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AHIST 1401 Week 1 Written - Assignment

Art History

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Kaung Hein Htet
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18 views

AHIST 1401 Week 1 Written - Assignment

Art History

Uploaded by

Kaung Hein Htet
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Written Assignment Unit 1

University of the People

AHIST 1401: Art History

Raven Cotton, Instructor

January 31, 2023


Artists have depicted their messages and purposes on the medium and
shared them with others since the earliest civilization. They painted on cave walls,
paper, cloth, or canvas, and curved the wood, iron, copper, or ivory to pass the
message or share their purposes to the public. In the earliest days, people curved
sculptures to install in temples and tombs. During the age of the Roman Empire,
people curved sculptures for decoration. Ancient people have carved many
sculptures for various purposes. “A sculpture is a work of art that is a solid figure or
object made by carving or shaping wood, stone, clay metal, etc.” (Oxford Learner’s
Dictionary, n.d.). The sculptures can carry meaning, the artist’s idea, message, and
purpose to spread across the community. In this essay, we will observe two
sculptures named “Statue of Gudea” and “The King's Acquaintances Memi and Sabu
“from two different eras. We will examine their purposes and differences.
According to the Mertropolian Museum of Art, “The Statute of Gudea” is a
sculpture curved around ca. 2090.BCE during the Neo-Sumerian era (n.d.). The
medium is diorite which is an igneous rock in salt and pepper appearance (King,
n.d.). A series of these statues were commissioned by Gudea, a ruler of the city-
state Lagash, to install them in the great temples of Lagash (The Metropolian
Museum of Art, n.d.). Gudea is depicted as a ruler sitting before his subjects. The
statue's hands were folded as “a traditional gesture of greeting and prayer” (The
Metropolian Museum of Art, n.d.). There is a Sumerian inscription on the statue
robe which claims Gudea as a god and invites others to his temple as friends. The
calmness and warmth welcome of the statute enlighten the civilization of Sumerians
and their cultures.
On the other hand, “The King's Acquaintances Memi and Sabu” is a sculpture
curved around CA. 2575-2465 B.C. during the old kingdom of Egypt Dynasty 4 era
(The Metropolian Museum of Art, n.d.). The Metropolian Museum of Art stated that
this is a nonroyal statute that was found from a tomb in the Memphite Region of
Giza (n.d.). Just like other Egyptian sculptures at the time, it was curved from
limestone and painted. This is a couple sculpture that depicts the intimacy of Memi
and his companion Sabu. The shape of Memi is higher than the Sabu’s and we can
observe the dominant nature of men over women in that era. They are embracing
each other to depict the gesture of love and interdependence. There are Egyptian
hieroglyphs at the bottom of the statute. This demonstration of love, closeness, and
codependence evokes the culture of the Egyptian Dynasty.
Both statutes are different in many things. But, there are also similarities. All
characters of both statutes wore headdresses. But we can notice the different
cultures of Sumerians and Egyptians in the headdresses’ patterns. The two different
cultures also collide in the traditional wears. The Sumerians wore a shawl-like robe
but the Egyptians wore a garment of leather, cloth, or something. There are small
patterns in their clothes. Therefore, we can say that people at that time modify their
clothes with beautiful patterns. Both statutes are barefooted and the sculptors
gently curved the muscles for the males. These are the similarities that I have found
by comparing these two statutes.
In conclusion, we can observe that artists from earlier civilizations included
meaningful words in their artworks. They have depicted with postures, hand
gestures, prescriptions, and even with colors. Edgar Degas once said, “Art is not
what you see, but what you make others see”. Therefore, the artists have made the
people to see what they want to depict with noticeable things since the earliest
times.

Word Count: 615


References

King, H. M. (n.d.). Diorite. Geology.com. Retrieved from


https://geology.com/rocks/diorite.shtml

Statue of Gudea, named “Gudea, the man who built the temple, may his life be
long”. (ca. 2090 BCE). [Diorite]. 1000 5th Ave, New York, USA. Retrieved from
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/329072

The King's Acquaintances Memi and Sabu. ( ca. 2575–2465 B.C.). [Limestone, paint].
1000 5th Ave, New York, USA.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/543899

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