ignazio Church Ceiling Fresco

St. Ignazio Church Ceiling Fresco

Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit lay brother, painted the grandiose fresco that stretches across the nave ceiling (after 1685).[8] It celebrates the work of Saint Ignatius and the Society of Jesus in the world presenting the saint welcomed into paradise by Christ and the Virgin Mary and surrounded by allegorical representations of all four continents. Pozzo worked to open up, even dissolve the actual surface of the nave's barrel vault illusionistically, arranging a perspectival projection to make an observer see a huge and lofty cupola (of a sort), open to the bright sky, and filled with upward floating figures. A marble disk set into the middle of the nave floor marks the ideal spot from which observers might fully experience the illusion. A second marker in the nave floor further east provides the ideal vantage point for the trompe l'oeil painting on canvas that covers the crossing and depicts a tall, ribbed and coffered dome. The cupola one expects to see here was never built and in its place, in 1685, Andrea Pozzo supplied a painting on canvas with a perspectival projection of a cupola. Destroyed in 1891, the painting was subsequently replaced. Pozzo also frescoed the pendentives in the crossing with Old Testament figures: Judith, David, Samson, and Jaele.

Andrea Pozzo's painted ceiling

Pozzo also painted the frescoes in the eastern apse depicting the life and apotheosis of St Ignatius. The Siege of Pamplona in the tall panel on the left commemorates the wounding of Ignatius, which led to the convalescence that transformed his life. The panel over the high altar, Vision of St Ignatius at the Chapel of La Storta, commemorates the vision that gave the saint his divine calling. St Ignatius sends St Francis Xavier to India recalls the aggressive Jesuit missionary work in foreign countries, and finally, St Ignatius Receiving Francesco Borgia recalls the recruitment of the Spanish noble who would become General of the Company of Jesuits. Pozzo is also responsible for the fresco in the conch depicting St. Ignatius Healing the Pestilent.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling Painting

Sistine Chapel Ceiling Painting 

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

The ceiling is that of the Sistine Chapel, the large papal chapel built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV, for whom the chapel is named. It was painted at the commission of Pope Julius II. The chapel is the location for papal conclaves and many important services.

The ceiling's various painted elements form part of a larger scheme of decoration within the Chapel, which includes the large fresco The Last Judgment on the sanctuary wall, also by Michelangelo, wall paintings by several leading painters of the late 15th century including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino, and a set of large tapestries by Raphael, the whole illustrating much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of which The Creation of Adam is the best known, having an iconic standing equalled only by Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the hands of God and Adam being reproduced in countless imitations. The complex design includes several sets of individual figures, both clothed and nude, which allowed Michelangelo to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human figure and which have provided an enormously influential pattern book of models for other artists ever since.

How to make a Roman fresco

Here's How t make a Roman Fresco

After preparing the wall with a layer of rough plaster, the Roman Fresco artists would create the painting bit by bit as the pigment need to be applied onto wet plaster.

                                                   

1. Crushed pigaments made from rocks and dried plants were mixed with lime water to form the paste.
2. A small patch of fine wet plaster called the intonaco was put on the wall.
3. The paste was painted on straight away . As the plaster was still wet, the pigment would bond with the plaster.
4. Once the picture was completed, wax was put over the surface to protect the picture and make it shine.

Portrait Of Terentius Neo and his wife

Portrait Of Terentius Neo and his wife

1st century- Fresco from Pompeii, Italy

1. In,the dry climate of Italy, some Roman frescoes have survived. The ones at Pompeii were preserved when the volcano Vesuvius erupted and buried the city in 79ce.
2. The owner of the house, Terentius Neo was a baker who wanted himself and his wife as successful and clever. He holds a scroll to show he can read.
3. The wife holds a stylus (a writing tool) and an open diptych (an ancient writing tablet) and looks as if she is about to finish off some writing.
4. The strong red colours were made from sienna, a hard red rock found in Italy. 

Frescoes

Frescoes

Fresco is one of the method used for painting a picture onto a wall or ceiling. Pigaments,the materials that make the colours, are painted onto a surface covered in plaster. Frescoes have been found on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs and used to create amazing effects on the ceilings of cathedrals.

                                       

Roman style

The Romans used a techinuqe called buon fresco (true fresco) to decorate the walls of their buildings. Powdered pigments such as Natural brown and red earths were mixed with water and painted onto the surface of wet plaster, made from lime and sand. As the surface dried and hardened, the pigment 

blended in to colour the plaster. The artist had to work very quickly before the plaster dried.

                                               

How to Make Papyrus Paper

Papyrus paper
Ancient Egyptians were the first to make paper, using papyrus, a plant  once found along the banks of the River Nile. Papyrus was also used to make ropes and baskets.

How to make Papyrus paper
To make paper, the green skin of the papyrus stalks was removed and the stalks cut into long strips. The strips were flattened out and then some were laid horizontally on a cotton sheet. Other strips were placed vertically on top. This gave the criss-cross pattern found in papyrus paper. Then the strips were pressed. The natural juice of the papyrus plant acted as a glue to seal all the strips together, creating a single sheet of paper.

                            

Nebamun

Nebamun

Nebamun was a middle-ranking official "scribe and grain accountant" during the period of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt. He is thought to have lived circa 1350 BCE and worked at the vast temple complex near Thebes (now Luxor) where the state-god Amun was worshipped. His name was translated as "My Lord is Amun", and his association with the temple, coupled with the importance of grain supplies to Egypt, meant that he was a person of considerable practical importance, though not of the highest rank.
Nebamun is known today because of the 1820 discovery of the richly-decorated Tomb of Nebamun on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. Although the exact location of that tomb is now lost, a number of wall paintings from the tomb were acquired by the British Museum where they are now on display. They are considered to be one of that museum’s greatest treasures.
                        

Fowling in Marshes

Nebamun's tomb painting
Nebamun was a official in ancient Egypt. Around his tomb was a large wall painting.This scene showed Nebamun with his family hunting birds in the marshes of the River Nile. This type of scene, showing the deceased doing something they enjoyed, was very common in tombs. Nebamun wanted this wall painting in tomb so that he could have lots of birds and fishes to hunt in his after life, a place for the dead yo live.






This Painting shows the life of the people of Ancient Egypt and the small details in it. Some of the details are-

1. The eyes and shoulders of Egyptian figures were shown facing the front, but all other parts of the body were shown side on.
2. Can you see the cat balancing on to reeds trying to catch birds? Cats were family pets in ancient Egyptian times but also used as hunting partners.
3. The artists of this wall, Nebamun have managed to show the scaly and shiny skin of the fish.    
4. If a scribe though an illustration needed more explanation then hieroglyphs would be used such as these. Hieroglyphs literally means "sacred carving ". Each symbol represents a different letter or sound. In this painting such symbols are shown which represents different meanings

• The Horned Viper represents the letter F.
• The Egyptian vultures represent the letter A.
• The Eye is said to mean the word I.
• The Quail Chick represents the letter W or U.

Egyptian scribes

Egyptian scribes
Hey Guys! This is Akarshan Mondal and you are in Guernica. Today we are going to discuss about one of the most historic and dangerous artform. It started from the Pahroahs till now. It is god's own art to express sacrifices and love.
Egyptian scribes
For the ancient Egyptians, art had a specific purpose rather than decorations. In general, most art designed to ease the journey though the afterlife or to worship the gods. Egyptian scribes has a very strict set of rules to follow when painting. Erwin Panofsky, a German art historian, discovered that Egyptian scribes used a mathematical system of grids to make sure all figures were drawn in proportion

                                    

Book of the Death
The ancient Egyptians were often buried with their own Book of the Death to ensure they passed safely through the Underworld, yo be reborn into a new life. The book would contain a range of texts, including spells and small illustrations known as vignettes. The vignettes were very important as they showed what would happen in the afterlife.

                         

Rocky Beginnings

Rocky beginnings
Hey!Guys.This is Akarshan Mondal and you are on Guernica .Today we will see and know about cave paintings .And the start of a new Painting Era.
Rocky beginnings
In the beginning, there was cave art- the markings of prehistoric man. Although thousands and thousands of years old, the drawings are beautifully preserved often found deep inside a mountain or underground,safe from being worn away by the weather. Imagine in the dim glow of flickering fire,caveman using burnt sticks or dirt mixed with a little water to create their beautiful paintings.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                European cave art

The impression cave art found at the Lascaux caves in France is known as the "prehistoric Sistine Chapel."The caves were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers, who said to be chasing their dog, robot. No one knows what the paintings were for. Maybe as decoration or graffiti, or for ceremonies on Information ?

African cave art 

The walls of desert caves in Libya, Africa, are covered with pictures of giraffes and other grazing animals. These paintings suggest that in 12,000 BCE, when they were created, the non-barren Sahara Desert was a lush,tree-filled landscape.

Black marks were made using charcoal. This is wood that has been buried under sand and then burnt.

American rock art

This art is found at Newspaper Rock in Utah, USA. It was created by native American Indians before 150 CE. Rather than painting the rocks and the marks gradually washing away over time, the people scratched the oily surface to reveal the lighter sandstone underneath for a lasting image.These images are called petroglyphs.