"Seated Scribe"

Title: "Seated Scribe"
Artist: Unknown
Medium: Painted limestone sculpture, rock crystals, magnesite, copper-arsenic alloy, wood
Era: Old Kingdom Egypt
2620-2500 BCE
Location: Saqqara, Egypt

This sculpture was discovered in 1850 CE by French archaeologist Auguste Mariette. One of the pharaoh's scribes is depicted here, although generally sculptures depicted the royal family. An interesting thing to know about the scribe is that his hands and his face are the most detailed part of the sculpture. This is because the scribe uses his face, with his eyes and mouth, and his hands the most in his line of work. The eyes of this sculpture are shown with slightly off-centered pupils, to create the illusion that his eyes are moving. The scribe's hands are shown in the writing position, and it appears that his right hand originally held a brush.

The sculpture's semicircular base indicates that it originally fit into a larger piece of rock, which likely carried its title and name.

This sculpture is unusually realistic for its time, with a less than ideal figure and without an idealized face. This may be partly because it is not a royal figure depicted, but a worker.

"Snake Goddess"

Title: "Snake Goddess"
Artist: Unknown
Medium: faïence sculpture
Era: 1600 BCE
Aegean Art
Location: Knossos, Crete

This figurine, believed to depict a goddess, was discovered in the early 1900s by famed archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. The figurine was found in the Temple Repositories in the Palace of Knossos on the Aegean Island of Crete. The figure was originally missing its head, hat, the majority of its right arm, part of the snake, and large parts of the skirt. The figure was originally thought to be a votary of a figure Evans proclaimed to be the real "Snake Goddess". However, today art historians recognize the figure above to be the Minoan "Snake Goddess".

The original reconstruction of the figure did not include the cat perched atop the headdress. This cat, identified as a lioness or a spotted pard, was placed atop the figure as both contained rivet holes suggesting a connection between the two.

The fact that Evans made this leap of faith has been a subject of argument among historians. Evans is well-known for taking liberation with his discoveries. For example, in his excavation of the Palace of Knossos Evans had the columns repainted red and black with little regard for preserving the state of the excavation.

The "Snake Goddess" wears a typical Minoan flounced skirt: made of Minoan wool while the skirt flared out from the hips to the ground. The figure's skirt and apron are held at the waist by what is believed to be either a belt or a girdle. The girdle may have been of religious importance to the Minoans, as a few faience double girdles were discovered at the site. The girdle may be related to Aphrodite's charmed girdle which she lent to Hera when she wanted to seduce Zeus and thus distract his attention from the Trojan war. This seduction was said to have taken place on Crete's Mount Ida. The "Snake Goddess" is said to be related not only to the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, but to the Egyptian Goddess Wadjyt.

Overall, this figure typifies Aegean artwork style through its use of faience, its size, and its religious subject. This figure is also useful in examining how the female figure is depicted throughout the history of art. In this particular case, the woman is partly nude and depicted in a religious light. She appears powerful with her raised arms and her menacing appearance, yet is a beautiful woman.

You can learn more about "Snake Goddess" at this site: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegoddess

Sandy Skoglund's "Radioactive Cats"

Title: "Radioactive Cats"
Artist: Sandy Skoglund
Medium: Installation art, photography
Era: 1980 CE
Surrealist (?), Installation art

I've decided to start out with what may be my favorite overall piece of artwork. Radioactive cats is a piece built by Sandy Skoglund in which a setting is created with a very specific color scheme of grays and neon greens. Skoglund spent months creating the set, and once finished photographed the piece complete with actors. The cats and much of the set were created with chicken wire and plaster, and finally painted.

Skoglund's artwork is often filled with average scenes populated with swarms of animals. In a 1998 interview with Demetrio Paparoni (http://www.sandyskoglund.com/pages/published/pages_publish/demetrio.html) Skoglund stated of this concept, "Since we, as human beings, consider ourselves the primary form of consciousness existing in nature, I decided to populate my images with animals in order to introduce this alternative awareness into our experience". Her images do not always contain repeated animals however, in her earlier work she experiments with the repetition of food and her most recent work deals with the creation of artificial landscapes.

Many people consider Skoglund's work to be surrealistic in nature, as the scenes have a very dream-like state. However, Skoglund does not believe this to be so. She says that her work presents realistic scenes with one unreal element, the animals. This is why Skoglund does not digitally manipulate her images, it is important to her concept that one knows the scene is a photograph of a real event. This image really happened, and is preserved forever in a photograph.

One interesting thing about "Radioactive Cats" is that a sketch of Skoglund's original idea is on her website. The original idea, "Magic Cats" included cats which changed color as they approached the woman's face. The old man, or possibly the old woman, would be presented with a young face in order to create a psychological angle to her work.

Other interesting work by Skoglund includes "Revenge of the Goldfish", "Fox Games" and one of her more recent works, "Fresh Hybrid". Skoglund's work is documented on her website, http://www.sandyskoglund.com

Welcome to Art Love!

Hello anyone who happens to read this blog entry!

First, a little bit about myself:

I'm a student in a highschool of the south suburbs of Chicago. I have a passion for art, and hope one day to be successful in graphic design. I've taken a number of art classes at my high school including art fundamentals, 2D Studio One, and 2D Studio Two. I've also taken classes in landscape drawing, studio art, and graphic design as part of the art institute's early college program. I've been in several shows around my town, and other places, and I recently participated in a national competition in which I painted a lifesize cow (very fun!). This summer, I plan on traveling to Europe, specifically Florence, Venice, Nice, and Paris, with around twenty people in the art department from my school. I also plan on attending a three week session at the Cranbrook Summer Institute of Art for the portfolio development class. Should be a fun summer!

And Now About the Blog:

This past year I took an art history class at my school and found it to be a very interesting subject. In this blog I want to critique and discuss a different art piece every day (in no specific order timewise, just pieces I feel strongly about). I may also feature artists rather than a specific work. I'm doing this to learn more about art overall, to retain the information I learned this past year, and to develop my own art skills. I will also put some of my own work on this blog in order to compare with the work of established artists. I'm nowhere near as good as they are, but hopefully I'll one day create work which will be (I know, I know, dream big!). I would love if others would read and comment on this blog, but I know it's doubtful that anyone will :)

Artwork on this site is for educational purposes. If you want me to remove any images featured here please comment here and I will remove the work.

Thank you anyone who has read this, I hope that I've captivated somebody's attention!