Could anyone who has missed our art history class last Friday please answer the 2018 OL past exam paper Questions based on a visit to an art gallery (in the previous post on the blog).
I also want you to add the following notes into your art history notes copy before next Friday 23rd Nov.
IF YOU ARE INVOLVED IN THE SCHOOL MUSICAL IT IS VITAL THAT YOU STILL KEEP UP WITH THE WORK & GET ANY ART HISTORY NOTES YOU MISSED.
PLEASE TAKE DOWN THE FOLLOWING NOTES INTO YOUR ART HISTORY NOTES COPY FOR HOMEWORK - I WILL BE CHECKING YOUR COPIES NEXT FRIDAY TO ENSURE THIS IS DONE.
Decoration:
The
range of designs used by stone age artists is quite limited. They consist of circles, dotes in circles,
spirals, serpentiforms, arcs, radials (star shapes) zigzags, chevrons, lozenges
(diamond shapes) parallel lines and offsets of comb devices. All the shapes are drawn freehand and are
abstract, but they may have held some meaning for the people who made
them. At Knowth, we find the greatest
number of decorated stones, making up about half of all the stone age art in
Ireland. Many of the 127 stones in the
kerb are elaborately patterned.
Kerbstone 15, which looks like a sundial, can be interpreted as a lunar
calendar recording the phases of the moon.
Kerbstone 78, which is also supposed to refer to the phases of the moon,
has a range of designs quite different from kerbstone 15. Wavy lines and circles dominate the pattern,
which flows over the whole surface of the stone. At Newgrange, the entrance stone is covered
in curvilinear patterns which emphasizes the size of the stone. A groove at the top centre lines up with the
entrance and roof box, left of the groove is a triple spiral and beyond this a
wave pattern that connects back to the right hand end of the stone.
Kerbstone
52 on the opposite side of the mound has an even more varied range of patterns
covering most of its surface.
(Most
of the stones of Knowth and Newgrange) a hammer driven stone chisel was used to
remove rough areas and to take away a thin layer of stone and improve its
colour. The lines and patterns on the
stones are made by chip carving, cutting into the stone with a sharp flint or
other hand stone tool or by picking or pecking with a stone chisel or point
driven by a hammer. On the surface of
the stones, marks may have been smoothed out by hammering or rubbing with
coarse textured stone.
Interpretation
Passage
mounds seem to be much more than graves for revered ancestors. The sheer scale of commitment from the stone
age people who spend generations constructing them must have made them the most
important endeavour in the lives of the community. They were the largest structures in the
country for thousands of years. In later generations, the mounds were thought
to be the burial places of ancient kings.
The number of cremated remains inside the passage mound is relatively
small in relation to the size of the community and the length of time for which
the mounds were used. However, his might mean that only very special members of
the community were buried there or that they were ritual or sacrificial
burials.
There
is a growing body of support for the theory that designs on the stones relate
to movements of the sun, moon and the planets, which would be a way of keeping
track of the seasons and important community events. Kerbstones at Knowth in particular can be
interpreted as recording lunar events and patterns, The passages at Knowth received the light of
the rising and setting sun at the equinoxes in March and October, which are
important seasons for planting and harvesting in a farming community. At Newgrange, the light of sunrise of the
solstice (21 Dec), the shortest day of the year, may have celebrated the death
of the old year and the birth of the new.
Other passage mounds also received the light of the sun or the moon at
significant seasons and are the focus of ongoing research.
Rituals
and ceremonies might have been held in procession around the mounds, stopping
significant stones relevant to the season.
There are areas outside the east and west entrances at Knowth that are
paved with Quartz and granite stones like those on the front of the mound at
Newgrange. These areas may have been the
focus of ceremonies of they might have marked forbidden areas. Whatever their function, these stones had to
be transported by boat of raft from far away.
Conlusion
The
ancient mounds have a long history and their construction speaks of an
intelligent and inventive people, deeply motivated over generations to
construct the largest structures of their time.
Newgrange represents the pinnacle of wood and stone technology and
freehand abstract design. Their art was
the result of carefully planned and often repeated images, which took time and
effort to construct and must have had deep significance for the artists. It seems likely that the imags are more than
random doodles, but we know so little about the lives and language of these
early people that we can only guess at the meaning.
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