Unknown, Venus of Willendorf , (ca. 28,000 - 25,000 BCE) limestone is hard, brittle, and difficult to carve; it is a native material to austria  arbitrary name’ named by location and after ‘venus’ greco/ROMAN goddess of love. venus is typically the only goddess depicted as nude, also the ‘ideal beauty’  likely a fertility figure; emphasis on the volume and sexual areas of figure (breasts, pubic area); most prehistoric figures were mostly of women and mostly nude  consider size: since it’s small, it’s portable; the people are nomadic food gatherers, so it’s very important to take art with them

Unknown, Venus of Willendorf , (ca. 28,000 - 25,000 BCE)

  • limestone is hard, brittle, and difficult to carve; it is a native material to austria 
  • arbitrary name’
  • named by location and after ‘venus’ greco/ROMAN goddess of love. venus is typically the only goddess depicted as nude, also the ‘ideal beauty’ 
  • likely a fertility figure; emphasis on the volume and sexual areas of figure (breasts, pubic area); most prehistoric figures were mostly of women and mostly nude 
  • consider size: since it’s small, it’s portable; the people are nomadic food gatherers, so it’s very important to take art with them
19 notes
  1. mistressmary reblogged this from ohmymaryann
  2. ohmymaryann reblogged this from artwhat
  3. such-fragile--broken-things reblogged this from prosvetiti and added:
    This looks familiar. Oh Prehistoric art, you haunt me.
  4. horrorslumbers reblogged this from artwhat
  5. artwhat posted this

artwhat.

during my first ever survey of western art class, my professor explained the difference between historians and art historians. historians, she said, were interested in old things. art historians, on the other hand, were interested in old things of quality. you don't hang garbage up on the walls of a museum; it has to be substantial and it has to mean something. so here you go; old things, made mostly by dudes long dead, of debatable degrees of quality but always with a constant level of importance. think of this as a deck of flash cards... sans the whole cards part.

Hobo theme by Mike Ballan with minor edits by Jess