# Gardners Art through the Ages ## Metadata * Author: [Fred S. Kleiner](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B00QXKGMTE * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXKGMTE * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE) ## Highlights The Questions Art Historians Ask HOW OLD IS IT? — location: [15731](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=15731) ^ref-27788 --- How would someone define the artistic style of the second decade of the new millennium in North America? Far too many crosscurrents exist in contemporary art for anyone to describe a period style of the early 21st century—even in a single city such as New York. — location: [16166](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16166) ^ref-44287 --- Regional style is the term that art historians use to describe variations in style tied to geography. Like an object’s date, its provenance, or place of origin, can significantly determine its character. Very often two artworks from the same place made centuries apart are more similar than contemporaneous works from two different regions. To cite one example, usually only an expert can distinguish between an Egyptian statue carved in 2500 bce and one made in 500 bce. But no one would mistake an Egyptian statue — location: [16166](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16166) ^ref-23732 --- of 500 bce for one of the same date made in Greece or Mexico. — location: [16167](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16167) ^ref-63640 --- Internal evidence can play a significant role in dating an artwork. A — location: [16168](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16168) ^ref-52057 --- Stylistic evidence is also very important. The analysis of style— an artist’s distinctive manner of producing an object—is the art historian’s special sphere. — location: [16168](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16168) ^ref-56123 --- useful tool for establishing chronology. WHAT IS ITS STYLE? Defining artistic style is one of the key elements of art historical inquiry, although the analysis of artworks solely — location: [16169](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16169) ^ref-17443 --- terms of style no longer dominates the field the way it once did. — location: [16169](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=16169) ^ref-39592 --- WHAT IS ITS SUBJECT? — location: [17040](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17040) ^ref-31862 --- WHO MADE IT? — location: [17478](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17478) ^ref-57413 --- WHO PAID FOR IT? — location: [17480](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17480) ^ref-62644 --- Many Egyptian pharaohs and some Roman emperors, for example, — location: [17481](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17481) ^ref-39294 --- insisted that artists depict them with unlined faces and perfect youthful bodies no matter how old they were when portrayed. In these cases, the state employed the sculptors and painters, and the artists had no choice but to portray their patrons in the officially approved manner. This is why Augustus, who lived to age 76, looks so young in his portraits (fig. I-10). Although Roman emperor for more than 40 years, Augustus demanded that — location: [17481](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17481) ^ref-15183 --- artists always represent him as a young, godlike head of state. — location: [17482](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17482) ^ref-51248 --- The Words Art Historians Use — location: [17914](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17914) ^ref-20434 --- FORM AND COMPOSITION Form refers to an object’s shape and structure, either in two dimensions (for example, a figure painted on a wood panel) or in three dimensions (such as a statue carved from a marble block). — location: [17915](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17915) ^ref-51476 --- Composition refers to how an artist composes (organizes) forms in an artwork, either by placing shapes on a flat surface or by arranging forms in space. — location: [17915](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17915) ^ref-16369 --- MATERIAL AND TECHNIQUE — location: [17915](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17915) ^ref-53904 --- Natural light, or sunlight, is whole or additive light. As the sum of all the — location: [17917](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17917) ^ref-37302 --- painter’s light in art—the light reflected from pigments and objects—is subtractive — location: [17918](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17918) ^ref-41646 --- value or tonality (the degree of lightness or darkness) and intensity or saturation (the purity of a color, its brightness or dullness). — location: [17918](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=17918) ^ref-54059 --- SPACE, MASS, AND VOLUME Space — location: [18351](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=18351) ^ref-35705 --- PERSPECTIVE AND FORESHORTENING — location: [18352](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=18352) ^ref-38422 --- TEXTURE — location: [18356](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=18356) ^ref-26132 --- PROPORTION AND SCALE — location: [19227](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=19227) ^ref-49886 --- RELIEF SCULPTURE Statues and busts (head, shoulders, and chest) that — location: [19663](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=19663) ^ref-7955 --- exist independent of any architectural frame or setting and that viewers can walk around are freestanding sculptures, — location: [19663](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=19663) ^ref-49764 --- CARVING AND CASTING Sculptural technique falls into two basic categories, subtractive and additive. Carving is a subtractive technique. — location: [19664](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=19664) ^ref-15878 --- ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS — location: [20101](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00QXKGMTE&location=20101) ^ref-59378 ---