1. Explain why you selected the video you choose from the selection listed above.
I chose the Cairo Museum video because I have always been fascinated by Egyptian art and culture. Western Art is often dominated by European works and I find it to be refreshing to get a taste of what the Middle East was like. I also find Egyptian art to be filled with a mysterious shroud due to their unusual religious beliefs.
2. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.
More Human Than Human:
Human beings have a tendency to represent and document ourselves and our bodies through art.
However, the people humans depict are often exaggerated and have nearly or unattainable appearances, but why?
One explanation offered after studying chicks of herring seagulls was that people find beauty in adding more to ideals. While the mother herring seagull only had one stripe on her beak, the chicks would peck at a stick with three stripes and acquire more interest in it than the stick with one stripe. While I found this research taking place to be highly fascinating, I found this scenario to be a little bit of a stretch to be considered connected with why humans find interest in the more desirable or unattainable human physique. Birds are entirely different from people and it seems to me that the seagull study is very niche. Instead if there was a closer correlation, such as, psychological studies on primates the information may seem more credible and relevant.
Spivey suggests that due to lack of food and nutrition during the ancient time period and in the region, the Willendorf figurine may have been idolized as a symbol of a desirable, unattainable body. However, as shown in the film, these figures show up across time and around the world. More recently, researchers are suggesting that the figurines may have been used as a peace offering symbolling fertility and thus allowing for different groups of people to breed with one another.
The Egyptians are very well known for depicting the human form numerously because they did not change their style of art for nearly 3,000 years. The Egyptians are also notorious for the method they implemented for depicting their humans. Humans were made using a system that mapped the figured out of a grip. The Egyptians also created canons of proportion, or guidelines for depicting their ideal human form. The canons of proportion viewed the head and torso from the side but the eyes and legs frontally. Most likely, Egyptians developed their techniques for depicting the human form simply so they could repeat the method systematically so people would be uniform.
Characteristics of a Greek statue were their extremely muscular physique, one leg and arm relaxed and another bent (making them feel more life-like), and they were often not anatomically correct, but rather highly exaggerated. One suggestion offered by the film as to why the Greeks chose this way of creating statues was because they were relating their deities to the human form, but because their Gods were larger than life it was necessary to depict them as so.
Cairo Museum:
The Cairo Museum is over one hundred years old and contains thousands of ancient artifacts and art in both the basement and showcased on display upstairs. The objects featured in exhibitions are living and breathing history. The museum’s collection is so large that the museum can only show case half of the objects at one time.
Idolized royal mummies are also on display and have unique stories to tell.
There is so much history that it is hard to decide what artifacts to place on display and which stories to tell.
Sacred unseen precious objects come through to join the collection.
The museum must carefully conserve each of the pieces as to not damage them and preserve them so that they maintain good condition.
Shrews were sacred to the god Horus and so there were some sarcophaguses for them.
King Tutankhamun’s artifacts are also in the museum and one specific piece tells the story of his daily life.
3. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?
The videos relate to the text in that they both showcase the arts and cultures of ancient civilizations. The videos and the texts have an encompassing western progression of the highlights of arts and culture throughout ancient times.
4. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts?
More than Human:
Overall, while the film attempted to explain and offer suggestions while referencing ancient art regarding why it is humans depict unrealistic representations of ourselves it left the viewer with no distinct answer. Personally, I think we often repeatedly depict the human form in order to find material more relatable. I believe that the exaggerate the human form due to our primal instincts to associate good healthy offspring and survival of the clan with good health and good health often means unrealistic baselines of beauty. All in all, Spivey offered a highly entertaining take on the desirable human body throughout the ages of art while encapsulating many areas and cultures found in ancient art.
Cairo Museum:
The film was useful in showing museum etiquette and the vast amount of unique ancient Egyptian treasures contained in Cairo. However, it did not expand in depth on many of the specific pieces and why they hold such importance. Instead, the video talked more about the pieces as icons and how the tourists are lured in because of their ancient mystery and ancestral root and ties to the culture.
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