AH318A: Selected Topics in Art History: The Church and Cataclysm
Websites for Week 10
Some Historic Formal War Art
- The Alexander Mosaic - whole. Copy of painting by Philoxenus of The Battle of Issus, Cilicia, Persia, 333 BC (mosaic c.200 AD, Pompeii). This is the earliest known battle picture.
- Detail of Alexander the Great, Greek leader - Victorious, Alexander and his troops are Idealized (how can you tell?)
- Detail of Darius, Persian leader - Vanquished, Darius and his troops are caricatured (how can you tell)?
- Trajan's Column, Rome, 112-113 AD - scroll down for good details of battle pics
- The Arch of Constantine, Rome, c.315 AD - Triumphal Arches comemmorate irreversible victories: in this case, the Battle of Milvian Bridge, which was Constantine's final victory over the last rival Roman Emperor and Christianity's final victory over illegality.
- Arch of Constantine on the Web - excellent compilation of web resources
- The Bayeux Tapestry, c.1066 - to comemmorate the Norman Conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings, 1066. This 231-ft-long tapestry was probably embroidered by men. Compare the continuous strip idea with the spiral on Trajan's Column.
- Scrolling Tapestry Finale - from Madeira Threads, very clear image with representative colours.
- Enlarged Detail - from the Getty Museum
- The Constantine Room, Vatican, after 1517 - from Christus Rex, the Vatican's own Website. Raphael's students continued the programme after his death in 1517. Compare his battle scenes with the Alexander Mosaic.
Independent Artistic Projects
- Jacques Callot, Les Misères de la Guerre, 1633 - scroll down, and check out The Hangman's Tree in particular (not always available)
- Goya, The Disasters of War, 1863 - same site: scroll down and check out especially numbers 33, 36, 37, and 39 and also 3rd of May further down (not always available).
- Picasso, Guernica, 1937 - from Olga's Gallery (black and white); check the better details below
- bull, horse and pietà/keening mother
- rescuer, panicking & burning victims
- whole, in colour - small image from AllPosters.com
- Echoes of Guernica - from the Legacy Project
- Inmate Art, David Olère - Auschwitz survivor (interned there 1943-1945)
- Nagasaki Nightmare - 1995 exhibition of photos and eye witness drawings
- Those Two Days - some photos, mostly drawings and paintings accompanying 1945 a-bomb memories.
- National Vietnam Memorial Museum, Chicago - check out the combatants' art section (Vietnam War: 1964-75)
- Vietnam Combat Art - by Jim Pollock, combatant
- The Legacy of Absence - Cambodian artists on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979)
- The Art of Afterwards - various cataclysms remembered, from The Legacy Project
- Diamanda Galas (performance artist) - her Plague Mass, begun 1984, is a requiem for AIDS victims; there is a pic half way down the page