Tag: art history

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Giza Plateau and Sphinx

Archeological records indicate that the Pyramids of Giza were built between 2589 and 2504 BC, and are relics of Egypt’s’ Old Kingdom. This plateau of ancient monuments includes the three pyramid known as the Great Pyramid’.

The first of these monumental tombs was built for the Pharaoh Khufu, and is the largest pyramid at 481 feet. Khufu’s son the Pharaoh Khafre built the second pyramid, and his necropolis included the Sphinx, which is a limestone monument with the body of a lion and a head of a human. The third of the Pyramids is the smallest and was built by Pharaoh Menkaure.

The ancient engineering feats at Giza are most impressive that scientist of today are not sure how the pyramids were built. Yet they have learned about the people who built the structures. The builders were skilled workers who lived nearby, and digs on the sites have revealed a highly organized community, rich with resources. Tomb art includes depictions of an ancient world of farmers working fields, fishing, tending livestock, and doing carpentry.

Travel stylishly,
K

 

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Rodin

Our team left Marrakech for Paris, which is the ultimate way to travel from one exotic metropolis to another. Stylish Heath reporters are in the City of Light checking out Le Musée de Rodin located at the Hôtel Biron on the rue de Varenne, while several of us went to New York City to explore the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth to review the Rodin exhibit before it left yesterday.

{The top photo from Le Musée de Rodin garden is of “Le Penseur” [The Thinker] 1902, bronze-and the next image is “Adam”– a bronze cast in 1910 from The Met}

Our plan is to divide between two continents, while dealing with the assigned topic, and examining the extraordinary range of work from Auguste Rodin, the only sculptor of modern age to be on par with Michelangelo.

A consummate draughtsman and sculptor, Rodin’s most famous works were his Age of Bronze, The Thinker, The Kiss, and Monument to Balzac.

The Age of Bronze is where Rodin began his career, his first succès de scandale. The statue though unconventional in its lack of a specific subject, reflected in the number of different titles Rodin would give, and the immediacy of the strained but graceful body of the ‘common man’ aroused suspicion and disapproval. Official protest caused accusations that Rodin used life casts, but all had been proved wrong not so much by the photographs of the model, but for the artist reputation as an excellent modeler.

Stay stylish,
K

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