Introduction to World Art
Senior 1 · Fine Arts
Introduction to World Art
Lesson 5 of 5
25 min
Here are two pictures of mountains and water, made about 780 years apart in two neighbouring countries of East Asia. Before reading the captions, decide which one feels calm and which feels dangerous, and point to what makes you feel that way.
Worked example
Comparing two artworks: Summer Mountains and The Great Wave
| Summer Mountains | The Great Wave | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see | huge mountains, mist, water, tiny people and buildings | a giant wave about to break over boats; Mount Fuji small in the distance |
| How it is made | brush and ink on silk; soft washes and fine lines; one unique handscroll | carved wooden blocks, one for each colour, printed on paper; many copies |
| Composition | tall shapes built up in layers; you read it slowly, unrolling from right to left | a strong diagonal and a curve; the wave is the focal point, seen in an instant |
| Mood and meaning | calm and vast: people are small in a great, ordered natural world | drama and danger: people struggle with nature, while sacred Fuji stays still |
Similarity: in both, people are tiny compared with nature. Difference: the Chinese scroll invites slow, quiet looking; the Japanese print grabs attention at once. Conclusion: both artists show nature as far greater than people, but Qu Ding shows its calm order and Hokusai its power.
Definition
Handscroll: a long horizontal painting on silk or paper, kept rolled up and viewed a section at a time, unrolled from right to left.
Ukiyo-e (Japanese, “pictures of the floating world”): Japanese woodblock prints and paintings of the 1600s to 1800s, showing actors, beautiful people, travel and landscapes, sold cheaply to city people.
Definition
Woodblock print: a print made by carving a design into a block of wood, inking the raised surface and pressing paper onto it. In colour woodblock printing, each colour has its own block.
Worked example: how many times is the paper printed?
A print like The Great Wave needs a key block for the outlines plus one block for each colour. Suppose a print uses a key block and 6 colour blocks, and the publisher prints 250 copies.
Blocks per copy: , so each sheet is pressed 7 times, once for each block, lined up exactly each time.
Total pressings:
This is why ukiyo-e prints were a team effort: an artist drew the design, a carver cut the blocks, and a printer pressed every sheet by hand, while a publisher paid for it and sold the prints.
<em>Making The Great Wave: A Demonstration of Japanese Woodblock Printing</em>, from the Tokyo National Museum. Watch how each colour is printed from a separate block, and how the printer lines up the paper using marks cut into the block.
In the Andes mountains of South America, the Inca built an empire of about 10 million people in the 1400s and early 1500s, without a written script and without the wheel for transport. Their most valued art was not painting but cloth. Weavers made fine textiles from the wool of llamas and alpacas, and the Inca state collected, stored and gave them as gifts and rewards.
Worked example
Reading an artwork: an Inca tunic
Step 1. What you see. A simple, almost square garment with a slit for the head, a red V-shaped yoke at the neck and a bold black-and-white checkerboard below. The edges are finished with tiny, even stitches.
Step 2. How it is made. It was woven on a loom as tapestry, with coloured threads that pass back and forth to build the blocks, so the pattern is the same on both faces. The wool is so fine and tightly packed that the cloth is smooth and strong.
Step 3. What it means. Tunics of exactly this design were made again and again; historians think this was so that the wearer's role could be recognised at a glance, since clothing was a badge of identity in the Inca Empire. A Spanish writer described this kind of tunic as early as 1532. One way to read its message is order and belonging.
| Tradition and region | Period | Key features | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prehistoric art Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas | from about 75,000 years ago | animals, hands and signs; earth pigments; rock surfaces | Lascaux; Cueva de las Manos |
| Ancient Egyptian North Africa (Nile valley) | about 3100–30 BCE | composite view; hierarchical scale; registers; hieroglyphs | Stela of Mentuwoser |
| Ancient Greek Greece and the Mediterranean | about 800–31 BCE | idealised bodies; contrapposto; column orders; painted vases | Berlin Painter's hydria |
| Islamic from Spain and North Africa to Central and South Asia | 600s CE onward | calligraphy; arabesque; geometric tessellation | Mamluk minbar doors |
| Song Chinese China | 960–1279 | ink landscapes; mist and scale; handscrolls | Summer Mountains |
| Renaissance Europe | about 1400–1600 | linear perspective; chiaroscuro and sfumato; oil paint and fresco | The Ideal City |
| Inca Andes, South America | 1400s–1535 | fine tapestry textiles; bold geometric patterns | Checkerboard tunic |
| Kingdom of Benin West Africa (Nigeria) | kingdom from the 1200s; brass casting from the late 1300s (royal tradition); plaques 1500s–1600s | lost-wax brass; relief plaques; hierarchical scale | Plaque with warrior |
| Ukiyo-e Japan | 1600s–1800s | colour woodblock prints; flat colour; strong outlines | The Great Wave |
| Chokwe Central Africa (Angola, DRC) | 1800s onward | carved masks for masquerade; symbols of status | Chihongo mask |
| Imigongo Eastern Rwanda | traditional, still made today | relief panels in cow dung; black, white and red geometry | Kirehe cooperatives |
| Place | What you can see |
|---|---|
| King's Palace Museum, Nyanza, Rwanda | a reconstruction of a traditional royal palace, and the long-horned inyambo cattle |
| Rwanda Art Museum, Kanombe, Kigali | paintings, sculpture and crafts by Rwandan artists, past and present |
| Ethnographic Museum, Huye (formerly the National Museum of Rwanda) | baskets, pottery, tools, imigongo and objects from Rwanda's history |
| The Egyptian museums of Cairo and Giza, Egypt | statues, jewellery and coffins of Ancient Egypt, including treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun |
| The Louvre, Paris | the Mona Lisa; Egyptian, Greek and Islamic art |
| The Uffizi Gallery, Florence | paintings of the Italian Renaissance |
| The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | art from every continent; many images free to use online |
| Lascaux IV, France | an exact copy of the Lascaux cave; the real cave has been closed to visitors since 1963 to protect the paintings |
Warning
A common mistake: ranking cultures. Saying that one tradition is “more advanced” because it used perspective, or that another is “simple” because it uses geometry, misunderstands art. Each tradition chose its methods for its own purposes: an Egyptian stela, a Chokwe mask and an Inca tunic all do exactly what they were made to do. Compare, do not rank.
Tip
How to compare two artworks in an exam: make a small table with the same rows for both (what you see, how it is made, composition, meaning), then write one similarity, one difference and a one-sentence conclusion.
Practice
What is ukiyo-e, and how was a colour woodblock print made?
A print uses a key block and 4 colour blocks, and 300 copies are printed. How many pressings are made in total?
Why were textiles so important in the Inca Empire?
Using the world-art table, name a tradition that uses (a) hierarchical scale; (b) linear perspective; (c) geometric tessellation.
Compare the Chokwe chihongo mask (Lesson 4) with the Inca tunic: give one similarity and one difference, and a conclusion.
Choose one artwork from this unit and one from Rwanda (imigongo, an agaseke basket or a painting you have seen). Make a comparison table and write a one-paragraph comparison.
1. Japanese prints and paintings of the 1600s to 1800s showing city life, actors and landscapes. An artist drew the design, a carver cut a key block and one block for each colour, and a printer pressed each sheet onto every block in turn.
2. pressings per copy, and pressings.
3. Fine cloth was the most valued art: it was made by skilled weavers, stored and given by the state as gifts and rewards, and a person's clothing showed their identity and role.
4. (a) Ancient Egypt or the Kingdom of Benin; (b) the Renaissance; (c) Islamic art.
5. Similarity: both show identity and status, and both are made to be worn. Difference: the mask is a carved face used in a masquerade, while the tunic is woven cloth worn every day or at state occasions. Conclusion: both turn a person into a recognisable role, one through performance and one through a uniform.
6. Practical. Use the same rows for both works, and finish with a similarity, a difference and a conclusion.
Further reading
Sources and credits
