An Interesting Car Print Ad

Creating impressive print ads needs a lot to consider to make it really interesting. Some even use various types advertising techniques to make it more appealing. They want to come up  something that makes it eye-catching, ingenious, or funny. Also, they must know what to put with some qualities to consider to make up a good ad.

Ford – Ford Service and Tires

In this example, you can see a car print ad that shows a car pulling a cargo ship into the glacier. You're right, it doesn't even make sense with those kind of images being put together, it lacks realism. But, considering it is a car print ad of Ford, a Ford Service and Tires. They want a representation that shows how they want you to buy a new tires for better grip in the road. They used vagrant colors with dramatic visual effects. The perspective angle of the image they use to make it more attractive.

Using simple words to deliver their advertising. They use the phrase "Conquer the ice." in this print ad but it lacks real value or meaning, they used a propaganda technique called Glittering Generalization. It can also be called Weasel because it has an empty words. They want to emphasize it with smaller size phrase "Get new tires for better grip." below. The advertisers wants to convince the people with cars to buy their products, a new tires for better grip. This kind of propaganda technique is called Logical Appeal.

Vintage Print Ads

This review is about the old and new commercials and print ads. My second review is about an old type of advertising. The old type of print ads or vintage print ads.

       

Print Advertising is still alive and kicking. Social media marketing and website are the common part of the most marketing campaigns. Print ads can be seen in newspapers, magazines, directories, brochures and flyers. The distribution of print publication has decrease but print advertising is still a practical marketing method. The vintage print ads naturally use few colors in their design because of the ink availability and publication cost. Colors used in advertisement can also affect a person psychologically. Colors, the most important and effective aspect of advertising. Psychologist report that color impression can account for 60 to 70 percent of consumer reaction.

Print Advertising. A factor of how the advertising evolved. Did you know that the first print ads is created in England; the handbill announces a prayer book for sale in 1472. The first product branding is develop, for Dentifrice Tooth Gel in 1661. At the dawn of the American Revolution, political ads appeared encouraging enlistment in 1776. The birth of automobile fuels the rise of billboards in the U.S. in 1835. The first product placement occurs when transport and shipping companies are mentioned in Jules Verne's novel Around in 80 Days in 1873. Advertising is chock full of World War II propaganda in 1939. The only difference that the old and new commercials and print ads is that it is always affected by the booming of technology and economy. Before where social media is still small, television and radio is in demand so the advertisement industry use a lot of television and radio commercials. Today it is more on digital side of advertisement, less traditional (like the newspaper and magazine). But then the use of print ads is still in demand as of today. It is far from dead.

When it's come to print advertising, there is a different set of rules and objectives in advertising in print as there is in the website.

First you need to keep it clean and uncluttered. With print advertising your ads is usually in a heavy noise environment and for this reason, your ad cannot blend in. It needs to stand out. It needs to have contrast. You need to have a bold headline and bold imagery and not clutter your ad with loads of text. This doesn't mean you can't use lots of text in an advertisement, it just has to be positioned correctly after the initial tension grabbing elements. Your audience will only read lots of text after they've been convinced, that the as worthy their tension and interest them.

Next, have the main idea or concept that you're communicating and stick to it. Many times small businesses will want to put everything about their company. Their products, services, sales promotions and they want to fit in all into it to buy three and a half inch ad and what happens is they end up diluting their message and they render ineffective. It's tempting as a small business to want to communicate all the reasons why you are the best choice for your industry but if your print ad is effective, you will have the opportunity to tell them these things when you make communication with them. Stick to one main message.

The Old School Billboards

To start with, this review is about the old and new commercials and print ads. My first review is about an old type of advertising.

Hand painted movie billboards & old movie theaters.
The Times Theatre - Quezon Boulevard

In this blog, we are going to review an old type of advertising, the old school billboards or vintage billboards. Just as the name implies, it is used since the old times. Like in Egypt, the Egyptians invent outdoor advertising where they carve public notice in steel. The rise of billboard ads fuels in United State of America because of the birth of the automobile. Advertisement is a commercial solicitation that is a form of communication design to sell some commodity or service. Advertising involve around using print ads, commercials and many advertising categories. Using billboards to advertise something directed to the public or people outside their home. Some old billboards was made by artist, using their own hands to paint the billboard, not just printed.

Hand painted billboards is still being used as an advertisement. Like in old movie theaters, where they can watch movies or vintage movies. They paint the billboard with almost the same design the movie poster has. It has an artistic look in it. Painting it like a work of art, mixing it with advertising. Hand painted billboards is really awesome to looked at, considering of how hard it is to create the design manually. Painting the desirable designs need a lot of training and patience. Some hand painted billboards have a really big size like the height of a house, and it needs to be painted for the desirable design. Some stores in the streets uses this kind of advertisement. They used simple colors to make their design more appealing to the eye and easy to see. Some reasons billboard are made by hand painting is that they have a little budget and can't afford to spend a lot of money for the print ads. Or just uses the things currently available for them. An art and a business.

Some old school billboards or vintage billboards have historical value in it. Some needs to be restored to make its value high. Some good vintage billboard are being auction or being sold for a high price for those people who love to collect them. This days where the print ads is the norm or in demand, hand painted billboards is being used less often. The commonly used type is the printed billboard posters. Some even use digital LED billboards that looks like a television screen. As for the effectiveness of the old billboards for advertising, it is less effective  than the newer ones because new type of billboards are faster to produce and easy to design. The new ones is more practical to use because some printed billboard poster used tarpaulin, where the tarpaulin can be reuse again in various way like using it as a shelter or tent or using it in construction site as protection. The old ones like the hand painted billboards take a lot of time to make. But we still can say that they both have the effectiveness as a good advertisement. The old types have more artistry put into it and the new one types are more practical and more effective form of advertising. 

Contemporary Art

     Contemporary art is art produced at the present period in time. Contemporary art includes, and develops from, Postmodern art, which is itself a successor to Modern art.




     






     Contemporary art is the art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century. Contemporary art provides an opportunity to reflect on contemporary society and the issues relevant to ourselves, and the world around us.


     No one seems to agree about the exact meaning of contemporary art. Critics, curators and historians define it in varying ways. One of the reasons for the confusion is that "Contemporary Art" is preceded by "Modern Art", and there is no precise agreement on when "Modern Art" ended.


     To make things even more complicated, a third term "Postmodernist art" is sometimes used as a synonym for "Contemporary Art." This buzzword denotes the main style-trend after Modernism or Modern Art, but it applies to dozens of other disciplines including architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, design, fashion, and technology, all of which have differing timelines, so it's hard to get a fix on exactly when postmodernism begins. Also, it's not synonymous with contemporary art. The latter refers to an era (a time period) while postmodernism is more of an attitude and style within this period. In due course, postmodernism will be superseded by a newer "-ism" but both will be forms of Contemporary art.




What Makes Contemporary Art Different from Modern Art?


     The answer to this question requires an entire book. We only have a paragraph, so here goes. First, some background. The Italian Renaissanceestablished the basis for Western art after the Classical Antiquity and Medieval eras. Renaissance ideas and rules were disseminated across Europe through various Academies of Fine Arts, such as the Academy of Florence (Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno: founded 1562), the Academy of Rome (Accademia di San Luca: founded 1583), the French Academy (Académie des Beaux-Arts) the Royal Academy in London (founded 1768) and the later Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, in Ireland. These academies taught art according to an unvarying set of canons, which artists had to follow in order to earn a living. By the early 19th century, this academic approach had ceased to be relevant.


Modern Era


     Enter Edouard Manet in 1860 along with the French Impressionists, whose revolutionary subjective style of painting ushered in the era of Modern Art. This period witnessed a succession of schools, styles and movements - including Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Op-Art, to name but a tiny few. Nearly all of these styles reflected the political and social trends of the period, such as World War I, the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s, World War II, and its post-colonial aftermath. But despite recognizing the increasing fragmentation and lack of meaning within society during this period, "modern artists" (except Dada) still believed that works of art could provide the answer - art could do what other human institutions couldn't do - and provide the coherence and meaning which had been lost. During the 1960s, however, this optimism among artists began to fade, and it is this loss of optimism which marks the beginning of Postmodernism and the emergence of Contemporary Art.


Contemporary Era


     Post-modernists reject the idea that art can provide meaning. If life is meaningless, they say, fine - let's not pretend that art can do better. Let's just accept that it's nonsense, like everything else, and get on with it. This new Post-Modernist philosophy thus triggered a whole new set of priorities, which were greatly facilitated by the coincident arrival of new technologies, like television, video, and computers. Contemporary art movements focused on "how" art was created and disseminated, rather that "what" was produced. They emphasized ideas and concepts rather than precious objects and the skills needed to make them. In their attempt to popularize and broaden access to visual art, they introduced (or refined) a series of new art forms, such as Conceptualism, Performance, Happenings, Installation, Earthworks, and in the process took full advantage of new media like video, computers and digital technology. It's all a far cry from Claude Monet and his lifelong quest to capture the differing effects of sunlight.

20th Century Art

    20th-century art and what it became as — modern art — began with modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany.

    There is no precise definition of the term "Modern Art", although it usually refers to works produced during the approximate period 1870-1970. Typically, modern artists rejected previous Renaissance-based traditions, in favor of new forms of artistic experimentation. They used new materials, new techniques of painting, and developed new theories about how art should reflect the perceived world, and what their functions as artists should be. In addition, entirely new types of art were developed during the period.

    The century between 1860 and 1960 encompassed so many differing styles (from realistic portraiture to whimsical Dada and Pop-Art) that it is difficult to think of any unifying theme which defined the era. But if there is anything that separates Modern artists from both the earlier traditionalists and later postmodernists, it is their self-belief that art mattered: it had real value.

    Modernism didn't just stop, it faded gradually during the late 1960s - a period which coincided with the rise of mass pop-culture and also with the rise of anti-authoritarian challenges (in social and political areas as well as the arts) to the existing orthodoxies. As Modernism faded, a new general idiom emerged, usually referred to as Postmodernist art. In simple terms, Postmodernist schools advocate a new philosophy of art characterized by a greater focus on medium and style. They emphasize style over substance (eg. not 'what' but 'how'; not 'art for art's sake', but 'style for style's sake'), and place much greater importance on artist-communication with the audience. This new direction is closely intertwined with the spread of TV, video and the Internet, which now exerts a significant influence on the development of popular iconography.

    Although the 1960s is the basic cut-off point between "Modern" and "Contemporary" art, the world did not become post-modernist overnight. Some movements (eg. Pop-Art, Minimalism) included artists who were more forward-looking, and developed a more postmodernist or contemporary style. The same goes for new forms like Conceptual, Performance,Installation and Video Art, all of which can be classified as either "Modern" or "Contemporary". We happen to consider them under "Contemporary Art" because this is the era during which they were fully explored.

Reference: (N.d.). "Modern ArtDefinition, Characteristics, History, Movements." visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved March 15, 2015 from http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/modern-art.htm#collections

Modern Art

    Modern Art or Modernism is the loose term given to the succession of styles and movements in art and architecture which dominated Western culture from 19th Century up until the 1960's. Movements associated with Modern art include Impressionism, Cubism, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Futurism, Pop Art and Op Art.

    The birth of modernism and modern art can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, a period that lasted from the 18th to the 19th century, in which rapid changes in manufacturing, transportation, and technology profoundly affected the social, economic, and cultural conditions of life in Western Europe, North America, and eventually the world. New forms of transportation, including the railroad, the steam engine, and the subway changed the way people lived, worked, and traveled, both at home and abroad, expanding their worldview and access to new ideas. As urban centers prospered, workers flocked to cities for industrial jobs, and urban populations boomed.

    There is no precise definition of the term "Modern Art", although it usually refers to works produced during the approximate period 1870-1970. Typically, modern artists rejected previous Renaissance-based traditions, in favour of new forms of artistic experimentation. They used new materials, new techniques of painting, and developed new theories about how art should reflect the perceived world, and what their functions as artists should be. In addition, entirely new types of art were developed during the period.

    According to most art critics, Modernism in painting first started with the Frenchman Edouard Manet (1832-83) and the French Impressionists. However, we have decided to include the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as an early forerunner of modernism, for its rejection of traditional academic art forms of the 18th and early 19th century.

    The century between 1860 and 1960 encompassed so many differing styles (from realistic portraiture to whimsical Dada and Pop-Art) that it is difficult to think of any unifying theme which defined the era. But if there is anything that separates Modern artists from both the earlier traditionalists and later postmodernists, it is their self-belief that art mattered: it had real value.

    In comparison, their precedessors simply "assumed" that art had value. They didn't even think about it. After all they lived in an era governed by religious meaning. Thus they simply "followed the rules." Those who came after the Modern period (mid-60s onwards), the so-called "postmodernists", largely rejected the idea that art (or life) had any intrinsic value. This is not a defining characteristic of modern art: merely a difference between the periods.

Art Beyond the West

African Art

    African art is a term typically used for the art of Sub-Saharan Africa. Often, casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, but the continent is full of people, societies and civilizations, each with a unique visual culture. 

• The creation of art for use by the people, not just for display. This use may be for everyday life such as pottery or for ceremonies such as a funeral. 
• Sculpture and other 3 dimensional arts was a preferred art form as opposed to paintings. 
• The creation of very colorful works of art. 
• Abstract art was favored. 
• The human image is a favorite subject. 

Oceanic Art

    Oceanic art or Oceanian art refers to the creative works made by the native peoples of the Pacific Islands and Australia, including areas as far apart as Hawaii and Easter Island. 

    The zone encompasses a continent (Australia), the second largest island in the world (New Guinea), several other large islands such as those of New Zealand - and a host of smaller islands littering the huge surface of the Pacific between New Guinea and South America. Not surprisingly, the native tribal art produced in such a vast area is very diverse in form, and for ethnic as well as geographical reasons. Its creators are the descendants of successive settlings by migrants from the west of mixed origins, some Mongoloid, some Melanotic or dark-skinned. Anthropologists and ethnologists usually identify three separate areas in Oceania - namely, Melanesia,Polynesia and Micronesia. There are frequent affinities with the art and culture of the tribes of South-East Asia. 

Different to Western Art

    Similar to indigenous African art including African sculpture, Oceanic artifacts were not made with any notion of their being "art" as the word is used in the West. Oceanic painting, sculpture and wood-carving were conceived as an integral part of the religious and social ceremony of everyday island life, and were aspects of the various prevalent forms of ancestor-worship and spirit-worship. The focus on fertility is recurrent and there are also more sinister signs of occasional headhunting and ritual cannibalism. 

Islamic Art

    Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations. It is thus a very difficult art to define because it covers many lands and various peoples over some 1400 years; it is not art specifically of a religion, or of a time, or of a place, or of a single medium like painting. The huge field of Islamic architecture is the subject of a separate article, leaving fields as varied as calligraphy, painting, glass, ceramics, and textiles, among others. 

Indian Art

    Indian Art consists of a variety of art forms, including plastic arts (e.g., pottery and sculpture), visual arts(e.g., cave paintings), and textile arts (e.g., woven silk). Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

Painting and Sculpture From India

    The cultural heritage of India is one of the richest and most ancient in the world, rivalled only by Chinese art. The art of sculpture, the most highly respected medium for artists, was widely practised throughout the subcontinent, and buildings were profusely adorned with it. The subject matter of Indian sculpture was almost invariably abstracted human forms that were portrayed to instruct people in the truths of the Hindu Buddhist or Jain religions. Painting in India typically concerned religious deities and kings and was influenced in style by Chinese painting as well as the art of Ancient Persia and other countries from middle and central Asia, as well as Greece. Painting in India encompasses Buddhist murals in the Ajanta caves and the Brihadisvara Temple, to the large frescoes of Ellora to the miniaturist tradition of Mughal, to the mixed-media embellished works from the Tanjore school. The paintings from Gandhar-Taxila are influenced by Persia to the west, while the eastern style of Indian painting - taking inspiration from Indian mythology, grew up around the Nalanda school of art. India culture is also a rich source of architecture and architectural styles, one of its more minor examples being the famous Taj Mahal. 

Chinese Art

    Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists. The Chinese art in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and that of overseas Chinese can also be considered part of Chinese art where it is based in or draws on Chinese heritage and Chinese culture. 

Symbolism in Chinese Visual Art

    Chinese art is full of symbolism, in that artists typically seek to depict some aspect of a totality of which they are intuitively aware. In addition, Chinese art is packed with specific symbols: bamboo represents a spirit which can be bent by circumstance but not broken; jade represents purity; a dragon often symbolizes the emperor; the crane, long life; a pair of ducks, fidelity in marriage. Plant symbols include: the orchid, another symbol of purity and loyalty; and the pine tree, which symbolizes endurance. Some art critics, however, prefer to describe Chinese art as essentially expressionist, rather than symbolic. 

Japanese Art

    Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints, kiri-e, kirigami, origami, and more recently manga—modern Japanese cartooning and comics—along with a myriad of other types of works ... 

    But traditional Japanese conceptions endured, particularly in the use of modular space in architecture, certain spacing intervals in music and dance, a propensity for certain color combinations and characteristic literary forms. Art from 1603 to 1945 (Edo period and Prewar period) were supported by merchants.

Baroque Art

Baroque Art

    In fine art, the term Baroque (portuguese 'barocco' meaning, 'irregular pearl or stone') describes a fairly complex idiom, originating in Rome, which flowered during 16th century, and which embraced painting, sculpture, and architecture. After the idealism of the Renaissance, and the slightly 'forced' nature of Mannerism, Baroque art above all reflected the religious tensions of the age - notably the desire of the Catholic Church in Rome (as annuciated at the Council of Trent) to reassert itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Thus it is almost synonymous with Catholic Counter-Reformation Art of the period.

Style/Types of Baroue Art

    In order to fulfill its propagandist role, Catholic-inspired Baroque art tended to be large-scale works of public art, such as monumental wall-paintings and huge frescoes for the ceilings and vaults of palaces and churches.

Baroque painting illustrated key elements of Catholic dogma, either directly in Biblical works or indirectly in mythological or allegorical compositions. Along with this monumental, high-minded approach, painters typically portrayed a strong sense of movement, using swirling spirals and upward diagonals, and strong sumptuous colour schemes, in order to dazzle and surprise. New techniques of tenebrism and chiaroscuro were developed to enhance atmosphere.

Baroque sculpture typically larger-than-life size, is marked by a similar sense of dynamic movement, along with an active use of space.

Baroque architecture was designed to create spectate and illusion. Thus the straight lines of the Renaissance were replaced with flowing curves, while domes/roofs were enlarged, and interiors carefully constructed to produce spectacular effects of light and shade. It was an emotional style, which, wherever possible, exploited the theatrical potential of the urban landscape - as illustrated by St. Peter's Square (1656-67) in Rome, leading up to St. Peter's Basilica. Its designer, Bernini, one of the greatest Baroque architectures, ringed the square with colonnades, to convey the impression to visitors that they are being embraced by the arms of the Catholic Church.

Renaissance Art

Renaissance Art

     Renaissance Art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history know as the Renaissance, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music and science. Renaissance art, perceived as a royalty of ancient traditions, took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, but transformed that tradition by the absorption of recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by application of contemporary scientific knowledge. Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artist and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early modern age. In many parts of Europe, Early Renaissance art was created in parallel with Late Medieval art.

     Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. Against a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new technologies--including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration of new continents--was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and especially art. The style of painting, sculpture and decoration arts identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. In addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

Did you know?

     Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate "Renaissance man," practiced all the visual arts and studied a wide range of topics, including anatomy, geology, botany, hydraulics and flight. His formidable reputation is based on relatively few completed paintings, including "Mona Lisa," "The Virgin of the Rocks" and "The Last Supper."

Themes and symbolism

     Renaissance artists painted a wide variety of themes. Religious altarpieces, fresco cycles, and small works for private devotion were very popular. for inspiration, painters in both Italy and northern Europe frequently turned to Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (1260), a highly influential source book for the lives of saints that had already had a strong influence on Medieval artists. The rebirth of classical antiquity and Renaissance humanism also resulted in many Mythological and history paintings. Ovidian stories, for example, were very popular. Decorative ornament, often used in painted architectural elements, was especially influenced by classical Roman motifs or visual arts.

     Renaissance art used some styles like Realism, Idealism, Naturalism, Symbolism and Humanism with subject matters like Humans, Religion, slice of life, Nature and using other work of art (Mannerism). The medium used was bronze, marble, canvas, wood, oil, tempera, plaster, fresco.

Reference

Frederick Hartt, A History of Italian Renaissance Art, (1970)
(N.p.) history.com retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/renaissance-art

Christian Art

Christian Art: From Catacombs to Cathedrals       

       Christianity spread among the ruins of Roman Empire, even if it did not cause it to collapse. To be a Christian before Emperor Constantine’s proclamation of religious tolerance, one had to endure persecution. Under the emperors Nero, Trajan, Domitian, and Diocletian, Christians were slain for their beliefs. The Romans saw them as mad cult members and barbaric subversives who refuse to acknowledge the emperor as a god, or any Roman gods for that matter.

Early Christian art can be divided into two phases:

•       THE PERIOD OF PERSECUTION:

       During this period, Christians worship in secret, using private homes as well as chapels in catacombs.

•       THE PERIOD OF RECOGNITION:

       After Constantine’s edict, persecution of Christianity was officially forbidden and its followers were no longer forced to worship in secret. They poured their energy into constructing houses of worship, many of which erected on the land on top of the catacombs. In terms of design, it is not surprising that Christians turned to what they already knew – Roman architecture.

Through the passage of time, Christian art continue to flourish as of now. Even in the age of modernization, Christian art is still being used in architecture and art. It just show how amazing and innovative the Later Romans and Early Christians in producing their art and making it improved. 

Classical Art

Classical art

    The art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is called classical art. This name is used also to describe later periods in which artists looked for their inspiration to this ancient style. The Romans learned sculpture and painting largely from the Greeks and helped to transmit Greek art to later ages. Classical art owes its lasting influence to its simplicity and reasonableness, its humanity, and its sheer beauty.

Greece

    In the early 5th century Greek artists began consciously to attempt to render human and animal forms realistically. This entailed careful observation of the model as well as understanding the mechanics of anatomy - how a body adjusts to a pose which is not stiffly frontal but with the weight shifted to one side of the body, and how a body behaves in violent motion.

Architecture in ancient Greece:

    Greek life was dominated by religion and so it is not surprising that the temples of ancient Greece were the biggest and most beautiful.They also had a political purpose as they were often built to celebrate civic power and pride, or offer thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for success in war.

Rome

    For several centuries Ancient Rome was the most powerful nation on earth, excelling all others at military organization and warfare, engineering, and architecture. Its unique cultural achievements include the invention of the dome and the groin vault, the development of concrete and a European-wide network of roads and bridges. Despite this, Roman sculptors and painters produced only a limited amount of outstanding original fine art, preferring instead to recycle designs from Greek art, which they revered as far superior to their own. Indeed, many types of art practised by the Romans - including,sculpture (bronze and marble statuary, sarcophagi), fine art painting(murals, portraiture, vase-painting), and decorative art (including mosaics, metalwork, jewellery, ivory carving) had already been fully mastered by Ancient Greek artists.

    Not surprisingly, therefore, while numerous Greek sculptors and painters were accorded great respect throughout the Hellenistic world, most Roman artists were regarded as no more than skilled tradesmen and have remained anonymous.

    Of course it is wrong to say that Roman art was devoid of innovation: its urban architecture was ground-breaking, as was its landscape painting and portrait busts. Nor is it true that Roman artists produced no great masterpieces - witness the extraordinary relief sculpture on monuments likeAra Pacis Augustae and Trajan's Column. But on the whole, we can say that Roman art was predominantly derivative and, above all, utilitarian. It served a purpose, a higher good: the dissemination of Roman values along with a respect for Roman power. As it transpired, classical Roman art has been immensely influential on many subsequent cultures, through revivalist movements like Neoclassical architecture, which have shaped much European and American architecture, as exemplified by the US Capitol Building.

Ancient Art

Ancient art refers to the many types of art produced by the advanced cultures of ancient societies with some form of writing, such as those of ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Israel, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Prehistoric art

Prehistoric culture                                                        

The longest phase of Stone Age culture - known as the Paleolithic period - is a hunter-gatherer culture which is usually divided into three parts: Lower;middle; Upper Paleolithic.

Ancients near the east

SUMER

Sumerians inhabited mostly southern Mesopotamia from about 4000 BCE to about 2000 BCE. This area was prone to violent weather conditions, such as unexpected flooding. These chaotic conditions resulted in the Sumerians becoming a highly religious society. Religion provided a sense of order and reason behind the disorder. Much of the art created by the Sumerians is religious themed. Materials used included shell, lapis lazuli, limestone and gold.

AKKAD

When the Akkadians, from northern Iraq, conquered southern Iraq about 2400 BC, they unified all of Iraq - Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - into one empire for the first time. In some ways, Akkadian art was the same as the Sumerian art that went before it. Carvings still usually had rounded shapes, recalling early clay sculptures.

BABYLON

The conquest of Sumer and Akkad by Babylon marks a turning point in the artistic as well as political history of the region.

The Babylonians took advantage of the abundance of clay in Mesopotamia to create bricks. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, as well as of frescoes and enameled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with bronze or gold as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones were also embedded in the plaster.

ASSYRIA

Like all other kingdoms, the Babylonian kingdom did not last forever. When Babylon fell into decline it was eventually conquered by Assyria, one of its former colonies, Assyria inherited its arts as well as its empire.

PERSIA

Iran succeeded to the Hittite Empire and initially took much of its artistic styles from them. Huge palaces in rural settings, often worked on by craftsmen drawn from other nations, subject or not, were distinctive features. After the Empire was decisively overthrown by Alexander the Great a new Sassanian culture emerged, notable for palaces and metalwork. The capitals Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana and Estakhr have revealed much rich Persian art.

Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian consists of paintings, sculptures, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of Ancient Egypt in the lower Nile Valley from about 3000 BC to 100 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past.

Aegean Art

Aegean art refers to art that was created in the Grecian lands surrounding, and the islands within, the Aegean Sea. Included in the category Aegean art is Mycenaean art, famous for its gold masks, war faring imagery and sturdy architecture consisting of citadels on hills with walls up to 20 feet thick and tunnels into the bedrock, the art of the Cyclades, famous for its simple "Venus" figurines carved in white marble, and Minoan art which is famous for its animal imagery, images of harvest, and light, breezy, non-warlike architecture which is almost the antithesis of the Mycenaean art. Taking all this into account, the term "Aegean Art" is thought of as contrived among many art historians because it includes the widely varying art of very different cultures that happened to be in the same area around the same period.

Cyclades

Cycladic art encompasses the visual art of the ancient Cycladic civilization, which flourished in the islands of the Aegean Sea from3300 - 2000 BCE. Along with the Minoans and Mycenaeans, the Cycladic people are counted among the three major Aegean cultures. Cycladic art therefore comprises one of the three main branches of Aegean art.

Crete

The civilization that developed on the island of Crete was one of the most remarkable in the ancient world, rich in painting, sculpture, and elaborate architecture. It also brought us names like King Minos (Crete’s culture is known as Minoan, after the king) and creatures like the Minotaur.

Minoan Art

The greatest collection of Minoan art is in the museum at Heraklion, near Knossos on the north shore of Crete. Minoan art, with other remains of material culture, especially the sequence of ceramic styles, has been used by archaeologists to define the three phases of Minoan culture (EM, MM, LM) discussed above.

Mycenae

Mycenae was a prehistoric city in the Peloponnese region of Ancient Greece. The term "Mycenaean" or "Mycenean" culture is used to describe one of the strands of Aegean Art that emerged in the eastern Mediterranean area. It is also used sometimes to describe early mainland Greek art as a whole, during the late Bronze Age (c.1650-1200 BCE). The actual start of the Mycenean era is marked by the shaft graves of Grave Circles A and B (1650-1500 BCE), containing luxurious relics of Mycenean nobles, which were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876.

Jerusalem

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world.