Learning Goals
- Relate how a historical art object connects to a historical society.
- Offer a hypothesis on what the object tells us about that society.
- Analyze how art reflects values of historical societies.
Background
Analyzing art as historical sources can be challenging as we must connect what we know of the society to what we can reasonably conclude about the artist’s motivations and the reception of the piece. As with all history, we rely on evidence, whether from our secondary source readings or from the object itself, to help us make arguments. Most historians use careful language in their analysis. So rather than writing "This sculpture clearly demonstrates Roman attitudes on race. . " a historian might write "The depiction of the child suggests that . . . and may have indicated . . . , perhaps indicating . . . .." Being honest about the limits of what your evidence shows is an important skill in history.
Chose One Source:
- Aztecs Mexica- Serpent mosaic
- Anthropomorphous jar – Eastern Cordillera – Muisca Period600/1600
- Water Deity (Chalchiuhtlicue) 15th–early 16th century
- Christian art in India: Indo-Portuguese ivory statuettes Pay particular attention to the Christ Child as Good Shepherd rockery and its water usage.
- Chinese landscape painting
- Shaded Dwellings among Streams and Mountains ca. 1622–25
Prepare assignment
[ ] Chose two from the list above. Read the available associated materials on the object page.
[ ] Analyze how the two different sources address fresh water in one paragraph of 5-9 sentences. In your paragraph, explicitly tie your reading to your analysis. You may compare, contrast, contextualize the sources based on observation, inferrence, and deduction. Cite all sources you use.
**Example using Cylinder seal and modern impression: bull-man combatting lion; nude hero combatting water buffalo; ca. 2250–2150 B.C.
The cylinder suggests a couple of hypothesis about the Akkaddian empire. As the associated text states, the water buffalo was native to the Indus valley, not Akkadia. Thus, the image suggests "possibly diplomatic connections between the Akkadian emire and the Indus Valley."The article for the week "Climate and Geography in Ancient Asia and the Pacific" offers some support for this idea that India could be connected, noting "India was fairly accessible to the outside world. . . ." Beyond that, I hypothesize that the hero wrestling with the water buffalo could be symbolic for Akkadian politics or the for the owner of the seal. Water buffalo are very large animals: the idea that a human would engage in combat with one without a weapon or tool speaks to the triumph of a human of extraordinary ability. As well, the water buffalo could represent both geography and and idea, as certain ideas are associated with certain animals (such as black cats and bad luck in the U.S.) What is clear is that access to deep rivers (the water buffalo’s habitat) helped shape art of 3rd millenium Akkadia, in Mesopotamia. So, the water of one region (rivers) shaped the art of another region.
