hi my name is lola palomo i'm an art
historian and a singer and today i want
to talk about the series that i've been
making called 10 minute art history
so this video is a type of recap of the
five different videos that i've made
before
so we began our story in the paleolithic
art and
last week we reached the egyptian
civilization and in this video i want to
do a recap or a review
of what we've seen up until now i also
want to talk about the purpose of these
videos
what i want to accomplish this year and
also
how they can be inspiring for you
you can be a creative you can be an
artist or whatever line of work or
studies that you do
creativity is always a part of
everybody's life
even to the point that history is full
of art and creative
endeavors so stick around and see what
we've accomplished up until now
and what this series is really about see
you there
okay so let's begin our review and if
you remember
a long time ago we began our story in
the paleolithic times this is 40
000 years ago and that's this video
if you remember and we were talking
about what was being made as the first
pieces of artwork and if you remember
they were handheld figurines like this
one
and what we were doing is we were we
were obviously nomads
we had no um a sedentary lifestyle yet
so everything that we create as human
beings
all the artwork that we create is always
a reflection of
our lifestyle and that wasn't the
exception in the paleolithic times
so if we were nomads that means the
pieces of artwork that we created
we took with us we would obviously
create small pieces
and if you remember this is the venus
figurine and we also made
pieces that were animal oriented and
this was around 40 000 years ago which
was a long time ago
now if you remember this first video
was only the beginning of the
paleolithic and we didn't go into
the paleolithic
of the caves that was the
second video where i talked about
with more depth what we were doing on
the cave
walls and this is more the upper
paleolithic time
we wait uh we went through
chauvet i believe lascaux and altamira
all three caves and we were seeing that
there was both
abstract art which was amazing you
probably didn't expect
abstract art in the paleolithic as well
as figurative art
now both in the paleolithic and in the
neolithic times there's a lot of
questions that remain unanswered
as to what their purpose was what were
these paintings for
but one thing is certain they were
difficult to make
these were not decorations on your home
and they were very well
thought through so if you remember we
were seeing that the Lascaux
cave and the chauvet cave the pieces are
placed in certain
strategic areas of the cave
structure certain areas have more lions
other areas have
more bison there was a thought through
process that these paintings were made
under and that's important to notice
because
when we are in the paleolithic times
living is very very
difficult so everything that we made was
part of our survival
we made things to survive and to have
artwork
within this structure of survival meant
that it was very very important
perhaps it was some kind of healing
ritual perhaps it was already some kind
of
religion or world vision that had to be
made in order for
civilization to continue so it's
important for you to remember that
in this time as well we were seeing that
there were anthropomorphic figurines
remember the living mensch
we saw that one and we were starting to
see subjects that are going to
be present throughout history for
example anthropomorphic
figures we'll come back to that so as
you can see
there was a human trait in non-human
entities
and also remember this piece at the
chauvet cave
called the apps where we had half a
female figure and half a bison head
so that was also very interesting
because if you remember there is
basically no
human figures in all the caves until
very very few
moments and very very well placed
all the way inside the caves so
anthropomorphic and
human figures come in later now the
third video
is when we go into the neolithic times
when we become sedentary
and that's when things start to change
so art always resembles
life whatever you're doing whatever
historical moment
is happening the art that is being made
always reflects
whatever is going on so when we become
sedentary
evidently the art is going to change if
you remember i talked about pottery
so when you settle down you start to
make artwork
that is for settling down now in this
video i talked about
monoliths basically only megalithic
structures
if you remember we saw menhirs we saw
dolmens
and we saw megalithic stone circles and
passage tombs
in this video and i was talking about
again
there's many questions that are left
unanswered but we do know that
is it is very very highly structured
a society that creates these pieces if
you think of stonehenge
that's not an easy architectural feat
and a lot of people were involved to
make it and many many
pilgrimages you can call them were made
to reach this area we
found rests of people from the
mediterranean from different parts of
europe
that made the voyage to stonehenge so
even though we know very little
we know that it had a huge importance so
that was stonehenge we start to see
that yes high level
sorry high level of social structure
means high level
of art artistic creation
was it to tell time was it to mark
territory
it could be yes but as you heard in that
video
many of these were places where people
were buried and we also believe there is
some kind of
ritualistic or religious
reasoning why these were made
now this is a good moment to do a little
intermission for me to tell you that
one of the most difficult things for me
to do in these videos is to
narrow down narrow down the information
to
10 to 15 10 to 12 minutes because
these are huge subjects and i choose
wisely
what i bring into the videos and what i
do not for example
in the neolithic i stuck to megalithic
structures
i could have talked about guba laki tepe
i love the indecible
indus  valley civilization but it would
have been huge and i had no time
so what i'm going to do in this series
basically is by the end of this year
2020 we'll be we'll have reached the
20th century
according to my plan so each week
i'm trying to narrow down the
information so that we reach
this goal so yes we did not see gubleki
tepe
in the mesopotamian civilization i
obviously didn't
go very in-depth in each sub in each
individual civilization but my purpose
is to have
a kind of virtual library for you made
and for myself
so that at the end of the year you'll be
able to look back
at any time of history and see what was
going on
in terms of art the other purpose of
this video series
is for you to take with you ways
to look at art it can be architecture it
could be
music it can be painting whatever the
type of artwork
i will be showing you tools and ways to
look at art
so if you remember in the last video in
the egyptian civilization i was talking
about
realistic and unrealistic art in the
mesopotamian i was talking about
how power is shown so in each video
not only is the content important but
also how
we look at a piece of artwork what's our
lens what's our focus
and that's something that you can take
with you and apply it to any type of
artwork
now the third video was all about
mesopotamian civilization
and if you remember we were talking
about objects and how
objects tell stories so for example a
sumerian object
can tell a huge story about how the
civilization was
probably more worship and power
was oriented more towards the
worshipping or the religious figure more
than the
military figure and that changed through
time for example
in the akkadian or the um a syrian
civilization where the mo
the most powerful man was more of a
military
profile and the artwork shows this so
how does art show power for example the
babylonian
empire's huge gate if you remember that
lapis lastly amazingly
it's not lapis lastly it's colored in
blue but it's
uh it's not lapis lastly but that huge
ishtar gate
that you saw that's where we start to
see where
power equals size as well as the lamasis
if you remember we were also seeing and
we talked about the
hierarchical scale and also about
anthropomorphic figures so these
subjects have been coming back to us
once and again and finally the egyptian
civilization and that's when we talked
about how the egyptian art
was both very symbolic and um
not realistic at all and also pieces are
very realistic
so you remember we were seeing figures
that were symbolic
you know the torso to the front the
profile all of that that seems
did they really not know how to make a
human figure yes they did
but these pictures these figures around
them
hieroglyphs had a purpose that was much
more symbolic to give a message
so there was no need for them to be
realistic they were very well capable of
realistic art
which we saw for example in the seated
seated scribe here that you can see and
that's where you see yes
art also um responds to a need
so if i need to create a figure that is
very lifelike and realistic
in the egyptian examples we have
nefertiti as well
they are very well capable of that but
if my purpose
in this figure on the wall of a
pharaoh's you know tomb is to send a
message
give a specific idea across there is no
need for me to give you a realistic
presence of this pharaoh for example
nobody walked like that nobody walked
like an egyptian in the egyptian times
so that was important for me to tell you
to show you and that
throughout time it's important also for
you to look at a piece of artwork and
think about
why was this made and what does it show
me
in terms of realistic or non-realistic
elements and we finished
our story of the egyptian civilization
through the fiun portraits
where we saw the combination we had both
a very realistic portrait of a dead
person these were mummies
um they were placed for mummies in the
roman presence of the egyptian land
but also there were some figures that
had symbolic elements
so it's never a black and white story it
can be
a very realistic portrayal but with
symbolic elements
or it can be a symbolic image with
realistic
elements so that was the story of egypt
finally regardless of the subject all
these videos
have a purpose to be inspiring to show
you what was going on
in times before us what our ancestors
were doing
what we're capable of in terms of human
history
so i studied history but i studied art
history because i wanted to study the
best
that we've done as a species and that
and i'm sure you'll
you'll be able to see amazing pieces in
this series
and help you to understand how yes
there's
war there's famine there's cruelty
in terms of what we've done as a
civilization
today but we've also done amazing things
and that's what keeps me going
as well as creative endeavors as you
know i also
sing that's of all the arts my main
focus as a creative expression is music
and singing
so that's my way to express what i have
to do i have to say personally
so we've done our review we've gone
through the five videos
that the series has accomplished up
until now the paleolithic times the
neolithic
as well as the mesopotamian civilization
and the egyptian civilization
if you want to review any of these
videos i'll leave a link below
to all of them so that you can do a
little recap on your own before we begin
our story with the greek civilization
next week so make sure you
tune in this has been a pleasure as you
know these videos are made to inspire
you to make your own
creative endeavors in your own life it
can be
poetry dance singing music
we are all creative beings that is
as you can see historically proven so
make sure creativity is part of your day
i'll see you next week, bye!
 
