-
20,000 BCE
Venus of Willendorf
Austria, c. 25,000–20,000 BCE. Stone, 43/8" high.
This small but robust figure likely represented the power of female fertility and may have aided reproductive rituals in the Paleolithic era. -
2685 BCE
Lyre, sound box from the tomb of Queen Puabi
Lyre, sound box from the tomb of Queen Puabi, Ur (Iraq), c. 2685 BCE. Wood, gold and shell inlay, lapis lazuli; 5' 5" high.
Beautiful design and expert craftsmanship distinguish this lyre, which was part of an ancient royal burial. -
2600 BCE
Menkaure and His Wife, Queen Khamerernebty
Fourth Dynasty, Gizeh, Egypt, c. 2600 BCE. Slate, approximately 4' 6 1⁄2" high.
This early portrait of the royal couple displays the equal status of Menkaure’s wife Khamerernebty, who passes on the pharaonic succession through her offspring. -
2475 BCE
Great Pyramids
Gizeh, Egypt. Menkaure, c. 2525–2475 BCE; Khafre, c. 2575–2525 BCE; Khufu, c. 2600–2550 BCE.
Oriented to the sun, these are the tombs of the pharaohs, who were believed to be sons of Re, the Sun God. -
490 BCE
Red Figure Kylix
Douris. Slip on clay, 13" diameter. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. -
470 BCE
Banqueters and Musicians
Mural painting from the Tomb of the Leopards in a cemetery near Tarquinia, Etruria (Italy), c. 480–470 BCE. The pleasures of Etruscan life included feasting, music, and dancing. -
432 BCE
Parthenon
Iktinos and Kallikrates. Parthenon, Athens, 447–432 BCE. Pentelic marble; columns: 34' high, dimensions of structure: 228' × 104'.
This structure is the standard Classical Greek temple using the post-and-lintel construction and the Doric Order. -
130
Funerary Relief of a Circus Official
Ostia, 110–130. Marble relief, approx. 20" high. Vatican Museum, Rome. Details crowd together in this relief depicting a working-class man at his job, with his family. -
256
Synagogue at Dura-Europos
Syria, 245–256 CE. Interior, with wall paintings of biblical themes. National Museum, Damascus. Images of the Hebrew deity, Yahweh, were very rare; however, at times his hand appears in Old Testament paintings found on temple walls. -
500
Seated Buddha
Sarnath. Uttar Pradesh, India. Sandstone, 63" high. Sarnath Museum. Later in Buddhism, its founder is depicted as the Enlightened One, the Buddha. -
650
Shrine to Vairocana Buddha
Longmen Caves, Luoyang, Valley of the Yellow River, China, c. 600–650. Natural rock carving, 50' high.
The colossal statue represents the universal principle dominating all life and phenomena. -
1512
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo. Vatican, Rome, 1508–1512. Fresco, approximately 128' × 45'. -
1513
Knight, Death, and the Devil
Albrecht Durer. Engraving, 95/8" × 71/2" (24.5 × 19 cm).
Musee du Petit Palais, Paris.
This is a very fine engraving because of the thin canvas. -
1519
Feathered Headdress of Moctezuma
Feathered Headdress of Moctezuma, Aztec, c. 1519. Quetzal and cotinga feathers, gold plaques; 451⁄2" × 69".
Conquering armies often plunder and take the art of subjugated peoples. -
Reversible Head with Basket of Fruit
Giuseppe Arcimboldo. A painting that plays off of visual tricks. It can be viewed from two different perspectives that display it either as a basket of fruit, or a human face made out of fruit. -
Potala Palace
The former summer palace of the Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama. Lhasa, Tibet -
Prison, from Le Carceri, No. XIV
Giovanni Battista Piranesi. 1745. Etching.
Although this image shows a gloomy architectural interior, it is a visual metaphor for the dark side of the human mind. -
Oath of the Horatii
Jacques-Louis David. France, 1784. Oil on canvas, 10' 10" × 14'. Louvre, Paris.
While this painting illustrates an event from Roman history, it also shows the kinds of behavior that reflected femininity and masculinity in eighteenth-century France. The Neoclassical architecture was associated with masculinity and revolution. -
The Death of Marat
Jacques Louis David. Oil on canvas -
Grande Odalisque
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. France. Oil on canvas, 35" × 64". Louvre, Paris. The nude Turkish harem woman was intended to be an erotic image for European men in the nineteenth century. -
Liberty Leading the People
Eugène Delacroix. France. Oil on canvas, approximately 8' 6" × 10' 8". Louvre, Paris.
This is an homage to the 1830 Paris Revolt in France in which the artist personifies liberty’s fight against oppression of the people. -
The Legislative Belly
Honoré Daumier. France. Lithograph; image: 111/8" × 171/8"; sheet: 1311/16" × 203/16". Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
Daumier was particularly known for his political cartoons with his pointedly satirical caricatures in nineteenth-century France. -
Boulevard du Temple
Louis Daguerre. The first known example of a human represented in a photograph. -
Olympia
Edouard Manet. France. Oil on canvas, 511⁄4" × 743⁄4". Musée d’Orsay, Paris. This painting of a sexual encounter scandalized the public because Olympia was not presented as a mythological or historical figure. -
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
Édouard Manet -
The Sick Husband
Vassily Maksimov. Portrayed the lives of Russian peasants. -
The Luncheon of the Boating Party
Pierre Auguste Renoir. France, 1881. Oil on canvas, 51" × 68".
The European middle class enjoyed greater leisure time in the late nineteenth century, including pleasurable outings in nature. -
Handspring, a Flying Pigeon Interfering
Eadweard Muybridge. June 26, 1885, England/Scotland/United States, 1887. Print from an original master negative, Plate 365 of Animal Locomotion. International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
The photograph allows artists and scientists to study the mechanics of human movement. -
La Grande Jatte
Georges Seurat. La Grande Jatte (also called A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884), France, 1884–1886.
Art shows that the middle class enjoyed increased leisure time in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. -
Death and the Maiden
Marianne Stokes. -
Society Ladies
James VanDerZee. United States, 1927. Black-and-white photograph.
Art can promote the status and create a positive perception of a racial group. In this case, the portraits show the confident, affluent people of the Harlem Renaissance in the United States. -
Guernica
Pablo Picasso. Spain. Oil on canvas, 11' × 28' 8". This work dramatized the 1937 destruction of the Basque capital by Nazi fire bombs during the Spanish Civil War -
Flag
Jasper Johns. Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood; 421⁄4" × 605/8". -
Notre Dame du Haut
Le Corbusier. Ronchamps, France, 1950–1955. The church’s design recalls praying hands, dove wings, and a boat hull, Christian symbols of divine generosity. -
Campbell's Soup Cans
Andy Warhol. Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, Each canvas 20 x 16". Warhol is commonly known by his commentary on the consumerist and mass-produced culture of the United States. -
Floor Burger
Claes Oldenburg. Canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, painted with acrylic paint. -
Pie Counter
Wayne Thiebaud. Oil on canvas, 30" × 36". The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Reflecting modern cafeterias, this painting is a colorful display of standardized, mass-produced food. -
Habitat 67
Moshe Safdie. Designed for Expo ’67 in Montreal, Canada. This modern version of group living features stacked modular living units that open up onto gardens on the roofs of other units. -
U.S. Pavilion
R. Buckminster Fuller. Expo ’67, Montreal. Geodesic dome, diameter 250'. The geodesic dome is an architectural form that can be scaled to large size, can be distorted to be flat or tall, and can be covered with a variety of material. -
Bouncing in the Corner no.1
Bruce Nauman. An art video in which Nauman repeatedly bounces his back in and out of the corner he is standing against. -
Broken Obelisk
Barnett Newman. 1963–1969. Cor-Ten steel, 24' 10" × 10' 11" × 10' 11". This is an example of the large, bold artworks produced in the United States during the Cold War era. The theme of this work is the balance between life and death forces, which is symbolically expressed through the pyramid and the obelisk -
The Liberation of Aunt Jemima
Betye Saar. United States, 1972. Mixed media, 113⁄4" × 8" × 23⁄4".
This work illustrates, and therefore protests, the ways that African Americans were often depicted in folk art and in commercial imagery. -
The Lightning Field
Walter De Maria. United States, 1971–1977. Four hundred stainless steel poles, average height: 20' 7"; land area: 1 mile ×
1 kilometer in New Mexico.
This work of art incorporates the ground, the sky, and weather activity. -
Sun Mad
Ester Hernandez. United States. Color serigraph, 22" × 17".
This work exposes the dangerous chemical pesticides that are used in vineyards to grow grapes that eventually become raisins. These poisons leach into the public drinking water. -
(Untitled) Fallen Angel
Jean-Michel Basquiat -
There Is No Escape, Britain
Sue Coe. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 22" × 30" -
Buddha Duchamp Beuys
Nam June Paik. 1989. Video installation with Buddha sculpture. Paik’s work brings together opposites, sometimes humorously, in ways that suggest new potentials for cultural interaction. -
Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death
Keith Haring. Offset lithograph. -
Breaking of the Vessels
Anselm Kiefer. Germany, 1990. Lead, iron, glass, copper wire, charcoal, and aquatec; 17' high.
Old books are not always storehouses of knowledge. They may make knowledge inaccessible, or they may rot and fall apart. -
Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)
Flelix Gonzalez Torres. 175 pounds of hard candy. An example of an interactive artwork. Viewers are encouraged to take a piece. -
Faceless Women of Allah Series
Shirin Neshat. "a series of stark black-and-white photographs entitled Women of Allah, conceptual narratives on the subject of female warriors during the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. On each photograph, I inscribed calligraphic Farsi text on the female body" -Shirin Neshat -
Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii
Nam June Paik. Fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound -
Star Doll
Mariko Mori. 1998 (edition for Parkett 54, 1998–1999). Multiple of doll, 101⁄4" × 3" × 19/16" (irregular).
Mori’s self-portrait is a commercially packaged version of herself as artist, model, and fashion designer. -
Stone God Forbidden City
by Douglas Schlesier. Charcoal on paper with gold leaf and color, 25" × 38 -
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Peter Eisenman. 2,711 concrete slabs of varying heights. -
Blind Pig #3
Edgar Arceneaux. Acrylic, graphite on paper. -
A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby
Kara Walker. Sugar, polystyrene, plastic, molasses.
