The discovery of ancient art

Although the medieval art, especially in Italy, does not mean a radical break with classical art (which in fact had already been undermined in its classicism with Hellenism, and giclee much more to art late), the Renaissance had come to define themselves as a resurrection of the Ancient Age, understood as sculpture a model to imitate. The historical division of the ages-Old, Middle and Modern, which has frequently been accused Eurocentres value is essentially to define the West as that concept from the sixteenth century, since it originates at the time, and for ancient cultures in which the intellectuals of Western Europe in the Modern Age sought to find its origin .
The presence in Italy, especially in the city of Rome, remains visible, and the continuous discovery of buried remains were taken into account, and allowed the gradual definition of the antique trade (collector, scholar, and while plundering and destructive) while creating the foundations of archaeological science. Recovered worship classics such as the five books of architecture Vitrubio and scrutinize the few passages on art of Pliny the Elder. The finding of a Domus Aurea di Nerone, Laocoonte Group or the Apollo Belvedere, were perceived by painters and sculptors of the Cinquecento as a confirmation of the path taken, or a stimulus to initiate new ones (such as the Belvedere Torso for Miguel angel) . Later in the eighteenth century, portrait the discovery of Pompeii canvas and Herculaneum in the reign of Charles III of Naples (systematic excavations Karl Jakob painter Weber, Roque Joaquim de Alcubierre, Francisco Vega and his brother Pietro la Vega) extraordinary impact on intellectuals Europe, especially in Johann Joachim Winckelmann (Alcubierre very critical), and disseminated through the drawings of John portraits Flaxman and the Wedgwood pottery, creating a veritable fever neoclassical version that took even his tour (the Grand Tour).
Was simultaneously producing a broadening of attention to other civilizations of the Ancient Age, notably the Greek national solar and monuments which were submitted to the Turkish Empire. The interest of Western European travelers were not unrelated to the emergence of Greek national consciousness, as evidenced by the romantic adventures of Lord Byron. Other civilizations like Egyptian, had been subjected to since ancient mystification (link with alchemy and Hermeticism and other mystical disciplines such as scenery and symbols of Masonry, who played Mozart in The Magic Flute).
Piramide del Sol, Teotihuacan abstract (Mexico), I and II centuries.
The nineteenth century provides for the development of large-scale looting while developing scientific paintings Egyptology (Napoleonica expedition to Egypt and subsequent investigations of Champollion, including the use of the gallery Rosetta Stone, for the decoding of hieroglyphics). In a similar way was called Palestine in biblical archeology (1865 Palestine Exploration Fund, Charles Warren, 1870 American Palestine Exploration Society, 1889 Ecole Biblique et arch ologique Francaise), at Troy and Mycenae with Heinrich Schliemann (since 1870) and Mesopotamia to the excavation of Babylon by the Deutsche Orientgesellchaft (1898, Robert Koldewey) .
The twentieth century arqueologia develop a more systematic and rational, but which has never been off his aura of romance (Arthur Evans Cnosos in-the mythical Minotaur’s labyrinth on Crete, and Howard Carter in the tomb of Tuntankamon). The pre-Columbian archeology (which extends seamless chronological continuity from prehistory until what would be in medieval Europe-Mayans, Aztecs and Incas-) has been developed as prints a result of the interest of Americans to find a Native American past to suggest continental alternative to the memory of the Old World (John Lloyd Stephens, Hiram Bingham). Archeology in China and Central Asia is an even more recent and rapidly developing. The same applies to painters European societies that have had good or bad fortune to present little support from the written sources and in areas of Eastern Europe less accessible to Western archaeologists political issues (East Macedonia oil painting Thrace / Tomb of Kazanlak, Bulgaria, or Scythians discovery in 1947 of the burial of Pazyryk Sergei Rudenko in the Altai Mountains-).
Old collections drawings from the Louvre Museum in Paris, the British Museum in London, Munich and the lapidarium for Museum Island in Berlin, is regarded today as a demonstration of plunder (begun in Roman times, with the transfer of some Egyptian obelisks) where the repayment requested by the issuer, based on moral, legal and in preferring to keep the pieces in their original context (largely destroyed during the extraction), compared to the argument that if recipients had not been of interest then most likely the parts would posters be destroyed, given the lack of previous owners or managers, where are the museums are an ideal environment for study and contemplation, and that time has elapsed also acquire rights historical fact (which landscapes also can not claim exclusive and unopposed issuers, as well as empires were looted from other towns painting where these were similar or treasures).

Daily Art
Lari Pittman, Untitled poster 14, 2003. Collection Museum illustration of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange. ‘2003 Lari Pittman. CHICAGO .-
San Francisco Chronicle
Ren e Dreyfus, the curator responsible for the ancient art and interpretation at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, offers its top 10 artifacts on the MH Young Memorial Museum the exhibition “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaoh”. Prelude to …
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
The watercolor 19th-century paintings in a new Minneapolis Institute of Arts show print evidence spicier than their reputation might suggest.
The Gainesville Sunday
By Joe VanHoose What 1903 .32-caliber Colt pistol, a four-cylinder French shotgun and a samurai sword have in common ‘All will be exhibited in the Aesthetics of Power, an exhibition that opens on Friday and runs through Aug 16 at the Appleton Museum of Art in Ocala.

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