Exam is open note and essay style. You will need to spend time thinking about your responses to each question. For each piece of information you bring into your response, you gain (1) point. The number of points total per response varies, but generally is about 15-20pts each. Total Points for this assignment is 50
Consider all formal, historical, cultural, and political contexts.
Choose (3) of the following (5) questions to respond to. Fill in your responses below. Note which question you are responding to.
Please respond to 3 of the 5 questions and each is about 300 words.
1) What is the significance of this site? How does this site show the influence of the silk road in its reception of Buddhism?
Seokguram (751-774 CE)—architecture plan, seated Buddha, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara with Eleven Heads
2) Choose at least (2) artwork/sites from the following list. What is the significance of these sites? What was, were, and/or are its functions, and how it that reflected in its formal/visual aspects? What does it tell us about Christian and/or Islamic religious or political history? (i.e. what is the relevant historical/political context of this artwork and/or site?)
a)
Emperor Justinian and his Attendants, San Vitale, consecrated 547, Ravenna, Italy
b)
Qubbat al-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock), Jerusalem, c.688-92
c)
Great Mosque of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain, begun 786 and enlarged during the 9th and 10th centuries
3) Compare and contrast these examples of Chinese landscape painting. What are the particularities of their respective painting dynastic styles? What are the political contexts in which they were made?
a)
Fan Kuan, Travelers by Streams and Mountains, hanging scroll, ink on silk, ca.1000. 206.3×103.3cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
b)
Qian Xuan. The Calligrapher Wang Xizhi Watching Geese. Ink and color on paper. Ht. 23.2 cm Yuan Dynasty. Metropolitan Museum of Art NY.
4) What is the subject matter/narrative depicted in these paintings? What about their visual style reflects the Baroque? These two works may feature aspects of the artists’ biographies. How might their biographies be reflected in these paintings?
a)
Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1610. Oil on canvas, 125 cm × 101 cm.
b)
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1620–21, oil on canvas, 162.5 x 199 cm
5) What do these two woodblock prints tell us about Hokusai’s woodblock print-making practice during the Edo period in Japan? How are they related to Edo political and social history?
a)
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), c. 1830-32, polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 10 1/8 x 14 15 /16 inches; 25.7 x 37.9 cm
b)
Katsushika Hokusai, ‘The Origin of Pictures,” monochrome woodblock printed page from the series One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji, 1834–35.
Images for these topics can be find on Google. a) and b) under each question are references to the pictures of the question. Thanks!
